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

[Staffan]

See, I've never agreed with that part. Use potions. Hire an NPC healer to adventure with you. Something else. A cleric's role isn't to just healbot.

I'd agree if AD&D had any other way of healing in a reasonable amount of time, but it doesn't (OK, if you're using 2e psionics there's also the Cell Adjustment power, but that's hella expensive in terms of PSPs per hp). So you need a healer in the group. And clerics are it. And you can't rely on potions because magic items are completely under the control of the DM.

4e was better in that the role of healer could be filled by any number of other classes, and out-of-combat healing was a personal responsibility. But in AD&D, clerics (and to some degree druids) were it. A cleric who can't heal is like a fighter who's a pacifist – interesting as a concept, but kinda useless.

Of course, that doesn't mean the cleric only heals. They can and should feel free to use the rest of the spell list as well. But it needs to be part of their toolkit.

I view all of that as completely unnecessary. The huge number of gods, probably a majority, had the healing sphere. If you want to be the group healer, it's simple to pick one. If you don't, then you have all the gods to pick from.

Depends on what source you're using for your specialty priests. If you're using Faiths & Avatars, where the specialty priests are basically Clerics Plus, sure. Legends & Lore also gives Healing spells to most priesthoods. But if you're using the Complete Priest's Handbook, there are many priesthoods that either don't get Healing at all, or only Minor access which only gets you cure light wounds and slow poison. And there are many priesthoods that don't get Necromantic, which is where things like cure disease and restoration can be found – also vital reasons to have a cleric.

Just like settings shouldn't all be kitchen sink, generic ho hums, not all gods need to be kitchen sink, generic healer options.

Again, I'd agree if clerics didn't have a virtual monopoly on healing.

 

[Maxperson]

I'd agree if AD&D had any other way of healing in a reasonable amount of time, but it doesn't (OK, if you're using 2e psionics there's also the Cell Adjustment power, but that's hella expensive in terms of PSPs per hp). So you need a healer in the group. And clerics are it. And you can't rely on potions because magic items are completely under the control of the DM.

4e was better in that the role of healer could be filled by any number of other classes, and out-of-combat healing was a personal responsibility. But in AD&D, clerics (and to some degree druids) were it. A cleric who can't heal is like a fighter who's a pacifist – interesting as a concept, but kinda useless.

Of course, that doesn't mean the cleric only heals. They can and should feel free to use the rest of the spell list as well. But it needs to be part of their toolkit.

Depends on what source you're using for your specialty priests. If you're using Faiths & Avatars, where the specialty priests are basically Clerics Plus, sure. Legends & Lore also gives Healing spells to most priesthoods. But if you're using the Complete Priest's Handbook, there are many priesthoods that either don't get Healing at all, or only Minor access which only gets you cure light wounds and slow poison. And there are many priesthoods that don't get Necromantic, which is where things like cure disease and restoration can be found – also vital reasons to have a cleric.

Again, I'd agree if clerics didn't have a virtual monopoly on healing.

If we're talking 1e/2e, getting a henchman, hireling, other NPC cleric to join was fairly easy. Let the DM be the healbot.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Agreed. And I had one DM who was like that as well, though he tended more towards uber weapons. With him I saw -1 to -5 fairly often. -6 to -10 were still fairly rare. His weapons, though, were off the charts. He had a special chart that included all the god weapons from the Deities and Demigods. One of my characters briefly(died to a death trap) had a +6 spear that did 6-60 damage. Fun times!

I would like to think that most of us who played as teenagers back in 1e days all had games like that at some point.

 

[Baron Opal II]

And just so happens that every PC happened to be in that adventure, and every one found the pools, and every one got the max benefit....

It's like how the player with the fighter always showed up with 18/75% or better STR

Nah, you're just witnessing natural selection. Those who had their STR halved were tossed to the gelatinous cubes for a clean getaway by the rest of the party.

That said, there has been more than once where I have asked or been asked "I want to play a paladin, monk, fighter with high strength", and we just rolled with it. (Hah!)

 

[Voadam]

2e has the same requirement. I looked last night.

You have to go to the aligned weapons portion of the magic item section on page 187.

"Any weapon with intelligence will have an alignment. Note that holy avenger, swords have alignment restrictions. All cursed weapons are absolutely neutral."

Paladins being LG would mean that holy avengers were also LG. The Horus CG exception to paladins wouldn't allow use of LG holy avengers. That said, if the setting had CG paladins of Horus in it, then it stands to reason that those paladins would have had CG holy avengers made at some point and those would be out there to find.

No, I quoted the same sections. 2e Intelligent holy avengers have alignment restrictions. CG paladins would have the conflicting alignment problems when wielding an intelligent LG avenger, though they would still activate the big paladin avenger powers. It does not say all holy avengers are LG the way 1e does outside of the intelligent sword alignment section.

1e gave intelligent swords alignments but it also gave alignments to "all" avenger, sharpness, and vorpal weapons. This is not in the intelligent swords alignment section but on p. 165 under the general swords part. 2e does not say the same thing. 2e only says under the intelligent aligned swords section that holy avengers have alignment restrictions and does not specify what those restrictions are. My read of that is that intelligent avengers alignment restrictions are implied to be paladin compatible alignment, and so most would be LG but if Horus is blessing intelligent avengers for his paladins he might make a CG one for his CG paladins and not violate anything written in the 2e DMG and if anyone blesses a standard holy avenger without separate special intelligence and alignment then CG and LG paladins can both fully use it no problem.

 

[Maxperson]

No, I quoted the same sections. 2e Intelligent holy avengers have alignment restrictions. CG paladins would have the conflicting alignment problems when wielding an intelligent LG avenger, though they would still activate the big paladin avenger powers. It does not say all holy avengers are LG the way 1e does outside of the intelligent sword alignment section.

1e gave intelligent swords alignments but it also gave alignments to "all" avenger, sharpness, and vorpal weapons. This is not in the intelligent swords alignment section but on p. 165 under the general swords part. 2e does not say the same thing. 2e only says under the intelligent aligned swords section that holy avengers have alignment restrictions and does not specify what those restrictions are. My read of that is that intelligent avengers alignment restrictions are implied to be paladin compatible alignment, and so most would be LG but if Horus is blessing intelligent avengers for his paladins he might make a CG one for his CG paladins and not violate anything written in the 2e DMG and if anyone blesses a standard holy avenger without separate special intelligence and alignment then CG and LG paladins can both fully use it no problem.

You basically just repeated what you quoted me saying. Holy Avengers = LG unless paladins of Horus are there, in which case they might make CG versions.

 

[Voadam]

You basically just repeated what you quoted me saying. Holy Avengers = LG unless paladins of Horus are there, in which case they might make CG versions.

Except for the part about 100% of 1e holy avengers being LG (whether intelligent or not) and only 25% of 2e holy avengers being intelligent with alignments.

A 1e CG paladin from that Plethora of Paladins Dragon article has an alignment conflict with 100% of 1e holy avengers. A 2e CG paladin can use 75% of all 2e holy avengers with no alignment conflict issue.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah, I'm not arguing that there were a ton of magical items, I'm saying that having an AC around -7 is a dubious claim unless you were playing Monty Haul or your DM was just handing out powerful items like candy. The actual items in the actual published adventures doesn't support ACs like that.

And again, that all assumes that your PC would get all of that instead of another PC, that you found all those items already, and you'd be very high level by the time you got them (which is a tier of play hardly anyone played at).

I also find it interesting that PCs loaded with the most powerful magic items also always had 18s in their stats. Funny that...

Except the adventures do.
It was bracers of defense AC 3 or 2 iirc, high dexterity, probably a shield and ring.

 

[Voadam]

Except the adventures do.
It was bracers of defense AC 3 or 2 iirc, high dexterity, probably a shield and ring.

The top end bracers of defense that stack with rings of protection because they are not magical armor are the key part of that.

Without the bracers the most you could get for the armor aspect from the 1e DMG would be leather +1 which means no ring or ring and nonmagical leather armor.

Max would be Bracers AC 2, dex 18 (-4), (wooden) shield +5 (-6), ring of protection +6 AC for AC -14. Scimitar +5 defender could make that a -19.

 

[James Gasik]

Except the adventures do.
It was bracers of defense AC 3 or 2 iirc, high dexterity, probably a shield and ring.

You can't really count on high Dexterity though, so most of the time, those items aren't going to drop you that low in AC. And using a magic shield can have it's own concerns (plus, unless it's a 2e only thing, you can only use your shield against a set number of attacks each turn).

Modules didn't really seem to care how rare an item was, like getting a Ring of Elemental Command or Djinni Summoning in Bone Hill at levels 2-4. Lots of +1 weapons and armor all around, which really makes me confused when people wax nostalgic about "getting a magic weapon was a special and rare thing" at low levels, lol.

And like I said, it's obvious adventure writers weren't very concerned with the magic item tables. They generally made sure "+x" items didn't get crazy, but had no qualms with "oh, you find 3-4 Ioun Stones" (Beyond the Crystal Cave).