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

[kermit4karate]

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.

Yup, anyone claiming they played them by the book when 1E came out is...to be gracious...taking liberties with the truth.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

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.

My cover was always, "lightly-armored fighter" and I depended on the lack of curiousity of others to keep the illusion alive.

That has the advantage of no one asking you to use your thief skills, which is good, because the thief skills suck for thieves, and suck worse for assassins.

Sorry, I can't find or remove traps. Oh well.

It gets a little dicier once you learn to make poisons (which I knew about, because I also DM'd, so I read the section in the DM that said I could do it, and to never tell players that they could).

 

[Lanefan]

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).

Casting times spilling over into the following round sometimes serves as a bit of a brake on casters. If they go right from one spell to the next without doing anything else we do let them start the next spell the segment after the first one finished.

 

[Sacrosanct]

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.

That's how it is my current game. The assassin is a "fighter" wink wink. In character, no one knows he's an assassin. he has a 16 STR which helps sell the falsehood. And says he prefers the maneuverability that only light armor provides.

 

[James Gasik]

My cover was always, "lightly-armored fighter" and I depended on the lack of curiousity of others to keep the illusion alive.

That has the advantage of no one asking you to use your thief skills, which is good, because the thief skills suck for thieves, and suck worse for assassins.

Sorry, I can't find or remove traps. Oh well.

It gets a little dicier once you learn to make poisons (which I knew about, because I also DM'd, so I read the section in the DM that said I could do it, and to never tell players that they could).

Yeah, can't let those pesky players know they can do things!

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yup, anyone claiming they played them by the book when 1E came out is...to be gracious...taking liberties with the truth.

Really, anyone? They're all liars?

 

[ECMO3]

Single class Assasin PCs were not common in games I played, but Half-Orc Fighter/Assasins were very common.

They tried the "oh I am a fighter/thief" but the issue they ran into was Half-Orc was the only race with a level cap on thief, and the only one besides human with no level cap on fighter. So no one believed them generally based on metagame knowledge.

The evil alignment at level 1 was always a problem with Assasin PCs.

If you were power gaming the +1 Strength that came with the Half-Orc was very powerful and I would say half the PCs I saw with an 18+ strength were Half-Orcs.

 

[kermit4karate]

Really, anyone? They're all liars?

OK...maybe there were one or two.