D&D General D&D Editions: Anybody Else Feel Like They Don't Fit In?

[Remathilis]

I have been playingbokd D&D.

I've been letting Thieves backstab held and stunned NPCs or asleep ones.

Letting a MC one specialize in 2E. Might buff tge skill points 50%. I liked the C&C one vs TSR thief.

Might rewrite the class as well or let the replace backstab with sneak attack.

New group has 3 priests so healing won't be an issue.

I once dreamed about making AD&D Third Edition; a game that tries to keep the basic mechanics of AD&D but incorporate ideas from 3e and late 2e (especially Player's Options and Baldur's Gate 2) into it. My ideas for thieves were thus:

• d8 hit dice. (I had intended to swap clerics to d6 and move them off the healer-tank as well).
• Sneak attack replacing backstab. adds an extra +d6 based equal to the backstab multipler.
• Adding Evasion, Defensive Roll, and Uncanny Dodge to boost the Thieves' defensive abilities.
• Allow Thieves to use the Missile to-hit when using small weapons (knives, daggers, short swords, saps)
• Allowing Thieves to pick some additional Thief Skills (escape bonds, detect magic). Really considered rebalancing the whole thief skill progression to start higher and have a shallower climb. A low-level thief would start with skills in the 30s or 40s, not the teens.

Obviously, the project was long abandoned, dying before 3.5 ever made it to print. But just a few suggestions if you do ever make a new Thief Class.

 

[Zardnaar]

I once dreamed about making AD&D Third Edition; a game that tries to keep the basic mechanics of AD&D but incorporate ideas from 3e and late 2e (especially Player's Options and Baldur's Gate 2) into it. My ideas for thieves were thus:

• d8 hit dice. (I had intended to swap clerics to d6 and move them off the healer-tank as well).
• Sneak attack replacing backstab. adds an extra +d6 based equal to the backstab multipler.
• Adding Evasion, Defensive Roll, and Uncanny Dodge to boost the Thieves' defensive abilities.
• Allow Thieves to use the Missile to-hit when using small weapons (knives, daggers, short swords, saps)
• Allowing Thieves to pick some additional Thief Skills (escape bonds, detect magic). Really considered rebalancing the whole thief skill progression to start higher and have a shallower climb. A low-level thief would start with skills in the 30s or 40s, not the teens.

Obviously, the project was long abandoned, dying before 3.5 ever made it to print. But just a few suggestions if you do ever make a new Thief Class.

We were using the C&C one and it's magnificent on skill checks.

DC 12 on anything you're trained in. Ability mod plus level to skill check.

If it had 3E sneak attack would be pretty good. Decent class with fast leveling.

 

[Remathilis]

Did I say something funny, @Theory of Games ?

 

[Lanefan]

I once dreamed about making AD&D Third Edition; a game that tries to keep the basic mechanics of AD&D but incorporate ideas from 3e and late 2e (especially Player's Options and Baldur's Gate 2) into it. My ideas for thieves were thus:

• d8 hit dice. (I had intended to swap clerics to d6 and move them off the healer-tank as well).
• Sneak attack replacing backstab. adds an extra +d6 based equal to the backstab multipler.
• Adding Evasion, Defensive Roll, and Uncanny Dodge to boost the Thieves' defensive abilities.
• Allow Thieves to use the Missile to-hit when using small weapons (knives, daggers, short swords, saps)
• Allowing Thieves to pick some additional Thief Skills (escape bonds, detect magic). Really considered rebalancing the whole thief skill progression to start higher and have a shallower climb. A low-level thief would start with skills in the 30s or 40s, not the teens.

Obviously, the project was long abandoned, dying before 3.5 ever made it to print. But just a few suggestions if you do ever make a new Thief Class.

One quick (and in hindsight, surprisingly obvious) way of making Thieves a bit more durable in 1e is to break out the Paralyze-Poison-Death saving throw chart into three separate charts, one for each, and then give Thieves and Assassins significantly lower targets to save vs poison. One can very easily argue this makes sense in the fiction due to tips and training these classes receive as they go along.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There were no multiclassing or dual-classing in the BECMI (and I assume B/X as well, but I'm much less knowledgeable of that edition). Unless it was in some supplement that I'm unaware of.

OD&D went through a period where they had sort-of a version of the weird race-as-class thing those games did, but late in its run sort of unpacked it into multiclassing of a sort for most of the non-humans. Cleric was just never one of the options.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This is one of those "everyone did it differently and nobody did it by RAW" areas of old D&D.

OD&D didn't have true multiclassing. Elves could pick being a fighter or a mage day to day, but everyone else was a single class. Multiclassing was partly the benefit of those new classes like paladin, ranger and bard.

Late in the day there was an indication that elves at least could toss in thief, too. Like you say, though, it was anything but coherent.

All this to say that part of the problem with these anecdotes is that not everyone was using the same rules and even when they were, the amount of house rules guaranteed no two games every played the same. Thus, two people discussing what it was like "back in the day" will often have very different memories of what it was like. Even referencing the rulebook and assumptions in them is faulty since few people played AD&D pure, Gary being among them. So it's very possible to say something that was true for AD&D and then have people respond with memories of OD&D, Basic, or Frankensteined mixes of all three.

Yeah, this come up frequently when someone says they played AD&D "by the book" and when you press on it, turns out they had an erroneous idea of what "the book" actually said, likely because they learned in play.

 

[Mannahnin]

Three-abreast in a 10'-wide passage plus reach weapons poking through from the second rank was and still is SOP round here if-when a party happens to have enough warriors to make it work. Far more often it's seen as an opposition tactic when the foes are halfway organized and don't have many (if any) backliners.

It was 3e that forced everyone into 5' squares. Before that, 3 feet would do and even less if the character was small e.g. a Gnome or Hobbit (or Goblin or Kobold, as many a party has found!) of which you could get 4 across a 10' passage.

1st didn’t really use grid based combat, but 3 ft. is probably derived from real world troops in ranks. But PCs more typically fight as individual skirmishers, so 5 ft is fair enough. It’s the difference between arms length and shoulder to shoulder.

although, as per 5e rules, a creature can squeeze into a space for a creature one size smaller. So goblins could stand 4 abreast in a 10 ft. space (with disadvantage).

1st doesn't really spell out using grids for combat, but uses them for exploration, so formations naturally arise from marching order in the latter. Remember also that in 1E that how many combatants you can squeeze into a given space isn't a fixed number like in later D&D with 5' squares or GURPS with its 3' hexes, but is also dependent on the weapon's space required to wield (specified on the weapon charts in the PH). A two handed sword with its 6' minimum space required to wield would normally mean only one fighter with a two-handed in a 10' corridor. Whereas longsword only requires 3', and a spear or short sword only 1'. (see PH page 38). The DMG tells us that three figures abreast in a 10' corridor is typical, but subject to adjustment based on circumstances (such as weapon space required).

That, and honestly, OD&D spears were inferior weapons which RQ ones (especially longspears) really weren't. Combine that with the fact a larger number of characters could use one effectively (pretty much all tribal types got trained in them) you just could easily end up being a simultaneously more practical and effective choice.

Sure. Though OD&D spears certainly aren't bad. If you're playing under 1974 rules all weapons do the same d6 damage anyway. Even once Longswords get upgraded to d8 in Greyhawk a year later (and better vs Large) you're still looking at getting twice as many attacks in the same frontage if you have a second rank with spears. Three attackers dealing d8s is strictly worse than three attackers dealing d8s AND three more dealing d6s. Or two and two if you're using a simpler 5' square per combatant rule (as was suggested by Moldvay in 1981 Basic and as became standard in the WotC editions).

I mean, let's say you were wandering around with a six character party and a couple of henchmen. The latter were going to primarily be human mules, because among OD&D groups it wasn't even often assumed they'd level, nor be treated as FM for traits, so putting them on the line wasn't attractive if you wanted to keep them around for their hauling duties. By a bit in, that'd probably be two Fighters, two MU, a Cleric and a Thief. With either 2 or 3 abreast lines, who was going to be doing that second row of spears?

I think part of why you and Lanehan were talking past each other a bit is a terminology clash.

AD&D uses the term Henchman to refer to classed and leveled elite auxiliaries, who have superior morale, capabilities, and autonomy compared to zero level Hirelings.

OD&D is a little more vague, but Book III divides hired "Men at Arms" into Fighters of various grades and Non-Fighters, and Book I specifies that you can hire characters of any class and race with appropriate incentives, but that "only the lowest level of character types can be hired."

1981 Basic doesn't really talk about zero-level hirelings but instead defaults to assuming that all Retainers are classed adventurers, of any level (though never higher level than the PC hiring them), and describes them as "more than just men at arms", but as "lieutenants and assistants to a PC [who] are expected to lend their skills and knowledge to the benefit of the party and take the same risks the characters expect to face." The Expert set gets into cheaper mercenaries but those are expected to take part in military campaigns and expeditions, not dungeon exploration.

In the couple of extended OD&D campaigns I played in, we'd have somewhere between 3 and 10 PCs in a given session (most commonly somewhere in the middle), and PCs would routinely have one or more hirelings each. Usually not more than one classed hireling per PC, but I saw a few exceptions. The smaller groups would normally at least double our numbers using hirelings if we could afford to, and the larger groups would still bolster our numbers, though the DM might outright put a cap on numbers for ease of play or discourage us from doubling say, 10 to 20 party members by warning of increased chances of us being heard coming and Surprised, and penalties or elimination of our ability to Surprise enemies.

In the Castle Greyhawk game I played in a typical session might have a roster and marching order something like:

1st rank: my fighter, another PC fighter, and a PC cleric, each with melee weapon and shield.
2nd rank: my fighter's henchman with shield & spear, our PC MU with a lantern, and a second fighter hireling with shield & spear.
3rd rank: Second PC Cleric, PC Thief, and the thief's MU henchman.
4th rank: zero level porter/muleskinner with torch leading a mule, fighter hireling rear guard, and the PC thief's Thief apprentice

For a total of six PCs, five classed and leveled hirelings/henchmen, and a zero level torchbearer/muleskinner/porter to help with treasure and light. 12 people and a mule.

Some sessions we'd be more numerous. Some sessions we might only have 6-8 total, but that'd be on the small side.

PC fighters would often also carry a spear to have the option to throw it, or to move to and fight from the second rank after we took a hit or two and it became excessively dangerous to be in the front rank.

This is one of those "everyone did it differently and nobody did it by RAW" areas of old D&D.

OD&D didn't have true multiclassing. Elves could pick being a fighter or a mage day to day, but everyone else was a single class. Multiclassing was partly the benefit of those new classes like paladin, ranger and bard.

Not exactly. OD&D as originally released in 1974 was as you describe, but as soon as Greyhawk arrived in 1975 it introduced multiclassing almost exactly as we see it in AD&D. Demihumans got the option to pick multiple classes at first level, got all the abilities (as opposed to switching from adventure to adventure as elves originally could) and from then on would split all XP evenly between all of their classes. Dwarves and halflings only got Fighter and Thief as options (but still more than 1974, which only allowed them to be Fighting-Men), but Elves got more options and the new Half Elf race got a BUNCH of options, including triple-classing.

OD&D includes a pretty darn vague rule on switching classes permanently ("Changing Character Class", Men & Magic p10), which only applied to "men", as Dwarves and Halflings could only be Fighting Men, and Elves had their own rule. This got expanded in much more detail in AD&D, ref "The Character with Two Classes", PH p33.

Paladin as it appeared in Greyhawk was an available upgrade to your Fighter if you had a min Cha of 17 and has always been Lawful since the creation of the character, which gave you special abilities but could be permanently lost if you ever committed a chaotic act. Ranger was introduced in The Strategic Review and was a strict upgrade over a Fighter, basically, though you had to meet minimum ability requirements and to be Lawful. Bards were another Strategic Review class and more like what you describe- being a mix of melee combatant and caster. But they didn't appear until after multiclassing.

OD&D went through a period where they had sort-of a version of the weird race-as-class thing those games did, but late in its run sort of unpacked it into multiclassing of a sort for most of the non-humans. Cleric was just never one of the options.

Multiclassing as Cleric was an option for Half Elves starting in 1975's Greyhawk, and that was retained in AD&D.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sure. Though OD&D spears certainly aren't bad. If you're playing under 1974 rules all weapons do the same d6 damage anyway. Even once Longswords get upgraded to d8 in Greyhawk a year later (and better vs Large) you're still looking at getting twice as many attacks in the same frontage if you have a second rank with spears. Three attackers dealing d8s is strictly worse than three attackers dealing d8s AND three more dealing d6s. Or two and two if you're using a simpler 5' square per combatant rule (as was suggested by Moldvay in 1981 Basic and as became standard in the WotC editions).

Remember I wasn't assuming heavy use of henchmen (because I very rarely saw that), so unless you had a multiple-character per player party or a large number of players, there wasn't much of anyone to use them (neither MUs nor clerics could, and I don't recall thieves being able to either); if you did have spare fighters, they had to deal with the extra encumbrance when they were often dancing near their limits anyway, or use them as a main weapon when they were inferior (and you weren't likely to find a magic one).

So, in practice, you weren't choosing between 3D8 and 3D6. The difference in RQ was that a spear was perfectly fine as your primary weapon, and maybe carry a shortsword as a backup for those occasions when a longspear might be impractical. Most people weren't wearing heavy enough armor for encumbrance issues to be a real problem there.

(I was also assuming post Greyhawk damage values because by the time I joined OD&D I literally never hit anyone not using them).

I think part of why you and Lanehan were talking past each other a bit is a terminology clash.

Partly. But honestly, it doesn't matter much; there was rarely much incentive to hire sub-level hirelings other than for bearers anyway. If a group was going to wander around with larger parties anyway, you'd more likely just see everyone playing two PCs and make it moot. IF they didn't want players doing that, no one was going to encourage being bringing along a bunch of hirelings or followers of any stripe anyway (and by moderate levels it was largely pointless anyway because the first fireball or dragonbreath you hit was going to delete them all en-masse anyway). You almost never saw it happen even with classes that got it baked in at certain levels.

1981 Basic doesn't really talk about zero-level hirelings but instead defaults to assuming that all Retainers are classed adventurers, of any level (though never higher level than the PC hiring them), and describes them as "more than just men at arms", but as "lieutenants and assistants to a PC and are expected to lend their skills and knowledge to the benefit of the party and take the same risks the characters expect to face." The Expert set gets into cheaper mercenaries but those are expected to take part in military campaigns and expeditions, not dungeon exploration.

By the time those offshoots were becoming much of a thing, I was moving out of the D&D sphere anyway. That's why when I talk about this stuff I try to make it clear that I'm talking late-period OD&D and nothing else 95% of the time.

In the couple of extended OD&D campaigns I played in, we'd have somewhere between 3 and 10 PCs in a given session (most commonly somewhere in the middle), and PCs would routinely have one or more hirelings each.

The multiple PCs wasn't uncommon in my experience, but like I said any sort of followers were going to just be one or two to function as bearers and maybe mule managers. Pretty quickly their combat abilities were going to be pretty minimalist; When it gets to the point where the mages are meleeing better (because of more hit points if nothing else) you can expect that, barring the "use your hirelings as trap detectors" crowd they weren't a significant factor in combat.

And on those occasions when you did have those large parties (say six fighters or equivalents (paladins, rangers, or various odd custom classes), three MUs or equivalents, and the other three mixes of thieves, clerics and various analogues (bards, assassins, druids or what all), at least two of those fighters would be guarding the rear during order-of-march situations (usually three if the GM was allowing three abreast, though one of the rear rank might be a cleric--the six/three/three pattern wasn't hard coded, it was just common). Having the second row being one or more clerics was very common so they could do emergency healing in those circumstances. Even if it wasn't, the second row fighters were more likely to be using bows than fiddling around with spears.

Not exactly. OD&D as originally released in 1974 was as you describe, but as soon as Greyhawk arrived in 1975 it introduced multiclassing almost exactly as we see it in AD&D. Demihumans got the option to pick multiple classes at first level, got all the abilities (as opposed to switching from adventure to adventure as elves originally could) and from then on would split all XP evenly between all of their classes. Dwarves and halflings only got Fighter and Thief as options (but still more than 1974, which only allowed them to be Fighting-Men), but Elves got more options and the new Half Elf race got a BUNCH of options, including triple-classing.

Yeah, this was the only way I ever saw it done in the field.

OD&D includes a pretty darn vague rule on switching classes permanently ("Changing Character Class", Men & Magic p10), which only applied to "men", as Dwarves and Halflings could only be Fighting Men, and Elves had their own rule. This got expanded in much more detail in AD&D, ref "The Character with Two Classes, PH p33.

I can't say I ever remember seeing that permanent switch in play. Of course with groups I had glancing interactions with, there's no reason I should have known if they were using it. Certainly no one in the groups I commonly played with did it.

Paladin as it appeared in Greyhawk was an available upgrade to your Fighter if you had a min Cha of 17 and has always been Lawful since the creation of the character, which gave you special abilities but could be permanently lost if you ever committed a chaotic act. Ranger was introduced in The Strategic Review and was a strict upgrade over a Fighter, basically, though you had to meet minimum ability requirements and to be Lawful. Bards were more like what you describe- being a mix of melee combatant and caster. But they didn't appear until after multiclassing.

They were still pretty early though, being another SR class.

As I recall, rangers had some practical armor limits that would sometimes discourage people doing them, though as you say a lot of fighters just couldn't make the requirements.

Multiclassing as Cleric was an option for Half Elves starting in 1975's Greyhawk, and that was retained in AD&D.

I wasn't entirely sure about them, since its been so long; I don't recall seeing many if any, though. Were they capped low for cleric advancement? Most of the half-elves I recall were either single class, fighter mages, or the occasional fighter/mage/thieves.

 

[Lanefan]

Remember I wasn't assuming heavy use of henchmen (because I very rarely saw that), so unless you had a multiple-character per player party or a large number of players, there wasn't much of anyone to use them (neither MUs nor clerics could, and I don't recall thieves being able to either);

???

I don't remember ever seeing a rule or guideline that said only Fighters could have henches (if you can cite one it'd be a point of interest) and certainly never played with such a rule. Or is that a RQ thing?

Partly. But honestly, it doesn't matter much; there was rarely much incentive to hire sub-level hirelings other than for bearers anyway. If a group was going to wander around with larger parties anyway, you'd more likely just see everyone playing two PCs and make it moot. IF they didn't want players doing that, no one was going to encourage being bringing along a bunch of hirelings or followers of any stripe anyway (and by moderate levels it was largely pointless anyway because the first fireball or dragonbreath you hit was going to delete them all en-masse anyway). You almost never saw it happen even with classes that got it baked in at certain levels.

At lower levels the play-two-PCs-at-once is common here. At higher levels, though, we more often (relative to lower levels, anyway) see a player running a single PC plus a hench. And some players (guilty, y'r honour!) lean farther into henches than do others.

We've set as a house rule (not sure how closely it follows 1e RAW or even if RAW covers this) that at time of hiring a hench cannot be more than half the level of the hiring character.

By the time those offshoots were becoming much of a thing, I was moving out of the D&D sphere anyway. That's why when I talk about this stuff I try to make it clear that I'm talking late-period OD&D and nothing else 95% of the time.

Ah. I didn't get in until the 1e days, so our experiences will differ for sure.

The multiple PCs wasn't uncommon in my experience, but like I said any sort of followers were going to just be one or two to function as bearers and maybe mule managers. Pretty quickly their combat abilities were going to be pretty minimalist; When it gets to the point where the mages are meleeing better (because of more hit points if nothing else) you can expect that, barring the "use your hirelings as trap detectors" crowd they weren't a significant factor in combat.

As @Mannahnin noted upthread, there's a big difference between henches (levelled adventuring types) and hirelings (usually commoners with limited if any field/combat skills). If your hirelings are in combat, something's gone very wrong; while henches are expected to help out as and when they can.

 

[Voadam]

don't remember ever seeing a rule or guideline that said only Fighters could have henches (if you can cite one it'd be a point of interest) and certainly never played with such a rule. Or is that a RQ thing?

I think the reference is that clerics and MUs cannot use spears or polearms to help out from the second rank with extra melee attack, not that they cannot hire henchmen.