2E Class Creation Rules

[the_bruiser]

I’m just writing in response to a thread started by Mercurius. In it he mentioned the 2E character class creation rules as a thing ‘lost’ in 3E and 4E. Others seem to think those rules were way underpowered. This is NOT an attack on those people, but an honest question of how our views were so different – we outlawed them due to being overpowered!

Some examples of those who felt otherwise:
The Little Raven said: I remember those rules... and that's not a good thing. They basically boiled down to 'anything you make will be worse than the standard classes,' which in my mind is not encouragement to use them.

Stuntman said: In 2E the class creation guidelines end up allowing you to create a class that is crappy compared to anything premade.

Mircoles said: I remember those class creation rules. I made one class with them, realized that any class i made using them would suck and never used them again.

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I’m just trying to figure out why my experience was so different. I’ll admit that we gamed the system. If you had a guy with 18 STR you bought the fighter STR bonus, and if you wanted to play LG you took the L and G penalties. But to make a decent character you had to do those things, so we assumed it was the designers’ intentions, not a faux pas.

Here are two guys I made that were ridiculous in our games. This is a summary of the character design purchases. Yes, I still have the excel files from games from 15 years ago.

Were we playing this wrong in the sense of misunderstanding the rules or taking too much advantage or what?

BOB THE BURNER – a durable, fast-advancing wizard
* No THAC0 advancement
* d8 HD and fighter CON bonus
* no armor (cloak of displacement and bracers of defense key)
* pick 4 weapons
* priest spells – healing only – that’s a LOT of healing
* mage spells – evocation and alteration
* mage magic items
* restrictions – lawful, good, donate 10%, no more wealth than carry, only 6 items, no associate with bards

Bob advanced MUCH more quickly than wizards – usually 2-3 levels ahead, and reaching level 20 when a wizard would only be 11th! (I can’t emphasize this enough.)

LOGAN THE WANDERER – the most versatile character I ever played
* Warrior THAC0 advancement and strength bonus (18/73 strength!)
* d8 HD
* no armor (cloak of displacement and bracers of defense key)
* thief weapons
* priest spells – healing only – that’s a LOT of healing
* mage spells – evocation and alteration
* thief abilities – hide in shadows and move silently
* druid shapechange – healing, scouting, waterbreathing, flying
* mage magic items
* restrictions – lawful, good, donate 10%, no more wealth than carry, only 6 items, no associate with bards

Logan stabilized about 2-3 levels behind wizards, but look at all he could do! Sneaky, shapechange, healing, ‘boom’ from evocation, decent HP, and great at dealing damage in melee, especially with alteration buffs.

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We outlawed this stuff and now are saying it was ridiculously underpowered. What were we missing?

 

[Orius]

Kits perhaps. I think they ended up becoming popular enough that they overshadows the custom class rules. I think Cook said something like this over in a Dragonsfoot thread where he was talking about the design considerations of 2e.

 

[Crothian]

I think one issue might be you seem to be rolling stats and then buying a class based on that. Also, how much was the restrictions enforced? If they never are an issue they really aren't restrictions.

 

[Jhaelen]

We outlawed this stuff and now are saying it was ridiculously underpowered. What were we missing?

I don't think you're missing anything. Apparently, the people who thought the guidelines were underpowered didn't look too closely at them (or didn't have the proper min-maxer mindset).

Your examples just confirm what I wrote in the other thread: Any kind of guidelines can be abused which basically means that even if they were eventually published for 4e, they could never be allowed as an option for the RPGA.

Maybe we'll get something similar in DMG3 or DMG4... but I doubt they'll ever become a part of the core game.

 

[the_bruiser]

I think one issue might be you seem to be rolling stats and then buying a class based on that. Also, how much was the restrictions enforced? If they never are an issue they really aren't restrictions.

Re: rolling then building a class, yeah... how else would you do it? *grin*

Also, the restrictions were enforced very strictly. Have to be lawful, check, must be good, check, character only has six magic items, no problem. Excess magic items either traded to other party members on X-for-1 basis or donated to church to satisfy the 10%. Never had a 'home' so always carried wealth anyway. And bards? I hate bards! Never a problem since I never knew anyone who played one in 2E anyway.

 

[Dausuul]

I don't think you're missing anything. Apparently, the people who thought the guidelines were underpowered didn't look too closely at them (or didn't have the proper min-maxer mindset).

Your examples just confirm what I wrote in the other thread: Any kind of guidelines can be abused which basically means that even if they were eventually published for 4e, they could never be allowed as an option for the RPGA.

Count me as another person who found those rules to be ludicrously broken, at least if you allowed players to design their own classes. All you had to do was pick your 2-3 favorite schools of magic, then pile on the limiting factors (no armor, no weapons, slowest possible attack progression - you're a wizard, what do you care?), and you got a character who would zoom through the levels and be throwing around time stop and shapechange while everyone else was getting excited about polymorph.

 

[Stoat]

It's been a long time, but the 2E game I ran in high school had at least three custom classes in it. All were absurdly overpowered. I can't remember the details, but I think the general strategy used by my players was the same outlined above -- pick restrictions that won't make much difference in play and ditch options that you don't want anyway.

 

[Crothian]

And bards? I hate bards! Never a problem since I never knew anyone who played one in 2E anyway.

So, that one was not really a restriction since it was never going to happen anyway.

 

[karlindel]

I saw the 2e creation rules in use, although it's been awhile.

As I recall, they demonstrated the problem of breaking a class into packets of abilities. You could not use the guidelines to design any of the actual classes in the game (or the kits, for that matter), as the character would be directly weaker than the class in some fashion. However, if you picked and chose particular abilities from each class, you could end up being overpowered.

You could also make the class more powerful if you designed the class with limitations like alignment restrictions (which were never really a restriction as the character would be made with the appropriate alignment) or no THAC0 advancement for a spellcaster. Priests with Fighter THAC0 and hp and spheres that only included healing and buffs were also an issue.

As I recall, you also got all the spell slots for casting, even if you did not get as many spells known, so buying a spell package with just one or two schools of magic/priest spheres would give you a lot of spellcasting punch. The most popular combo was Evocation and Alteration, as the OP used.

That said, the guidelines were helpful in building unique classes. I saw them used to build specialty priests for particular deities, and interesting characters with abilities from several classes. They just required some DM oversight to make sure they were being used as the DM wanted them to be (including powergaming if that is the preferred playstyle).

 

[Wik]

Yeah, the second you allow PLAYERS to make their own classes with that rule, it does get overpowered. But if you make PC classes - you could say they were underpowered.

I never really felt this way - yeah, sure they were weaker, but this was a deliberate design intention. I think the designers erred on the side of caution, knowing that many GMs wouldn't consider some factors, and could thus unintentionally ruin their game.

I remember using those rules a few times, to make some classes that I felt (at the time) the game needed. A fighter/wizard clone. A templar-like cleric. An urban ranger-like character. And so on, and so forth. All of them were slow to progress, but I liked what they added to the campaign world.

Nowadays, of course, it's not my bag. But at the time - I thought they were halfway decent rules.