D&D 1E AD&D two weapon fighting

[David Howery]

Gygax never met a corner-case or unlikely scenario that he didn't use to create an exception, and thus make the general rule even more confusing!

yeah, 1E had a hell of a lot of 'how do we interpret this?!' moments. Still, it was a lot of fun back in the day...

 

[Voadam]

My favorite was the Bard - The bard could be a half-elf or a human. To be a bard you first had to dual class in fighter and Thief, then you could take your third class in Bard ..... but half-elves were not allowed to dual class ..... so they could be Bards, but they could not earn the class prerequisites to be a Bard!

That's not it for bard issues.

1e PH page 117: "BARD ABILITIES A bard must have scores of 15 or better in the following abilities: strength, wisdom, dexterity and charisma. Furthermore, a bard must have at least a 12 score in intelligence and a 10 in constitution."

So if you meet those stats you can be a bard right?

Not quite.

Again page 117 "Bards begin play as fighters, and they must remain exclusively fighters until they have achieved at least the 5th level of experience. Anytime thereafter, and in any event prior to attaining the 8th level, they must change their class to that of thieves. Again, sometime between 5th and 9th level of ability, bards must leave off thieving and begin clerical studies as druids; but at this time they are actually bards and under druidical tutelage."

Page 33: "In order to switch from one class to another, the character must have an ability score of 15 or more in the principal attribute(s) ability of the original class and a 17 or 18 in the principal attribute(s) of the class changed to."

Thieves only have a major attribute of dexterity so the dexterity minimum is actually 17 not 15 to get to bard prerequisite training step 2.
Page 26: "The major ability for a thief is dexterity, and a character must have not less than a 9 to become a thief."

So you in fact might need a 15 strength, 17 dexterity, 10 constitution, 12 intelligence, 15 wisdom, and 15 charisma.

And then depending on how you interpret the beginning clerical studies as a druid versus being an actual bard the principal attributes might be the druid's.

Page 20: "As priests of nature, they must have a minimum wisdom of 12 and a charisma of 15. Both of these major attributes must exceed 15 if a druid is to gain a 10% bonus to earned experience."

This would mean you in fact need a 15 strength, 17 dexterity, 10 constitution, 12 intelligence, 17 wisdom, and 17 charisma.

However if you interpret it as then switching to bard class under druid tutelage and not druid, you would need 17s in the major attributes of the bard class, which are not specified, but you do need 15s in four attributes, and minimums in the two others. Conceivably this could be interpreted to mean you need 17's in every stat, or four stats, or since bards do not have the 10% experience options listed, they have no major attributes, just high minimums and just need the 17 dexterity to get to the thief class intermediary training.

Of course it is possible to interpret it as the bard rules are their own thing so human and half-elves can both take the bard class at first level, which are effectively but not actually fighters at that point, and follow the path of the bard without meeting the stat and race requirements of standard dual classing, in which case the stat requirements are as listed under the bard class and the character must switch over to thieving after 7th level fighter progression without having other options to continue as fighters or to dual class to other classes.

 

[Nikosandros]

Of course it is possible to interpret it as the bard rules are their own thing so human and half-elves can both take the bard class at first level, which are effectively but not actually fighters at that point, and follow the path of the bard without meeting the stat and race requirements of standard dual classing, in which case the stat requirements are as listed under the bard class and the character must switch over to thieving after 7th level fighter progression without having other options to continue as fighters or to dual class to other classes.

This. Bards are their own thing. Why try to apply rules for other situations? They are not dual-classed characters and are not fighters, thieves or druids.

 

[Voadam]

This. Bards are their own thing. Why try to apply rules for other situations? They are not dual-classed characters and are not fighters, thieves or druids.

Because a natural reading of the fighter to thief section of the bard rules is that you use the existing dual class rules for switching from one class to another:

"Bards begin play as fighters, and they must remain exclusively fighters until they have achieved at least the 5th level of experience. Anytime thereafter, and in any event prior to attaining the 8th level, they must change their class to that of thieves."

It is not the only way to reasonably interpret that section, but it is a natural way to read it. And if that is how it is read they are literally dual classed fighters to thieves, then going on to special druid/bard class.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

This. Bards are their own thing. Why try to apply rules for other situations? They are not dual-classed characters and are not fighters, thieves or druids.

Maybe! That's definitely a ruling that makes the half-elf make sense.

....but then you have a different problem (as I jokingly alluded to in my other post). You've created a new category - the pre-Bard. And the trouble with creating this special pre-Bard is manifold- what happens when something happens along the way and you suddenly lose the ability to continue on and become a Bard? There are innumerable ways this can happen, from an alignment shift (either purposeful or magic), to reincarnation that changes your race, to the loss of a point of your ability score as prerequisite, to the player just saying, "I realized, finally, that Bards are the worst. I want to be a part of the solution, not the problem. I refuse to switch to Bard."

The solution, as always? Get rid of the bards.

 

[Alzrius]

The solution, as always? Get rid of the bards.

Which isn't to say that they don't serve a purpose once you've gotten rid of them.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Because a natural reading of the fighter to thief section of the bard rules is that you use the existing dual class rules for switching from one class to another:

"Bards begin play as fighters, and they must remain exclusively fighters until they have achieved at least the 5th level of experience. Anytime thereafter, and in any event prior to attaining the 8th level, they must change their class to that of thieves."

It is not the only way to reasonably interpret that section, but it is a natural way to read it. And if that is how it is read they are literally dual classed fighters to thieves, then going on to special druid/bard class.

But the problem is that that doesn't work. The Bard description never explicitly says "use the dual class rules for this". What it does say is that the prerequisites to be a bard are noticeably lower than those of being dual class, and that half-elves are allowed to be bards, in spite of half-elves not being allowed to dual class. A natural reading might mean that you should use the dual class rules, but a natural reading of bard as a whole makes it clearly logically inconsistent with the rules for dual class. The bard class as written is not compatible with the dual class rules as written. It's clear, then, that the bard rules must be an exception.

The specific can override the general in D&D. Otherwise, things like percentile strength don't work. The rules for bard are primarily in the entry for bard. Anything the bard entry says is true must be so for bards because it literally defines how to play a bard. If any more general rules contradict the bard entry on how to play a bard, we should favor the bard entry as the correct one.

Remember that the 1e AD&D PHB came after OD&D, where demi-human races would switch between classes in a modal manner at the start of an adventure. The idea of switching to a new class was already not limited to the language in the AD&D PHB. The language of the bard entry may wholly pre-date the existence of the dual class and multi-class rules entirely.

 

[David Howery]

The solution, as always? Get rid of the bards.

not hard, since it's an optional class anyway.

One of the things that always disappointed me about 2E was that, while they did what they could to make it compatible with 1E, it wasn't more of a 'cleaning up 1E and getting rid of the inconsistencies and making the rules a lot more clear' and a lot more 'let's rewrite a lot of stuff and kowtow to the 'Satanic Panic' crowd by removing stuff they won't like'.... I would have liked to see a polished up 1E....

 

[Mannahnin]

Remember that the 1e AD&D PHB came after OD&D, where demi-human races would switch between classes in a modal manner at the start of an adventure. The idea of switching to a new class was already not limited to the language in the AD&D PHB. The language of the bard entry may wholly pre-date the existence of the dual class and multi-class rules entirely.

I agree with your other paragraphs, but I don't think the above is supported by the evidence we have. Only elves had the "switch between classes" language in 1974, and that went away when Sup I: Greyhawk came out in 1975.

A version of the Bard was originally published in The Strategic Review or The Dragon prior to AD&D's publication, but we don't have any evidence to suggest that the weird version in the PH predates OD&D by any means.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

But the problem is that that doesn't work. The Bard description never explicitly says "use the dual class rules for this". What it does say is that the prerequisites to be a bard are noticeably lower than those of being dual class, and that half-elves are allowed to be bards, in spite of half-elves not being allowed to dual class. A natural reading might mean that you should use the dual class rules, but a natural reading of bard as a whole makes it clearly logically inconsistent with the rules for dual class. The bard class as written is not compatible with the dual class rules as written. It's clear, then, that the bard rules must be an exception.

The specific can override the general in D&D. Otherwise, things like percentile strength don't work. The rules for bard are primarily in the entry for bard. Anything the bard entry says is true must be so for bards because it literally defines how to play a bard. If any more general rules contradict the bard entry on how to play a bard, we should favor the bard entry as the correct one.

Remember that the 1e AD&D PHB came after OD&D, where demi-human races would switch between classes in a modal manner at the start of an adventure. The idea of switching to a new class was already not limited to the language in the AD&D PHB. The language of the bard entry may wholly pre-date the existence of the dual class and multi-class rules entirely.

"explicitly says"
"specific can override the general"

Huh. You're new to this High Gygaxian! It's more holistic than explicit.


"The language of the bard entry may wholly pre-date the existence of the dual class and multi-class rules entirely."

Nope. The OG bard was in The Strategic Review, v2n1 1976 (Schwegman) and was a regular class in OD&D that allowed for human, elves, dwarves, and hobbits (race-as-class came about with Moldvay basic). This is acknowledged by Gygax in the intro ("this presentation is greatly modified from the original bard character class").

The original "dual class" rule was "changing character class" (OD&D p. 10) and remarkably similar to the later dual classing in terms of the high pre-requisites needed. I think it is more correct to say that demi-humans were given multiclassing (based on the prior Elven trait), while humans were given the dual class based on the changing character class).

Much like psionics, it was hidden away in the appendix as not being fully-baked, and not being integrated into the remainder of the book.

EDIT: ninja'd by @Mannahnin