D&D General On Powerful Classes, 1e, and why the Original Gygaxian Gatekeeping Failed

[Dioltach]

I do think Mentzer Companion Set (15-25) added a lot of great stuff, but Masters never impressed me or felt necessary.

I never got beyond the first few levels of BECMI, but the impression I got was that Masters was aimed pretty much at bridging the gap from "Hero" to "Godlike". It's great that it provides those rules, for groups that want to go that route, but I don't think many will.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

Dunno. I'm not sure where the stats I saw came from. Maybe @Rob Kuntz can shed some light on the stats of PCs in Gary's games. Not specific values, but whether they were generally higher than the DMG methods would produce, or whether they used the DMG methods.

Iirc Robilars stats can be seen in Art and Arcana

 

[S'mon]

I never got beyond the first few levels of BECMI, but the impression I got was that Masters was aimed pretty much at bridging the gap from "Hero" to "Godlike". It's great that it provides those rules, for groups that want to go that route, but I don't think many will.

You're right, there is a big focus on Questing for Immortality. So instead of 36 being a capstone as implied in eg Cook Expert, 25-36 become transitional levels to a different game.

 

[Voadam]

IME with XP needed to level doubling every level, and awards also increasing steeply, the 10% bonus is rarely noticeable.

In mine when using 1e xp charts it took a long time to level up, so hitting that levelling point a number of games early was noticeable if you were looking, particularly for spellcasters who had noticeable gains with levels.

The feeling was lessened however because everyone was on different xp tracks from their classes or multiclassing or from having been at different games which earned different amounts so it was not obviously apparent.

In 3.5 when I played a crafting aasimar wizard who was one level behind everybody else I was surprised at how emotionally impactful it felt to regularly get more xp than the rest of the party for facing the same CR monsters even though I prefer to not track xp and prefer milestone/story advancement.

From a design standpoint I prefer 3.5's system of getting more xp for facing comparatively tougher challenges with the result of evening out party power rather than 1e's bonus xp for the already more powerful to double down on the rich getting richer.

I prefer the system to reward a weaker character surviving through player skill and luck rather than rewarding a weak character dying and being replaced by someone with a shot at better random rolls.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

You know what else would be cool (and I’ve heard some folks here say they do something similar) is an ability score draft. The DM rolls up a number of ability scores equal to six times the number of PCs being created, and the players take turns drafting scores and assigning them to the ability of their choice.

We did something similar, only everyone rolled a set of stats (4d6, in order) in order. Anyone could pick any of the stat sets, or use point buy. We had two sets of stats be used by multiple characters. Worked pretty well, though it did helped cement my hatred of paladins in 5E as broken.

 

[Lanefan]

IME with XP needed to level doubling every level, and awards also increasing steeply, the 10% bonus is rarely noticeable.

At each batch of xp given, maybe not; but as @Charlaquin points out it sure adds up over the long haul.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

At each batch of xp given, maybe not; but as @Charlaquin points out it sure adds up over the long haul.

Yep. Exponential works both ways, at least when I last looked at my abacus...

 

[mach1.9pants]

In mine when using 1e xp charts it took a long time to level up, so hitting that levelling point a number of games early was noticeable if you were looking, particularly for spellcasters who had noticeable gains with levels.

The feeling was lessened however because everyone was on different xp tracks from their classes or multiclassing or from having been at different games which earned different amounts so it was not obviously apparent.

In 3.5 when I played a crafting aasimar wizard who was one level behind everybody else I was surprised at how emotionally impactful it felt to regularly get more xp than the rest of the party for facing the same CR monsters even though I prefer to not track xp and prefer milestone/story advancement.

From a design standpoint I prefer 3.5's system of getting more xp for facing comparatively tougher challenges with the result of evening out party power rather than 1e's bonus xp for the already more powerful to double down on the rich getting richer.

I prefer the system to reward a weaker character surviving through player skill and luck rather than rewarding a weak character dying and being replaced by someone with a shot at better random rolls.

When you added in replacement first level PCs, the others protected them in combat, and when the gold was brought into town we always gave them all (or max they could get XP from) so they leveled up really fast. Often the party was only adventuring enough to get them to the next level. Also, when you started out, always gave the clerics the gold, so they would get to second level and that lovely CLW! Ah, gaming the system in the olden days

 

[Helldritch]

When you added in replacement first level PCs, the others protected them in combat, and when the gold was brought into town we always gave them all (or max they could get XP from) so they leveled up really fast. Often the party was only adventuring enough to get them to the next level. Also, when you started out, always gave the clerics the gold, so they would get to second level and that lovely CLW! Ah, gaming the system in the olden days

Nice, but it would not have worked out in my games as the gold exp was.given equally for each character. So 10000 gold between 5 characters would net each of them 2000 xp no matter how the gold was actually distributed. The same was done with magical treasure as everyone that participated in its recovery would get equal shares.

This was to avoid the fact that many costly and high exp items were for magic user and clerical classes. By enforcing this rule, it was helping to calm down possible arguments about exp. This led, however, to the unforseen effect that you could not give more gold to help a lower character to level faster. Which led to people not wanting to die to have chance to roll up a new character.

 

[David Howery]

10% extra XP doesn't seem enough to make a big difference?

at higher levels, no, but at lower levels, you were scraping for every XP you could get, due to the lethality of being a new PC in 1E. In our case, I think it was just a matter of 'we all forgot about it'. 1E had so many odd rules tucked here and there, some were bound to fall between the cracks...