AD&D- Overpowered Magic Items

The first time I ever got to play on a grid, we went to this hobby shop up in Chicago, and they had a huge piece of terrain that someone had painstakingly painted a grid on, each square being 1" x 1". We were able to rent the table for a mass combat during my DM's "demon invasion" arc. There were 8 players, each one had 2-3 characters. Many died, their stories forgotten to time and memory.

It was glorious!

I started using at the very least a whiteboard to track character locations in battles from that point on. No more arguments about who was where or who could be hit by a fireball. I even converted my Earthdawn and Vampire games to using grid movement after that, as it made mobility powers so much better.

As someone that did a lot of wargaming in my youth, I'm not bothered by measuring movement in inches. Movement in squares is boardgaming, not wargaming.

Fortunate Son said:

As someone that did a lot of wargaming in my youth, I'm not bothered by measuring movement in inches. Movement in squares is boardgaming, not wargaming.

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It can be both.

There's a difference between a) using minis/grid to determine position and facing while keeping movement etc. flexible and b) using them to lock everyone into 5' squares and 5' movement steps (particularly as 1e assumed a normal-size person occupied about a 3' circle).

I'm fine with the former. Not the latter.

That's funny, I am sort of the opposite.

I find facing annoyingly fiddly and I am glad D&D moved away from that.

I really like 4e D&D style movement and lockdown powers in D&D fights.

Everyone has their individual preferences for level of abstraction and in which parts.

I disliked both GURPS 1 second rounds where a two handed axe swing could take three rounds as too fiddly and 1e minute combat rounds as too much abstraction, I like the modern D&D rounds of enough to move, do a big action (which can include multiple attacks) and possibly a bonus neat trick. And maybe an action off your turn.

A lot of people do not care for 1e Unearthed Arcana but I feel it introduced a lot of really flavorful magic items.

I like the cloak of the bat, for instance, which provides a bit of protection, shadowy stealth power, flight at the cost of nothing else in hands as you hold the edges of the cloak, and a shapeshift into a bat ability. All thematically appropriate and fairly cool and useful.

My brother's assassin had one in my campaign and he was always terrified that when he turned into a bat to scout that I might interpret the bat transformation language as he had the hp of a bat while in its form.

Voadam said:

I disliked both GURPS 1 second rounds where a two handed axe swing could take three rounds as too fiddly and 1e minute combat rounds as too much abstraction, I like the modern D&D rounds of enough to move, do a big action (which can include multiple attacks) and possibly a bonus neat trick. And maybe an action off your turn.

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The best definition of a round is from the old TSR Marvel Super Heroes game, where a round/turn is one comic frame.

Staffan said:

The best definition of a round is from the old TSR Marvel Super Heroes game, where a round/turn is one comic frame.

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What's the going rate of a splash page, I wonder?

James Gasik said:

I do recall the funny notation on the Vorpal Sword...
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And I'm just imagining a support group for headless Dopplegangers and Elementals!

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JEB said:

Huh, dopplegangers could survive decapitation in 1e? Interesting. (Bonus obscure fact: they were classified as "undead" types in 0e.)

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So, if a doppelganger lost their head while say, disguised as a human, would they still be able to keep the disguise up to fool people? Or does the head.chsnge back to their true form while their body is disguised?

Snarf Zagyg said:

7. Helm of Brilliance. Causes 1-6 damage to undead. Makes all swords into swords of flame (in addition to their other properties), allows you to produce flame, double-strength fire resistance. Also? 40 light spells, 30 fireballs, 20 walls of fire, and 10 prismatic sprays. .... just don't fail on magical fire.

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This reminds me of a funny story. Was running a magic-user in the Temple of Elemental Evil (original version) and we were inside the Earth Node. My PC was surprised by a stroper, who promptly captured him with its sticky tentacles and hauled him up to the ceiling and its waiting mouth, pretty much helpless.

The paladin in the party, being the hero-type, decided this was a perfect opportunity to use his newly acquired Helm of Brilliance to blast the beast with a prismatic spray. Since my PC was in (very) close proximity, the DM reasoned that he had to roll "to hit" to ensure he struct the stroper and not my PC. He made it an easy AC to hit.

Well, you guessed it, the paladin rolled a 1, so ended up hitting my magic-user instead. He then rolled on the table to determine which ray struck him, and of course he rolled an 8 - which meant he was struck not by one, but by two rays.

Rolling again for the two rays, the first ray was green, which is poison. So dead (no save). The second was violet: sent to another plane. Awesome!

The DM then had the paladin's player roll to see what plane my poor dead magic use was sent to. Want to guess? Yeah, it was Hell. But hey, at least he's on the first layer!

The whole adventure then pivoted to the remaining party members using the Well of Many Worlds we had found earlier to go to Hell, fight numerous devils (with the paladin re-enacting the famous "A Paladin in Hell" scene by David Sutherland III), and recover the remains of the poor magic user, who was ultimately resurrected.

Not for the first, nor last, mind you. He ultimately retired from a life of adventure with a Constitution score of 5.

Good times. And maybe a topic for another thread, "Describe your worst magic item mishaps."