| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Based on what they're saying, back then the second one was explicitly suggested - by the rules - as the way it should be. The lots-of-loot version was what you got if you mechanically followed the RAW.
The difference appears to be that today's rules don't judge you for doing so. ^_^
The rules in AD&D are particularly judgemental - the section I partially quoted goes on and on about how lousy DMs are who hand out too much treasure. Very one-true-wayish, in fact.
However, my point is actually that the second is RAW. It's unusual from a modern perspective, but all those random tables in the AD&D DM's guide aren't intended to be used by the DM to allocate treasure in usual instances. They are provided "just in case" they were needed by the DM (alongside the rules which said "don't randomly hand out magic items").
DM fiat was RAW - over and over the rules provide a bunch of stuff and then basically say "the DM might use this or might do something else". Or, as here, a bunch of tables are provided for generating magical treasure hoards and then the "allocate treasure" section of the rules says "don't do it randomly".
Things were different back then and evaluating rules written in the seventies as if they were written today is likely to lead one astray.
If you don't like magic mart, use the optional rules for unchained with the built in progression system.
For what it's worth, characters need those bonuses to be capable of handling CR appropriate challenges.
|
You're trying to tell me that the roll 3d6 in order STR 16 Fighter did not require a STR booster in order to be anything more than a dead weight back in the Gygax days? Because that's what I remember :)Well, Gary Gygax never provided that info for his designs. ;)Aside from monsters that required magic weapons to hit, nothing before 3.0 had assumed magical items just to be functional.
I'll tell you that I played in successful groups where the highest ability score for the entire party across the board was a 16.
Hell, 16 is a pretty damn good score. Those editions didn't need everyone to constantly be pumping their ability scores. For the most part, the ability scores you had at level 1 were the same ability scores you had throughout your entire adventuring career. Outside of ridiculous numbers of wishes (I think it was 10 wishes to raise each score 1 point RAW....I never knew anyone who had that many wishes to spare), the only way I can think of to raise any of your scores were the Guantlets of Ogre Power, and the Belt of Giant Strength.
There were Manuals and Tomes as well. Some effects of the Deck of Many Things. Probably others.
Ah, forgot those. Probably because I've never seen the manuals or tomes actually used.
Contributor
|
If you don't like magic mart, use the optional rules for unchained with the built in progression system.
For what it's worth, characters need those bonuses to be capable of handling CR appropriate challenges.
I always wondered about this. My players seem to crush most CR-appropriate challenges with ease, and usually do a pretty brisk business against higher-CR encounters as well.
I'm increasingly of the theory that some of the "essential" items are merely "optimal". If my PCs didn't have their ability-boosting items, or their weapons had a little less plus, it looks to me like they'd do fine.
The exception is the cloak of resistance - they will need those. ^_^
If you don't like magic mart, use the optional rules for unchained with the built in progression system.
For what it's worth, characters need those bonuses to be capable of handling CR appropriate challenges.
I always wondered about this. My players seem to crush most CR-appropriate challenges with ease, and usually do a pretty brisk business against higher-CR encounters as well.
I'm increasingly of the theory that some of the "essential" items are merely "optimal". If my PCs didn't have their ability-boosting items, or their weapons had a little less plus, it looks to me like they'd do fine.
The exception is the cloak of resistance - they will need those. ^_^
For what it's worth, remember that a challenge rating equal to the party's CR is supposed to basically be a cake walk. They're expected to be able to handle those with minimal resource usage. They're expected to have at least 4 of those day in fact. Also remember, that this is when dealing with non-optimized characters using 15 point buy. When you up the point buy and start having people who optimize heavily I've found the CR scale need to shift up by about 2. Basically the party's CR +2 becomes the new floor for "fight 4 of these a day without challenge".
Also keep in mind magical gear actually helps martial characters the most. Other classes have enough spells and buffing (anyone with 6th level spell casting) to keep themselves working. But everyone else just can't keep up really. And since all the real casters are buffing themselves, they don't have spells to buff martials.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It looks to me like OSRIC gives out more than AD&D did and even that, as Atatrok showed is roughly on par with PF.
Actually he showed that it's far higher than Pathfinder.
Yeah, having played in a real Monty Haul campaign in early settings and in 3.X, 3.X doesn't even come close to what I've experienced.
WBL "protects" a campaign from both extremes, in my view. I personally dont want to be protected, but I can see the appeal. Without guidelines like that, I think it's quite difficult as a DM of AD&D to walk the desired line of wealth.
I'm find that with the Unchained automatic bonus progression, I can just generally ease off WBL entirely. I can just give them treasure whenever I feel like it and the quantities I feel like. As a GM, I'm just glad that's something I can worry about less.
Yeah, I think the inherent bonus mechanic is a great, recent innovation for playing low-magic games with systems not designed for them.