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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 5035401" data-attributes="member: 1210">I disagree completely. The damage a given weapon or spell should do ought to be based on a comparison to other weapons, spells and damaging effects, not on how long a fight is expected to last. I think the expected length of a combat is only an essential part of the design process if you're trying to have a system that pushes all combats towards the expected length, and while that is a laudable goal for some play styles, it doesn't match up with my preference for 1e (or really for FRPGs at all, but that's a different discussion completely). 1e took a very different approach to game balance. The balance of pcs was weighed against other pcs over the course of their (potential) careers. Later editions (well, 3e and 4e) include a significant effort to balance pc attack values at each level against monster defense numbers at that level, etc. You won't see a 10th level 4e monster with an AC of 15. Yet you might have a 1e monster that was level VIII (remember, monster levels went I through X) with AC 5. 1e instead looked at monsters against monsters, rather than monsters against pcs. A "level V" 1e monster might be level V because of its Hit Dice, but it might equally have less HD and better special abilities, more damage, a lower AC (read: better AC), etc. The methodology of balance is fundamentally different.EDIT: Because of this difference in balancing monsters, some have a glass jaw- one or two hits will kill them, but if they stick around they'll do tons of damage very quickly- and others of equal level might last a lot longer but be less capable of dishing out damage.</blockquote>

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