D&D 5E Finding 5th edition too "safe".

[Sacrosanct]

I'm reminded that demi-humans had great save bonuses in 2e.

As I stated previously, Saving throws in AD&D and 2e served a different purpose. They were a mercy roll. You rolled them to avoid certain death. Since 3e they became more like resistances and players felt more entitled.

I think avoiding certain death 50% of the time is a good thing.

I'm not commenting on what was better or not. I'm just saying that making the claim that in AD&D you "quickly outgrew lethality and monster's weren't badass" is laughable. People also forget that all your gear also had to make saving throws in AD&D, so magic items didn't always stay with you.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[RotGrub]

I don't disagree. I'm just saying that making the claim that in AD&D you "quickly outgrew lethality and monster's weren't badass" is laughable. People also forget that all your gear also had to make saving throws in AD&D, so magic items didn't always stay with you.

Yes, item saves are wonderful.

Many people also forget that high level play in AD&D and 2e includes Magic Resistance, anti-magic, spell reflection, and spell immunity. If you had knowledge about your foe you could certainly prepare to face him. For example, you'd be stupid to charge into a room of Wights without negative plane protection on. You couldn't depend on your saving throws to save you.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Anecdotally speaking, from playing 2E from the mid 90s until 3E's launch, with only one semi-exception the DM's I gamed with(including myself) ran 2E a lot less lethally than it mechanically was.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I'm not commenting on what was better or not. I'm just saying that making the claim that in AD&D you "quickly outgrew lethality and monster's weren't badass" is laughable. People also forget that all your gear also had to make saving throws in AD&D, so magic items didn't always stay with you.

I miss item saves.

 

[Bacon Bits]

People also forget that all your gear also had to make saving throws in AD&D, so magic items didn't always stay with you.

You're not seriously arguing that anybody wasted time with item saves. Everybody tried item saves once or twice, quickly realized it was either a waste of time or just far too punitive, and just ignored them. Except for a few one-shots with pregens, I never played with a DM that made items roll saves except in cases where the item was unattended or you were targeting the item.

Not only does the target have to fail his save first, you only roll saves for items that could conceivably be damaged by the attack, and even then items get bonuses to saves. Few DMs care about destroying single use items like potions or scrolls, and fewer still are interested in rewarding players only to take the items away a few encounters later. It's a whole lot of pointless dice rolling. Worse, if you do roll item saves, then you should conceivably roll item saves for mundane items, too, and that's just very boring until you get to something absurd, like the Wizard's spellbook. And you should roll items for objects carried by NPCs, and that's just a weapons race most DMs aren't interested in playing.

 

[pemerton]

rings and cloaks of protection typically went to the squishy PCs, like MUs and thieves, who as you can see, have a much worse than 50% chance of instantly dying at 9th level.

The base save vs poison for a 9th level thief is 11. That's not much worse than 50/50 - that's exactly 50/50. And if the thief was a halfling or dwarf - not exactly unheard of, given the infravision and other benefits - there was often a +3 or better CON bonus on that save.

treasure is randomly rolled in AD&D.

That depends heavily on the GM - Gygax's GM definitely allows for the deliberate placement of treasure - and on whether or not modules are in use.

There are also multiple ways of rolling treasure. For instance, if the GM creates an NPC party via the rules in Appendix C, there is a good chance of a ring of protection turning up.

Actually, death saves aren't part of the issue. Only BXCMI & 2e are more lethal (when you hit 0, you're dead). But 1e, with death occurring at -10 and no "bleeding out" rules is more forgivable to those brought down to 0 hp.

The 1st ed AD&D rule is different from the 2nd ed or 3E one, and not just in respect of the recovery times that [MENTION=15700]Sacrosanct[/MENTION] mentions (which could be circumvented by the 3rd level UA spell Death's Door, perhaps a spiritual precursor to Revivify).

In 1st ed AD&D, if you dropped below 0 hp from a single attack (optionally below -3) you died instantly. Only if you didn't cross this instant death threshold did you get the benefit of having a buffer of negative hit points as you lost 1 hp per round from shock and bleeding.

 

[Sacrosanct]

You're not seriously arguing that anybody wasted time with item saves. .

Yeah, I am. Because people did. Not only me, but you have a post right above yours from someone who did too. Just because you didn't, didn't mean no one else did either. Regardless, it's there in the rules of AD&D, so when you're talking about things like "how tough was AD&D", you should include the rules of AD&D. Selectively picking and choosing what rules to apply and ignore is a bit disingenuous because we all played a bit differently. The only way to be objective and fair is to evaluate how it was designed from the core rules. I mean, I could say, "AD&D was pretty easy.", but if my group used houserules to ignore things like item saves, gave everyone max HP every time they leveled, allowed PCs to have whatever magic items they wanted, and used UA's system of generating ability scores, that's not the most accurate way to classify how AD&D really was.

 

[pemerton]

You're not seriously arguing that anybody wasted time with item saves. Everybody tried item saves once or twice, quickly realized it was either a waste of time or just far too punitive, and just ignored them.

I used them as an AD&D GM. (I can't remember now whether we checked for all mundane gear or not. The UA spellbook rules implied that you should, though, because some spellbooks got a bonus on certain saves due to sturdiness of construction.)

 

[RotGrub]

You're not seriously arguing that anybody wasted time with item saves. Everybody tried item saves once or twice, quickly realized it was either a waste of time or just far too punitive, and just ignored them. Except for a few one-shots with pregens, I never played with a DM that made items roll saves except in cases where the item was unattended or you were targeting the item.

Not only does the target have to fail his save first, you only roll saves for items that could conceivably be damaged by the attack, and even then items get bonuses to saves. Few DMs care about destroying single use items like potions or scrolls, and fewer still are interested in rewarding players only to take the items away a few encounters later. It's a whole lot of pointless dice rolling. Worse, if you do roll item saves, then you should conceivably roll item saves for mundane items, too, and that's just very boring until you get to something absurd, like the Wizard's spellbook. And you should roll items for objects carried by NPCs, and that's just a weapons race most DMs aren't interested in playing.

It's not boring or absurd. We used them all the time. I had one thief/mage character who fell from a cloud castle. His magical sword survived (since magical weapons in 2e don't get destroyed easily) but his other equipment went up in flames. Of course, it didn't help that he had potion of explosions in his backpack. Sure, his scrolls survived the fall, but when the potion ignited I had to make saving throws for everything again. Needless to say, the towns folk thought the gods were bombing them. It was quite funny. Now, did it mater that his spellbook was destroyed? Not at all, that was part of being a wizard 2e. Loss of your spell-book was actually a weakness that could be exploited. If you didn't keep your spellbook safe (like in a magically protected sack) or keep a backup at home it was your own fault.