Quote from: jibbajibba;543355We haven't even started on birds yet.....

Seagulls are pretty hard-core.

There is a lot of humor in Original D&D and AD&D 1, in particular hidden about in the monster listings.  Some of it is heavier than others.  It's there to make you happy.  Thank you Gary and all others involved.  Levity intermixed with  sincerity in the books is a reflection of the game's spontaneity in play.

Quote from: Kuroth;543364There is a lot of humor in Original D&D and AD&D 1, in particular hidden about in the monster listings.  Some of it is heavier than others.  It's there to make you happy.  Thank you Gary and all others involved.  Levity intermixed with  sincerity in the books is a reflection of the game's spontaneity in play.

And is still alive in write-ups like The Kitten That Walks.

Quote from: jeff37923;543356Nor the fact that in 3.x, housecats could be created as feral by just giving them a level of Barbarian. Take THAT puny spellcaster...  

I think to take class levels a thingy needs an Int of 3 or better. You could do that it with templates (e.g. fiendish) or Awaken, though; maybe level advancement points.

I think the AD&D housecat is still worse. 1-3 on d6 surprise, and each segment of surprise lets you get off a full attack...

Quote from: jeff37923;543366And is still alive in write-ups like The Kitten That Walks.

Ya, AD&D 2, D&D 3 and D&D 4 all have their bits of intermixed humor.  Second is more in what is implied in the core books, in the non-core it can be very silly.  Third tends to have it buried behind a heavier veneer of mechanical bits.  Fourth tends toward various allusions.  It's always good to have about in the books in some way.  The theme you mentioned should have been in D&D 3's player's book 3 just to make it ridiculously less subtle.

Quote from: DestroyYouAlot;543321Honestly, I always liked the idea that the AD&D housecat is simply tough as hell, full stop.  In a world where giant rats seem to infest every other tavern basement, this works for me.  

Apparently there are some AD&D housecats in the real world.

QuoteA Cleveland man was attacked by a housecat Friday afternoon and the man's injuries are so severe that he had to be taken by air ambulance to Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston.

The altercation between the man and the animal occurred at a home on CR 3182 a few miles south of Cleveland in Liberty County.

At some point during the attack, the man and the cat reportedly were injured by a knife the man was holding. The man was taken to Cleveland Regional Medical Center before being transported to Houston.

And he fumbled. Clearly he was not playing RAW, but the cat still gets credit for knocking him to negative.

"In AD&D domestic cats were better fighters than 1st level magic-users"

Non sequitur, everyone knows you can't domesticate a cat!

There is a YouTube video out there with an Animal Control Officer with a cat going into a frenzy in which the cat wins the short melee.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;5432731e is not crap. It's actually an excellent game, and I enjoy low-level play. The thing that kills me is when people refuse, and I mean stubbornly refuse to acknowledge real flaws in the game. When I say things like this, it's not intended to be an attack against 1e. If it was, and if I thought 1e was junk, then I would never waste my time writing material for it. I love AD&D, but I do see room for improvement. If saying that makes the Gygaxians go apeshit, then I'll just have to live with it, because I don't like adult Humans being closely matched by small animals...such as bats, cats, rats, squirrels, crows, and whatnot, unless it is deliberately intended to be comedy.

Good points all around.  Of course, even a 0-level NPC shouldn't be dropped instantly by a squirrel with a lucky roll.  However, there are other considerations - like diseases - that could be brought into play.  Does that mean the rule suddenly makes sense?  No, of course not.  It's one of those things that you can either gloss over and just state that even a bubonic plague weakened infant isn't going to be killed by a squirrel (SacLamb's option), or you can fiddle with the damage a bit.  Getting attacked by a domestic cat that is fighting for its life is going to be a painful experience, and will likely require stitches.  However, you can easily rule that it does 2pts of damage total, and let the victim hang around at 0hps for a while, something like a minion.  One more hit and they are SOL, but until then, everything is peachy.

Again, though, SacLamb's central point is correct; there are simply some less than stellar rules interactions drifting through the AD&D 1st Edition rules.  They are few and far between, in my opinion, but that is just as likely because I already know how to deal with the other ones people still have problems with on occasion.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;543221The scaling of HPs in D&D is indefensible.

It only indefensible when you don't know the history of the game.

In Chainmail Man to Man combat a hit equals a kill on a normal fighter. Heroes were defined as being four times as effective as a normal fighter and could take 4 hits. Superheroes were eight times as effective and could take 8 hits.

After a session or two, Arneson in  his Blackmoor campaign saw that this was too lethal and changed it to characters gaining 1d6 hit points per level and doing 1d6 per hit. OD&D continued to use this idea.

Then in Greyhawk, each class was given a unique dice to roll (1d4, 1d6, 1d8) and weapons including monster attacks were all given varying amounts of damage.

And it builds from there all leading back from Arneson's and Gygax efforts to adapt Chainmail to their campaigns.

And these two men and the community they were part of cared a lot for accuracy due to their background in historical miniature wargaming.

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;543221As a DM, I can certainly work around this, and have awesome games in 1e (and Basic, 2e, and 3e for that matter), but using the rules as they currently exist, can create utterly retarded situations straight out of Monty Python. Situations such as a squirrel beating the fuck out of my 0-level valet, or a domestic cat slapping the shit out of the party Magic-User or Thief.

Which is why you have a human referee when nonsensical results occur.

In fact OD&D had it right for the D&D style rules system. Gygax should have used a refined version of this for AD&D.

QuoteINSECTS OR SMALL ANIMALS: These can be any of a huge variety of creatures such as wolves, centipedes, snakes and spiders. Any hit will kill the smaller, while larger beasts (such as wolves) will receive one Hit Die. Generally speaking they will be Armor Class 8.

Benoist is not out of line to say ignore the Monster Manual II. Like most of the post Unearthed Arcana books , including Unearthed Arcana, the design was not the greatest due to Gygax and TSR needing to have releases to keep cash flow going.

In the end every games design for RPGs have limits or nonsensical results if you push the system far enough. Gygax and Arneson choose a specific method of representing the relative power levels of individuals and creatures. A ninth level character is three times as tough as a third level character, and so on.

As for "fixing" the flaw in D&D. Fine but then game changes into another type of fantasy roleplaying that is similar to D&D but not the same. Which in the leads me to ask why do you care about D&D then." It like complaining all the time that castling is a stupid move while trying participating in chess club.

There are other RPGs with a different approach realism and relative powers between individuals and monsters.

Quote from: Marleycat;543317That's a sensible fix to me.

Gerard Butler screaming is always a sensible solution.  

Quote from: One Horse Town;543350Jesus. Seven pages for this?

Jesus.  Ten posts per page?

What are you people, still on dial up or something?

Quote from: StormBringer;543380Good points all around.  Of course, even a 0-level NPC shouldn't be dropped instantly by a squirrel with a lucky roll.  However, there are other considerations - like diseases - that could be brought into play.  Does that mean the rule suddenly makes sense?  No, of course not.  It's one of those things that you can either gloss over and just state that even a bubonic plague weakened infant isn't going to be killed by a squirrel (SacLamb's option), or you can fiddle with the damage a bit.  Getting attacked by a domestic cat that is fighting for its life is going to be a painful experience, and will likely require stitches.  However, you can easily rule that it does 2pts of damage total, and let the victim hang around at 0hps for a while, something like a minion.  One more hit and they are SOL, but until then, everything is peachy.

Again, though, SacLamb's central point is correct; there are simply some less than stellar rules interactions drifting through the AD&D 1st Edition rules.  They are few and far between, in my opinion, but that is just as likely because I already know how to deal with the other ones people still have problems with on occasion.

Well, the scaling of Hit Points can probably be ignored if we avoid Humans getting into scraps with squirrels and whatnot. Or maybe we can work around it by making small animals inflict no damage, or maybe provide Humans with a HP boost. I've considered taking cues from games such as Call of Cthulhu or Runequest or something. Call of Cthulhu, for example, has it so that HPs equal Size + Constitution divided by 2. For 1e, maybe I'd give characters starting HPs equaling Strength + Constitution divided by 2. To prevent the HP boost from getting ridiculous, I would disallow rerolls for HPs, so if I rolled only 1 Hit Point, then I'd have to suck it up. I don't know. I'm still thinking about it...

Quote from: daniel_ream;543386

Awesome!

>load "RaidOverMoscow", 8, 1
>LOADING...

I love this game!!