AD&D needs a lil' love. Favorite PCs/concepts/race-class combo's...

[rkwoodard]

My Favorite Character in any RPG. 1st Edition Human Illusionist. Starting with 2nd edition the flavor died. But the 1st Edition, wow, Shadow Spells, Illusion, Fear spells. This guy was no charlatan with some magic, he was a force to be reckoned with.

No other game or edition really comes back close for me to capture the Illusionist, although C&C comes closest.

RK

 

[Leif]

I agree that illusionists in 1E are supremely cool, but my own twist on the character is to make him either a Gnome illusionist/thief or an Elf illusionist/thief with racial proficiency in longsword (Silly Rabbit! Elves can't be illusionists!). Many thiefly capers can be much more easily accomplished with the aid of a few phantasms.

[wow! was this thread really idle for almost a solid year??]

 

[Halivar]

I ran a ToEE game, and an old friend moved back into town, so he rolled up a level 1 character (everyone else was level 4). He made an elven Ftr-Mu-Thf and it was terribly slow progression. But seeing as he (no joke, I watched him roll for this stats as I do all players) rolled an 18/95 Str and 18 Dex, he was nevertheless the most powerful person at the table.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Elven Fighter/Mage/Thief. Could maybe have gone for Fighter/Mage/Cleric, but who wants a lame ass mace when you can use a Longsword? The weird thing is that I don't think I ever got a proper game going, it was mostly just creating the characters, their home (carved out of a dragon), and so on. Hard to get 4-5 people to play a game like AD&D when you are 13-16.

 

[Storminator]

We never had a lot of respect for the RP side of gaming when we played 1e. It was middle school and high school. My favorite PC was Water, the halfling thief. We needed a thief, and our party was 4th level. We never dreamed of started a character at higher than 1st, so we made a huge pack of 1st level thieves and turned them loose on the Keep on the Borderlands - the keep, not the Caves.

The PCs were creatively named A-1, B-52, CO2, D-Day, Etc, . . .

Only H2O survived, took all the loot he could grab, and came and joined the party. I'm pretty sure the 18 and the two 16s were a big part of his survival.

PS

 

[the Jester]

I agree that illusionists in 1E are supremely cool, but my own twist on the character is to make him either a Gnome illusionist/thief or an Elf illusionist/thief with racial proficiency in longsword.

Sorry, but by the RAW, only humans and gnomes can be illusionists.

 

[Erekose]

Back in the day my group was typically:

Human Thief
Dwarven Fighter
Elven Magic User
Human Cleric

At the time it didn't seem a stereotypical as it does now . . .

After running White Plume Mountain the Thief obtained Blackrazor and became quite a formidable fighter!

 

[fjw70]

I mostly DMed for 1e but my favorite 1e characters are

Human fighter (first 1e character) named Warduke (okay I stole the name).
Human Barbarian named Kanthor.
Human Paladin named Gareth Dragonsbane (we played H1 with the pre-gens).

I also had elf fighter/magic-user/thief once that I enjoyed but he only lasted a couple sessions before dying in a duel with another PC. I replaced him with a human ranger.

See a pattern?

 

[TarionzCousin]

I have banned assassins and illusionist.

I had a 2e svirfneblin illusionist/cleric. Slightly broken.

My Favorite Character in any RPG. 1st Edition Human Illusionist. Starting with 2nd edition the flavor died. But the 1st Edition, wow, Shadow Spells, Illusion, Fear spells. This guy was no charlatan with some magic, he was a force to be reckoned with.

No other game or edition really comes back close for me to capture the Illusionist, although C&C comes closest.

I agree that illusionists in 1E are supremely cool, but my own twist on the character is to make him either a Gnome illusionist/thief or an Elf illusionist/thief with racial proficiency in longsword. Many thiefly capers can be much more easily accomplished with the aid of a few phantasms.

I DM'ed 1E quite extensively, and never did one of my 15-20 players ever play an illusionist. Were they overpowered? What's their trick?

 

[dagger]

Not really, I just don't want to deal with them.

We still play 1e once a month or so along with Pathfinder.

I have a lot of experience with them in regular 1e campaigns (playing alongside not DMing) its just with the hassle of running illusions. Our old 1e DM had no problem letting people run Illusionist so it is probably just my hang up..

Also once you get up to around 9 or 10 then they lose a LOT of power in my experience.