D&D General How has D&D changed over the decades?

[Lanefan]

Yeah, I'm done with this. 3d6 in order wasn't the way characters were generated in 1e. If you did it that way, more power to you but that certainly wasn't presumed. Hell, my fighter got 9d6 to generate his strength. Never minding my +3 to hit and damage and multiple attacks at 1st level. Oh, right, we're not allowed to talk about Unearthed Arcana...

Sure we are. Just not the broken bits, of which that crazy roll-up system was one.

Again, the odds of someone playing a fighter type that didn't have percentile strength was something that rarely happened. You had six tries to get an 18, and most characters, as in almost all of them, managed it every time surprisingly enough.

Yep, you ran in a different crew than I.

The point being, a 1e party could easily be dropping two, three ogres per round, even by very low levels.

Indeed; in no small part because the large humanoids (ogres, giants, etc.) were sadly in need of some beefing up even before UA. Giving them their strength bonus to hit and damage was a no-brainer; giving them a wider range of hit points with the MM values at the low end was another.

 

[Minigiant]

Which is about my stance, but that stance sure as hell wouldn't have led me to design anything like 4e had I been at the helm.

For me, what sets 4e apart is that more than any other edition it leans into pure small-g gamism and isn't shy about saying so. End result is that those of us who want a bit more realism/simulation in our RPGs are going to - and did - bounce off it hard.

Eh..

It's less that 4e was less Realism and Simulation and more of what it was being "realistic" and "Simulationiat" about.

Basically there are 3 games in D&D:

1. The Strategy of Dungeon Crawling Resource Management (The attrition game)
2. The Tactics of Heroic Combat Management (the battle tactics game)
3. The Administration of Narrative Noncombat Storytelling (the Noncombat game)

D&D for the most part has all three use the same resources and mechanics. So each edition tilts harder to one or the other. 4e went hard on Games 2 & 3. 1e was almost exclusively Game 1. 5e is a weird mix.

However there is a clear progression from Attrition being the main game to Battle and Noncombat getting more of the pie.

I also think the 5e 6-8 encounter thing is due to this. With more games needing piece of the pie, the pie needs to get bigger.

The 5e Wizard gets 3 level 1 spells a day at level one (Game 1 and some 3). Plus cantrips (Game 2) and flexible casting (Game 3). And has a cleric in the party.

How do you keep casters from dominating Game 1? More or harder encounters. How does 5e break down? Fewer or easier encounters.

Basically if caster players would be okay with half the slots, the game could assume fewer encounters to work Game 1.

So yeah. Another big chance is the increased consciousness of Game 2 and Game 3 by designers and fans over the decades.

 

[tetrasodium]

Eh..

It's less that 4e was less Realism and Simulation and more of what it was being "realistic" and "Simulationiat" about.

Basically there are 3 games in D&D:

1. The Strategy of Dungeon Crawling Resource Management (The attrition game)
2. The Tactics of Heroic Combat Management (the battle tactics game)
3. The Administration of Narrative Noncombat Storytelling (the Noncombat game)

D&D for the most part has all three use the same resources and mechanics. So each edition tilts harder to one or the other. 4e went hard on Games 2 & 3. 1e was almost exclusively Game 1. 5e is a weird mix.

However there is a clear progression from Attrition being the main game to Battle and Noncombat getting more of the pie.

I also think the 5e 6-8 encounter thing is due to this. With more games needing piece of the pie, the pie needs to get bigger.

The 5e Wizard gets 3 level 1 spells a day at level one (Game 1 and some 3). Plus cantrips (Game 2) and flexible casting (Game 3). And has a cleric in the party.

How do you keep casters from dominating Game 1? More or harder encounters. How does 5e break down? Fewer or easier encounters.

Basically if caster players would be okay with half the slots, the game could assume fewer encounters to work Game 1.

So yeah. Another big chance is the increased consciousness of Game 2 and Game 3 by designers and fans over the decades.

on "game 2" there is almost no tactics now, charge into range & attack till one side dies then repeat is pretty much it.

• Monster not in reach? close in as direct a route as possible& attack till it dies
• monster in reach? good attack it again
• Low on health & going to drop? Stay there & keep attacking , you can always pop up with a healing word 1 point lay on hands or whatever
• Not sure what weapon to use? magic bludgeon/piercie/slash of the biggest die you can use
• Monsters have energy resists? Probably not much to be done other than maybe try to use something other than fire by trial & error because limited prep/known slots & not many real options due to iconic spells.
• Monsters have magic resist? it's no longer a some spells thing like SR so not much to adapt
• want to (de)buff strategically? concentration mostly makes that one & done.
• want to stop monsters from reaching squishies? why would you when someone can healing word them too?
  • Want to anyways? with the ability to run laps around an opponent you just add a few extra feet going around your occupied square so sentinel or physically block a 5foot wide hall

 

[Hussar]

/snip
Indeed; in no small part because the large humanoids (ogres, giants, etc.) were sadly in need of some beefing up even before UA. Giving them their strength bonus to hit and damage was a no-brainer; giving them a wider range of hit points with the MM values at the low end was another.

Heh, in other words, what 3e did. More hp and increase damage. Now, why did you do that? If AD&D combat was so lethal, as is being claimed, then there should have been zero need for this.

I know that when I ran 1e, I almost always just gave monsters either full or close to full HP, particularly in 2e when the PC's just had ridiculous levels of damage output relative to the monsters.

But, again, going back to the 3d6 in order. That was never the rule. It was 3d6 in Basic D&D, sure, but, then you could adjust 2:1 up with Str, Int and Wis and increase Dex. Con and Cha you couldn't change. Which meant that you just dropped Int and Wis to 9 or 10 and used up those points to get that 18 Str.

AIR, this was a system we actually kept in AD&D, which, frankly, does explain why everyone had an 18 in their main stat. But, even in other groups, or in pre-gen characters, it wasn't exactly rare. Like I said, all you have to do is start tracking the stats - sure, you might have the odd character that doesn't have an 18 in their main stat, but, that's likely the odd one out. Heck, the standard array in 5e wouldn't even make a playable character in 1e. 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 8? That's a reroll waiting to happen.

 

[Minigiant]

on "game 2" there is almost no tactics now, charge into range & attack till one side dies then repeat is pretty much it.

• Monster not in reach? close in as direct a route as possible& attack till it dies
• monster in reach? good attack it again
• Low on health & going to drop? Stay there & keep attacking , you can always pop up with a healing word 1 point lay on hands or whatever
• Not sure what weapon to use? magic bludgeon/piercie/slash of the biggest die you can use
• Monsters have energy resists? Probably not much to be done other than maybe try to use something other than fire by trial & error because limited prep/known slots & not many real options due to iconic spells.
• Monsters have magic resist? it's no longer a some spells thing like SR so not much to adapt
• want to (de)buff strategically? concentration mostly makes that one & done.
• want to stop monsters from reaching squishies? why would you when someone can healing word them too?
  • Want to anyways? with the ability to run laps around an opponent you just add a few extra feet going around your occupied square so sentinel or physically block a 5foot wide hall

Well they did think about game 2. It was shunted into "optional rules".

 

[jasper]

Perhaps the art bit of this thread has run its course, but if we’re talking about age groups or whether the recent art is embarassing, let’s not trick ourselves too much given this:

View attachment 153987

Which shows up within the first dozen pages of the PHB. Wizard in pointy hat, monkey, slapstick slippage, loincloth… not exactly traces of adventure and epic. (And that’s OK!)

Does anyone have any official 5E slapstick art? Page number and book please.

 

[Jer]

But, again, going back to the 3d6 in order. That was never the rule. It was 3d6 in Basic D&D, sure, but, then you could adjust 2:1 up with Str, Int and Wis and increase Dex. Con and Cha you couldn't change. Which meant that you just dropped Int and Wis to 9 or 10 and used up those points to get that 18 Str.

Even in AD&D in the DMG Gygax basically says "don't roll 3d6 in order" and gives 4d6 drop lowest arrange in order as "Method I" of 4 different methods for PC generation for AD&D, none of which are 3d6 in order. The problem is that that rule was in the DMG which I'm increasingly convinced that even a lot of DMs didn't read back then. Gygax basically lays out how 3d6 down the line usually leads to characters that will die quickly and while you can have fun with it, it's often frustrating, so use one of the other methods he lays out instead.

Then when 2nd Edition came along someone who didn't understand the math that Gygax was talking about in the 1e DMG labelled "Method 1" as 3d6 down the line and the other methods are listed as "alternative methods if you want a more heroic character". That mistake is a doozy of a one to make but lots of folks play the game that way to this day because of it.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yes and no. The game says that an orc shouldn't be a threat to a 3rd level 3e party. It should be an incredibly easy encounter. Barely a speedbump.

But one lucky crit and that orc just dumped 48 points of damage into a 3rd level character, killing him instantly.

In no other edition can you do that. If you have 20 hp in 5e, it is impossible for a creature that deals less than 20 HP on a hit to kill you outright. It MUST attack you again after you're down. Which is the DM deliberately doing this. It's not random. It's not the dice. It's the DM declaring that yup, your character has a pretty good chance of dying right now.

So, no, it's not the same thing at all.

So, the orc that was capable of doing this just shows up with the dice, or did the GM put this threat there?

 

[Ovinomancer]

"In 5E, the DM has to have…what 6-8 fights in a day to hit the designed balance sweet spot and even then the threat won’t be taken all that seriously until the last few fights and even then it will not matter at all after an 8 hour rest."
It used to be 4-6 in the past & that 4-6 expectation was a number that could both be reached and taxed to create tension against the resources players have within a session or two. 6-8 is such a high number that's no longer the case. Bringing that 6-8 down to a reasonable number immediately creates an escalating feedback loop of more & more seemingly inappropriate encounters blasted apart with 5mwd nova after. 5mwd nova. Deadly fights existing in the past when they were not required simply to compensate for impractical expectations does not change the problems that are created as a result of 5e having impractical expectations that require their use regularly

4-6 pretty easy fights did the trick in 3e? 2e? I must have played a different game, then.

 

[Fifth Element]

A bastard sword against a large target does 2d8 damage, 16 max. The strength modifiers don't hit +3 damage until you get into the 18%...in a system that rolled 3d6 in order.

Wait, I thought we were talking about AD&D? Do you think that AD&D used 3d6 in order? Because it didn't. If you used 3d6 in order when playing AD&D, you were not playing RAW. Here we go:

1E PHB, page 9, under CHARACTER ABILITIES:

"The range of these abilities is between 3 and 18. The premise of the game is that each player character is above average - at least in some respects - and has superior potential. Furthermore, it is usually essential to the character's survival to be exceptional (with a rating of 15 or above) in no fewer than two ability characteristics. Each ability score is determined by random number generation. The referee has several methods of how this random number generation should be accomplished suggested to him or her in the DUNGEON MASTERS GUIDE. The Dungeon Master will inform you as to which method you may use to determine your character's abilities."

So, no implication of 3d6 in order here. Explicitly states that it's up the DM, and the DMG has several methods listed.

1E DMG, page 11, under GENERATION OF ABILITY SCORES:

"As AD&D is an ongoing game of fantasy adventuring, it is important to allow participants to generate a viable character of the race and profession which he or she desires. While it is possible to generate some fairly playable characters by rolling 3d6, there is often an extended period of attempts at finding a suitable one due to quirks of the dice. Furthermore, these rather marginal characters tend to have short life expectancy - which tends to discourage new players, as does having to make do with some character of a race and/or class which he or she really can't or won't identify with. Character generation, then, is a serious matter, and it is recommended that the following systems be used. Four alternatives are offered for player characters:"

It then lists the methods. Method I is 4d6 drop lowest 6 times, arrange as desired. Method II is 3d6 rolled 12 times, keep six, arranged as desired. Method III is roll 3d6 six times for each ability, in order, keep the highest. Method IV is roll 3d6 in order...and then do it 11 more times, and keep whichever set you want.

[Aside: Gygax's comments about the importance of creating a character that the player can identify with, and being of the race and class the players desires them to be, certainly adds some light on the discussion earlier in this thread.]

Using 3d6 in order, your chance of getting an 18 strength (and therefore exceptional strength if you want to be a fighter) is only 0.46%. That's 1 in 216. Here is the probability of getting an 18 strength using the methods listed in the DMG, assuming you put your highest score in strength if you have that option:

Method I: 9.3%
Method II: 9.2%
Method III: 2.7%
Method IV: 9.2%

So the probability of getting an 18 strength is actually about 6 to 23 times more likely than rolling it 3d6 in order, per RAW, depending on method used. If you're cool with playing a half-orc (meaning you only need to roll a 17), these probabilities go up dramatically:

Method I: 30.1%
Method II: 20.1%
Method III: 10.6%
Method IV: 20.1%

These are 6 to 18 more likely than rolling a 17 strength on 3d6. But then you'd also have to factor in the maximums in wisdom and charisma, which will reduce the chances of being able to be a half-orc rolling stats in order versus arranging as desired. But I'm sure as bleep not going to do the math on that right now.

A fighter with 18 strength will have a weighted average bonuses of +1.51 to hit and +3.36 to damage.

And while you mentioned a bastard sword doing 2-16, you didn't mention a two-handed sword doing 3-18 for some reason. An average 1E ogre (4+1 hit dice) has 19 hit points. An 18-strength fighter can do up to 21 to 24 depending on strength, average will be about 14 with a two-handed sword.

17% of ogres will have 14 or fewer hit points. So an average blow from an 18 strength fighter with a two-handed sword will one-shot about one-sixth of ogres. And as established above, although an 18 strength is not the norm for fighters, it is not particularly noteworthy, with a player desiring to create a fighter and not caring about the race having up to a 30% chance of having exceptional strength, depending on the method used. So a 1E fighter one-shotting an ogre is not at all unlikely. It's not the average result, but it's far from impossible. It's not even that unlikely.

[Disclaimer: I cannot guarantee the math is 100% correct here, I did these calculations back-of-the-napkin style. But while the figures might not be exactly correct, they will not be off by any order of magnitude, and the point remains.]