Quote from: jibbajibba;586277Okay only a certain sort of hyper rationalised pro 3e new poster gets labelled a denner. Frank trollman himself has had an accoutn here for years and oddly most people wouldn't actually think of him as a denner. I am usually a discenting voice on a number of topics but no one woudl call me a denner either.  So yes it is an in exactly applied title but it only applies to a subset of those who do not agree with the prevailing group think.

Whilst I agree with some of your analysis I can not agree with your conclusion. Old versions of D&D do rely on luck to a degree but there are ways of adding to your odds and roleplaying in a world where things are more dangerous and possibly 'real' is more of a challenge rather than less. You can play low level D&D and avoid all combat and still progress for example.

You are also not a new poster. One of the criteria is being a new poster. Frank himself is not a new poster, and I'd imagine at the time he was the only person from the Den posting here. Denner is a label for a group. Why have a group of one person?

In order for play to not be luck based the player must have the means and ability to make intelligent, informed choices and have those choices influence the outcome. At least one person here has admitted already they'd go out of their way to shut that down.

Go take a look at your older edition books and I mean really look. There's entire enemies, and entire enemy types that only exist for fucking with you and turning something that was normally harmless into yet another thing trying to kill you. They invented monsters such as the Cloaker, the Mimic, and the Gelatinous Cube which literally amount to everything in the room trying to kill you including the room itself.

Then you look at the items and for every 1-2 designed to help you in some way there is 1 that looks just like the others and passes off as them until it actually counts... and then it kills you.

The game itself goes out of its way to shut down deductive reasoning, logic, and intelligent play.

Contrast to say... 3.5.

You can deduce very quickly that dragons will beat the hell out of you. Perhaps not every dragon will fight, but those you are fighting you'd better kill quickly or they will kill you quickly. There's not any enemies that look just like them but are actually easy kills, and while some dragons can assume a less harmful seeming form there are also means of countering that and realizing that you are, in fact dealing with a dragon.

At low levels play is pure luck based because everyone, from the Wizard to the Fighter to the Dwarf Barbarian who is raging die in 1-2 hits and can't really do anything about it but beyond that you get enough HP and abilities so that choices matter, decisions matter, play matters.

And so there is a remarkable difference between the party that gets even a general idea of what they are facing, extrapolates the rest then has the means and methods of dealing with all the common expected threats that means and some general purpose stuff to round it out and the party that thinks Leeroy Jenkins is a good rolemodel only to find to their dismay they don't just respawn as a ghost somewhere with damaged equipment.

Quote from: Mr. GC;586281Bitch, please.


What I actually said was that enemies you fight at level 1 have +4 or +5 to hit, and then I later pointed out those are the typical numbers and you actually can hit +10 or even +15. I didn't say anything about HD, but every example I was thinking of also had 1 HD.
Level 1 enemies give about 40 XP each, you need 2,000ish to level and XP is split 4 ways. Oh Mighty Master of Math, explain to us how 10 * 200 does not equal 2,000 and how two hundred is not hundreds, plural, and when you're done with that why don't you call hundreds of thousands a greater number than millions!.

Your language is wrong and so is confusing .
In 2e and prior a 1HD monster does not get a + to hit.
It has a target number based on the oponents AC aganst a to hit AC 0 of 20. So if your point is that a typical 1st level 1e figther has an AC of 4 so the monster needs a 16 to hit so effectively has +4 then its 'correct' although expressed very badly so as to be effectively wrong.
In ealy D&D you get most of your xp for treasure. If a party of 5 1st level Pcs kill 8 goblins to find treasure worth 2000gp sure they get 25 x 8 or 200 xp for the goblins but they get 2000 xp for the gold and they get that even if they don't kill the goblins just put them to sleep or make then run away or whatever.
So in early D&D you can advance in levels by killing hundreds of monsters but statistically its very unlikely.

So these are things that highlight that even if you are familiar with the rules you are not familair with play so will get ripped to bits here if you try to make any claims to teh contrary.

Its fine to point out breaks in the rules,  ofttimes I applaud it, but you need to know what you are talking about or you look like a dick and its a battle you can't easily win.

Fuck this thread is a trainwreck. Do you guys remember the actual topic of discussion?
Like... "people don't 'win' at D&D" or something? Hello? Bueller?

Quote from: Mr. GC;586289Contrast to say... 3.5.

You can deduce very quickly that dragons will beat the hell out of you. Perhaps not every dragon will fight, but those you are fighting you'd better kill quickly or they will kill you quickly. There's not any enemies that look just like them but are actually easy kills, and while some dragons can assume a less harmful seeming form there are also means of countering that and realizing that you are, in fact dealing with a dragon.

From what I remember of my 2e days, dragons were NOT for fighting.  You'd better show some respect, or find an escape route in that situation.

However, with 3e came a sharp rise of the concept that 'if you put it in front of me, I should be able to beat it'.

Quote from: Mr. GC;586289Go take a look at your older edition books and I mean really look.

Yes, you should do that.  And then tell us just how many 1 HD monsters in those books had +4 or +5 bonuses to hit (let alone +10).  And tell us how many of those 1 HD monsters had XP values of 40 (not that you got most of your xp from monster values anyway, but you were already told that and you continue to ignore it).

I must have super powers of awesomeness.

I am able to play any version of dnd from basic to 4e without issues.

Sure, I prefer some versions over others, but I just don't get why people single out one version as 'unplayable'

They are all playable.

I know because I have done it.

You don't win at internet arguments either...

Quote from: jibbajibba;586290So these are things that highlight that even if you are familiar with the rules you are not familair with play so will get ripped to bits here if you try to make any claims to teh contrary.

Thing is, both of your points were made pages ago, and were ignored.

I'm interested to see if your try at it fares any better.

Quote from: Planet Algol;586296You don't win at internet arguments either...

LM has been winning for years.  Why should I take your word over his?

Quote from: Sacrosanct;586293Yes, you should do that.  And then tell us just how many 1 HD monsters in those books had +4 or +5 bonuses to hit (let alone +10).  And tell us how many of those 1 HD monsters had XP values of 40 (not that you got most of your xp from monster values anyway, but you were already told that and you continue to ignore it).

1E  one HD monsters all have a +1 to hit if I recall correctly.

Stirges might have had a bonus.


The +4/+5  is either an 18/STR fighter with specialization/magic weapon, or.......3X

Quote from: Mr. GC;586281If you aren't, you realize the point is that weighted averages are intellectually dishonest and that this example does an excellent job of demonstrating how.

I googled this claim, and I can't find anyone else that holds your view.  In fact, if you put quotes around it, this thread is the only source that google can find.

Do you find it significant that a concept such as weighted averages hasn't been challenged for intellectual dishonesty in any place that google can find it?

Because I do.

I suck at Math.  More of a verbal guy, always have been.  So I won't try and approach your claims, but reiterating them might go better if you appeal to some kind of authority.  Got one?

Quote from: Bill;5863011E  one HD monsters all have a +1 to hit if I recall correctly.

It depends on edition.  In AD&D I believe to hit AC 0 is 19 on the matrix, but then a lot of AD&D monsters were also less than 1 HD (goblins, kobolds, etc).  In 2e, THAC0 was 20.  In basic, up to 1+1 HD was a 20 for AC 0.

Either way, nothing comes close to a +4 or +5 to hit as routine, let alone +10.  I would hope that someone who keeps telling other people that he's an expert at older editions and that they should open a book sometime would know this.

Quote from: Mr. GC;586289You are also not a new poster. One of the criteria is being a new poster. Frank himself is not a new poster, and I'd imagine at the time he was the only person from the Den posting here. Denner is a label for a group. Why have a group of one person?

In order for play to not be luck based the player must have the means and ability to make intelligent, informed choices and have those choices influence the outcome. At least one person here has admitted already they'd go out of their way to shut that down.

Go take a look at your older edition books and I mean really look. There's entire enemies, and entire enemy types that only exist for fucking with you and turning something that was normally harmless into yet another thing trying to kill you. They invented monsters such as the Cloaker, the Mimic, and the Gelatinous Cube which literally amount to everything in the room trying to kill you including the room itself.

Then you look at the items and for every 1-2 designed to help you in some way there is 1 that looks just like the others and passes off as them until it actually counts... and then it kills you.

The game itself goes out of its way to shut down deductive reasoning, logic, and intelligent play.

Contrast to say... 3.5.

You can deduce very quickly that dragons will beat the hell out of you. Perhaps not every dragon will fight, but those you are fighting you'd better kill quickly or they will kill you quickly. There's not any enemies that look just like them but are actually easy kills, and while some dragons can assume a less harmful seeming form there are also means of countering that and realizing that you are, in fact dealing with a dragon.

At low levels play is pure luck based because everyone, from the Wizard to the Fighter to the Dwarf Barbarian who is raging die in 1-2 hits and can't really do anything about it but beyond that you get enough HP and abilities so that choices matter, decisions matter, play matters.

And so there is a remarkable difference between the party that gets even a general idea of what they are facing, extrapolates the rest then has the means and methods of dealing with all the common expected threats that means and some general purpose stuff to round it out and the party that thinks Leeroy Jenkins is a good rolemodel only to find to their dismay they don't just respawn as a ghost somewhere with damaged equipment.

You are not approaching the game as I would approach it.
You are working top down I am working bottom up. By this I mean you are looking at it as a game where as I am looking at it as a character in a role. So you say Gelantinous cubes are put there ot fuck up players I would say that there are things called gelantinous cubes somewhere but I have no need to encounter them because I have no intention of going into a smelly dangerous dungeon to risk my life over the vague notion of some treasure that might be there.
I solve all in game problems from the perspective of my character without looking at the meta game. its why i find old school 10 foot pole play a bit daft because every PC knows the same set of professional adventurer tactics.

Now I do not dispute that early D&D was a game. Lets put things in to challenge players lets do that becuase the players have actually started using tactics that the old stuff couldn't cope with.
The Mimic is a good example of that as are rust monsters. So yes there are monsters there just to  fuck with the players.

As a DM I wouldn't use these monsters because they are silly. I can see them being fun in a gonzo kind of 1970s 'game' kind of way but as a hey nonny roleplayer of no interest to me or my players.  

I don't think those things make the game though. You can play D&D easily without those things and you have no need to change anything. You can play a rational logical heavy roleplay low level game with D&D and it works well.
I agree that a rebalancing of the classes would help give wizards more options at low levels and limit them later, nerf clerics etc but the core game is still playable .

Quote from: mcbobbo;586302I googled this claim, and I can't find anyone else that holds your view.  In fact, if you put quotes around it, this thread is the only source that google can find.

Do you find it significant that a concept such as weighted averages hasn't been challenged for intellectual dishonesty in any place that google can find it?

Because I do.

I suck at Math.  More of a verbal guy, always have been.  So I won't try and approach your claims, but reiterating them might go better if you appeal to some kind of authority.  Got one?

Weighted Averages are not inherently intellectually dishonest. At best I can surmise that he is claiming that he is using the averages dishonestly. As for why characters don't die so often in games I would believe that is because people don't want characters to die that often so they adjust the game to keep that from happening either consciously or subconsciously. Considering that I'd suspect most of the people speaking here on the subject are the type that side step the rules for fun then it is a no brainer as to why it doesn't come up. From my experience playing low levels "straight" can very often lead to unintended, unpreventable character death seeing as though about every character is one decent ambush or lucky crit away from death no save.

As for whether or not you can "win" at DnD, yea, you do. Depending on how you define "winning" you can win in different ways at the same time. With some truly flexible definitions of winning you can win and lose at the same time.