AD&D needs a lil' love. Favorite PCs/concepts/race-class combo's...

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Last year I had fun with an elven Fighter/ Magic-User/ Thief. That was a fun character to play.

Yeah, that was one of my favorite characters. I still have the character sheet somewhere.

I'm a huge 1E Ranger fan, too.

 

[Abraxas]

I ran a few MU/Th and F/MU/Ths over the years. And I have a Drow Rgr/Dr/MU who predates Drizz't by several years who is a fave.

Just curious, did your group just wave the alignment restrictions on your Rgr/Dr/Mu?

My personal favorites were
Luthor, Half-elf Druid/Thief (actually the first character I remember playing, didn't know the multiclassing rules and the DM let me run him)
Abraxas, Human Paladin (first time I rolled stats good enough to be one)
Magnus, Half-elf Clr/MU/Rng/Thf (two player party - the DM let us multiclass like crazy)
Vargus Bronzefeld, Dwarven Fighter/Cleric

 

[Nellisir]

I DM'ed 1E quite extensively, and never did one of my 15-20 players ever play an illusionist. Were they overpowered? What's their trick?

I don't know about illusionists alone, although chromatic orb and wraithform are both pretty hefty spells. Svirfneblin was broken all by itself (magic resistance, boost to saves, etc), and adding cleric and illusionist only made it worse. My hit points were better than a straight illusionist, I had access to better armor (magical leather, maybe), and weapons. I was the back-up cleric, but the primary utility arcane caster and also functioned as the party thief (wraithform & knock & dispel magic). I think we had an elven fighter/mage that was the blaster, and a sun priest with flame strike or similar. Most magic just rolled off my back.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I DM'ed 1E quite extensively, and never did one of my 15-20 players ever play an illusionist. Were they overpowered? What's their trick?

Their major spells don't have direct, simple-mechanical effects, so for it to go well it requires a creative player to do interesting things with the spells without just ruthlessly exploiting their severe absence of details AND a cooperative DM who actually lets the player accomplish things with the spells and does a LOT of ruling on the fly. If the DM isn't on board then the spells get handled very resrictively and the class is weak and worthless. If the player isn't up to the challenge then they only think to make illusions of dragons, meteor-swarm casting liches and other uninspired win-the-encounter stuff - which the DM then simply nerfs. So, general reaction to illusionists as PC's tends to be mixed but heavlily negative if they've ever even bothered trying them out.

My own experience is that most players have a poor opinion of them but have never, ever actually played one. Gnomes go right along with that.

 

[Lanefan]

My favourite 1e class-race combos (not all of which are legal by RAW):

Hobbit Nature Cleric (a.k.a. Druid)
Dwarf (preferably War) Cleric
Elf or Part-Elf Illusionist
Human Fighter

Never really liked multi-classing though I've certainly played them when it suited the character.

The only class I have never played is Monk. Not planning on fixin' that any time soon.

... I have banned assassins and illusionist ...

I suppose I can see banning assassins if you don't want evil PCs (that's a whole nother discussion) but what's your rationale for banning illusionists?

Lan-"Human Fighter all the way"-efan

 

[Leif]

Sorry, but by the RAW, only humans and gnomes can be illusionists.

Sunuvagun, you're totally right about that! What was I thinking?

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Just curious, did your group just wave the alignment restrictions on your Rgr/Dr/Mu?

Dragon #96 allows druid/rangers and Dragon #100 addresses the alignment issue. Ranger/Druids must be neutral good.

 

[dagger]

I suppose I can see banning assassins if you don't want evil PCs (that's a whole nother discussion) but what's your rationale for banning illusionists?

Lan-"Human Fighter all the way"-efan

Well, just don't want to deal with illusions as a DM and the people that want to play them all ways seem to be the newbies to 1e.

If one of the veterans asked me nicely I might let them.

 

[Nellisir]

a wickedly smart and devious player backing up their illusions with spells from other schools

real fireball...fake fireball. Real lightning bolt...fake lightning bolt. Iguanas in tutus doing the shimmy shake on the bar. Sexy orcs. Illusions are fun.

 

[Nellisir]

Well, just don't want to deal with illusions as a DM and the people that want to play them all ways seem to be the newbies to 1e.

If one of the veterans asked me nicely I might let them.

Embrace the madness, dude. Come over to the chromatic side.