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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9745742" data-attributes="member: 6799660">I think the larger point or takeaway (at least for me) is that the base qualities of the fighter like more hit points, extra attacks, being able to leverage attributes to their highest potential, and being able to use all the combat equipment (both magical and mundane) were, by themselves, a huge part of what made an AD&D fighter great. Perhaps a side corollary being that it's easy to miss how valuable or effective it really was.We can go into any number of side tangents about how it incentivizes roll-until-statisfied, the design consequences of putting class features on the equipment/loot table (and what happens when DMs/future developers then change things), or how often people actually used 1e initiative (and how that effected spell disruption). But, at the end of the day, a fighter was special because they were the only ones that could throw down against the big creatures in the book with lots of hp and high damage outputs. And that was because they were the only ones likely to be able to have those big numbers in the HP, AC, saves, and damage/round columns.I kinda disagree on this. Getting a fighter to 18/76+ strength and/or a high Dex or Con (admittedly often with those magic items) was absolutely huge. True about saves -- a fighter (or most classes, really) could ignore int, wis, and cha a lot more readily, and certainly the difference between a 14 and a 3 in tertiary stats rarely made much difference.Yes, this was part of the design process. There weren't really options for a high defense mage or a high damage cleric. If you wanted to be out there taking attacks and responding in kind, you had to be a fighter (-type). Therefore, being able to do that (with simple AC, HP, attack to-hit/rate/damage) was an actual benefit that felt good to get.We could quibble about whether they are 'innate,' but I get your point. To make them truly like the 1e model, it might be something like this*:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">add a second weapon chart, with weapons that do more damage. Only fighters  (and for some of them, rogues) can use these weapons. 70% of magic weapons found in-game are from this list.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Do the same for armor, except clerics are the ones that can also use them.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Have fighters get double-bonus (i.e. a 16 dex gives you a +6) from attributes.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Fighters are the only type to get the multi-attack ability (no bladesingers, valor bards, bladelocks, etc.).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Fighters over level 7** get a plus to all saves equal to their tier (or proficiency bonus if we're feeling extra generous).</li> </ul>*I am leaving the discussion about what to do about rangers, paladins, barbarians, and monks out of this discussion, as I don't really care if they get grouped in with fighters for this, but it obviously would have a big effect on the resultant game. Choose one way or the other for your own thought experiment. **I read recently that that's the usual cutoff for how high people end up playing characters, and it was just mentioned in one of these threads that 1e fighters didn't actually get better saves natively (not coming from having the highest + armors, rings, etc.) until levels above where most games ended.The weapon system for AD&D is absolutely borked (especially if you didn't use weapon vs. AC, which apparently very few of us did). At least when combined with a weapon proficiency system where you have to pick your proficiencies not knowing what magic loot you will run into. Fighters only having a -2 to non-proficient weapons helps a lot here, although if you run into a +2 horseman's flail and fight at it with -2 for 1d4+3, are you really ahead (magic-requiring enemies notwithstanding)?The primary advantage for a fighter is that they got to use plate armor, shields, longswords, two-handed swords (more useful if your DM didn't use the DMG rules on what swords were magical), lances, and longbows. The ability to use a suit of +4 scale mail or +3 guisarme-voulge if you stumbled across one was a tertiary benefit at best.That said, you could use the magic longswords, and the magic plate armor, and there were many of those to be had. More to the point, there were only so many magic daggers, and maces/hammers/slings, and leather armor. So you got the pick of the pile and the rest of the group had at least one category (offense or defense) where they had to vie for what little was offered.I think you are both right. TSR-era D&D made good use of magic items to customize your character the way that modern D&D uses feats and other build choices (which make massive amounts of magic items superfluous and maybe even detracting). I think both have their place, but can step on each others' toes. 3e (at least 'internet theoretical 3e') certainly ran into that with a 'WBL Christmas tree of magic items, but most of them just rebalancing numbers upwards' potential. More to the point, TSR-era A/D&D worked very well as a treasure-hunter game -- it used and incentivized item acquisition and made acquiring more to get better at acquiring it fun. It has its place and I think it best to recognize where and when it works best.</blockquote>

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