Best Version of DnD?

[TheAuldGrump]

On 11/3/2017 at 3:09 PM, Mad Jack said:

 

 My halfling thief Ripper is fond of singing Elven dirges at the top of his lungs in Orcish, and soulfully crooning Dwarven bar songs in Elvish...

 

 

There used to be a setting where the God of the Dwarfs was tall, skinny, and had pointy ears, while the God of the Elves was short and had a beard.... Created to guard over their races they each looked at the other's charges and went 'Wow! Cool!' and traded.

 

***

Sam has run her own first game at Breakwater - and has been telling her parents all about it. She... is now officially a GM, if not Dungeon Master.

 

I finally got around to asking why her parents hadn't run a game for her, and got the answer that they... are not GMs. Sam is the first GM in three generations of role players.

 

I kind of suspect that I am going to get barraged at the game tonight. Looking forward to it, and telling her all the horrible things GMs can do to their players - and have their players thank them.

 

Die Hard Effect by YeAuldGrump, on Flickr

 

The Auld Grump

Edited November 7, 2017 by TheAuldGrump

[BlazingTornado]

Unfortunately some players want to be more like modern Die Hard movies, where the hero is nigh-invulnerable and gets more dirty than battered and beaten.

[Sophie was taken]

4 minutes ago, BlazingTornado said:

Unfortunately some players want to be more like modern Die Hard movies, where the hero is nigh-invulnerable and gets more dirty than battered and beaten.

“You just killed a dracolich with a tarrasque!”

[Dr.Bedlam]

1 hour ago, Sophie was taken said:

“You just killed a dracolich with a tarrasque!”

"When I was your age, I picked up a DRACOLICH, and BEAT A TARRASQUE TO DEATH WITH IT! And it was FIRST EDITION RULES! And we LIKED it that way!"

[Doug Sundseth]

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Megan says this is my theme song....

 

Back in my day, a wizard could be killed by a house cat in one round....

 

The Auld Grump

[BlazingTornado]

4 minutes ago, TheAuldGrump said:

Back in my day, a wizard could be killed by a house cat in one round....

Pf, some wangrods still say that about 5E whenever one dares bring up the idea of "starting a campaign at level 1".

(for those not in the know, 5E PCs start with their full hit dice +con +bonuses' worth of health, so a wizard'd have at least 6hp unless his con sucks, and a cat has a single attack per round, no bonuses to hit and deals 1 slashing damage per attack, so such claims are ridiculous)

[TheAuldGrump]

In 3e and 3.5, I typically started games at 2nd level, mostly for the sake of multiclassed rogues.

 

A rogue's special thing is all about the skill points, and that X4 bump at first level was important - so 2nd level characters could start with that 1st level rogue, and get the skill points - because to get the most out of the class, you needed to take it as your characters starting class.

 

Then Pathfinder just made Class skills a straight up bonus, instead of having a bonus in skill points at 1st level - so you could take the rogue levels at any point, with no real loss.

 

So, with Pathfinder, I feel free to start the PCs at 1st level.

 

The Auld Grump

[PaganMegan]

4 hours ago, TheAuldGrump said:

Megan says this is my theme song....

 

Back in my day, a wizard could be killed by a house cat in one round....

 

The Auld Grump

Back in YOUR day,  you played with REAL dungeons and REAL dragons.

[dwarvenranger]

15 hours ago, BlazingTornado said:

Pf, some wangrods still say that about 5E whenever one dares bring up the idea of "starting a campaign at level 1".

(for those not in the know, 5E PCs start with their full hit dice +con +bonuses' worth of health, so a wizard'd have at least 6hp unless his con sucks, and a cat has a single attack per round, no bonuses to hit and deals 1 slashing damage per attack, so such claims are ridiculous)

Heh, it's about impossible to die in 5E

[Dilvish the Deliverer]

1 hour ago, dwarvenranger said:

Heh, it's about impossible to die in 5E

Not true.  I've run Death House multiple times and there has always been at least on fatality/near-fatality.  The auto failing of death Saves can be brutal with area effect or continuous damage (like being swallowed/engulfed). Adding to that is Ability Damage, a dump stat and you are toast.

 

Then again, I suppose it depends on scenario design and player choices.

[TheAuldGrump]

14 hours ago, PaganMegan said:

Back in YOUR day,  you played with REAL dungeons and REAL dragons.

Eh? Back in my day we didn't even have dice! We'd just hit each other with sticks until the combat was over!

There were bleeding, broken gamers all over the place!

And we liked it that way!

'Cause we were stupid!

 

***

 

Now that she has run a game, Sam has accused me of cheating to keep the PCs alive - she has already almost killed the entire party twice, and they haven't even found the Caves yet.

 

So, I confessed that, yeah, sometimes GMs have to do that, but pointed out that the group she is playing in is also three times the size the one she is running, and that even in the Beyond the Borderlands game, I had twice as many hit point sponges to spread the damage over - it isn't exactly cheating, just sub-optimal damage allocation.

 

I don't know what she wll make of the fact that the Beyond the Borderlands that I am working on for her is very little like the Beyond the Borderlands she played in. (Every time I run a game using the Keep on the Borderlands, I have something completely different it's tradition!)

 

She has also asked me for the stats for the mounted bandits that I added to the Keep area - she wants to make the road dangerous, and wants the PCs to spend some time going from the Keep to the Civilized Lands and back.

 

She... really is a GM at this point - she is already going beyond what is printed in the adventure, and adding, borrowing, and stealing things to put in the game.

 

I am so damned proud!

 

The Auld Grump

[BlazingTornado]

4 hours ago, dwarvenranger said:

Heh, it's about impossible to die in 5E

Low levels do have a higher chance of death but even at higher levels...

 

3 hours ago, Dilvish the Deliverer said:

Not true.  I've run Death House multiple times and there has always been at least on fatality/near-fatality.  The auto failing of death Saves can be brutal with area effect or continuous damage (like being swallowed/engulfed). Adding to that is Ability Damage, a dump stat and you are toast.

There's this.

There's also SOME pretty powerful opponents especially at low levels. The bugbear's 2d8+2 is already pretty hard on a 1st-level character, but it can also deal an extra 2d6 on that attack if it got a surprise round. And a bugbear has a challenge rating of 1.

Then you have all your nasty undead drainers like Wights, Wraiths and Shadows... If they reduce your hit point maximum or your strength score to 0, it's instant death, no death saves.

And of course there's the Jerk DM method... have monsters keep hitting downed PCs after they went unconscious.

Edited November 8, 2017 by BlazingTornado

[DocPiske]

14 minutes ago, BlazingTornado said:

Low levels do have a higher chance of death but even at higher levels...

 

There's this.

There's also SOME pretty powerful opponents especially at low levels. The bugbear's 2d8+2 is already pretty hard on a 1st-level character, but it can also deal an extra 2d6 on that attack if it got a surprise round. And a bugbear has a challenge rating of 1.

Then you have all your nasty undead drainers like Wights, Wraiths and Shadows... If they reduce your hit point maximum or your strength score to 0, it's instant death, no death saves.

And of course there's the Jerk DM method... have monsters keep hitting downed PCs after they went unconscious.

Hey, that's not a jerk DM method, that's a smart opponent method. Orcs and trolls probably wouldn't, but dark elves definitely would. And mind flayers have been known to withdraw from a fight with a dominated character in order to get a quick snack in. 

[klarg1]

My good friend, and many time GM, is fond of commenting that "back then", wizards were easier to defeat than rope. [Which had 4 hit points, like the mightiest first level wizards, but was also immune to bludgeoning damage]