D&D General Drow & Orcs Removed from the Monster Manual

[Voadam]

AD&D has a big middle of no bonuses and few bonuses then significantly more extreme bonuses the higher the score, increasingly rewarding incrementally better scores at the high end. The difference between a 17 strength (+1 to hit +1 damage) and 18 percentile strength (varying from +1 +3 to +3 +6!) is mechanically significant and impacts how play feels. Doing a minimum of 7 damage means you one shot a lot of humanoids while the 17 strength minimum 2 damage guy is not close.

So +1 at 11 to 12 is much different than 17 to 18.

And so for 1e players with the DMG stat ability generators and later with the UA human rolls chart generating much higher scores than 3d6 the adjustments and caps can mechanically matter in an impactful way.

 

[Voadam]

Non-weapon proficiency isn't part of Gygax's AD&D.

But Oriental Adventures has Gygax's name on it.

 

[Gimby]

They can carry more? Seems sort of obvious... 160 vs. 150..., nearly a 7% increase.
They can bend more bars and lift more gates? 4% vs 2%, a 100% increase.

Now, you've argued the increases are negligible, but of course that is subjective. For myself, if someone offered me a 7% pay raise, I would think that is significant. A 100% increase, hell yeah!

But regardless of how negligible you believe it to be, it doesn't change the fact that "stronger is stronger", it doesn't matter by how much. And, of course, we know the potential strength of the male half-orc is much higher than the male gnome. Are the numbers "much higher" to you? Probably not--again, it's subjective. But they are still "stronger" no matter how you slice it.


Ah.. nice caveat with "Gygax's" thrown in.

We know AD&D had non-weapon proficiencies, even if Gygax wasn't directly involved.

7% increase from how much change in body mass? From the art you'd be expecting something like a gorilla in power for the half-orc compared to a child for the gnome, but the actual difference is pretty slim in any edition. Stats have pretty much always been pretty heavily abstracted

 

[Older Beholder]

Oh wait, you're serious?

Well, the good news. AI art isn't copyrightable. Wanna see the cover of my next project?

View attachment 396334

That's the beauty of AI art, it's all available on 5 finger discount, or in this case 4 finger discount.

And other times 6 and even 7 finger discount.

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:
... now this thread is about... generative AI? And trying to justify something trying to use modules as if they gave us a representative sample of the population of fictional worlds, or something?

This thread is many, many pages long, and far, far off topic, with folks perpetually close to needing red text. Thread closed.