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

[Zardnaar]

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!

We had clerics that got items like that. Usually as a second tier behind warriors though.

 

[GreyLord]

Jameson is an idiot though. Moreso in the comics (especially at the start, he's actually more like the Greatest primary villain spiderman has. Spiderman/Peter Parker has other villains, but JJ is by far the biggest one and greatest of them all. For some reason many modern readers don't get that (probably because some of the later authors didn't get it themselves), but he's a villain (primarily because he's such an idiot).

 

[James Gasik]

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.

Gary really seemed to like making character creation a gamble with "bonus rounds" for more prizes. Roll stats. Roll hit points. Roll for exceptional strength. Roll for Psionic ability.

Then you had gambling in play- random magic item generation is really strange if you think about it. Vast, incredibly unbalanced tables that any DM is quickly going to learn to ignore or heavily curate, defeating the whole purpose (yet they persisted until 4e finally did away with them!). Or magic items with varying charges, powers, or even effects (Wand of Wonder). Or straight up gambling with your character's future with the Deck of Many Things!

Add in random monsters, random summons, random spells known, and heck, the DMG even had a random Dungeon generator! Most of the pieces for the first Rogue or Diablo-like, procedurally generated game were right there, though I wonder if anyone really played that way.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Possibly - but it's also true. The bard, if they get there, has all the advantages listed for the fighter except some armour. They get full use of stats. They get multi attack. And they have actively more hp than a fighter as bardic hit dice stack with fighter hit dice. And they have thief skills and backstab. And they have spells.

We literally just had a lengthy conversation about how this isn't true in this thread.

Also, they use the attack table of the fighter class, which will always be between 5-8 max without ever getting better (depending on when they become a thief). By the time you get a few levels in bard, your THAC0 is around 16 while the fighter's is 6-8. That's a huge difference. They can't wear any armor heavier than chain, and are limited to weapon usage and can't use shields. That's...pretty important.
Their thief skills will also likewise be capped at level 5-8. Great news! You're in a party of 12th level PCs and you won't ever have better than a 40ish% to do thief skills. Better take your armor off first though.
Their Saving throws are also capped. Which is super important because like explained earlier about level progression, the bard will be sitting at round 50% chance of failing a save when the fighter is at 25% of failing a save. That's also critically important in a game where failing a save can result in death.
Also, they don't get multi-attack unless they hold off going to thief until later (which in turn delays when they can be a bard). At best, they are 3/2 when the fighter is doing 2/1.
the bard doesn't do all those things you mention effectively until late game, where the straight fighter will be in the high teens. An area of the game that was hardly played at.

Bards are good at being well-rounded, but they suck compared to a comparable straight fighter at fighting, thief at thieving, or druid at...druiding?

 

[Sacrosanct]

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.

Mine either. Clerics are great, but do have limitations. Not only the ones mentioned earlier (weapon restriction, to hit table, weapon profs, attacks per round), but you gotta really role-play your religion well or you lose your access to spells.

Once you get past the first couple levels, the fighter really shows how much better at actual combat they are vs. the cleric. That's been my experience playing 1e for 45 years now.