Was AD&D1 designed for game balance?

[Raven Crowking]

Still think the proper way to say that is "finding the right WAY to balance your game is important." There might be multiple ways to skin a cat, but you're still skinning a cat. mmmm skinned cat.

(Shrug)

Close enough for government work.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Fair enough. We'll agree to disagree then.

Of course.

relying on the skill and mutual understanding of the players can be hazardous at best, particularly if you are introducing new players.

90% of the fun of the game comes directly from this hazard IMHO and IME.

And that was equally true (perhaps more true!) before I was an experienced and skilled DM.

YMMV.


RC

 

[Gimby]

The difference is, the average 4e monster that the party fights is almost unhittable by the 1st level fighter, and he will consistently take enough damage to take him out in a shot or three.

The 1e guy is going up against tougher monsters, but their damage is usually something like 1d6 or 1d8, and they prolly have about AC 5 or 3- tough, but not unhittable.

See, thats not true either.

Our first level fighter will be hitting a level 7 monster on something between an 11 and a 15 depending on role (AC = level + 12-16 vs +8 attack bonus), or pretty much exactly what you'd need to hit those 1e ACs (AC 5-3 vs THAC0 18 = 13-15). Its true that he'd be taking two-three hits to knock out (average normal medium damage expression 12 points of damage, so around 3 hits depending on luck), but our 1e fighter is *also* taking one-three hits to knock out (average on d6 = 3.5, so around three hits dependant on luck).

I'm not seeing the massive difference here.

 

[Gimby]

90% of the fun of the game comes directly from this hazard IMHO and IME.

And that was equally true (perhaps more true!) before I was an experienced and skilled DM.

YMMV.


RC

I'll certainly agree that 90% of emotional response to the game comes from those hazards

 

[ExploderWizard]

The difference is, the average 4e monster that the party fights is almost unhittable by the 1st level fighter, and he will consistently take enough damage to take him out in a shot or three.

The 1e guy is going up against tougher monsters, but their damage is usually something like 1d6 or 1d8, and they prolly have about AC 5 or 3- tough, but not unhittable.

Ninja'd but basically this.

Using your given THACO numbers and monsters with AC's ranging from 5 to 2 the 1st level guy will hit on around a 13 to 17. The 7th level guy (THACO 12) will hit with a 7 to 11.

The damage output per hit scored will be very close depending on weaponry and strength scores. The 7th level fighter will certainly be more effective than the 1st level guy as he should be. Defenses don't scale closely with level so an experienced fighter actually hits way more often.(What a concept )

The 4E fighter gets to feel like a noob his whole career. When facing level appropriate challenges he is hitting around 45-55% of the time from levels 1-30.

 

[keterys]

You guys are stating an awful lot of subjective opinions as facts. Facts that can be casually disproven, but not in a way that will satisfy the original poster because they're going after something more ephemeral that is bothering them.

So, you might be a lot better dropping any edition war-y type guises and moving on proactively with things you like, rather than things you dislike about another edition (whichever edition that is) that another can casually prove wrong. Whether that's "3e was broken from the get go" or "1e can't support this" or "4e can't support this". It's all shennanigans from what I can see so far.

 

[Ariosto]

Getting back to Gimby's point: There's a simple solution to restore game balance.

Give each player a magic-user. Done and done.

The only reason one would need to make all characters equally powerful would be if one were limiting each player to but one character.

 

[Ariosto]

There is a difference between a supplement and a house rule.

One is mass marketed and is often used in games beyond your table, the second resides pretty much soley at your table.

Yep.

However, that has absolutely nothing at all to do with what Hussar was claiming.

Which was precisely my point.

 

[keterys]

I'm surprised how many people don't think they were trying for balance. Different xp charts by class, classes that start crappy and get better, nonhumans that get more bonuses but have level caps, etc all look like signs of balance.

I mean, it's certainly not the same standard of balance that some systems are held to, but it doesn't mean that some attempt wasn't made.

 

[Chainsaw]

I'm surprised how many people don't think they were trying for balance. Different xp charts by class, classes that start crappy and get better, nonhumans that get more bonuses but have level caps, etc all look like signs of balance.

I mean, it's certainly not the same standard of balance that some systems are held to, but it doesn't mean that some attempt wasn't made.

It's still not even clear to me that everyone actually means the same thing when they talk about balance, heh.