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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whisper72" data-source="post: 5498358" data-attributes="member: 17339">Well... it may depend upon how the DM runs the game, but in all the 'old school' games I've ran or played in, the option of 'I swing my sword again', and thus going toe to toe with the enemy, was usually one of the LEAST sensible things to do...Smarts and tactics were usually needed to defeat enemies. Either because there were too many of them and you'd be overwhelmed, or because they were too powerful to simply walk up to and smash it out...Melee combat often started at range with missiles of various types, throwing up quick barricades and otherwise using terrain and furniture as well as caltrops etc. to canalise enemy routes or give cover from enemy fire. The use of flaming oil, acid etc. was also rampant, especially for the lower levels. The thrown flask of greek oil was basically the 'fireball for lower level PC's'. Don't leave home without a bunch of them...Also, with dual/double classing being so useful in the old days, I barely remember any pure classed characters in any case for the basic 'core' classes (fighter, wizard, cleric and thief). Usually only the Paladin and Ranger were single classed, sometimes the thief. Mages usually dual/multiclassed in fighter to have some survivablity (i.e. more hit points, and to be able to swing that sword more effectively once all spells were gone...), and most fighters as well as thieves dualled/multied into wizard or cleric for some spells and variety, so the whole issue barely came up from that perspective as well... Even most clerics in our games went dual/multi into wizard, becoming massive spell slingers...In other words, we rarely if ever had a situation where a player's only option was to 'swing a sword' in the old days... since I never played any edition 'higher' then 2nd, I cannot attest to how this works out for 3rd or 4th edition...</blockquote>

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