Quote from: Benoist;368123Well, that's where you also see that in fact many users of AD&D weren't using the combat rules at all during their games. Basically p.105 of the PHB and DMG p.69+ up to and including the Non-Lethal and Weaponless Procedures of p. 72+ up to the combat matrixes.

EVEN if you're not using the WP/AC table, the options of closing in on combat, charge, striking spellcasters in melee along with first strikes, additional attacks etc made for the core of the fighter's "umph" effect. If you aren't using these tactical options in melee, and are just summarizing combat as "roll for attack... you hit... roll for damage", then the fighter loses pretty much all that makes him mechanically interesting to play (discarding role playing aspects here, if that's possible). No wonder then that people ditched prerequisites or fudged dice rolls or went for score repartitions to allow players to have the ranger or paladin they wanted to play instead (which incidentally were supposed to be rare occurences at AD&D tables)!

Honestly, we never used the wps vs. ac either and I still enjoyed playing fighters. I never thought they were boring, I think mainly because I remember fights going quickly enough that we didn't have too much time to get bored.

Quote from: Sigmund;368144Honestly, we never used the wps vs. ac either and I still enjoyed playing fighters. I never thought they were boring, I think mainly because I remember fights going quickly enough that we didn't have too much time to get bored.

Most people I know were just winging it, giving this or that modifier on a fighter trying to perform this or that move in combat. But this wasn't because the rules were obscure or broken. It was because they hadn't read the DMG that far, to begin with! - and let's be clear, I don't think the DMs were the only ones responsible there; the DMG's layout and organization has a part in it as well, make no mistake about it.

Honest to God. I remember plenty of people using stuff like the matrixes or the table of harlots or the advice on campaign building, but I have to struggle to remember anyone using rules like "if you close to melee with this guy he won't be able to attack this round, but you won't either" or "if you jump from the balcony onto this guy, since he's aware of you, he could receive you with his lance and do double damage as per receiving a charge". It was more like "well hmm. Add -2 for your attack there because that's kinda hard to aim a guy with a sword when you jump from a balcony".

Not that there's anything inherently badwrongfun about it, but they weren't using the AD&D rules, so it's no wonder later on when you hear a guy telling you "I never liked fighters - they sucked, because they were all the same". Well. Were you actually using the combat rules in your game? I know I wasn't. And that's exactly what I'd ask someone coming up with a similar criticism today.

Quote from: Benoist;368149Most people I know were just winging it, giving this or that modifier on a fighter trying to perform this or that move in combat. But this wasn't because the rules were obscure or broken. It was because they hadn't read the DMG that far, to begin with! - and let's be clear, I don't think the DMs were the only ones responsible there; the DMG's layout and organization has a part in it as well, make no mistake about it.

Honest to God. I remember plenty of people using stuff like the matrixes or the table of harlots or the advice on campaign building, but I have to struggle to remember anyone using rules like "if you close to melee with this guy he won't be able to attack this round, but you won't either" or "if you jump from the balcony onto this guy, since he's aware of you, he could receive you with his lance and do double damage as per receiving a charge". It was more like "well hmm. Add -2 for your attack there because that's kinda hard to aim a guy with a sword when you jump from a balcony".

Not that there's anything inherently badwrongfun about it, but they weren't using the AD&D rules, so it's no wonder later on when you hear a guy telling you "I never liked fighters - they sucked, because they were all the same". Well. Were you actually using the combat rules in your game? I know I wasn't. And that's exactly what I'd ask someone coming up with a similar criticism today.

I'm with ya. I've never understood that complaint myself, but I see what you're saying anyway. I remember the charge damage for falling on a lance-wielding (or other pole-arm) guy, although it was jumping from a ledge onto an orc with a long spear if I remember right what happened in our game. I do also remember winging alot of that stuff too though. I honestly don't remember having too much of a problem with any aspects of DnD or the houseruling we did before, which I think is why my view of 4e has been so jarring for me. I want to like it, and I can see that it has good stuff in it, so I'm really thinking I'm gonna give it another shot. I still don't like the powers, but I'm going to try and overlook that. I've been trying to follow Drohem's 4e game in Google Wave, but my machine sucks so bad at the moment it lags like crazy when I try to open and scroll through it and I'm bummed about that.

Sort of like the rule that if you have a Dex of 16+ you cancel out surprise segments (so under normal (suprise on 2 in 6) circumstances a character with 16 Dex can only be surprised (for 1 segment) on a roll of 2, and a character with Dex 17 or 18 will never be surprised -- which in AD&D where you get a full round's worth of attacks against surprised opponents each segment, and if you've got a prepared missile weapon you get triple normal ROF, is a huge advantage!) but that you only get that advantage if you're in the unencumbered/12" move encumbrance category (so no non-magical armor heavier than leather, not a lot of miscellaneous gear or treasure).

Everybody I played with through the 80s and 90s (including myself) ignored both of those rules -- I didn't notice them until I did a thorough cover-to-cover re-read of all 3 core AD&D books after I started posting at dragonsfoot.org c. 2003 -- and so did, presumably, almost all of those people complaining about how AD&D doesn't support lightly-armored Dex-oriented swashbuckler-type fighters. Because I can tell you from first hand experience that using those rules (especially in combination with the two-weapon fighting rules that are also aided by high Dex -- so a character with Dex 17 has no penalty to hit with the primary weapon and -2 with the secondary (-1 with Dex 18)) a high-Dex lightly-armored fighter (especially if he's an elf and also gets the surprise on 1-4 and +1 to hit with sword or bow bonuses) not only will hold his own vis-a-vis the tank characters, he'll completely dominate.

We tried using the weapon type vs. armor type bonuses/penalties for a while, but it became a chore to determine if a monster's natural armor class was comparable to an actual armor type (and which one), to determine a weapon's 'to-hit' bonus or penalty against that particular monster, and then to record it some where for future reference.  We eventually just dropped that rule.

However, we did employ and use quite well the Attack Priority system outlined in Ronald Hall's article Who Gets the First Swing? from Dragon #71.  It was really cool and allowed for Fighter individuality and flare with weapon choices.  We used that extensively for a while and I really enjoyed it.  It has rules for modifying initiative checks based upon a creatures' size, the length of the weapon used, weapon speed, and dexterity of the creature.

Quote from: Sigmund;368150I'm with ya. I've never understood that complaint myself, but I see what you're saying anyway. I remember the charge damage for falling on a lance-wielding (or other pole-arm) guy, although it was jumping from a ledge onto an orc with a long spear if I remember right what happened in our game. I do also remember winging alot of that stuff too though. I honestly don't remember having too much of a problem with any aspects of DnD or the houseruling we did before, which I think is why my view of 4e has been so jarring for me. I want to like it, and I can see that it has good stuff in it, so I'm really thinking I'm gonna give it another shot. I still don't like the powers, but I'm going to try and overlook that. I've been trying to follow Drohem's 4e game in Google Wave, but my machine sucks so bad at the moment it lags like crazy when I try to open and scroll through it and I'm bummed about that.

Oh I would play it fine, myself. I just do not like so many things about it that it's about the last iteration of D&D I would ever use to run a game. Play it, however, with the right people? Sure.

Quote from: T. Foster;368153Sort of like the rule that if you have a Dex of 16+ you cancel out surprise segments (so under normal (suprise on 2 in 6) circumstances a character with 16 Dex can only be surprised (for 1 segment) on a roll of 2, and a character with Dex 17 or 18 will never be surprised -- which in AD&D where you get a full round's worth of attacks against surprised opponents each segment, and if you've got a prepared missile weapon you get triple normal ROF, is a huge advantage!) but that you only get that advantage if you're in the unencumbered/12" move encumbrance category (so no non-magical armor heavier than leather, not a lot of miscellaneous gear or treasure).

Everybody I played with through the 80s and 90s (including myself) ignored both of those rules -- I didn't notice them until I did a thorough cover-to-cover re-read of all 3 core AD&D books after I started posting at dragonsfoot.org c. 2003 -- and so did, presumably, almost all of those people complaining about how AD&D doesn't support lightly-armored Dex-oriented swashbuckler-type fighters. Because I can tell you from first hand experience that using those rules (especially in combination with the two-weapon fighting rules that are also aided by high Dex -- so a character with Dex 17 has no penalty to hit with the primary weapon and -2 with the secondary (-1 with Dex 18)) a high-Dex lightly-armored fighter (especially if he's an elf and also gets the surprise on 1-4 and +1 to hit with sword or bow bonuses) not only will hold his own vis-a-vis the tank characters, he'll completely dominate.

Totally. How about the thing about fighters attacking "first and last" with multiattacks versus spellcasters?

It's just that reading through AD&D in depth now, I'm realizing how much we didn't have a clue what was going on in there. I mean, sure, you'll find some guys who really knew the rules of the game and used them at the game table in the 80s, but seriously, the VAST majority of the people I played with didn't use half the fiddly bits in the DMG that, in the end, made the game what it actually is.

No wonder MUs dominated everything. No wonder everyone played paladins and rangers instead of fighters. Or thought the level caps sucked. Or this. Or that.

Quote from: Benoist;368164No wonder MUs dominated everything.

When you get to the part about memorizing spells, you will see how ridiculous it is to hear about someone casting every spell they had available in a day.  

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;367994My optimization-crazy friend at DDXP actually had a spiel he would do "1,125,000 gold pieces.. does that sound like a lot of gold to you? That's the difference between a +5 and +6 weapon.. so don't tell ME how unimportant optimization is..!"

I think it's an illusion.

What you see as math, I am looking at as a matter of style.

The fighter job itself isn't merely a matter of laying on tons of damage...(for certain builds, Great Weapon maybe?, but not for all of them). You want to do damage as a martial dwarf? Choose barbarian. Choose a ruffian build rogue with Deadly Hammer as a feat (you can sneak attack with that warhammer!).  Being a fighter is much more about taking damage than dealing it, and dwarven fighters do it better than most.

 Not that I'm arg
uing for balance...

Heh, I see it as math because it is math. It's not about damage, although that certainly doesn't hurt...it's about being able to hit. Hitting 10% less often (or 20% to 40% less often in hard fights against tough opponents) is a bad thing, honest.

I respect that you might play in that 'style', but it's like the style of that girl that fell down repeatedly during the ice dancing at the winter olympics: her 'style' just isn't easily appreciated.

It's amazing what happens when a player that doesn't have system mastery comes to my table...within 3 rounds everyone notices he doesn't know what's going on, and we have suspend the game after the first fight to 'reroll' the character so that it's not just dead weight that misses round after round.

So, no, a dwarf fighter just can't make it in a table with knowledgeable players; I speak from experience because we tried (along with eladrin fighter), and every non-str race fighter was just too weak to keep up with the other characters.

QuoteI respect that you might play in that 'style', but it's like the style of that girl that fell down repeatedly during the ice dancing at the winter olympics: her 'style' just isn't easily appreciated by me.

Fixed that for you.

Quote from: Benoist;368164It's just that reading through AD&D in depth now, I'm realizing how much we didn't have a clue what was going on in there. I mean, sure, you'll find some guys who really knew the rules of the game and used them at the game table in the 80s, but seriously, the VAST majority of the people I played with didn't use half the fiddly bits in the DMG that, in the end, made the game what it actually is.

The intreweb and rpg forums have been a real eye-opener for me in this.

In our group in high school, four of us shared refereeing duties. All of us had the DMG, and all four of us poured over the rules looking for ways to mess with the adventurers. The net result is that we knew 1e AD&D frontwards and backwards, and we actually played it pretty much as written.

Of course we used weapons versus AC; who didn't want extra plusses to hit? Of course fighters got extra attacks against monsters with less than one hit die (which includes 0-level humans; who didn't want to wade through a horde of goblins or bandits? Of course we used facing, and shield-side versus non-shield side, and charge versus closing, and setting polearms to receive charges, and on and on. Really, why wouldn't you?

Or so I thought.

It was something of a surprise to me to learn how unusual that experience was among gamers. Almost everyone seems to have learned the game largely anecdotally, with only a passing familiarity with the rules as written.

Quote from: Doom;368177I respect that you might play in that 'style', but it's like the style of that girl that fell down repeatedly during the ice dancing at the winter olympics: her 'style' just isn't easily appreciated.

It depends, it really does. There are still a lot of roleplaying groups who are more into atmosphere than raw achievement, a lot of groups who don't focus that much on fighting anyway. But mostly there are lot of groups who view playing as pastime you do with friends rather than an Olympic sport.

You may have a point that the culture specifically around D&D in recent years has taken a more result orientated turn, but it's a big hobby, each group is a universe unto itself.

Quote from: Doom;368177It's amazing what happens when a player that doesn't have system mastery comes to my table...within 3 rounds everyone notices he doesn't know what's going on, and we have suspend the game after the first fight to 'reroll' the character so that it's not just dead weight that misses round after round.

So, no, a dwarf fighter just can't make it in a table with knowledgeable players; I speak from experience because we tried (along with eladrin fighter), and every non-str race fighter was just too weak to keep up with the other characters.

Do you write your own encounters?

I've played this game a lot-- from 1st level to 29th.. and the only way I see this happening in such a consistent way is if you set the level of an encounter too high. This often happens if you get in an "arms race" with the players- they have "no problem" fighting monsters around their own encounter level.. so you bump it up..and they adjust, and you bump again, and they adjust again.. until you have a group of characters fighting stuff right at the limit of what a completely optimized character can handle.

So when the new guy comes in, of course he can't hit anything. He could be rolling 18 and 19 on the dice and still not hit. But that's because he's so far out of his league.

When you run into this problem, the first thing I would do is a side by side comparison of a non-optimized character.. and a monster of the same level, and just look at what he needs to hit the defenses. If that number is consistently 17 or higher, there's a problem with the players build. But if it isn't, the DM should look at how he puts together his encounters.

Quote from: Doom;368177Heh, I see it as math because it is math. It's not about damage, although that certainly doesn't hurt...it's about being able to hit. Hitting 10% less often (or 20% to 40% less often in hard fights against tough opponents) is a bad thing, honest.

I'd like to see the actual math on that. We're talking about two identical builds except that one gets one more +1 on his to-hit than the other. Thing is, as level increases, this difference gets ever closer to negligible. Example. Two fighters who start out at level 1 with STR 18 and 20 respectively (the latter with the +2 from race). By level 30 they will have ability scores of 26 and 28 respectively, which means a to-hit bonus from the stat of +8 and +9. They also get to factor in half level, +15, so we're respectively talking about +23 vs. +24 on their to-hit rolls. And that's before we even factor in magic items and/or feats which boost abilities and/or their to-hit rolls; which are identical for both builds, of course, and means that we could be looking (in theory) at +33 vs. +34.

So what's the target AC here to say that the first guy "hits 10% less often (even 20% or 40%)"? It's basically this:

10% less often = racially boosted guy (let's call him RB) hits on a 18-20 (15%), racially non-boosted guy (let's call him NB) hits on a 20 only (5%). That's a creature with AC 52 and AC 53 - so there's no situation in which this comes about.

Let's look how the situation changes when we alter the AC.

AC 55 or higher: nil chance for either. Ignore these scenarios.
AC 54: RB will have a 5% to-hit chance, NB 0%. - comparative percentages: 00% and 100%, discrepancy 100% - respective miss chances: 95%, 100%
AC 53: RB 10%, NB 5% - comparative percentages: 100% and 50%, discrepancy 50% - respective miss chances: 90%, 95%
AC 52: 15% vs. 10%    - comparative percentages: 100% and 66%, discrepancy 33% - respective miss chances: 85%, 90%
AC 51: 20% vs. 15%    - comparative percentages: 100% and 75%, discrepancy 25% - respective miss chances: 80%, 85%
AC 50: 25% vs. 20%
AC 49: 30% vs. 25%

etc etc. Do you see the pattern here? Except for two scenarios the discrepany on the absolute percentages (percentage of scoring a hit) is an exact 5%. Which is unsurprising, since it's the +1 we began with. What's interesting, then, are the comparative percentages (underlined), which you get when you compare the non-boosted guy's to-hit chance to the benchmark set by his counterpart (assigned 100% here). So let's look at the scenarios where these actually matter. In one case (AC 54) even the racially boosted guy will only hit on a crit. In the second case (AC 53), both will hit, though the non-boosted guy will have to crit, and the other guy will have to roll a 19 or 20. In short, your racially boosted guy too will have a miss chance of 90%. Let me repeat it, in friendly bold face:

The only scenario where a racially boosted fighter's to-hit chance is 50% higher than his non boosted counterpart is a scenario where he misses 9 out of his 10 to-hit rolls. And if it's 33% or 25% higher, he'll still face odds of missing 8 (!) times in 10 rounds.

The sane thing for either of them in all of these situations is to collectively crap their pants and start running. It certainly ain't one guy reproaching the other for not hitting the thing "frequently".

In short, the only scenario where our two fighters (RB and NB) suffer from significant comparative to-hit discrepancies is when the monster's AC is extremely high for their level (this is the bit that Abyssal Maw's question addresses) and where both will, accordingly, have an extreme to-miss chance. You know, I love to throw overpowering threats at my PCs too, but my players know that the sane thing then really is to start running. Going toe-to-toe with a thing only half the party can hit, and only hit on rolling 19s and 20s, while that thing in return can hit you every round is a recipe for TPK. Echoing Abyssal Maw, I can't see a campaign that does this frequently to PCs, and if it did, the problem wouldn't be because some people don't get their +1 on to-hit at level 1.

Of course these numbers aren't 100% accurate: I didn't mention which item and feat boosts I'd use, and that's even before we factor in to-hit boosts from leader buffs. But honestly? That would only ensue in looking at two higher numbers, like +38 vs. +39, and never shift the 5% on your die roll.

That said, I'm not strong in the analysis area, so if the above calculations contain errors, I'll gladly stand corrected. As I said initially, I'd like to see your math.

Edit. Fixed my math.

What seems odd to me is that you guys didn't just mix stuff up in combat more.

We used wepaon speeds, our own grapple and non-lethal rules and always used the reaction attack adjectment on supprise effects (it only works for like one round though so it really doen't make up for the guy in plate...), we added a parry system as well.

But the key is that we roleplayed everything. the fighter didn;t say I roll to hit.. 13 miss, roll to hit 15 hit, roll damage etc etc ... it was okay I 'll circle to the right staying out his reach and keep the table bewteen us. then I'll trown the tankard of ale at him and ...

It was all interactive and never dull. One particular fight between a barbarian and Hansel (from my twisted fairytale campaign) was an all time classic that left a Gingerbread cottage in ruins and has been recouted these 20 years past over beer and snacks.
Or who can forget the time my thief outlined the tactics for a tricky combat by saying okay I will win initiative and blind the Naga by throwing a dagger into her eye getting a natural 20 on the roll, then you guys.... guffaws of laughter until I won initiative rolled a natural 20 blinded the naga...

The tables and bonuses and all that blah blah are okay but you can't beat imagination and a DM that rolls with stuff, knows the rules and has the respect of the players.

And that whole 'you must play an optimised character ....' OMG... go back to WoW !!!! If I want to play a fighter with 14 strength, 12 dex and 11 con then I will. If your game can't cope with a character than can be legally built within the rules of the game you are playing then ... maybe you missed something somewhere.

Quote from: jibbajibba;368202And that whole 'you must play an optimised character ....' OMG... go back to WoW !!!! If I want to play a fighter with 14 strength, 12 dex and 11 con then I will. If your game can't cope with a character than can be legally built within the rules of the game you are playing then ... maybe you missed something somewhere.

True story, only a month old (simplified, to protect the innocent):

We had a new player at my table. After the first session he complained on our forum (yep, we have our own forum) that the 'cleric wasn't pulling his weight', targeting a player who's playing this (vastly underpowered) wizard-cleric hybrid, not very good at either class, and making tactically dubious choices deliberately. So the new guy goes, 'You know what we do in my WoW guild when a cleric doesn't want to heal? We kick him.'

Guess what happened next. We kicked out the WoW guy, problem solved.

I can easily envisage the reverse scenario (which is what the WoW guy expected), where the Roleplayer-with-Poor-Tactical-Decisionmaking-TM get's kicked out. It's a question of who you game with. As long as everyone's on the same page. But yeah, I'm with jibbajibba - personally I can't stand the WoW mentality at my pen'n'paper tables which prioritize 'tactical performance' over any other regard, especially the social ones. Way to go, joining an extant group of friends who've gamed together for a long time. I mean, the WoW guy could have put his case more carefully, but he was going right for the 'cleric guy, either you change or we'll kick you'. 'We' indeed.