Im not sure what the problem is here?

The Fighter stops advancing in to hit early because they hit the top sooner and hit it better.

In AD&D a level 17 fighter is hitting AC:0 on a 4 or better. A Cleric same level is hitting on a 10 or better, a Thief on a 12 or better and a Magic User on a 16 or better. By level 21 that wizard caps at hitting AC:0 at a 10 or better. Thats right. The much vaunted overpowered MU is at level 21 hitting 30% less than the poor helpless Fighter.

And the MU's to-hit advancements are glacial in comparison. The fighter bumps up every 2 levels, the Cleric 3, the Thief 4 and the MU 5.

Could it be because Magic users were designed to not be physical combat monsters? naaaah. Crazy talk.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;871822I'm used to playing "we fought our way in, and we have to fight our way out."

"Fight your way in, fight your way out" is the dumb way to do it. The smart way is 'sneak your way in, fight your way out'. Of course, that doesn't always work out.

Quote from: RPGPundit;873384"Fight your way in, fight your way out" is the dumb way to do it. The smart way is 'sneak your way in, fight your way out'. Of course, that doesn't always work out.

I've seen heroes gladly commit genocide rather than allow the possibility that some creature they snuck by will later come to block their way out.

Quote from: RPGPundit;873384"Fight your way in, fight your way out" is the dumb way to do it. The smart way is 'sneak your way in, fight your way out'. Of course, that doesn't always work out.

Isn't the smart way 'sneak your way in, sneak your way out?'

This being the powerful wizards thread, I'd say teleport in invisible, teleport out.

Quote from: Skarg;873481This being the powerful wizards thread, I'd say teleport in invisible, teleport out.

Make sure you have some non-detection magic up, or that'll be as pointless as teleporting in doing the cha-cha, and then attacking them with squeaky hammers.

Powerful wizard PCs in AD&D? Sure. But as player wizards could teleport into an enemy stronghold invisible, drop three delayed blast fireballs and teleport out before they explode...well, so did non-player wizards.

We had a confusedly long "minigame" of safeguarding each of the fighter's keeps, wizard's towers, cleric's churches and thieves' guilds from enemy magic. It was fun for a while, until players felt cheated by the rules. I found the entire process overly meticulous and too adversarial between players and the DM.

After playing D&D in its various iterations over 15 years on "hard mode", we eventually abandoned it entirely for the more low magic Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (and eventually developed ZWEIHÄNDER).

Now, powerful wizard PCs are a totally different story. Low magic has a significant benefit in that there doesn't need to be a "tit for tat" sort of design; it can be wondrous and terrifying in its own right, without a way to counteract it outside of making a saving throw. Meaning, just because one spell can spread disease, there doesn't necessarily need to be a spell to counteract it. I abhor that sort of design principle, and it is something I actively avoided in the mechanics for ZWEIHÄNDER.

Quote from: ZWEIHÄNDER;873498Powerful wizard PCs in AD&D? Sure. But as player wizards could teleport into an enemy stronghold invisible, drop three delayed blast fireballs and teleport out before they explode...well, so did non-player wizards.

We had a confusedly long "minigame" of safeguarding each of the fighter's keeps, wizard's towers, cleric's churches and thieves' guilds from enemy magic. It was fun for a while, until players felt cheated by the rules. I found the entire process overly meticulous and too adversarial between players and the DM.

That issue has been there in most all the editions. However, if you don't want it, it is pretty easy to control by making simple changes such as 1) anti-teleport wards being relatively easy to make, particularly for permanent structures, or 2) making teleporting to locations be dependent on very good intel (in which case you need an infiltrator to get in and then get out to report). Those are minor rule tweaks, not systemic changes. YMMV.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;873599That issue has been there in most all the editions. However, if you don't want it, it is pretty easy to control by making simple changes such as 1) anti-teleport wards being relatively easy to make, particularly for permanent structures, or 2) making teleporting to locations be dependent on very good intel (in which case you need an infiltrator to get in and then get out to report). Those are minor rule tweaks, not systemic changes. YMMV.

Trust me, I know all about it. We played through every iteration of D&D, with exception of 5E. Teleport, while problematic, was the least of my concerns when dealing with 18th level player and non-player clerics & wizards.

Magic has its own subset of rules, both broadly across magic and each spell itself. My experience, while lengthy with the D&D brand, was invariably tarnished by not only the cleverness of my players (to their credit), but also dealing with the intricacies found in combinations of spells in toto. As we grew older, this sort of tedium was more of a drag on the game, so we wholesale abandoned D&D in favor of a rule set that wasn't so spell-focused.

Well, let's see.  In OD&D, a "Wizard" is an 11th level magic user.  SO, yeah, my wizards should be powerful.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;873466Isn't the smart way 'sneak your way in, sneak your way out?'

That's the REALLY smart way, but it's rarely feasible.

Quote from: RPGPundit;873655That's the REALLY smart way, but it's rarely feasible.

Depending on the setting, the thing is that it ought to be feasible for a specialist thief, scout, assassin, spy or whatever.

But you never get a whole party of them.

In fact you probably don't get more than two scouty characters even in what I would class as a full-sized party of six PCs.

Maybe the best metagame angle on this is something like this:-

It should be possible for magic to allow non-specialist characters to become sneaky like the thief, scout, assassin, spy or whatever, but it comes at a cost so that the scout gets the advantage of being the scouty one.

Then you can all sneak in and back out again, but you have a price to pay.

For individual sneak missions you send the scout, but for group-sneak, you collectively pay the price to do it.

Frex you could have an NPC spirit that will grant blessings of stealth upon the party in return for oaths and sacrifices.

Then you can actually give the players the option to undertake missions by stealth (or at least feasibly attempt to) at a cost, if that appeals to them tactically or for whatever reason.

The problem in most systems with trying to have six people roll to sneak is the similar to the problem with having six people roll to perceive something. If each probability is treated independently then with enough rolls no matter how good each person's stealth is someone will fail. Similarly with enough rolls no matter how bad each person's perception is with enough rolls someone will succeed.

For stealth there is a disadvantage for multiple people sneaking, but logically it can't really be as bad as each person independently rolling. If that were the case a platoon would never successfully sneak or hide. Some system where something less than every single person rolls is called for. Maybe one roll made by the person with the highest stealth but with a penalty based on the number of characters in the group. Or use something like the combined action rule in Star Wars D6. As an example:


For perception, I think multiple people available quickly provides diminishing returns for two reasons. First, other people are a distraction. They talk. They move. They make noise. We devote some attention to tracking where the other people are and what they are doing. So they make it more difficult for everyone else to notice things. Second, the fact that we know other people are watching or on alert means we aren't solely responsible. If two people are on watch, both think and hope that the other person will catch something they miss. So both people are a bit less afraid and a bit less alert. I haven't seen a system account for this.

Hmm, looks like you could use that SW d6's Combined Action rule with AD&D's Surprise roll. Have a large party, random select number of observing PCs equal to the Combined Action rule chart. Roll those PC's Surprise rolls as usual, taking into account their declared observation facing (for modifiers).

Quote from: Opaopajr;873872Hmm, looks like you could use that SW d6's Combined Action rule with AD&D's Surprise roll. Have a large party, random select number of observing PCs equal to the Combined Action rule chart. Roll those PC's Surprise rolls as usual, taking into account their declared observation facing (for modifiers).

I don't remember how surprise works in AD&D. Is the AD&D surprise roll 1d6 rolled for each side like it was in OD&D?