OSSR AD&D 1e Players Handbook

[Cyberzombie]

At least a level 1 cleric got to cast a couple of cure spells and one paralyze-no-save spell (Command). Whereas a level 1 magic-user got to cast one paralyze-no-save spell (Sleep) and then he'd cower at the back of the party throwing darts for the rest of the adventure.

Command could be quite useful, though since it only lasted 1 round and the creature had to understand the language you commanded it with, it sometimes made things difficult. And if you were fighting against a horde of little monsters, as many AD&D combats entailed, taking out one goblin wasn't even a big deal. So there was a good number of situations where the spell just wasn't all that useful.

Also because of simultaneous declaration of action before initiative in 2E, the 1 round duration made things harder than you'd expect. You needed the group on board with helping to murder the creature, and you had to hope their initiative rolls put them acting after the cleric. And while you could have the entire party declare a focus fire on the guy, that had the problem of overkill, you'd end up stabbing the shit out of him, but wasting actions in the long haul. And if the enemy was a caster in the backline, you may have to risk a bunch of AoOs to get to him.

The biggest problem remained the healing issue. You couldn't buy wands of CLW in AD&D. If you were playing the cleric, you were the wand of CLW. If you didn't devote the slot to CLW, you didn't have it. There was no spontaneous cures like there are in 3E. So when your party started to get beat up, you were sure to take the blame when you prepared a bunch of command spells instead of healing.

[codeGlaze]

In all fairness, every place I've checked, the text in the nipple pdf has been accurate, although the page numbers obviously don't correspond to anything. It's rather obviously a fan compilation of some kind so I wouldn't bet money on it or do a review from it.

-Username17

Haha, I wasn't saying that it would be something to review from. It was just one of the first results for an "official" 2e PDF.

I still can't believe WoTC re-published all those supplements but not the core rulebooks.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Hrm. So with that book and maybe one or two others, how would I build my cleric in terms of restrictions if I wanted to be like the 3E Cleric Archer? That is, by level 9-12 of 2E D&D, my cleric should have:

1.) A selection of good utility powers that will get you through a lot of generic adventures.
2.) A suite of save-or-dies or blaster spells that can blow through encounters when humiliating the fighter isn't enough.
3.) And fighter-humiliating tricks and spell access?

If that's not feasible, then what about something similar but with arcane casting? Preferably, no fucking elves. And no bards, either, sorry, unless you have a way to get level 9 spells on bards.

I mean, it feels like it should be powerful. For as much as 3E D&D spellcasters get fapped to, I occasionally glance at 2E D&D material and I'm in awe at how campaign-wreckingly powerful some spells are. Like, 'conjure up a list of custom-made magic items with no takebacks or permanent costs' or 'get a near-duplicate of yourself for free without simacrulum-abuse' powerful. Hell, from what I've heard about illusions even Sousuke Aizen would be pissing his pants in fear of them.

[Username17]

I think that discussions of min/maxing a 2nd edition Cleric are pretty obviously outside the realm of what's on-topic in a thread about reviewing the 1st edition PHB.

That being said, min/maxing Priests in 2nd edition is pretty much 2nd edition's equivalent of "theoretical optimization." It wasn't like the Bladesinger in the Complete Book of Elves, because when you were min/maxing an Elvish Fighter/Mage you were taking an organization that the book claimed was in the default setting and then joining it. For Priest min/maxing, you were taking the guidelines for creating organizations for non-standard worlds and then reaping the benefits of joining them. If you were using an official world or a world the DM had already written up in extensive detail, you couldn't use them.

AD&D in general has some pretty serious issues with being incredibly incomplete rule sets. And they responded to that by fapping to Rule Zero like you wouldn't believe. 2nd edition isn't quite as bad about the missing rules (although there are still no rules for whether you can walk by a door without the Orcs on the other side of it hearing you, which is a pretty fucking serious oversight for a game about Dungeons), but it pretty much literally reminds you that the DM can change the rules on every page of the rules. There are a few pages of rules that don't mention this fact, but I think it is more than made up for by the pages where it mentions this two, three, or even four fucking times.

-Username17

[Red_Rob]

Yeah, the most important thing to grasp when reading older D&D editions is the sea-change in mindset when 3e took over. Prior to that the rules weren't comprehensive or codified enough for it to be likely that any "build" would work the same from one DM to another, so there wasn't nearly as much focus on Charop.

It was expected the DM would shit on any player attempting to min-max, and the other players would nod and sagely agree they "had it coming".

[darkmaster]

That sounds like a kind of a shitty way to encourage your players to act.

[shadzar]

Rob jsut doesnt comprehend the design of pre-WotC D&D so is shitting on what he does not understand rather than representing it. you WILL actually read what the game is about while reading this book, but whether you accept it due to it being a secondary RPG for you as you have had 13 years more recent games to play is another story. thus why many previous edition players hate new-school game design because it tries to do something totally different and claim to be the same thing.

But you have to keep in mind that 2e was written by not-Gygax ... so the writing style is a bit different. And by that point things started looking a bit more "professional", I guess you could say.

more to the point it had an editor, someone who would say "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS! Go back and rewrite it and organize it!" so for the most part you knew where to find rather than just having shit typed on a typewriter and just glued to pages in blocks where it fit. oh and chapter. Chapters are good.

[darkmaster]

Well, the forward was written by a gentleman by name of Mike Carr, who credits himself as the rules editor, and given that this book is 100% rules I think that qualifies him as just the editor. Now, it is unclear if there was anyone with stylistic control other than mister Gygax, because there are no credits other than the list of names in Gygax's own preface, a list which oddly doesn't include Carr, and has no mention of what any of the people did. But it seems disingenuous to say that this book had no editor at all.

[shadzar]

Mike Carr
TSR Games & Rules Editor
2 June 1978
2

notice it says games and rules editor, not book editor. it is well known that Gary himself wrote all the books ALONE for AD&D with a bit of help here and there. spell errors may have been found, but no real publishing editor existed after Gary lost his first partner and his wife sold his part of the company to the Blumes. there was less than 50 people working for TSR in 79 and none of them were professional publishers of anything prior.

AD&D books were like self-publishing today, except they had to have a textbook company like Random House do the actual printing and binding. Random House will publish what you have for its fee, but i dont think they even had the ability to have an editor for an extra fee. it wasnt like publishing a novel where you sent in a manuscript and an editor sent it back with changes to make. they were made JUST like college textbooks from a maker OF college textbooks. YOU had to have your shit right to begin with and any errors in the text was YOUR fault, not RH's unless they typeset it wrong. (yes it was still called typesetting then even though it was done more like newspaper today).

so being an editor, Mike was mostly a proof-reader. read the Holmes Basic book and look at the claims he makes and you will see EVERYONE at TSR made wild claims all over the place.

ABOUT THE EDITOR
The editor of this booklet, Dr. J. Eric Holmes, is an associate professor of neurology at the University of Southern California's School of Medicine. In addition, he is a devoted DUNGEONS & DRAGONS player whose background as a writer eminently qualifies him to prepare a work such as this one.

In addition to authoring a college-level textbook in his own field, Dr. Holmes has also completed two novels in the area of fantasy literature. His versatility is further demonstrated by his valuable work on this volume for Basic DUNGEONS & DRAGONS.

well that is very nice of him to say about himself now isnt it? a neurology professor makes him qualified to edit a book, or even write a game rules book? no his whopping 2 novels he wrote, makes him able to write a technical manual of a made up thing (game rules)?

he is NO more qualified than the cashier at McDonalds. Nepotism and being a friend of Gary was what qualified him, not any REAL credentials, just like EVERY that was at TSR at the time.

[deaddmwalking]

a neurology professor makes him qualified to edit a book, or even write a game rules book?

If anyone has published a peer-reviewed academic paper (any discipline), I think that is a good indication that they're qualified to write a book of RPG rules - especially if it is for one that has an established style guide. Having your work conform to standard practices is not easy - but if you've had your articles accepted for publication, that is a pretty good indicator that you can do it.

[Doom]

Indeed, and that was in an era when peer review wasn't such a joke.

Seriously just how many people could claim to have actual experience writing/publishing RPG books in 1978? Seeing as that's a short list, I'd put this guy a few steps ahead of the McDonald's cashiers.

[shadzar]

a neurology professor makes him qualified to edit a book, or even write a game rules book?

If anyone has published a peer-reviewed academic paper (any discipline), I think that is a good indication that they're qualified to write a book of RPG rules - especially if it is for one that has an established style guide. Having your work conform to standard practices is not easy - but if you've had your articles accepted for publication, that is a pretty good indicator that you can do it.

he wrote a textbook and two novels. this does not give him enough knowledge to write anything outside of his field and barely any knowledge whatsoever to write for the public, unless it might be a novel, nor ability to edit. textbooks have editors, novels have editors, that are outside sources to review the material for general public use. academic papers are solely for his peers, NOT for public use. Holmes was no more qualified than than anyone today with a Lulu account. What had Mike Carr done prior? we don't even know.

it has been said by nearly EVERYONE from Kuntz to Kask, that Gary pretty much did all the work and had to rush the books out for 1st edition. Mike worked with Gary and Dave on smaller projects like the wargames pamphlets, but before AD&D it seems NONE of them had worked on anything of this magnitude. Thus the editing and organization is often laughed at because it hardly exists at all. again we have NO idea what, other then being printed in the book, they considered to be an editor. did it require qualifications like a newspaper editor? a novel editor? and REAL editor? or just someone with eyes not of the author to proofread?

Believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see.

i see the editor credit, but it holds no context other than someone claimed to be an editor in a book. never heard of him before, and after LW came to TSR he went on to become a stock exchange trader or something... so maybe his efforts as an editor werent anything with and REAL qualifications for the title other than just being printed in the book, i have no idea.

back to Holmes, being a professor of neurology doesnt qualify anyone for anything other than teaching neurology, and definitely not writing an RPG. you know the old saying right?

Those who can, do; those who cannot, teach.

so Holmes likely sucked in the field of neurology, and could only regurgitate information about it to others as is the job of a teacher. so he knew enough about it to write it down for a textbook.

at LEAST Carr was fluent with D&D and Gary and Dave to be able to proofread since he was a part of it, but it still by no means means either was qualified as any standard of what would be known as an editor since TSR didn't require qualifications or degrees from their FRIENDS they hired to help them. Cronyism was a key factor in early TSR job acquisitions, no qualifications needed except being a buddy to Gary or Dave, not unlike the "friends and family" playtest of DDN that has the greatest weight and most testing during its design.

[tussock]

Shadzar is now saying that credits for doing things in published books are poor evidence of those things being done by that person, on account of it would make Shadzar wrong. It's good stuff.

#Shadzar: J. Eric Holmes made D&D sales EXPLODE. They went from a few thousand to a few million sold after his book. Arneson invented a game in his head, Gygax discovered a market for it, and Holmes told everyone how to play it. OD&D is totally incomprehensible to people who don't already know how to play D&D. The Holmes Basic set changed that. AD&D notably did not.

[shadzar]

Holmes came along while AD&D was being written and OD&D was out of print and offered to continue OD&D in another form that was easier to manage than the 3 books both for selling and for using. i doubt anyone here could have NOT done the same thing.

Holmes did NOT make sales explode, he jsut made thing appear again. your comment is like saying the recent reprints made sales of 1e and 2e explode since 2000 when there had not been a print run of either in over a decade. a pretty stupid thing to try to say if you ask me.

"we stopped selling X years ago and by selling X again the sales of it has exploded!" ya think!

"ever since blue M&Ms were added back to packages people have been eating more blue M&MS!" o'rly?

"since the legalization of marijuana in Washington, there have been less arrests made for illegal possession of marijuana in Washington!" well, no shit sherlock!

[deaddmwalking]

he wrote a textbook and two novels. this does not give him enough knowledge to write anything outside of his field and barely any knowledge whatsoever to write for the public, unless it might be a novel, nor ability to edit.

AndAnd what qualifies you to judge his qualifications?

If he did a good job, he was qualified. If he didn't do a good job, he still had publishing credits which would be enough to look more qualified than a McDonald's cashier to any hiring manager in the world.

[Cyberzombie]

he wrote a textbook and two novels. this does not give him enough knowledge to write anything outside of his field and barely any knowledge whatsoever to write for the public, unless it might be a novel, nor ability to edit. textbooks have editors, novels have editors, that are outside sources to review the material for general public use. academic papers are solely for his peers, NOT for public use. Holmes was no more qualified than than anyone today with a Lulu account. What had Mike Carr done prior? we don't even know.

And what qualifications would you expect him to have? A Masters degree in RPGology?

[shadzar]

he wrote a textbook and two novels. this does not give him enough knowledge to write anything outside of his field and barely any knowledge whatsoever to write for the public, unless it might be a novel, nor ability to edit.

And what qualifies you to judge his qualifications?

being one of the many readers. this is what qualifies someone able to put ANY entertainment worker out of business if the people do NOT like his work and think them to be unqualified.

thus why Moldvay/Cook rewrote the thing because it wasn't good enough. it was supposed to be an intro to OD&D, but just didn't work so Moldvay/Cook, just changed it to a new version of the game called BD&D. the public has this power, though many people don't understand it. just look at the new Batman/Superman movie with Jeremy Irons as Alfred, and Ben Afflac as Batman. the public said no, the director says FUCK YOU, only time will tell if he ever works again.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

he wrote a textbook and two novels. this does not give him enough knowledge to write anything outside of his field and barely any knowledge whatsoever to write for the public, unless it might be a novel, nor ability to edit.

And what qualifies you to judge his qualifications?

being one of the many readers. this is what qualifies someone able to put ANY entertainment worker out of business if the people do NOT like his work and think them to be unqualified.

thus why Moldvay/Cook rewrote the thing because it wasn't good enough. it was supposed to be an intro to OD&D, but just didn't work so Moldvay/Cook, just changed it to a new version of the game called BD&D. the public has this power, though many people don't understand it. just look at the new Batman/Superman movie with Jeremy Irons as Alfred, and Ben Afflac as Batman. the public said no, the director says FUCK YOU, only time will tell if he ever works again.

"The public" says a lot of things, and when it's about stuff that hasn't come out yet, they just don't count. Nerds shit themselves over everything. Remember how they said that The Dark Knight was going to be crap because they cast that gay cowboy from Brokeback Mountain as The Joker? And then the movie came out and everyone kept going on and on about how awesome Heath Ledger's performance was. And this shit happens all the fucking time. Sure, some things turn out as bad as nerds on the internet fear, but it doesn't happen nearly enough for Nerd Rage to be an indicator of quality.

And Shad, this is very important: You don't speak for the public anyway. You certainly don't speak for the public here, and you still don't speak for the mainstream of RPG fans, who (and lets be honest here), think 3rd Edition is the best edition of D&D, and thinks Pathfinder is generally an improvement on that.

[Leress]

To be fair Desdan_Mervolam, I think Shad is speaking more for the RPG players that left because of 3rd.

[tussock]

Shadzar has seriously ranted of late, repeatedly, that things added to the game in 1975 and 1976 ruined it forever. Thieves and Demons and such. There's other places on the net promote such ideas, so he's not alone, but it is completely insane. He's speaking for people who have a sad-on about not being present at the beginning of time.


Now please, let us hear more of this Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook, and how it also ruined D&D forever.

[Cyberzombie]

Shadzar has seriously ranted of late, repeatedly, that things added to the game in 1975 and 1976 ruined it forever. Thieves and Demons and such. There's other places on the net promote such ideas, so he's not alone, but it is completely insane. He's speaking for people who have a sad-on about not being present at the beginning of time.

The rant on thieves actually has some merit. Rogues/Thieves have always been something that screws over warriors since they divide the warrior role into combat and noncombat. The fighter can't have skills because that's the rogue's thing, and the rogue has to have low hit points because that's the fighter's thing. Some people flip tables over fighters being able to disarm traps, use diplomacy or sneak around, and the thief/rogue is to blame for all of that.

In reality they should be one Batman class that does all physical stuff, but we'll never see that happen because by now the thief has become a sacred cow archetypes.

[darkmaster]

I'd continue my review but honestly this is all far more interesting than anything I could say about the fact the dwarves are made of antimagic... To be honest, I'm not looking forward to this section, cause... yeah this is going to be painful.

[tussock]

The rant on thieves actually has some merit.

I know the argument, and it's largely bullshit. Before thieves you had to MTP your way past traps, ask what happened when you pulled the red lever and be careful about standing to the left of the door and ducked down: and the DM was supposed to just be fair about that.

If you're ever seen Grimtooth's Traps, or the Tomb of Horrors, you'll know how elaborate and just plain crazy-hard that all got.

But Thieves, for the first 14 years, started with 15% find traps, and then 15% disarm traps. So they had to MTP it all anyway, because otherwise they got hit 98% of the time. You rolled the dice, but only after standing to the left and pulling the red lever.

I played in the end of that era, and the Thief did the trap work because it let them pocket gems. Nothing to do with trapfinding, just playing a "thief". Being higher level because you stole XP from the party and had the cheap XP table, so you could gank anyone who complained. That was a thing then.


Later, once Thieves could choose to have trapfinding or not (2nd edition), people either chose not to at all and stick with MTP, or to have it at 100% from very early and not care about traps. To some extent, traps just disappeared from the game. Which is where 3e comes in with 100% searching and traps no one cares about.


Also in 3e, the non-combat skills are more complete and Fighters get less of them than ever before. But that's not a problem from the dawn of Thieves, it's 25 years later now and the skill system has started to exclude pure MTP resolution from people's games. DMs by now will ask for a skill check when you try things, so fuck trying things when you don't have skills. No falling back on ~60% success stat checks when you fuck up, 3e drops you right off the RNG.

And 3e skills fall apart if you lean on them much: diplomacy notoriously can't handle any actual diplomacy, MTP is still vital to the game. But when people talk about Fighters not being able to do things outside combat that's what they mean: 3e DMs asking for a skill check when your class doesn't give you any skills you can use anywhere, or 4e punishing you for even being in the fucking room with your Fighter.



So it's a slippery slope argument. That 3e and then 4e ultimately had to do that to Fighters because Thieves existed. But you'll note the 4e Rogue is also a much better combatant than the 4e Fighter, so I don't think that niche exclusion argument holds water. It's just that 3e Fighters only got combat feats, and they didn't stay level appropriate, nor do anything outside combat. It's just an individually shitty class design that stops working as soon as notice there's no real level 8 feats. And then 3.5 made dipping other classes less good, and nerfed the only Prestige classes that worked.

[Archmage]

more to the point it had an editor, someone who would say "WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS! Go back and rewrite it and organize it!" so for the most part you knew where to find rather than just having shit typed on a typewriter and just glued to pages in blocks where it fit. oh and chapter. Chapters are good.

i think the apostrophe is an outdated idea such as is hyphenation.

Chapters good, apostrophes bad. Shadzar, ladies and gentlemen.

[shadzar]

@^

2 edition good, 4 edition baaaaaaaad

The rant on thieves actually has some merit.

I know the argument, and it's largely bullshit. Before thieves you had to MTP your way past traps

stop being a retard. BD&D pulled from OD&D and IIRC my cop has the MU, cleric, and fighting-man all having a part to paly in traps. some could find, some could disarm or remove, etc... the thief abilities were SHARED by ALL other classes. this weakend the fighter, and them moreso when the ranger and assassin were put out to take more from the figthter while the mage/wizard/MU and the cleric lost nothing during the creation of druids, paladins, bards.

those other classes that were derived in part from the casters did not remove the ability from the casters to still cast the same shit, but it took from the fighter and in many cases gave nothing back to replace what was taken just to make stupid little class packages of all what the fighter COULD do before. every "warrior" based class has taken from the fighter and diminished it. the more classes built under the warrior group, the weaker the fighter got.

fighting-man > 1e/2e fighter > 3.x fighter

"balance" began to fall apart the moment new fighter-type classes were created and caster classes were expanded while the fighter remained stagnant.