Continued from here. First, we talked about monsters. Now, let's see if a 10th-level fighter can beat five 2-HD creatures.
Using the same example as before, let's take 5 cavemen with AC 11, 9 HP and 5 damage on average. A 10th-level fighter surely has plate armor (although this costs speed); let's give him a shield too (no torch...), and +2 miscellaneous magic bonus, for a total AC 19. With my approximation, the cavemen would hit on a 17+, thus doing about 5 damage per round to the fighter.
A 10th-level fighter could have about 45 HP or so - killing him would take 9 rounds. He would hit basically every time against AC 11 (either because you're using my approximation or giving him a +2 weapon etc.). Even if we give him an average damage of 7 (1d8 plus some miscellaneous bonuses), it is not guaranteed that he will kill one cavemen per round, but he will probably take fewer than 10 rounds to take down all opponents (provided he has any bonuses to his 1d8 damage at all).
So it is still an easy fight (especially because of morale), although the 9 HD elephant from last post had it even easier.
Could this fighter take down an elephant? Using B/X rules, I'd give the elephant an edge due to increased damage - about twice as much than the fighter. The fighter would deal about 5-6 damage per round, while the elephant has a similar THAC0 and more damage due to trampling. Using Dark Fantasy Basic or even Old School Feats, I'd bet on the fighter, since he has a few additional perks (same for BECMI with weapon proficiencies etc.).
What if the high-level fighter faces ten 1st-level fighters? Well, it would depend on the equipment. B/X gives "veteran" 1HD fighters AC 17. Is that fair? Maybe give them chain (AC 15 with shield) to start with. Lets be generous and give them 5 HP, 5 average damage. Against AC 19, they only hit 20% of the time... a single point of damage on average, but 10 points for the whole group.
In five rounds, the 10th level fighter would be dead. He would kill almost one adversary per round, but would still lose from accumulated damage after six rounds or so: 10 + 9 + 8 +7 +6 + 5... that is 45 damage. If the adversaries had plate, he would have no chance at all (barring morale).
Of course, we are completely disregarding tactics here - in a narrow corridor, the low level fighters would be easily defeated.
What about magic-users? A 9th-level MU (similar in XP to the fighter mentioned above) can fireball (or "sleep", etc.) an entire group of veterans, cavemen or an elephant, likely winning the fight on the very first couple of rounds (while a wall of fire will simply be impassable by veterans and cavemen alike, but useless against the elephant - which can be controlled by charm monster).
However, with no armor and about 20 HP, he can be killed in few rounds if that doesn't work - e.g., if he loses initiative and gets attacked first. Notice he doesn't require any magical equipment, being able to rely on his or her own magic. Also, he recovers spells faster than the fighter can recover HP.
Notice that the whole rationale breaks (in B/X) if you reach level 14th, for example. When compared to a 10th-level fighter, the 14th-level one has 8 additional HP, +2 to hit. He has no chance against 14 veterans (or two 7th-level fighters) unless you give him lots of magic items or favorable circumstances. The MU will be more powerful, with amazing spells and 14d6 fireballs, but still very frail.
One final note. If you're using the Teratogenicon suggestions mentioned in the last post, a fighter should be doing about 12 damage by level 10. In B/X, this is basically impossible - fighters do not get more damage as they level up, except for magic weapons, and even these are usually caped at +3. In Dark Fantasy Basic (and, say, BECMI) a fighter has many different ways to achieve that.
So... what can we learn from that?
* Monster HD is not really equivalent to fighter HD.
* A B/X fighter needs some magic items to keep up with monsters of a similar HD. Magic items are necessary.
* A B/X MU is a lot more powerful (especially against low-HD creatures) but a lot frailer than a fighter. Their stakes are higher from round 1.
* A 10th-level fighter has an easy time against 5 2HD cavemen, but a hard time against 10 1HD veterans.
* 14th level is not really comparable to "10th level plus 40%".
* In short, it is hard to generalize from HD or even XP.
But we will try some generalizations anyway on part III.
I generally think B/X fighters need a little love. I have been giving them a flat damage bonus (following the examples of ACKS and WWN), of roughly 1/3 their level, which helps. I also allow them to cleave to an adjacent foe on a kill. Both OD&D and AD&D allowed Fighters to make 1 attack per level against weak (1 HD) foes, so the Basic line is really an outlier in not giving Fighters anything comparable.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely true. B/X fighters should be stronger, especially against multiple weak foes. Cleave helps a lot and, if unlimited, can replace the "multiple attack" rule in practice.
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