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Welcome watchers!

I can make no promises about the 1st edition group at this time as it will first come, first served like this game was.  However, if you are watching this game, you'll know when it ends and thus when the 1st edition thread is likely to pop up over in D&D Next General Discussion. 

If you are familiar with the "Red Box" adventure we're using, please feel free to provide commentary and discussion, but, please, no spoilers.     

Sep 17, 2012 -- 12:37PM, VacantPsalm wrote:

Welp, you said this is the thread for discussion, so here it goes...

"...If you have a high Prime Requisite, you earn bonus experience points. If your PR is low, you take an XP penalty."

Really?! :O  What is the variance of these numbers? Does this cause long games to slowly fall apart do to a gap in player XP? From my experience in RPGs (both table top and video game) touching the flow of XP is crazy bad idea, like Item Familiar in 3.5. I'm… baffled by such a thing. Baffled, but not complaining. Tis how it was, and so how it should be for the tour. I guess the fallacy in my thinking is "in my experience." Was this too original for them to of predicted things like messing with XP flow = bad? Does a rule like this exist in 1e/2e?


The game hasn't even started and I already find this interesting. :3  I game design.

Well, my recollections of playing back in the OD&D/Basic days are that most games were not organized in the same fashion as RPGs are usually played nowadays. Generally it was a wargaming type activity, so you had a large established group. One person would decide to be DM (actually called Referee in OD&D). The DM would create/buy a dungeon to run. It would consist of some sort of town area and some sort of dungeon-type adventure location to explore (B2 is pretty much the classic implementation, you have the keep and the caves).

From that point on an ongoing campaign consists of the DM and some subset of players getting together, forming a party, and exploring the dungeon. Sometimes this might be one PC and his hirelings and henchmen, sometimes it might be 8 or more PCs. Often the group will be different each week, and players may have more than one PC of different levels that they might play at different times (or they might play a lower level henchman of their main character sometimes, etc).

The point is that XP divergence in this sort of campaign rarely matters. If your character dies or falls behind or whatever you probably just either shift to some party that is more in line with your capabilities or tag along at the back of the group and hope to catch up, or go on some solo adventures.

Yes, AD&D has similar rules. It was still pretty well rooted in the basic 'dungeon crawl' paradigm.

Another aspect of this was the game was somewhat competitive. PCs of course were in it together to some extent and RP considerations meant most PCs didn't go around backstabbing or betraying one another but they WERE at some level rivals. There was a sort of prestige associated with being the guy that had the highest level PC around. Also level advancement past name level was sort of nominal. You COULD advance but it would be slow and play usually focused more on building castles, creating items, raising armies, and persuing rivalries with other PCs at higher level, so again relative XP advancement didn't matter too much.

In essence the Basic rules CM is using were designed to play a type of game almost entirely different from what most people today would think of as a D&D campaign, which is why a lot of them may seem a bit odd in retrospect, but they made perfectly good sense at the time (well, most of them...).

All right, I upgraded Sandallan's armor to plate and downgraded his spears to a sling.

I know Kowin doesn't want to be up front, so I put him second in the single-file order.  Still, Kowin's got about as good survivability as everyone else.  Kowin has bad hp, but everyone else has lousy AC and only slightly better hp.  Assuming the monsters have the same THAC0 we do (19) and do d6 damage on a hit, we can estimate how long each of us might survive.

1. 4.28 rounds: Sandallan (S), Fighter (AC 2; hp 3), played by wrecan
2. 2.85 rounds: Gregor Nikolas (G), Cleric (AC 6; hp 4), played by mboss77
3. 2.29 rounds: Kowin Stonebone (K), Dwarf (AC 3; hp 2), played by Xerxes13
4. 1.56 rounds: Baros Truesilver (B), Magic-User (AC 9; hp 3), played by LordManshoon
5. 1.42 rounds: Talmore (T), Thief (AC 6; hp 2), played by Scottevil912
6. 1.26 rounds: Felix (F), Fighter (AC 7; hp 2), played by Josha

But the other consideration is offense.  And Kowin is an offensive machine.  Assuming our foes have a median AC of 5 and about 4.5 hp (d8 HD) each, we can guesstimate a kill rate as follows:

• 1.53 rounds: Kowin, sword (reflavored as axe), front line (+2/d8+2): DPR 2.925
• 2.00 rounds: Kowin, pole arm, second row (-1/d10+2): DPR 2.25
• 2.86 rounds: Sandallan, sword (+0/d8): DPR 1.575
• 2.86 rounds: Felix, sword (+0/d8): DPR 1.575
• 3.21 rounds: Talmore, short bow (+1/d6): DPR 1.4
• 4.29 rounds: Felix, short bow (-1/d6): DPR 1.05
• 5.14 rounds: Baros, dagger (+0/d4): DPR .875
• 5.14 rounds: Sandallan, sling (+0/d4): DRP .875
• 6.00 rounds: Gregor, mace (-1/d6-1): DPR .75
• 6.00 rounds: Talmore, shortsword (-1/d6-1): DPR .75

Based on this, Kowin should really be in the front row when possible.  Only Sandallan and Kowin have kill rates beter than their survival rates.  I propose the following.  For five-foot corridor:

>> F-T-B*-G-K-S >>

For ten-foot corridor:

>> F-G-K >>
>>T-B*-S>>

Baros is still holding the lantern.  This assumes Kowin gets himself a polearm so he can attack from the second row.

Edited to add: Kowin, you may want to consider dropping the shield and using a pole arm full time.  (We can flavor it as a dwarven greataxe.)  Your AC increases by one, but your median damage also increases by 1.  Weilding a pole arm in the front row makes your survival rate 1.9 rounds, but your kill rate becomes 1.33.  Just a thought.