Notes on OD&D - Part 10

This morning I would like to continue with a look at the Hit Dice per class. Last night I ran an analysis in Excel that shows the relative values of Hit Dice per Level for each of the three main classes. What I did not do was calculate the cumulative totals per level. Today, out of curiosity, I decided to take a look. The results are interesting. Let's take a gander at what I found. Or think I found, at any rate. I won't consider this entirely validated until someone out there is kind enough to verify that I got the calculations right and that these numbers are indeed correct. But with that caveat aside, and on the expectation that my method was not flawed, lets see how things panned out for our three Classes.

Let start with the Minimum where every roll turns out to be to the player's great horror, a 1 on every roll:

Now lets look at the average, where the player rolls the average, to the player's resigned acceptance, which is 3.5 on each roll (average for 1d6 is 3.5). Note these numbers are of course not valid as no one can literally roll a 3.5, however it serves as a way to mark the average, and we will have to live with the decimal values. The important thing is to look at the relationships between the Fighting-Men, Magic-Users, and Clerics at any rate. Here's the results:

Lastly we will look at the Maximal values, where to the players astonished delight, they roll a 6 on every roll:

What stands out here is that the Magic-User in the end not only has the most Power in that they can cast 30 Spells (but not use weapons other than a dagger, nor wear armor) but the 16th Level Wizard also has the most cumulative Hit Points! Yes, indeed, that original comment that the Wizards turn out to be the most powerful is quite true. The Wizard has 71 for the max at 16th Level, as compared with 69 for the Fighting-Man at his max Level (10). But wait. We can not be too hasty. Remember, these rules are complicated, and they have lots of nooks and crannies.

We were just told on p18 "There is not theoretical limit to how high a character can progress." Thus, Fighting-Men are not limited at 10th Level at all. Only certain Races have those limits. So for Men the sky is the limit. I'm going to therefore extrapolate on the exiting chart (as is recommended on p11) and fill in the blanks for the Fighting-Man to level 16. I will add pluses as seems to fit within the pattern of the chart. Lets see what happens.

Here is the revised Hit Dice Advancement Chart:

Now lets look at our three charts again.

Minimal:

Average:

Maximum:

Notice, though, that how you set the values for the Pluses after 10th Level for the Fighters and Clerics does happen to make a big difference in the outcome. Here I set them minimally because the trend at the end of the original Fighting-Men chart (by 10th Level) trended downward, indicating that pluses thereafter should be minimized. Maybe. If I set them to something more in keeping with the overall concept that Fighting-Men are Tough Guys, I might be tempted to give them a +1 every level after 10th, with some extra heft when they get to 15th and 16th, which would reflect the original pattern a bit better. Here's the results:

Minimal:

Average:

Minimum:

So there we have it. As we can see, at equal Levels in fact Fighters stand at the top of the heap, as is just right and proper. Clerics and Magic-Uses are far closer to one another, and in fact they trade places along the way up the Levels ladder. Very interesting. Very interesting indeed.

Ok that's enough for today. I have other fish to fry!

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