Was AD&D1 designed for game balance?

[Votan]

I understand the 1/2e approach. I just don't think it works as well as the new approaches across a large number of styles. While the most common style of those that like 1/2e fits the every changing balance there a lots of styles that don't. Neither are better.

True. I admit that the 4E style works better when the focus is on character power (which seems to be a major element of modern role-playing). I like the 1/2E approach better for organic games as there tends to be more variety of characters and each has an effective niche. Variety doesn't work so well in the modern environment as trade-offs can easily lead to imbalances if one's play style is too focused on one extreme or the other.

So the best bet is to generally balance character and try to make the flavor different. For all of the things that I am ambivalent about 4E for, the ability to do these well (Ranger and Rogue -- both effective martial strikers with a completely different feel) really does count as brilliant design.

 

[Beginning of the End]

What if the player who drew the three was only subsequently allowed to draw from a deck without face cards? This gives the player who drew the Queen a significant advantage in future draws.

But that's not the case in AD&D: When I go to roll up the ability scores for a new character, the ability scores of my previous character have absolutely no impact on the ability scores of my new character.

This, of course, stops working at the point where the assumption becomes that each player will, in general, play only a single PC over the course of a lengthy campaign. In that scenario there is no second draw to balance the initial Q/3 disparity.

But, of course, that's not the paradigm AD&D was designed for.

This seems like a relatively simple point to grasp. What part of it aren't you understanding?

 

[Garthanos]

But, of course, that's not the paradigm AD&D was designed for.

I didnt like low investment characters "hey who cared if your pawn built in 10 minutes was killed. So no you didn't want to put a background on the character .. it would likely be a waste of time.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I didnt like low investment characters "hey who cared if your pawn built in 10 minutes was killed. So no you didn't want to put a background on the character .. it would likely be a waste of time.

Don't like it =/= don't grasp it.

Don't like 1e's balance =/= 1e was not balanced.

In my current campaign, more than one player has more than one active, living character, even when they can only use one at a time.


RC

 

[Garthanos]

Don't like it =/= don't grasp it.

Nothing tricky about war game heritage shining through creating disincentive to participate in the new element "roleplay".

 

[Garthanos]

Don't like 1e's balance =/= 1e was not balanced.

good point actually... the reason people say it wasn't balanced is the method used to balance created other things they didn't enjoy.

The natural response was hey... I will house rule this thing I don't enjoy. I saw DMs who allowed players free reign in picking initial spells... this removed the spell learning lottery balance factor.

 

[Fifth Element]

But that's not the case in AD&D: When I go to roll up the ability scores for a new character, the ability scores of my previous character have absolutely no impact on the ability scores of my new character.

You misinterpreted my post. The player drawing the Queen (rolling ability scores) has a significant advantage over the player drawing the three on future rolls, such as attack rolls or hit point rolls or what have you. An ability score roll has lasting effects over the life of a character.

 

[Garthanos]

You misinterpreted my post. The player drawing the Queen (rolling ability scores) has a significant advantage over the player drawing the three on future rolls, such as attack rolls or hit point rolls or what have you. An ability score roll has lasting effects over the life of a character.

Similar to somebody using high optimization on 3e (so I have heard)
or even to a much lesser extent on 4e character design process.

edit - kind of beside the point as those arent balanced by random
chance destruction of your fragile playing piece .. you can always
create a new uber=optimized character.

 

[billd91]

You misinterpreted my post. The player drawing the Queen (rolling ability scores) has a significant advantage over the player drawing the three on future rolls, such as attack rolls or hit point rolls or what have you. An ability score roll has lasting effects over the life of a character.

Sure, it can. But in a party that cooperates well together, you'll see magic going to compensate for weaknesses, not just to push at the knife's edge. That's one difference I've observed between parties that roll stats compared to buying them with points. The characters who aren't as lucky with rolls actually get sympathy and compensatory benefits to bring them up to par with the higher stats. I don't see that very often with point buy, in part, because you have to choose to put yourself into that position.

Look at it this way. Which character gets the gauntlets of ogre power in 1e - the fighter with a strength of 18/78 or the one with a strength of 16? Remember that in this edition, the gauntlets take the character's strength to 18/00 and don't simply add +2. The strongest case is for the latter to get it. Then the party will have two powerhouses rather than one.

 

[Beginning of the End]

I didnt like low investment characters "hey who cared if your pawn built in 10 minutes was killed. So no you didn't want to put a background on the character .. it would likely be a waste of time.

That's your personal issue. It has very little or nothing to do with AD&D.

You misinterpreted my post. The player drawing the Queen (rolling ability scores) has a significant advantage over the player drawing the three on future rolls, such as attack rolls or hit point rolls or what have you. An ability score roll has lasting effects over the life of a character.

Look, I could extend the simple analogy thusly: Instead of the winner being determined by the first draw, the game proceeds for 10 draws and whoever wins the most draws wins the game. While it is true that winning the first draw will make it more likely that you will win the game after that point (since you now have to win 5-out-of-9 while your opponent needs to win 6-out-of-9), this doesn't actually change the fact that the game is 100% perfectly balanced.

But that doesn't actually change my point or improve the analogy in any way. And I'm guessing you're still not getting it, right?