D&D 1E AD&D players and referees, what do you think of ascending AC?

[James Gasik]

I imagine the OP got into an argument with someone who hates ascending AC and feels it killed their dog D&D.

 

[Micah Sweet]

ACKS is Adventurer Conquerer King System, which is a B/X-derived game whose strength is in domain play, magical research, thiefly hijinks, mass battles and other mid- to high-level shenanigans. It's fairly well known and just had a successful Kickstarter for a 2nd edition, and the author is a somewhat controversial figure, so it genuinely didn't occur to me that people wouldn't know what it is.

Probably my favorite fantasy RPG. Level Up is a close second, and more accessible for a lot of modern players, but ACKS is a better system IMO.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Ascending.

I only use descending when I'm literally playing AD&D.

Any of its clones that use ascending AC or allow for the option, I do.


It's AD&D with added spreadsheets.

I would say its more B/X with added spreadsheets, and a lot more content.

 

[David Howery]

of all the quirks of the 1E rules, descending AC was the only one that really annoyed me. I'm not sure why, but it always seemed just so nonsensical, particularly when magic armor had plusses that you had to subtract, etc. I tried a few times to develop ascending AC rules, but never got it right, compared to what 3E did....

 

[Micah Sweet]

What, having a 30% chance to climb walls at level 10 not good enough for you?

ACKS did a bunch of work in your new edition to make thieves better.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A bad AD&D clone put out by a person most gaming sites flat-out ban mentioning him or his game. He’s about on par with Zak S, the Pundit, and Venger S in terms of radioactivity.

Spoken by someone who hasn't read the system, or at least is likely not looking at it objectively. But, we all have our preference in games, so that's all right.

 

[Celebrim]

Or have their own, yes.

There isn't really any need for a large number of tables. Third edition effectively reduced it down to 3 tables. Fighters use the same table they did in 1e AD&D using the variant rule suggested of increasing BAB by 1 every level rather than 2 every 2 levels. Wizards use the thief table. Everyone else uses the cleric table. This is reasonable.

Or just speed up the levels at which they roll into multiple attacks; in other words, untie multiple-attack ability from fighting level.

I don't know what you mean.

Or be allowed to use a wider variety of weapons...maybe as they level up their allowable list might expand some (and having just now thought of this, now I'm thinking about it for my own game - thanks!).

I think part of the charm of the class is it's limited and flavorful weapons list. Generally, I prefer the 3e approach of keeping the limited and flavorful weapons list while granting bonus weapon choices/proficiencies from race. To the extent that I would expand the base list it would be to bo stick (representing here any short fighting stick or cane) and crossbow. Crossbow just feels more 'roguish' to me than slings. Elven thieves could also use short and long bows and dwarven thieves' hand and battle axes.

All classes should advance their prime stats like Cavaliers!

It's not a bad idea as it helps rebalance the classes to the standard of Cavalier which otherwise should be banned.

Not at low levels, but by mid-level they should be somewhat reliable.

It would not at all be wrong nor would it be hard to implement to simply adjust the thieves table so that the revised 1st level thief had the same skill chances as the unrevised 5th level thief. Just skip the first 4 rows of the table. Throw in all the skills from Acrobat while you are at it for the very rare cases that parkour matters in the game and things start to get a little better for the poor thief player.

Rangers shouldn't have that ability. No Drizz'ts allowed.

If you actually follow the rules and don't allow 21 DEX PC's into your game, the two-handed fighting rules in 1e AD&D are quite balanced and one of the few things that rewards a high DEX combatant with no shield. You only at most get one additional attack a round - it DOES NOT double your attacks per round - and that second attack will generally be at a penalty, and further that second attack will generally be with a different weaker weapon. If you stick to the rules you get no Drizzt. You do however let a thief fight with a dagger in the offhand to make up for their otherwise weak fighting skills.

And poison. As Thieves are by far the most likely to encounter poison in their day-to-day lives it makes sense they'd have been trained in recognizing and dealing with it even after they've come in contact with it. So, the poison save table needs to be split out from paralyzation and death such that it can be tweaked to give Thieves a break.

I don't agree with the reasoning. My own (back)stab at attempting to fix 1e saves can be found here: https://www.enworld.org/threads/con...rows-to-stat-based-saves.696276/#post-8955753

That's probably overkill IMO.

Not really. It's the only thing thieves have going for them since they miss out on all the advantages of being a fighter and all the advantages of being a spell-caster.

Another quick-and-easy change that would make Thieves a bit more durable would be to give them d8 hit dice rather than d6.

Sure, that would go a little way toward removing the need for them to gain HD at a faster rate than other classes but hit point inflation is always one of my least favorite ways to balance things and I feel less well balanced than the current XP table where you aren't really leveling up significantly faster than other classes you just get to level 2-3 quicker.

I'm running a single-class Thief right now as my character in a game and she's doing OK. There's lots of houserules, but the one change that I've noticed has made a big difference in play is to add longsword to the weapons-allowed list for Thieves.

Your game is so evolved from 1e AD&D that I have no basis of comparison. Longsword is already an option for thieves in 1e AD&D. Bottom of page 19, the fourth note to the table.

 

[Tonguez]

I was always confused by thac0 so ascending is greater than

 

[Andvari]

Your game is so evolved from 1e AD&D that I have no basis of comparison. Longsword is already an option for thieves in 1e AD&D. Bottom of page 19, the fourth note to the table.

2e AD&D and BECMI, too

 

[overgeeked]

I imagine the OP got into an argument with someone who hates ascending AC and feels it killed their dog D&D.

Not at all. Just curious what others who still play AD&D think of ascending AC. I’m thinking of starting and AD&D game and don’t want to deal with descending AC. That’s it.