I miss Dual Classing and the power of nostalgia

[Scurvy_Platypus]

If I were to play second ed, would it be as enjoyable as it was in my memories or are the rose colored glasses of history blinding me.

So is anyone else feeling the second ed nostalgia now or is it just me? And what did you think of dual classing?

Jon

*shrug*

Hard to say. My personal experience has been that a lot of folks (intentionally or not) houseruled various aspects of the game to suit their particular tastes, and over time what they picture as "how the game used to be" bears little resemblance to how it was actually written.

Like XP for gold for example. Most common houserule I ever saw was to remove that. Bang! Instant slowdown in how fast people leveled. 3E shows up and all of a sudden people complain about how fast characters level. Only difference is that people before were artificially slowing down advancement.

Dual classing? Doesn't really matter to me. Just one more aspect of the system to think about.

Maybe you'll get lucky, and there'll be enough people like you that enjoyed the 2E approach, but would like a little rule consistency, to produce a 2E clone. You've got Osric and Labrynth Lord, just need one more to make the clone set complete.

Alternately, maybe the key is to come up with a few supplements to Osric to be able to run 2E style games. Little modular "plug ins", that let you do things like create Kits, stack levels the way you like, and inject more of the "wah00! magic!" into Osric, turning it from grim-n-gritty grandfather into action-powered-take-no-prisoners-are-you-looking-at-me-punk? fantasy.

2E style slimmed down rules, with 3E balance/consistency? Yeah, I'd take a long look at that. Especially if it meant taking out my Dark Sun box set again. 3.x version? Too fiddly. 2.75? Yeah, I can see that. maybe even enough to pay money for it.

 

[Son_of_Thunder]

With the advent of 4e coming I find my interest in 3e dying out. I do believe that on the whole Fourth will be a better game although there are certainly aspects of it that I find a bit distasteful. Third ed while possessing many attributes I like, on the whole just seemed too video-gamey or wargame like rather than the game I was used to playing. maybe that is needed now, I don't know. But I do know that I don't like the trend.

But more and more lately I find myself truly missing second edition. I miss kits and I miss half elves with wierd class combinations and I miss seperate leveling tables. I miss bladesingers being a good class and I miss magic items that meant something instead of ornamentation

But most of all I miss Dual Classing.

I know that there are plenty of people who hated the old system and there certainly aspects of it that could be improved, but over all I found it a great system, especially for portraying characters with a lot of history, who switched jobs and roles over the course of time. From Conan to the Seven Sisters, I think the old way worked a lot better that the stacking of levels in third ed. I almost always played human characters and Dual Classing was my bread and butter. I remember one character who dual classed four times over the course of about five campaigns. Started out as a pirate fighter, went bard, became a wizard and finally evolved into the high druid of the seas. An awesome mess of a character that could not exist in the 3e the way he did in second. I miss unplanned, spontaneous character growth like that.

But do I really. If I were to play second ed, would it be as enjoyable as it was in my memories or are the rose colored glasses of history blinding me.

So is anyone else feeling the second ed nostalgia now or is it just me? And what did you think of dual classing?

Jon

I think it would be enjoyable for you and your group. You sound like me about 2 years ago when my group and I decided that we were having a blast playing 2e before 2000 so we went back. I agree with the Juggernaut, go start again, play, dual class, come back and tell us what it was like.

 

[LostSoul]

The only 2e PC I dual-classed was in the gold series SSI games.

You start off as a fighter, then switch over to magic-user. For a few levels of suck, you become a kick-ass wizard! Equipped with sword and lots of hp! And with the craziness of XP progression, you only needed to suck for a little while.

I think I had plans for a PC in a tabletop game to do the same thing, switch over once I hit 2/1 attacks, but never got that far.

 

[Ranger REG]

So is anyone else feeling the second ed nostalgia now or is it just me?

I'm sure you can find 2e fans here, just not me.

And what did you think of dual classing?

Inferior, compared to 3e multiclassing system. Couldn't understand why humans have dual-classing system while nonhumans have multiclassing system. Also couldn't understand why I'm forced to suspend my previous class abilities until the current class level reach the previous class level (and by "forced," I mean if I used my previous class's abilities before my current class level exceed the previous class's level, then as a consequence, I earned zero (0) XP for the adventure).

 

[Spatula]

Started out as a pirate fighter, went bard, became a wizard and finally evolved into the high druid of the seas.

You had 17s in Str, Cha, Int, and Wis? (or was Cha the prime stat for druids instead of Wis?)

Dual-classing was anything but spontaneous, since you had to be (a) human, (b) have a 15+ in the prime stat of your current class, and (c) have a 17+ in the prime stat of your new class. Even beyond that the rules were rather plainly stupid. "I'm a sword master but I must pretend to fight like a commoner lest I disrupt my bardic training..."

 

[FireLance]

Dual-classing was anything but spontaneous, since you had to be (a) human, (b) have a 15+ in the prime stat of your current class, and (c) have a 17+ in the prime stat of your new class. Even beyond that the rules were rather plainly stupid. "I'm a sword master but I must pretend to fight like a commoner lest I disrupt my bardic training..."

Is it any sillier than a Fighter with Strength 14 and Intelligence 17 who can't train to become a Wizard because he isn't strong enough?

 

[Imp]

Yeah, good gravy do I not miss dual-classing, 3e's troubles with multiclassing spellcasters nonwithstanding. It's real easy to find out how much you don't miss it: fire up a Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale game, and roll and roll and roll and roll until you get sufficient stats to make your fighter 6/druid X or whatever.

Teeth-gnashy!

(I can't imagine it being too much of a problem to houserule "forgetting" of class levels in 3e for a change-of-career effect, maybe paying a certain amount of XP to drop levels from an old class to add to the new one, maybe never forgetting the old class entirely... it's a lot of erasing and re-figuring but I'd allow it...)

 

[FireLance]

I'll be disappointed if 4E allows the fighter8/wiz1 to start slinging spells like a pro.

I'll be disappointed if a Fighter 8/Wizard 1 can cast spells like a Wizard 9. However, I'll also be disappointed if a Fighter 8/Wizard 1 is much less capable overall than a Fighter 9 or a Wizard 9. Limited to spells that a Wizard 1 can cast, but able to cast them as a Wizard 5 or better? Maybe that will work. We'll just have to wait and see, won't we?

 

[Gez]

The main problem is caster level. A fighter 8/wizard 1 has a caster level of 1. Which means that his spells are weak, and have no real chance of affecting a level-appropriate monster with spell resistance.

Spell resistance is pretty much a mechanics to hurt multiclassed spellcasters. It would have been much better as a sort of magic armor class, with the wizard rolling something not dependent just on his caster level to bypass it (sort of what is done in MCAU).

Yeah, sure, there are two feats that can improve it, but do you really want to invest in these feats to make sure your 1d4+1 missile will affect the 80-HD monster-of-the-week? I wouldn't...

 

[Dragonhelm]

First, there is a meta reason in that players typically frowned on the lack of demihuman ability to pick up new classes. And honestly, it was a very reasonable criticism. Why should humans be the only ones who are able to learn a new class when demihumans are of the same proximate intelligence?

That's a huge criticism of mine of dual-classing. I don't think there should be a difference between humans and demi-humans in that regard.

But even dual classing had its issues, primarily that you could never return to a former class.

That was my biggest beef with dual-classing. I played a fighter who dual-classed into thief. I could never advance in fighter again, even though my character was in the military.

Personally, I believe that you should advance in the class that makes the most sense for the character. You should, IMO, be able to advance in two classes at once, or stop advancing in one class and advance in another. I also dislike favored classes, as I believe they tend to direct characters of certain races towards certain classes.

I haven't found the perfect system yet, either.