Hit point / damage gap in AD&D vs 3e

[Hussar]

If your talking the Hall of Fire Giants in the giant series, you and I played through a different module. I was playing a 12/12 fighter mage with 6 other players of comparable xp/power and we darn near got our butts handed to us. The DM didn't change anything either.

As for 3E at higher level, I find it a good thing that those NERF spells to increase save DC's are there, otherwise the characters would almost always make their saves, making spellcasters just about useless.

Your right about how frustrating things can be at high level, though. It is why I quit DMing 3E. One of many reasons.

It would be extremely difficult for any character to be able to make ALL their saves other than perhaps a monk. Most characters have at least one bad save, making them vulnerable to something. Besides that, direct damage spells are one of the weakest ways of affecting the party anyway. Really, always has been. Ray spells are extremely effective - no save and a touch attack.

Doesn't really matter what your saves are then.

 

[Jdvn1]

Slightly off-topic, are there any resources to convert 2nd ed characters to 3e? What is the 3e equivalent of a 2nd ed 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th level character? (though, I understand levels worked differently back then)

 

[Delta]

Conversion Manual, bottom of this page: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20030221a -- Levels stay the same except for multiclassing. AD&D multiclass 6/6 becomes 3E 6+6/3 = 8th character level, e.g.

 

[reanjr]

So, what do you think?

I think, "Yea, verily 3e is like unto a video game"

 

[FireLance]

I think, "Yea, verily 3e is like unto a video game"

And I say, "Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Amen!"

 

[A'koss]

If your talking the Hall of Fire Giants in the giant series, you and I played through a different module. I was playing a 12/12 fighter mage with 6 other players of comparable xp/power and we darn near got our butts handed to us. The DM didn't change anything either.

You couldn't handle the Hill Giants with seven guys the equivalent of 12/12 level?!?! I have to agree then we must have played different modules.

A typical 1st ed hill giant had 37-38 HPs, AC 4, THAC0 12 and hits for 9 HP damage on average. Your front liners must have had at least an AC -2, if not better, at that level and hill giants are ripe for big AoE attacks (Fireball had a 20ft radius in 1st ed and no die cap).

As for 3E at higher level, I find it a good thing that those NERF spells to increase save DC's are there, otherwise the characters would almost always make their saves, making spellcasters just about useless.

The flipside of course is that your weak save at high levels is so weak you end up failing it with spectacular frequency. This creates the death / resurrection cycle that annoys more than a few of us at those levels. A cycle that becomes more frequent the higher level you play.

Personally, I'd strip out all the one-hit-wonder spells and bring in a new mechanic for will save spells/fear effects/horror/etc. One that acts more like HP (but a lot fewer in number) - you wear down a target's resolve before you break them. Then you could do away with blanket spell resistance too, just give them a bonus on their Saves vs Magic. But this is getting away from the topic at hand so I'll leave it at that...

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Seems to me the ramping up of HP in high-level characters means that you tend to require more high-level spells to deal with them quickly. Fireballs and such become the equivalent of pulling out your pistol once you've used up all your rockets and plasma bolts in an FPS. In a sense, I miss the fragility of 2nd Ed characters in situations like this: When iconic spells like Fireball and Lightning bolt become secondary threats, even nuisances, and squads of lower-level enemies lose their threat becasue you're so damn resilient you can easily take them, it changes the flavour a bit.

So, what do you think?

I think it makes sense. Why should a 3rd-level spell be that dangerous to a CR 16 threat? Fireball may be iconic, but it's an iconic 3rd-level spell. It's not Meteor Swarm.

I think the pendulum swung from direct damage to save-or-suffer at higher levels, and some people have not adjusted to the change very well. High level mages are still among the strongest characters in the game; they just have to use different tactics now.

 

[Staffan]

Conversion Manual, bottom of this page: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20030221a -- Levels stay the same except for multiclassing. AD&D multiclass 6/6 becomes 3E 6+6/3 = 8th character level, e.g.

Living City had another set of rules for converting levels. Basically, you looked up your character's total XP on a chart, which then gave you a new XP total and level. So a fighter 6/druid 7 with (45k+45k=) 90,000 XP would get 28,000 XP, which is level 8 - not level 9 as he would have gotten with the other system.

 

[Victim]

On one hand, it's sad that spells like Fireball become useless as levels increase. On the other hand, before, high end damage spells were largely useless next to fireball before. That's also pretty sad. The evoker in my 2nd ed game maxed out his number of fireballs (using spell points) because the high level attacks cost more for little to no extra benefit. And then he used some Mnemonic Enhancers in 4th level spells to get even more fireballs. Metamagic provides some options for extending the lifespan of spells.

Saving throws (especially wrt save or die/incapacitation effects) are rather problematic. Even characters with strong saves can be taken out if they roll poorly. Thus, even a low indvidual failure chance skyrockets in total when a character is under sustained magical assault from multiple casters. In one ambush, almost the entire party was taken out in round 1 by a volley of 2 confusions and 2 greater commands. Thus, there's a pressure to push saves as high as they'll go; high level characters often load with with pale green ioun stones, luckstones, and other misc bonus effects since cloaks of resistance aren't enough. If you save 75% of the time against a high level effect, that means your high level character can drop instantly 1/4 quarter of the time. And if the character is hit with 2 such effects, then he only has a ~56% chance of coming through unscathed. That high save doesn't sound so good now, does it?

On the other hand, the pressure to boost saves to handle intensive barrages or tricked out monsters can make casters nearly useless with any given action. A baddy made to live a couple rounds vs a few casters dropping save or die effects on him will have saves so high that spell attacks seem futile. The character above seems fragile in that there's a decent chance he'll die in the encounter, but think of the caster's PoV. He's got a 75% chance to suck each round, AND be out a high level slot. It's frustrating either way.

Stoneskin was nasty in 2nd ed vs giants. I remember the party screwing up in one battle against fire giants, and the 2 wizards were surrounded by like 10 giants as a result. Of course, everything bounced off and the party won.

 

[Treebore]

I'm playing an Arcane character in an Epic level game right now and I am getting frustrated with how many Epic things are outright immune to this energy type, or that energy type, or this, this, and this energy types. Then there is the evasion issue, then there is the immune to death effects, poisons, mind effects, etc... So what the heck am I supposed to cast? By the time enough rounds pass for me to find a spell that effects the creature enough to make it worth using the battle is over.

Plus my big thing is being a summoner. Summoning creatures to fight epic monsters is a joke. The DR of the creature is usually enough to totally ignore anything the summoned creatures can do, assuming they don't have some kind of protection circle going full time to keep summoned creatures away from them to begin with.

Playing Epic is cool with a fighter type, and even the cleric, but I am finding it sucking big time as a pure Arcane caster, even with ramped up meta-magicked spells. I can't even cast buff spells on the party because they are already buffed with magic items that buff them way better than my crappy spells can anyways.