Cool shit the Fighter could do in old school D&D

[Frogman55]

I'm a little confused by the above line of posts.  Isn't the one thing that fighter-types can do well in 3E is damage? 

You might even be able to argue that there's been a kind of move to spellcasters, et al. being not primary damage dealers, at least not through magic alone, instead moving into control, buffing, save or die, and so on.  Leaving attack rolls, whether done by an ubercharger or a summon or a buffed up gish-type character, as the most attractive sources of damage. 

On that read, the extra hit points of 3E compared to earlier editions is a good thing for guys who swing swords.  It gives them a niche.  If you deal 100 damage and all enemies have 30 hp, then who cares?  If you deal 100 damage and enemies have comparable hp, then the difference between 100 damage and fireball's measly 10d6 starts to show.

The problem is when that 100 damage is just as ineffective as the 10d6 fireball. Keep in mind that a monster with full HP is just as dangerous as a monster with 1hp. If you can't one-shot a monster, then the monster still gets to attack you.

The only melee types who can one-shot enemies past level 6 or so tend to be heavily optimized, Hood builds and the like. And a raw fighter (which is what we're supposed to be talking about, iirc) just straight up lacks the options to up his damage. He gets a little bit of battlefield control from maneuvers, but those don't hold up over the long haul, either.

Which brings us back to wizards: they do have the chance to one-shot monsters and entire encounters. Sure, it's done via SoD effects and other various nasty debuffs instead of a fireball, but they still get the option. The fighter doesn't. All the fighter does is HP damage, and he isn't even all that great at it.

Keep in mind that anyone can coup de grace, and it's almost as effective with a dagger as it is with a greatsword. If the fighter's niche is to just cut the throat of things that the wizard has already incapacitated, well, that's a crappy niche.

[Unbeliever]

The problem is when that 100 damage is just as ineffective as the 10d6 fireball. Keep in mind that a monster with full HP is just as dangerous as a monster with 1hp. If you can't one-shot a monster, then the monster still gets to attack you.

And, you can't build a fighter-type (tangent, I have no idea if we're talking the class fighter or the archetype more generally at this point, it seemed like the latter) that can survive a single round or two of combat against an opponent?  Is that the ordinary state of affairs? 

More generally, this logic seems ... exaggerated, I think.  We can acknowledge that Glitterdust and Solid Fog are effective spells, right?  They substantially hamper enemies.  But, they don't actually eliminate them.  Being able to quickly dispatch them is still actually necessary.  A 50% miss chance is a huge advantage, but it isn't an "I win" button.

What I'm going for is this.  If the definition of "effective" is reduce enemies so that they can be coup de graced with a rock, then things are getting way overstated.  To give a sense of it, only a handful of the grade A ultra God spells (per TreantMonk, for instance) would not pass muster.

And, going back to the context of these comments, was it the case that AD&D fighters/paladins/etc. were one-shotting baddies left and right?  It's been a long, long time for me, but I have no recollection of that being the case at all.  I feel like I'd recall if all AD&D fighters were the equivalent of a cracked out Hood.  Likewise, I don't think that enemies are a whole lot more lethal than they were in AD&D -- I seem to recall a ton of save-or-die types of abilities for Team Monster.  But, this is based on dim memories.

I'm not really questioning caster dominance in this post.  I'm just asking why increasing hit points, while handing melee'ers the tools to do substantial damage, even relative to their magical counterparts, exacerbates rather than mitigates it.  At best, it mitigates it b/c the casters are doing relatively less damage.  At worst, it's a wash b/c the casters can adopt the same tactics, and probably do them better.  But, that brings us back to the niche protection problem.  The bigger hp numbers don't seem to be a culprit at all.

[Emanresu]

Theres a few things that stand out from 2nd edition/advanced dnd

the monk sucked even worse back then THEY ONLY HAD A D4 FOR HPS, the idea was cool, but man they were unplayable
combat - everything was based off a "thaco" chart to hit armor class zero
the Barbarian got to double dex and con mods to their AC and Hps, so if you rolled great stats, lets say 18's then you auto picked Barb, because you started with a d12 +8 per level and your AC was already +8

and I think I played some form of a GISH every time. If you remember, when you were a 10th level fighter, the experience points required to make 11th fighter was equal to adding to your class, 5th magic user+5th thief+5th cleric...so you were encouraged to multiclass. This math is not accurate its a guestimate.

eman

[awaken_D_M_golem]

THAC0 translates to (20 - X) = 3e style (10 + Y)

Now if only the rest of the maths could be so easily regularized.

[SorO_Lost]

Theres a few things that stand out from 2nd edition/advanced dnd

the monk sucked even worse back then THEY ONLY HAD A D4 FOR HPS, the idea was cool, but man they were unplayable

AD&D dropped Monk as a Class and it became a Priest Kit. It was allowed to advance specialize like a Fighter in unarmed combat on top of obtaining Spellcasting in exchange for giving up armor and owning more than he can carry.

eman

We have a signature feature on these forums JK, please learn to use it.

Dragons used to be enormous (100 to 200 feet long for wyrms, not counting tails), but kinda squishy.

No kidding, A Great Wyrm Red Dragon has 23d8 (103.5 HP) and it's Breath Weapon deals 24d10+12 (144 dmg). Like offensive PCs, they could overkill them selves in one attack.

More generally, this logic seems ... exaggerated, I think.  We can acknowledge that Glitterdust and Solid Fog are effective spells, right?  They substantially hamper enemies.  But, they don't actually eliminate them.  Being able to quickly dispatch them is still actually necessary.

Indeed, God-Style Wizards cannot solo D&D. That's actually part of the point. You already have a prime damage (the fighter), a secondary damager with massive damage (the rogue), and a tertiary damager on clean up and bandaid duty (the cleric). A Battlefield-Control Wizard isn't there to burn his Slots doing the same thing as the other guys, but to save his team's ass and conserve his Slots while doing so. You're a Wizard Harry, not a Warmage.

[Garryl]

Dragons used to be enormous (100 to 200 feet long for wyrms, not counting tails), but kinda squishy.

No kidding, A Great Wyrm Red Dragon has 26d8 (117 HP) and it's Breath Weapon deals 24d10+12 (142 dmg). Like offensive PCs, they could overkill them selves in one attack.

Are we talking about 3.5e here? Because great wyrm red dragons have 40d12+400 hp (avg. 660) and do 24d10 damage (avg. 132) with their breath weapon. I think you read from the CR table accidentally (as they are CR 26). Not sure where the +12 on breath weapon damage is from, though.

[SorO_Lost]

Are we talking about 3.5e here?

AD&D.

[Garryl]

Are we talking about 3.5e here?

AD&D.

Huh, I wasn't aware that dragons had changed so significantly between 1st and 2nd edition. I'm only familiar with the 1st edition incarnation of dragons, where they had fixed hp based on their HD and age category (only 8 of them) and breath weapons that did damage equal to their hp.

[Raineh Daze]

Are we talking about 3.5e here?

AD&D.

Huh, I wasn't aware that dragons had changed so significantly between 1st and 2nd edition. I'm only familiar with the 1st edition incarnation of dragons, where they had fixed hp based on their HD and age category (only 8 of them) and breath weapons that did damage equal to their hp.

Sadly, I left the 1e MM 400 miles away, so I can't check. But I think the difference described is between 2e and 3e/3.5, not 1e.

[Garryl]

Are we talking about 3.5e here?

AD&D.

Huh, I wasn't aware that dragons had changed so significantly between 1st and 2nd edition. I'm only familiar with the 1st edition incarnation of dragons, where they had fixed hp based on their HD and age category (only 8 of them) and breath weapons that did damage equal to their hp.

Sadly, I left the 1e MM 400 miles away, so I can't check. But I think the difference described is between 2e and 3e/3.5, not 1e.

/shrug. I couldn't find much online to corroborate (hard to Google for dragons specifically in the context of Dungeons and Dragons), but this page and this discussion seem to say mostly the same thing as what SorO was describing as a 2E dragon, the one exception being that the dragon should have 23 HD instead of 26 (probably just a typo rather than a different edition or something).

[Raineh Daze]

My advice would be to seek out the exact sourcebook, not a comparative analysis of all editions; far more informative since all the data is therefore in your possession.

... I get the feeling that if I remove the books from their bag, they shall lose their almost-pristine condition just by my leafing through them. At least I left the basic books at home (and I have to wonder: has there been a Basic RP on this forum at any point?)

[SorO_Lost]

the one exception being that the dragon should have 23 HD instead of 26 (probably just a typo rather than a different edition or something).

Yeah, page flipping and such.

The default Red Dragon entry has 15HD and adding to that is the Dragon Table under the Dragon-General entry.

Code: [Select]

Dragon Table
Age Age (in Hit Die Combat Fear Fear Save
Category years) Modifier Modifier Radius Modifier
1 Hatchling 0-5 -6 +1 Nil Nil
2 Very young 6-15 -4 +2 Nil Nil
3 Young 16-25 -2 +3 Nil Nil
4 Juvenile 26-50 Nil +4 Nil Nil
5 Young adult 51-100 +1 +5 15 yards +3 (+7)
6 Adult 101-200 +2 +6 20 yards +2 (+6)
7 Mature adult 201-400 +3 +7 25 yards +1 (+5)
8 Old 401-600 +4 +8 30 yards 0 (+4)
9 Very old 601-800 +5 +9 35 yards -1 (+3)
10 Venerable 801-1,000 +6 +10 40 yards -2 (+2)
11 Wyrm 1,001-1,200 +7 +11 45 yards -3 (+1)
12 Great Wyrm 1,200+ +8 +12 50 yards -4 (0) Unless otherwise stated, Hit Dice are 8-sided (1-8 hit points).

So 23d8 = 103.5HP rather than the 26HD I came up with before. And all three citations appear to match up to the PDF I have of AD&D's MM. So I like the site, thanks for the link.

[Keldar]

Oh hey, that's much easier than trying to find which binder I stuffed the Dragon, General page more than a decade ago! 

But yeah, the numbers I posted were taken from the 2E Council of Wyrms boxed set and the 3.5E Draconomicon respectively.  That dragons could finally take a beating was one of the first things I noticed with 3E.  The second was they fracking shrunk.


We've left the Fighter behind for reminiscing about old edition oddities, haven't we?