Celebrim
Legend
There is a whole lot of assumptions about my lack of knowledge permeating your post. I believe I was the first person in the thread to stress the importance of casting times, so their should be no need to ask if I played with them. And let's just take it for granted I know what can be done with environmental hazards, attrition play on either side of the screen, and 1e monsters. I played with a group that had twice finished 2nd at major tournaments, and I was considered a fairly nasty RBDM.
And the end game of the Dragon Lance campaign targets about level 14 as well. But, I would like to point out that these are basically end game modules that are often as not climaxes of the intended adventure paths, which I kinda see as demonstrating my point and not arguing against it.
The only ones I know for the AD&D line were the Bloodstone 'H' series, which I would also think serve to demonstrate my points rather than arguing against them. If you were coming at 35th level out of BECMI, which did have a lot of modules for high level play and sometimes even managed to achieve it, then this is an entirely different experience than AD&D. In fact, we probably were playing different games.
From the way you talk, I'm gathering you probably did 3d6 in order no rerolls (although the very presence of a statisicly unlikely Paladin and Ranger does seem to argue against that), had a DM that kept a tight lid on found party equipment (although I have no idea what 'level appropriate' means in 1e context), who had wisely avoided the Unearthed Arcana rules, and that your party wasn't stocked with power gamers. If that was all the case, then I understand where you are coming from and why the confusion.
However, lets suppose that we have some more generous method of stat creation and a reasonably high death toll through the lower levels that ensures that the party that does survive is going to have reasonably good starting stats (at least one 17 or higher, possibly 2 or more 16s), that your DM either uses the tournament modules as inspiration or is randomly rolling for treasure and not putting his thumb heavily on the results, that the party is of the larger 1e sort (6-8 players may show up on a night) that the full UA options are in play and that we have a party of devious power gamers. Then we get totally different results.
I won't argue about what was fair and possible at a given level. I'll only talk about where the end state would end up at.
Consider an end game optimized fighter, double specialized for the sake of argument in the longsword. He gets 5/2 attacks per round. He's wearing a girdle of storm giant strength (potions would do in a pinch), and equipped with gauntlets of power. He wields a +5 sword. Since most end game foes other than Slaad are large, expected damage per round is therefore 1d12+12+4+3+5 * 5/2 * .95 = ~70 points of damage. That's probably not perfectly optimal, because he'd probably do even more with double specialization in warhammer and hammer of thunderbolts and he'd do alot more damage with intelligent sword with a special purpose, but some concession must be made to assembling the kit. This fighter alone roughly slays an ancient blue dragon per round, and on average takes down a 16 HD monster every round by himself. That's roughly two balrogs a round by himself. Granted, he might not have the most optimal girdle or a lesser sword, but that just a few points less damage per round. And he's possibly not the most dangerous member of the party.
I suspect you are thinking more along the lines of 16 Str, longsword +3, no specialization, 2 attacks per round for about 20 damage per round if you think giants take a long time to go down at high levels.
How about our end game Paladin. Well, in most groups I was in they'd jumped on the 'logical' suggestion of making Paladin a subclass of Cavalier, so our end game Paladin has three attacks per round with his favored weapon +5 Holy Avenger. Assuming he has a 'my real strength doesn't matter' kit like the fighter this would turn into 1d12+5+3+12+4 * 2 * 3 * .95 ~ 242 damage per round on average. This is of course enough to one shot Demogorgon by himself. In practice though, treasure distribution being what it is, the Paladin would have probably had to give up the girdle or gauntlets when choosing the holy avenger and its unlikely more than a couple had been found. Even so, the Paladin could reasonably expect to use a Manual of Gainful Excercise the Cavalier stat training rules to boost his starting strength to 18/00, which reduces his expected damage to a mere 1d12+5+6+3 * 2 * .95 ~ 117 damage per round. The fighter of course does better against the neutrally aligned, but the arch fiends clearly don't stand a chance against this party and we are only 2 characters into it.
Also on our front line could be a melee ranger. He is probably doing longsword main hand and a hand axe as his second attack for 7/2 attacks per round. But he can do better than that. You said that you'd only get 2 attacks per round. That's true with melee weapons, but not of missile weapons. A more typical build would be to go pure archer specialized in the bow and take advantage of 4 attacks per round, stacking magic arrows on a magic bow and taking advantage of the times two damage within 30'. Assuming a nice bow, this would give our archer an expected damage within 30' of about 1d6+5+5+3+2 * 2 * 4 * .95 = 148 damage. This is at ranged, when many monsters will be only able to reply weakly. Most creatures die to the first volley of arrows the ranger gets off successfully. Even at further ranges without the doubling, the ranger can take down 14 or 15 HD creatures each round unassisted.
And then there would be spellcasters. The ones that supposedly dominated 1st edition AD&D.
My thief builds normally either went elvish thief-M-U, or else went up to name level as a human fighter and then dual classed into thief to abuse the hit points/level rules. With the equipment I had by 10th level and my high hit points, it was a trivial matter to quickly level up thief (you'd get back to tenth level by the time you colleages hit 11th or 12th), and I'd be a 10th level fighter or a thief with a quadruple damage backstab multiple times per round depending on how you looked at it. Strictly speaking though, this wasn't power gaming. A thief was entirely unnecessary. I play it for style points.
The point is, yeah we were playing a different game. And yeah, you could say, well with tight treasure distribution those optimal equipment packages wouldn't happen (actually, they could be worse, I didn't mention vorpal weapons or have a dozen other possibilities) and so expected damage per character should be lower. But the point is that doesn't matter much. Even if each character is about half as effective, we're still talking 6-8 characters quite capable on paper of dishing out 400 damage in 2 rounds. That's overkill for anything in the game, and remember, that's the assumption for being HALF AS EFFECTIVE AS THE CHARACTERS COULD BE.
Anyway, that's how you do massive damage with fighters in AD&D.
Nothing in the game could remotely compete with a full PC party reasonably optimized.
Given what I think your constraints are, Orcus would be a special case - solely because of his 'die no save' special power.
You don't have to have this conversation with me. However, casters are still strong. The strength of them is a bit harder to talk about than for melee types that are striving to achieve the same results every round (hasted ginsu abatoire), but while I agree that spellcasters didn't overshine what melee types could do as sometimes is rumored, I will also insist that the above numbers didn't mean that spellcasters in the party felt weak and unneeded.
Technically, you only need 10 wishes to raise attributes from 16 to a higher score. One wish would raise a 14 to a 15 or a 15 to a 16, though it would probably be a waste of a good wish. The important thing to remember is that with manuals and tomes, ioun stones, and things like girdles of giant strength or gauntlets of dexterity there were alot of ways to increase stats without recourse to wasting a wish.
It's only pretty essential against dragons and high level spellcasters. Good armor class was far more important than hit points against most everything else, because if you take most monsters from the Monster Manuals and run their expected damage per round versus an AC between -4 and -10 you realize its pretty darn low.
There is no need to suggest that I'm not capable of running a monster. I'm just pointing out to you that by the time we are talking 18th level, we've left the normal threats of combat with greater demons and devils, giants and the like, and other 'high level foes' so far behind we can't really see them anymore. What exactly to you think is an appropriate challenge for a party of 8 characters each dishing out enough damage to down a Pit Fiend every round? And who wants to run a combat with a whole company of pit fiends or an army of giants anyway? When between the DM and the players you are throwing hundreds of dice every single round of combat, its just time to retire the characters and move on.
Now, granted, we weren't playing the same game.
And the end game of the Dragon Lance campaign targets about level 14 as well. But, I would like to point out that these are basically end game modules that are often as not climaxes of the intended adventure paths, which I kinda see as demonstrating my point and not arguing against it.
The only ones I know for the AD&D line were the Bloodstone 'H' series, which I would also think serve to demonstrate my points rather than arguing against them. If you were coming at 35th level out of BECMI, which did have a lot of modules for high level play and sometimes even managed to achieve it, then this is an entirely different experience than AD&D. In fact, we probably were playing different games.
From the way you talk, I'm gathering you probably did 3d6 in order no rerolls (although the very presence of a statisicly unlikely Paladin and Ranger does seem to argue against that), had a DM that kept a tight lid on found party equipment (although I have no idea what 'level appropriate' means in 1e context), who had wisely avoided the Unearthed Arcana rules, and that your party wasn't stocked with power gamers. If that was all the case, then I understand where you are coming from and why the confusion.
However, lets suppose that we have some more generous method of stat creation and a reasonably high death toll through the lower levels that ensures that the party that does survive is going to have reasonably good starting stats (at least one 17 or higher, possibly 2 or more 16s), that your DM either uses the tournament modules as inspiration or is randomly rolling for treasure and not putting his thumb heavily on the results, that the party is of the larger 1e sort (6-8 players may show up on a night) that the full UA options are in play and that we have a party of devious power gamers. Then we get totally different results.
I won't argue about what was fair and possible at a given level. I'll only talk about where the end state would end up at.
Consider an end game optimized fighter, double specialized for the sake of argument in the longsword. He gets 5/2 attacks per round. He's wearing a girdle of storm giant strength (potions would do in a pinch), and equipped with gauntlets of power. He wields a +5 sword. Since most end game foes other than Slaad are large, expected damage per round is therefore 1d12+12+4+3+5 * 5/2 * .95 = ~70 points of damage. That's probably not perfectly optimal, because he'd probably do even more with double specialization in warhammer and hammer of thunderbolts and he'd do alot more damage with intelligent sword with a special purpose, but some concession must be made to assembling the kit. This fighter alone roughly slays an ancient blue dragon per round, and on average takes down a 16 HD monster every round by himself. That's roughly two balrogs a round by himself. Granted, he might not have the most optimal girdle or a lesser sword, but that just a few points less damage per round. And he's possibly not the most dangerous member of the party.
I suspect you are thinking more along the lines of 16 Str, longsword +3, no specialization, 2 attacks per round for about 20 damage per round if you think giants take a long time to go down at high levels.
How about our end game Paladin. Well, in most groups I was in they'd jumped on the 'logical' suggestion of making Paladin a subclass of Cavalier, so our end game Paladin has three attacks per round with his favored weapon +5 Holy Avenger. Assuming he has a 'my real strength doesn't matter' kit like the fighter this would turn into 1d12+5+3+12+4 * 2 * 3 * .95 ~ 242 damage per round on average. This is of course enough to one shot Demogorgon by himself. In practice though, treasure distribution being what it is, the Paladin would have probably had to give up the girdle or gauntlets when choosing the holy avenger and its unlikely more than a couple had been found. Even so, the Paladin could reasonably expect to use a Manual of Gainful Excercise the Cavalier stat training rules to boost his starting strength to 18/00, which reduces his expected damage to a mere 1d12+5+6+3 * 2 * .95 ~ 117 damage per round. The fighter of course does better against the neutrally aligned, but the arch fiends clearly don't stand a chance against this party and we are only 2 characters into it.
Also on our front line could be a melee ranger. He is probably doing longsword main hand and a hand axe as his second attack for 7/2 attacks per round. But he can do better than that. You said that you'd only get 2 attacks per round. That's true with melee weapons, but not of missile weapons. A more typical build would be to go pure archer specialized in the bow and take advantage of 4 attacks per round, stacking magic arrows on a magic bow and taking advantage of the times two damage within 30'. Assuming a nice bow, this would give our archer an expected damage within 30' of about 1d6+5+5+3+2 * 2 * 4 * .95 = 148 damage. This is at ranged, when many monsters will be only able to reply weakly. Most creatures die to the first volley of arrows the ranger gets off successfully. Even at further ranges without the doubling, the ranger can take down 14 or 15 HD creatures each round unassisted.
And then there would be spellcasters. The ones that supposedly dominated 1st edition AD&D.
My thief builds normally either went elvish thief-M-U, or else went up to name level as a human fighter and then dual classed into thief to abuse the hit points/level rules. With the equipment I had by 10th level and my high hit points, it was a trivial matter to quickly level up thief (you'd get back to tenth level by the time you colleages hit 11th or 12th), and I'd be a 10th level fighter or a thief with a quadruple damage backstab multiple times per round depending on how you looked at it. Strictly speaking though, this wasn't power gaming. A thief was entirely unnecessary. I play it for style points.
The point is, yeah we were playing a different game. And yeah, you could say, well with tight treasure distribution those optimal equipment packages wouldn't happen (actually, they could be worse, I didn't mention vorpal weapons or have a dozen other possibilities) and so expected damage per character should be lower. But the point is that doesn't matter much. Even if each character is about half as effective, we're still talking 6-8 characters quite capable on paper of dishing out 400 damage in 2 rounds. That's overkill for anything in the game, and remember, that's the assumption for being HALF AS EFFECTIVE AS THE CHARACTERS COULD BE.
Anyway, that's how you do massive damage with fighters in AD&D.
Nothing in the game could remotely compete with a full PC party reasonably optimized.
Given what I think your constraints are, Orcus would be a special case - solely because of his 'die no save' special power.
You don't have to have this conversation with me. However, casters are still strong. The strength of them is a bit harder to talk about than for melee types that are striving to achieve the same results every round (hasted ginsu abatoire), but while I agree that spellcasters didn't overshine what melee types could do as sometimes is rumored, I will also insist that the above numbers didn't mean that spellcasters in the party felt weak and unneeded.
Technically, you only need 10 wishes to raise attributes from 16 to a higher score. One wish would raise a 14 to a 15 or a 15 to a 16, though it would probably be a waste of a good wish. The important thing to remember is that with manuals and tomes, ioun stones, and things like girdles of giant strength or gauntlets of dexterity there were alot of ways to increase stats without recourse to wasting a wish.
It's only pretty essential against dragons and high level spellcasters. Good armor class was far more important than hit points against most everything else, because if you take most monsters from the Monster Manuals and run their expected damage per round versus an AC between -4 and -10 you realize its pretty darn low.
There is no need to suggest that I'm not capable of running a monster. I'm just pointing out to you that by the time we are talking 18th level, we've left the normal threats of combat with greater demons and devils, giants and the like, and other 'high level foes' so far behind we can't really see them anymore. What exactly to you think is an appropriate challenge for a party of 8 characters each dishing out enough damage to down a Pit Fiend every round? And who wants to run a combat with a whole company of pit fiends or an army of giants anyway? When between the DM and the players you are throwing hundreds of dice every single round of combat, its just time to retire the characters and move on.
Now, granted, we weren't playing the same game.
Last edited:
