Quote from: BedrockBrendan;577733The point people are making is the fighter's attack resources don't go down (unless he is firing arrows or something). He still has the same number of attacks and potential damage at the beginning of the battle as at the end, but the wizard depletes his spell resources and his attack effectiveness goes down as this occurs.

I'm glad someone gets it.

Quote from: soviet;577728Again with the narrowing to 2e.

that is because the discussion moved to 2e when this came up. We have been talking about 2e for a while now I believe.

Quote from: jibbajibba;577644In 1e if I recall you made a check once every 3 to 6 turns for an encounter with an encounter occuring 1 in 6 times

Do you have a page reference on that one?

Quote from: Benoist;577738Do you have a page reference on that one?

probably not, because each module was different and each module had it's own wandering monster table.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;577718Uh..yeah you did.  Bolded by me.  Although, at this point I'm beginning to wonder if reading comprehension is a struggle for you.

Firstly, you're assuming the MU has learned and memorized specific spells ahead of time to avoid combat (invisibility and teleport were your specific examples.  In actual play, if you memorize those spells, what ones are you bypassing?  The ones you were using earlier (the "big guns')?  You do realize that MUs have limited spell slots, right?  This is you assuming the MU would have access to all spells in order for your logic to work

Secondly, you said taking damage for caster is punishment for a mistake.  How exactly is it a mistake for the party to come across a band of bugbears who launch a volley of crossbow bolts at the caster, knowing he is the #1 target?  Or a group of giants who hurl boulders?  

A 5th level MU is going to have an AC around 7-9 with about 14 hit points, compared to a fighter around AC 0-2 with 33 hp.  An equal 5th level monster is going to hit the MU about 70% of the time, compared to only about 30% to the fighter.  If averaging 5 points of damage per hit, that's 4 rounds to kill the MU and 22 rounds to kill the fighter.

If that wasn't bad enough, you're also assuming that when the MU is casting a spell, he doesn't get interrupted while doing so, which is easily done at a 70% hit rate the monsters have against him.

How do the bugbears know who the caster is? Is he wearing a hat with Wizzard on it?
And I thought you have established that in a typical game day from 10 fights the wizard is only tough in 2 of them and in the rest he is useless so if these super bright bugbears know all about casters and relative strength in combat surely they would target the super tough fighter who is on average much more effective ? by your own logic.....

If the party come across a band of bugbears and get caught cold and suffer a round of unanswered bow missile fire its a mistake. Just like a bunch of marines walking into a crossfire.
The party should be scouting, identifying threats before they are encountered and either countering them with no combat if possible, to save resources, or engaing in combat on their own terms.

Most casters have some sort of defense spell. Invisibility, teleport, mirror image, shield, protection from normal missiles etc etc it is a typical spell for a wizard to select out of a range of spells.   I think we are asuming that the Wizard has selected some spells from their selection of spells. Say he was 5th (1e so 4/2/1) and carryied the typical if rather dull combo of Unseen Servant, Sleep, Enlarge, Charm Person, Invisibility, Mirror Image, Fireball   ... a reasonably normal spell selction, 3 agressive, 2 defensive and 2 multiuse a fairly standard adventurer.
Generally the tactics would be to stand with the torch bearers/hirelings and in combat look for the opportunity to hit massed groups with sleep or Fireball, individuals with Charm Person. They generally will only use these 3 biggies when they have to. They will cast invisibility probably on themselves when things look dicey but maybe on the thief for a backstab opportunity. If it comes to a toe to toe battle they will cast Mirror Image and hurl in one of the biggies or if things are truely desperate chuck daggers. The other two spells are utility but you coudl swap them for say Sheild and Friends, or Hold Portal, or Protection from Evil etc... All depends on how you distribute spells in your games.
If he has Read Magic, Comp Lang, Erase, Nystyls Magic Aura, continual Light, Fools Gold, Leomund's tiny Hut.... then he is not preped for a combat adventure and would be better staying in town and running a Long con or similar.

But you know all this its just D&D 101 it just doesn't suit your arguement.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;577739probably not, because each module was different and each module had it's own wandering monster table.

I was wondering about that. I checked out and all I could find as a relevant reference in the DMG was the example of play (cf. "the first adventure") where the DM rolls for a wandering monster because 3 turns passed, but that's just an example - I couldn't find a specific guideline on the actual frequency of the rolls in the text itself.

Quote from: jibbajibba;577742But you know all this its just D&D 101 it just doesn't suit your arguement.

Except for the fact that you've just described the MU blowing his wad in one encounter.

Great job proving my point for me.  I guess we've got another "rest after every battle" guy here.

Quote from: Benoist;577738Do you have a page reference on that one?

Was doig it from memory, looking at the 1e DMG page 47 exterior encounters

Unihabited wilderness is a 1in 10 chance and you make up to 6 checks a day depending on the terrain. either Morning, Noon, Evening, Night, Midnight, Predawn. So take forest which is a check at each you have 6 checks at 1in 10 for a check so a 60% chance per day roughly of encountering a random monster.. who of course might be a group of merchants or whatever.

Lookign through the DMG, man what a badly organised book..., it actually makes no reference to a standard to use, just refering to periodic checks,  so I can only assume its something I took from the Blue book that became a folk memory . If someone has the Blue book, mine has long since vanished can they take a look and confirm?

In 2e though its a bit better page 101 A modifed version of the wilderness encounter table with higher chances of encounters up to 4 in 10 for Swamps... but the same 6 encounter slots and a statement for Dungeons which is check once per hour with a 1in 10 chance. You can up that for highly populated areas.
That sounds like a typical 2e update to a old rule usd to be d6 now d10 just like Initiative.

Hope that helps.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;577747I guess we've got another "rest after every battle" guy here.

No, you've got a guy white knighting anybody saying anything challenging 1e because a bunch of people here made fun of 2e for like 4 years. :rolleyes:

Quote from: Sacrosanct;577747Except for the fact that you've just described the MU blowing his wad in one encounter.

Great job proving my point for me.  I guess we've got another "rest after every battle" guy here.

What are you talkig about ?

I described a differnt number of encounters against a group, an individual or a desperate battle to save the party.... all different encounters.....

In encounter 1 the Wizard stands around holding his Torch the Fighter and the Cleric bully the pair of goblins into submission , not combat occurs.

In combat 2 suddenly another 8 goblins turn up and the would be guides attack to, the wizard has no choice but to reveal himself and use sleep.

In combat 3 they find out the goblins were working for an Ogre, the Ogre is dealing with the party who are trying to see if they can get past but he betrays then and attacks the party get suprised and the fighter take a hit, the Ogre does not automatically attack the wizzard because he has fuck all idea who is is whereas there is a bloke in front of him with armour and a sword. The wizard casts invisibility on the thief who gets a backstab on the ogre and finishes him.

In Combat 4 they face 3 ogres the Wizz hard to go for the fireball so reveals himself and FBs the ogre group

In combat 5 etc etc ......

Sorry If I suggested it was all in one combat me bad. I was doign it quick whilst watching telly.

Quote from: jibbajibba;577753Was doig it from memory, looking at the 1e DMG page 47 exterior encounters

Unihabited wilderness is a 1in 10 chance and you make up to 6 checks a day depending on the terrain. either Morning, Noon, Evening, Night, Midnight, Predawn. So take forest which is a check at each you have 6 checks at 1in 10 for a check so a 60% chance per day roughly of encountering a random monster.. who of course might be a group of merchants or whatever.

Lookign through the DMG, (...), it actually makes no reference to a standard to use, just refering to periodic checks,  so I can only assume its something I took from the Blue book that became a folk memory . If someone has the Blue book, mine has long since vanished can they take a look and confirm?

It's extremely helpful yes, thanks. You're right it doesn't provide an explicit answer but it does a context, no doubt. Interesting variation of randomizers on the base chance of encounters here. Also notice the part in the Procedure paragraph that says "where only 1 or 2 chances for encounter exist, you may vary the time as you see fit in order to avoid player reliance on information which they should not be privy to." Which seems to implicitly state that, if you are using a d6 randomizer in the dungeon instead of a d10, d12 or d20, you'd also follow the same basic idea that there shouldn't be a strictly regular-as-clockwork roll to avoid the PCs playing on information their characters are not privy to. Seems logical, right? Still, it's interesting to see all this information implied indirectly rather than being clearly spelled out in the case of the dungeon.

PS: I'm sorry to have pissed you off earlier. It was not intentional.

Found an onliene reference to Basic D&D

 @ http://strangemagic.robertsongames.com/2011/02/dungeon-design-wandering-monsteres.html
After looking at dungeon design and how light works in the game, I thought I'd spend some time looking at how Wandering Monsters actually work in the Moldvay edition of Basic D&D (which isn't completely how I *thought* they did).

First we see how often Wandering Monsters appear:

    At the end of every 2 turns, the DM should check for Wandering Monsters. To do so, roll 1d6: a result of 1 indicates that the party will encounter a Wandering Monster on the next turn."

So rather than once a turn (which is what I thought the rule is) it's actually once every THREE turns, since I wouldn't check during the turn the Wandering Monster is appearing.  This is less often than I thought.


However in some areas you would check more often:

    The dungeon may have certain areas where Wandering Monsters are encountered more often (such as on a roll of 1 or 2).
    The dungeon may have areas where the DM checks for Wandering Monsters every turn, or where a monster will appear when a corridor is entered.

I think it's important that players somehow be able to make choices about whether to remain in a high-traffic area or not, and for that they need to be able to predict which areas will have more wandering monsters than others.

In addition to this Wandering Monster frequency will be affected by the choices the behaviour of the adventuring party:

    Wandering Monsters should appear more often if the party is making a lot of noise or light, but should not be frequent if the party spends a long time in one out-of-the-way place (if they stop in a room for the nigh, for example).

The rules don't say how infrequently to check for Wandering Monsters if the party is quietly waiting in an out-of-the-way place but it would need to be less than once every 30 minutes. Perhaps a check once an hour? Maybe once every 1-3 hours?


So Roughly ballpark with the 1 in 6 chance every 3 turns I recalled...

That is Moldvay though and I moved to 1e after Blue Book so I wouldn't have gotten it from there.

I agree. Even though Holmes (Blue book) isn't strictly speaking AD&D itself, it's a lot closer, since it was originally intended as an introductory set to AD&D itself, than Moldvay which was stand-alone. It'd be like referencing Mentzer to AD&D2 and the like. I have Holmes here. Let me have a look.

Yes.

Quote from: Holmes D&D, p.10At the end of each three turns the Dungeon Master can roll a die to see if a wandering monster has come down the corridor. A roll of 6 means that something has come "strolling" along. If the party has someone watching they will see or hear the monster up to 120 feet away unless it is coming around a corner, very quiet, etc. If it is uncertain how far away the monster is, roll two six-sided die and multiply by 10. The result is the distance in feet (i.e. a roll of 5 + 2 = 7 or 70 feet). The referee could then place a figure representing the monster or monsters on the table at the appropriate distance from the adventurers, if figures are being used.

The wandering monsters may be pre-selected by the Dungeon Master, such as a guard of skeletons or goblins that walks up and down the main corridor every five turns, or the wandering creatures may be selected from a table by random number generation.

Now it's Holmes, not AD&D stricto sensu, but that gives an additional piece of context.

Quote from: Benoist;577769Yes.



Now it's Holmes, not AD&D stricto sensu, but that gives an additional piece of context.

Thanks Ben knew I got that from somewhere, been stuck in my head for 32 years with no where to go