Deconstruction of ability scores in OD&D

Hi y’all! I wrote a blog post where I detach the effects of ability scores in OD&D from the ability scores themselves, to better understand to what extent they actually affected play. Thought y’all would find it interesting just to see how relatively simple OD&D is, and how the ability scores ‘balanced’ themselves out.

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Interesting blog
:O)

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Haha thanks! :slight_smile: It’s definitely all over the place

Very interesting, I was/am thinking about running an OD&D game in the near future for mg home group and this is a very interesting perspective.

From your post, you mention that there was a general trend towards Fighters and Cleric types more than Mages based on how strength and wisdom were intertwined with each other. What factors could be effecting Mages when being played that cAuses them to be left out?

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It seems to me like the authors wanted there to be less wizards than there are fighters and clerics, and accomplished that just by making them less numerically desirable for players! I think too the reason why there isn’t a Strength bonus for wizards is so that way, there would be more feasible fighters than clerics or wizards (and more clerics than wizards).

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Fair and good point, if I remember correctly from my reading also, the Magic User of the three classes had the slowest advancement but also the most limited options for general play also once their spells run dry.

Like, in comparison to the Fighter, once a Bow Fighter runs out of arrows, they can pull a longsword out and lock blades with the Bandit they were just dueling vs. the Magic User who can only either run due to their lack of spells or risk death by staying and engaging.

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