What is the essence of D&D

[Garthanos]

On forums, gritty yes but fantasy Vietnam is more like Tomb of Horrors.

Things like that were the exception not the rule.

We played some old adventures 2012-14 most are fairly easy. You always had that element is risk though due to blowing a save.

Poppy poo you had earn your way through death after death.... the gygaxian school of thought was pretty well expressed.

In fact if you didn't want all that easy death and save or dies at the drop of a hat your DM was fighting against a system geared for anti heroic fear danger avoidance was explicitly encouraged. Go ahead and tell me I am wrong and we will quote your methods being exactly what you deride.

Because experiences even factually utterly wrong must be swallowed

 

[Zardnaar]

Heh, but, then we run into actual play.

No DM is ever going to simply hand out 8 +1 swords. At some point, that +2 sword is going to slip in. Then a +3. Then a Sword of Sharpness or whatever.

And, to the surprise of no one, these will all follow the level of the characters pretty closely. So, that module for 8th level characters will feature lots of magic items that are more powerful than a module for a 2nd level party. The change in 3e was that the rules allowed the players to be specific about what they added to their character. But, in terms of actual power? Naw, AD&D gave TONS of magical power to the party in terms of magic items.

Again ,you have to realize the sheer number of items we're talking about. A 7th level 3e party might have what, 2-4 items per PC. Somewhere close to that anyway, not counting potions of healing anyway. That 7th level AD&D party, particularly if they played modules, would have 3-4 TIMES more items. Three or four magic weapons, and half a dozen items wasn't out of line. Even the pregen AD&D PC's, which were woefully underequiped, still generally had half a dozen items.

Yeah but having a large pile of magic items isn't a big deal.

Hell you had +3 swords of special ability in level 6 modules.

The problem is when you marry that ability to feats and modern class design. You don't know how it's going to turn out.

Say you give a Paladin a holy avenger level 6 to 8 pre 3E.

You know what that weapon is going to do. The Paladin is going to be happy with that blade for the rest of their career.

 

[Zardnaar]

Poppy poo you had earn your way through death after death.... the gygaxian school of thought was pretty well expressed.

In fact if you didn't want all that easy death and save or dies at the drop of a hat your DM was fighting against a system geared for anti heroic fear danger avoidance was explicitly encouraged. Go ahead and tell me I am wrong and we will quote your methods being exactly what you deride

We played the actual adventures. T1 Village of Hommlet, B2,3,4,5, X1,8, some AD&D Dungeon adventures, 1st part of Night Below.

Even played the Tomb of Horrors, PCs gave up on that one.

We played B/X, 2E and some clones.

 

[Campbell]

I do not get what this argument is about. I will reiterate the point that generally speaking abundance of magic items favors the character who do not cast spells. The less magic items in play the greater the comparative power of wizard.

 

[Zardnaar]

I do not get what this argument is about. I will reiterate the point that generally speaking abundance of magic items favors the character who do not cast spells. The less magic items in play the greater the comparative power of wizard.

This we didn't use a single magic items table. Just published adventures.

Fighters had a relative abundance of magic items. My reliable fighter player was "my fighter rocks" and he's played 3E,4E and 5E.

The clones a lot if them get the essence of D&D we used ACKs, C&C, Basic Fantasy.

I paid attention when Mearls said try older D&D. We like it so much we ditched modern D&D for 3 years. And I didn't have grognard players, had to use 3E ones.

 

[Garthanos]

You know what that weapon is going to do. The Paladin is going to be happy with that blade for the rest of their career.

Guess what wish lists are for making the players happy and heirloom weapons and the inherent bonus systems in 4e... no need for out levelled items either

 

[Tony Vargas]

I do not get what this argument is about. I will reiterate the point that generally speaking abundance of magic items favors the character who do not cast spells. The less magic items in play the greater the comparative power of wizard.

Well, my bit of it is about the Primacy of Magic as the unique Essentially D&D element missing from 4e.

And that ties into the fact that magic item abundance tends to favor classes who lack magical abilities, themselves, in the sense that the fact supports the supposition. In authentically-D&D D&D, classes with magic are superior to those without, but that disparity is equalized by sufficiently available, class-specific, and powerful magic items.

In contrast, 4e, lacking the Primacy of Magic, could do without magic items by flipping on inherent bonuses, and the mundane (martial source) characters would still be reasonably balanced with the supernatural (Arcane, Divine, etc) ones.

It was really good at heroic fantasy. With strong scene framing and good handle on skill challenges it could be used to play out some really epic fantasy. This really plays out well with the thematic material attached to Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies. It was horrible at dungeon crawling and conflict neutral play. Unfortunately they decided to make almost all the official adventures dungeon crawls.

Conflict-neutral play?

Dungeons weren't automatically horrible, it was the 'Crawling' that was just tedious* compared to the other modes of play you mentioned - unless you abstracted the crawling into a Skill Challenge, then it was fine. I figured that out early - but converting Temple of the Frog really drove it home. Trying to have players map that thing was a nightmare, having them make a series of decisions and checks to explore the area and string together the otherwise random combats, though, worked nicely.

It was really good at being what it was.

So, an Epic Heroic Fantasy RPG?

It was really bad at being Dungeons and Dragons.

Heh.

Heh, but, then we run into actual play.
No DM is ever going to simply hand out 8 +1 swords. At some point, that +2 sword is going to slip in. Then a +3. Then a Sword of Sharpness or whatever.

Well, and if you do end up with 8 +1 swords you can pretty quickly recruit 8 surprisingly loyal low-level-fighter henchmen, and carve up some magic-weapon-to-hit monsters. Oh, some of the henchs'll die, but the swords'll still be there...

The change in 3e was that the rules allowed the players to be specific about what they added to their character. But, in terms of actual power? Naw, AD&D gave TONS of magical power to the party in terms of magic items.

True. 3e actually slightly reigned in magic items, slightly. They became less arbitrary and more consistent with the power of spells. Still hugely powerful, vitally important, could be quite character-defining, but didn't quite rise(?) to the level of character-overriding they could in the TSR era.










* it's not like a dungeon crawl being tedious is doin' it wrong or anything, it's just contrasted with other, non-tedious adventures, they kinda stood out.

 

[Campbell]

Basically what I mean by conflict neutral play is that a 4e DM should not be a dispassionate referee. They should be actively framing conflicts.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Basically what I mean by conflict neutral play is that a 4e DM should not be a dispassionate referee. They should be actively framing conflicts.

Ah. DM as old-school-wargaming Judge.

 

[Garthanos]

I do not get what this argument is about. I will reiterate the point that generally speaking abundance of magic items favors the character who do not cast spells. The less magic items in play the greater the comparative power of wizard.

Ever see a Wizard with armor better than the fighter and immune to arrow fire whenever it counted oh I did in 1e it was out of the box magic items too. I am not sure it really really does. Unless items are "designed" that way instead of slap dashed together like they always seemed.