Char Ops in 1st Edition?

[PoliteNewb]

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

Are you a masochist? 1E initiative is hardest on the MC.

But if you really want to hold your face to the blowtorch, let me recommend this:

ADDICT

It actually attempts to make the btb initiative rules easy to comprehend/use. It fails, of course, but it's a damn fine attempt.

[Orion]

Wow. Those rules take Rangers from "really good" to "incredibly good."

[tussock]

Oh, as to char ops.

Exceptional Strength makes fighters almost work. Without an 18 to put in Str, don't be a low level Fighter because Clerics are better. If you have the stats to be a Ranger, be a Ranger, they rock. Half-Orc (and positive age modifiers) can help get your exceptional on.

Druids are very, very good. Animals are tough on parties lacking a Druid, but awesome assistants if you have one. Charm Person does similar things for Wizards, only you cast it outside adventures on random farmers so you can prepare Sleep for the Dungeon. Ragequit if the DM fails to give you Sleep. Clerics really should prepare almost all Cure Light Wounds, and have high Wis for extras: turn everything just in case.

Note you only need four hours rest to re-prepare low-level spells (at 1/4 hour per spell level), no actual daily limits on casting exist. There's early Dragon articles noting you should really cast long-duration buffs (including Goodberry and such) then rest for more spells before adventuring. You're supposed to game the rules really heavily.

Illusionists can be wicked fun, if the DM plays along. Casting up large numbers of illusiory troops or pseudo-lethal fireballs at low levels.

Carry multiple weapons and use them. Longbow, Bastardsword, Two-Hander vs giants, and something long for when you're hiding in the 2nd rank low on hit points. Plate and Shield as soon as you can find them for everyone who can wear them. Darts for Wizards, who need high Dex more than Int.

Don't forget your war dogs and war horses, and loyal henchmen (Cha is valuable!). Massed archer hirelings for overland travel, though they won't go in dungeons.

Training costs are high at first, but there's a note somewhere that the DM can provide training in exchange for quests. Don't forget to give XP for treasure and magic, otherwise it takes forever to level-up.


Cheat. Metagame. Like, at everything. Throw barrels of oil down on your foes and roast them alive, as the other, other first level fireball, wagon-loads of oil are cheap. Talk your way out of impossible combats by promising things you can't deliver, there's no rules for bluffing so just do it, practice your strait face. Write a fuck-ton of scrolls of sleep for 100gp each and sleep every damn thing in the dungeon. Trade spells with other casters, then murder them and sell their books for XP. Kite everything, be mounted whenever you can, use your longbows, get the full use out of that 10' wide corridor with reach and narrow-face weapons. Defeat traps by asking how they work and breaking them, no die rolls needed.


So, yeh, D&D. AC, hit points, attacks, to-hit, and damage. The monsters have less of it all, and ever so many spells allow no saves at all, so just get out there and win.

[hogarth]

Exceptional Strength makes fighters almost work. Without an 18 to put in Str, don't be a low level Fighter because Clerics are better.

Having exceptional strength is a double-edged sword. It's a big deal at low levels, but it's completely useless as soon as you get a pair of gauntlets of ogre power or a girdle of giant strength. In fact, if there are multiple fighters in your party, you might be better off having a lower strength so that you'll have a stronger claim if you ever find a pair of gauntlets or a girdle!

[PoliteNewb]

Exceptional Strength makes fighters almost work. Without an 18 to put in Str, don't be a low level Fighter because Clerics are better.

Having exceptional strength is a double-edged sword. It's a big deal at low levels, but it's completely useless as soon as you get a pair of gauntlets of ogre power or a girdle of giant strength. In fact, if there are multiple fighters in your party, you might be better off having a lower strength so that you'll have a stronger claim if you ever find a pair of gauntlets or a girdle!

I'd say it's mostly a question of "Is the DM more generous with character generation, or doling out magic items?".

[talozin]

and positive age modifiers

This is a really good point and one that I'd forgotten about. Make sure you look up the aging rules, I think they're in the DMG, and take whatever adjustments to your attributes your character's age gives you. (I think that for most starting ages, this is going to work out to a free point of Constitution, but I don't have the books right here.) Considering how harsh the spell learning rules are in 1E, it can be extremely worthwhile to make a magic-user who's in one of the older age categories. This is less likely to be the case for Clerics unless either you're stuck with spell failure chances unless you do, or you have a big enough party that you aren't expected to be much of a frontliner. It's still worth looking, though.

Druids are very, very good. Animals are tough on parties lacking a Druid, but awesome assistants if you have one.

Co-sign. Druids start a little bit slow, but they advance very quickly and they get a lot of good stuff. Abuse the crap out of Animal Friendship to give your party plenty of ablative hit points, and don't forget that Druids also get Charm Person or Mammal. A Druid in 1E can't substitute for a cleric, though, nearly as well as they can in 3.X. They're hitters and problem solvers but while they can do some extra healing in a pinch you really want a cleric.

[K]

Oh, as to char ops.

Exceptional Strength makes fighters almost work. Without an 18 to put in Str, don't be a low level Fighter because Clerics are better. If you have the stats to be a Ranger, be a Ranger, they rock. Half-Orc (and positive age modifiers) can help get your exceptional on.

I thought that 1e and 2e were all about getting at least a 19 Str if you wanted to play a fighting guy.

I know that I never played a 2e fighting guy who didn't have at least a 19. I played Wild Elves for that reason.

[Ted the Flayer]

When I played 2e, the MC capped strength at 18/00 for warriors and 18 for everyone else.

He also booted my conjurer out and made me re-roll my character because I cast too many spells that weren't conjuration. So I have reasonable suspicion that he was clueless.

[PoliteNewb]

Oh, as to char ops.

Exceptional Strength makes fighters almost work. Without an 18 to put in Str, don't be a low level Fighter because Clerics are better. If you have the stats to be a Ranger, be a Ranger, they rock. Half-Orc (and positive age modifiers) can help get your exceptional on.

I thought that 1e and 2e were all about getting at least a 19 Str if you wanted to play a fighting guy.

I know that I never played a 2e fighting guy who didn't have at least a 19. I played Wild Elves for that reason.

*shrug* Depends on your DM, mostly. In 1E, your elf couldn't even have more than 18/75 strength (even Wild Elves said they capped at 18). Female elves were capped at 16, because even fantastical races need to follow the rule of "wimmin are weaker than menz" (except the drow, maybe?).

If your DM let you take a 17 Str, get a +2 bonus, and have 19 Str, they were a chump. The most common house rules were that each +1 bonus (if you had 18/%) bumped you up by 10%, or 20%, or 1 bracket.

[sabs]

what gave +2 bonus in 1st edition?
Gauntlets of Ogre power gave you a set new strength score.
SO did the girdle of giant strength.

Was the Tome of Physical Perfection in 1st? or 2nd edition? I always forget.

[PoliteNewb]

what gave +2 bonus in 1st edition?
Gauntlets of Ogre power gave you a set new strength score.
SO did the girdle of giant strength.

Was the Tome of Physical Perfection in 1st? or 2nd edition? I always forget.

Being a wild elf gave you +2 str. Or being a half-orc (+1) of mature age (+1).

The Manual of Gainful Exercise gave you +1 str.

[CCarter]

As always some of the better options are in the splatbooks.

Humans in general aren't great as a character option, unless the game starts at high level, although most other races are going to be saddled with some sort of crippling - elves can't be raised, halflings get smaller weapons, dwarves have slower movement. Also note that several races have stat minimums that will may affect stat dumping, e.g. elves needing a minimum 8 Charisma. There is however an optional stat generation method in Unearthed Arcana (Method V) which is limited to humans only. Good luck convincing the DM to allow it, but makes humans the master race by letting you roll anything up to 9d6 and taking the best 3 for a score (depending on class e.g. fighters get Str-9d, Int-3d,Wis-5d,Dex-7d,Con-8d,Cha-6d,Com-4d) and also lets you raise the stats to the minimum for your chosen race. With that in play, human may be the best race, particular since a character may be able to qualify to be a "character with two classes" even though they can't be multiclassed.

Another couple of things, world specific:
*Greyhawk Adventures has ridiculous 0-level character creation rules that may let you build characters with straight 18s, given enough game time before you're forced to level up to 1s (you start with all 3s in your stats, get 90+d20 points to spend on stats and can raise any one 8 points per game week).
*Dragonlance Adventures has the Knight of Solamnia classes who get 2 (d10) hit dice at first level and I think all the cavalier powers. They also open up Barbarians to the Minotaur race, which with +2 Str/Con (20 max) and the barbarian +2 hit points per Con point over 14, can potentially generate some really obscene hit points, along with getting past 18/xx Strength without needing to roll a d100.

Oh also, tangent: someone pointed out that 1E druids got 2nd level spells at character level 2 (and they also get 3rd level spells at character level 3). It looks like the spells were designed with power levels in line with that, but in 2nd ed. druids got shafted by getting to use the default priest progression table with the spell levels of their spells largely unchanged. (CLW went from 2nd to 1st since that's also a cleric spell, and Barkskin improved , but say Call Lightning is unchanged despite now being character level 5th instead of character level 3rd, same with Trip and a bunch of others. Go 2E!)

[Ted the Flayer]

what gave +2 bonus in 1st edition?
Gauntlets of Ogre power gave you a set new strength score.
SO did the girdle of giant strength.

Was the Tome of Physical Perfection in 1st? or 2nd edition? I always forget.

Being a wild elf gave you +2 str. Or being a half-orc (+1) of mature age (+1).

The Manual of Gainful Exercise gave you +1 str.

The aging chart was hilarious. Or maybe I am just finding too much humor in stuff the contradicts everything else.

By the chart, everyone of normal starting age should get -1 wisdom and +1 constitution in addition to racial stats. A mature half orc would run +2 str +2 con.

[Silent Wayfarer]

I'll be playing a dwarf in an Against The Giants OSRIC campaign soon. The GM is waiving class level limits/restrictions and he'll raise our stats to the minimum needed for whichever class we pick.

With this in mind, is going Paladin a good idea, or should I make something else instead?

[hogarth]

What level/experience point range are you starting at? Does OSRIC include weapon specialization, a la Unearthed Arcana? Does the bard class work the same way in OSRIC as it does in 1E AD&D? Is the paladin the Unearthed Arcana cavalier version?

As noted dual-classing is where it's at, assuming you can swing it.

[tussock]

Uh, by waiving restrictions, does he mean your Dwarf can be a

[*]Ranger/Druid/Thief
[*]Fighter/Mage/Cleric
[*]Ranger/Cleric

Because two of those are normal combos. And a Ranger/Cleric is pretty awesome in terms of getting things done, especially if you start at 7/7 or whatever. Blunt weapons a bit limiting of course, but still fair damage to go with being a Cleric with the Ranger's big bonus vs everything.

Uh, Paladins are OK and all, max out on henchmen and such with the high Charisma and let them clear the way for you.

Rather tempting to just be an Elven Gish though. Cast in armour, specialise, fireball that works, and all the no-save-just-lose goodness of old. Haste for double attacks and not care. Druids are also pretty amazing, if you start on 200kXP or so. 6th level spells.

[hogarth]

Okay, I did a little googling and answered some of my own questions: OSRIC doesn't have any UA stuff (e.g. cavalier-paladins, weapon specialization) and it doesn't have any bards (or monks, for that matter).

So with that in mind, an elven fighter/magic-user could be good (for the ability to cast in armor). I would probably go with a cleric/ranger (either dual-classed human or multi-classed half-elven) -- rangers get to add their level to damage rolls against giants, trolls, etc. which you should find plenty of in Against the Giants!

Also, don't forget that a druid might be two or even three levels higher than the rest of the characters in the party, which is nothing to sneeze at.

[hogarth]

Having read the OSRIC rules more carefully (they aren't especially faithful to the original 1E AD&D rules) and noting that your GM is ignoring level limits, I'd probably suggest going with a half-elf cleric/magic-user. In OSRIC, that means casting magic-user spells in plate mail, if you want to. Let some other poor sucker be a fighter-type guy.

[PoliteNewb]

Having read the OSRIC rules more carefully (they aren't especially faithful to the original 1E AD&D rules)...

Bawhuh? Granted, I've only leafed through OSRIC, but in many places it is a word-for-word clone of 1E AD&D. Are there that many hidden differences?

I'd probably suggest going with a half-elf cleric/magic-user. In OSRIC, that means casting magic-user spells in plate mail, if you want to.

Uh, it means that in 1E AD&D, too.

[hogarth]

Bawhuh? Granted, I've only leafed through OSRIC, but in many places it is a word-for-word clone of 1E AD&D. Are there that many hidden differences?

Most XP charts are slightly different, racial descriptions are obviously cleaned up a lot, some things from AD&D are ditched (e.g. monk, bard), some things from Unearthed Arcana are cherry-picked (e.g. weapon specialization) but most are excluded. It's clear that they went to some effort to clean things up, which is good for playability.

Uh, it means that in 1E AD&D, too.

Really? I knew that elves could cast in elven chain, but I don't remember seeing where it said that half-elves could cast in any armor at all. I certainly don't remember seeing that multi-class gnomes can cast in leather armor, at any rate.

I think a lot of my old AD&D knowledge is mixed up in a mush with the old Gold Box games and Baldur's Gate...

[talozin]

Really? I knew that elves could cast in elven chain, but I don't remember seeing where it said that half-elves could cast in any armor at all. I certainly don't remember seeing that multi-class gnomes can cast in leather armor, at any rate.

I think a lot of my old AD&D knowledge is mixed up in a mush with the old Gold Box games and Baldur's Gate...

Per the PHB, p.18: "Note that non-human and semi-human race characters who are multi-classed are typically bound by the limitations of the thief class only. That is, a fighter/magic-user can benefit from both armor, weaponry, and spells; a fighter/thief is limited by the constraints of the thief class."

You might be thinking of the section on dual-classed characters, where it specifically calls out elves as a counterexample to a dual-classed character's inability to cast spells while in armor, "as an elven fighter/magic-user is able to do." But it doesn't actually deny that half-elves (or gnome illusionist/thieves, for that matter) are also able to do so.

I think that's how gold box worked (it's been 20 years). Baldur's Gate used 2nd edition rules, which may have changed the multiclassing rules. I can't remember where my 2nd ed PHB is to check.

[Ted the Flayer]

Second Edition was strict. If you were a fighter/magic user, you had to wear elven chain, elven plate, or be skyclad.

[hogarth]

By the way, looking at some of the AD&D/OSRIC spells is eye-opening. The level 3 druid spell (hence available to a level 3 druid) Summon Insects can daze any opponent for 1 round/level with no save? Wow.

[talozin]

By the way, looking at some of the AD&D/OSRIC spells is eye-opening. The level 3 druid spell (hence available to a level 3 druid) Summon Insects can daze any opponent for 1 round/level with no save? Wow.

I think that one has a 1 round casting time, so it's slightly less boss than it appears. Also, the secret DMG spell notes talk about how it's useless against someone who's near thick smoke or flame.

But yeah. If you can get it off, it's totally boss. AD&D is littered with that kind of "fuck you" effect.

[PoliteNewb]

Heh...check out the 1st edition Illusionist spell "Paralyzation". It's 3rd level, and it paralyzes people (area effect)...but it's duration is until dispelled. It lasts forever otherwise.