Knights & Knaves Alehouse

Stingy DMing is sometimes seen as classy especially when they use the term "munchkin" as if it was in any rulebook worth noting. Thats exactly why I cited Lakofka... he is the root "munchkin-hunter" and the source of all gaming EVILLL!!!

Alright, I overreached on that last part but still... Errrrhhhhhh!!! Say... No... More...



Seriously, my road has been laced with cheap DMs who said munchkin all the time and made the game imbalanced to serve nothing but some strange nerd continuity. Thats why Lakofka had specialization crop up as a reaction... TO HIM AS A DM.

There are four kinds of passive-aggressive behaviour. The one most commonly seen on messageboards is called "abrasive negativist". There are a number of posters on ENworld who're abrasive negativists but I don't expect to see it on K&KA.

Sometimes, when dealing with someone who's annoying you, you may be tempted to resort to sarcasm. That's a really great idea. Sarcasm works well in online media, and always has a calming effect on debate.

This is not fucking ENworld. Either speak your mind to each other directly, calmly and respectfully or shut the fuck up. Please.

There have been many insightful and intelligent posts in this thread about how to implement house rules to mitigate or reduce the effect of WS - especially at low levels. In particular I find the option of allowing WS to be purchased only by proficiencies gained through actual play interesting.

For example for a fighter ; no WS until the first new proficiency is gained at 4th level, and no double spec until the second WS is gained at 7th level.

However, I find I slightly prefer the variant my DM currently uses - that is single spec IS available at first level; and double is not available until the first new weapon prof is gained (again, for fighters at 4th level)...

When I DM I play it slightly more "BTB" per UA (except only fighters can ever get double spec).

What I find irritating are some posters insistence upon resorting to blatant insults as well as impugning the gaming ability, maturity, and play style of those that use WS in their games... in a "By the Book AD&D" thread.

Most simply put - if your game group uses UA- then WS IS "btb".

If you personally dont like or use WS - it is quite enough to simply say : "I dont use UA" or even "I dont use WS" and leave it at that.

And thats whats really on my mind per P&P's post !

And hopefully it came across as intended; both calmly and respectfully.

Caveat: weapon specialization isn't relevant to me right now; I'm running my game with S&W these days. However, once upon a time.....

When I was playing, I loved weapon specialization because it let my 8th level fighter KICK ARSE. When we introduced it, his combat potency instantly became massively inflated, and a fairly average charachter became the Threshing Machine Of DOOOOOM.

When I was DMing, I hated weapon specialization because its presence made it that much harder to challenge the party, and an encounter that I expected to be moderately perilous for the party as a whole could suddenly and unexpectedly become a potential TPK if, for some reason, the uberfighters were out of the fight.

If I were running an AD&D campaign again, I don't think I'd use it... or much else from UA, to tell the truth.

Damn, and here I thought I was being sarcastic, and all in attempt to keep everyone blissed-out.

/me vows to try harder at the sarcasm thing.












Actually, just better if I stop checking this thread.

AxeMental wrote: Matthew, I'm exceptionally impressed with your quote-fu. I'm still not sure how the hell that works. I can manage one...barely.

It's not too tough, much like anything when you know how. I just hit the quote button when I spot something and cut it into the clipboard, then paste the lot into a reply. Preview button helps too.

DungeonDork wrote: Fighter D picked the wrong class?

Ignore me, I'm not a fan of proficiencies.

Or the wrong game master!

James Maliszewski wrote: Actually, clerics and thieves are remarkably close to one another in terms of their Chainmail fighting capability for the first 3 levels and then the cleric pulls slightly ahead of the thief, but not significantly so.

1st level - C: Man; T: Man
2nd level - C: Man +1; T: Man +1
3rd level - C: 2 Men; T: 2 Men
4th level - C: 3 Men; T: 2 Men +1
5th level - C: 3 Men +1; T: 3 Men
6th level - C: Hero -1; T: 3 Men +1
7th level - C: Hero; T: Hero −1
8th level - C: Hero +1; T: Hero
9th level - C: Superhero −1; T: Hero +1

Right, but that looks a lot like what was eventually done in AD&D, if I recall my fighting ability charts aright. I suppose the big difference is that the cleric gets a big boost in AD&D moving from 1 Man (THAC0 21) to the same as the fighter 1 Man +1 (THAC0 20), but that is not too surprising.

Bargle wrote: ADVANCED DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS aka LLB (plus) all suppliments (minus) all optional rules.

Normal man d8 hit points.
Default hit dice and damage: d8.

Compared to the normal man:
The fighting man gets +1 hit points and +2 to hit (+20% damage per round (DPR)
The magic user gets 1 spell and -2 hit points.
The cleric gets 1 (or more!) spell and turn undead.

Firstly, the fighter's +2 to hit (thac0 19 vs. normal man 21) makes sense as default MtM chart of CHAINMAIL used a 2d6 attack roll, roughly speaking translating a +1 to hit from the MtM table to the d20 table is a +2. Secondly, I'm not sure why the magic-user needed to get wacked with the nerf-bat, Thirdly, I'm not really sure why the cleric needed the boost.

Numbers look wrong here (I could be missing something, as I am in the pub right now). First of all, normal men in AD&D are 1−1 or ¾ HD generally, with even 0 level men at arms having 4-7 hit points. Next, you have listed the THAC0s wrong: Normal Men have THAC0 21, Fighters have THAC0 20. That said, most normal men also have huge penalties to hit.

Dwayanu wrote: What I'm getting at is that "massive disproportions" were the thing even before WS. The game from the start was a matter of tosses of dice, with only the results over many histories of players and characters being "balanced". That balance was simply that in the long run there should be a low score for each high score.

Well, at least from Greyhawk. Point is, though, that Gygax recognised this and tried to rectify it. That he failed is by-the-by, but it does not release individual game masters from making their own informed decisions about what do do either way.

Oh good this thread's still going strong. I was concerned.

- Wheggi

Matthew wrote:Point is, though, that Gygax recognised this and tried to rectify it.

It doesn't take a genius to recognize random generation when one has specifically chosen that in place of (e.g.) the mix of set factors and points system in Chainmail.

When we're playing the game in accord with the original design for a campaign, the variation is not something we need "to rectify" if we happen to like that game. It's simply part of the game, doing the job it was introduced to do, the same as the shuffle and deal in Bridge.

When we change that fundamental premise, we may find it meet to introduce different rules more in line with our different game. For instance, tournament characters are not rolled up player by player. Each team of players gets the same team of characters. The characters are almost certain to have been "designed" (or at least selected) to fit the scenario.

Someone's example earlier of TSR dungeon modules consistently having monsters with above-average hit points would be another example of a game skewed from the context of the original statistical distributions. That's just a dead letter, though, to someone who doesn't base his game on dungeon modules.

Having 4-6 players on an adventure, rather than the larger parties often used for big tournaments, is to my eye not a difference from any "standard" affecting the AD&D game system. It's another "playing modules" issue. Having just 4-6 players, with just one character each, make up the whole campaign can change matters significantly, though. A "monolithic party" meeting but once a month (my own recent AD&D-playing situation) certainly introduces considerations that were not germane to Arneson and Gygax.

This matter of context, of the larger shape of the game, is something I wonder about when people complain about "imbalance" in old D&D. I definitely see a trend of strengthening fighters on average as the game goes on, but that's generally along with boosts here and hindrances there for magic-users.

In the evolution of Gary's game, I think there was a combination of reassessments of some things after prolonged play, and of other things as they came into play for the first time. The latter certainly included PCs of levels never previously attained. It may or may not have included a shift in the conception of the game along some lines of what has become the pervasive conventional wisdom among "modern" RPGers, in which expectations of character survival and success are higher and equality of particular characters is much, much more significant.

Dwayanu wrote: It doesn't take a genius to recognize random generation when one has specifically chosen that in place of (e.g.) the mix of set factors and points system in Chainmail.

No, it does not take a genius, but the fact is Gygax did seek to realign the power levels, according to his own statements. The fact that he continued to do so, on and off, certainly suggests that he was never quite satisfied with the results. That is not too surprising, since in many ways D&D is a living game that develops during play, and certainly each game master should choose to do as seems appropriate to him.

Dwayanu wrote: When we're playing the game in accord with the original design for a campaign, the variation is not something we need "to rectify" if we happen to like that game. It's simply part of the game, doing the job it was introduced to do, the same as the shuffle and deal in Bridge.

Tosh and bollocks. Adjustments to the game, and in its spirit are both intended and encouraged.

Dwayanu wrote: When we change that fundamental premise, we may find it meet to introduce different rules more in line with our different game. For instance, tournament characters are not rolled up player by player. Each team of players gets the same team of characters. The characters are almost certain to have been "designed" (or at least selected) to fit the scenario.

Someone's example earlier of TSR dungeon modules consistently having monsters with above-average hit points would be another example of a game skewed from the context of the original statistical distributions. That's just a dead letter, though, to someone who doesn't base his game on dungeon modules.

Having 4-6 players on an adventure, rather than the larger parties often used for big tournaments, is to my eye not a difference from any "standard" affecting the AD&D game system. It's another "playing modules" issue. Having just 4-6 players, with just one character each, make up the whole campaign can change matters significantly, though. A "monolithic party" meeting but once a month (my own recent AD&D-playing situation) certainly introduces considerations that were not germane to Arneson and Gygax.

This matter of context, of the larger shape of the game, is something I wonder about when people complain about "imbalance" in old D&D. I definitely see a trend of strengthening fighters on average as the game goes on, but that's generally along with boosts here and hindrances there for magic-users.

In the evolution of Gary's game, I think there was a combination of reassessments of some things after prolonged play, and of other things as they came into play for the first time. The latter certainly included PCs of levels never previously attained. It may or may not have included a shift in the conception of the game along some lines of what has become the pervasive conventional wisdom among "modern" RPGers, in which expectations of character survival and success are higher and equality of particular characters is much, much more significant.

I think that you are forgetting how Gygax's players reputedly generated their characters here! They just rolled and rolled and rolled until they got the statistics they wanted. Looking for a flatter power curve on attribute scores and in combination with specialisation (or not, but at least class abilities) is no great crime against the structure of the game, nor is its impact particularly significant as long as the general result is similar.

Matt: "It's not too tough, much like anything when you know how. I just hit the quote button when I spot something and cut it into the clipboard, then paste the lot into a reply. Preview button helps too."

You make that sound so easy.

Matthew wrote:Tosh and bollocks. Adjustments to the game, and in its spirit are both intended and encouraged.

If you really suppose this to be at all relevant to my observation that you quote there, then you are mistaken. I have written no claim that adjustments to the game, and in its spirit, are either unintended or discouraged. I have, very simply, not addressed that subject whatsoever.

It will be hard to have a conversation with you if you insist on putting words in my mouth instead of letting me speak for myself. Please refrain from imputing to me things that I have not written, and thereby ignoring the plain meaning of what I actually have written.

Looking for a flatter power curve on attribute scores and in combination with specialisation (or not, but at least class abilities) is no great crime against the structure of the game, nor is its impact particularly significant as long as the general result is similar.

Nor do I see where I have written anything to the contrary, or even to the point.

You must be responding to somebody else instead of paying attention to my posts.

It seems to me that the 'attack matrices' ["speed, ferocity, and weaponry…are subsumed in the matrixes”(19 M&M Vol. I)], the 'weapon vs. armor type' table and the 'damage vs. larger opponents' table is a translation of the Fantasy Combat Table in Chainmail thus giving normal men the means to face humanoids, ogres and trolls and for some (warriors and swordsman at the least) a dragon.

Solinar wrote:

How did the game survive 11 years without specialization?

A very poignant question...

TheRedPriest wrote:

As for crunching numbers, I don't think that sort of analysis works as well with an ongoing RPG campaign as it does with a tabletop war game. In the later, you have a finite number of units with a finite amount of "power" (attack/defend/range/movement etc), and once a scenario is set, then it's set and all of the variables are accounted. In an ongoing RPG game, however, the variables are so numerous as to be (for reasonable purposes) infinite

The variables can remain just as static with a class-based game as with finite units in a wargame. This appears to be born out in the 'MTM' of Chainmail and in the codification one sees in the DMG.

Francisca wrote:

...my particular idea of what D&D is and should be is more Sword and less Sorcery.

Agreed, but It doesn't appear to me that specialization accomplishes this...if anything, to achieve this one should just limit the nature of the sorcery. Use only tribal spell casters and cultists who must employ ritual spell casting with the spell book.

Axemental wrote:

Essentially what you’re doing with WS is trading the richness of a class (its primary defining feature) for un-earned power... Archetypes (such as the fighter) exist for a reason.

Indeed.

Ahhh your just trying to rationalize your preference for 0E...a less manly game

.
That is...pretty funny. Nice one, Axe.


P&P wrote:

weapon specialisation addresses a creeping problem in the rules c. 1980-1982, which is hp inflation. In OD&D, a fighter would, on average, kill an orc in one hit. In AD&D with weapon specialisation, a fighter will, on average, kill an orc in one hit. But in AD&D c. 1980-1982, if you look at the published modules, the orc will always have 5-7hp, so on average our fighter will kill an orc in two hits unless the fighter has high strength.

This is an interesting point, but it may just be referring to the high strength modifiers of fighters and a proliferation of enchanted weapons and higher enchantment modifiers compared to Chainmail.

Philotomy wrote:

If Fighters need to be powered up relative to the other classes, I'd tend to look at a solutions like putting a floor on their hit dice rolls (e.g. 6-10 instead of 1-10), which power them up without changing the fundamental assumptions.

This is something I have done.

Alcohol and heavy metal?

Hilarious. 'Crush', indeed.

Rogatny wrote:

For those simply wanting a blanket power up for fighters, I'm not sure why WS works better than simply shifting them over a couple columns on the combat chart and allowing them multiple attacks per round at an earlier level.

Agreed, this is how it is handled for humanoids in the MM.

I think in Chainmail you have a baseline assumption of regular medieval humans fighting other regular medieval humans. The combat against monsters from the fantasy supplement is special and different. I think you've got mechanics based on an assumption that humans don't fight monsters all that much, and when Joe puts his troll or dragon mini on the battlefield, it should be cool and different from your normal Battle of Hastings or Crecy scenario. I think the weapon specialization rules are a tacit acknowledgment that as of 1980-whatever, D&D players didn't have their characters fighting 0-level humans, didn't use the weapon v. AC chart, and didn't use the weapon speed breaks ties rules

Yes, indeed.

James wrote:

OD&D, for example, assumes the weapon vs. AC rules alone go a long way toward making a fighter very effective in combat. Using those rules plus weapon specialization seems increasingly like overkill to me.

Agreed.

Gene wrote:

In regards to the relevance of speed factors, weapon vs AC, and other "hard stuff" its important that its there for advanced users no matter what anyone says for the umpteenth time of how much it doesn't "work". Yeah, maybe on a computer game where freeform is useless. I talked to gary in person about that stuff and he said it was for hardcore gamers not that it was useless.

Interesting.

Odhanan

What I think for myself is that the word "Gygaxian" is a red herring in and of itself. Gary's works were constantly evolving.

Have come to completely agree with this sentiment, and if not evolving - certainly subject to change.

PapersAndPaychecks wrote:There are four kinds of passive-aggressive behaviour. The one most commonly seen on messageboards is called "abrasive negativist". There are a number of posters on ENworld who're abrasive negativists but I don't expect to see it on K&KA.

Sometimes, when dealing with someone who's annoying you, you may be tempted to resort to sarcasm. That's a really great idea. Sarcasm works well in online media, and always has a calming effect on debate.

This is not fucking ENworld. Either speak your mind to each other directly, calmly and respectfully or shut the fuck up. Please.

This has to be my favorite post of the year (well last two years).



So, the main rationalization for WS in this thread: 1. x class needs a boost at y level 2. "In my world I like to make weapons more or less powerful compared to magic and 3. I want to customize my PC in a meaningful way.

well guess what, Gary Gygax and Co. thought about all of that when they created the game. How do I know that? Because I remember everyone in grade school and high school wanting to be "an archer", or "Conan expert with his two handed sword". Sure, Gygax could have done what 2E and later 3E did and give mechanical advantages to these customized personalities. But instead Gygax answered us kids by saying "no, these variations are behavioral! You want to be an archer, play your fighter like an archer and only use a bow. You want to be Conan the two handed sword wielder, use only a two handed sword (your still just a fighter). To be any particular subclass, simply use your imagination, its an RPG afterall. If were going to do this for weapons, why not armor (with equally random rational)? Say a player pictured his PC as Errol Flynn Robin Hood (a fighter in light cotton shirt) should we give him some sort of "cheat" to improve his armor class relevant to regular fighters? There's plenty of rational to do so, after all, the time fighters put into learning to use armor could be used by Errol in learning how to dodge blows, monks can do it why not Erol. I can here it now: *Errol is lighter on his tippy toes, Errol isn't as bulky as other fighters, Erol specializes in non-armor use" etc. etc. Of course not, the game (love it or hate it) has a base assumption that armor and dex bonuses are added (unlike 3E for instance). Ol' Errol Flynn better just be a fucking bad ass with a great dex and be a specialist at running away from sharp pointy ends of swords if he hopes to survive. He might even consider having some thief levels under his belt.

Remember all your gaining messing around with WS is one PC gaining a +1 and eventually a few more +s. But is that really worth destroying the relevance of the Fighter Class for those not choosing to specialize (its not like the game was broken before UA came to fix it), WS tears at the premise of the game (ie generalist archetypes). As a supporter of WS aren't you basically wanting to be a powergamer, an attention hog at the table without earning it the way a real bad ass does? You didn't role a great strength rolling up your PC, nor did you find great magical weapon after braving monsters. Hell, you didn't even play smarter or role better on that D20. Nope you woosed out and took power and in the process made everyone else at the table feel like they had to just to keep up, if they wanted to or not.

If a DM wants to allow people to essentailly play other classes (like archer or pike man or two handed sword master), then by all means do. Just make up new classes from scratch, don't diss those who choose to not be a pussy and get + whatever.
And, allow players who've never experianced 1E pre-UA the chance. Let them know what it means to have a fighter without the automatic handycap of not having WS (like all the other fighters sitting at the table). Let them know what it means to use behavior and imagination to define a "type" of fighter rather then needing some mechanical advantage.

As to the question of adventures being too hard so needing to boost the power of the fighter class, just leave a few magic +1 or +2 swords around for the fighters to pick up and walla its taken care of.

AxeMental wrote:.. I remember everyone in grade school and high school wanting to be "an archer", or "Conan expert with his two handed sword". Sure, Gygax could have done what 2E and later 3E did and give mechanical advantages to these customized personalities. But instead Gygax answered us kids by saying "no, these variations are behavioral! You want to be an archer, play your fighter like an archer and only use a bow. You want to be Conan the two handed sword wielder, use only a two handed sword (your still just a fighter).

I agree that this is sound advice for children and maybe most teenagers. Tinkering with game mechanics is best done by more experienced players who understand the ramifications of the changes they institute. When children mature, then I'd absolutely encourage them to experiment with all the rules (both from the books and those they write themselves), such that they can homebrew the heck out of their own game(s).

sepulchre wrote:
Francisca wrote:

...my particular idea of what D&D is and should be is more Sword and less Sorcery.

Agreed, but It doesn't appear to me that specialization accomplishes this...if anything, to achieve this one should just limit the nature of the sorcery. Use only tribal spell casters and cultists who must employ ritual spell casting with the spell book.

I hear you. And I agree that is a fine solution, and the one I'd prefer to adopt.

However, I feel the approach you mention is best fit for a certain type of setting (Lankhmar, the Young Kingdoms, and REH's Hyborian Age, for example). If I'm running Greyhawk, or a similar setting, where BtB Vancian magic is prevalent and prominent, I feel like I'm stuck with ratcheting the fighter up, as I really can't pull the M-U down, without re-working much of the setting.