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

[Snarf Zagyg]

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.

I loved the original 1e Assassin. But here's the thing. A lot of the time, you wanted people to think you weren't an assassin. "Oh no, I'm just a thief." Sometimes, even your own party.

Unfortunately, the whole, "Ima shoot a bow" always gave it away.

 

[Voadam]

I loved the original 1e Assassin. But here's the thing. A lot of the time, you wanted people to think you weren't an assassin. "Oh no, I'm just a thief." Sometimes, even your own party.

Unfortunately, the whole, "Ima shoot a bow" always gave it away.

Not always.

In my long term 1e campaign my brother and a friend played wild elf assassins and convinced everybody they were thieves for a couple levels, even though neither of them had any thief skills until third level and my brother was running around with a trident and shield from the start.

Elf gives you a bunch of stealthy thief like abilities and coming from B/X basic where thieves can use any weapons you might not notice that 1e thieves cannot.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Not always.

In my long term 1e campaign my brother and a friend played wild elf assassins and convinced everybody they were thieves for a couple levels, even though neither of them had any thief skills until third level and my brother was running around with a trident and shield from the start.

Elf gives you a bunch of stealthy thief like abilities and coming from B/X basic where thieves can use any weapons you might not notice that 1e thieves cannot.

Fair, but still... it's one of those "game" things that doesn't always mesh with the fiction of the world. I mean ... do the people in the world understand the restrictions?

If the Salem Witch trials occurred in 1e, would the trial simply be, "WITCH. You can prove your innocence. See that sword? PICK IT UP."

 

[James Gasik]

Speaking of "Lord" level- should we count the generally better class of followers attracted by the Fighter as an advantage? Clerics get 0-level Men-at-Arms, Wizards get nothing, etc..

Honestly, looking at the Fighter followers chart, it never seemed like you really had enough men to do more than guard your fortress and secure the lands around it- you don't get enough people to actually fight an army, but you could take out bandits or clear a low-level dungeon. There is, however, the guaranteed henchman to consider.

 

[ECMO3]

Few examples of 1E rules that I never saw anyone actually using. These were widely considered poor ideas from the start:

• Combat rounds divided into 10 "segments." Everyone tried to make that work.... Shortly thereafter, they gave up. Dumb idea.
• Weapon modifiers based on the opponent’s armor type. Too complex. Most people dropped it.
• Elf, dwarf, halflings, etc. level caps for some classes. Widely loathed. Most people ignored it.
• Weapon speed factors. Way too complex. You would have been hard-pressed to find anyone who used that when it came out.
• Psionics. Almost no one -- and I mean no one -- used the rules for psionics as they were intended and written. Maybe they added a thing or two, but no one was following the psionics rules straight from the book.
• Grappling. Same as psionics. They were widely considered too complex and unnecessary from the start.

So we used a custom initiative which worked well with Segments. We rolled a 1d10 for initiative and then added speed factor or casting time to determine what initiative your attack or spell happened on. It made spell casters and especially spells with short casting times significantly more powerful.

We also always honored the level caps.

We used psionics, but in 20+ years of playing I can only remember 1 PC who rolled psionics. It completely broke most normal encounters. There was a lot of pages on psionics, but most of that only mattered if one psionic using creature was fighting with another psionic using creature.

We eventually used the grappling rules from Unearthed Arcana.

 

[ECMO3]

Not always.

In my long term 1e campaign my brother and a friend played wild elf assassins and convinced everybody they were thieves for a couple levels, even though neither of them had any thief skills until third level and my brother was running around with a trident and shield from the start.

Elf gives you a bunch of stealthy thief like abilities and coming from B/X basic where thieves can use any weapons you might not notice that 1e thieves cannot.

The irony is Assasins could use any weapons, but they were still limited on what weapons they could backstab with.

 

[Voadam]

The best for the thief/assassin cover story is he would always say he would check for traps, I would roll and say "You don't find any." and he would then have the party ranger who had the most hit points open up the door or chest or whatever "just in case."

 

[Lanefan]

Few examples of 1E rules that I never saw anyone actually using. These were widely considered poor ideas from the start:

• Combat rounds divided into 10 "segments." Everyone tried to make that work.... Shortly thereafter, they gave up. Dumb idea.

In fact the segmented round is a very good idea, except it needs to be six segments (to line up with the d6 initiative roll) rather than ten. It's an easy conversion to make, but tedious, as all the spell casting times have to be rejigged to suits a 6-segment round.

• Weapon modifiers based on the opponent’s armor type. Too complex. Most people dropped it.
• Elf, dwarf, halflings, etc. level caps for some classes. Widely loathed. Most people ignored it.
• Weapon speed factors. Way too complex. You would have been hard-pressed to find anyone who used that when it came out.

Agreed on these, though I more often saw demi-Human level limits relazed rather than dropped entirely.

• Psionics. Almost no one -- and I mean no one -- used the rules for psionics as they were intended and written. Maybe they added a thing or two, but no one was following the psionics rules straight from the book.

Psionics as written were a disaster. That said, the concept of psionics is good; it just needs a homebrew rewrite from the ground up (which not everyone's willing to do!) in order to work well.

That, and it's clear Gygax never read Kurtz' Deryni books, some of which were out in the early-mid 70s. Had he done, I suspect psionics would look a lot different and there would have been a bunch of psionic-driven magic items in original 1e.

• Grappling. Same as psionics. They were widely considered too complex and unnecessary from the start.

From what I can gather, this applies to every D&D edition ever written.

 

[Lanefan]

I loved the original 1e Assassin. But here's the thing. A lot of the time, you wanted people to think you weren't an assassin. "Oh no, I'm just a thief." Sometimes, even your own party.

Unfortunately, the whole, "Ima shoot a bow" always gave it away.

You blew your own cover, then.

Should have come in as a "light-armoured Fighter-Thief". I've pulled that one before.

Also brought in a Nature Cleric-Thief once, had the party convinced for his whole career that he was an unusually spindly Ranger.

 

[mixmastashizz]

In fact the segmented round is a very good idea, except it needs to be six segments (to line up with the d6 initiative roll) rather than ten. It's an easy conversion to make, but tedious, as all the spell casting times have to be rejigged to suits a 6-segment round.

Agreed on these, though I more often saw demi-Human level limits relazed rather than dropped entirely.

Psionics as written were a disaster. That said, the concept of psionics is good; it just needs a homebrew rewrite from the ground up (which not everyone's willing to do!) in order to work well.

That, and it's clear Gygax never read Kurtz' Deryni books, some of which were out in the early-mid 70s. Had he done, I suspect psionics would look a lot different and there would have been a bunch of psionic-driven magic items in original 1e.

From what I can gather, this applies to every D&D edition ever written.

Eh, I like the 10 segment round with a d6 initiative.

It helps most spells finish within the same round with minimal spill over (except for high level spells).