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.

 

[LordBP]

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.

Here you go. Enjoy!

Dungeon Robber

 

[fuindordm]

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!

Randomness, lucky rolls and treasure drops, and exploiting luck to build your PC's legend were definitely part of the core game.

However, the enormous power gap between randomly generated characters, via ability score and hit points, is one of the very few things about AD&D that I actively dislike. And it is most egregious for fighters. Exceptional strength is not that uncommon in fairly generated PCs, but it still doesn't sit well with me.

For my AD&D campaign I had a long think about how the ability scores work and eventually decided that each class group should get more out of their prime requisite than PCs from other groups, but always staying on the same scale. Clerics get bonus spells for Wisdom, thieves get bonuses to their skills for high dex, etc. So you should get exceptional strength for BEING a fighter (paladin, ranger, barbarian), not just because you had a lucky roll.

Here's the house rule I use:

Strength table for PCs in the fighter group only:

Strength	To hit	Damage	Racial ceiling	Carry capacity	Open doors	Exceptional feat
9				Base +10 lbs	1-2	2%
10-11				Base +20 lbs	1-2	4%
12-13				Base +35 lbs	1-2	7%
14		+1		Base +50 lbs	1-3	10%
15	+1	+2	Halfling	Base +100 lbs	1-3	13%
16	+1	+3	Gnome	Base +125 lbs	1-3	20%
17	+2	+4	Elf	Base +150 lbs	1-4	30%
18	+2	+5	Dwarf, Half-Elf	Base +200 lbs	1-4 (magic 1)	35%
19*	+3	+6		Base +300 lbs	1-5 (magic 2)	40%

The racial limit refers only to the bonuses, not the actual score. For example, a halfling fighter with a 17 strength has +1 to hit, +2 damage, an extra 100 points of carry capacity, etc.

 

[Staffan]

So you should get exceptional strength for BEING a fighter (paladin, ranger, barbarian), not just because you had a lucky roll.

Revised Dark Sun did something like that. When you rolled stats on 4d4+4 for PCs as a default (with a number of alternate methods available, but all topping out at 20 before racial modifiers), it turned out that the difference between rolling an 18 and a 19 was an absolutely massive gap, and Strength 19 and 20 were definitely accessible to non-fighters. So in revised Dark Sun, they put the exceptional Strength modifiers at 19-22 instead (there was some squeezing going on), extended the table after that so new 23 was more or less old 19, and gave Warrior-group characters a bonus d4 to Strength.

From where I'm sitting now in the modern day, that's still putting too much emphasis on a single lucky roll, but at least that's a bonus all warrior-types get rather than only the ones who were lucky enough to roll an 18.

 

[Staffan]

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).

Sure, but it's still a great reaction gif.

 

[The Soloist]

I bit late to the discussion but you are correct @Snarf Zagyg. Fighter saving throws were also favourable. Targeting the M-U (spell casters) to interrupt was indeed a tactic on both sides of the DM screen. Short bows and slings first round. Fighter in melee on second round (more or less, depending on initiative and encounter distance). That is why the M-U had to hide in the back and hope no one was coming from behind. Having a henchman in rearguard was a good idea. AD&D was very tactical.

Despite all that I preferred playing M-Us and Illusionists.