Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
OSR Gripes
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7633338" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Ok, that gives me a frame of reference. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Leaving aside passive hazards like yellow mold, which we were rightly paranoid about and used all sorts of techniques to avoid exposure... these happened all the time in your games? Because I can give a rant about how badly designed Bodaks are as monsters. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Possibly. Mostly I'm really interested in the kinds of challenges you faced.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Leveled up henchmen and other NPC associates were a convenient source of PC's should you unfortunately lose a main, and were often converted to PC's once your main got to the point you had invested so much you were sacred to risk them. This gradually developed an aesthetic of a living world we didn't have at first, when if a character died well you just rolled up a replacement and introduced him the next session as "Bob, Jr." or "Bob's younger brother" or whatever.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>What I noticed was an experience of fun decay where if you had a good character or if another player had a good character, then playing a substandard character - one that would never be capable like your good character - was increasingly less satisfying. When we were kids and first starting out, playing anything seemed pretty cool. We didn't question the rules much. It was how it was. If you had a bad character, well that was just the luck. Maybe you'd get lucky next time. However waiting for next time tends to become a bit of a drag.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>+1 hit points for a M-U is like a 40% boost in h.p. +2 hit points is an 80%. The difference between 2 hit points and 3 hit points at 1st level isn't much - you are still in that 1d4 can kill you range. But the difference between 25 and 35 hit points at 3rd level is enormous. There is a 'squish point' defined by the average damage you'd expect to take if attacked by a monster you were likely to encounter that M-U's had a hard time getting beyond, which is one of the many reasons in 1e AD&D M-U's were never as godly as they were in 3e (when they got the same CON bonuses as a fighter and so had proportionately closer hit points). It's a lot easier to get beyond that squish point with 35 hit points than it is with 25. If you could get past that 1 round squish point, then by a combination of your own and party actions you were hard as a M-U to kill. So +1 or +2 turns out to be a very big deal in the long run. If you didn't have it, you were always going to be squishy.</p><p></p><p>The same sort of thing turns out to be true about DEX, though counter-intuitively not as much for the M-U as for other classes. You can't think about AD&D play like 3e play. In 3e play monsters have explicit strength scores and large bonuses to hit which means most things you'll encounter have chances to hit which are at least in the middle of the fortune range. So in 3e, a +1 to hit might mean you take ~5% less damage - 1 chance in 20 fails to hit you now. It's not a big deal. But in AD&D play, most things you encounter do not have explicit bonuses to hit. So it's relatively easy to bump your AC up into a range where the only hits you suffer are on the high end of the fortune range. And on the high end of the fortune range, that one extra bonus to AC becomes enormous. Instead of taking like 5% less damage, you are taking 25% or 33% or 50% less damage. Once you had the treasure to 'suit up' in plate mail (or later full plate), any character that could now was forcing those high ends of the range. And then at that point every AC bonus was gold, and every DEX bonus made you that much more survivable. </p><p></p><p>The reason it didn't matter as much for the M-U is that AC 9 versus AC 10 isn't as big of a deal as AC -1 versus AC 0. Again, middle of the fortune range or less plays very differently than top of the fortune range.</p><p></p><p>The same sort of thing is true about those system shock survival checks. Yes, it does matter that they are getting slowly better well before the top of the table. But a 99% SSS check isn't 1% better than 98%, but twice as good as 98% (1 in 50 chance) and 15 times as good as 85% (roughly 1 in 6 chance).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>We've been using point buy. I've had a few people go with stat arrays like 18, 18, 8, 8, 8, 8 but its much more typical to take a lot of 14's and such because there is a lot more MAD.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7633338, member: 4937"] Ok, that gives me a frame of reference. Leaving aside passive hazards like yellow mold, which we were rightly paranoid about and used all sorts of techniques to avoid exposure... these happened all the time in your games? Because I can give a rant about how badly designed Bodaks are as monsters. Possibly. Mostly I'm really interested in the kinds of challenges you faced. Leveled up henchmen and other NPC associates were a convenient source of PC's should you unfortunately lose a main, and were often converted to PC's once your main got to the point you had invested so much you were sacred to risk them. This gradually developed an aesthetic of a living world we didn't have at first, when if a character died well you just rolled up a replacement and introduced him the next session as "Bob, Jr." or "Bob's younger brother" or whatever. What I noticed was an experience of fun decay where if you had a good character or if another player had a good character, then playing a substandard character - one that would never be capable like your good character - was increasingly less satisfying. When we were kids and first starting out, playing anything seemed pretty cool. We didn't question the rules much. It was how it was. If you had a bad character, well that was just the luck. Maybe you'd get lucky next time. However waiting for next time tends to become a bit of a drag. +1 hit points for a M-U is like a 40% boost in h.p. +2 hit points is an 80%. The difference between 2 hit points and 3 hit points at 1st level isn't much - you are still in that 1d4 can kill you range. But the difference between 25 and 35 hit points at 3rd level is enormous. There is a 'squish point' defined by the average damage you'd expect to take if attacked by a monster you were likely to encounter that M-U's had a hard time getting beyond, which is one of the many reasons in 1e AD&D M-U's were never as godly as they were in 3e (when they got the same CON bonuses as a fighter and so had proportionately closer hit points). It's a lot easier to get beyond that squish point with 35 hit points than it is with 25. If you could get past that 1 round squish point, then by a combination of your own and party actions you were hard as a M-U to kill. So +1 or +2 turns out to be a very big deal in the long run. If you didn't have it, you were always going to be squishy. The same sort of thing turns out to be true about DEX, though counter-intuitively not as much for the M-U as for other classes. You can't think about AD&D play like 3e play. In 3e play monsters have explicit strength scores and large bonuses to hit which means most things you'll encounter have chances to hit which are at least in the middle of the fortune range. So in 3e, a +1 to hit might mean you take ~5% less damage - 1 chance in 20 fails to hit you now. It's not a big deal. But in AD&D play, most things you encounter do not have explicit bonuses to hit. So it's relatively easy to bump your AC up into a range where the only hits you suffer are on the high end of the fortune range. And on the high end of the fortune range, that one extra bonus to AC becomes enormous. Instead of taking like 5% less damage, you are taking 25% or 33% or 50% less damage. Once you had the treasure to 'suit up' in plate mail (or later full plate), any character that could now was forcing those high ends of the range. And then at that point every AC bonus was gold, and every DEX bonus made you that much more survivable. The reason it didn't matter as much for the M-U is that AC 9 versus AC 10 isn't as big of a deal as AC -1 versus AC 0. Again, middle of the fortune range or less plays very differently than top of the fortune range. The same sort of thing is true about those system shock survival checks. Yes, it does matter that they are getting slowly better well before the top of the table. But a 99% SSS check isn't 1% better than 98%, but twice as good as 98% (1 in 50 chance) and 15 times as good as 85% (roughly 1 in 6 chance). We've been using point buy. I've had a few people go with stat arrays like 18, 18, 8, 8, 8, 8 but its much more typical to take a lot of 14's and such because there is a lot more MAD. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
OSR Gripes
Top