Why Assassins are awesome!!!

[squeen]

This is the only one even slightly approaching survivable ability scores.

Really? I don't see how the stats affect survivorship so strongly.

 

[Hemlock]

dude, that last one's such a Thief and you know it. This is the only one even slightly approaching survivable ability scores.
No judgment; I'm legitimately curious: Do you (or anyone here) play in a gaming group where players expect every campaign to peter out before name level?
I can see the fun in seeing how far you can get with what the gods gave you (although, haven't we all had a little too much of real life?), but it must lead to some pretty nihilistic story design on the DM's part. What's the point of foreshadowing weighty future events if the PC's have no future?

I wouldn't say "peter out", and I haven't run AD&D in a long time (but might again soon), but as a GM I do prefer one-shots and campaigns that look like a series of one-shots. Every player has a stable of PCs and they bring one of them to each game session, so retiring a given PC simply means not bringing them to games any more. (Longer stories occur when things get out of hand and go on way longer than I had intended, not because I foreshadow future events. E.g. players go off and explore a spooky mountain full of abominations without actually ending the war they accidentally sort of started, but they might come back later and re-enter the war. In my ideal world the war would wrap up quickly OR the players would take responsibility for scheduling games and turn it into a West Marches sandbox, but at least up until now it's more often been that the players leave "plot threads" hanging and the burden is on me as GM to keep scheduling games, which I don't love. I'm working on solutions.)

And yes, real life also kills its fair share of campaigns, but not always.

 

[Hemlock]

Really? I don't see how the stats affect survivorship so strongly.

Yeah, honestly HP rolls probably matter more for the first few levels.

 

[Malrex]

We used the insane Unearthed Arcana dice array well into 3rd Edition. Everyone got sick of it and we went back to 7x3d6 dump the shittiest stat, but everyone was unhappy with their characters (and understandibly suspicious of the one guy with Paladin stats). Like Hemlock said, you can have fun with your mediocre build for 4 or 5 levels, but they're just not going to make it to heroic levels. If you're planning for the long term, you need to build characters with at least one extraordinary prime stat.

god. now I'm remembering the agony of trying to work a fighter character through the percentiles of an 18 Str, 10% at a time with wishes and other junk.

I dont know man...I really like 'working for it'. By the time we reach 7th or 8th level (usually takes about a year of playing for us), we usually start over and do something else. But crappy stats? well thats what makes magic items worth finding and using. How many tiimes have you kept those extra potions and plan to use them in a "emergency"? Well with bad stats, sometimes any battle can become that emergency and then you are craving for more magic items to survive.
Usually we played with 4d6, drop the lowest die for each stat.
Now we are doing 3d6, then reroll your 3 stats you want with 4d6 and take the best roll.
I really rolled crappy (and my first main character died already)...but we also use (whispers so Squeen can't hear) proficiency/nonproficiency points and the DM allows using 1 of those to increase your stat by 1 if you wish. AND...we roll % for each stat...so your Strength could be 7/45%. Everytime you level, you get 30% points that you add to stats like a thief can with their abilities, so another chance for stats to raise (but again, not by much because we usually go to 7th or 8th level). So we have opportunities to build up our stats which is kinda fun.

Anyways, Im digging the shitty stats if Im honest. Just makes things tougher, which I like. When I was running Vermilion, one player had a fighter with a strength of 13....he got a special ring of regeneration (everytime he hits something, he gains a little hp) and Spear +2 as well as some decent armor and he was really hard to take down.

 

[The1True]

but we also use (whispers so Squeen can't hear) proficiency/nonproficiency points and the DM allows using 1 of those to increase your stat by 1 if you wish. AND...we roll % for each stat...so your Strength could be 7/45%. Everytime you level, you get 30% points that you add to stats like a thief can with their abilities, so another chance for stats to raise

Oooo a sort of 2.75e ability boost. I dig it!

I was going to tempt you over to the 3e dark side (because clearly, at this point, your group is just an Ascending AC away from a deadly fall off this slippery slope you're on ), but then I got this even better idea:

Someone should do a livestream featuring a table full of crusty, grey-haired, dyed in the wool, Old School grognards. Like the kind of dudes that quibble over the differences between B/X and BECMI, and think that all metal died with Dimebag Darrel, maaaybe even a semi-tolerated red ballcap among them.

But they have to play 5e (or, god help me, PF2e).

They don't have to play the 5e WotC adventures, in fact it would be way cooler if they were converting old or indy stuff.
All of them, including the DM, are new to the rules and so SO angry about just everything.
For spice, we throw in someone's kid -Like a blue-haired, poly, non-binary, cat-they- as one of the players!
Zero censorship. We view everything through the lens of ignorance rather than prejudice. Either (all of) these people work their way towards glorious understanding and growth or a spectacular, fiery trainwreck/bloodbath.

I would watch the SHIT out of this.

 

[Malrex]

Someone should do a livestream featuring a table full of crusty, grey-haired, dyed in the wool, Old School grognards. Like the kind of dudes that quibble over the differences between B/X and BECMI, and think that all metal died with Dimebag Darrel, maaaybe even a semi-tolerated red ballcap among them.

But they have to play 5e (or, god help me, PF2e).

They don't have to play the 5e WotC adventures, in fact it would be way cooler if they were converting old or indy stuff.
All of them, including the DM, are new to the rules and so SO angry about just everything.
For spice, we throw in someone's kid -Like a blue-haired, poly, non-binary, cat-they- as one of the players!
Zero censorship. We view everything through the lens of ignorance rather than prejudice. Either (all of) these people work their way towards glorious understanding and growth or a spectacular, fiery trainwreck/bloodbath.

I would watch the SHIT out of this.

I'll talk to my Director...

 

[squeen]

Spent an wonderful evening with a friend I played D&D with in the 70s/80s. @The1True's livestream idea is going to have compete with the podcast title I came up with tonight called "Two Old Guys Misremember the 80's". Which will be comparatively awful, but far closer to reality TV.

 

[The1True]

Not going to lie, for the most part, Stranger Things has been nailing it for me...

 

[grodog]

Like Hemlock said, you can have fun with your mediocre build for 4 or 5 levels, but they're just not going to make it to heroic levels. If you're planning for the long term, you need to build characters with at least one extraordinary prime stat.

Yes, but AD&D also needs more mechanisms than just aging, magic tomes, and the oddball ioun stone to raise stats, given their importance to long-term campaign play. While I don’t advocate for all of the ho-hum stats-boosting spells and items from 3e, adding some more attribute-bumping strangitude to your world via magical pools and fountains; drugs, herbs and trees/fruits; strange elixirs; and the blessings/curses of gods, demons, and other entities in-between seems required, in particular if you’re playing with level limits for demi-humans.

god. now I'm remembering the agony of trying to work a fighter character through the percentiles of an 18 Str, 10% at a time with wishes and other junk.

Yeah, that’s crap, and is a total over-reaction to the ludicrous commonality of wishes in OD&D. I ignored that 10 wishes per point rule aeons ago

Allan.

 

[grodog]

Just for fun, here's four 3d6-in-order arrays for AD&D 2e and what I'd do with them and how long I'd play them:

Str 10 Dex 8 Con 11 Int 13 Wis 9 Cha 16.
Str 7 Dex 5 Con 16 Int 12 Wis 7 Cha 14.
Str 8 Dex 10 Con 6 Int 12 Wis 8 Cha 9.
Str 9 Dex 15 Con 16 Int 11 Wis 4 Cha 13.

Some of those arrays could get a little better with age and demi-human adjustments, but on the whole they are pretty lame. There’s not even really enough room to adjust stats on a 2:1 basis =)

Allan.