UHF wrote:
I'm more concerned about even regular 'ol AD&D. By fifth level I (my wizard that is) was pretty much using my party for meat shields while I killed monsters.
...throw the entire game out of whack. Some wizard spells do that, and excessively focus abuse of rules do that....
If you were using other player characters as meat shields on a regular basis, there may have been pacing problems... That sort of thing might happen once in a while, but it should also happen that a wizard is pretty much out of spells and has to rely on the meat shields to keep him alive, while he cowers. I'm sorry -- I meant 'fighters' there. Spells can pack quite a punch, but swords don't vanish from your hand after you swing them. (Okay, sometimes they do. But maybe that's just me.)
Within a session of play, one character may trounce all others. But if it happens that one character is consistently in another league when compared to his fellows, there are probably DM issues, particularly not creating enough variety in the situations the characters find themselves in, or allowing too much rest time and therefore spell-recovery time. Mis-reading of spells can also make things lopsided. We recently had an issue where
blade barrier, with it's radius of 5 feet per two levels was thought to be an area effect
filled with blades -- not an area
surrounded by blades that careful re-reading revealed...
Meanwhile, we do agree that fear is good.

_________________
Gnome Boy
• DCC playtester @ DDC 35 Feb '11. • Beta DL 2111, 7AM PT, 8 June 11.Playing RPGs since '77 • Quasi-occasional member of the Legion of 8th-Level Fighters.
Link:
Here Be DCC MonstersPbP Purple Planeteers!Havarth • Cleric/Zikcub • Animal trainr • L
S11 A11 S9 P15 I9 L7 • AC10, HP12, R0 F1 W2
Glaive+0 1-10
Club+0 1-4
X' chain, sack
Bless, Dtct Ev, Prot fm Evil, Word oCmmnd
Lucius • Cleric/Verlore • Slave • N
S13 A11 S8 P15 I11 L11 • AC10+, HP6, R0 F0 W2
Sword+1 _
Club+1 2-5
Hide armor, flint/steel, green stone, oil 1
Crit table +1
Dark, Holy Sanct, Resist Cold/Heat, Word o Cmmnd
Toby • Squire
S13 A10 S14 P15 I16 L9 • AC10+, hp3, R0 F1 W1
Lg swrd+1 2-9
Scale armor, sack, helm, L’ rope, torch • Com, Chaos, Hobgob
Kelven • Smuggler
S14 A8 S11 P12 I7 L10 • AC9+, hp2(4), In-1, R-1 F0 W0
Sword+1 _
Staff+1 or Sling -1 2-5
Scale armr, waterprf sack, L’ rope, torch, 39cp
RIP
Stinky Pete, Ostler —
Spine snapped by tackling Kith