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

[Lanefan]

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.

I suspect many people saw the "preventing bodily contact" piece and stopped reading right there.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

Believe me, I WISH it had worked the way that you thought it did.

Energy drain was my single most hated 1e/2e mechanic. Well, I guess technically it was losing a limb, but that happened so rarely that I can't really count it as #1. Energy drain, though, happened to us virtually every campaign.

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.

Yep. The web opened up a lot in the way of communication to get answers about things. The closest I came to that in the 80's and 90's was going to a game convention and asking around at some D&D tables to see what they did. Those happened 3 times a year, so the vast majority of the time it was up to me to come up with an answer.

 

[Maxperson]

I suspect many people saw the "preventing bodily contact" piece and stopped reading right there.

I think it's more a case of the spell simply being Protection from Evil and not Protection from Summoned Evil, Plus a Little Bit of Protection from the Rest of Evil. It's pretty easy to think that the spell provides equal protection from all evil things.

 

[Maxperson]

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

My groups tended not to play many paladins for that reason and that we liked to sometimes stretch the law a bit, which was problematic with a paladin around.

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).

Oddly we saw more dogs than henchmen. The dogs were cheaper and you didn't have to worry about loyalty rolls.

 

[Hussar]

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?

No.

We had players who were careful with that sort of thing. Given the choice between firing into melee or not, you always took not. Plunged into magical darkness? How? Everyone had Continual Light. There aren't enough darkness spells in the world to knock off the eight or ten continual lights we had going all the time.

Wild Magic? that's 2e. Saw exactly one and it never got played again. Critical tables? Nope.

 

[jmartkdr2]

The only time I liked major injury was in 13th Age where it's assumed to be mostly equivalet to death. You run out of hp and fail your death saves (IIRC), you can have your character die - or just be maimed in such a way as to force them to retire.

The latter can work better for the story (if you care about that) and it's easier to imagine powerful magics restoring limbs than life.

It works well if you think of it that way.

 

[Mannahnin]

That's how I remember it. Death wasn't even the worst thing that could happen in AD&D. Most players preferred death to falling victim to level drains or rust monsters.

In many ways, it was less frustrating.

I remember when I first started hanging around old school and OSR forums ~15 years back one of the guys had a signature to the effect of "Old school players are afraid of two things: Energy Drain and s*** that turns your ass to stone."

I remember hearing a vlogger talk about how, in AD&D 1E, bards had a higher Strength prerequisite than paladins, but paladins had a higher Charisma prerequisite than bards. Or as they put it (paraphrasing): "Yeah, because when you think of the guy who's an absolute beast in combat, you absolutely think of bards, whereas paladins are the guys everyone expects to win friends and influence people."

I always liked the passage in Elizabeth Moon's second book of The Deed of Paksenarrion where Paks is in paladin training school and the paladin instructors are telling the candidates that part of why they were chosen is how likeable they are. Their personal magnetism. That often they'll be on quest by themselves and trying to inspire downtrodden and sorrowing locals to rally and stand up against evil. And that their likeability and leadership ability are essential qualities. I appreciated how Moon took this D&D mechanic and explained it.

 

[Velderan]

"Protection From Evil (Abiuration) Reversible
Level: 1
Range: Touch
Duration: 3 rounds/level
Area of Effect: Creature touched
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 4 segments
Saving Throw: None
Explanation/Description: 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 from dice rolls ”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 smoldering dung with respect to evil/good."

There's nothing there about level draining undead at all. Just summoned creatures.

The level 4 version 10' radius similarly lacks such language.

"Explanation/Description: The globe of protection of this spell is identical in all respects to a protection from evil (q.v.) spell, except that it encompasses a much larger area and the duration of the protection from evil, 10'radius spell is greater. To complete this spell, the cleric must trace a circle 20' in diameter using holy water or blood, incense or smouldering dung as according to the protection from evil spell."

Level draining undead only have a -2 to hit. Now maybe the 2e version is different and you are thinking of that. I didn't check.

The 2e version is pretty much the same:

Protection From Evil (Abjuration)
Reversible
Sphere: Protection
Range: Touch
Components: V, S, M
Duration: 3 rounds/level
Casting Time: 4
Area of Effect: Creature touched
Saving Throw: None
When this spell is cast, it creates a magical barrier around the recipient at a distance of one foot. The barrier moves with the recipient and has three major effects:
First, all attacks made by evil or evilly enchanted creatures against the protected creature receive a penalty of -2 to each attack roll, and any having throws caused by such attacks are made by the protected creature with a +2 bonus.

Second, any attempt to exercise mental control over the protected creature (if, for example, it had been charmed by a vampire) or to invade and take over its mind (as by a ghost's magic jar attack) is blocked this spell. Note that the protection does not prevent a vampire's charm itself, nor end it, but it does prevent the vampire from exercising mental control through the barrier. Likewise, an outside life force is merely kept out, and would not be expelled if in place before the protection was cast.

Third, the spell prevents bodily contact by creatures of an extraplanar or conjured nature (such as aerial servants, elementals, imps, invisible stalkers, salamanders, water weirds, xorn, and others). This causes the natural (body) weapon attacks of such creatures to fail and the creature to recoil if such attacks require touching the protected creature.

Animals or monsters summoned or conjured by spells or similar magic are likewise hedged from the character. This protection ends if the protected character makes a melee attack against or tries to force the barrier against the blocked creature.

To complete this spell, the priest uses holy water or burning incense.

This spell can be reversed to become protection from good; the second and third benefits remain unchanged.

The material components for the reverse are a circle of unholy water or smoldering dung.

 

[Krachek]

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!!!"

That time was pretty much schizophrenic.
Post Vietnam war, post Peace and Love, on the edge of the first oil crisis.

Can we be a hero? Maybe the answer was not so obvious at this time.

 

[Velderan]

No.

We had players who were careful with that sort of thing. Given the choice between firing into melee or not, you always took not. Plunged into magical darkness? How? Everyone had Continual Light. There aren't enough darkness spells in the world to knock off the eight or ten continual lights we had going all the time.

Wild Magic? that's 2e. Saw exactly one and it never got played again. Critical tables? Nope.

That was mostly my experience too, at least in 2e. Mages were always very careful with stuff like fireball or lightning bolt, mostly due to the HP many PCs had. A 5th level mage launching a lightning bolt carelessly into the 5th level bard PC with no constitution bonus stood a chance of killing them.

We only let @Snarf Zagyg do that once before we got wise to the fact they were doing it on purpose come to think of it.