Char Ops in 1st Edition?

[Koumei]

Finnish Loviatar is all about plague, disease and decay. So she's Mama Nurgle. FR Loviatar is all about BDSM.

[Username17]

Right that was it: be Finnish and get Valkyries to come to your aid when shit goes south. If you were Finnish and evil you got 4th level Fighters who were dudes I think.

-Username17

[Ted the Flayer]

Explains why the russians had so much trouble with them during the Winter War.

[Maxus]

Explains why the russians had so much trouble with them during the Winter War.

And the ski-snipers.

[hogarth]

There were specialty priests you could be in 1st edition as well. For some reason I cannot remember it was game mechanically useful to be a worshiper of the Finnish Pantheon (yes, really), so all the power gamers were.

The 1E World of Greyhawk box set had all sorts of crazy cleric abilities for specific gods. For instance, clerics of Xan Yae could take a 15% xp penalty and they'd get a bunch of monk abilities in return.

[Silent Wayfarer]

So at level 1, a gray elf fightermage/thief could be viable, if I had good stats (Str 14 Dex 18 Con 15 Int 17 Wis 15 Cha 13)?

[hogarth]

So at level 1, a gray elf fightermage/thief could be viable, if I had good stats (Str 14 Dex 18 Con 15 Int 17 Wis 15 Cha 13)?

Again, it depends what XP range you're planning to play in. If everyone else is playing a level 4 cleric, and you're playing a level 2/2/1 fighter/thief/magic-user, then you might feel a bit small in the pants, for instance. I'd also question why you need to be a thief, unless no one else in the party wants to be one.

[Username17]

So at level 1, a gray elf fightermage/thief could be viable, if I had good stats (Str 14 Dex 18 Con 15 Int 17 Wis 15 Cha 13)?

Again, it depends what XP range you're planning to play in. If everyone else is playing a level 4 cleric, and you're playing a level 2/2/1 fighter/thief/magic-user, then you might feel a bit small in the pants, for instance. I'd also question why you need to be a thief, unless no one else in the party wants to be one.

if you actually use the DMG facing rules, it is trivially easy to get backstab on most attacks. And that's double melee damage (triple at level 5). Being a Fighter who doesn't have some thievery is just a bad plan in 1st edition. The offense increase is extremely dramatic.

-Username17

[Ted the Flayer]

I thought it wasnt enough to be behind someone, they also had to be unaware?

[Username17]

I thought it wasnt enough to be behind someone, they also had to be unaware?

Backstabbing is the striking of a blow from behind, be it with club, dagger, or sword.
...
Note that striking by surprise from behind also increases the hit probability by 20% (+4 on the thief's "to hit" die roll).

As written the only criteria is that you be in one of the "rear" squares of the target. You can backstab with a halberd and your opponent can totally know you're there. Coming in from hiding in shadows gives you +4 to-hit in addition to the damage multiple.

-Username17

[hogarth]

As written the only criteria is that you be in one of the "rear" squares of the target.

While you have the 1E rules nearby, could you quote the facing rules? I'm sure they don't use the word "squares".

At any rate, I never played AD&D with a battle map, so the general assumption was that a thief had to be hiding to backstab, and being allowed to hide was totally up to the DM's whim.

[mlangsdorf]

DMG p69 gives 4 different diagrams for facing, depending on whether you're using hexes or squares and whether you're aligning with the faces or the points. On p70, under Special Types of Attacks, it says "Opponents attacking from the rear gain +2 to hit, negate any consideration for the shield, and also negate any consideration for dexterity."

Contradicting Frank's quote, p19 of the DMG says (under Thief Abilities, subheading Back Stabbing) "Opponents aware of the thief will be able to negate the attack form."

So whether you need surprise or not is not clearly answered by the rules.

[hogarth]

DMG p69 gives 4 different diagrams for facing, depending on whether you're using hexes or squares and whether you're aligning with the faces or the points. On p70, under Special Types of Attacks, it says "Opponents attacking from the rear gain +2 to hit, negate any consideration for the shield, and also negate any consideration for dexterity."

Thanks, that's starting to ring a bell.

Contradicting Frank's quote, p19 of the DMG says (under Thief Abilities, subheading Back Stabbing) "Opponents aware of the thief will be able to negate the attack form."

That would explain where "you must hide to backstab" comes from.

[Orion]

Being an Elf Fighter/Thief is actually a really good deal early on. Not only is it a synergistic class combo, but Elves get a really good set of features for it--+1 to hit with swords and bows, +1 Dex, darkvision, door detection, and a racial stealth feature that blows your actual Thief skills out of the water. The only downside, if you're the party's only Thief, is a slightly penalty to locks and traps. Now, rules as written you're going to cap out at Fighter 5. And once that happens it won't be that long before you stop being actually better at fighting than an Elf MU/Thief would have been. But If you don't expect to go much further than that it's a fine character.

However, I do believe that you probably aren't supposed to backstab witha Halberd. In the section on multiclass elves (PHB, page 16), "any thieving is restricted to the armor and weaponry usable by the Thief class." That suggests to me that backstabbing should only be usable with Thief weapons.

[Ted the Flayer]

After giving it some thought, I am inclinf to give thieves double damage while behind something, on the grounds that if there's only one thief, that is one attack before the baddy turns around. And also thieves kind of blow.

I have a hankering to play a half orc fighter/assassin lately. Backstabbing, 18/XX strength, and dagger specialization? Yes please!

[hogarth]

However, I do believe that you probably aren't supposed to backstab witha Halberd. In the section on multiclass elves (PHB, page 16), "any thieving is restricted to the armor and weaponry usable by the Thief class." That suggests to me that backstabbing should only be usable with Thief weapons.

The issue of "can you backstab with a two-handed sword?" was a popular topic for debate in ye olde days, at least in the pages of Dragon magazine.

[PoliteNewb]

After giving it some thought, I am inclinf to give thieves double damage while behind something, on the grounds that if there's only one thief, that is one attack before the baddy turns around. And also thieves kind of blow.

I have a hankering to play a half orc fighter/assassin lately. Backstabbing, 18/XX strength, and dagger specialization? Yes please!

Why dagger? While thief backstabbing was limited to thief weapons (which still included longswords, btw), an assassin should be able to backstab with any weapon he can use...which is, all of them.

[Ted the Flayer]

Because having a high weapon speed is the shit. I will spoil all but the quickest spells in melee regardless of my initiative, plus having a weapon speed much lower than the person I'm fighting (is it 5 or 10 segments?) gives me extra attacks, plus extra attacks from specialization, plus extra attacks when/if fighter levels go up, plus getting extra attacks means my first attacks skip the initiative process altogether means that daggers are pretty aweseome weapons.

If I have any of that wrong, feel free to correct me. However, that seems like a good way to win AD&D...

[PoliteNewb]

Because having a high weapon speed is the shit. I will spoil all but the quickest spells in melee regardless of my initiative, plus having a weapon speed much lower than the person I'm fighting (is it 5 or 10 segments?) gives me extra attacks, plus extra attacks frome specialization, plus extra attacks when/if fighter levels go up, plus getting extra attacks means my first attacks skip the initiative process altogether means that daggers are pretty aweseome weapons.

If I have any of that wrong, feel free to correct me. However, that seems like a good way to win AD&D...

You have it wrong. Bizarrely enough, weapon speeds are only ever taken into account when your initiative rolls are a tie. The rest of the time, they do exactly jack and shit.

If you roll a 6 and your enemy rolls a 1, you might think that you were tons faster...but you only get your normal attacks.

If you both roll 3's, then all of a sudden you compare weapon speeds, and if yours is enough higher, you get extra attacks. For no reason at all.

EDIT: I did think of a couple good reasons for dagger spec, though.
1.) If you throw them, your ROF goes up to 3/1, which is pretty nice when you're dealing +Str and +2 for spec.
2.) If your dex is high (by which I mean, 17+), you can fight with one in each hand, and that is the nuts.

[Ted the Flayer]

Ah, I see. Still, I'm not sure that using a longsword over a dagger is still that big of a deal, and unless two handed weapons are significant and I don't realize (don't people with two handed weapons automatically go last? Or am I getting that wrong too?), I still want to have a dagger.

[Orion]

I have never heard of anyone even attempting to play AD&D by the rules when it comes to segments, initiative, and timing. I don't think you can make meaningful decisions about weapon speed and crap until you consult your MC,and odds are good that their house rules will be full of crazy. For example, the group I played with had a totally arbitrary turn order of "Declaration of Intent->Missiles 1->Movement 1->Melee->Missiles 2->Movement 2-> Missiles 3," with archers spreading their shots across the missile phases, swordsmen getting all level-based attacks during melee, initiative relevant only when a conflict came up during a phase, and spells going in one of the missile phases depending on the cast time in segments.

[Ted the Flayer]

If I MC advanced, i am going to play init as written out of spite, heh.

[hogarth]

Ah, I see. Still, I'm not sure that using a longsword over a dagger is still that big of a deal, and unless two handed weapons are significant and I don't realize (don't people with two handed weapons automatically go last? Or am I getting that wrong too?), I still want to have a dagger.

Two-handed weapons don't automatically go last, as far as I know.

Note that against large creatures a dagger does 1d3 damage and a two-handed sword does 3d6. That's a significant difference in AD&D.

[Ted the Flayer]

Ah right, forgot about that noise.

[Orion]

Also if you fight armored humanoids I'm pretty sure daggers have sucky adjustments.