Mearls on Balance in D&D

[Aaron L]

There's a certain platonic something about this argument that I find most, well, platonic.

Indeed.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

So instead of fighting, you'd rather sneak around (Hide and Move Silently) and gather information (Gather Information, Bluff, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Intimidate, Disguise)... so as to avoid rolling dice?

It's not quite what T. Foster was saying, but that's one of the reasons that players of rogues LOVE Skill Mastery. Reducing the element of chance and making skill play a larger role in your odds of success.

 

[RedFox]

It's not quite what T. Foster was saying, but that's one of the reasons that players of rogues LOVE Skill Mastery. Reducing the element of chance and making skill play a larger role in your odds of success.

Oh man, I love having Skill Mastery for Tumble.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Sneaking around? Other than the thief, no one could.

And if you allowed it, you weren't playing AD&D any more!

-Hyp.

 

[Plane Sailing]

you prefer quantified skills and die rolls, just like in combat, where I prefer a more freeform player-centric approach. My approach is currently unfashionable, and isn't supported at all by the current edition of the game, but it was the default for many years, including those years in which the game was at the height of its mass popularity.

To forstall other people just dumping on T.F., I must point out that he is quite correct in that there was a huge amount in the early editions of D&D where the player just said what he was doing and that was it (I hide in the shadows/poke the hole with my stick/dress up as a young giant) - and it worked fine for a game.

One of the most annoying offences I see coming up in 3e games is where someone says "I search inside the bedposts for a secret scroll case" and the DM says "roll your search check. 12? You don't find anything". In other words, there is no allowance given at all for role-playing through a situation and everything HAS to be reduced to rolls. (It is closely related to the problem where someone walking along a rainy street says he wants to avoid stepping in puddles so the DM makes him roll... while if he hadn't mentioned it, nothing would have happened!) Does this mean that I think having skills for various things is an abomination? Far from it! But it does illustrate how skill rolls can 'go bad'.

It is very difficult to get much of an objective view of what it was like playing D&D in 1e prior to the existence of the wilderness survival guide and underworld survival guide (which is where nonweapon proficiencies were introduced, IIRC) because there was probably much less contact with other players than there are in these internet forum days.

I know that my subjective experience of 2-3 gaming groups from those days is much like T.F.'s; It would be interesting to hear from anyone who was part of the US convention circuit in the late 70's as they presumably had access to a wide range of gamers, even if convention games might be considered a little atypical of home games (I don't know enough to comment further there).

 

[Plane Sailing]

Well, you just can't have your cake and eat it. In the years when the game was at the height of its popularity, the most popular columns in magazines like Dragon and White Dwarf were those that featured new monsters. Your claim that your preferred style of play was the default doesn't stand up to a nanosecond of scrutiny. Similarly baseless is your contention that this style of play "is not supported at all by the current edition". On the contrary, it is supported far more now than it was in previous editions. Now everyone can climb a wall, to avoid combat, not just the thief.

Ranes, I think you are misunderstanding his assertion. If you wish to consider the discussion I'd ask you to use somewhat less aggressive language though.

Thanks

 

[Ourph]

Sneaking around? Other than the thief, no one could.

Other than the Thief no one could Move Silently. Other than the Thief no one could Hide in Shadows. Everyone can move quietly, disguise themselves and hide behind a corner or a barrel if necessary.

An Orc doesn't have Move Silently, but he can still Surprise a PC and a PC may still need to make a Hear Noise roll (something that all PCs can also do, not just Thieves, per the AD&D RAW) to hear an Orc walking around on the other side of a door. Why? Because Orcs, just like PCs, have the ability to be stealthy despite the fact that they don't have a percentage chance listed for Move Silently or Hide in Shadows.

Disguising yourself as a young hill giant? That's pretty far outside the scope of the module and stretching believability an awful lot.

It's actually suggested as a possibility in the module with special rules included to cover what chance the giants have to see through the disguise. So it doesn't seem to be that much of a stretch now does it?

And, even if you do do all of this, you still have to go into the main hall and face all those hill giants.

No, as a matter of fact, you don't. The module makes clear that at some point, the party breaks up. Some of the giants go off on their own. Wait around long enough undetected and I suspect any good DM will realize that none of the giants are going to just sit in a single room for the rest of eternity.

You played this way, and fair enough, but, I think that you are very, very much in a minority position here.

Not IME. I find it absolutely stunning that any slightly experienced DM and group of players would treat this module as if all the rooms were static. The descriptions establish what is going on at the Steading at the time of the PCs arrival, not what every encounter area looks like in perpetuity. The text is full of non-combat options for moving around the Steading, gaining information, recruiting allies and "winning" without engaging in a full frontal assault.

I've played in (3) and run (2) the Steading a number of times and I've never seen a party simply waltz in and start blasting. I've seen the "burn it to the ground and mop up afterward" option used a couple of times. I've seen the "get on the roof and use spells to spy out what's below" tactic used. I've played in a game where the PCs combined the "dress up as young giants" tactic and the "recruit the orc slaves as allies" tactic successfully (a couple of Enlarge spells and the Halfling Thief sitting on the Elf Fighter/MU's shoulders took care of the size problem).

It's really unfortunate that so many people in this thread seem to have missed out on all the nuance and depth of this module (which is possibly the greatest module ever published for D&D IMO) when it can be incredibly thought-provoking and fun if used as it was intended. :\

 

[Brother MacLaren]

One of the most annoying offences I see coming up in 3e games is where someone says "I search inside the bedposts for a secret scroll case" and the DM says "roll your search check. 12? You don't find anything".

One of the most annoying things as a DM in earlier editions was that players would say "We turn the place upside-down, search everywhere." ALWAYS. Meaning "Just tell us what treasure there is, we don't care how cleverly hidden it is, we'll find it." But we were much younger then, perhaps did not have the patience for detailed descriptions of all the furniture in the room and detailed plans for how to investigate each element.

So, I prefer Search checks with fixed DCs. Players don't expect that they could possibly find absolutely everything no matter how well hidden.

 

[phindar]

Other than the Thief no one could Move Silently. Other than the Thief no one could Hide in Shadows. Everyone can move quietly, disguise themselves and hide behind a corner or a barrel if necessary.

Without rules, these things only worked if the GM let them. Same with Bluff and Disguise. The thing about heavy GM fiat is with a good GM it can be great, and with a poor GM it can be horrible. (Factor in that a majority of us were playing through these modules in high school, with GMs as new to the hobby as us, who thought the height of comedy was to get a bucket of poop on a character's head or to change their gender, and you can see why the infiltration of the giant's stronghold was not, let us say, an industry-wide phenomenon.)

 

[Reynard]

So, I prefer Search checks with fixed DCs. Players don't expect that they could possibly find absolutely everything no matter how well hidden.

Plus there are those whole take 10 and take 20 rules so you don't have to worry about ridiculous outcomes. If the DC is 12 and the searcher is at least a little competent or willing take his time, there's not problem.

That is probably my biggest pet peeve when it comes to people bagging on the idea that D&D 3.x requires rolls for everything: it flat out doesn't, hasn't since its inception, and builds systems into itself to take care of that problem right off the top. Many complainers, I think, should actually read their PHBs and DMGs and they'd be a whole lot happier.