My love to hate relationship with D&D

[robertsconley]

That's not a valid means of comparison, sorry. IME, it's pretty simple to mix and match adventures with different systems and translate them from cyberpunk to fantasy settings. But does that mean that Cyberpunk 2020 isn't a fundamentally different game from Flashing Blades?!

That absurd. Sure conversion is not as hard people make it out to be, however converting between different editions of D&D excluding 4th edition is far more straightforward then it is with D&D and another RPG.

Every edition except for 4th edition preserve the basic inter-relationship of the stuff that makes up D&D (monsters, spells, magic items, etc). The classic edition (OD&D to AD&D 2nd) are particularly close in this regard.

For example from Runequest

3. Angantyr: (“Hewer”):

A steel great-axe, with a crescentic main blade and an armor-piercing spike on the reverse side. Langets of steel reinforce the front and sides of the haft, and up a short distance from the butt spike. All the metal portions fo the axe have a greenish tint, giving the impression that they are composed of dark, smoky jade rather than steel. The wood of the haft is oil-darkened bog-oak, tough and flexible, with a complex grain of interlocking serpentine whorls.

Angantyr deals damage as a normal great axe with the following differences:

Piercing 1 because of the steel of its manufacture.

Angantyr is devastating to vampires, who cannot turn to mist if overcome in a location or brought to Zero HP by a strike from it.

It is exceptionally well balanced as well, granting it +10% to Attack and Parry. A Reach Bonus of 4, and a lower ENC (2 instead of 3). The langets and tough haft material give it great resilience and strength (8 AP/ 15 HP).


Versus

+2 Great Axe grants +1 to initiative rolls for the character wielding it. and weighs only 2/3rd as much. Any damage done to a vampire will cause it to lose the ability to turn into a gaseous form.

To convert the former requires explicit knowledge of how Runequest works. The latter can be used with any edition of D&D without any particular knowledge of the edition I had in mind when I wrote the description.

 

[robertsconley]

Isn't the main reason for the CR system to persist in the last three editions because it's central to how WotC do organized play? I'm not knowledgeable in D&D, so I could be completely off base.

It is an evolution of organizing monsters by which Dungeon level they appear on. Starting with the initial release of OD&D (Book 3, pages 10-11) With organized play it used as a basis for designing adventures including the original OD&D/AD&D tournaments of the 1970s. The problem is that since it found in the rulebook, many hobbyists treat it as a hard and fast rule. Instead of a guideline or aide.

The system got more detailed, like CR, because options for character and monsters expanded in later editions. Which just reinforced the trend to treat the whole section as a hard and fast rule. CR or Determination of Level is neither good or bad, it all about how one uses it. I for one find it useful from time to time as a rough gauge when I want to know what the power level of X is versus Y.

For example I know the forest is being terrorized by a powerful creature twice as deadly as a tiger but don't have a firm idea of what that creature could be. So I look what the tiger is rated at and look the things that are more powerful than a tiger and see which resonates with what I am trying to do.

 

[Lessa]

HorusArisen I can totally relate to your rant because I used to hate D&D by the same reasons you cite: the wargaming roots with classes based on war specialties, ambiguous concepts like armor class & HP, combat-centered play, etc.

But that's because I met those concepts through 3E, where they were more or less divorced from the "dungeon" in a way. After some friends pointed that out to me and invited me to some dungeon-centered OSR games ( thanks T The Butcher) I saw how interesting and exciting the D&D formula could be when used in it's original context of exploration in a enclosed space.

I still have some small nigs with it - I'd rather have playable races be totally weird or metal like Tieflings, Lizardmen and Githyanki than your average fluffy ones from Tolkien - but those're simple enough to tweak.

I'm not saying you should change your perspective though. If your sentiment is too strong, no point in fighting it, just accept it and move on to games you prefer. It's just elfgames After all. ;)

 

[Llew ap Hywel]

HorusArisen I can totally relate to your rant because I used to hate D&D by the same reasons you cite: the wargaming roots with classes based on war specialties, ambiguous concepts like armor class & HP, combat-centered play, etc.

But that's because I met those concepts through 3E, where they were more or less divorced from the "dungeon" in a way. After some friends pointed that out to me and invited me to some dungeon-centered OSR games ( thanks T The Butcher) I saw how interesting and exciting the D&D formula could be when used in it's original context.

I still have some small nigs with it - I'd rather have playable races be totally weird or metal like Tieflings, Lizardmen and Githyanki than your average fluffy ones from Tolkien - but those're simple enough to tweak.

I'm not saying you should change your perspective though. If your sentiment is too strong, no point in fighting it, just accept it and move on to games you prefer. It's just elfgames After all. ;)

Thanks, my realisation of the games flaws started in 2e and grew from there. I’m just not it’s target audience anymore, for me the OSR just perpetuates a game that’s had its day.

But that’s for me and everyone is different. At the end of the day you play what you enjoy hopefully and if not you enjoy who you play with.

 

[Séadna]

I'm sure many here have seen this:
http://initiativeone.blogspot.com/2013/05/od-setting-posts-in-pdf.html?m=1

Basically OD&D's implied setting. A really interesting mix of ghostly Arthurian castles, Vancian wizards, Barsoomian deserts and Dinosaur filled swamps.

 

[David Johansen]

My problem is a bit different than most. I resent the watering down and removal of the wargaming elements.

 

[Voros]

Thanks, my realisation of the games flaws started in 2e and grew from there. I’m just not it’s target audience anymore, for me the OSR just perpetuates a game that’s had its day.

I’d say 5e is keeping the game alive a lot moreso than the OSR which is marginal commercially. If anything the OSR has benefited and continues to benefit from 5e’s success, as do all RPGs.

I love the content of the OSR but its popularity in online circles sometime leads to exaggerated claims on its commerical accomplishments and clout. At its most successful it is a cottage industry. Although admittedly RPGs are a small enough pond for it to appear medium-big relative to non-D&D derived games.

I also feel that many of the goals of the OSR in relation to D&D: low magic, high lethality, quick play, etc would be better served by other systems like RQ/Mythras (for low magic and lethality if not speed of play) but they are too stuck trying to twist D&D into another shape to look at other systems. That is an old story though.

 

[robertsconley]

There is nothing ambiguous about hit points and armor class. Except of course if you read the actual rulebooks which doesn't explain them well.

The Chainmail miniature wargame had man to man combat to handle small scale action. It was a one hit = one kill system. The odds of a kill were based on cross-indexing a weapon type versus armor. If you roll that number or higher on 2d6, the target died.



In addition in Chainmail a Hero took four hits to kill, a super hero took 8 hits to kill. A hero was worth four figures on the field. A superhero 8 figures on the field.



When Gygax developed D&D, the one hit to kill got translated to 1d6 damage, and targets could take 1d6 hit points of damage. The gaps between hero, and superhero got filled in giving us levels.

So what hit points means is how long endures in combat compared to an ordinary warriors. A character with 2 Hit Dice for hit points can last on average twice as long as a character with only 1 hit dice.

What Armor Class means is the likelihood of suffering 1 Hit dice of damage during a given combat depending on the type of armor worn. The better the armor the less of a chance of suffering damage.

In the development of D&D instead of a X level fighting as X ordinary warrior, an alternative system was developed that crossed index the number of hit dice i.e. level a character with the type of armor the target is wearing instead of weapons. That alternative quickly became the primary system with the Greyhawk supplement trying to add the effects of different weapons back with the Weapons vs. AC table.



AC and HP are abstract and the D&D combat system doesn't answer the question of what specific kind of injuries was suffered. But it not ambiguous. However to be fair it does require an understanding of the history of how D&D was developed due to the how the original rule books were written.

Finally it been my experience that most hobbyists equate one roll of the dice with a single swing of a weapon. Most just shrug and live with the difference between that image and how D&D resolves things. But for more than a few it drove them to create alternatives given us RPGs like Runequest or The Fantasy Trip and so on.

 

[Bilharzia]

To convert the former requires explicit knowledge of how Runequest works.
The latter can be used with any edition of D&D without any particular knowledge of the edition I had in mind

...

However to be fair it does require an understanding of the history of how D&D was developed due to the how the original rule books were written.

eyes glaze over at weapon vs ac tables.... errr ok... and furthermore,

"Treat Thieves as Clerics for purposes of advance in steps ... with regard to saving throws treat Thieves as Magic-Users."

 

[Dumarest]

I'm sure many here have seen this:
http://initiativeone.blogspot.com/2013/05/od-setting-posts-in-pdf.html?m=1

Basically OD&D's implied setting. A really interesting mix of ghostly Arthurian castles, Vancian wizards, Barsoomian deserts and Dinosaur filled swamps.

Don't worry. We'll get there. Crashed spaceships, too!

 

[robertsconley]

...


eyes glaze over at weapon vs ac tables.... errr ok... and furthermore,

"Treat Thieves as Clerics for purposes of advance in steps ... with regard to saving throws treat Thieves as Magic-Users."

Greyhawk introduced the thief class. That section has nothing to do with Weapons vs. AC. It just saying that if you use the alternative combat system, thieves fight the same as cleric and have the same saving throw as magic users.

 

[Mankcam]

That absurd. Sure conversion is not as hard people make it out to be, however converting between different editions of D&D excluding 4th edition is far more straightforward then it is with D&D and another RPG.

Every edition except for 4th edition preserve the basic inter-relationship of the stuff that makes up D&D (monsters, spells, magic items, etc). The classic edition (OD&D to AD&D 2nd) are particularly close in this regard.

For example from Runequest

3. Angantyr: (“Hewer”):

A steel great-axe, with a crescentic main blade and an armor-piercing spike on the reverse side. Langets of steel reinforce the front and sides of the haft, and up a short distance from the butt spike. All the metal portions fo the axe have a greenish tint, giving the impression that they are composed of dark, smoky jade rather than steel. The wood of the haft is oil-darkened bog-oak, tough and flexible, with a complex grain of interlocking serpentine whorls.

Angantyr deals damage as a normal great axe with the following differences:

Piercing 1 because of the steel of its manufacture.

Angantyr is devastating to vampires, who cannot turn to mist if overcome in a location or brought to Zero HP by a strike from it.

It is exceptionally well balanced as well, granting it +10% to Attack and Parry. A Reach Bonus of 4, and a lower ENC (2 instead of 3). The langets and tough haft material give it great resilience and strength (8 AP/ 15 HP).


Versus

+2 Great Axe grants +1 to initiative rolls for the character wielding it. and weighs only 2/3rd as much. Any damage done to a vampire will cause it to lose the ability to turn into a gaseous form.

To convert the former requires explicit knowledge of how Runequest works. The latter can be used with any edition of D&D without any particular knowledge of the edition I had in mind when I wrote the description.

I totally agree that a DM would find this axe usable in most editions of D&D:

D&D Great Axe: +2 Combat, +1 Initiative, D: 1d12, lighter (weighs 2/3 )

However it would also be unusual for a BRP GM (particularly a RQ GM) to find this challenging if using another edition:

RQ Great Axe: A/P: +10%, D:2d6+2, 8AP/15 HP, ENC:2, R4

From memory, that looks usable in most versions of RQ, it's only Reach that needs to be translated, not much of an issue. Most editions of Chaosium RQ use SR instead, but Reach may be part of MRQ SRD (RQ6, Mythras, etc I'm not sure, I'ld have to check that.)

In terms of stat blocks, this stuff ports almost seamlessly between all editions of BRP, I think RQ2 and RQG tend to have slightly higher HP than RQ3, SB, and CoC, but not enough to make a huge difference (typically 1 or 2 HP higher for human sized characters)

So that probably wasn't a great example. Plus I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but you filled the RQ example with heaps of great narrative flavour, but skimmed down on most of that for the D&D example, inadvertantly making the D&D example look dramatically simplier.

But I do agree that conversion between editions is over-rated, and this is seen especially with the spartan stat blocks used in D20 OSR, which can often be used almost as-is with most D&D editions - likewise however this is pretty much the same as with BRP, for example, I have had no issues running a CoC scenario retrapped for RQ Glorantha
(The only issue with RQ conversion is from Chaosium RQ to MRQ SRD stat blocks, and even then it's not a big deal, it's pretty close. But if sticking to Chaosium BRP then everything is similar, enough to be interchanagable).

I think that the major edition differences between D&D editions (and Chaosium BRP editions) are not so much in stat blocks, but in other areas of the rules, such as character generation, progression, etc

I'm not disagreeing with your statment regarding the D&D stat block, it's just that RQ may not have been the greatest example to counterpoint this.

 

[Bilharzia]

I've no idea what a "Reach Bonus" is, or what "Piercing 1" is in relation to a permanent weapon property, so it looks like this was pulled from some kind of Frankenstein home brew version of RQ. Everything else about it is easily transferable. The D&D stats are as gibberish to read for me as I'm sure the RQ stats are to someone not familiar with RQ.

 

[robertsconley]

I totally agree that a DM would find this axe usable in most editions of D&D:

D&D Great Axe: +2 Combat, +1 Initiative, D: 1d12, lighter (weighs 2/3 )

However it would also be unusual for a BRP GM (particularly a RQ GM) to find this challenging if using another edition:

RQ Great Axe: A/P: +10%, D:2d6+2, 8AP/15 HP, ENC:2, R4

I'm not disagreeing with your statment regarding the D&D stat block, it's just that RQ may not have been the greatest example to counterpoint this.

Sorry if I wasn't being clear. I was refuting that it is just as easy to convert from some arbitrary RPG, like Runequest, to an edition of D&D. That the various editions, except 4th, have a high degree of inter compatibility.

I agree that the BRP family of RPGs have a similar degree of compatibility between themselves and their various edition.

Hope that clarify that point and thanks for example of a RQ short stat block.

Also if I wasn't clear about this, that converting from another RPG isn't trivial but it is not hard either. Especially if you know both systems.

 

[Mankcam]

Also if I wasn't clear about this, that converting from another RPG isn't trivial but it is not hard either. Especially if you know both systems.

Actually I really like D20 OSR products for this reason, they usually have very simple stat blocks that I can eye-ball and convert into my system of choice, D20 or otherwise.

For example, I am thinking of putting Vornheim in Glorantha (up in Valind's Glacier above Fronela), and I can easily see how I can port those bare-bones stat blocks on-the-fly to RQ with little issues.

If I don't manage to use Vornheim within the RQ Glorantha game, then I may use it as a stand-alone game in the setting Zak has written. I dont have LotFP, but I could just as easily port to a D20 game I do have, such ad DCC, S&W, or D&D 5E. But I'm just as likely to use some version of BRP for it (Magic World is based of the old BRP Stormbringer game, and it would be perfect for it). Conversion would be quite smooth I think.

 

[xanther]

I wouldn’t say that this kind of rules or system mastery has much to do with 5e. Pretty much all the classes and subclasses are good to play and don’t require any complex planning. Feats and multi-classing are completely optional too.

Not been my experience so far using the free D&D Beyond. It’s simple even with the character builder software, it would be very time consuming to build a character without it. I’ve found playing around with it if you don’t pay attention (wear doing point buy) it’s easy to have characters with only a +2 and maybe a +1 modifier and if you are not careful with skill selection you don’t get a proficiency stack with your good attributes.

That is, there are certainly very favored builds based on certain rule synergies that produce much more powerful characters than ones based on what would make synergistic sense from the setting. I’m not even a min maxer and these rule mastery synergies can be had.

I do t think you can realistically remove feats/special abilities from the game as they appear to be core to character advancement and monsters have them to.

The special abilities (which I consider a part of “feats” as they are these crafted bundles of specialness) are a central part of species as well....and I’m just not talking darkvision. They are basically inherent magical powers.

D&D5e is a smorgasbord of stuff with the only organizational paradigm (which only loosely contains a portion of it) being concepts and sacred cows from 1e as far as I can see.

As I build a character the world that would naturally result from the smorgasbord of easy and frequent use powers would bear no resemblance to any D&D setting I’ve ever seen. All powers and special abilities are but a veneer upon some pseudo-version of our society.

That is, we have all these powers but only use them adventuring or for plot reasons ( I mean adventure design), we’d never think of exploiting them to the fullest in day to day life. Really? I think D&D fantasy worlds must have a CO atmospheric taint.

Hell though, I’ll still have fun in the campaign and just ignore the dissonance and internal inconsistency, as “shared passage” is just too good of a power to have. Built in free mini teleport after a long rest, hell yeah!

If I can keep a 1e magic user alive via careful, creative and canny tactics, this is going to be fun, for a time.

 

[xanther]

If they were that fundamentally different it wouldn't be as simple as it is to mix and match adventures from the editions as it is. Only 4e is fundamentally different enough to make that a challenge.

The power curve and selection of abilities available make it hard to mix post 3e with pre 3e.

A well written module is fairly easy to translate because it makes sense in a larger perspective and doesn’t rely on game specific stuff to make sense.

In that regard, a well written adventure can as “easily” be converted into TFT as an edition of D&D that is on the other side of the gap.

 

[Voros]

I’ve played without Feats or multi-classing (which I hate more than Feats anyway) and the game runs fine. Don’t see an issue with ‘only’ a +1 or +2 stat modifier. Not sure what you mean about skill selection, I used the simplified skill option in the DMG based on backgrounds. That some classes or subclasses are more powerful than others in D&D is an issue as old as the hills.

Neither I nor any of my previous 5e group encountered any of the issues you speak of. Min/maxers will always be with us and have been there since the start of the game. One can white room and theorycraft til the cows come home but the game plays well at the table which is where it counts.

5e definitely doesn’t sound like your jam but what you’re saying doesn’t reflect my actual experience at the table at all.

The power curve and selection of abilities available make it hard to mix post 3e with pre 3e.

Not in my experience, I adapted Lost Shrine of Tamaochan on the fly before they converted it to 5e with no issues.

 

[xanther]

.....

For example from Runequest

3. Angantyr: (“Hewer”):

A steel great-axe, with a crescentic main blade and an armor-piercing spike on the reverse side. Langets of steel reinforce the front and sides of the haft, and up a short distance from the butt spike. All the metal portions fo the axe have a greenish tint, giving the impression that they are composed of dark, smoky jade rather than steel. The wood of the haft is oil-darkened bog-oak, tough and flexible, with a complex grain of interlocking serpentine whorls.

Angantyr deals damage as a normal great axe with the following differences:

Piercing 1 because of the steel of its manufacture.

Angantyr is devastating to vampires, who cannot turn to mist if overcome in a location or brought to Zero HP by a strike from it.

It is exceptionally well balanced as well, granting it +10% to Attack and Parry. A Reach Bonus of 4, and a lower ENC (2 instead of 3). The langets and tough haft material give it great resilience and strength (8 AP/ 15 HP).


Versus

+2 Great Axe grants +1 to initiative rolls for the character wielding it. and weighs only 2/3rd as much. Any damage done to a vampire will cause it to lose the ability to turn into a gaseous form.

To convert the former requires explicit knowledge of how Runequest works. The latter can be used with any edition of D&D without any particular knowledge of the edition I had in mind when I wrote the description.

I'm not sure how Runequest editions vary but seems straight forward enough you could go from one edition to another easily. Most of the Runequest description is fluff text which you removed from the D&D version.

Don't get me wrong I love a bit of fluff, and like at least a sentence or two to place magic items in context, don't need to get into the details like langets, I mean really, I'm a "Forged in Fire" junkie but even for me that's a bit of fluff too far.

I believe the D&D description appears deceptively simpler because there are things like weapon reach or weapon breakage that are not part of a weapon description but are in the rules. It seems the Runequest description puts more of what you need to know about a weapon in the weapon stat block.

To me here's the descriptions at their core (sans fluff) and not mentioning things that do not change like damage. Each is a three line description:

Angantyr (Runequest)
Great Axe of exceptional construction
Pierce: 1; Attack +10%; Parry +10%; Reach Bonus: 4; ENC: 2; Construction: 8 AP/ 15 HP
Special: Vampires cannot turn to mist if overcome in a location or brought to Zero HP by a strike from it.

Angantyr (D&D)
+2 Great Axe note this is different than the Runequest version as the D&D version does +2 damage
+1 Initiative; ENC: weighs only 2/3rd as much as Great Axe
Special: Any damage done to a vampire will cause it to lose the ability to turn into a gaseous form.


Angantyr (TFT)
Battle Axe
Initiative: +1; Attack Bonus: +2 DEX; ST: 14; ENC: 7 (instead of 10)
Special: Any damage done to a vampire will cause it to lose the ability to turn into a gaseous form.


Angantyr (mine)
War Axe
Initiative: +1; Skill: +1; Pierce: 4 (instead of 3); ENC: 3 (instead of 5)
Special: 0° Magical Axe; Any damage done to a vampire will cause it to lose the ability to turn into a gaseous form.

 

[xanther]

I’ve played without Feats or multi-classing (which I hate more than Feats anyway) and the game runs fine. Don’t see an issue with ‘only’ a +1 or +2 stat modifier. Not sure what you mean about skill selection, I used the simplified skill option in the DMG based on backgrounds. That some classes or subclasses are more powerful than others in D&D is an issue as old as the hills.

Neither I nor any of my previous 5e group encountered any of the issues you speak of. Min/maxers will always be with us and have been there since the start of the game. One can white room and theorycraft til the cows come home but the game plays well at the table which is where it counts.

5e definitely doesn’t sound like your jam but what you’re saying doesn’t reflect my actual experience at the table at all.
....

I think of special abilities that classes get as they level up as "feats" same with racial special abilities. In that they are not simple stat increases but little things constrained by how you take them as an action and how they recharge. Examples, "spell sculpt" and "lay on hands."

We are starting at 2nd level so, basically +2 proficiency. A +1 versus a +2, or more importantly a +3 stat modifier are significant improvements. Not that I care about them, it should just not be where there are certain synergies that get you the +3 rather easily.

Take the Mountain Dwarf, a +2 STR and +2 CON, compared to almost any other humanoid who gets a +2 in one thing and a +1 in another. You may say that so the dwarf gets a +4 total bonus but others get +3, the specials they have make it all balance out enoough.

That would be true except as follows. To get a +3 bonus you need a 16 score. For the mountain dwarf you just buy up to 14 then get the +2 bonus. However, if you have only a +1 bonus you have to buy an attribute up to 15, which costs you 2 points to go from 14 to 15 instead of 1. Thus the mountain dwarf overall attribute bonuses are +6 IF you do a build with STR and CON at 16. Only the baseline human can compare (which I like with a +1 in everything)

To me that's something they don't mention so it becomes a system mastery thing to notice it.

With respect to skills when they give you the list to choice from some line up with the Attributes you can uses your Proficiency bonus with, others not. Even at 2nd level that makes a difference, at higher levels it will be huge. What gets me is some skills from the background rely on Attributes that are not the prime ones for the classes that would naturally arise from such backgrounds, like acolyte and paladin, but I encountered it with every build.

What rally gets me is that 5e D&D gives lip service to player choice in character creations and has layer upon layer of stuff that appears to customize, race+class+background; but in reality certain builds are very favored by the rules over others, favored in ways that are not explained. I am all for such "imbalance" as part of one's genre / setting, but I want such favoritism to be at least transparent so I can adjust it.

For a game out of the box though, hidden favoritism is just the same old class straightjacket mentality but in this case complicated by a bunch of layers that give you the illusion of choice. Perhaps though this all goes away if you buy something from the "Marketplace." That "freemium" game model is for another day though.

Of course it can play well, good play depends on the GM and a good GM ignores rules counter to their setting and common sense. I heard the same things said about 4e or any edition for that matter.

I also think D&D 5e will play well because the underlying d20 mechanic, as I see it, looks robust.

Of course none of this is new in D&D, hence why it's probably the most homebrewed game per capita of any RPG.

 

[xanther]

...


eyes glaze over at weapon vs ac tables.... errr ok... and furthermore,

"Treat Thieves as Clerics for purposes of advance in steps ... with regard to saving throws treat Thieves as Magic-Users."

When you needed to write things by typewriter and layout required actual cutting and pasting and typesetting meant actually setting type, such things are understandable...you just didn't go into MSWord and create a Table.

Yeah, weapon vs AC a cure for armor as hit prevention versus damage reduction that was worse than the disease.

 

[AsenRG]

That absurd. Sure conversion is not as hard people make it out to be, however converting between different editions of D&D excluding 4th edition is far more straightforward then it is with D&D and another RPG.

Every edition except for 4th edition preserve the basic inter-relationship of the stuff that makes up D&D (monsters, spells, magic items, etc). The classic edition (OD&D to AD&D 2nd) are particularly close in this regard.

For example from Runequest

3. Angantyr: (“Hewer”):

A steel great-axe, with a crescentic main blade and an armor-piercing spike on the reverse side. Langets of steel reinforce the front and sides of the haft, and up a short distance from the butt spike. All the metal portions fo the axe have a greenish tint, giving the impression that they are composed of dark, smoky jade rather than steel. The wood of the haft is oil-darkened bog-oak, tough and flexible, with a complex grain of interlocking serpentine whorls.

Angantyr deals damage as a normal great axe with the following differences:

Piercing 1 because of the steel of its manufacture.

Angantyr is devastating to vampires, who cannot turn to mist if overcome in a location or brought to Zero HP by a strike from it.

It is exceptionally well balanced as well, granting it +10% to Attack and Parry. A Reach Bonus of 4, and a lower ENC (2 instead of 3). The langets and tough haft material give it great resilience and strength (8 AP/ 15 HP).


Versus

+2 Great Axe grants +1 to initiative rolls for the character wielding it. and weighs only 2/3rd as much. Any damage done to a vampire will cause it to lose the ability to turn into a gaseous form.

To convert the former requires explicit knowledge of how Runequest works. The latter can be used with any edition of D&D without any particular knowledge of the edition I had in mind when I wrote the description.

Sorry, man, but my experience is really like whay Mankcam and xanther are talking about. Yes, it's almost effortless for me to convert those on the fly - to RQ/Mythras, to Fate, to ORE, or to another RPG I'm familiar with.
Sorry if it's not your experience, but it's very much mine. And, it seems, not only mine.
I can even stand behind xanther's note that I find the OSR more useful due to the shorter statblocks. But then I generally find Savage Worlds even more useful, for the same reasons...and the stats are even easier to translate, because they're already skill-based...
(I'm really tempted to add "as Arneson intended" to that, but let's not go there!)

Finally it been my experience that most hobbyists equate one roll of the dice with a single swing of a weapon. Most just shrug and live with the difference between that image and how D&D resolves things. But for more than a few it drove them to create alternatives given us RPGs like Runequest or The Fantasy Trip and so on.

Which, in a way, means there were many good things that came from said mistake (and I agree it's a mistake). Personally, I equate a round to "a fencing phrase" and an attack to "until you lose initiative", at least in most systems.

I also feel that many of the goals of the OSR in relation to D&D: low magic, high lethality, quick play, etc would be better served by other systems like RQ/Mythras (for low magic and lethality if not speed of play) but they are too stuck trying to twist D&D into another shape to look at other systems. That is an old story though.

True, but at least trying to beat the chassi of D&D into a new shape requires them to show some ingenuity that's missing from some commercial products!

My problem is a bit different than most. I resent the watering down and removal of the wargaming elements.

There's actually a lot to say for this point of view...

I'm sure many here have seen this:
http://initiativeone.blogspot.com/2013/05/od-setting-posts-in-pdf.html?m=1

Basically OD&D's implied setting. A really interesting mix of ghostly Arthurian castles, Vancian wizards, Barsoomian deserts and Dinosaur filled swamps.

That's what Dumarest is using for the game, as you well know!

 

[EmperorNorton]

xanther, to be perfectly honest, the difference between optimized and unoptimized in the same game of 5e is not that big.

I play in a Curse of Strahd game where I played a fairly optimized Monk (not insanely, but my race does line up with dex/wis bonuses, and build around a specific strategy (hit and run with mobile feat)). Our cleric is not optimized at all. They aren't useless at all. I mean, the player is pretty useless, but that has to do more with them being braindead and oh how I wish they would just decide to quit the campaign, but that is a different issue entirely. Their character hasn't had any problem impacting the game.

On paper it may look like a big deal, but in play I've never felt it was.

 

[Dumarest]

My biggest concern about changes from one version of D&D to another is the rules for measuring the passage of time, for is it well-known that "YOU CANNOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT."

 

[The Butcher]

thanks T The Butcher)

Right back at ya for guiding us through AW and getting us into PbtA.

 

[CRKrueger]

Right back at ya for guiding us through AW and getting us into PbtA.

I shoulda known it was that bastage’s fault.

Friends shouldn’t let friends go Story.

 

[opaopajr]

My biggest concern about changes from one version of D&D to another is the rules for measuring the passage of time, for is it well-known that "YOU CANNOT HAVE A MEANINGFUL CAMPAIGN IF STRICT TIME RECORDS ARE NOT KEPT."

It's so very true. Keep your hash mark timekeeping sticks, people.

 

[robertsconley]

Not been my experience so far using the free D&D Beyond. It’s simple even with the character builder software, it would be very time consuming to build a character without it. I’ve found playing around with it if you don’t pay attention (wear doing point buy) it’s easy to have characters with only a +2 and maybe a +1 modifier and if you are not careful with skill selection you don’t get a proficiency stack with your good attributes.

I had people make up decent characters when running conventions. What it takes is organization and a clear and concise explanation of the options. Like this PDF I use.

That is, there are certainly very favored builds based on certain rule synergies that produce much more powerful characters than ones based on what would make synergistic sense from the setting. I’m not even a min maxer and these rule mastery synergies can be had. .

These builds only work in the context of adventures built around balanced encounters. The moment players have to deal with things that work more like they are part of the variety of the life of the setting along then they work little better than any other arbitrary combination.

I do t think you can realistically remove feats/special abilities from the game as they appear to be core to character advancement and monsters have them to.

D&D 5e is designed to worth with or without feat. In lieu of feats you can take an ability increase of +2 or (+1 to two abilities). Something I seen borne out in actual play.

Hell though, I’ll still have fun in the campaign and just ignore the dissonance and internal inconsistency, as “shared passage” is just too good of a power to have. Built in free mini teleport after a long rest, hell yeah!

Only if you are using the Eberron setting in your campaign. House Orien which grants that ability is from that setting.

[QUOTE="xanther, post: 73218, member: 272"The special abilities (which I consider a part of “feats” as they are these crafted bundles of specialness) are a central part of species as well....and I’m just not talking darkvision. They are basically inherent magical powers.

D&D5e is a smorgasbord of stuff with the only organizational paradigm (which only loosely contains a portion of it) being concepts and sacred cows from 1e as far as I can see.

As I build a character the world that would naturally result from the smorgasbord of easy and frequent use powers would bear no resemblance to any D&D setting I’ve ever seen. All powers and special abilities are but a veneer upon some pseudo-version of our society.[/QUOTE] I disagree, I think campaigns that issue with D&D 5e take little thought in what elements of D&D 5e works best with the setting. The example you give of shared passage illustrates the issue. It looks like it from the D&D 5e supplement for Ebberon. And it fits from the little know about Ebberon from it original 3e presentation. However thrown into a Forgotten Realms campaign or another setting it may or may not work as well. And certainly not if the referee throwing everything else in as well.

I ran a Majestic Wilderlands D&D 5e campaign with only a light alteration of the core rules. Tweaked the class archetypes to fit the flavor of my magic and religious system. You can read the account of the campaign in this series of blog posts. I found it plays out about the same as the other fantasy RPGs I used. The players doing the same things for the same reason with the same range of general outcomes given their ability.

AiME illustrates this point perfectly. By the selection of classes and options it imparts a completely different feel to the D&D 5e rules compared to the core book selection of classes and options. It is no surprise you describe D&D 5e as you do if the case is that everything available is open for selection. It not a flaw of the system but of the referee and his choices for his campaign.

 

[Bunch]

My take is I see CR as something like HD in 2e and before. It gives you a rough idea of what's approximately an even match. It's not perfect it's just some rough guidelines.

 

[Bunch]

Total sidebar, but the RPG I can think of that does that? Rune. Atlas Games published it, a Robin Laws game kinda based on the Rune video game from back around 2000. You basically play as Viking raiders in a system that is not unlike the Ars Magica system. The game master designs the raid based on opposition, etc., building it with set costs for including certain things. The Viking raiders get points based on defeating those things. The scoring system rates winners and losers (including the GM) based on how well everyone performed and how many points worth of opposition the GM stuffed into the encounter. If I remember right, some of the GM's scoring was based on how well calibrated the encounter was to the PCs. Enemies attacked PCs based on a decision tree, so the GM wasn't just deciding that himself.

It was a weird game, didn't like it too much the time I played it,. But hey! At least someone tried a thing and we can see how it worked.

I've always wanted to play this. I bought it because my beer and pretzels group seemed like a good fit. I love the idea that as GM your goal is to get them an inch from dying to make it matter.

 

[boulet]

Oh the irony of a thread about one's falling out of love with DnD and its core elements, mechanics and idiosyncrasies and then it turns into a big pile of "I'm sure you would have enjoyed playing DnD if this or that".

 

[Baeraad]

I have never been able to stand D&D either, and I share many of the dislikes in the OP, but all of those I could more or less live with. My own complaint against D&D is that it's at once so tonedeaf and random, and so completely unaware of how tonedeaf and random it is.

See, I can get into a game where a Vancian wizard, a knight of the Round Table and a kung fu master go on a quest to slay an evil vampire in post-apocalyptic Wild West. Having a ton of disjointed elements mashed together can be fun. But then I want some sort of acknowledgement from the game of how disjointed its elements is. I want, in essence, the RIFTS model, where the game is constantly bouncing around going, "muahahahah, look how WEIRD I'm being!!! " I can spend some time with a self-confessed eccentric and enjoy his idiosyncratic takes on things - that sounds like fun, in fact.

Instead, D&D seems to be under the delusion that it's perfectly normal. In fact, most of the time it seems to draw on the uber-seriousness of Tolkien or Howard at their most pretentious and po-faced. It's not mashing genres together because it's a free spirit who scoffs at such things as genre boundaries - it's mashing genres together because it's too dull to realise that there is such a thing as a genre. And that, to me, does not sound like fun.

 

[Stevethulhu]

I have never been able to stand D&D either, and I share many of the dislikes in the OP, but all of those I could more or less live with. My own complaint against D&D is that it's at once so tonedeaf and random, and so completely unaware of how tonedeaf and random it is.

See, I can get into a game where a Vancian wizard, a knight of the Round Table and a kung fu master go on a quest to slay an evil vampire in post-apocalyptic Wild West. Having a ton of disjointed elements mashed together can be fun. But then I want some sort of acknowledgement from the game of how disjointed its elements is. I want, in essence, the RIFTS model, where the game is constantly bouncing around going, "muahahahah, look how WEIRD I'm being!!! " I can spend some time with a self-confessed eccentric and enjoy his idiosyncratic takes on things - that sounds like fun, in fact.

Instead, D&D seems to be under the delusion that it's perfectly normal. In fact, most of the time it seems to draw on the uber-seriousness of Tolkien or Howard at their most pretentious and po-faced. It's not mashing genres together because it's a free spirit who scoffs at such things as genre boundaries - it's mashing genres together because it's too dull to realise that there is such a thing as a genre. And that, to me, does not sound like fun.

It sounds like you should check out the pre Mystara setting from the box sets. All the elements you describe are there. Same for early Greyhawk modules. And much less self aware, winking at the camera than you get in Rifts.

 

[Baeraad]

It sounds like you should check out the pre Mystara setting from the box sets. All the elements you describe are there. Same for early Greyhawk modules. And much less self aware, winking at the camera than you get in Rifts.

... I'm not sure if you understood me. I don't want less self-awareness, I want more self-awareness!

 

[Voros]

Oh the irony of a thread about one's falling out of love with DnD and its core elements, mechanics and idiosyncrasies and then it turns into a big pile of "I'm sure you would have enjoyed playing DnD if this or that".

I have my issues with D&D too but I think the criticisms should be accurate and informed, which they have tended to be so far. Too often people bash games or editions they haven’t even read let alone played.

 

[EmperorNorton]

Oh the irony of a thread about one's falling out of love with DnD and its core elements, mechanics and idiosyncrasies and then it turns into a big pile of "I'm sure you would have enjoyed playing DnD if this or that".

I mean, honestly, I posted to give a contrary opinion on something someone said, but I actually don't like D&D much, any edition. I just think the specific complaint the person said wasn't accurate.

 

[The Butcher]

... I'm not sure if you understood me. I don't want less self-awareness, I want more self-awareness!

Funny, to me much of the magic of both D&D and Rifts (two games I dearly love and have a ton of history with) stems from both games' complete lack of what I would understand as "self-awareness" — the clash of genres is never acknowledged at all; it's just everything mashed together and played completely straight.[/QUOTE]

 

[Baeraad]

Funny, to me much of the magic of both D&D and Rifts (two games I dearly love and have a ton of history with) stems from both games' complete lack of what I would understand as "self-awareness" — the clash of genres is never acknowledged at all; it's just everything mashed together and played completely straight.

Well, I'm not saying that it says anywhere in any RIFTS book, "yes, we are aware how absolutely idiotic this is. We just don't care. Thank you for asking". I just feel like it's implied. For one thing, the main premise of RIFTS is the existence of, well, rifts - the reason why everything is so weird is because things from all across the multiverse have ended up on Earth, whereas D&D expects us to believe that all these wildly divergent things could possibly have developed alongside each other. For another, everything in RIFTS shares a sort of vague overarching aesthetic, even if that aesthetic is best described as "Things 14-Year-Old Boys Think Are Cool," whereas D&D just seems to have copy-pasted everything in.

 

[The Butcher]

Well, I'm not saying that it says anywhere in any RIFTS book, "yes, we are aware how absolutely idiotic this is. We just don't care. Thank you for asking". I just feel like it's implied. For one thing, the main premise of RIFTS is the existence of, well, rifts - the reason why everything is so weird is because things from all across the multiverse have ended up on Earth, whereas D&D expects us to believe that all these wildly divergent things could possibly have developed alongside each other. For another, everything in RIFTS shares a sort of vague overarching aesthetic, even if that aesthetic is best described as "Things 14-Year-Old Boys Think Are Cool," whereas D&D just seems to have copy-pasted everything in.

I see what you mean.

That is an accurate description of each game's aesthetics and I believe there are some interesting reasons for why each of them turned out this way.

OD&D, as is clear from reading the booklets, is a relatively haphazard compilation of the burgeoning "fantasy wargaming" (soon to be "roleplaying game") community along the two poles of Lake Geneva (Gygax's group) and Minneapolis (Arneson's group). What these two men put to paper is a combination of what they brought to the table (a combination of history, myth and pop culture, from Lewis Carroll to cheap, nameless plastic toys) with elements that emerged during actual play (e.g. the myriad rules for dungeon crawling, the ubiquity of ten-foot-poles, the Cleric class as the response to the supremacy of a vampire PC).

Combine that with an obfuscatory, elliptical approach to writing, couched in a strong DIY philosophy and you get the Crucible of Awesome that is OD&D. Consistency is absolutely an ingredient but it's very much an "add to taste" one. Which is why so much of the early OSR sprung around trying to make sense of OD&D and fill in the blanks, leading to what some decried as "Talmudic exegesis" of the text — a characterization that is not wholly incorrect but really misses the point of such exercises.

Rifts, OTOH, is the work of one man who is (1) a comic book guy first and a gamer second, (2) famously disinclined to playtest his material and (3) even more famously protective of his creations. And it shows, all over the place, usually for the best (in the early books, IMHO, anyway).

 

[Bunch]

I have never been able to stand D&D either, and I share many of the dislikes in the OP, but all of those I could more or less live with. My own complaint against D&D is that it's at once so tonedeaf and random, and so completely unaware of how tonedeaf and random it is.

See, I can get into a game where a Vancian wizard, a knight of the Round Table and a kung fu master go on a quest to slay an evil vampire in post-apocalyptic Wild West. Having a ton of disjointed elements mashed together can be fun. But then I want some sort of acknowledgement from the game of how disjointed its elements is. I want, in essence, the RIFTS model, where the game is constantly bouncing around going, "muahahahah, look how WEIRD I'm being!!! " I can spend some time with a self-confessed eccentric and enjoy his idiosyncratic takes on things - that sounds like fun, in fact.

Instead, D&D seems to be under the delusion that it's perfectly normal. In fact, most of the time it seems to draw on the uber-seriousness of Tolkien or Howard at their most pretentious and po-faced. It's not mashing genres together because it's a free spirit who scoffs at such things as genre boundaries - it's mashing genres together because it's too dull to realise that there is such a thing as a genre. And that, to me, does not sound like fun.

Most groups I've played with have not been deeply serious or pretentious. The first rule of D&D was do it if it seemed fun. Hence all the early mentiona of crossing over with sci-fi/westerns/gamma world. The rule of "why not it sounds fun" was rule number one. The seriousness came later with the big moneyband lawsuits.