D&D General I'm a Fighter, not a Lover: Why the 1e Fighter was so Awesome

[Maxperson]

I'd make the same ruling. Same reason you can't wear two suits of magic armour and have them both function.

Cloaks are worn separate from clothing. They are not worn in the same spot as robes the same way two suits of armor are.

 

[Voadam]

I also remember there being a cap at -10 by RAW. I've always ignored it, but then anything better is very rare anyway.

If you can find a 1e reference to it I would be interested. I don’t remember such a limitation.

 

[Sacrosanct]

raises hand

Actually, worse than that. I TRIED to account for the spread of the maxed out Delayed Blast Fireball, but didn’t account for the extreme speed of the target. It closed with the party before the DBF went off.

Our was actually the MU player thinking they were clever. We saw a hallway that appeared to be lined with small holes ala the intro scene in Raiders of the Lost Arc. The hallways went about 30 or 40 feet and turned left (out of sight). The player thought the hallway would keep going when it turned, so he launched the fireball as a way to burn out all darts or spears in the wall and burn away any poison they might have had.

Well, 10 feet around the corner was a stone door. It didn't keep going. Area was calculated...

 

[James Gasik]

I think it basically came about because the matrices stop at -10, even though the rules tell you that you can extend them. Interestingly, the "AC 10" limit makes no sense, given that a low Dexterity could make your unarmored AC higher than that, and I remember a Dragon article about giant amoebas with ACs above 10, lol.

2e encoded it, but even then, we found ways to virtually improve AC beyond that by imposing attack roll penalties (Prayer, Paladin aura, the Blur spell, etc. etc.. The fact that monsters rarely had bonuses to hit beyond the Thac0 granted by their Hit Dice made this pretty rough to challenge high level PC's. And some monsters were inexplicably nerfed, like the 70 HD Tarrasque (should be Thac0 -13) had only a Thac0 of...5?!

Not with dragons though, dragons were cheaters, lol. A 17 HD Great Wyrm Red has a Thac0 of -12 thanks to it's "draconic combat modifier", lol.

 

[billd91]

I think it basically came about because the matrices stop at -10, even though the rules tell you that you can extend them. Interestingly, the "AC 10" limit makes no sense, given that a low Dexterity could make your unarmored AC higher than that, and I remember a Dragon article about giant amoebas with ACs above 10, lol.

2e encoded it, but even then, we found ways to virtually improve AC beyond that by imposing attack roll penalties (Prayer, Paladin aura, the Blur spell, etc. etc.. The fact that monsters rarely had bonuses to hit beyond the Thac0 granted by their Hit Dice made this pretty rough to challenge high level PC's. And some monsters were inexplicably nerfed, like the 70 HD Tarrasque (should be Thac0 -13) had only a Thac0 of...5?!

Not with dragons though, dragons were cheaters, lol. A 17 HD Great Wyrm Red has a Thac0 of -12 thanks to it's "draconic combat modifier", lol.

I don't think it's a question of it "not making sense" as much as there's a floor given to a clumsy PC's misery. AC worse than 10 is reserved for curses, by the 1e rule.

And the dragons might not be considered cheaters if you're strict about the text about magic armors. ACs can't be made better than -10 by magic item (specifically shield and armor) bonuses - but the dragon's AC is all natural, baby.