D Agony of D Feet

So, I was paging through some AD&D 1e and 2e stuff today at the used bookstore. After a while, I begin to remember why AD&D made my head hurt and drove me to GURPS.

A few gems of nostalgia:
- Rogues have 1/2 and wizards 1/3 THAC0 increases? Ouch! I had forgotten that.
- Dual classing (or "characters with two or more classes") - funky human only option that required high ability scores, punished you for attempting it, then handed you the keys to the candy store if you succeeded. No going back, through!
- Multiclassing - for whatever reason, nonhumans multiclass, not dual class
- Monsters as PCs - aside from the bare bones approach, you are told "no special abilities" (including but not limited to magic resistance, spell like abilities, or flight, which would rule out 3.5 style drow and gnomes), and further, your maximum level is based purely on your prime requisite ability score. Thus, probably unintentionally, ogres can advance a level or so higher than hobgoblins in the normal course of things. Oh, and creatures with claws and bites? They simply lose those, without explanation, in the course of becoming PC races.
- Long-winded lectures about player greed, unbalanced items "destroying" the game, an entire page and a half on "Super Characters" who will "destroy" your game, etc.
- Even longer lectures on why players should be talked into enjoying the human fighter with all 9s for ability scores.... and 4d6 drop the lowest, arrange, is described as lending itself to "super characters" and destroys the "special" quality of druids, paladins, and other high entrance classes
- Oh, yes. Minimum ability scores. Given that the number of characters eligible for paladin using the standard rolling method is one out of hundreds, and the ranger even less (!), we can deduce that most paladins and rangers are played by unrepentent cheaters, or people who whine until the DM agrees to modify their ability scores.
- Armor versus weapon type - a system intended to balanced banded mail, ring mail, bronze chain, and other archaic armor types against other choices!
- The suggestion that clerics of love and beauty deities need at least a Cha 16 to qualify for that speciality priest class.
- In AD&D 1e, assassins are a class, and eligible to multiclass with fighter. In AD&D 2e we are informed that being an assassin really isn't a role and doesn't require any special abilities, just a "reprehensible outlook"
- That came from the build your own class section. Incidentally, +1 to hit orcs is worth a +1 multiplier, but going from thief to fighter THAC0 is only 0.5.
- The game seems to feel that high level characters will use wishes to do just about everything, from raising ability scores to exceeding racial level limits by 1 per wish, and so forth
- A normal human could expect to die about 1 time in 3 when polymorphed.

Comments: I'll agree that multiclassing was the Achilles' heel of OD&D, 1E, and 2E. No one really got that right until 3E, IMO.

The rest are all arguable. It kind of looks like you're mostly looking at 2E sources for your commentary (most bullets 4-11). I agree that 2E really did goof a bunch of stuff up, and skipped that edition. I've never heard of those monsters-as-players rules, or build-your-own-classes rules; they do sound pretty bad. That said, lots of players today even, cry out for systemized rules for building their own classes; I think you're seeing the results of that eternal demand.

4d6 drop lowest was the default "Method I" since AD&D 1E. In fact, that source comments that if you don't use that method you'll get "rather marginal characters [that] tend to have short life expectancy". (1E DMG p. 11) I'm really curious what later source would have ever described 4d6 drop lowest as creating "super characters"?

The argument that assassins shouldn't be their own class, but only a certain activity, is also constantly debated. Although I agree with the 1E/3E policy, I've had it vehemently argued the other way on me, on these very boards, within the last month.

Finally, the "deduction" that paladins and rangers were only played by cheating whiners is kind of just nonsense. I DM'd one paladin in my 1E games. He was very memorable, and the player didn't cheat.

just to note:

i use 3d6, and re-roll the lowest, so i can get a better chance then 4d6

Hey, let's all make threads listing all "sucky stuff" in games we don't like. That'd be lots of fun and bring about some really interesting discussion! :\

This is a pleasant change; an edition wars thread about something other than 4e! Hooray for the variety!

I personally think threads such as this one are much more powerful without the explicit value judgments. What one person considers "long-winded" another person may find interesting.

Minimum ability scores was always one of my 'favorite' things. Congratulations, you got lucky on your stat rolls. Now, besides the benefits of having good stats, your character also qualifies for a generally better class so you can compound your advantage.

The assassin argument seems silly. Assassin can both be a specialized role/skillset (ie, class), and anyone willing to assassinate.

I didn't know edition war threads were permitted here.

Gentlegamer said:

I didn't know edition war threads were permitted here.

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Depends on the quantity; we shut them down for several months earlier in the year because there were so many. We monitor them VERY closely for unpleasantness, rudeness, and insults. It's okay to discuss editions... but it's fair to say that starting the way this thread just did doesn't bode well for a constructive conversation. But hey, hope springs eternal!

Piratecat said:

It's okay to discuss editions... but it's fair to say that starting the way this thread just did doesn't bode well for a constructive conversation.

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I agree, and as such, I'm not going to participate, even though I do have some things I could add, but the tenor of the OP makes it seem likely that it would turn into a defensive war of words between 1e/2e and 3e "sides."

On one hand, I loved the move away from randomness determining the PC you would run. Getting to arrange your own stats, and having few if any entry requirements for classes, gets a big thumbs up from me.

On the other hand, I do sorta like that "monsters were monsters and PCs were PCs". It never bothered me that they sort of used different rules. ECL and LA and monsters-as-levels were tools from 3.5 that I personally never chose to make use of.

Each edition brings its ups and downs. I don't know that there is any "one thing" from 1E or 2E that would keep me from going back; it's more like a cumulative effect of a lot of little things.