# 1st Edition AD&D, random monsters question **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [May 17, 2012, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183 "2012-05-17T06:49:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/21 "2012-05-17T15:48:05Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > Never heard of it. Was it stated as such in the DM’s Guide? Yes (at least in the context of retreating from melee), although I don’t own a 1E DMG nowadays, so I can’t help you with a page reference. Here’s a discussion from another board: [http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=25398](http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=25398) The relevant quote: "I was sure that this was in the DMG, but looking now I can’t find it; only the section on “breaking off from melee” (full speed retreat after a thing that we won’t call an attack of opportunity ;)). " > [@mlees](#): > > I never got that book. Me neither, but I leafed through it once. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/22 "2012-05-17T15:57:18Z")
It’s also worth remembering that, in a tabletop RPG like D&D, the monsters are not controlled by an Artificial Intelligence. They’re controlled by a real, live person (the GM/DM), who can make the monsters behave in whatever way makes sense in any given situation. So your party of 4 adventurers might stumble into a random encounter and the dice roll says “23 orcs”, but there’s nothing stopping the DM from deciding that this isn’t a war party, it’s a small clan, and 17 of those 23 are non-combatants (women, children, and the elderly). ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/23 "2012-05-17T16:41:15Z")
Any 1st Edition DM worthy of the term “Dungeon Master” could clear the table and wipe out the party any time he wanted to. Most fights, I had to come up with reasons for the monsters not to slaughter the party, so if somebody wanted to stand up front in big, shiny armor and soak up some damage, I let him do it. Plus, the whole idea of “solo adventuring” brought out the basic gaming rule of thumb: “Don’t split up the party.” All those dead bodies the PCs found, and the loot they found hidden in chests? Those all came from solo adventurers. There was even a Paul Jacquays module, Egg of the Phoenix, which featured a dungeon that was literally a paladin disposal: they went into it one at a time, and none ever came out (until one hires the party to go in with her…). When the party goes in, they find dead paladin after dead paladin after dead paladin… ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/24 "2012-05-17T18:44:34Z")
> [@](#): > > Minor nitpick: The game mechanic known as “Attack of Opportunity” did not exist in AD&D, as far as I can recall. The DM didn’t always go by the book. And I think that he called this mechanic a “free shot”, not “attack of opportunity”. His reasoning was that if a combatant turns its back on whatever it’s been fighting, the opponent is going to take that opportunity to whack it upside the head. I mean, even animals will do this, if they are fighting for food. If it’s a dominance fight, this will only happen between individuals of the same species, and that species will have a surrender move which only works on other individuals of that species. That DM believed in giving the monsters credit for having at least animal level intelligence. > [@](#): > > Sometimes, but there was also the fact that turning to attack the thief was often as dangerous as leaving him alone, because it meant turning your back on the beefy fighter with the broadsword. Attacking from behind negated shield and Dex bonuses to armor (if any) and gave the attacker +2 to hit, so turning your back on a heavy hitter was risky. Technically, backstabbing was a one-shot thing; once the target was aware of the thief (which he certainly would be after taking a knife to the kidney), the thief didn’t get to backstab him again unless and until circumstances changed. This was how it worked in most games that I played. The thief got ONE chance to backstab, and then had to get away and hide in shadows before another attempt. And usually knowing that there was a backstabbing thief around gave the other party a bonus to spotting the thief when s/he was attempting to hide. Remember, D&D/AD&D was originally played with miniatures, for the most part, so that the players and DMs could show how the party was positioned. And those minis were made of lead, too, the way Og intended them to be, and we LIKED it that way! ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/25 "2012-05-17T18:51:50Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > The DM didn’t always go by the book. And I think that he called this mechanic a “free shot”, not “attack of opportunity”. His reasoning was that if a combatant turns its back on whatever it’s been fighting, the opponent is going to take that opportunity to whack it upside the head. I mean, even animals will do this, if they are fighting for food. If it’s a dominance fight, this will only happen between individuals of the same species, and that species will have a surrender move which only works on other individuals of that species. > > That DM believed in giving the monsters credit for having at least animal level intelligence. I agree with all of this, but that is what I would have called a “house rule”, not an official one. > [@](#): > > Remember, D&D/AD&D was originally played with miniatures, for the most part, so that the players and DMs could show how the party was positioned. And those minis were made of lead, too, the way Og intended them to be, and we LIKED it that way! Don’t forget the bad glossy paint jobs. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/26 "2012-05-17T19:05:36Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > It’s also worth remembering that, in a tabletop RPG like D&D, the monsters are not controlled by an Artificial Intelligence. They’re controlled by a real, live person (the GM/DM), who can make the monsters behave in whatever way makes sense in any given situation. > > So your party of 4 adventurers might stumble into a random encounter and the dice roll says “23 orcs”, but there’s nothing stopping the DM from deciding that this isn’t a war party, it’s a small clan, and 17 of those 23 are non-combatants (women, children, and the elderly). This is the main advantage of tabletop RPGs. A good DM can come up with situations that are tailored to the party. And a good player can come up with a solution to a problem that the DM hasn’t thought of, but that the DM will allow. You can’t do that in a computer game. Your character has a certain number of options in any given situation, and you can’t argue with the AI about whether or not it makes sense (although in at least a couple of MMORPGs, you can put in a call for a human DM to resolve the problem). A good DM will also tailor the treasure to the party, or at least re-roll on the treasure table until a suitable treasure comes up, and will also try to make sure that the treasure can be somewhat fairly divided. Obligatory OotS [link](http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0129.html). ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/27 "2012-05-17T19:08:21Z")
On AoO in early editions: > [@](#): > > I agree with all of this, but that is what I would have called a “house rule”, not an official one. Most of the DMs that I played with back then DID allow at least one free shot in these circumstances. It might have been a local convention, but it wasn’t truly a house rule. To my way of thinking, a house rule is a rule that only one group uses. ---
**Author:** ![Stormcrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/0ea827/32.png) [@Stormcrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stormcrow)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/28 "2012-05-17T19:11:51Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > On AoO in early editions: Most of the DMs that I played with back then DID allow at least one free shot in these circumstances. It might have been a local convention, but it wasn’t truly a house rule. To my way of thinking, a house rule is a rule that only one group uses. In the 1E and 2E days, you really needed to have those house rules - or to be more to the point, it was generally understood that the DM would fill in the gaps with on the fly rulings of this sort. I know I had some pretty codified house rules handling movement within combat. I did something along the lines of the free shot you describe as well. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/29 "2012-05-17T19:39:02Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > This is the main advantage of tabletop RPGs. A good DM can come up with situations that are tailored to the party. And a good player can come up with a solution to a problem that the DM hasn’t thought of, but that the DM will allow. You can’t do that in a computer game. Your character has a certain number of options in any given situation, and you can’t argue with the AI about whether or not it makes sense (although in at least a couple of MMORPGs, you can put in a call for a human DM to resolve the problem). There is also the in-between case in which players find ways to manipulate the game mechanics to do things that never occurred to the game designers. Depending on the game, the nature of the trick, and the culture of the company, the “DM” response can be anything from “I wish we’d thought of that.” to “OK, wise guys, you got us, but we’re changing things so you can’t do it again.” to banning the clever players. The original end-game raid boss for _City of Heroes_, the Hamidon, actually has lore relating to it evolving new defenses–which is to say, each time the players came up with a sneaky way to beat it easily, it worked for a while, then the encounter was redesigned to fix that vulnerability. (I don’t think we ever once beat it the way they originally planned, and for a long time, they gave up even guessing what we’d do.) That doesn’t counter your point about tabletop, of course–one of my favorite things about tabletop RPGs is coming up with plans that boggle the GM and send them digging through reference material to figure out how something would work. Just pointing out that there are occasional exceptions in computer games. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/30 "2012-05-17T19:46:24Z")
I’m certain I remember there being an attack of opportunity-like mechanic in 2nd edition (core books, not expansions). The rules were a bit muddled, possibly optional, and had to be patched up on the fly by the DM (like pretty much all the rules in 2nd edition), but they were there. ---
**Author:** ![Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/arrogance_ex_machina/32/192_2.png) [@Arrogance\_Ex\_Machina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrogance_Ex_Machina)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/31 "2012-05-17T19:53:19Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > You know what else has no basis in either reality or literary tradition? > > **Combat healers**. > > Gah, I _hate_ that notion, and it’s EXPECTED in every single MMO out there. Your tank/brick character is expected to take several lives’ worth of damage over the course of a single boss fight, and then be ready for more. How are these guys not one giant heap of scar tissue by level 6? Not only that, but imagine how hideously painful and traumatic it would be to be beaten to almost death and then revived to full health over and over and over and over again? Back in earlier days of EQ1 when Complete Heal was still the king, the best tactic was to let the tank to get as low as possible before landing the heal so as not to waste any mana. Imagine something like that in any half-realistic situation … though, going into negative hit points in that game, starting to fall down and then getting healed back up is something I miss in the newer MMOs. Lack of effective combat healing is one of the reasons I like Warhammer FRPG - you can do some of it, but damage dealers do a lot more damage per attack than even the best healers heal per blessing or spell, so there’s no hp bar ping pong. Most priests don’t even get any heals and tend to use the “kill whatever is attacking us” method of pro-active healing. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/32 "2012-05-17T20:17:24Z")
That’s why Lotro doesn’t have health, it has morale. You don’t get beaten up, you just get a bit depressed until a minstrel raises your spirits. Then when you are fully depressed, you fall over defeated. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/33 "2012-05-17T20:34:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’m certain I remember there being an attack of opportunity-like mechanic in 2nd edition (core books, not expansions). The rules were a bit muddled, possibly optional, and had to be patched up on the fly by the DM (like pretty much all the rules in 2nd edition), but they were there. There must’ve been, since most of my time in D&D was in 2nd edition and we had the same rule. We even called it an Attack of Opportunity. I still have my books, but I’m on the opposite side of the country ATM, so I can’t check. ---
**Author:** ![dzeiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dzeiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzeiger)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/34 "2012-05-17T21:14:45Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > That’s why Lotro doesn’t have health, it has morale. You don’t get beaten up, you just get a bit depressed until a minstrel raises your spirits. Then when you are fully depressed, you fall over defeated. Heh. Pirates of the Burning Sea had an interesting variation–you had three basic values in a fight–health, initiative, and balance. Most attacks took off little/no health, but instead raised your initiative and/or reduced the enemy’s balance. Eventually, you’d be able to do a finishing blow that takes off huge chunks of the enemy’s health. So, as much as possible in a MMO, they tried to make it like a swashbuckling movie, with a lot of sword swinging, but not as much bleeding until the end. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/35 "2012-05-17T21:48:10Z")
> [@dzeiger](#): > > Heh. Pirates of the Burning Sea had an interesting variation–you had three basic values in a fight–health, initiative, and balance. Most attacks took off little/no health, but instead raised your initiative and/or reduced the enemy’s balance. Eventually, you’d be able to do a finishing blow that takes off huge chunks of the enemy’s health. So, as much as possible in a MMO, they tried to make it like a swashbuckling movie, with a lot of sword swinging, but not as much bleeding until the end. Sounds a bit like the FATE tabletop system combat, which is very narrative. You build up advantages and inflict disadvantages, move the combat around, and things like that until you’ve got a decisive bonus for an attempt to finish the fight. ---
**Author:** ![Chipacabra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@Chipacabra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chipacabra)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/36 "2012-05-17T22:47:41Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > And given the choice between these two extremes of 1st and 4th, I’d take the former because it’s more realistic than a fighter able to somehow alter other’s minds. Out of curiosity, what in the world are you talking about? Fighters don’t have any mind control powers. … Well, ok, they have ONE power that sort of (not really) could be considered controlling an enemy, but it’s almost certainly not what you’re talking about. Fighters are defenders, not tanks. Tanks operate by forcing the enemy to attack them. The enemy literally has no choice in the matter, the game mechanics override any options. In MMOs, this is managed by threat meters and taunt buttons. Tanks also have higher damage mitigation and higher hit point totals. 4e defenders, on the other hand, don’t do that. At all. What they do is PUNISH enemies that ignore them. A marked enemy doesn’t have to attack the fighter at all, but if it doesn’t the fighter punishes him with a penalty to hit and a smack upside the head. Fighters also don’t really have better defenses (in fact, a lot of common builds end up with worse than average defenses) and don’t have particularly high HP totals. Defenders are not tanks. They do not wade in soak damage like an MMO at all. They wade in and _wreck faces_ and hurt the bad people threatening their friends. Incidentally, do you know where the taunt mechanic originated? It wasn’t from an MMO. It was from first edition D&D. Dragonlance. Kenders. That’s right. Kenders ruin everything. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/37 "2012-05-17T23:10:23Z")
We did house rules so deep I can never really remember the actual rules of the early editions, but Tanks did much of their job by simply physically blocking the way. Some of the most frightening words a DM can say: “Since I haven’t heard anything different, you are traveling are in standard walking order, hand me the notebook with the hexmaps will ya?” :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Chipacabra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@Chipacabra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chipacabra)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2012, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/38 "2012-05-17T23:24:34Z")
Yeah, in old school D&D fighters kept the wizards safe just by blocking the hallway. This worked fine in the days of the 5’ and 10’ corridors, but once you start expanding your game world out and can have monsters that can just go around or over the fighter, he really starts to suffer. Of course, originally the balancing factor was that around the time his lack of mobility makes him personally irrelevant to encounters, the fighter should be amassing an army to handle his problems. Oh, one other thing to point out about old school encounter design: Gygax and Arneson preferred a game where you only fight the battles you know you can win, otherwise you should avoid the fight entirely or come up with some trick to even the odds. The combat system is so stacked against the players, long-term speaking, that you’re best off avoiding it as much as possible. Sometimes you’ll see this described as ‘combat as war’ as opposed to ‘combat as sport’, the idea being that there’s no such thing as a fair fight. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2012, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/39 "2012-05-18T00:26:22Z")
> [@](#): > > That’s right. Kenders ruin everything. Nitpick: Kenders are fine as a character race in a series of books. Aggravating, but they have their uses. However, as a PC race in a game, they WILL break the game. They are not team players. Even if a player wanted to play a kender as a team player, the racial tendencies will prevent it from happening. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2012, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183/40 "2012-05-18T01:21:44Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > A good DM will also tailor the treasure to the party, or at least re-roll on the treasure table until a suitable treasure comes up, and will also try to make sure that the treasure can be somewhat fairly divided. This is where my old D&D group ran into trouble. The DM didn’t write his own adventures - he used published adventures. Which were designed for groups of 4-5 players. Then he would allow the group to grow to 7-8 players. But he never adjusted the encounters accordingly. So the XP and treasure intended for 4-5 players got divided up between 7-8 players. This meant leveling and gearing did not keep pace with the progression of the adventure. So we’d be just blowing through encounters for a little while, then suddenly we would find ourselves facing encounters that were designed for level 7 characters (because that’s where the writer expected the party would be by that point in the adventure), but we’d all still be level 4, and woefully undergeared, and lacking the skills/feats the adventure writer assumed we’d have by that point. So we’d get our asses handed to us repeatedly, and die, and lose a level on resurrection, and never catch up. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/1st-edition-ad-d-random-monsters-question/622183.md?page=3)