Archetypes, are they useful anymore?

[Storm Raven]

Yeah, I know, I was using the hd from a standard fighter/mu, my fault for not explaining that.

Which means the problem wasn't the druid/ranger multiclass, it was some sort of variant rule.

A standard MU with 150,000 exp is name level (9th). A f/m is 7/7. Yeah, he has a few more hit points and can swing a sword (badly), but he's missing out on 5th level spells. And the multiclass character has already reached his max level as fighter and will as mu (assuming the stereotypical elven f/m) in four more levels unless he has mad stats, even then, he'll reach them soon enough.

Since we are using the UA rules (and we are playing the part of multiclassing munchkins, of coure we are using those rules), the level limits are higher than that. Let's be a dark-elf female fighter/cleric, my level limits are then more like 12/Unlimited. Or, as a grey elf fighter/magic-user, my level limits are 5-7/11+. Basically, you'd sacrifice the portion of the game most people wouldn't play (10th+ level gaming in 1e) for hopped up powers at the stage where most campaigns took place.

Hmmm. Evasion, rage, fast movement, weapon specialization, improved uncanny dodge, the ability to use wands of cure spells and tons of skill points compared to the straight fighter who has a one more feat, virtually the same hp and crap for skill points. Yeah, that's fair.

Let's see. He loses +1 BAB, so he only has two attacks, and not three. His hit dice are 2d12 + 3d6 + 2d8 + 4d10 = 54.5 on average, against 60.5 for the fighter. He has more skill points, assuming he picked, say barbarian first, he has 20 + 24 + 12 + 8 = 64 skill points, whereas the single classed fighter has 28. But the hybrid has a lot of limitations. To keep evasion and his ranger combat style (which I am assuming you are counting as one of the hybrid's feats) he has to be in light or no armor. To keep fast movement he has to be in medium or lighter armor. Most of his abilities are dictated by his class - he has little or no choice in them, he can only select two-weapon fighting or archery as his combat style, he has to take track, and so on.

The fighter has three more bonus fighter feats than the hybrid, and gets to select most of his abilities as he chooses, and can use all of his abilities in any armor he chooses to. The hybrid, for all his gyrating through various classes, has gained a slight edge in some areas, so long as he adheres to a pile of restrictions on the armor he can wear, and how much he can carry, and figures out how to use the mish-mash of class abilities he has. Choosing who is more valuable to a party, I'd pick the single classed guy any day.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Which means the problem wasn't the druid/ranger multiclass, it was some sort of variant rule.

Eh? What variant rule did I mention?

Since we are using the UA rules (and we are playing the part of multiclassing munchkins, of coure we are using those rules), the level limits are higher than that. Let's be a dark-elf female fighter/cleric, my level limits are then more like 12/Unlimited. Or, as a grey elf fighter/magic-user, my level limits are 5-7/11+. Basically, you'd sacrifice the portion of the game most people wouldn't play (10th+ level gaming in 1e) for hopped up powers at the stage where most campaigns took place.

I've never understood that. Most of our campaigns ended around 14-16th level.

Let's see. He loses +1 BAB, so he only has two attacks, and not three. His hit dice are 2d12 + 3d6 + 2d8 + 4d10 = 54.5 on average, against 60.5 for the fighter. He has more skill points, assuming he picked, say barbarian first, he has 20 + 24 + 12 + 8 = 64 skill points, whereas the single classed fighter has 28. But the hybrid has a lot of limitations. To keep evasion and his ranger combat style (which I am assuming you are counting as one of the hybrid's feats) he has to be in light or no armor. To keep fast movement he has to be in medium or lighter armor. Most of his abilities are dictated by his class - he has little or no choice in them, he can only select two-weapon fighting or archery as his combat style, he has to take track, and so on.

The fighter has three more bonus fighter feats than the hybrid, and gets to select most of his abilities as he chooses, and can use all of his abilities in any armor he chooses to. The hybrid, for all his gyrating through various classes, has gained a slight edge in some areas, so long as he adheres to a pile of restrictions on the armor he can wear, and how much he can carry, and figures out how to use the mish-mash of class abilities he has. Choosing who is more valuable to a party, I'd pick the single classed guy any day.

I left out 2d6 sneak attack above, but with all those abilities, I'd never play the straight fighter based on purely mechanical abilities. One fireball evaded makes up for the few extra hit points. Or a burning hands for that matter. And I rarely see heavy armor used by anyone other than a cleric, who is a secondary fighter anyway, or a paladin who wears it for style. Movement means a lot more than a couple points of ac imo. The difference can be made up by a dex item or amulet of nat armor. And medium armor just plain sucks.

 

[Hussar]

I played quite a lot of 1e multiclass characters. Mostly because we had groups of 2-3 players and a dm, so we had to fill multiple roles. My ranger/druid (UA) was pathetic compared to the fighter or mage in the party. The hit point loss alone sucked arse. split the hit points each level and round down. so a die10 (5) and a die 4 (2) =3 hit points. Multiclassing in 1e made more versatile characters, not more powerful. Much like 3e. 1e multiclasses are not too powerful, I'd say 3e multiclasses are too weak. I'm talking standard multiclassing, of course, not prestige classes. And not the Barbarian 2/rogue3//ranger2/fighter4 munchkin either.

Umm, why is your 1e ranger getting d10 hp and not d8? And, IIRC, druids got d6 or d8, not d4 which was reserved for magic users and monks. In any case, there could be other reasons why that particular character would be less effective than a straight up fighter or magic user. Compare a straight magic user to a fighter/magic user and it becomes painfully obvious that the multiclassed character is far more powerful. Or, better yet, a magic-user/thief which added next to no xp penalty compared to other classes.

Also, Bregh, I was specifically talking about AD&D, since I am not familiar with OD&D. If you want to mix B/E/M/C/I D&D in, you can pretty much chuck archetypes out the window as you now have race as class.

 

[pemerton]

Just wanted to add a voice of support to Storm Raven and Hussar, in respect of the debate about literary archetypes and AD&D character classes: the latter do not correspond to the former.

Fighters are under tremendous mechanical pressure to wear the heaviest armour available; this is only reinforced by the fact that only chain and plate come in superior magic versions. But because horses suck in dungeons, and against fireballs, they are also under pressure to be foot-soldiers rather than mounted. So they correspond neither to (mounted) knights, nor to (swashbuckling) pirates and musketeers, nor to (unarmoured) Greek heros, nor to (equally versatile and effective in or out of armour) Conan. They do a reasonable job at being vikings, perhaps.

Magic-users cannot wield swords (unlike Gandalf, who is clearly a very skilled swordfighter, or Elrond, who was the herald of Gil-Galad!), nor draw powers from dark forces (which is the role of evil clerics - this continues into 3E, where evil clerics are much better at the role than Necromancy specialists), nor give useful advice (clerics have Augury and Divination). There is also an artificial distinction created between magic-users and druids, which makes literary-legendary characters who are magic-using herablistic shamanistic types, for example from the Mabinogian or the Kalevala, hard to build (in DDG they typically have both classes). Also, AD&D magic-users are typically not all that old, if one uses the age tables in the DMG - certainly not greybeards.

Clerics bear no relationship to Biblical prophets, historical clergy or even the fighting orders of the Crusades (to whom the comparison is expressly drawn in the PHB). The latter were, of course, not clergy at all but lay-people who nevertheless had taken vows in a recognised order; and they frequently fought with swords.

I don't know Vance very well, and will take the word of others that Cugel is the inspiration for thieves. All I'll say is that I know of no fairy-tale where the protagonist is an expert mechanic (open locks, F/R traps) - the gadgeteer is a spy or detective story archetype, not a fanstasy one. There are tricky or stealthy characters in fantasy, but the tricky ones are perhaps most often also spell users, and the stealthy ones are typically also warriors. The 1st ed thief is bad at both magic and fighting.

The upshot is thus that I agree with MerricB - 3E is probably better able to support archetypes, because the flexibility of character design. What I don't like about 3E is that it has a tendency to build some of this flexibility into PrC with mandated flavour that undermine the archetype (eg the Order of the Bow initiate - I'd rather just have an Archer PrC). Thus, for flexible character design I prefer RM (or perhaps HARP). And I do find that flexible character builds do not lead to identikit characters - different players have different roles they want to explore, and are able to follow their inclinations.

On the whole Jung/Joseph Campbell archetype front: I'm pretty sceptical in general, and certainly don't see any instantiation of these archetypes in AD&D. Magic-users are not teachers, they blow things up! Thief are not children, they sneak around and backstab things! Clerics are not elders, they're combat medics! As I think Hussar (and probably others) said, these are tactical/wargaming roles, characterised by function, not symbology.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Umm, why is your 1e ranger getting d10 hp and not d8? And, IIRC, druids got d6 or d8, not d4 which was reserved for magic users and monks. In any case, there could be other reasons why that particular character would be less effective than a straight up fighter or magic user. Compare a straight magic user to a fighter/magic user and it becomes painfully obvious that the multiclassed character is far more powerful. Or, better yet, a magic-user/thief which added next to no xp penalty compared to other classes.

As I said above, I went from describing my last character (ranger/druid) to describing a typical fighter/mage as it is probably the most common multiclass. Sorry for the confusion. There is no way a fighter/mage of equal exp is even close to as poewrful as a straight mage. Could the f/m take the mu in a one on one battle? Almost certainly. But as far as value to a party, the mu wins hands down. The level or two difference pays off in spades. Especially when you consider the 16 or 17 the multiclass character rolled is more than likely going into strength. A 35% chance to learn spell is really no fun. Fireball? Sorry, I rolled a 40 on that one. Maybe next level. Magic missile? I've failed that roll twice.

 

[Hussar]

Ahh, but compare the F/MU to a 9th level fighter and see how it falls out. Suddenly our F/MU is 8/10th. I've given up a level of fighter to gain TEN levels of magic-user. ((Note, it's been a while since I did this math, so someone please check)) And, as SR has mentioned, that's entirely possible using Unearthed Arcana.

I'll lose one level of fighter to gain 10 levels of wizard. Heck, IIRC, I can lose 2 levels of fighter and gain 9 levels of wizard and 10 levels of thief. The problem is JRR, magic user xp tables were REALLY wonky. They started high, then from about 5th to 10th, they rocketted up in levels. Then they level out again after that. Using a fighter xp baseline is a little more telling since fighter xp effectively doubles every level.

And, put me solidly in the camp that almost never saw high level play. Heck, how many threads have there been about the "sweet spot" in gaming where everyone talks about how the best gaming ends at the low double digits?

Actually, and I mean this as an honest question, what did you do at those high levels? What could challenge you?

 

[Storm Raven]

Eh? What variant rule did I mention?

The one where you implied that your ranger/druid was short on hit points because you used d10+d4/2 hit dice.

I've never understood that. Most of our campaigns ended around 14-16th level.

There's a reason why 9th-10th level was "name" level - most campaigns ended about that time.

I left out 2d6 sneak attack above, but with all those abilities, I'd never play the straight fighter based on purely mechanical abilities. One fireball evaded makes up for the few extra hit points. Or a burning hands for that matter. And I rarely see heavy armor used by anyone other than a cleric, who is a secondary fighter anyway, or a paladin who wears it for style. Movement means a lot more than a couple points of ac imo. The difference can be made up by a dex item or amulet of nat armor. And medium armor just plain sucks.

So, assuming unlimited money, the hybrid does better? Is that your argument, because that's the road you are starting down when you say ""I'll just have a Dex item or an amulet of natural armor". Sure you can, but the straight fighter can invest in an amulet of natural armor too, and get boots of springing and striding. As soon as you start saying "I can offset my limitations with lots of magic items" you have to level up the playing field. For the cost of your Dex enhancing item, the straight fighter can enhance his weapon and his armor more, offseting your gain and then some.

And you say "all those abilities", but they don't mesh well at all. Sure you get +2d6 sneak attack, which would seem to go well with two-weapon fighting, but then you have rage, which doesn't really, since you don't get the big two handed weapon bonuses. The fighter can design his feats to take advantages of various synergies, while the hybrid has to take what the various classes give him. And you have track as a feat, while the fighter can take a combat related feat instead. And you have evasion, but less hit points, and your straight up armor class is worse. There are trade-offs to the hybrid. Try playing one some time. I think you will find that, in play, the huge benefits are not as great as you think they are.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

We never had any problem at all with multiclass characters becoming more powerful. The only part of UA we used was the barbarian, ranger/druid multiclass and weapon specialization, though (apart from spells). That might have something to do with it. No drow, snirfblabla, etc. We also rolled characters by the book. 3d6 put 'em where you want 'em. You roll it, you play it, with a little leeway if someone rolled nothing higher than a 9 or something.

As for high level play, we had a creative dm, and when I dm'ed, I used various 1e and 2e products, made up my own stuff. I ran an Arthurian campaign where the bad guys were mostly people, there's always stuff to challenge 'em. Remember, a 15th level fighter has like 100 hp if he has a decent con. Couple of lightning bolts can thin that out rather quickly. And there's nothing like a 10d4+10 magic missile. Traps work well, as do beholders, green slime, poison, dragons, demons, devils, liches, ghosts. Even high level characters are scared to death of 3 hd wights in 1e. Undead in particular can be nasty at any level. Banshees - One bad roll and you're toast. Assassins slitting a throat in the night. No roll, except for move silently. I think all the dry mechanics of 3e has stifled a lot of creativity. That demon not tough enough? Add 5 or 6 hit die and lower his ac by about 4. Of course, that would be screamed at as "cheating" in another thread running around.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

The one where you implied that your ranger/druid was short on hit points because you used d10+d4/2 hit dice.



There's a reason why 9th-10th level was "name" level - most campaigns ended about that time.



So, assuming unlimited money, the hybrid does better? Is that your argument, because that's the road you are starting down when you say ""I'll just have a Dex item or an amulet of natural armor". Sure you can, but the straight fighter can invest in an amulet of natural armor too, and get boots of springing and striding. As soon as you start saying "I can offset my limitations with lots of magic items" you have to level up the playing field. For the cost of your Dex enhancing item, the straight fighter can enhance his weapon and his armor more, offseting your gain and then some.

And you say "all those abilities", but they don't mesh well at all. Sure you get +2d6 sneak attack, which would seem to go well with two-weapon fighting, but then you have rage, which doesn't really, since you don't get the big two handed weapon bonuses. The fighter can design his feats to take advantages of various synergies, while the hybrid has to take what the various classes give him. And you have track as a feat, while the fighter can take a combat related feat instead. And you have evasion, but less hit points, and your straight up armor class is worse. There are trade-offs to the hybrid. Try playing one some time. I think you will find that, in play, the huge benefits are not as great as you think they are.

Nope. I haven't played that particular hybrid, but I did see a ranger/barbarian/rogue/vigilant (scarred lands). The player didn't even want the rogue levels, but he needed ranks in diplomacy to qualify. He outshined the poor fighter at every turn. The had better ac and similar hit points, but by raging, he was able to make up for the fighter's damage bonus of weapon specialization. And when the fireballs and sneak attacks started flying, the fighter's hit points shrank like ice cream on a sunny day. The multiclass guy's didn't. And this was a low magic (as far as items, not spells) game. They all had crap all for magic items. I will admit the fighter's ac helped a lot in toe to toe combat, but the multiclass guy shone in all situations, not just a slugfest.

 

[Aaron L]

Actually, and I mean this as an honest question, what did you do at those high levels? What could challenge you?

Well, we mostly fought demons and devils, or high level NPCs.

You don't have to keep fighting monsters to have an interesting game.