Two orcs
Officially better than you, according to PoN
Creating a monster, or even something more complex like an enemy magic-user, in a B/X clone is incredibly fast and reliable. When I placed monsters in other fantasy games the outcome was often game ending, not because the player characters were destroyed, but because they were destroyed in a way that broke immersion. In the Hârn clone I ran during most of my teens a player with statistics of an "veteran knight" was unexpectantly destroyed by a regular crocodile (a creature we've all seen manhandled by an exuberant antipodean). Illusion shattered. Playing just a little D&D players quickly develop the ability to size up their opponents. Here's my theory for the key abstractions that make this work:
#1 HD, an overall measure of power that includes both hp and to-hit. These abstraction in turn represent both strength, skill and supernatural gifts. A 5th level fighter and an ogre are very similar statistically but feel very different.
#2 AC, represents both agility, armor, thick skin and supernatural gifts. A man in plate armor, a nude giant and a phase tiger are about as hard to hit but for different reasons.
#3 Damage, represents again both skill, strength and super-nature. Since you know how many hp something on average has (4,5 per HD) you can easily gauge how deadly a creature is.
#4 Speed, again easy to judge compared to the party. You know the speed of a horse, a slow, medium and fast adventurer. It basically decides if this is something you can always or only sometimes outrun.
A second way this simple breakdown in stats works is because the player characters aren't much more complex. Since a player character can be summed up in almost as short a stat line facing another simple creature doens't make it feel like a soulless doll just there for punching.
The reason this came up is because of an urelated RPG I've been trying to design for nearly two decades and I think my recent discovery of D&D has given me the tools to finally succeed.
#1 HD, an overall measure of power that includes both hp and to-hit. These abstraction in turn represent both strength, skill and supernatural gifts. A 5th level fighter and an ogre are very similar statistically but feel very different.
#2 AC, represents both agility, armor, thick skin and supernatural gifts. A man in plate armor, a nude giant and a phase tiger are about as hard to hit but for different reasons.
#3 Damage, represents again both skill, strength and super-nature. Since you know how many hp something on average has (4,5 per HD) you can easily gauge how deadly a creature is.
#4 Speed, again easy to judge compared to the party. You know the speed of a horse, a slow, medium and fast adventurer. It basically decides if this is something you can always or only sometimes outrun.
A second way this simple breakdown in stats works is because the player characters aren't much more complex. Since a player character can be summed up in almost as short a stat line facing another simple creature doens't make it feel like a soulless doll just there for punching.
The reason this came up is because of an urelated RPG I've been trying to design for nearly two decades and I think my recent discovery of D&D has given me the tools to finally succeed.