Forum

[T. Foster]

1. It's a perspective and immersion thing -- for a 1st level magic-user, think of it as, essentially YOU in the dungeon, with no special skills or talents or equipment (except whatever Boy Scout or MacGyver-ish gear you may have thought to bring along -- rope, tinderbox, etc.) relying purely on your wits to survive and prosper. You can't fight these monsters -- you have to either trick them, befriend them, or run away from them. The same with traps -- if you get caught in a trap you're screwed, so you need to do everything you can to make sure that doesn't happen. Playing a 1st level magic-user is HARD because you have zero room for error -- the first mistake you make will almost certainly be the last -- but it's also fun, because it's the most immediate -- a 1st level m-u is the closest you'll ever get to actually playing yourself in the dungeon. And if, against all those odds, you do manage to survive, through quick thinking and probably at least a bit of luck, you'll feel better about yourself, that you beat the odds and actually accomplished something.

2. In 1E AD&D if you're more than 10' apart there are on;y 2 ways to get into melee range: 1) charge; 2) spend a full round closing to melee range (meaning you can't attack and can't be attacked (unless someone charges you) until the next round. Therefore, if at the start of the round your opponents aren't in melee range then they're either going to stay disengaged (firing missiles or spells), charge you, or spend the round closing. If you think #2 is most likely, and you have a spear, you can set it against the charge and, if you guessed correctly, get first strike and score double damage if you hit. If you guessed incorrectly and the enemy stays disengaged then you've lost your action for the round (you could have fired a missile, charged, or closed instead); if you guessed incorrectly and the enemy closed normally instead of charging then both you and the enemy have effectively lost your actions for the round (you could have fired a missile or charged; if you and the enemy had both chosen to close with each other then it's a wash (though if you're using minis both should be placed in the middle instead of moving one all the way to meet the other)). It's a tactical decision, based on what you think the enemy is likely to do.

3. Fundamentally you're right, and by-and-large the assassin class doesn't really work as a PC and would probably have been better relegated to NPC-only status, or at least labeled as optional rather than included as part of the default core. However, in a particular set of circumstances assassin PCs can work: as originally envisioned, AD&D campaigns weren't like what they generally are nowadays where the same 5 or 6 players get together every week to play the same 5 or 6 characters who've been adventuring together since 1st level and every time one of them dies he's immediately replaced by 1 new character, likely of the same class. The original assumed AD&D campaign structure was much more like the West Marches, where there was a fluid player-base not of 5 or 6 guys but of maybe 15 or 20, and the makeup of which players and which characters would participate varied from session to session. Sometimes you'd have 15 players get together for the 1E equivalent of a "boss raid," usually you'd get 3-6 players with compatible characters (and note that the most active players tended to have multiple characters so they'd always have someone available who could fit into a party with whatever other players were available -- different classes, different alignments, different levels), and sometimes you'd get 1 or 2 players off operating on their own. Some characters, and even some players, might well never overlap even though they're all in the same campaign. In a setup like this (and pretty much only in a setup like this) an assassin character can work -- he mostly operates on his own or with other evil characters, but occasionally he'll temporarily join up with a party of other adventurers who don't know what he really is -- perhaps "honestly" (functioning as a de facto thief) or perhaps with some devious ulterior motive -- to cheat, betray, or even outright assassinate the other PCs (the assassin character could very well have been hired, by an NPC or another PC, to do just that).