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

[nevin]

any recommendations for 3pp to replace magic system?

 

[Maxperson]

I think your right. I'll expand a bit more. (thomases post)

I never saw one of these games where magic wasn't common at any convention, in any module or book. I played in a few miserable games with DM's that wanted that game, usually because someone really had an axe to grind and wanted to DM, but the players always revolted and I always got the DM stick again. I will say this most people I've talked to that want a "low magic" game. If I can get them to explain why, are usually trying to recreate a feeling they had when they read the lord of the rings or some other book which is a lousy way to plan a game.

I loved the Lord of the Rings, I loved the Count of Monte Christo, but i wouldn't force my players to go through that nonsense to try and give them what I got when I read the books. I think that's why you get so many angry un-yielding people who want to fix the game by taking away those magic items that prevent them from reliving that feeling. Sadly you cant get that stuff back . But you can enjoy it in your own head while relaxing.

That and Lord of the Rings had a TON of magic items in it.

The Hobbit: The One Ring, Sting, Glamdring, Foe Hammer, Mithril Coat, maybe the Arkenstone, The Black Arrow and a door that could only be found by a certain moonlight.

Lord of the Rings: Glamdring, Sting, The One Ring, Mithril Coat, two elven rings of power, 9 human rings of power, several elven cloaks, Anduril, the phial of Galadriel that gave off light, potions of nourishment(Lembas Bread), magical earth, a horn that would always bring help when sounded, magical boats, magical elven rope, an elfstone, a bow strung with elf hair, several knives of westernesse, morgul knives, a flaming sword(Witch King), the palantir, the Mirror of Galadriel, the seat of seeing, and I might be missing a few.

Silmarillion: Thousands of magical swords(including the black swords) and armor forged by 1st age elves and dwarves, huge numbers of magical gems wrought by the Noldor, the Silmarils, the Helm of Dor-Lomin, the palantir, the star of elendil, the lesser elven rings, three elven rings of power, 7 dwarven rings of power, 9 human rings of power, angainor the magical chain used to bind Melkor, feanorian lamps, the two lamps, Vingilote the flying ship of Earendil, and more.

There are also potions of healing in the form of orcish healing goo, but I can't remember which book that is from.

Then there's the passage from the Lord of the Rings where Gandalf talks about knowing every spell in all the tongues of elves, men and orcs, revealing that they all had magic users, even if they weren't wizards(Istari).

And that's just what he wrote about. Magic in Middle Earth isn't nearly as rare as people want to make out.

 

[overgeeked]

Wow. The thread really moved overnight.

A few questions came up either directed at me or for people who played similarly to what I described, so here goes. Rather than quote a dozen posts I'll drop my answers here.

Stats. Again, Gary wrote the DMG. If he wanted there to be a solid baseline for PC stats he could have easily inserted a line to that effect. "If a character does not have at least two 15s, give them two 15s" would have been simple enough to put in...yet he did not. He kept it random despite putting his thumb on the scales in the PCs' favor compared to OD&D. And as for the "usually essential" for survival line in the PHB, look at the mechanics of the game. PC survival is clearly not of paramount importance in AD&D. Random character death is around every corner.

Frequency of item breakage. It all depends. As described by another poster, sorry I forget who as the thread moved 3-4 pages overnight, we used our best judgement and common sense. For our group it was common to ignore item saves unless there was a 15+ on the chart for that interaction on the matrix. Just as a time saver. If someone was a bit too willy-nilly with fireballs or lightning bolts around treasure, then we'd be more hard line about item saves.

Why not use similar item saves in 5E? 5E is not a resource management game in the same way AD&D is. The vast majority of resource management stuff was either removed between AD&D and 5E or remains in a vestigial form that's easily obviated with a feat, background, cantrip, or is commonly handwaved away. So it's beyond pointless to impose strict resource management about this one thing when it's otherwise all but gone from 5E.

 

[overgeeked]

This is why 3pp, particularly the kind that has its own core, is better. They can start from a cleaner base.

I actually don't mind attack cantrips. Despite the problems they cause with world-building. My problem with cantrips is the non-combat or utility spells. Things like light and mold earth are far more problematic than letting a caster pew-pew every round.

 

[Clint_L]

Finally, the reason most people call AD&D "low magic" has little to do with magic items, and everything to do with character abilities. Sure, there were a fair number of magic items (especially if you're into counting stats and simply sum up all of the ubiquitous +1 long and short swords in each module). But the reason it seems low magic compared to later editions is that it lacks cantrips and other character abilities that were constantly used as spells, and that while magic items (especially +1 and +2 items) were certainly ubiquitous, there was not an assumption of magic item shops to customize your character (the GP sale value was for sale by the characters only if they chose not to retain it).

Back when we played AD&D, our house canon was that +1 and +2 items, which were ubiquitous, weren't actually magic at all, just really well crafted, giving them benefits that generic weapons lacked.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sure but RuneQuest was built that way. Man that takes me back.. We'll just have to agree to disagree on the magic in D&D.

I'm not really clear that we're actually disagreeing about anything here. At least not from your last several posts. If I'm coming across that I am, I'm either misunderstanding some of your points or I'm expressing mine badly.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I completely agree on the cantrips thing. Also every fix to DND magic simply makes the mages more powerful and every other class playing catch up. Makes sense though, the only fix for mages being powerful is to gut them and lose players , so they tinker at the edges and ignore the real problem and just keep making it worse. It's a very 21st century problem solving approach.

It can be done--but as you say, people often react badly to it on either end. In some ways parts of D&D fandom is super-conservative here.

 

[Velderan]

Back when we played AD&D, our house canon was that +1 and +2 items, which were ubiquitous, weren't actually magic at all, just really well crafted, giving them benefits that generic weapons lacked.

The 2e DMG has a section about that, but it only applied to +1 items so that became our default for +1 items. It allowed us to world-build a little better, having people famous for the quality of their blades or armor become important parts of the campaign.

 

[Lanefan]

Huh. Maybe that’s a your group thing or maybe it was an our group thing. When we started at higher levels you only started with one magic weapon, one magic armor, and one misc magic item. All approved by the referee, of course.

For us a character starting at higher level's wealth is somewhat randomized, to reflect that this person has a history that may have been lucky, unlucky, or (most likely) average. Then, I'll look at what other character have or had at that level and go from there. All items for a new character are assigned by the DM.

We did far more consumables and single-use magic items (today a lot of people call them cyphers) and things like leveling up magic items in the fiction (go on this quest and your +1 becomes a +2, do this favor for the witch and she makes your sword a flame tongue, etc). We hated the golf bag of magic weapons thing.

We've never done the bolded. Getting an item upgraded takes a lot of money, a lot of time, and being without the item for that time while someone works on it.

 

[Lanefan]

Yes. That’s if the ogre attacked the bottle directly.

Would you seriously make a character make item saving throws for every item after every successful attack?

I wouldn't, and don't; but by the book it would appear that yes, that's what we're supposed to do at least for things like armour and shield.

And in the fiction it does kinda make sense for solid blows (say, anywhere close to max damage).