D&D 1E How about a little love for AD&D 1E

[fuindordm]

A few years ago I consolidated the weapon vs armor tables into a smaller table with weapon categories (all axes similar) and only 4 armor types: none, light, medium, and heavy. I also thought the tactical choices of certain weapons could be made interesting that way.

But I ended up not using that either. I still think there is some value in the concept, but it works better as a single special ability of the weapon that the player needs to remember, not an extra lookup on each d20 roll. For example, many pole arms could just be given +2 to hit vs heavy armor; others could give +2 to disarm attempts. Maybe a dagger could have +1 to hit vs unarmored foes since it is so fast. And so on...

 

[James Gasik]

I really wanted to like them and have them work. In concept having adjustments for types of armor and whether there is a shield or not is really cool and could add a bunch of nuance to weapons and situations. Chain mail with no flat surfaces has different advantages and disadvantages against some types of weapons than say splint mail. Shields are better against some weapons than other weapons.

Unfortunately it is not connected directly to a particular armor type and the presence or absence of a shield but to an AC range of 10 to 2 going from unarmored with no shield to plate and shield. From ACs 7 to 3 however any of those ACs could be a specific armor type, or a different armor type with a shield due to the range of armors in 1e. So the only place you know for certain that shields are being considered is AC 9 (unarmored with shield) and AC 2 (plate and shield).

Chain mail and shield then has the same adjustment as splint mail with no shield. Ring mail with no shield has the same adjustments as padded armor with a shield.

Sometimes the chart has specifics where having a shield or not makes a difference. Take the bo stick, at AC 10 unarmored no shield there is a +3, at AC 9 unarmored with a shield there is +0, at AC 8 for leather or padded but no shield it is +1. For all the 7 to 3 ACs there is one adjustment for both cases with a shield and without.

It was a lot of looking up specifics to get to an adjustment that might or might not be intended for whether your opponent has a shield or the actual armor they have, but might have been intended for a different set of specifics.

Not to mention trying to figure out how weapon vs. armor type should apply to monsters.

 

[James Gasik]

A few years ago I consolidated the weapon vs armor tables into a smaller table with weapon categories (all axes similar) and only 4 armor types: none, light, medium, and heavy. I also thought the tactical choices of certain weapons could be made interesting that way.

But I ended up not using that either. I still think there is some value in the concept, but it works better as a single special ability of the weapon that the player needs to remember, not an extra lookup on each d20 roll. For example, many pole arms could just be given +2 to hit vs heavy armor; others could give +2 to disarm attempts. Maybe a dagger could have +1 to hit vs unarmored foes since it is so fast. And so on...

Now to be fair, tracking small fiddly bonuses isn't something most people care for. In Pathfinder 1e, I had a Fighter who used a Lucerne Hammer. I had, on my sheet, a "+2 bonus to use the Sunder maneuver against armor". I was never going to use this. I never wanted to use this.

Armor is tough and hard to sunder if you don't have the feats/special materials to do so. And you're primarily trading attacks that deal damage vs. the hope you can destroy the armor of a foe to make them easier to fight. Not to mention, you could always sell or use that armor if you didn't shred it to pieces (barring applications of Make Whole).

So while I do prefer weapons with benefits beyond "big damage die", I don't like small, super niche fiddly bonuses either. Maybe there are special moves everyone can use if they are using a particular weapon type- Kobold Press has experimented with this concept. As an example, the Monk in my current game can Lunge when using his quarterstaff, giving him reach with one attack.

 

[fuindordm]

Aye, it's a tough nut to crack!
I think 50 years of D&D have spoken: weapon vs armor might have a place in wargames, but not in PC-to-monster combat.
Agreed, @James Gasik , special maneuvers are more interesting, but as you say that runs counter to the logic "the best status condition is death"

 

[James Gasik]

Aye, it's a tough nut to crack!
I think 50 years of D&D have spoken: weapon vs armor might have a place in wargames, but not in PC-to-monster combat.
Agreed, @James Gasik , special maneuvers are more interesting, but as you say that runs counter to the logic "the best status condition is death"

The 5e Battlemaster is probably the best design, where you get to do damage and pull off a cool move. Why this isn't standard for all melee classes is beyond me though. The Paladin "Smite" Spells, especially in the playtest aren't bad either.

Still wish something like this could exist in AD&D though. The only thing I can think of that comes close are Called Shots from the 2e Complete Fighter's Handbook, which my AD&D friends use all the friggin' time, expecting extra effects (even though the rule says that's not really the point, lol).

 

[Celebrim]

I really wanted to like them and have them work. In concept having adjustments for types of armor and whether there is a shield or not is really cool and could add a bunch of nuance to weapons and situations. Chain mail with no flat surfaces has different advantages and disadvantages against some types of weapons than say splint mail. Shields are better against some weapons than other weapons.

Unfortunately...

As a guy who made them work, I know exactly how much work it takes to make the work. First, for everything you have to divide AC into two things - Armor Class and Armor Bonus. There are hints of this in the game's history where monsters are listed as having natural armor equivalent to some type of worn armor and other places. The idea is to record what 3e ended up explicitly recording - what part of the AC is from things that make you defect blows and what part is from things that make blows miss.

You then have to every time you use a monster take the AC and convert into something like 10(+4) or 5(+2) or even 2(-2). Incidentally, this gives you an approximate DEX for all monsters while you are at it, and the lack of DEX for monsters was something that had been bugging me for a while because I wanted monsters to also have reaction modifiers or missile weapon modifiers and the like and not just PC's. So that actually helped the game out in ways that were initially not intended.

But then there is the problem that if you have to look up these values during play that it slows down combat too much. So what I did was precompute them. Each character for each weapon got its own to hit AC X table precomputed with all the appropriate modifiers. That meant players didn't normally have to do math. They could just report their rolled result to me and I had do to only minimal math to compute the target number. The result was that combat actually sped up at my table. Gone were the days of the player going, "Ok, 17, plus my strength bonus, plus my specialization bonus, plus the bonus from my magic sword... that's a 23." every single die roll.

 

[billd91]

I really wanted to like them and have them work. In concept having adjustments for types of armor and whether there is a shield or not is really cool and could add a bunch of nuance to weapons and situations. Chain mail with no flat surfaces has different advantages and disadvantages against some types of weapons than say splint mail. Shields are better against some weapons than other weapons.

Unfortunately it is not connected directly to a particular armor type and the presence or absence of a shield but to an AC range of 10 to 2 going from unarmored with no shield to plate and shield. From ACs 7 to 3 however any of those ACs could be a specific armor type, or a different armor type with a shield due to the range of armors in 1e. So the only place you know for certain that shields are being considered is AC 9 (unarmored with shield) and AC 2 (plate and shield).

Chain mail and shield then has the same adjustment as splint mail with no shield. Ring mail with no shield has the same adjustments as padded armor with a shield.

Sometimes the chart has specifics where having a shield or not makes a difference. Take the bo stick, at AC 10 unarmored no shield there is a +3, at AC 9 unarmored with a shield there is +0, at AC 8 for leather or padded but no shield it is +1. For all the 7 to 3 ACs there is one adjustment for both cases with a shield and without.

It was a lot of looking up specifics to get to an adjustment that might or might not be intended for whether your opponent has a shield or the actual armor they have, but might have been intended for a different set of specifics.

There are definite problems with how that table is implemented. Frankly, I have a problem on a table where the lack of armor (AC 10) isn't the base value of +0 for everything. How exactly is one weapon better at hitting an unarmored target than any other weapon?!?

 

[Voadam]

There are definite problems with how that table is implemented. Frankly, I have a problem on a table where the lack of armor (AC 10) isn't the base value of +0 for everything. How exactly is one weapon better at hitting an unarmored target than any other weapon?!?

Fists are +4 against no shield unarmored opponents, but -7 against those in plate mail with shields. A bunch of polearms are -1 or -2 against the unarmored but Bardiches are +3.

There is a general theme of some weapons being skewed to work well against high AC armor types and poor against low AC types and others being the reverse.

If you give beasts the AC 10 slot it makes an interesting trade off to be optimized against plate mail hobgoblins or unarmored manticores.

 

[Voadam]

2e had an optional rule where armor types had modifiers against bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing weapons which I quite liked conceptually, but the ship had sailed for my style of DMing regarding AC fiddliness preferences at the table and I did not adopt it in DMing my 2e games.

I quite liked 4e's use of weapon qualities as a straightforward differentiation that felt balanced, easy to apply at the table, and decently enjoyable in effect. Two handed weapons for example included the Greatsword at 1d10 damage but +1 extra to hit, Long Spear with 1d10 but reach, Greataxe at 1d12 with high crit, and Maul with 2d6 damage.

In 1e I disliked spending different proficiencies on broadsword and longsword, but I loved that things like scimitar "includes Cutlass, Sabre, Sickle-sword, Tulwar, etc." or that the morningstar "includes Godentag and Holy Water Sprinkler".

 

[Celebrim]

There are definite problems with how that table is implemented. Frankly, I have a problem on a table where the lack of armor (AC 10) isn't the base value of +0 for everything. How exactly is one weapon better at hitting an unarmored target than any other weapon?!?

Light and quick weapons are better at hitting unarmed targets than heavier ones.

What would you rather be trying to swat a pixie with?