Jack Daniel
dice-universe.blogspot.com
My game of choice has long been the original/classic game: plain vanilla, not-advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Because of this, my campaign settings of late have all turned this way and that to reflect the way that races and classes are approached in the classic game. Namely, human characters get to pick a class, but demihuman characters each belong to distinct racial classes. So while a human might be a fighter, a cleric, a thief, a mage, or a monk, all elves are elves (basically fighter/mages), all dwarves are dwarves, and all hobbits are hobbits (the latter two classes merely act as fighters with a few special abilities).
I can't really think of any circumstance that might get me to try out 4th edition. Everything I've seen about this game has me recoiling in disappointment from the fact that it's just as overcomplicated as 3rd edition. I think I'm just too curmudgeonly to bother wrapping my head around any post-2e rules anymore. But I did notice that the designers of 4e tried to make race-class combinations more vital than they had been in the past: that if you play an elf or a dwarf, that continues to matter throughout your career. I certainly approve of the sentiment, even if the execution seems to depend entirely on feats and powers (those aforementioned overcomplications that my games have always worked fine leaving aside). Still, it got me thinking that if the circumstances converged and I absoultely had to run 4e (my players have been known to insist before...), it wouldn't be all that hard to model the classic D&D classes using the bare-bones eight classes being provided in the 4e PHB.
The simplicity of classic D&D, even over and above AD&D, is that the restricted character options really reinforce the way the world is. A human world, with diminishing demihumans living in shrinking enclaves. That could be modeled under the 4e rules by restricting the classes to the following races:
The end result is that each major race is very, very unique in what it can be and do, and humans make out to be the most versatile of the bunch.
But that's all just speculation. Here's something else that I definitely mean to do in the very near future:
I really, really like what I've seen from Pathfinder. They did a wonderful job of mopping up v3.5. I have no intention of playing 3e anymore (I spent a lot of years trying to use 3e to "recapture the magic," only to discover that I could only do that by sticking with classic and 2e), but I think that the changes that Pathfinder made to the 3e class system are in large part worth porting over into 2e to shift things into better balance.
The 2e class system, for those of you that might not remember, looked thus:
WARRIORS: Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, *Barbarian
PRIESTS: Cleric, Druid, *Shaman, *Monk
ROGUES: Thief, Bard, *Ninja
PSIONICISTS: *Psionicist
WIZARDS: Mage, Specialist
(*Classes from splatbooks.)
In 2nd edition, there are four tiers of hit dice (excluding the barbarian, which has the special d12 progression), which generally match four tiers of attack ability (THAC0 progressions of 1/1, 2/3, 1/2, and 1/3, generally referred to as the Warrior, Priest, Rogue/Psi, and Wizard attack values). The hit dice were preserved in 3e; the attack values were generally collapsed from four tiers into three (3rd edition's good, medium, and poor attack bonuses). Pathfinder has further collapsed the hit dice to match the attack values, and I really like this idea (partly because classic D&D already works the same way, with a fighter, a cleric/thief, and a mage rank of overall combat ability).
To create a class system for 2nd edition that does the same thing, I'm going to rearrange the classes to work on three tiers: warriors, priests/rogues, and wizards/psionics. Psionicists were always the most overpowered of the lot, so they can be left on the bottom rank of hit dice and THAC0. Essentially, wizards just get upgraded to the d6 and the 1/2 attack progression to match the psionicists, and that fleshes out the bottom tier.
For the middle tier, the spellcasting priests (clerics, druids, shamans) can be left as is, with the d8 hit die and the 2/3 attack value. But the whole rogue group has to be upgraded to match them, so thieves, bards, and ninjas are made to be equal in combat ability and hit points to priests. Again, this is really justifiable: rogue-types in 2e were all by far the weakest of the lot, despite their rapid XP progression.
Finally, at the top of the list, the core warriors (fighters, pallies, and rangers) are unchanged with their d10 hit die and 1/1 attack. Barbarians and monks are a bit of a sticky point, because I like these classes to be tougher-than-tough, but 2e barbarians are really boring (they're not too different from fighters), while 2e monks are altogether too interesting (too many Kwai-Chang Kaine derrived innate ki powers to be a really fun martial artist class). Fixing the barbarian is easy: just apply the berserker kit from the CFH (and slow their XP progression to match the paladin/ranger) and bam, you have a fair approximation of the 3e barbarian. As for the monk, I would do pretty much what I did to the 3e monk in the majority of my campaigns: strip out most of the foo-foo frilly innates, leaving only the unarmed strike damage and the multiple attacks, and just give them the d12 hit die and the warrior attack (and XP) progression. Voila, instant "black belt" class, a la Final Fantasy.
When all is said and done, I should have a reorganized 2e class system, ready to run through some classic AD&D adventures (The Temple of Elemental Evil and the Against the Giants trilogy beckon, mwahaha...) that looks rather like this:
WARRIORS (d10 or d12 hit die, 1/1 attack): Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian, Monk
PRIESTS and ROGUES (d8 hit die, 2/3 attack): Cleric, Druid, Shaman, Thief, Bard, Ninja
WIZARDS and PSIONICS (d6 hit die, 1/2 attack): Mage, Specialist, Psionicist
I can't really think of any circumstance that might get me to try out 4th edition. Everything I've seen about this game has me recoiling in disappointment from the fact that it's just as overcomplicated as 3rd edition. I think I'm just too curmudgeonly to bother wrapping my head around any post-2e rules anymore. But I did notice that the designers of 4e tried to make race-class combinations more vital than they had been in the past: that if you play an elf or a dwarf, that continues to matter throughout your career. I certainly approve of the sentiment, even if the execution seems to depend entirely on feats and powers (those aforementioned overcomplications that my games have always worked fine leaving aside). Still, it got me thinking that if the circumstances converged and I absoultely had to run 4e (my players have been known to insist before...), it wouldn't be all that hard to model the classic D&D classes using the bare-bones eight classes being provided in the 4e PHB.
The simplicity of classic D&D, even over and above AD&D, is that the restricted character options really reinforce the way the world is. A human world, with diminishing demihumans living in shrinking enclaves. That could be modeled under the 4e rules by restricting the classes to the following races:
- Human characters may only be fighters, clerics, rogues, or wizards. They can multiclass freely between any two of these by taking a second class as a paragon path.
- Dwarf characters must belong to the paladin class. Halfling characters must belong to the ranger class. These restrictions reflect the traditional D&D dwarf (a stereotypically lawful fighter) and the traditional D&D hobbit (a sneaky, woodsy fighter).
- Elf characters may belong to either the warlord or the (fey-pact) warlock classes. "Elfy" elves start as warlords and may opt to become warlocks after level 10, if they don't want a paragon path. "Eladriny" elves start as warlocks and may, if they choose, multiclass into warlord. Not only does this preserve the classic D&D fighter/mage elf, but it also nicely models the Tolkien-style "warrior/leader" elf that one might imagine best describes everyone from Elrond to Glorfindel to Legolas to Celeborn.
The end result is that each major race is very, very unique in what it can be and do, and humans make out to be the most versatile of the bunch.
But that's all just speculation. Here's something else that I definitely mean to do in the very near future:
I really, really like what I've seen from Pathfinder. They did a wonderful job of mopping up v3.5. I have no intention of playing 3e anymore (I spent a lot of years trying to use 3e to "recapture the magic," only to discover that I could only do that by sticking with classic and 2e), but I think that the changes that Pathfinder made to the 3e class system are in large part worth porting over into 2e to shift things into better balance.
The 2e class system, for those of you that might not remember, looked thus:
WARRIORS: Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, *Barbarian
PRIESTS: Cleric, Druid, *Shaman, *Monk
ROGUES: Thief, Bard, *Ninja
PSIONICISTS: *Psionicist
WIZARDS: Mage, Specialist
(*Classes from splatbooks.)
In 2nd edition, there are four tiers of hit dice (excluding the barbarian, which has the special d12 progression), which generally match four tiers of attack ability (THAC0 progressions of 1/1, 2/3, 1/2, and 1/3, generally referred to as the Warrior, Priest, Rogue/Psi, and Wizard attack values). The hit dice were preserved in 3e; the attack values were generally collapsed from four tiers into three (3rd edition's good, medium, and poor attack bonuses). Pathfinder has further collapsed the hit dice to match the attack values, and I really like this idea (partly because classic D&D already works the same way, with a fighter, a cleric/thief, and a mage rank of overall combat ability).
To create a class system for 2nd edition that does the same thing, I'm going to rearrange the classes to work on three tiers: warriors, priests/rogues, and wizards/psionics. Psionicists were always the most overpowered of the lot, so they can be left on the bottom rank of hit dice and THAC0. Essentially, wizards just get upgraded to the d6 and the 1/2 attack progression to match the psionicists, and that fleshes out the bottom tier.
For the middle tier, the spellcasting priests (clerics, druids, shamans) can be left as is, with the d8 hit die and the 2/3 attack value. But the whole rogue group has to be upgraded to match them, so thieves, bards, and ninjas are made to be equal in combat ability and hit points to priests. Again, this is really justifiable: rogue-types in 2e were all by far the weakest of the lot, despite their rapid XP progression.
Finally, at the top of the list, the core warriors (fighters, pallies, and rangers) are unchanged with their d10 hit die and 1/1 attack. Barbarians and monks are a bit of a sticky point, because I like these classes to be tougher-than-tough, but 2e barbarians are really boring (they're not too different from fighters), while 2e monks are altogether too interesting (too many Kwai-Chang Kaine derrived innate ki powers to be a really fun martial artist class). Fixing the barbarian is easy: just apply the berserker kit from the CFH (and slow their XP progression to match the paladin/ranger) and bam, you have a fair approximation of the 3e barbarian. As for the monk, I would do pretty much what I did to the 3e monk in the majority of my campaigns: strip out most of the foo-foo frilly innates, leaving only the unarmed strike damage and the multiple attacks, and just give them the d12 hit die and the warrior attack (and XP) progression. Voila, instant "black belt" class, a la Final Fantasy.
When all is said and done, I should have a reorganized 2e class system, ready to run through some classic AD&D adventures (The Temple of Elemental Evil and the Against the Giants trilogy beckon, mwahaha...) that looks rather like this:
WARRIORS (d10 or d12 hit die, 1/1 attack): Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian, Monk
PRIESTS and ROGUES (d8 hit die, 2/3 attack): Cleric, Druid, Shaman, Thief, Bard, Ninja
WIZARDS and PSIONICS (d6 hit die, 1/2 attack): Mage, Specialist, Psionicist
