AD&D 1E Redesigned and Rebalanced Thief for 1e AD&D

[fuindordm]

The funny thing about the UA barbarian is that they are actually the least offensive class in the fighter group. They have buckets of abilities and every single one is defensive. Plus their initial weapons are constrained.

The player goes in thinking they'll kick ass and find themselves tanking, while the fighters and rangers are racking up bonus damage. Even the paladin has an offensive power with turn undead, but not the poor barbarian.

 

[Celebrim]

The funny thing about the UA barbarian is that they are actually the least offensive class in the fighter group. They have buckets of abilities and every single one is defensive. Plus their initial weapons are constrained.

The player goes in thinking they'll kick ass and find themselves tanking, while the fighters and rangers are racking up bonus damage. Even the paladin has an offensive power with turn undead, but not the poor barbarian.

The barbarian ends up with like 50% more hit points than any other class, but it really needs that 18 CON (presumably, you'd never bother to play one without it). The troubles are numerous. You are still 1st level with the thief is hitting 4th level, and you are 13th level when a fighter is hitting 18th level. So your THACO isn't as good, nor are your attacks per round. You lag even a non-specialized fighter. Equally bad, you are required to forgo early picks for magical items when playing in a group, so you're weapons and armor won't be as good because the party was dividing up magic items you couldn't take.

Really, the Barbarian is a thief with a ton of hit points and fighter THACO and weapons. You're reasonably stealthy and broadly skillful, but you aren't overpowered. An argument could be made they are underpowered.

The big problem with them is they can't be in a party with a M-U or Cleric for the most part. That's party dynamics you just don't need. You see them show up mostly when a player is told like, "Make an 10th level character". They are powerful for their level, but they are always going to lag behind equal XP characters.

This makes me think I should write up a fixed Barbarian.

 

[Celebrim]

The most effective way to make a thief more effective it to have the DM allow them to be played how they originally were intended to be played (but that got lost in the translation...err...the rulebooks later on).

A thief will ALWAYS succeed with their abilities unless opposed. For example, a Thief will always be able to open a lock under normal circumstances...but if their is a time limit, someone is trying to kill them, it's a magical lock, etc...that's when they will need to roll to see if they succeed.

Can you cite some text to support this assertion? And for a lot of skills this interpretation doesn't work, because what is "normal circumstances" for picking pockets? And how would that interpretation apply to hearing noise or reading a magical scroll?

I'm not sure what to make of your assertion being that originally they automatically succeeded at things, given I've never read that anywhere, and the only place automatic success shows up is in a note in the 1e AD&D DMG about thieves can set traps automatically with enough time if they have appropriate tools for making a trap because in this one circumstance only they are allowed to reroll failed results.

Unfortunately, even by the time AD&D 1e rolled out, this idea of automatic success was no longer being held by many groups and it's THAT which nerfed the thief rather than what the thief originally was intended to be able to do from my understanding of it.

Where did the groups you are talking about get the idea that automatic successes were intended?

 

[cbwjm]

Yeah, from what little I recall about the 1e barbarian the xp requirement and penalties really leads to it needing a rewrite. It also ignored the standard ability modifiers for Dex and Con which further complicates the class.

 

[Celebrim]

Yeah, from what little I recall about the 1e barbarian the xp requirement and penalties really leads to it needing a rewrite. It also ignored the standard ability modifiers for Dex and Con which further complicates the class.

The bonuses to DEX and CON modifiers are literally the only things that the class has going for it. Without it, you are going to actually lag the Fighter in hit points, and probably in AC.

The only real problem with either idea is the DEX is front loaded. The CON modifier develops over time, but you get the same advantage from DEX at first level as at any other. This leads to the theoretical 18 DEX, 18 CON barbarian being OP compared to any other class with the same stats at 1st level.

The only thing the Barbarian does that I feel is really unfair, is the fact that not only is it immune to backstabs, but if you try to attack them in the back they get a free attack on you. They don't get a free attack in any other circumstances, only in the situation where they are most disadvantaged. I'm OK with barbarians having an "uncanny dodge" where they negate penalties from being attacked from behind, but not with the free attack.

The main things that needs a rewrite though is removing the limitation of who they can associate with without losing the flavor of the class. I have some ideas.

 

[Celebrim]

Commenting on my own thread, one thing I do like about this is that the NWP system (as outlined) creates a wonderful "build your own background" that's not particularly impactful perhaps but which is definitely flavorful and very much gives you some little perks that makes your character feel like he's already something at 1st level. That you get three of them to mix and match feels a bit more impactful than 3e Feats or 5e Backgrounds, but sadly at the time the designers of NWPs were I think too conservative. I can rarely remember any 1e or 2e era NWPs actually feeling useful or important. There was a lot of potential there that was wasted.

I need to think about all the different roguish archetypes that ought to be supported. Jester comes to mind as a NWP that is archetypal to fantasy but isn't in my current list. Or if I could come up with something that really gives the feeling of a cattle rustler or grave robber.

 

[cbwjm]

The bonuses to DEX and CON modifiers are literally the only things that the class has going for it. Without it, you are going to actually lag the Fighter in hit points, and probably in AC.

The only real problem with either idea is the DEX is front loaded. The CON modifier develops over time, but you get the same advantage from DEX at first level as at any other. This leads to the theoretical 18 DEX, 18 CON barbarian being OP compared to any other class with the same stats at 1st level.

The only thing the Barbarian does that I feel is really unfair, is the fact that not only is it immune to backstabs, but if you try to attack them in the back they get a free attack on you. They don't get a free attack in any other circumstances, only in the situation where they are most disadvantaged. I'm OK with barbarians having an "uncanny dodge" where they negate penalties from being attacked from behind, but not with the free attack.

The main things that needs a rewrite though is removing the limitation of who they can associate with without losing the flavor of the class. I have some ideas.

The 2e complete barbarian may solve a lot of issues, seems like it got moved to the ranger/paladin xp track, still retains many of the abilities of the 1e barbarian while losing the class restrictions. Not all abilities are there though, no horde ability in the class write up and it might be assuming the use of NWP for some of the older suvival abilities, but it looks more playable than the 1e version.

Edit: my mistake, the survival stuff was moved to later in the book since it applied to warriors and shaman.

 

[Celebrim]

The 2e complete barbarian may solve a lot of issues, seems like it got moved to the ranger/paladin xp track, still retains many of the abilities of the 1e barbarian while losing the class restrictions. Not all abilities are there though, no horde ability in the class write up and it might be assuming the use of NWP for some of the older survival abilities, but it looks more playable than the 1e version.

Edit: my mistake, the survival stuff was moved to later in the book since it applied to warriors and shaman.

I think cleaning up the relationship between the Barbarian and NWP's is a big part of cleaning up the class.

I can't really endorse or criticize what 2e did because I'm not familiar with most of 2e, having not been impressed by its rollout, and aside from stealing its rules for surprise and initiative I don't think I really used it much.

As far as playability goes, the only thing that stops the 1e Barbarian from being playable is that you can't introduce it into any group. It's write up as an anti-social class makes it even more problematic in play than the Cavalier, which is both over-powered and party defining. Previously, really only the Assassin had this problem, as an NPC class masquerading as a PC class, precisely because it just could get along with a whatever else anyone else wanted to play if you assume "heroic characters" by default.

 

[GreyLord]

Can you cite some text to support this assertion? And for a lot of skills this interpretation doesn't work, because what is "normal circumstances" for picking pockets? And how would that interpretation apply to hearing noise or reading a magical scroll?

I'm not sure what to make of your assertion being that originally they automatically succeeded at things, given I've never read that anywhere, and the only place automatic success shows up is in a note in the 1e AD&D DMG about thieves can set traps automatically with enough time if they have appropriate tools for making a trap because in this one circumstance only they are allowed to reroll failed results.



Where did the groups you are talking about get the idea that automatic successes were intended?

When it was originally written, that's how it was. The original write up didn't even have percentile chances or other items, that was (I believe) added by Gygax later.

That's also how many played it back then. There wasn't something that said...oh...you have to roll under a percentage to suceed at this skill...etc, that I recall.

For picking a pocket...you just picked the pocket. Unless there was some reason the other person would be able to notice, you just did it. If you tried to hear noise, it just worked.

This was with OD&D...AD&D 1e it was still there, in theory, but that's where you see the implication on it in the rulebooks really change the approach to needing to roll for it everytime.

Previously, part of why it was done differently is because the thief was not an original class. Originally, anyone could try pick a pocket or move quietly or to hide behind something or to listen at a door....etc. How this was adjudicated changed from group to group.

When the thief came about it did not automatically change how people were playing. It didn't mean that suddenly your Fighting Man could never attempt to pick someone's pocket again, it just meant that the Thief was able to be trained in it.

I saw...basically two approaches at that point. The most common is that unless it was contested, the thief just suceeded. They didn't have to do an ability check or roll like everyone else.

Another method (and this continued a little bit into AD&D, but the tournament scene sort of killed it) was that everyone could attempt to move quietly (or other skills similar to what a thief could do, but inferior to them), but only the thief could move silently. Thus, even if the thief failed their roll, they still got the ability check to succeed that everyone else got.