[EDITION WARZ] Selling Out D&D's Soul?

[BroccoliRage]

I don't feel that any version of D&D comes even close to simulating real life combat in a a fashion even approaching realism.

Ever been in a fistfight? Who takes initiative doesn't really matter, good punches do. You can't use 'realism' to defend seperate intiative rolls. D&D is a horrendous portrayal of real life combat, regardless of edition. You have to use your imagination to really get that feel, mechanics will never accurately approach it.

Merric, I noticed you referred to the Cavalier as an example of stat increase. I'm not so sure I agree, because the Cavalier isn't really an improvement on an existing class as much as a brand new class. Maybe I missed a point you were making?

 

[MerricB]

Merric, I noticed you referred to the Cavalier as an example of stat increase. I'm not so sure I agree, because the Cavalier isn't really an improvement on an existing class as much as a brand new class. Maybe I missed a point you were making?

The point I'm making regards the development of D&D through the editions (in response to posts saying "3e isn't D&D"). A lot of concepts we now associate with 3e were seen first in use in the second half of 1e. Many (especially NWP and Specialisation) saw a lot more development in 2e.

The NWP of "Blindfighting" is a case in point. There's no skill check associated with it; it merely reduces the penalties for fighting in the dark, which is a typical feat behaviour.

Now obviously, 3e expanded upon this massively, although aided by development in 2e. Many feats relate back to the original Weapon Specialisation of the fighter, of course - and several in that tree are still fighter-only.

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Brachiosaurus (100)
Hydra (by heads, ranges from 30 to 192, athough maxes out on 48 per character)
Pyrohydra (by heads, ranges from 30 to 120, without breath weapons, although maxes out on 40 per character)
Mammoth (76)

Average hit points for a 10th level fighter is 10 x 5.5 = 55 plus Con bonus x 10, say an additional 20 hp to be generous, for 75 hp.

Fighters have a maximum of 9d10 hit dice, +3 hp per level after that. The Con bonus only accumulates to level 9, and is ignored subsequently.

Does Gary have an elephant fixation or what? Most of the high-damage creatures are elephants! Poor Pit Fiend!

I did allow the brachiosaurus to step on its victim (max damage 80), but otherwise ignored special attacks. In the case of the 1e carrion crawler, 6 attacks lead to 6 chances to be paralyzed. How long does that paralysis last?

Until Doomsday, I guess.

In the case of energy drain monsters (max loss of 2 levels in AD&D 1e), hit point loss occurs from the level drain itself.

Yep. A 15th level Magic-User who gets energy drained 2 levels only loses 2 hit points, but you can hear the screams around the world.

Interesting note: if a party faces an energy drain creature, they only want one or two PCs to lose levels. That way, they can keep adventuring with the other PCs and thus gain XP quickly, and much more rapidly attain the level they were on. If every PC loses 2 levels, it's a real pain.

e.g. A group of 6 characters (F7, F7, MU7, MU7, C7, T8) encounters a vampire. The Fighter and MU both are drained to 1st level. By the time the other F7 reaches F8, the new F1 and MU1 will have reached F6 and MU5; by F9, we have F8 and MU9!

Add special abilities, and the 1e DM can make 10th level PCs drop like flies, if that is his goal. As can the 3e DM, really.

Indeed. I'm just interested in how deadly 1e monsters actually could be in melee; it's something I haven't really investigated before. I've sort of looked at orcs and goblins that have pretty low damage die, and giants to a certain extent, but not really at the Big Brutes of 1e.

A F10 has about a 50% chance of failing any saving throw - 45% fail chance against death/poison. At F12 it has reached 30% chance of failing. So, poisonous creatures are always of concern to the Fighter. (Hmm - 1e Slow Poison will work even if cast on a "dead" PC if cast within the time limit; does this apply to Neutralise Poison as well?)

Cheers!

 

[Thurbane]

Joining us in the blue corner, are those stalwart adventurers from G1! Let's hear it for the G1 characters! Yay!

<snip>

The Adventurers win!

Interesting example, but as has been pointed out, there were two major differences between combat back then and now:

A.) 1E relied more on "save or be incapacitated" abilities for a lot (most?) of the major nasties. There were relatively few pure "damage machines"...

B.) 1E generally relied on larger quantities of opponents to throw at a party, as opposed to 3.X which tends to rely less on quantity of opponents and more on quality. That, of course, varies by adventure, but I think it's generally true.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't feel that any version of D&D comes even close to simulating real life combat in a a fashion even approaching realism.

Ever been in a fistfight? Who takes initiative doesn't really matter, good punches do. You can't use 'realism' to defend seperate intiative rolls. D&D is a horrendous portrayal of real life combat, regardless of edition. You have to use your imagination to really get that feel, mechanics will never accurately approach it.

True enough...but when getting one step closer can be done by such a simple thing, I don't mind.

Merric, I noticed you referred to the Cavalier as an example of stat increase. I'm not so sure I agree, because the Cavalier isn't really an improvement on an existing class as much as a brand new class. Maybe I missed a point you were making?

The introduction of Cavalier was also the introduction of having stats increase by any means as a simple function of level. Paladins got it too, as they were dragged under the Cavalier umbrella at that point. Why they didn't give it to *every* class mystifies me still, though it would have required a re-think of how exceptional strength worked for Fighters and the good Colonel has said in another thread this wasn't up for consideration.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

1E relied more on "save or be incapacitated" abilities for a lot (most?) of the major nasties. There were relatively few pure "damage machines"...

Giants. Best killers out there...just ask my players...and mostly by pure old-fashioned loads o' damage.

Particularly if you take the obvious step of giving them their Str. bonus to hit and damage...

Lanefan

 

[Thurbane]

Ever been in a fistfight? Who takes initiative doesn't really matter,

Ever been "king hit" in a fight? I have...not pleasant...

 

[Keldryn]

This statement is endorsed by the PapersAndPaychecks school of DMing.

The idea that a DM can get away without knowing the rules is a bit pathetic, frankly. It's like a judge who doesn't know the law. Sure, there might be times when you have to check a detail, but you'd better have everything important sitting in readily-accessible memory.

Trying to DM a game without rules knowledge is like trying to use the internet via AOL.

I'm sorry, I can't agree with you. Nobody is born with the knowledge of the rules, and the best way to learn the rules is to have to apply them during play. You've got to start from somewhere, and not everybody picks up the game by learning to play by joining someone else's game and then starting to DM after "learning the ropes." Dungeon Master is not a prestige class. Heck, I was DMing games before I was ever a player... my friends and I had seen D&D ads, I had some Endless Quest books, and we wanted to try it out. So I bought the "Red Box" Basic Set (in 1986, I think), read through the books once, and figured out how to play as we ran the game.

I've probably only played D&D less than a dozen times since 3rd Edition came out -- and only as a DM those times. Most of my players know the 3.x rules better than I do, because they've played in other peoples' games during the past six years. For spell effects, in particular, I need to rely on my friend who is playing the wizard, since he's often been in weekly games using 3rd Edition. I don't think this makes me a bad DM.

For 1st and 2nd Edition AD&D games, I could intuitively come up with appropriate challenges and rewards for the PCs pretty well, as I'd had a lot of experience doing it. But it did takes years of DMing to get to that point, and I certainly made a lot of mistakes on the way; the rulebooks didn't provide terribly good guidelines, and published adventures were certainly not the best examples. CR and "wealth by level" guidelines are just a quick way of assessing general power levels, and they've been awfully useful in planning 3e adventures. It certainly would have accelerated my learning process had AD&D1e or the old Basic Set provided similarly easy-to-use guidelines.

 

[MerricB]

Interesting example, but as has been pointed out, there were two major differences between combat back then and now:

It's there merely for comparison and discussion, and to view the differences between combat.

A.) 1E relied more on "save or be incapacitated" abilities for a lot (most?) of the major nasties. There were relatively few pure "damage machines"...

Hmm. Although there are certainly a lot of "save or you might as well be dead" abilities, I'm not so sure about how often they actually come up in play. My memories of AD&D involve a lot of attritional combat.

B.) 1E generally relied on larger quantities of opponents to throw at a party, as opposed to 3.X which tends to rely less on quantity of opponents and more on quality. That, of course, varies by adventure, but I think it's generally true.

I agree. In fact, one of the great weaknesses of 3e is that hordes of low-level opponents are rarely a threat - and, IMO, they too quickly become obsolete. (OTOH, I don't know if 30 orcs would even threaten a 10th level AD&D party).

If I could change 3e, I'd dial back the increases to AC and attack bonuses somewhat. The split of armour types into natural/armour/deflection/dodge/shield/Dex is good at providing a system where new magic items can be introduced without requiring a list of examples of how they interact with other items. A dedicated min/maxer can really increase their AC so that it's out of whack with everything else. (I'd personally reduce it to armour, Dex, shield, deflection, with magic arms and armour providing a deflection bonus that doesn't stack with rings of the same).

Cheers!

 

[Renfield]

Ah AC. 3e did get that a little to extreme. It's actually quite easy for a low level character to get to AC 20 which is 3e's version of AC0. I would gasp and choke if even my 3rd level fighter hit AC0 as easily as it can be hit in 3e by a fighter of the same class. Or even a rogue if min-maxed right. I will say 3e allows for taking min-maxing to a whole new level than in previous editions, whether that's a good or bad thing is up to interpretation.