D&D General Lethality, AD&D, and 5e: Looking Back at the Deadliest Edition

[overgeeked]

The problem is that Gygax wrote the DMG as if he had multiple personalities.

Gygax: "Don't kill the PCs unnecessarily and you can let them off if you want to."
Also Gygax: "Don't let the PCs get away with anything, kill, maim and/or punish them horribly if they even try to!!!!!!1111!!!"

There’s also the space given to each. “It’s okay to be nice” is given a few hundred words across all three books whereas “kill them without mercy” is given several tens of thousands of words.

The one that really gets me is the “D&D is a game and it’s bad at realism” then he goes on to give hyper-detailed lists of things that only matter if you’re trying for realism, like disease charts and specific weapons vs specific armor types.

 

[Hussar]

Protection from evil does not prevent a level-draining undead from … level draining you.

From the 1e PHB-

When this spell is cast, it acts as if it were a magical armor upon the recipient. The protection encircles the recipient at a one foot distance, thus preventing bodily contact by creatures of an enchanted or conjured nature, such as aerial servants, demons, devils, djinn, efreet, elementals, imps, invisible stalkers, night hags, quasits, salamanders, water weirds, wind walkers and xorn. Summoned animals or monsters are similarly hedged from the protected creature. Furthermore, any and all attacks launched by evil creatures incur a penalty of -2 "to hit" the protected creature, and any saving throws caused by such attacks are made at +2 on the protected creature's dice. This spell can be reversed to become protection from good, although it still keeps out enchanted evil creatures as well. To complete this spell, the cleric must trace a 3' diameter circle upon the floor (or ground) with holy water for protection from evil, with blood for protection from good -- or in the air, using burning incense or smouldering dung with respect to evil/good.

You don't consider undead to be creatures of an enchanted nature? Which means they have to stay ten feet from the paladin and cannot touch him. Note, that's a "such as" list, not an exhaustive one. Although, like a lot of things AD&D, it's all down to how things are interpreted.

Which goes a long way towards exactly what you were saying about how play experiences shape views. We figured that level draining undead are obviously creatures of an enchanted nature and couldn't touch you.

 

[Maxperson]

There’s also the space given to each. “It’s okay to be nice” is given a few hundred words across all three books whereas “kill them without mercy” is given several tens of thousands of words.

The one that really gets me is the “D&D is a game and it’s bad at realism” then he goes on to give hyper-detailed lists of things that only matter if you’re trying for realism, like disease charts and specific weapons vs specific armor types.

Yeah. Like contradicting himself by telling DMs that it's okay to change the rules to suit their game a dozen times, then a dozen more times telling them never to do it and/or only do after very, very, very, very, VERY careful consideration, because you might blow up the game.

He contradicted himself a lot.

 

[Alzrius]

You don't consider undead to be creatures of an enchanted nature? Which means they have to stay ten feet from the paladin and cannot touch him. Note, that's a "such as" list, not an exhaustive one. Although, like a lot of things AD&D, it's all down to how things are interpreted.

Which goes a long way towards exactly what you were saying about how play experiences shape views. We figured that level draining undead are obviously creatures of an enchanted nature and couldn't touch you.

This actually came up more than once in "Sage Advice." From Dragon #138 (October, 1988):

Will a paladin's protection from evil keep ghouls at bay?

Yes, but ghouls are the only undead creatures so affected. The paladin (or spell-caster) can voluntarily break the circle in order to melee the ghoul, but this allows the ghoul to return the attack, though at the appropriate penalty (see the spell's description on page 44 of the Players Handbook).

Note that, in AD&D 1E, ghouls are specifically called out in the Monster Manual as being vulnerable to protection from evil (as are ghasts, if the spell is used in conjunction with cold iron).

From Dragon #156 (April, 1990):

In issue #138, you said that protection from evil effects do not keep undead at bay, except for ghouls. Come on! Since all undead are magically created, they're all enchanted monsters and all are thwarted by protection from evil. While we're at it, you also said that banshees turn as specials, if they can be turned at all. Come on again! The rules say that clerics have power over the undead, not some undead.

The only undead that are magically created are skeletons and zombies, which are created with the animate dead spell. However, enchanted monsters are those brought into being with conjuration/summoning spells, and animate dead is necromantic. Ghouls are hedged out because their descriptions in the 1st Edition Monster Manual and 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendium say they are. Still, the DM could rule that the normal undead creation process (in which a being killed by certain undead beings becomes an undead creature, too) is magical. Expanding the list in this fashion logically would include lycanthropes (which suffer from a quasi-magical curse), golems (which are ritually created), creatures such as owlbears and bulettes (commonly known to be magical crossbreeds), and gargoyles (which have "magical natures"), and the list goes on. It's much better to draw the line early on.

The rules don't say that clerics have power over all undead. Banshees were left off the clerics versus undead table in the AD&D 1st Edition DMG because they couldn't be turned in those rules (see the 1st Edition Monster Manual, "Groaning Spirit"). Currently, banshees can be turned as "special" undead (see "Groaning Spirit", Monstrous Compendium, Volume 2).

 

[Micah Sweet]

This actually came up more than once in "Sage Advice." From Dragon #138 (October, 1988):



Note that, in AD&D 1E, ghouls are specifically called out in the Monster Manual as being vulnerable to protection from evil (as are ghasts, if the spell is used in conjunction with cold iron).

From Dragon #156 (April, 1990):

It's all there if you look hard enough. This is why I love AD&D, and any game that follows in its footsteps.

 

[Hussar]

Heh. Learn something new every day. Granted, we'd be playing 2e very close to 1988, so, that's a bit late for an answer.

Gotta love trying to dumpster dive ten thousand different sources to try to find answers.

No wonder we were all amateur game designers back then. Now? Now I'd go on somewhere like EN World and find the answer pretty quickly. Or a Google Search and find that fifteen other people had already asked the same question and gotten answers.

Then? Then we were out to sea without so much as a compass most of the time.

 

[Clint_L]

I don't know that it is, necessarily. The rules are more clearly written and tuned for play, aure.

Yes, and a huge chunk of players play using DnDBeyond. Then there's Adventurer's League. AD&D didn't have anything like those to standardize play, and the rules themselves were often more like suggestions, with many options presented. As Snarf noted, even Gygax was open about not using all the rules.

 

[Hussar]

Yes, and a huge chunk of players play using DnDBeyond. Then there's Adventurer's League. AD&D didn't have anything like those to standardize play, and the rules themselves were often more like suggestions, with many options presented. As Snarf noted, even Gygax was open about not using all thI

I totally agree here. The rise of the Internet, things like the Hypertext SRD, and now D&D Beyond, never minding things like Reddit and a bajillion other sources, has made it so easy to simply follow the "party line" as it were. You ask "How does X work in the game" and by and large you'll get a fairly detailed reply instantly. Most likely someone else has asked the same question and it's been answered somewhere on the Internet.

Something that does occur to me with the longevity of 5e. Because the game has been out for so long and the gaming population is so much more connected that it was back in the 1980's, are we seeing a much stronger push toward standardization in games?

I mean, take that Paladin's Protection point I brought up earlier. I was pretty sure I was right. To the point where I'd argue it. Now, I can get fifteen answers instantly that is likely more correct that I was. So, we don't really have this sort of localized experience occurring now that we saw back then.

I dunno. I'm meandering.

 

[Lanefan]

Yes. Play experience creates a great deal of variety.

For example @Lanefan, you mention your number one pc death cause is other pc’s. That just didn’t happen at our tables. We always played, right from the get go, that player vs player was not allowed. And a player who accidentally killed another pc because of misplaced spells was encouraged to smarten up or find a different group.

What, you never had a lightning bolt rebound in unexpected ways and clip the front-liners, or a caster misjudge the available space in the dark and have a fireball fry the party as well as the opposition? Or you never had an archer insist on shooting into melee and then hit the party fighter instead of the enemy? Or have a melee plunged into magical darkness where nobody knows who/what they're swinging at?

And this assumes no fumble or wild-magic-surge rules; we've had fumbles since forever and wild magic for 30 years (though both are well down the cause-of-death list).

And in our games player-vs-player is allowed as long as it stays in character.

And, because we almost exclusively played modules, enemy pc’s were largely unheard of.

Village of Hommlet: loads of potential enemy (N)PCs. Keep on the Borderlands: several enemy Clerics. A2 Slavers' Stockade: Markessa (the most dangerous foe in the place) is a MU. B10 Night's Dark Terror: the Iron Ring are almost all humans, nevermind the yellow-robed wizard and a large number of one of the cults. Keep looking, you'll quickly find many more.

But a very good point was made upthread. The adnd character was expected to have buckets of magic items. That’s where the lethality shifts. Again, module play resulted in buckets of magic items. That 4th level fighter had +1 plate and +1 shield. And a magic weapon. And probably half a dozen consumables.

Whereas the book group probably didn’t.

And also keep in mind that in 1e magic was far more fragile. Fail vs a lightning bolt or fireball etc. and every one of those items had to save or be destroyed. Much more an easy come-easy go system, which I like.

 

[Lanefan]

And, if you played in large groups, like I did, then paladins were a pretty common thing. Sure, it was hard to roll up a paladin, but, when you've got eight or nine PC's, it's actually not all that rare. And, frankly, we were probably .... errr... being creative with our die rolling at chargen. But, even being straight up honest, it wasn't that hard to get a paladin.

Paladins tend to get very quickly run out of parties here, largely because for most of us the favourite alignment starts with a C.

And, if you didn't like henchmen, there were always dogs - probably the absolute best NPC's in the game.

True, dogs are something we've never used much (and when we have, they're often treated as beloved pets and thus kept as safe as can be).