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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Helldritch" data-source="post: 8253634" data-attributes="member: 6855114">So much to cover....The elite characters were just that elite. High requirements was a kind of gate keeping as if these characters were rare in your campaign, as they should be, your campaign was healthy one. Let me explain. I rarely had any paladins legitimately rolled in my campaigns, about 5 or so (maybe one less or more, it has been a long time). So, I never felt the need to armstring them into the lawful stupid some other DMs had to do. Three paladins, especially the UA variant, could disrupt a campaign in no time.The same could be said for rangers. They were a bit more common, but not by much. Against giants and humanoids,  they were devastating. Especially with the haste spell, their damage bonus vs giant class was making any fights against giants a pure joke. And giants were the most common foes for high (11+) level play. Limiting them to three rangers in a party was a good move. And I could go on with the druid, assassin, bard and even the illusionist. Many were dismissing the illusionist as a weaker M-U with high requirements but many forgot that to have a save vs illusions, you had to take a round to actively disbelieve an illusion. With some illusions, it would be the death of the character or NPC. So illusionist were powerful as they had access a bit faster to the powerful illusions. Even races were in a form of gatekeeping. To make some races, you had to meet a certain minimum in certain stats. And that was before you could add the racial bonus. It was entirely possible for a DM to say:" No, Dave. You can not do that elven ranger. You do not qualify either for elf, or ranger." More than once have said those dreaded words. And for those that would just play recklessly in the hopes of dying and rolling again, I would say that starting a level behind the lowest character alive was not appreciated. Most players would avoid this at all costs. 1ed was a great game, but it works on a different level of thinking. 1ed goes with the mindset that if something is restricted, it is more powerful and thus, more desirable. This creates a kind of trepidation when you finally roll your elf ranger/M-U or your paladin. This however, can lead to some frustration as the rolls might (and often do) prevent you from exploring certain character concept because you do not meet the requirements. But, it also make special characters special just by the fact that you rolled them. For other classes/races, your uniqueness would come through role play and your adventures. The journey would be what would define your character.5ed works on the assumption that it should be the player that makes his character special, whatever that character is... This however allows much freedom but also brings a lot problems. At a certain point, how do you differentiate two paladins from one another? Race can be a start, then background then subclass. At some point, the sheer number of subclasses makes everyone special, which in turn makes sure that no one is special. The more subclasses you get, the less special your subclasse will appear. This is a vicious circle that 3ed fell into with the prestige classes... a pitfall that sooner or later 5ed will reach,  if it is not reached already...Both mindsets are valid. 5ed ensure that a group will be balanced from the get go. 1ed forces you to deal with what you were given and might force a group to hire NPCs to compensate for what the group might lack. I much prefer the later, but I do appreciate 5ed approach too.</blockquote>

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