OSR Old school wizards, how do you play level 1?

[James Gasik]

Reading that, however, the point about the Monk and the Assassin are the most telling; if a principal attribute is the one that gets you the xp bonus (what 2e would later call a "prime requisite") and the Monk and the Assassin don't get xp bonuses from their ability scores, thus having no principal attributes, "The Character With Two Classes" rule would lock them out of ever being able to dual class (using the later edition term).

Now you could certainly run it that way, but Sage Advice is telling us that's not the intent and there's no way to reconcile that fact by the rules without changing them.

So this leads you to one of two scenarios; either Assassins and Monks are locked out of dual-classing entirely to support other classes being able to dual-class more efficiently, or they can dual-class, and it's very difficult for classes that require multiple ability scores to dual-class.

Now, the world wouldn't end if Assassins and Monks were locked out of being able to dual-class, but sans any official statement saying that's the intended case, any such ruling kind of smacks of DM bias, being only a smidge better than "I don't allow Elves in my game".

I'd read Snarf's insights into the impossibility of the 1e Bard previous, and all I can say is, I'm very glad I never tried to play one; it appears even TSR didn't understand how the class was meant to function by the rules as written.

Of course, I've never played at an AD&D table where people followed the rules as written, so it's really just moot. The actual requirement to play a Bard is simply "will my DM let me be a Bard, and what does he or she say I can do as a Bard".

 

[Lanefan]

So, I don't mind your house-ruling, because that seems cool. And I'm a fan of cool! (But also stupid ... from the players ... because to multiclass from Cavalier to Paladin is weird....).

I'm not denying the wierdness on this one!

And it was dual-class (one advances then stops completely until the other catches up, the way Himans had to do it), not multi-class (both classes advance independently, side-along, the way Elves could do it). It's a semantic difference, but relevant.

...That said, and I don't have access to UA handy, but the requirements to MC into a 1e Paladin were that you needed a 17 in ... wait for it ....
Strength
Intelligence
Wisdom
Constitution
AND Charisma.

Yeah. Because the way they did it, it was principal attributes. It wasn't the "gain XP attributes." It wasn't the "single bestest attribute." It was every attribute that was listed with a minimum (with one class exception, because why not?). So for Paladins ...
To become a paladin a character must be human, have a strength of not less than 12, a minimum intelligence of 9, a wisdom of 13 or more, a minimum constitution of 9, and not less than 17 charisma.

That's right. They had 5 principal attributes. Ugh.

Not quite sure how you're parsing five principal attributes from five attributes with minima; as all classes had at least five attributes with minima and multi-classing (or dual-classing) into any of them wasn't as big a deal as this.

I wonder if you're getting principal attributes mixed up with prime requisites (Str for Fighters, Int for Mages, etc.) off which the 10% experience bonus was derived. The prime requisite for Paladins is Charisma, which still applies even though they never get access to that bonus.

 

[Voadam]

Wow, SA in Dragon 64 gave out some terrible advice.

Q When a character has one ability score low enough to be “forced” into a class, what happens if the character’s other ability scores are not high enough to qualify for that class?

A Either you’re rolling cursed dice, or the DM is using a strange, special system for generating ability scores. In either case, the most obvious solution is to crumple up the piece of paper with those six terrible numbers on it, take a fresh sheet, and pretend that character never happened.
How and why would a player get in this kind of predicament to begin with? The player decides (in most character-generation systems) which ability to assign to which number — so why would anyone knowingly saddle a character with a super-low score (one of those “here or lower” numbers) and thereby commit that character to a class it is not qualified for? If you’re unlucky enough to roll a 3, 4, or 5 for an ability score, your choices become a lot more limited — but there still are choices. Assign the lowest of your six scores after you’ve figured out what to do with the highest rolls, not the other way around.

If you assign your lowest scores last you can easily get into the situation the questioner hit. Did you prioritize constitution, dexterity, and wisdom with your highest rolls? Sink your 5 last into charisma as your dump stat? You can only be an assassin who requires a 12 strength, 11 intelligence and 12 dexterity.

If you have a 3-5 in one score you should assign that first in RAW 1e because it will determine which single class you can qualify for and all classes have at least a single minimum stat you must hit. Saving it for last after everything else is assigned means you can be tripped up by minimums for your one allowed class.

 

[Lanefan]

Q. Are all of the attributes having required minimums to be construed as “principal attributes” for that class with regard to two-classed characters?

A. Yes, with two exceptions. For the purpose of determining whether a character is eligible to take up a second class, principal attributes for each class are considered to be these: cleric, wisdom only; druid, wisdom and charisma; fighter, strength only; paladin, everything but dexterity; ranger, everything but dexterity and charisma; magic-user, intelligence only; illusionist, dexterity and intelligence; thief, dexterity only; assassin, dexterity, intelligence, and strength; and monk, everything but charisma and intelligence. This includes every ability for which a required minimum is given, except for the fighter’s constitution, which must be at least 7, and the magic-user’s dexterity, which the Players Handbook says must be at least 6. The first exception is made because “The principal attribute of a fighter is strength,” but constitution isn’t mentioned in the same sentence (PH, page 22). A “minimum dexterity of 6” is required for magic-users (page 25), but this is superfluous, since a character with a dexterity of 5 or lower is always a cleric (page 11). Note that the principal attribute(s) for each class may include abilities in addition to those that apply toward a bonus to earned experience. To limit the definition of “principal attributes” to only those abilities that pertain to the experience bonus would make the system unbalanced and unplayable — unbalanced because then it would be easier to become a two-classed paladin than a two-classed ranger, and unplayable because the assassin and monk never get an experience bonus, and so by this definition would not have any “principal attributes.”

Source- Dragon Magazine #64, Sage Advice (again, these are official).

Again, I enjoy good rules discussions, but at a certain point don't people realize that I put in a little work before making pronouncements? Are people just into torturing me?:

Well, yes we are.

More to the point, I never took Sage Advice as being gospel (or as being the least bit relevant, for that matter) if for no other reason than I probably only saw it about 1/3 of the time, when I or someone else happened to pick up a Dragon magazine (none of us ever subscribed). Couple that with SA often containing what we saw as mostly ridiculous pronouncements from on high (the above being a bit less ridiculous than some but still silly) and yeah, it got no traction here.

Instead, we generally just banned some classes outright from multi-classing: Paladin (yes, that Cvr-P was a real exception!), Monk (unless with Assassin), and our redesigned start-at-1st-level Bards.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Wow, SA in Dragon 64 gave out some terrible advice.

Q When a character has one ability score low enough to be “forced” into a class, what happens if the character’s other ability scores are not high enough to qualify for that class?

A Either you’re rolling cursed dice, or the DM is using a strange, special system for generating ability scores. In either case, the most obvious solution is to crumple up the piece of paper with those six terrible numbers on it, take a fresh sheet, and pretend that character never happened.
How and why would a player get in this kind of predicament to begin with? The player decides (in most character-generation systems) which ability to assign to which number — so why would anyone knowingly saddle a character with a super-low score (one of those “here or lower” numbers) and thereby commit that character to a class it is not qualified for? If you’re unlucky enough to roll a 3, 4, or 5 for an ability score, your choices become a lot more limited — but there still are choices. Assign the lowest of your six scores after you’ve figured out what to do with the highest rolls, not the other way around.

If you assign your lowest scores last you can easily get into the situation the questioner hit. Did you prioritize constitution, dexterity, and wisdom with your highest rolls? Sink your 5 last into charisma as your dump stat? You can only be an assassin who requires a 12 strength, 11 intelligence and 12 dexterity.

If you have a 3-5 in one score you should assign that first in RAW 1e because it will determine which single class you can qualify for and all classes have at least a single minimum stat you must hit. Saving it for last after everything else is assigned means you can be tripped up by minimums for your one allowed class.

What would your answer be to that question? He did advise to start over. In older/OSR games, I make multiple characters and hand over the ones I don't want to play to the DM for use as NPCs.

 

[Lanefan]

Wow, SA in Dragon 64 gave out some terrible advice.

Q When a character has one ability score low enough to be “forced” into a class, what happens if the character’s other ability scores are not high enough to qualify for that class?

A Either you’re rolling cursed dice, or the DM is using a strange, special system for generating ability scores. In either case, the most obvious solution is to crumple up the piece of paper with those six terrible numbers on it, take a fresh sheet, and pretend that character never happened.
How and why would a player get in this kind of predicament to begin with? The player decides (in most character-generation systems) which ability to assign to which number — so why would anyone knowingly saddle a character with a super-low score (one of those “here or lower” numbers) and thereby commit that character to a class it is not qualified for? If you’re unlucky enough to roll a 3, 4, or 5 for an ability score, your choices become a lot more limited — but there still are choices. Assign the lowest of your six scores after you’ve figured out what to do with the highest rolls, not the other way around.

Worth noting they never even mention the possibility of some poor schlub of a character who has two stats 5 or lower; but if I ever rolled something like 18-17-17-16-4-4 I'd play that all night long provided I could shoehorn it into a class somewhere.

If you have a 3-5 in one score you should assign that first in RAW 1e because it will determine which single class you can qualify for and all classes have at least a single minimum stat you must hit. Saving it for last after everything else is assigned means you can be tripped up by minimums for your one allowed class.

Yes.

That said, if you've got one stat that low and none of the rest hit the minimums (which for the core four classes F-T-MU-C are pretty low) then starting over is, I think, a RAW-supported option.

 

[Voadam]

So this leads you to one of two scenarios; either Assassins and Monks are locked out of dual-classing entirely to support other classes being able to dual-class more efficiently, or they can dual-class, and it's very difficult for classes that require multiple ability scores to dual-class.

I can think of another.

From the PH class descriptions

"The druid is a sub-class of clerics."
"A paladin character is a fighter sub-class"
"Rangers are a sub-class of fighter"
"Illusionists form a sub-class of magic-users"
"Assassins are a sub-class of the thieves"

So for the classes:
Cleric - Wisdom
Fighter - Strength
Magic-User - Intelligence
Thief - Dexterity

It is arguable whether monks fit best as clerics or thieves but looking over the 1e PH monk specifics (attacking as thieves, thief skills, d4 HD, no armor, no spells) I'd say thief fits best.

 

[Voadam]

What would your answer be to that question? He did advise to start over. In older/OSR games, I make multiple characters and hand over the ones I don't want to play to the DM for use as NPCs.

My advice is to decide what of the four/six class options you want to play and put your lowest score into the appropriate stat as a starting point. Then assign to at least meet the class's minimum. There should be at least one 9 which will qualify you for any of the core four, particularly given the advice to start with at least two 15s.

"The premise of the game is that each player character is above average — at least in some respects — and has superior potential. Furthermore, it is usually essential to the character’s survival to be exceptional (with a rating of 15 or above) in no fewer than two ability characteristics."

Also do not forget demihuman stat adjustments as possibilities for making some things work, an 8 dex goes to a 9 and can qualify as a thief if you go elf. But they also have different maximums and minimums to be aware of.

Those are for methods I and II where you can assign.

For method IV of roll 3d6 in order for 12 characters, I expect one of those twelve to hit a viable set of minimums and my advice would be to pick one of those.

For method III, getting a 5 or lower as the highest on 6 rolls of 3d6 is impressively long shot, but possible. Not getting the other needed stats (mostly a 9) to qualify for anything seems statistically unlikely, most probably not having enough intelligence (15) or dexterity (16) to make the illusionist minimum with a 5 con. I'd probably suggest starting over there if you don't hit the minimums. -1 hp a level with d4 HD is pretty brutal even if you meet the minimums.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

So first, I'm with you on what stats count as principal. That said, I enjoy torturing you on this topic because the old Sage Advice is official yes, but so is the 5e Sage Advice that says that the spell See Invisibility doesn't let you see invisibility. It's official, but it's just official advice on how to rule things and even if it comes from a designer, it's not necessarily correct. I've seen designers get things wrong more than once.

Besides, I'm willing to bet it was a small minority of players that even bought the magazine, let alone read Sage Advice or for that matter would remember it later on when needed.

So, beyond the torturing point, I think it's absolutely necessary when discussing 1e rules to disambiguate two important things-

1. What people did. Or, at least, claimed they did. Seriously- I've written an entire post about memory for a reason, and while I think we are all good and honorable gamers who are never given to hyperbole* or memory lapses or confusing how we played 1e and 2e ... but sometimes people are wrong about their own experiences. And ... even if they aren't .... even if they are 150% accurate, they aren't speaking for how everyone played.

As we all know, get five grognards together to discuss how "people played 1e back in the day," and you'll get six different versions. Because TSR-era D&D, especially 70s and 80s D&D, was notoriously uneven from table to table. Not just because of house rules, and 3PP, and because lots of table simply ignored rules ... but also lots of people weren't even aware of a lot of the rules that existed.

So, if even Gygax himself (blessed be his rolls) didn't play AD&D according to the rules he wrote, I don't think it's particularly helpful in discussing the rules qua rules to say, "Yeah, well, I just didn't know about that rule or do it that way," when talking about what the actual rule was. That said, if you want to talk about your personal experience, that's cool! But that's not really discussing or diving into the rule, which is what is interesting right now.


2. What the rules actually said. For better or worse (most would say ... for worse), AD&D instilled within my a lifelong love of how overly complicated and unclear rules interact with each other. So I find the subject of the rules interactions within 1e, regardless of how often they were applied in real life or how often they were used correctly, absolutely fascinating. Because it really gets into issues that have salience far beyond D&D. How do you understand language (like, say, "primary attribute(s)"). How do different rules interact? When rules conflict, how can you harmonize them (or, in the alternative, which rules take precedence)?

And for this purpose, what counts as an "official authority." How official is "official?" Sage Advice has actually been with us now, in various version and in various media, since November 1979, and has had various levels of authority; arguably, it was "most official" from Dragon 42 on in that incarnation, and demoted to "here's what we were thinking, but it's not, you know, official official" in the most recent incarnation.

....but maybe that's for a separate thread.




*Look, you whippersnapper with your attack cantrips and your healing hit dice and your feats. Back in the day, I used to walk 10 miles in a snowstorm, uphill, just so that I could play a first level Magic User with 2 hit points. And you know what? I'd get there, and cast my single light spell that the monster saved, and right after that I was killed, KILLED by a kobold with a dull butter knife. And you know what I did then? I'd walk 10 miles back, ALSO UPHILL, in that same snowstorm. That's how I PLAYED REAL D&D, AND I LOVED IT!

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

As we all know, get five grognards together to discuss how "people played 1e back in the day," and you'll get six different versions. Because TSR-era D&D, especially 70s and 80s D&D, was notoriously uneven from table to table. Not just because of house rules, and 3PP, and because lots of table simply ignored rules ... but also lots of people weren't even aware of a lot of the rules that existed.

This, to me, is what defines classic d&d/OSR: "Your Table Will Vary". Because of missing rules, contradictory rules, hidden rules, or confusing wording, every Referee and every table will play differently. There is no one true way to play. There is no "wrong" way to play.

Any attempt in modern OSR games/groups to play "as they did in the old days" will fail, because there is no monolithic "they".