Quote from: Phillip;861635Yes. Eastern archers in the classical period probably hit harder than Greeks because they drew further, not from having inherently more powerful bows (which might be the impression one gets from some rules sets). Construction was largely dictated by available materials (trees for instance being scarcer on the steppes than horn).

Likewise, Roman legionaries once they got the hang of it routinely won victory with short swords and fencing skill over barbarians hacking with long swords. The more flexible legion also ended up beating the pike phalanx, more vulnerable to disturbance of close order.

A longbowman or claymore expert was raised from youth, not made overnight with a purchase of equipment. (And Welsh longbowmen seem to have got less pay than English crossbowmen in the Hundred Years War on account of cultural prejudice.)



As I mentioned earlier, I find a bonus or penalty on the attack roll more theoretically pleasing than one on the damage roll (reserving the latter for special cases such as those in the original 3 booklets).

Monster HD -- which give greater attack ability as well as more HP -- are as I recall explicitly stated in the original set as encompassing factors such as ferocity and weaponry.

This is exactly right. Weapon damage is an abstraction at best, and while there's nothing wrong with variable weapon damage (that's what I use too) it's pretty stupid to claim that it's "realistic" for bigger weapons do more damage. That's simply not how weapons work.

Using damage by character class, like Dungeon World does, is probably as close as you're going to get to "realism" in the fantasy gaming environment, and even that's not very realistic. After all, we don't seem to have character classes in real life...

I find some of the wrangling over details in early (A)D&D (at least pre-2e, probably pre-3e) overestimates and overemphasizes the amount of intentionality in the rules. It's not like choosing one initiative option vs another or introducIng a new one altogether will have wide-ranging, unintended side-effects.

BTW, Phillip, I don't have the books at hand or memorized, so I'll admit you are probably right about HD of monsters. Still, D&D as a whole is pretty rough and ready in its combat abstractions. I mean on offense you have several variables: # attacks, damage/attack, and THAC0. On defense you have AC and hit points. For some combatants, some of these things are pretty concrete, but others are quite abstract for many combatants. The game creates a rough link between offense in terms of THAC0 and defense in terms of hit points, leaving the other variables to provide wiggle room.

So eg in 1e a Brontosaurus (which incidentally is a real thing again) has 30 HD (THAC0: 7), AC 5, and does 3-18 damage. A contemporary, the Allosaurus has 15 HD (THAC0: , AC 5, and does 1-4/1-4/6-24 damage. The extra HD of the bronto pretty clearly represent its ability to absorb damage due to greater mass, but the consequently slightly lower hit probability of the allosaur is made up for by the greater damage output. The abstract math is fiddled to produce the "right" concrete effect: a bronto is harder to kill, but less dangerous than a carnosaur, at least per unit of time spent fighting it.

I just wanted to know how to interpret the trap rule.

Congrats, you created a trap, metaphorically speaking.

Quote from: drkrash;861670I just wanted to know how to interpret the trap rule.

MY advice: Think of it not as a 'rule' (as if this were Monopoly) but as a suggestion that you can use as a default if you've got no reason to roll some other way.

Some traps might work (or secret doors be found, etc.) more or less often than the default.

I think folks figured that had been answered plenty of ways, so on with tangents.

Quote from: Phillip;861676MY advice: Think of it not as a 'rule' (as if this were Monopoly) but as a suggestion that you can use as a default if you've got no reason to roll some other way.

Some traps might work (or secret doors be found, etc.) more or less often than the default.

I think folks figured that had been answered plenty of ways, so on with tangents.

Thanks.  My question was totally answered to my satisfaction a long, long time ago.  As the OP, I was just joking about how far away the conversation had wondered, that's all.

Quote from: Ddogwood;861664After all, we don't seem to have character classes in real life...

Chef, Mechanic, Lawyer, Officer, etc. Yep. Totally no classes in real life with their own inherint skillsets, equipment, levels of dificulty in entry, and so on. Nope. None at all.

:rolleyes:

I don't think classes are especially realistic, just a convenient simplification and genre reinforcement. The idea that dungeon world is the height of realism, though, is a howler.

Classes are (or were) mainly to present an interesting range of approaches to the scenario, one that encourages cooperation in a multi-player game. Early D&D I think managed to do that without making any particular mix necessary.

(Conventional wisdom I encountered back in the day was that a ratio of about 3 or 4 fighters per magician was desirable, but I've seen all sorts of teams.)

Quote from: Omega;861686Chef, Mechanic, Lawyer, Officer, etc. Yep. Totally no classes in real life with their own inherint skillsets, equipment, levels of dificulty in entry, and so on. Nope. None at all.

:rolleyes:

Classes in a game are a single path a character will ever be, with no deviation and very little option to branch out.  Where as all the occupations you've listed are a series of skills that you can gather over a life time.  You can be a Chef/Mechanic/Officer for example.  Or a Lawyer/Judge/Politician/Criminal, which is a very popular choice for that particular path.

So no, you're incorrect by calling them 'classes'.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;861695So no, you're incorrect by calling them 'classes'.

They are classes when you dedicate your career to them. And guess what? People do exactly that even today. D&D classes are much the same.

Quote from: Omega;861697They are classes when you dedicate your career to them. And guess what? People do exactly that even today. D&D classes are much the same.

Thing is, people have multiple careers throughout their lives.  D&D classes ARE the life.

D&D and T&T, etc., were not created to be games of real life. However, the fantasy/medieval combo C&S illustrates I think that the basic concept is a pretty good fit for class-conscious ancient/medieval societies.

A given set might not fit a given world it was not designed to fit, which should be no surprise. Games such as D&D, Palladium and RoleMaster have accumulated huge cornucopias of material from which to select, in character classes and secondary skills as well as monsters, magic and other elements.

From Gangbusters, in which 'careers' are like D&D 'classes':

QuoteCharacters can change from the career they are in to any other, with one exception: characters who have been criminals cannot enter any other career unless their criminal records are unknown to their new employers.

A character who changes careers starts the new career at a level that is one-half the level he reached in his old career. Fractions are rounded down.

This is easier than the rules in Original or Advanced D&D, but social mobility is easier (and skills are more transferable) in the early 20th-century urban milieu.