Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5729245" data-attributes="member: 22779">It's interesting.  JRRNeikalot's point actually doesn't prove what he thinks it does.Presuming that your characters actually leveled up to level 4, shouldn't a system that is more lethal have culled these characters by now?  When the entire group is below average HP, and some are actually HALF their average?  Yet, they've not only managed to not die, they've managed to advance three times.This does not say, "Very lethal game" to me.But, let's keep going with this shall we?Sure, -10 AC is as good as it gets for a PC in AD&D.  But, look at the THAC0 for any non-unique monster.  It tops out at about 7, not counting dinosaurs.  Heck, let's take a good example.  4th level AD&D fighter has a 1 AC.  That's pretty easily done - plate and shield +1 by 4th level isn't out of line at all.  An ogre has a 15 THAC0 and does a d10 points of damage.  We'll use your 17 hp 4th level fighter if you don't mind JRRNiekalot.  So, Mr Ogre hits on a 14+, 30% chance of hitting and averages 5 points per hit.  That means he has to attack the fighter about 12 times on average to drop the fighter.  Note, this is a weak fighter, not a strong one.3e fighter, 4th level, sword and board to make him as good as he can for AC.  3 points below average hp, gives him 27 hp (10+5*3+Con 13 for +4 - Remember 25 point buy value).  Full plate+1, shield +1 and dex for another +1 gives him a 23 AC.  Again, this is about as good as it gets.  You might get it up to 25 if you really cheese weasel, but, this is pretty good.Mr 3e Ogre has a +8 attack bonus and does 2d8+7 (average 16) points per hit.  He's only hitting on a 15, that's true, he's actually hitting just a little bit less.  But, he's also doing THREE TIMES AS MUCH DAMAGE.  Or, putting it another way, he only has to attack about 6 times on average to drop the fighter.  Our 3e fighter dies in half the time.As far as 20d6 fireballs go, well, I did say combat damage, not spells.  Heck, are you honestly going to claim that monsters don't get a huge bump in magical abilities in 3e?  Good grief, dragons go from casting minor magics to being ARCH MAGES.  ----------But, this really is all a tangent.  The point is, JRRNeikalot's experience is actually nicely summed up in the three points I listed earlier.  Why does he have the experience he has?  Because of the point buy value.  While you don't specifically have point buy characters, the fact that the party is below averages explains why you might think that a system is more dangerous than it really is.JRRNeiklot, you are extrapolating from a single example and it's pretty easy to show why you get the results you get.  Reverse it.  Take a B/E group which gets lucky - 75% HP, high die rolls on all stats and watch what happens.</blockquote>

Verification