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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7701687" data-attributes="member: 42582">AD&D DMG (author: Gary Gygax; date: 1979), p 82.Here is the text:When any creature is brought to 0 hit poinis (optionally as low as -3 hit points if from the same blow which brought the total to 0), it is unconscious. In each of the next succeeding rounds 1 additional (negative) point will be lost until -10 is reached and the creature dies. Such loss and death are caused from bleeding, shock, convulsions, non-respiration, and similar causes. It ceases immediately on any round a friendly creature administers aid to the unconscious one. Aid consists of binding wounds, starting respiration, administering a draught (spirits, healing potion, etc.), or otherwise doing whatever is necessary to restore life. Any character brought to 0 (or fewer) hit points and then revived will remain in a corna far 1-6 turns. Thereafter, he or she must rest for a full week, minimum. He or she will be incapable of any activity other than that necessary to move slowly to a place of rest and eat and sleep when there. The character cannot attack, defend, cast spells, use magic devices, carry burdens, run, study, research, or do anything else. This is true even if cure spells and/or healing potions are given to him or her, although if a heal spell is bestowed the prohibition no longer applies. If any creature reaches a state of -6 or greater negative paints before being revived, this could indicate scarring or the loss of some member, if you so choose. For example, a character struck by a fireball and then treated when at -9 might have horrible scar tissue on exposed areas of flesh - hands, arms, neck, face.Rereading it does require one correction to my earlier post, though (and I'll flag this to  [MENTION=6787650]Hemlock[/MENTION] too): the ogre can kill if it drops you below 0/-3 in a single blow, so it is dangerous to 1 hp PCs, though still not as dangerous as the 5e one (assuming use of the -3 option, a hit from the ogre when on 1 hp has a 40% chance not to kill).I'm not sure what you've read. Maybe Basic, or the original books. But I'm assuming not Gygax's DMG.I am not saying that AD&D is especially forgiving to players - it is full of save-or-die, for instance. My point is that it is forgiving to GMs from the point of view of encounter building. Because monster damage does not scale significantly, and because monster AC does not scale significantly, it does not matter a great deal whether you run 2nd or 4th level PCs through your dungeon. (1st levels are especially vulnerable because of their low hp, but even a group of 1st level PCs has a good chance vs an ogre without suffering a death, unlike in 5e.)As long as the players take steps ("combat as war") to engage the bugbears, or ogres, or whatever they are piecemeal rather than en masse, their prospects of being killed are modest. (Because of the relatively low and static monster damage.)Hence the game doesn't need encounter building guidelines. (Beyond "don't put the really tough stuff on the 1st level".) What it does need is rules and guidelines for allowing players to control the pacing - which it does have, via the wandering monster vs placed monster rules, the approach to adventure planning and mapping and the like set out by Gygax in his PHB, the rules for fleeing and distracting/disabling pursuit, etc. With these rules in place, players of low level PCs can tackle a given dungeon at their pace, and players of mid level PCs can tackle the same dungeon at a more rapid or careless pace, and the GM doesn't need to worry that the encounters will be too tough.If you depart from these methods - eg all monsters pursue, or fight to the death, or the GM shifts placed monsters willy-nilly so scouting and mapping cease to be reliable sources of information about the dungeon - then the players can't control the pacing, and hence low-level PCs will be creamed by bugbears or ogres en masse, and then the game won't be forgiving in the way I was referring to. 2nd ed AD&D took the game in this direction, but instead of encounter building guidelines it recommended that GMs fudge dice rolls to avoid TPKs and the like.In AD&D monsters have a listed attack rate. For most monsters it is 1, perhaps 2. An odd side-effect of this is that many animals/beasts - which are frequently statted with claw/claw/bite attacks or some similar multiple attack routine - are very dangerous compared to humanoids: eg in 5e a lion is quite a bit less dangerous than an ogre (26 hp and +5 to hit for 7 damage, with 1 better AC at 12 rather than 11), whereas in AD&D not only does it have more hp (5+2 HD, rather than 4+1) but it does effectively double damage (claw/claw/bite for d4/d4/d10, plus two bonus attacks if both claws hit for d6+1/d6+1; compared to the ogre's single attack for d10).</blockquote>

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