Quote from: Omega;860512The scale of cost counting can change in BX as you can end up starting to price boats and castles, or funding units of retainers or mercs.

Yes, had a small group of Heroes a while ago looking at buying a longship and having enough to pay the crew half a year's wages in advance if they wanted to (with enough left to cover the present month's upkeep for themselves of 1% of XP, a rule that might not be in BX).

Quote from: Phillip;860511How about flaming oil? There's another thing that's not so awesome if it's just the same as everything else, compared with being (in BX) at least as good as a sword that's better than so much else.

I like it better as a way to discourage pursuit than as the go-to means of causing casualties, mainly (but not only) because I'm not so much into the "molotovs & sorcery" genre as a style thing.

In BX it does 1d8 and makes a great blockade as a flask will burn for a full turn when poured on the ground and lit. That is 60 rounds.

Used as an attack it only burns a creature for 2 rounds. Range is better than a dagger, worse than a spear. But does not need a to-hit roll to hit something. Whereas a vial of holy water does.

Quote from: Omega;860512There are times where its important. and times where its not. Early game where gold is scarce its important and deciding do you want to fork out for this weapon that costs more but weighs less, or this one that costs less but weighs more? Do you want to pay in gold to look the part? Or are you content to look like a common street thug?

Later in the game you can just walk into a shop and list off what you buy and move on wham-bam because its now pocket change. The scale of cost counting can change in BX as you can end up starting to price boats and castles, or funding units of retainers or mercs.

Right, so the question is: why are encumbrance and cost important to track, and not damage or other well-defined qualities?

Not trying to dictate how others play, just saying that if you don't differentiate weapons in terms of what is, after all, their most important function (that is, how good they are at killing people), then I'd be annoyed at having to pay attention to other details. Why not just let me draw a picture of my character holding whatever weapon, and be done with it?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;860513And a good team makes sure they don't have those circumstances.

"Better not head down that 5' wide passageway guys. We're a "good team" armed only with daggers, after all." :rolleyes:

Quote from: Phillip;860516Not so bad. If memory serves, javelin is lighter than spear, same range, dagger damage?

Javelins did not appear till X, cost 1gp. It was never given a range value so we just ignored it. Since its is footnoted as a light spear probably same range as a dagger, or use the intermediary oil range. And damage in X was still a d6. Variable damage was optional and we never used it.

Quote from: Omega;860520Used as an attack it only burns a creature for 2 rounds. Range is better than a dagger, worse than a spear. But does not need a to-hit roll to hit something. Whereas a vial of holy water does.

2d8 is basically kiss your toasted ass goodbye for your 1-HD critters, only worse for weak ones like your MUs or 'normals'. (1d8 if put out after the first round is still on par with a sword -- that always hits, and at range!)

I can see it in a case like the Vietnamese monk protest suicide, someone completely soaked with gasoline. No reason you can't have high-test in your fantasy world, but maybe it's usually more of a splash in the dungeons? I mean the business of tossing flasks, as opposed to a murder hole trap that dumps a bucket on you.

Quote from: Arminius;860524Right, so the question is: why are encumbrance and cost important to track, and not damage or other well-defined qualities?

Not trying to dictate how others play, just saying that if you don't differentiate weapons in terms of what is, after all, their most important function (that is, how good they are at killing people), then I'd be annoyed at having to pay attention to other details. Why not just let me draw a picture of my character holding whatever weapon, and be done with it?

We track the damage done? HP in D&D isnt really meat so it made sense that PC weapons all did the same general damage. Its abstract. We got that right off.
IE: the sword wears down the foe more, but is slower to bring into play. Stuff like that.
Weight in BX is also generalized and more or less abstract. Everyone has the same carrying capacity regardless of STR. Little things you dont worry about. Its when you get to the loads that you start to think about what you can and cannot haul around and how it is going to effect your movement rate. Which was also generalized.

Quote from: aspiringlich;860525"Better not head down that 5' wide passageway guys. We're a "good team" armed only with daggers, after all." :rolleyes:

Query:  What happened to the Magic User?  Did they stop using spells suddenly?  Also, the Cleric, who's limited in weapon use, but has spells, whatever happened to theirs?  Your reply makes no sense to me.

Quote from: Omega;860532We track the damage done? HP in D&D isnt really meat so it made sense that PC weapons all did the same general damage. Its abstract. We got that right off.

What do you mean here? If you're suggesting that I'd only be satisfied with daggers doing d4 and great swords doing d10, then--nope. Just a reason for using one weapon vs. another that (again) relates to the actual reasons people would use different weapons.

(Digression: D&D and most RPGs are kind of anachronistic in that weapon and armor choice were much less a matter of personal preference than of culture, social class, current fashion & technological development, at any given point in time. But if you make the choice significant, it doesn't make much sense to ignore combat effectiveness. Otherwise--abstract everything.)

So for example, using weapon-v-AC for fights between humanoids, where HP aren't meat points. Optionally, using variable weapon damage vs. monsters whose HP are largely derived from their mass, would make sense to me. Another option would be to have grievous wound effects, varying by weapon class, for whenever a figure's HP go below zero.

The question of trade-offs gets more significant when you're arming for instance 75 reavers to crew a longship. The more a campaign involves people who aren't bopping around with magic daggers, and the more one likes it to look somewhat medieval, the less it's a negligible matter.

Maybe more people would say "screw metal armor" if it mostly just cost more and weighed them down more? And maybe then it would be more obvious that rationally weighing cost and benefit has something (not necessarily everything) to do with a lot of historical features often taken for granted as trappings in heroic fantasy?

Quote from: Phillip;8605282d8 is basically kiss your toasted ass goodbye for your 1-HD critters, only worse for weak ones like your MUs or 'normals'. (1d8 if put out after the first round is still on par with a sword -- that always hits, and at range!)

I can see it in a case like the Vietnamese monk protest suicide, someone completely soaked with gasoline. No reason you can't have high-test in your fantasy world, but maybe it's usually more of a splash in the dungeons? I mean the business of tossing flasks, as opposed to a murder hole trap that dumps a bucket on you.

Assuming you can light it. Theres nothing to stop someone dosed in oil from just running the hell away from anyone with a fire source. In which case youd need a to-hit to throw the torch at them or something.

In BX it makes a pool 3' in diameter and burns for the aformentioned 10 minutes. When we wanted to make a firewall we used three to block a standard 10' passage.

Probably something like lamp oil.

Lindybeige has a series of videos up on torches and other light sources and one of the things he shows off is a roman clay oil lantern. His was filled with olive oil. Which isnt particularly flamable by itself.

I'll probably be doing a mostly BX game (which is a lot like OD&D with Supp. I) in the not so distant future, but my preference in the past has been to differentiate weapons by attack-roll bonus.

Note that in the original set, although only certain special monsters (mainly Giants) get boosted damage dice, tougher ones do get better attack rolls.

The historical importance of training in a culture's favored arms is something that can add flavor in the game, with fighting men coming from different backgrounds.

The attack-roll shifts have a number of features different from damage-roll shifts, but the main thing to my mind is that they don't so overshadow level bonuses. A damage-die bonus is more generally significant, and reserving it for magic weapons seems to me appropriate.

Quote from: Arminius;860536What do you mean here? If you're suggesting that I'd only be satisfied with daggers doing d4 and great swords doing d10, then--nope.

I am not suggesting anything. I pointed out that in BX the damage is a flat average abstraction applied to 10 second combat round. Encumberance and movement are as well. Average abstractions.

Play it as you will. That is the point of BX even more than AD&D. Dont want to track fine weights? Then talk it over with the DM or if you are the DM then talk it over with the PCs. And so on.

Not sure I'm following you.

Are you saying that a great sword doing the same damage as a dagger is because you can strike more times with a dagger than you can in a great sword?

EDIT: Also, point of order: when you write "BX", what edition are you referring to? I'm using to reading B/X as Moldvay/Cook, and that has variable weapon damage in the Basic Book. I believe that BECMI's Basic, which is written by Mentzer, doesn't have variable damage. Holmes Basic, for which there's no corresponding "Expert", is like the original (0e) Brown Box/White Box in that there's no variable damage. But Greyhawk, as part of the 0e line, does have variable damage along with weapon-v-AC adjustments.

Yeah, vegetable oil seems unlikely to create the spectacular explosions of flame your modern street fighters put to good effect. However, just hot -- not flaming -- oil can be quite a pain, as careless deep-fryers have often learned!