D&D General I'm a Fighter, not a Lover: Why the 1e Fighter was so Awesome

[mixmastashizz]

Except when the rubber met the road that didn't matter much. Clerics had almost as many hit points, had as much armour, and could heal. Unless it was a one shot situation or L1 the Cleric was tougher.

Or slightly less than 2% of fighters could close the gap on clerics a bit


For characters who did not roll three sixes no they didn't. For half of all the remaining characters that were rolled fairly they barely did (+0 to hit, +1 damage for 18/49 Vs just 18)

With honest rolls this almost never mattered.

Fighters only real advantage over clerics was, when push came to shove, the fact the rules (with bonus damage Vs large creatures) and especially the magic items tables were weighted towards swords.

Interesting how the third worst 1e class shared that with the second worst class - the thief. (The worst was of course the 1e monk).

So that's an actual lead at level 7. And a bigger one way after the level soft cap

Gygax himself came to realise that 1e fighters were just plain bad and Rob Kuntz being able to run rings round him with Robilar screwed up his playtesting. As he was explicit about on these boards that was why he added weapon specialisation - for game balance. And if Gygax said it was for balance I trust his judgement more than yours on this.

The long and the short of it is the best a 1e fighter could hope for was to become a bard.

Ill say that this doesnt reflect my current play experience, fighters (even without 18 str) routinely outshine clerics in combat, durability, and weapon flexibility.

But I am but one DM playing for one table.

 

[Maxperson]

Yeah +3 weapons could be low expert levels while +2 were late basic.

Not just Gygax adventures either. Frostbrand might drop level 5 you would still be using it 5-10 levels later.

It has been ages, but I vaguely remember the basic rules only having +1 weapons in them.

 

[Voadam]

It has been ages, but I vaguely remember the basic rules only having +1 weapons in them.

From B/X Basic

 

[Staffan]

And if Gygax said it was for balance I trust his judgement more than yours on this.

 

[Maxperson]

In B/X Basic it is clear for the xp maximum:

"MAXIMUM XP: A character should never be given enough XP in a single adventure to advance more than one level of experience. For example, if a beginning (0 XP) 1st level fighter earns 5000 XP (a rare and outstanding achievement), he or she should only be given 3999 XP, enough to place the character 1 XP short of 3rd level."

Huh. I mentioned upthread that I had a few 1e DMs cap exp like this. Now I know where they got it from!

In the 1e DMG it is less clearly written, but looking at it now I think it stops you at exactly the minimum xp for the new level until you get training and get the new level:

"Thus, a character who successfully adventures and gains experience points which not only equal a new level but are almost sufficient to gain yet a second such level, cannot opt to forego the period of training and study necessary to go up a level in favor of gaining a few more points and training and studying for two levels at once. ONCE A CHARACTER HAS POINTS WHICH ARE EQUAL TO OR GREATER THAN THE MINIMUM NUMBER NECESSARY TO MOVE UPWARDS IN EXPERIENCE LEVEL, NO FURTHER EXPERIENCE POINTS CAN BE GAINED UNTIL THE CHARACTER ACTUALLY GAINS THE NEW LEVEL."

The first half talks about characters gaining more than the new level's minimum consistent with B/X, but then the all caps says when you have equal to or greater than the minimum for a new level you gain no more until you train and level. The or greater I guess means it cuts off after you collate xp from an adventure, I guess when your gold counts for xp.

"Treasure must be physically taken out of the dungeon or lair and turned into a transportable medium or stored in the player’s stronghold to be counted for experience points."

The all caps portion seems to me to be consistent with the first portion. The all caps reads to me like the thief with 1200xp doesn't have enough for 2nd level yet, so if he gets 800 more xp, he then has 2000xp and ceases to get any more until he trains.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Ill say that this doesnt reflect my current play experience, fighters (even without 18 str) routinely outshine clerics in combat, durability, and weapon flexibility.

But I am but one DM playing for one table.

It's how it looks because the cleric plays support. But when someone hits the fighter and the cleric heals them although the durability looks as if it came from the fighter it's actually the cleric dealing with the hp loss that lets them keep going. And the cleric can wear just as much armour (and possibly more because there are fewer good two handed weapon choices); this isn't a robed healer situation.

So with basically any healing at all the cleric is bringing more durability to the party. They're just generous in sharing it out while the fighter selfishly takes it (but not as selfishly as the wizard hiding behind the pair of them)

 

[Maxperson]

From B/X Basic

View attachment 416268

Thanks! Mostly +1s, but that +2 is in there for swords. And half of them are improved against various creatures.

 

[Neonchameleon]

What next? Threat or Menace headlines?

I'm genuinely serious. One of the big strengths oD&D and to a lesser extent 1e had was that Gygax & Co. playtested the hell out of it - and playtested it with the intent to break it. I think that basically nothing in the RPG world before at least the mid 00s and possibly a lot longer than that had that level of playtesting. Which means that, despite very dubious design foundations oD&D is one of the best balanced tabletop RPGs around for the game it is trying to be. (Which is a low bar)

 

[James Gasik]

It's how it looks because the cleric plays support. But when someone hits the fighter and the cleric heals them although the durability looks as if it came from the fighter it's actually the cleric dealing with the hp loss that lets them keep going. And the cleric can wear just as much armour (and possibly more because there are fewer good two handed weapon choices); this isn't a robed healer situation.

So with basically any healing at all the cleric is bringing more durability to the party. They're just generous in sharing it out while the fighter selfishly takes it (but not as selfishly as the wizard hiding behind the pair of them)

The Cleric was long in this strange position of being, on paper, one of the strongest classes, but in practice, they got relegated to "heal bots" and even though they could use most of the combat-oriented magic items, Fighter classes generally got priority for those.

For example, there's nothing stopping a 1e Cleric from using what Snarf calls the "Holy Grail" of magic items- Girdle of Giant Strength + Gauntlets of Ogre Power + Hammer of Thunderbolts. But you'd likely never see a Cleric kitted out that way. I had a Cleric in a game once who managed to snag a Girdle of Stone Giant Strength, and for a short time at least, inferior weapon choices didn't matter- I was a wrecking ball who the 18/98 Strength Fighter was envious of!

Said Fighter eventually teamed up with another player to murder me to get said Girdle for himself. Needless to say, he paid for that in the long run- I sure as heck wasn't going to play another Cleric to heal his treacherous behind after that!

I wondered for a long time why Clerics were so unsung during my AD&D years- I remember playing in a lot of different groups, and having a healer around wasn't common. Then it occurred to me that I had a lot of potions of healing on my character sheet- I'm not sure how common those were meant to be, but a combination of published adventures and no doubt DM interference kept our Fighter-types swimming in potions.

That and my DM's only seemed to care about natural healing rates while in the field- between adventures, it was amazing how quickly people healed to full hit points!

 

[Staffan]

What next? Threat or Menace headlines?

I'm genuinely serious. One of the big strengths oD&D and to a lesser extent 1e had was that Gygax & Co. playtested the hell out of it - and playtested it with the intent to break it. I think that basically nothing in the RPG world before at least the mid 00s and possibly a lot longer than that had that level of playtesting. Which means that, despite very dubious design foundations oD&D is one of the best balanced tabletop RPGs around for the game it is trying to be. (Which is a low bar)

The existence of something like exceptional strength and XP bonuses for having high stats are the very opposite of game balance. They are "win more" mechanics. If you want fighters to be good at fighting, give them bonuses to fighting within the class itself rather than making it contingent on a random roll.

I can appreciate Gygax for being the first to codify the concept of role-playing games. That doesn't mean he was any good at game design. That's not surprising – people tend to learn from the mistakes of others.