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

[overgeeked]

A buddy of mine had his car broken into last weekend. The thief took his iPad, his sunglasses, and his dicebag, which had dice he'd been using since he started gaming.

Last I checked, he wasn't so much saddened by the loss as he was blinded by rage.

Yeah. That would suck. I have dice older than most of the people I game with.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Fortunately it is easy to make 5e and it’s variants deadly too

Possible, but not especially easy without changing major parts of the game or exercising some version of @Oofta 's infinite dragons.

 

[overgeeked]

Possible, but not especially easy without changing major parts of the game or exercising some version of @Oofta 's infinite dragons.

And there’s basically no way to do it without being seen as a killer DM.

 

[Mannahnin]

In Rules Cyclopedia for Basic D&D, the description of protection of evil states enchanted creatures include monsters that can only be damaged by magical weapons. So that would include wights and vampires. And enchanted creatures cannot attack a person affected by the spell in melee. So this may be a case of posters applying the Basic definition of enchanted creature to the spell in AD&D.

Wights are affected by silver weapons.

That is a bit of a change in the basic line.

In Moldvay B/X it says:

Protection from Evil Range: 0 (caster only)
Duration: 12 turns
This spell circles the cleric with a magic barrier. This barrier will move with the caster. The spell serves as some protection from "evil" attacks (attacks by monsters of some alignment other than the cleric's alignment) by adding 1 to the clerics' saving throws, and subtracting 1 from the "to hit" die roll of these opponents. The spell will also keep out hand-to-hand attacks from enchanted (summoned or created) monsters (such as living statues), but not missile fire attacks from these creatures (see COMBAT). The cleric may break this protection by attacking the monster in hand-to-hand combat, but still gains the bonus "to hit" and saves.

Which is different from the BECMI and RC enchanted creature definition. From RC:

"In addition, enchanted creatures cannot even touch the cleric! (An enchanted creature is one that normal weapons will not affect, one which only magical weapons can hit. A creature that can only be hit by a silver weapon—a werewolf, for example—is not an enchanted creature. Any creature that is magically summoned or controlled, such as a charmed character, is also considered to be an enchanted creature.)"

So in B/X animate dead created skeletons and zombies would be hedged out, but not wraiths or such while in BECMI and RC it was the reverse.

That is a distinct change!

But, I do believe you're more or less making my point for me. All these truly fearsome monsters are fearsome because they bypass the combat rules - all save or die, or just die.

I think that's what I was trying to say before - in combat, after about 4th level, it wasn't all that common to whack a PC. By stuff that did an end run around the combat rules? Oooh baby. Lots of dead PC's. OTOH, I look at 3e, where monsters, as a rule of thumb, do about 10xCR damage as a max per round. Sure, they aren't going to do it often - that is max damage after all. But, the problem isn't that they have to do it often, it's that if they do it once, a PC dies.

Eh. At 4th level an average M-U has 10 HP. A Fighter about 22. Even with a 15 Con and a DM giving you max HP at first level, the Fighter only has about 30, and most PCs will be in the teens or twenties for HP. A fight with a dozen orcs or a few ogres can still be a real threat of PC death at that level, at least if you don't have a Sleep spell or two lined up to cut down the odds.

Of course, if you're using max hp at 1st, AND AD&D more generous ability score generation COMBINED with point-swapping from Basic, PLUS you have large parties of PCs also using hirelings and henchmen and wardogs... yeah, all of those things will definitely reduce your danger! Unless you're in the wilderness and running into enormous warbands of orcs, and having your large numbers reduce your Evasion chances. Of course the other downside to huge groups is the xp split...

 

[Mannahnin]

Fortunately it is easy to make 5e and it’s variants deadly too

Possible, but not especially easy without changing major parts of the game or exercising some version of @Oofta 's infinite dragons.

Nah. Tweaking the death save rules, say, is a quickie adjustment to one subsystem. You can also make the game more deadly simply by using more numerous foes (to get on the good side of action economy) and/or having them hit PCs when they're down. No infinite dragons needed.

And there’s basically no way to do it without being seen as a killer DM.

Well, there's always that risk when taking a less-difficult game and cranking up the difficulty as opposed to taking a more difficult one and reducing the difficulty. There's a whole psychological phenomenon at work there.

OTOH, I don't think it's impossible. If your group is open to negotiation, you might have an easier time selling them on, say, 5E with fewer death saves than on just playing an older edition. The 5TD/B/X mashup I've been running for the past three years is kind of like this. It uses the core d20 mechanic and has an injury table at 0HP (with chance of death) rather than auto-death or death saves. It's a nice middle ground.

 

[Clint_L]

Fortunately it is easy to make 5e and it’s variants deadly too

I would say the main difference is that making 5e deadly takes effort on the part of the DM, while making AD&D non-deadly took effort on the part of the DM.

And I think that is how it should be - the game has decades behind it and I think the evidence is in that most players don't want their D&D to be that deadly, considering that the first thing almost everyone did with AD&D was turn the deadliness down ten notches. So it makes more design sense to start with a game that is relatively safe and let the minority who want a deadly game turn it up ten notches instead.

 

[Oofta]

Possible, but not especially easy without changing major parts of the game or exercising some version of @Oofta 's infinite dragons.

I just listed several monsters with CR as low as 1/2 that can kill PCs fairly easily. Throw a bunch of shadows (CR 1/2) at the group. In a lot of groups the highest strength is 8, you can kill every PC with a couple of hits if the monster rolls high on their strength drain. They can hide in dim light or darkness as a bonus action so in many cases they can attack with advantage followed by hiding. Rinse and repeat.

At higher levels there's plenty of options like beholders or purple worms. Have a purple worm swallow someone and then go underground. The only PC that can affect the worm is the swallowed PC, many characters can't do the 30 points of damage in a single round to force a con save for the worm to get out. Even if the PC does get out, if the worm has burrowed away the PC is now in a tunnel with a purple worm in a solo fight. Good luck.

The only reason I haven't killed multiple PCs in my current group is because the players don't want a deadly campaign. Even then, it's come close and I came within a round or two of permanently killing a couple of 19th level PCs because their saving throws were only average.

If you run monsters intelligently with the goal of killing off PCs it's not that hard with no changes to the rules.

 

[Clint_L]

The only reason I haven't killed multiple PCs in my current group is because the players don't want a deadly campaign.

I think this is another big difference between then and now. The compact between players and DM is more explicit now, and issues of consent and pre-establishing what kind of game everyone wants is more likely to be handled up front at a session 0. There are many campaigns where player character death is basically off the table, by mutual agreement.

 

[Oofta]

I think this is another big difference between then and now. The compact between players and DM is more explicit now, and issues of consent and pre-establishing what kind of game everyone wants is more likely to be handled up front at a session 0. There are many campaigns where player character death is basically off the table, by mutual agreement.

It's not going to be completely off the table when I DM, but the odds are low. Personally I prefer a low risk of death and always have. But if the group wanted to run a deadlier campaign I could easily do it while still adhering to general encounter guidelines and with no changes to the rules.

I don't change encounters once initiative is rolled and while I use a slightly modified CR calculator I typically don't run deadly encounters. But even with having enemies use less-than-optimal tactics because of their intelligence and wisdom scores I've had close calls.

Level of risk of death is definitely something that should be discussed with the group no matter what edition you're using.

 

[Clint_L]

Level of risk of death is definitely something that should be discussed with the group no matter what edition you're using.

I agree, but I think that this is a fairly modern approach to TTRPGs. Not that it didn't happen with some groups back in the day, but I think we've now had decades more thought put into social contracts and gaming.

I am also of the "let the dice fall where they may" school of DMing, so once combat begins, there's no hiding behind the DM screen. But this is through agreement with my players.