Do any of the old-school AD&D'ers out there scoff at there being no Strength cap based on char race?
HaHaCharade
Member Posts: 1,644
I know its a video game... but I still feel just silly when my Gnome rolls 18/92 Strength. Just doesn't seem right. Way back in the day (AD&D 1st Ed) races had strength caps... it was to give humans another advantage since they got no racial abilities like infravision and couldn't multi-class. I don't remember them all, but Humans could have 18/00, Dwarves up to 18/99 , Elves up to 18/75, etc. Of course, they also capped strength based on gender which wouldn't fly these days, as men's scores could be higher than women's of the same race. 2nd Ed. dropped these strength requirements, but kept other racial max/mins like the 17 max Dex for a Dwarf, and 19 Dex for an Elf, etc.
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http://playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php?title=Baldur's_Gate:_Races_and_Stats#Strength
17 through 18/50 barely have any differences between them. The real bonuses come by way of +1 thac0 for that. 18/51 through 18/99 is only +1 thac0 better than that. You don't actually get a really noticable difference til 18/00 when you gain an additional +1 thac0.
@HaHaCharade Yes, judging by the standards we use now, it was unfair. It was merely accepted at the time, just like there was another game (Fantasy Roleplaying) where the only class option for women was Courtesan (aka Prostitute). At least women in D&D and AD&D *could* be warriors.
@Shin Until they introduced the Cavalier. A Cavalier's Strength, Dexterity and Constitution increased over time, and they got "exceptional" rolls for both those other stats. At every level, they rolled 2d10 to see how many "exceptional" points they gained that level and added them to their base score. They didn't take effect until you got over 100. For example, a Cavalier with a 15/87 Dex gains a new level and rolls a 19 on the 2d10. Now, he has 16/06 Dex and is treated as if his new Dex is 16. Paladins became a sub-class of Cavalier as well, and since Unearthed Arcana (which introduced the Cavalier, Barbarian and Thief-Acrobat "classes") also introduced the various sub-races, Only High Elves, Gray Elves and Dark Elves could be Cavaliers (or half-elves of that lineage) unless they were of a noble house. So, yes, Drow could be Cavaliers (no word on how or where they found horses to ride in the Underdark, though).
It's proven by maths!
I'm just saying the difference between even 18/51 and 18/99 is pretty small. +0 thac0, +2 damage when you've already got +2 thac0/+3 damage. Meh. I don't see a reason to need to limit the exceptional strength bonuses of races.
Honestly I wish they'd rework the strength tables to remove exceptional strength scores anyway. It was an aspect of AD&D that to this day doesn't make any sense to me. I don't understand how it was even conceptualized. Then again, this is by the same people who thought up THAC0. (Okay, so I need subtract this number from that number to add it to this number and this other number is a plus so I need to actually subtract again and this one that minus there is actually a plus and...)
This is due to the AC scaling issue -basically every time you level up, you gain more and more thac0. However you never (or rarely if your class specfies) gain any AC on level up, You armour might get more p[owerful as you find more powerful magic items at higher levels, but this scales roughly equally with finding better magic weapons as well.
All of this means that after a certain threshold, more thac0 becomes useless because you are pretty much guaranteed to hit any opponent anyway, whereas higher damage becomes more relevent.
This is particularly noticable in 2nd ed, since all attacks of a character use the same thac0.
@Ajwz Yes, exactly. At level 10, a fighter's base THAC0 is 10. Let's say that warrior has an 18/00 Strength. Now. he needs a 7. Wielding a +3 Sword? Now it's a 4. Bless Spell? 3 Add Chant? 2. Draw Upon Holy Might from a 10th level caster? -1 (Can only miss by rolling a 1). At the same time, the character is doing a possible 16-23 damage.
Let's do some number crunching.
Level 21 barbarian, let's call him Figgy, has 18 constitution and managed to roll max HP per level. He'll have 180 HP. For the sake of this argument, we'll give him a total AC of -2.
Equivalent level fighters Twiggy and Piggy have 18/51 and 18/99 strength respectively. Both are otherwise identical.
Let's give them a longsword. We're not even going to talk about something enchanted, because that would actually even out the differences between the respective +3 and +5 damage. They would have 2 1/2 attacks a round with grandmastery.
Both land hits I believe every attack that isn't a nat1. (I might be wrong on that because thac0 still makes no sense to me.) In 8 rounds, you would on average automatically miss one attack and crit once.
Twiggy does on average 10.5 damage per hit, Piggy does 12.5. It means it takes Twiggy, on average, 18 hits to take down Figgy, or 7.2 rounds (7 rounds and the first attack from the 8th). It takes Piggy 14.4 hits on average to kill Twiggy, or 5.76 rounds (6 rounds, basically.)
That extra 2 damage saved you maybe a round of combat. And this is assuming you're not using some sort of enchanted weapon (the more damage you add to both guys actually helps even the gap), and that you are not doing extra damage based on buffs from casters or consumables, and that your magic weapon doesn't also have some sort of extra damage on it, AND THAT YOUR FIGHTER IS THE ONLY PERSON WHO ACCOMPLISHED ANY SORT OF DAMAGE THE ENTIRE FIGHT.
Congrats, you barely saved an entire round of combat at epic freakin' levels against a guy who has the maximum possible HP for a non-monstrous creature.
Meanwhile, CHARNAME the dwarf renders the entire point moot because even though he only rolled 18/01, he used a tome of strength and it skipped the entire exceptional strength pool to begin with now that he's got 19.
The damage bonus from the different ranks of exceptional strength are largely superfluous.
Let me extend the example:
Mr level 20 Barbarian has a powerful magical greatsword, which he swings for 1d10 + 3 + 2 fire + 4 str bonus per hit. He has 3 attacks per round. He also has a very high thac0. so is going to hit you twice a round unless he rolls a one, for an average of 43.5 damage.
Fighter 1 can kill him in 6 rounds
Fighter 2 can kill him in 7 rounds
They both have con 18.
In order to achieve 43.5 hit points, Fighter 2 must have 43.5 hit points more than fighter 1. This corresponds roughly in 2nd ed to just over 4 tomes of constitution.
That means in this fight, 2 damage a round caused by 18/51 and 18/99 strength difference is comparable to a difference of 4 constitution points (18 to 22).
This of course all works off the assumption that both the strength and con scores of all parties are in the sweet spot at the top, where additional points already matter.
Since being dead is a binary state, a barbarian left alive on 7hp is infinitely more threatening than one who is dead.
The approximate value of an extra round of combat is roughly equivilent to the barbarians full damage output for that round.
Obviously this equation can get more complicated but you will find that the difference for mages and clerics is likely to be even larger than in the case of fighters.
As as sidenote, this is the reason why "Focus your damage on a single target" tip is given in bg2 and in the pen and paper rules.
See? Just 2 extra damage per hit (at average damage) takes Figgy down a round faster, which is my point.
http://playithardcore.com/pihwiki/index.php?title=Baldur's_Gate:_Progression_Charts#Proficiency_Benefits
I am not sure where you're getting the extra 2 and a half attacks per round from. If we're talking BG1 values for grand mastery (which you cannot have by the time you hit 21 in the series as a whole without mods), it would be an extra 1 and a half, which would actually help narrow the gaps in rounds between when the guy falls.
@ajwz: I think you're missing my bigger picture. I'm saying the slash value on your strength is insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and therefore limiting each race to pre-AD&D rules on just how much exceptional strength bonus they can have is a really, really moot point. Besides, if one single round of combat on one single character is the difference between winning and losing a battle, you did something else in the fight wrong.
I am not arguing it's not better to have a higher strength, because duh. I'm arguing that it isn't a big deal. I prefer my undead hunter I rolled a legit 18/00 strength on to the cavalier I've got who only managed to get 18/05, but honestly their effectiveness in combat pre-strength tome is minimal.
And on top of that, all of these guys end up having 19 strength. This is a defined CRPG. We KNOW we're going to get a tome that permanently increases strength by +1 to our guy, so the slash value of your strength ends up being totally moot after you run through the Candlekeep Crypts.
That said, I kinda like the idea of gender- and race-based differences in characters, but stat caps are perhaps the clumsiest possible method for implementing them. A lifetime stat cap means all the best of Class X must be race-Y gender-Z.
And if you're talking old-school D&D, imagine D&D "Basic Set" rules (which I still own). I'm playing a Level 3 Lawful Elf.
Which leads me back to my original point- all other things being more or less equal, higher strength is always better. Using the example you gave, with Figgy, Twiggy and Piggy, they kill him in half the time he takes to kill them. I'd hardly call that "minimal".
I'm fairly certain if they go back to the BG1/IWD Grand Mastery it was only an extra half an attack at grand mastery, not 2 extra attacks.
Two parties are attacking each other. We will exclude spells for now to simplify, but I will add in examples later to demonstrate how easy it is.
Each party has a sum total HP,
Party 1 HP: X = (ρ1 + ρ2 + ... + ρN) where ρn is the respective HP of a party member and N is the number of partymembers in party 1.
Party 2 HP: Ψ = (σ1 + σ2 + ... + σN) where σn is the respective HP of a party member and N is the number of partymembers in party 2.
Likewise, each party has a sum total damage a round
Party 1 Damage : α = (τ1 + τ2 + ... + τN) where τn is the respective damage of a party member and N is the number of partymembers in party 1.
Party 2 Damage : β = (υ1 + υ2 + ... + υN) where υn is the respective damage of a party member and N is the number of partymembers in party 1.
At the end of a fight, X = 0 or Ψ = 0
To win a fight without casualties, ρ,ρ2, ... ,ρN or σ1,σ2, ... ,σN must be > 0
Example: N = Party size = 1
Lets take the side of Party 1.
When each party has a size of one, the fight becomes very simple.
Each round Party 1's hitpoints look like: X(this round) = X(last round) - β
and Party 2's hitpoints look like: Ψ(this round) = Ψ(last round) - α
If we assume an average damage per round then the resolution of the fight is simple:
X/β = n1 (The number of turns it takes party 2 to kill party 1)
Ψ/α = n2 (The number of turns it takes party 1 to kill party 2)
n1 - n2 = A
If A >= 1 Party 1 always wins the fight
If A <= -1 Party 2 always wins the fight
If -1 < A <1 The the Party who attacks first always wins.
So we can see in this example that the margin is VERY fine. 1 extra round can have a big effect on who wins or loses the fight. The importance of having player 1 +2 damage on each attack can be expressed as
Ψ = Ψ - 2n meaning Ψ would have to be greater than X + (2 x the number of turns the combat lasts)
Randomness in damage and hitting turns this into a probability of winning rather than a certainty, but you get the general idea
@ajwz: My point is and always was the difference doesn't end up mattering that much! Throwing 'spells out of the equation' just to simplify things negates my entire argument. It isn't and never will be from a pure numbers standpoint. The fact that battles are messy and there's a bajillion things going on in the battlefield are exactly why that extra few points of damage per hit from a higher slash value are not really a factor. If the only difference is just a matter of a round or two, then it proves my point it's not really a big deal.
Yep people keep forgetting that. and a LOT of gamers don't even know the PnP rules, they only know what is in the Computerized versions of the game....sadly for them
10th
It shows you how many warriors I've played that I never knew specialization -> mastery also gave you an extra 1/2 attack.
It's all clear now. I should know better than to try to correct our resident D&D forum rule goddess
While I'd agree with you under most circumstances, keep in mind that in BG your character is essentially the Forgotten Realms version of Hercules or Perseus. Since you've got divine blood in your veins, it makes sense that even a 3' tall halfling could hit like a truck. You're not a mere mortal - you're a Bhaalspawn.
AD&D also had different Str caps based on gender. Some things are best not implemented, imo.