Curious Questions

mamba said:

I am not sure why you use words like ‘fact’ and ‘true’ here. This is all made up, so changing something does not mean you violated a fact and are now lying when saying something that is different from how it was in a previous edition, you simply changed something about the game

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Because it is different Authoriship. It would be like me saying that Geoge Lucas didn't create Star Wars Movies because I made the last 3 episodes.

santosud37 said:

Because it is different Authoriship. It would be like me saying that Geoge Lucas didn't create Star Wars Movies because I made the last 3 episodes.

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The original idea of the movies would change just like what happened in rl and got ruined.

santosud37 said:

I have 2 questions.
#1 Question. Why are people saying that the AD&D 2E are the original rules for the spells that were changed with their compendiums when the spells are the same spells brought over from the Unearthed Arcana 1st ed? I see there a lot of corrections that were made for the spell components but the details of the spells r directly from the Unearthed Arcan and AD&D 1ed PHB.

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The spells have been changed for each edition of D&D.

santosud37 said:

#2 question.
Why are the encumbrances of weapons and some items WAAAAY off in AD&D 1ed?

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Well.....someone had to look this up in a book.....WAAAAAAAY back in the Time Before Time, with no Internet. Maybe they found a book that said whatever. Maybe they just made it up.

Maybe more likely they were doing the more vague "they wanted 200 lbs to be heavy encumbrance" so they wanted all the items, gear, equipment, weapons and armor to "add up to 200 somehow" for a typical warrior like character.

"Encumbrance" is not exactly really meant to be "weight", it is "meant" to be "how hard is it to carry this item around."

bloodtide said:

The spells have been changed for each edition of D&D.


Well.....someone had to look this up in a book.....WAAAAAAAY back in the Time Before Time, with no Internet. Maybe they found a book that said whatever. Maybe they just made it up.

Maybe more likely they were doing the more vague "they wanted 200 lbs to be heavy encumbrance" so they wanted all the items, gear, equipment, weapons and armor to "add up to 200 somehow" for a typical warrior like character.

"Encumbrance" is not exactly really meant to be "weight", it is "meant" to be "how hard is it to carry this item around."

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I highly doubt anything u said about Encumbrance being about what u carry around. It is about combat adjustments and always has been when it is used. Otherwise Encumbrance would not be a thing at all.

santosud37 said:

I highly doubt anything u said about Encumbrance being about what u carry around. It is about combat adjustments and always has been when it is used. Otherwise Encumbrance would not be a thing at all.

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So, way back in the Time Before Time, of Old School RPGs, how much a character could carry was a big deal.

A basic character had to carry a lot of gear and equipment, and most of all treasure. And Old School treasure came in lots of shapes and forms. You had to carry eleven silver candlestick holders, for example....they would be very "cumbersome" , to say the least.

santosud37 said:

#2 question.
Why are the encumbrances of weapons and some items WAAAAY off in AD&D 1ed? Who came up with a 2-Handed Sword weighing 25 lbs or 250 cns weight and a Long Sword being 6 lbs, which, btw is the actual weight of a heavy 2-handed sword, when a Long Sword weihs no more than 3 lbs? The encumbrances for weapons is WAAAAAY off from rl. A sledgehammr weighs no more than 20 lbs so u r telling me that a Sword weilded for battle is less than the heaviest sledgehammer? And who in their right mind is going to bring a 20 lb Spellbook on an Adventure?

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This is an excellent question. Let's ask the 1E PHB, page 101, under the heading "Encumbrance"... with emphasis mine

Whatever you select to carry will have both weight and volume (or bulk). Equipment for adventuring is necessary, but too much is deadly. In order to be able to move with reasonable rapidity and freedom, the number of items carried and apparel worn must suit encumbrance restrictions. (Remember that the volume of something can be as critical as its weight, i.e. 20 pounds of feathers in a sack are cumbersome.) To be useful, items generally must be readily accessible, so this consideration must also be borne in mind. Lastly, as the main purpose of adventuring is to bring back treasure, provision for carrying out a considerable amount of material must also be made.

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As others have pointed out, item "encumbrance" in 1e was never intended to be strictly equal to its "weight" - and 1e went out of its way to point this out! I imagine it's easy for those that came to the game after 3rd edition started using "weight" in lieu of "encumbrance" and thus grew up thinking of "weight" and not "encumbrance" to miss this subtle difference.

Also, did you catch the other "built-in rules consideration" at the end there? The main purpose of adventuring is NOT to gain experience. Or to save the world. It's loot! (Remember too that 1E awarded XP mostly as a function of loot) The assumption of "kill the monsters, take their stuff" may be a trope now, but it was literally assumed to be the point of 1e!

Both of these are reasons to be very wary of trying to apply modern gaming sensibilities to the design of older editions... they were simply concerned about different things than modern games are, and because of this, assuming 1 to 1 correspondence between mechanics among different editions is a quick way to get confused.