AD&D 1E Favorite Obscure Rules from TSR-era D&D

[CleverNickName]

We should petition Morrus to create a "GYGAX!!!!!" reaction.

 

[Alzrius]

Do you have an UA page number for that? I remember that and had a PC drow cleric MU in my longtime 1e then later 2e campaign I ran in the 80s but I can't seem to find the chart or listing of options in my PDF UA copy.

The UA multi-classing options were actually presented in Dragon #103, in the "UNEARTHED ARCANA additions and corrections" article (one of two such articles in that issue).

 

[Mannahnin]

The UA multi-classing options were actually presented in Dragon #103, in the "UNEARTHED ARCANA additions and corrections" article (one of two such articles in that issue).

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Aha! I was looking for this the other day, in part because my recollection from Gygax's Artifact of Evil novel was that "Curly" Greenleaf, one of Gord's sometime adventuring buddies, was a half elven Druid/Ranger.

 

[Mannahnin]

One of the great successes in my life has been that I have been able to block out the experience of reading the Gord books from my memory.

The first book is almost readable, but calling the remainder "dire" after that would be a failure to give sufficient warning. IIRC, didn't Gygax effectively blow up Greyhawk at the end in a fit of pique over the fallout with TSR?

Oh yes, he certainly did. I read the whole series. Once.

I actually re-read the first two (maybe three) books as well, and the Night Arrant short story collection. I'd say those volumes were second-rate pulp knock-offs, but (damning with faint praise) arguably no worse than, say, John Jakes or Lin Carter, and with the added value of lots of Greyhawk setting detail. Before the later books get both worse and more extraplanar-focused.

 

[Alzrius]

Oh yes, he certainly did. I read the whole series. Once.

I actually re-read the first two (maybe three) books as well, and the Night Arrant short story collection. I'd say those volumes were second-rate pulp knock-offs, but (damning with faint praise) arguably no worse than, say, John Jakes or Lin Carter, and with the added value of lots of Greyhawk setting detail. Before the later books get both worse and more extraplanar-focused.

Fun fact: there's a post-destruction of Greyhawk appearance by Gord in the short story "Evening Odds" in the anthology Pawns of Chaos: Tales of the Eternal Champion. In it (if I recall correctly), Gord is now an agent of Neutrality, troubleshooting for it on various other worlds (including some version of Earth in that particular story).

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Aha! I was looking for this the other day, in part because my recollection from Gygax's Artifact of Evil novel was that "Curly" Greenleaf, one of Gord's sometime adventuring buddies, was a half elven Druid/Ranger.

....I appreciate that you are suffering for the rest of us....


I will go back to one of the original issues highlighted earlier. How can you have multiclass options that explicitly violate class alignment restrictions?

Druid/Ranger? C'mon! Why not allow Ranger/Assassin? I mean, Drow?

Also, when it comes to armor and demi-human multi-classing, I have QUESTIONS. If an Elven Fighter/MU can cast spells in plate armor, then it follows that an Elven Fighter/Druid can as well without exploding. Except for druids, it says that metal armor messes up their spellcasting.*


*Except for Ranger spellcasting of druid spells, because of Aragorn.

 

[TwoSix]

The UA multi-classing options were actually presented in Dragon #103, in the "UNEARTHED ARCANA additions and corrections" article (one of two such articles in that issue).

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So beautiful....

3e-5e multiclassing is fine, but I do just love the split identity and fusing two/three disparate classes aspect of AD&D multiclassing.

 

[Mannahnin]

So beautiful....

3e-5e multiclassing is fine, but I do just love the split identity and fusing two/three disparate classes aspect of AD&D multiclassing.

Speaking of obscure rules, 3.0 tried to preserve some of the feel and the in-world concept of having both sets of training before play started by having rules for 1st level multiclassing.

You got a mix of the benefits but not full class abilities, then when you hit 2nd level you got the full 1st level abilities for each class.

I was disappointed when they dropped those rules in 3.5.

 

[Willie the Duck]

But hey, talking about Priests and forgotten rules, how about the time the Complete Priest's Handbook came to the conclusion the Cleric was OP, spent pages and pages on balanced Specialty Priesthoods for just about any religion under the sun, completely contradicting Legends and Lore (and was therefore subsequently ignored in Demihuman Deities and other books going forward)!

I thought the cleric/priest rules in particular were too open to abuse for letting players run wild with them, but they made a fairly good tool for balancing different priesthoods.
I do remember that I thought the cost of spell-like abilities was way overpriced however, and contributed to making the Faith & Avatar priesthoods look ridiculously overpowered (they were OP, but not that OP) because most of them had a lot of spell-like abilities (a precursor of 3e-style domains, really).

They definitely had abuse potential, but in practice, it really depended on who you were playing with.
In one group, I was one of two players running PO clerics. The other player made a powerful unarmored arcane & divine caster who also used martial arts in melee.

I certainly loved the promise offered in Complete Priests Handbook. Customization with an eye towards worldbuilding was a breath of fresh air. Mind you, the notion of balance was bizarre (IIRC weapons that did 1d6+1 or less were low-value, and 1d8 or more were high-value. It doesn't take much math skill to see the issue there). Likewise, it clearly left it to you not to make a d4 hd, no-weapon/no-armor cleric without curing or dead-raising spell access and try to use it in a party where a traditional cleric would have gone. It worked in the same way that Complete Fighter -- with it's bone-dagger and cord armor savages alongside myrmidons with extra specializatins and new fighting style rules -- worked: everyone had to be on the same page about what type of game you were playing.
Faith & Avatar priesthoods were a lot more powerful, but kind of in the margins. Okay, some of the clerics could wield longwords and get fighter 18/## strength and >2 hp/level from con 17+, but what kind of rolls did you need for that to matter (and you still weren't getting fighter-with-specialization rates of attack)? Player's Option Cleric/Priests were imminently gamable, but so was everything at that point (much like the state mid-leatherette books, it was seriously in the 'everyone has to be on the same page' zone.

To be fair, a large part of this is that AD&D saw a lot of different designers over the years (particularly in the 2E era) who disagreed with earlier strictures and worked to break them down, introducing exceptions where previously there had been none. Which isn't to say that they were deliberately trying to break from convention, or had any sort of bone to pick with established prohibitions (or even understood why they were there), but the end result was the same: more and more exceptions could be found if you knew where to look.

The "leatherette" books were particularly notable for this, as they had a lot of exceptions to the demihuman class restrictions that up until that point had been (fairly) inviolable

I remember first-printing Complete Fighter's Handbook giving weapon specialization back to multiclass fighters, rangers, and paladins (the later two IIRC being rescinded in later printings, multiclassers I think got to retain them). Kits kept bouncing between single-class only or not. Complete Bard, Druid, and Elf also seemed to play around with who could do what quite a bit.

Weird true fact.
Gygax is on the record (too lazy now to research the reference) as saying that one of his regrets with D&D is allowing turning undead for clerics.
In his opinion, it made undead too easy. Which made him create magic items that undead could use that would make them impervious to turning.
GYGAX!!!!!!

I think I can see the logic. Mind you, this is with the supposition that undead were supposed to be pants-wettingly scary. Also, IIRC, his statement was made like in the early 2000s, after a bunch of stuff like the restoration spell and non-permanent paralysis had all come to pass (so undead were, to a degree, less scary than they otherwise could be).

I suspect that, to Gary, a large part of what made Undead scary was that they didn't have to make morale checks. Everyone I've known/met online from who played with Gary/his inner circle have suggested that that part of the game was not a part that got ignored -- you were supposed to be up against X amount of enemies, but only had to fight Y% of that total because 100-Y% of them would break and run. Undead ignored that, and that was supposed to be a really big deal.

That part of undead really did get nerfed hard by the existence of clerics, in that they had this secondary morale mechanic in the turn-undead ability. This makes undead go from this all-around major threat just by being undead to being a creature type that happens to have a number of varieties with rather scary special abilities like level drain, paralysis, or aging (with corresponding system shock), etc.

Those amulets of turn-immunity are kind of a good example. They were introduced around the necks of a skeleton horde, IIRC. Skeletons and zombies are two (maybe the only two in the early game?) undead types that don't have any scary special abilities on top of being undead. Without having to fight them all (whereas other opponents you would only have to fight a portion), they are almost-strictly-worse (discounting their relative arrow/spear immunity) versions of the same troops they were when alive. And, fittingly, they have become synonymous (both in D&D and in D&D-inspired computer games) with entry-level dungeon fodder.

I understand this sentiment, and I can't bring myself to condemn it, but it always feels to me like level-draining undead should have been more appreciated than they were simply because they kept the PCs in that "sweet spot" that everyone waxes nostalgic about. You think the game plays best between 6th through 12th level? Well guess what, the vampire just drained your 15th-level character back down to 7th level, congratulations!
Obviously, it didn't work that way, and it's not hard to see why. For all that people seemingly love to complain about how D&D (of any edition) simply doesn't work when the numbers "get too big," they also like tangible representations of advancement, i.e. gaining levels. Gaining them only to have them be quickly and easily lost later on makes the accomplishment feel Sisyphean in nature, becoming a source of frustration rather than enjoyment.
...but it still feels like there should have been a way to bridge that gap, you know?

Fundamentally, yes. D&D really doesn't have good plans after a certain level, particularly for certain character types. Once you get there, people do tend to retire characters or campaigns (or do level/mechanics-independent stuff). Mechanisms that keep you from reaching that point ought to be a positive. I think there are a few main problems:

1. Advancement/progress feels good, but only when it feels real. So any backslide can't be automatic (else the advancement is illusory). On the other hand, it if isn't automatic, then actually running into the downgrade feels like a tragedy.
2. Advancement already felt slow. Whether it was true isn't really relevant to the feel. Each level (at oft-played levels) was about twice as many xp as the last. AD&D had all sorts of other (often ignored) advancement-limiting effects like double-advancement/training costs if DM feels you are changing alignment/not playing your class; having to fight other druids/monks to advance, and such. Also, if (like many) you stopped treasure hunting for more plot-driven adventures, but gp=xp was still the main contributor (or 2e, where the mixture could be anything, but few options contributed as much as large treasure piles did), advancement actually did slow.
3. Restoration came out in Supplement I (1975). Seriously-- as rough as running into 'lose a level, there's nothing you can do about it' feels, adding something you could do about it (albeit a something you might not normally have access to, and the bookkeeping around tracking xp before and after the drain and how to fit it all together post-restoration) makes having that opportunity and not accomplishing it feel doubly rough.

 

[Undrave]

As much as I prefer 2e to 1e, the presence of the C/T multiclass is a strong point in 1e's favor.

I've tried to make a Cleric/Rogue multi class before but it just doesn't want to work for some reason...