OSSR AD&D 1e Players Handbook

[GâtFromKI]

Honestly though this doesn’t make sense to me. In all the genre fiction I’ve read Dwarves seem like pretty cool people. Sure they’re gruff and sometimes harsh but I’d much rather be friends with someone from a race that will go to the ends of the earth to help their friends, instead of say, the elves, who will go to the ends of the forest to avoid your problems because you are of a lower race and therefore unworthy.

It works the other way around: elves have a high charisma, therefore they can act like jerks and you're still sucking their dicks. Dwarves have low charisma, so even when they are sucking your dick you treat them like shit.

I think we could create a setting where elves are treated as the master race, every story explains how they are cool and great and you should do whatever they want, etc; and actually elf is a shitty race with $TEXAS bonus to charisma.

You realize in order to actually review something you must have familiarity with it.?

Do you realize that manuals aren't novel? Are you expecting a plot twist at the end?

[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?

How possible is that?

[darkmaster]

Does the 1E PHB have any guidelines on how often you're supposed to reroll stats at CharGen, or do they intentionally leave it ambiguous so that they can have their cake and eat it, too?

Darkmaster did mention that there was a line in there saying a character should have like 2 15s to survive. But the actual rules for rolling a character are in the DMG, not the PHB, because fuck you.

They are indeed, and that is actually one of the pages in the DM's guide that I actually have. I works like this, there are four methods.

4d6 drop lowest in any order

3d6 12 times take only the highest score and arrange in any order

3d6 in order 6 times each take highest for each stat

3d6 in order 12 times take any set.

You guys thought I was being facetious, but I was not.

It doesn't say if or when re-roles are allowed, but the implication is that if you don't get something good after that tough shit.

[Wiseman]

Honestly though this doesn’t make sense to me. In all the genre fiction I’ve read Dwarves seem like pretty cool people. Sure they’re gruff and sometimes harsh but I’d much rather be friends with someone from a race that will go to the ends of the earth to help their friends, instead of say, the elves, who will go to the ends of the forest to avoid your problems because you are of a lower race and therefore unworthy.

It works the other way around: elves have a high charisma, therefore they can act like jerks and you're still sucking their dicks. Dwarves have low charisma, so even when they are sucking your dick you treat them like shit.

I think we could create a setting where elves are treated as the master race, every story explains how they are cool and great and you should do whatever they want, etc; and actually elf is a shitty race with $TEXAS bonus to charisma.

Do you realize that manuals aren't novel? Are you expecting a plot twist at the end?

I've done something like that in a setting I'm designing. The gray elves hold them selves to be the master race, and in fact hate everything that's not an elf. They hate everything that's an elf, but not a gray elf slightly less. They have a caste system where gray elves are the elite. High elves are the commoners, and every other kind of elf are slaves. They think their society is super-advanced and utopian but in fact while the humans have moved on to magitek, and the dwarves to steampunk, the elves are still stuck with shitty medieval stuff.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Even if you had read the thing all the way through before starting the review, shad would only find some other reason to bitch about how you were getting it wrong. Because there is only one Gygax and shadzar is his prophet.

Just put him on ignore.

[talozin]

Not being allowed to wear non-metal armor also counts as a restriction for some reason, so do that.

Why not keep it? 2nd edition lets you have your entire Dex bonus to AC even if you're in full plate, and stacking bonuses in general is harder than it is in 3.x. Surely there must be some roleplaying restrictions you can take instead that have absolutely no game mechanical effect.

Or is there some additional Player's Option fuckery going on here where you take "can't wear metal armor" and then grab the rules for making full plate from wood out of the dumpster?

[Seerow]

Not being allowed to wear non-metal armor also counts as a restriction for some reason, so do that.

Why not keep it? 2nd edition lets you have your entire Dex bonus to AC even if you're in full plate, and stacking bonuses in general is harder than it is in 3.x. Surely there must be some roleplaying restrictions you can take instead that have absolutely no game mechanical effect.

Or is there some additional Player's Option fuckery going on here where you take "can't wear metal armor" and then grab the rules for making full plate from wood out of the dumpster?

I think you misread. The restriction he listed was "You can't wear nonmetal armor". So poor cleric has to use only Full Plate, he can't use leather.

[talozin]

I think you misread. The restriction he listed was "You can't wear nonmetal armor". So poor cleric has to use only Full Plate, he can't use leather.

... *facepalm*

Yeah, I misread that. What in the son of a fuck?

[tussock]

The people writing options for 2nd edition believed that any sort of restriction could be and would be hammered at by the DM if the associated bonuses ever became a problem. So needing to wear leather armour was something the DM was just supposed to work into the plot a few times if your character had become overly useful.

It's everywhere. Everything is considered balanced because the DM can just arbitrarily fuck over anyone who's built a competent character or noticed a good option somewhere. They never fixed the Stoneskin spell because "LOL, just have a single Kobold attack the Wizard eight times on round one every fight if they use it all the time, until they take the hint".


1st edition's really much better at that sort of thing. It just gives out huge powerups in various books across the board where it was needed. Better and more varied races. Better armour and weapons. Massively improved Clerics with strong themes per god. Doubling the damage output of Fighters. More monsters that are immune to Wizards or steal their spells or destroy their items or eat "random" pages out of their spellbooks (or otherwise try to rein in Wizards).

Nothing for Thieves though, they were supposed to suck. Something about being a trap for players seeking an antagonistic role within the party. Essentially the only class "allowed" (even encouraged) to be a dick to the other PCs, and very weak as a result.

[darkmaster]

Really? because your party fucking needs a thief in AD&D, I haven't even really gotten to thoroughly reading the classes yet and I already know that they are the only class that can reliably open a door, hide, sneak into the enemy stronghold to make a map or something, decipher the ancient manuscript, find traps, hear the approaching goblin war party that's throwing a bitchin traveling rave because they are the only class that is allowed to notice noises.

Unless some later book gave clerics the ability to be the party thief on the side too. I guess you could hire a thief, but I would not be surprised at all if the DMs guide advises the DM to give such parties less loot because the thief hireling nicks more than their share.

[Orca]

AD&D 1e thieves truly suck at their jobs at low to mid levels though. Try making a plan which depends on the thief succeeding at a roll where they have less than 50% chance of success, let alone one where they have to succeed on a couple such rolls; players get bored with repeated failure and want to cut to the chase and just start a fight.

When you can try something to recover from a failure - you fail Move Silently, so you create a distraction to get another chance - it's not quite as bad as the bare %'s suggest, but it's still bad.

A magic-user or illusionist's spells won't replace the thief in every situation, but the fact that the spells just work means that you can plan based around them. The cleric doesn't usually replace the thief, the magic-user does.

[darkmaster]

Now that you mention it that really is true...

[Username17]

The idea behind the Thief skills was that they supplemented rather than replaced the everyman skills that people had for having thumbs and feet. So if you hid behind a sofa, people couldn't see you whether you had hide in shadows or not.

The problem of course is that the everyman skills were undefined. If you can't know what your chance of going unseen was going to be, how can your 45% better chance of going unseen make any difference?

-Username17

[shadzar]

Also, I'm trying to make this as entertaining as I can, but reading this book is arduous. It's not very long but it's all so dry and colorless it seems to take forever.

so you DO understand WHY you should read the whole thing first before you review it so you can make the above points clear to EVERYONE in your review as was the case for the 1e books. haven't had this cover for a long time, but i think it is exactly the same words as the original even having the cover art credits for the older cover.

again, where 2nd comes in MILES ahead because you WANT to read through more things as 2nd looks less like a college textbook since it wasn't aimed at trying to emulate them while 1st was as it was aimed at college students that are "used" to that style from a book in the 70's. used to is not synonymous with LIKE the style either, which Gary failed to grasp.

[Wiseman]

Also, I'm trying to make this as entertaining as I can, but reading this book is arduous. It's not very long but it's all so dry and colorless it seems to take forever.

so you DO understand WHY you should read the whole thing first before you review it so you can make the above points clear to EVERYONE in your review as was the case for the 1e books. haven't had this cover for a long time, but i think it is exactly the same words as the original even having the cover art credits for the older cover.

again, where 2nd comes in MILES ahead because you WANT to read through more things as 2nd looks less like a college textbook since it wasn't aimed at trying to emulate them while 1st was as it was aimed at college students that are "used" to that style from a book in the 70's. used to is not synonymous with LIKE the style either, which Gary failed to grasp.

As was previously stated, the intent of this review is for it to be the initial impressions of a person just picking up the book for the first time, section by section.

[darkmaster]

Also, whether or not second edition is less arduous remains to be seen perhaps if I get some extra cash at some point in the future.

[shadzar]

nobody in their right mind would try to read this section by section unless they were a drunk college student. it is drier than a 90 year old virgins vagina and even more flavorless.

i am sure someone can link you to websites via PM that have then entire CD-ROM Core Rules software HTML or RTF versions of the 2e books. it has happened before around here, but they are 6000+ files and getting the software yourself for the windows HLP files are a LOT easier to search. sadly i only have a spare shrinkwrapped copy of 2.0 Expansion i could sell ya, but you would need the main program to even install the expansion.

MOST people when picking up the PHB to check it out would skip around to find things about specific tings than go for a dry read section by section. you MIGHT be the first to ever attempt this so VERY few would be able to relate. i know the first thing i read was the races section having come from BD&D as you couldnt find 1st to buy at that time and had to start somewhere.

[darkmaster]

So, what you're saying is that the 2e PHB is terrible and nobody has ever read the hole thing? good to know it's a waste of time and money I guess.

[Seerow]

Funny what Shadzar describes as something nobody ever does is my usual way of checking out a new system. Guess I've been doing it wrong my whole life.

[Orca]

The idea behind the Thief skills was that they supplemented rather than replaced the everyman skills that people had for having thumbs and feet. So if you hid behind a sofa, people couldn't see you whether you had hide in shadows or not.

The problem of course is that the everyman skills were undefined. If you can't know what your chance of going unseen was going to be, how can your 45% better chance of going unseen make any difference?

-Username17

IME this meant that you had to have a big edge. If you knew someone was coming and they didn't know you were there you could hide in another room. If you had infravision and they didn't you could probably move around them in the dark (there might be a roll involved here). Invisibility, OK. Moving around someone in the forest without Hide in Shadows/Move Silently or other special abilities, not OK.

Mostly if you had to make a roll though it was HiS/MS only.

Edit: @darkmaster: usually when I get a new RPG I skip around a lot, following whatever catches my eye. I can't honestly remember how I approached AD&D when I first got it, it was 29 years ago now. If you're reviewing it reading it in order makes sense enough - ignore shadzar.

[GâtFromKI]

nobody in their right mind would try to read this section by section unless they were a drunk college student. it is drier than a 90 year old virgins vagina and even more flavorless.

That explain... so much. If you have never read the rulebook, it explains why you don't know the rules at all.

I guess every grognards is like you: a bunch of stupid people who have never read the rules, but who think they know it because they have randomly flipped through the book.

[hogarth]

I played quite a bit of AD&D and I remember clerics being nothing more than first aid tents that people resented getting stuck with playing.

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.

[codeGlaze]

Also, whether or not second edition is less arduous remains to be seen perhaps if I get some extra cash at some point in the future.

To be fair, reading rulebooks straight through tends to be arduous regardless of system.

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.

I think it'd just be easier to get a PDF, though.

A search for an "official" PDF found me a "copy" of ADnD with nipple on the front cover, though.
Apparently Wizards released all the SUPPLEMENTS for ADnD, but not the core rules.

[Username17]

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

[PoliteNewb]

I played quite a bit of AD&D and I remember clerics being nothing more than first aid tents that people resented getting stuck with playing.

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.

C'mon, that's not fair. Command paralyzed one dude for one round. Sleep 'paralyzed' up to 12-16 dudes for "until someone slits your throat". That's kind of like comparing a boot knife to a grenade launcher.

(this is not a defense of the "shoot one spell and cower for the whole adventure" magic-user concept)

EDIT; for the record, I have the nipple PDF, and it's actually pretty handy to keep on my USB key, even if I have to rapidly click the next page when I open it at work.