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From: west@onion.cs.reading.UUCP (Jerry West)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: ad&d mods for lesser damage
Message-ID: <117@onion.cs.reading.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 16-Oct-85 06:06:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: onion.117
Posted: Wed Oct 16 06:06:48 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 21-Oct-85 05:55:58 EDT
References: <150@drutx.UUCP>
Reply-To: west@cs.reading.UUCP (Jerry West)
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Xpath: reading onion.cs cs gateway.cs

The brief discussion on AD&D damage makes several valid points on
limiting damage from weapon blows but is it necessary to do so?

I am fully aware of the horrors which can be perpetrated by high level,
high magic worlds, but isn't that part of the fun?

The grossest damage of each weapon (assuming +5 max) is nothing compared
to the additions characters add up on top of this. If girdles of giant 
strength are added in, and the the high-level fighter attacks at his full
rate per round - with a weapon in each hand, of course, oh, and you'd better
not forget the haste he has on him.... 

Towards the end of a very high power campaign I was privileged(?) to watch, 
damage per round was into three figures! 

BUT, since the opposition was equally powerful, the balance was 
maintained. Since no real advantage was to be gained by sheer brute force, 
the characters had to resort to politics. This produced many shifting power
bases in the campaign and although melee sometimes proceeded at a snails pace 
(say 1 melee round / hour - don't forget the psionics have 10 segments to
get their oar in), the campaign often played for weeks without any combat.
This was during the off-season at University, and so play would go ahead
maybe four days in the week.

I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that damage is fairly irrelevant,
provided that everything else scales up to match. I don't like to see 145
htk being taken off one opponent in one round, but since the DM used little
tricks to beef up the enemy (eg, devils in hell (their own plane) are about 10
times bigger & better than on the Prime Material), the players rarely expected
to knock anything out in one blow. But it was such fun to roll all those dice!
And that's what it's all about. FUN. It was summed up in an old A&E some while
back as being a choice of possible systems (I summarise) -

a) The 'realistic' school (but not too realistic, 'cos if you loose a leg in
reality and have no healing you stop there - so we'll use those bits of 
realism we want and ignore the rest).

b) The 'have fun inflicting Enormous Damage to your enemy (Take THAT, Swine!)
whilst Laughing off his Puny Blows' school.

I say, with pride!, that I am firmly in the latter camp. In my own system, 
the "high-level" guy (note the quotes - there are no levels really) can cream
a peasant in virtually one blow. But if 24 peasants gang up on him, they will
wear him down (eventually!). If you've ever read the superb Niall of the Far
Travels stories you'll have an idea of the sort of melee I'm happy with.

Hmmm, I seem to have ranted on a bit to no real purpose here, and I
don't have very strong views on the matter either way, so I'll stop.

(well, it passes the time....)

Jerry
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