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

[Voadam]

And they were ridiculous because they weren't integrated into the rest of the game- nothing else, really, referred to psionics in the game with very few exceptions, so they weren't integrated at all.

But every 1e Monster and god entry has those psionics lines. Which are just taking up extra space since there are already monster stat lines for special attacks and defenses where this could come in.

 

[Sacrosanct]

"...just how good the fighter actually was designed."

That's the part that I don't think playing RAW helps determine.

I think it absolutely does, because as you immediately say:

I would say that you're in uncharted waters because people back in the day didn't follow the 1E rules religiously. I'll say again, I never saw anyone try and stick to (for any length of time, like a campaign) the 1E rules as they were written. They tried but quickly deemed many of them flawed.

Which goes to my point:

"We ignore all the rules that favored the fighter, then complain how the fighter sucks." To me, that's disingenuous to then try to complain how the game is not balanced, or the game is to blame for the fighter problems. No, the game isn't at fault, we are for choosing to ignore the rules that favored the fighter.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Fair... and they've been and are dying of old age. The first cohort is in their 70s and 80s. We lost a few last Winter. No more posts. Then months later we get the news. Never met them but it's sad.

My group had no problem using 10 segment rounds, up until the end of 2e, even with individual initiative. The M-U insisted on it, it made sense to us. Race level limits were thing at my table. Weapon vs Armor modifier were important to us.

Speed factor was one step too much for us. Psionics never came up as no one rolled high enough. I vaguely remember devils and demons used them against the party. Grappling? I can't recall.

The current game I'm in I talked about? The DM is in her late 20s. So they still exist and aren't just all old grogs.

 

[Sacrosanct]

But every 1e Monster and god entry has those psionics lines. Which are just taking up extra space since there are already monster stat lines for special attacks and defenses where this could come in.

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The whole thing was dumb. Psionics were created for the mind flayer as a way to get at players (that's why it's in the MM, along with the few other creatures that have it--appeared first in Dragon with the Mind Flayer). It was only included in the PHB when Tim Kask convinced Gary that it's not right that monsters would have psionics and no way a PC could defend against them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But every 1e Monster and god entry has those psionics lines. Which are just taking up extra space since there are already monster stat lines for special attacks and defenses where this could come in.

View attachment 416350

We used psionics in 1e, but only rarely because you had to roll high enough. We did try every time. Personally I preferred the 1e psionicist class from Dragon #78 or the 2e psionicist from the Complete Psionics Handbook.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The whole thing was dumb. Psionics were created for the mind flayer as a way to get at players (that's why it's in the MM, along with the few other creatures that have it--appeared first in Dragon with the Mind Flayer). It was only included in the PHB when Tim Kask convinced Gary that it's not right that monsters would have psionics and no way a PC could defend against them.

Says you. I never thought they were dumb, and continue to use psionics in my current games regularly.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Says you. I never thought they were dumb, and continue to use psionics in my current games regularly.

No, I meant how they were handled and how it went down.

Let's create this one monster to get a players!
Now that we did this one monster, let's add this field to every stat block even though it's pretty much NIL for everything
Let's create new mechanics of a crazy system, but put it in the back of the book, and ensure that 95% of PCs would never be able to get it anyway.

 

[fuindordm]

But yeah, following the official rules for psionics?? Not a chance. They were simply not well designed, and I'm well aware that statements that bold are frequently taken as blasphemous, but too bad. It's the truth. No, not one person's truth. The. Truth. The 1E version of the rules for Psionics were trash. Ask around if you don't believe me.

I have used AD&D psionics in serious games, and I like psi in my fantasy, but I won't lift a finger to defend the PH appendix version either.

 

[jolt]

We never did the 10 segment rounds. At the time, none of us grokked it.

We always used weapon speeds (as a basic modifier to initiative). It made more weapons relevant. 1E didn't really have many modifiers; adding a couple in didn't complicate anything as far as we saw. My Paladin in the Jade Regent AP had more modifiers to his rolls by 4th level than any 1E character of any level. As we didn't grok the initiative rules for spells, we just said that (in general) a spell had a combat casting speed of three times the spell's level.

We did use Weapon vs. AC Type, but it was only relevant when fighting humans, elves, dwarves, etc. Again, it kept more weapons relevant. A pick doesn't do a lot of damage, but it's at least decent vs. everything. As time went on, we fought more monsters and less human types so its importance diminished.

Technically, we did use psionics, but only one character ever had them and he died in his second adventure having never encountered a psionic creature.

We did use the racial level limits but they didn't really end up being very important. Nowadays, you've got AP's that run from levels 1-20, but you had nothing like that in 1E. There wasn't a lot once you hit the "lord" levels and most of those were either campaign enders like Tomb of Horrors or oddities like Barrier Peaks. Also, most non-humans were multi-class and so were behind the level curve anyway. We did use the suggestion (I think it was in the DMG, but I don't remember anymore) where you could advance further than the level limits, but it took double XP to do it.

 

[Voadam]

One big fighter advantage is that most other classes were not combat balanced against them.

In original OD&D the three classes seemed decently combat balanced, the Fighting Man was tough, had great defense and decent offense including the ability to use powerful magic swords. Magic Users were vulnerable but powerful artillery even with things like level 1 charm person turning those charmed into essentially your permanent (unless dispelled) mind controlled slave, not just a friend. Clerics were hybrid warrior casters with less artillery magic, but really good defense (same armor as fighter but a few less hp) and OK offense (no swords) and a few things of their own (healing magic, turning undead).

In the 1e PH you still have the decently balanced MU and cleric (with clerics getting a lot more spells) but the OD&D expansion classes like the thief and druid and monk. Thieves and druids are a bit of the inverse of the cleric, they get swords and so can use magic swords but only weak armor. In D&D this turns out to be OK offense and crappy defense which is pretty terrible. A cleric can tank the front line and protect everyone else even if they are not doing as much damage as everyone else, a druid and thief are not really doing the offense as well as a cleric does comparable fighter protection of everyone else. The crappier attack charts and the explosive power of fighter only percentile strength means they do not keep up offensively even with good magic swords (and for druids they have to be scimitars). And being more vulnerable they can't spend as long in direct melee so it is even further less of a good offense in practice. If the thief always got off backstab that might be a good offense, but as written it is really hard to pull off unless you surprise gank oneshotted someone you stealthed up on which is pretty niche.

Thieves are also hurt by being modified versions of the MU chasis with no spells and a little better offer and defense plus thief skills and backstab. Even the quicker xp charts do not give them a lot of advantage since they get so little from being a level ahead. Overall the 1e thief is not a good mechanical chassis for melee. AD&D thieves are not 4e/5e consistently high damage strikers.

Assassin subclass thieves are not really much better, just being able to use any weapon, but thieves already have the best in longsword. Assassins are able to use ranged weapons like bows so that is their big advantage with their dex focus making them decent back row archers like fighters can be.

Monks at high levels can be decent, but their d4 and huge restrictions makes them really weak combatants at low levels.