When the system gets in the way

[RFisher]

Of course, D&D has always assumed that the characters understand tactics better than the players. That is why fighters, say, have such an easier time hitting things than wizards. They know when to strike, and where. It is also why they have so many more hit points -- they know how to minimize blows against them. In AD&D 1e, tactics were treated rather like social skills are in 3e -- just because you don't understand them doesn't mean that your character doesn't.

FWIW, that's what I meant by "subtactical". The actual skill of fighting itself--knowing when & where to strike, parry, feint, use a secondary attack mode, &c., &c. That's not really tactics.

 

[The Shaman]

Absolutely true. However, like Buzz, I never saw it.

Reading is FUN-damental!

...which meant that opponents NEVER ran away.

They did if you used the morale rules, or if the dungeon master had some sense.

... only done by a thief who had surprise - never came up after the first round of combat.

Backstabbing is not limited to surprise attacks.

In other words, min/maxing for effect. Done at character creation time and never again.

Some of your objections sound a bit petty, Hussar. The ability score advantage stays with the character throughout the character's career, so what's the problem?

...which carried such huge penalties that it was rarely done.

The penalties in 1e are much lower than those in 3e, and virtually every thief character in our group fought with two weapons (usually sword and dagger, or two daggers), as did my fighter (spiked buckler and short sword) and ranger (two hand axes) characters.

Didn't know it could be done since the only movement that ever happened was rushing forward to engage the enemy and encounter distances are almost 60 feet or less unless you are outdoors, rarely made any difference.

It sounds like the problem for you wasn't the rules, Hussar, but rather playing with a selection of crummy dungeon masters. You never fought anywhere but in ten-foot wide corridors or something?

...in all your years of gaming, have you EVER seen a PC do this? Any time I tried, the bad guys never charged.

Again, crummy dungeon master, not a problem with the rules.

You could only subdue dragons as far as I knew...

You could subdue creatures of humanoid size and type as well.

...and the grappling rules were so arcane that they might as well have not been there.

Huh? You roll for an attack, roll for a hold, and then the opponent rolls to counter.

...since monsters used claws, they were almost always faster than any weapon

But not every opponent is a monster with claws, at least in most games. You never encountered bandits or orcs or the evil duke's personal guards?

Yeah, like any wizard ever memorized anything other than sleep, fireball and magic missile?

Oh, please. :\

They might have been there, but, they were either buried under 15 pounds of crap, or they were entirely ignored.

Hussar, the fact that you personally never used the many different combat options and advantages that existed in 1e AD&D doesn't mean that no one did. Your claim that there are no such options simply doesn't hold up.

 

[The Shaman]

As a DM, I certainly made much use out of the tactical information available in 1E -- I'm rather surprised that no one mentioned bonuses for cover and concealment. My players certainly knew that, by picking the ground upon which you fought, you could defeat far more powerful creatures than otherwise.

Consider the humble giant slug. Because 1e had facing and absolute sizes over "squares", that slug could devastate you if you were in front of it....but if you came up behind it in a tunnel? If you could lure it to a place of your choosing? You could kill it with much less chance of it doing anything in return.

Absolutely - great fun being the guy to lure the purple worm down the cave passage so the others can attack its flanks and rear!

 

[Hussar]

(O_O)

I give up.

What advantages did movement give you in 1e? Flanking, possibly, if two people moved, but, if you moved away, you got attacked.

TheShaman - sure, maybe those tactics were there. I played mostly modules, so, blame those guys for poor adventures. Yup, 10 foot wide corridors and 99% dungeon crawls. Check.

Then again, I was what, 12? Fair enough.

Really, to be honest, I shouldn't hack on 1e. It's been well over a decade since I even cracked the covers on any 1e book, so, I'm running from very early memories. The tactics may have been there, but, like many, the game I played resembled Ad&d in name only. :/

But, one thing I do remember pretty clearly was the thief could only backstab on surprise.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yeah, like any wizard ever memorized anything other than sleep, fireball and magic missile?

In 28 years of play, I've never run a PC with Magic Missile or Sleep, and I prefer Lightning Bolt to Fireball.

1Ed PHB, p.27
Back stabbing is the striking of a blow from behind, be it with club, dagger, or sword...Note that striking by surprise from behind also increases the hit probability by 20%...

Not from flanking in 1Ed- from behind only!

 

[Hussar]

Well, I stand corrected. It has been way too long. Does it actually say 20%, not +4? No wonder my poor brain had trouble.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It says "...20% (+4 on the thief's 'to hit' die roll)."

Sorry...I didn't think the +4 parenthetical was important.

 

[The Shaman]

What advantages did movement give you in 1e? Flanking, possibly, if two people moved, but, if you moved away, you got attacked.

Like 3e attacks of opportunity - or do you houserule those out like a number of other gamers? (Are AoOs the least popular rule in 3e?)

Hussar, the advantages of moving come from spreading the enemy, moving into position to make a ranged attack without putting a friend at risk, bypassing a defender to get to a spellcaster, or a dozen other reasons. When everyone else in the combat is moving at 6" or 9", a 12" movement rate can be a real bonus. This isn't something that is represented by plusses or minuses on a character sheet - it's real tactics, for which mechanical bonuses become the reward.

Having played Napoleonics minis before D&D, this stuff was second-nature, the equivalent of positioning the line of cavalry charge so that the squadron would only contact one rank of the enemy's infantry in order to fold his flank and remain screened from the supporting artillery batteries. There isn't a number for that, but that's how you win tabletop battles.

TheShaman - sure, maybe those tactics were there. I played mostly modules, so, blame those guys for poor adventures. Yup, 10 foot wide corridors and 99% dungeon crawls. Check.

I owned those modules, too - does the great hall of the hill giant king's steading ring any bells? Or Blibdoolpoolp's shrine?

Then again, I was what, 12? Fair enough.

Well, I was 14 when the DMG was released, so I guess that's the difference.

Really, to be honest, I shouldn't hack on 1e. It's been well over a decade since I even cracked the covers on any 1e book, so, I'm running from very early memories. The tactics may have been there, but, like many, the game I played resembled Ad&d in name only. :/

Seems to be a lot of that around here.

But, one thing I do remember pretty clearly was the thief could only backstab on surprise.

The PHB makes no mention of surprise as a requirement, except to say that the thief gets a +4 to a rear attack with surprise, instead of the normal +2. The DMG says that the target cannot be "aware" of the thief, but again does not limit backstab to attacks with surprise.

 

[helium3]

In short, I've found that the d6 game doesn't really change how the game goes down, in theory. But in reality, it's changed the way that the players think of their characters, and frees them from "do the rules allow that" thinking that has been hindering us for a while. I think I'm going to miss d20, because I like playing in it, but I don't think I'm going to GM it for a long while yet. Tomorrow, I'm buying d6 Fantasy and I'm going to loosely convert a lot of D&D material to d6. I'm a total convert.

Do you think maybe it's not so much that the mechanics have changed game play, but that the act of using a new system results in this sort of behavior?

 

[Wik]

Do you think maybe it's not so much that the mechanics have changed game play, but that the act of using a new system results in this sort of behavior?

I've been thinking about just that, and I'm going to have to say "no". We've changed systems before (albeit from D&D to d20 Modern to d20 Call of Cthulu, mostly), and there hasn't been a real change in how the game is played. Sure, in my d20 Apoc homebrew, there was a change in how PCs acted once they discovered how things like autofire worked and what not, but their general attitudes hadn't changed. This also happened the few times we ran shadowrun, another fairly rules-heavy system. The PCs changed a bit in what it was they were DOING, but in terms of the role-playing experience, nothing too serious changed.