Rebuild 1E...

[Greg K]

There shouldn't be a roll in the first place, IMO. Resurrection exists in the game PURELY for meta-game reasons..

I was actually thinking the same thing after I made my post. Then, I thought about rituals to bring back the dead that sometimes fail. My preference would be to do away with raised dead and similar spells or make them higher level..

 

[Greg K]

Clerics having books as well I'm not a fan of. They get their power straight from the divine. Also, I'd prefer to see pre-memorization done away with for all casters - the 3e designers really stumbled on to something good when they dreamed up the Sorcerer: all casters should work this way.
No real need to mess with them, I'd say; some minor tweaking to the tables and other than that 1e already has it pretty well nailed.

Lanefan

Yeah, completely agree with the above.

 

[Greg K]

I, on the other hand propose that PC ability scores NEVER EVER be allowed to exceed 19 except by persistent influence of magic.

I have no problem limiting character stats unless magically enhanced (e.g, girdle of giant strength). Personally, I would cap at 20, but I want a greater range for monsters.

Crits should be optional and the option presented should be pretty much limited to something like double damage. Any special results should be left not for random application but as specific effects that characters could inflict somehow.

I don't mean special results. I mean the attack roll falls within it's crit range AND hits by 5 or more. No second roll as in 3e or all attacks crit automatically on a natural 20 as in 4e

EMPHATICALLY no. This way lies DM prep load MADNESS. Leave it in 3E where it belongs. Monsters do what they do - they don't need to conform to ability score charts to do it.

It does not load prep or madness. The problem with 3e monster blocks was a. listing lots of special abilities spell like abilities
b. feats and skills based on hit die and DMs thinking they had to account for every point
c. Stacking classes and templates

Providing a monster's typical ability scores and listing the monster's natural armor bonus and dex bonus doesn't or save bonus from Hit Die and stat is not a lot of prep and can actually help the DM adjudicate on the fly.

 

[Treebore]

I agree, its the tons of feats, skills, and "special abilities" that drove me nuts, which is illustrated to me every time I convert them to my Castles and Crusades games and trim that stuff off to make them fit.

I never used the advanced and class rules, it drove me mad before I went that far.

 

[Baron Opal]

Thinking about classes

I've been tinkering with D&D for a while and wanting to "fix" 1e to run a game for some 9-12 y.o. kids at a community center. I actually liked some of the simplicity of the Rules Compendium / BX set that I decided it would be better for me to start there and work my way to 1e than the reverse.

In the process of that, I came upon this thread. I've come up with some agreeable multi-classing rules, but the thought of making a class for each combination interested me. while I haven't done that yet, I have given some consideration as to what they would be. The idea is that you gain a class that has significant abilities of both classes without being sub-par and having their own identity.

Starting with the basic four and filling out a chart you get:

Fighter
Cleric
Magic-user
Thief

Fighter / Cleric = Paladin
Fighter / Magic-user = Witchblade
Fighter / Thief = Ranger

Cleric / Magic-user = Theurge
Cleric / Thief = ???

Magic-user / Thief = Bard

Classes in italics would have be reworked some, those bolded would be new. The assassin, druid and illusionist are underived by this scheme although by no means excluded. The ranger would be a non-magical variant. The theurge would be an armorless cleric with a wide variety of spells. Their focus could be summoning and/or controlling magic. This include a necromancer theme for the evil ones. Witchblades would be primarily magic using fighters as paladins could be considered blessed warriors. Practically every bard I've seen played was a romancing rogue that magically charmed their audience, so that works for me.

I wasn't able to really come up with a cleric / thief concept that didn't already fall into "priest of thieves" territory. I've ignored X/Y vs Y/X comparisons.That would be too nuanced an approach. That said, I have leaned toward the fighter or non-magical class as the base with the second class as an addition.

 

[Lanefan]

There shouldn't be a roll in the first place, IMO. Resurrection exists in the game PURELY for meta-game reasons. Whoever first introduced it, Gary, Dave, whoever didn't include it because they wanted NPC's to keep coming back from the dead - it exists in the game ONLY because it serves to keep PLAYER CHARACTERS coming back.

Now, if you accept that that is its purpose then it's stupid to make that an arbitrary roll. You either want to allow players to bring their dead characters to life or you don't. Obviously it shouldn't be without cost or penalties of some kind, but even those shouldn't be too onerous because again - you either want to allow players more than one shot with unfortunate characters or don't.

It's probably safe to say that a LOT of 1E games had house rules to circumvent the consequences of failing the resurrection roll. Why would they do that? They do it because having to make the roll defeats the purpose of allowing characters to be raised AT ALL.

Not entirely, as you yourself point out here:

Still, removing the survival roll entirely is also not without unintended, undesireable consequences.

Even under strict 1E rules, players of fighters (who always have high Cons for logical reasons when players are allowed to place scores as desired) would often display a too-cavalier attitude towards death. When the BTB strictures were eased with house rules then that attitude become more frequent. In 3E when it was removed entirely I personally found it to be a significant, chronic problem. Also, when every NPC uses resurrection as frequently and freely as PC's then the logic surrounding simple life and death crumbles and the entire game world doesn't make sense.

It only makes sense from a consistency standpoint that significant opponents who have access to Resurrection (and who are dead) are going to make sure it gets used, just like the PCs.

Yet clearly, characters being raised over and over and OVER (for ANY reason) quickly begins to destroy verisimilitude and a proper roleplaying attitude regarding a characters own death. Now the number of times that a DM cares to allow a PC to be raised should be up to the DM but it should be an IDENTICAL limit for all PC's given that it IS supposed to be a meta-game mechanic. I'd suggest that your 3rd resurrection by any means - including Wish - is your LAST. There has to be fear of death and even for a players favorite PC's a FINALITY to death. Exceeding that limit should be up to a DM and for meta-game reasons - NOT up to the arbitrary results of the dice and not favoring one class of character or higher ability score over another.

There's an argument, perhaps, for untying the res. roll from Con.; but I'd keep the roll in some form. If nothing else, even a tiny chance of death being permanent makes players think twice before doing something suicidal.

A failed raise can sometimes be used as an adventure hook: physically journey to the land of the dead, bribe the governing deity, and try to get Buddy out the hard way. Or just join him. (I've seen both happen)

System Shock, on the other hand, *should* be tied to Con. as it is a purely physical thing - can your body handle what is being done to it.

Lan-"6 deaths and still going strong!"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

In the process of that, I came upon this thread. I've come up with some agreeable multi-classing rules, but the thought of making a class for each combination interested me. while I haven't done that yet, I have given some consideration as to what they would be. The idea is that you gain a class that has significant abilities of both classes without being sub-par and having their own identity.

Starting with the basic four and filling out a chart you get:

Fighter
Cleric
Magic-user
Thief

Fighter / Cleric = Paladin
Fighter / Magic-user = Witchblade
Fighter / Thief = Ranger or Assassin depending on alignment

Cleric / Magic-user = Theurge
Cleric / Thief = Druid

Magic-user / Thief = Illusionist

Classes in italics would have be reworked some, those bolded would be new. The assassin, druid and illusionist are underived by this scheme although by no means excluded.

Worked 'em in for you. The Bard and Monk are what is missing; they'd probably have to remain as unique classes.

Lanefan

 

[Treebore]

I've been tinkering with D&D for a while and wanting to "fix" 1e to run a game for some 9-12 y.o. kids at a community center. I actually liked some of the simplicity of the Rules Compendium / BX set that I decided it would be better for me to start there and work my way to 1e than the reverse.

In the process of that, I came upon this thread. I've come up with some agreeable multi-classing rules, but the thought of making a class for each combination interested me. while I haven't done that yet, I have given some consideration as to what they would be. The idea is that you gain a class that has significant abilities of both classes without being sub-par and having their own identity.

Starting with the basic four and filling out a chart you get:

Fighter
Cleric
Magic-user
Thief

Fighter / Cleric = Paladin
Fighter / Magic-user = Witchblade
Fighter / Thief = Ranger

Cleric / Magic-user = Theurge
Cleric / Thief = ???

Magic-user / Thief = Bard

Classes in italics would have be reworked some, those bolded would be new. The assassin, druid and illusionist are underived by this scheme although by no means excluded. The ranger would be a non-magical variant. The theurge would be an armorless cleric with a wide variety of spells. Their focus could be summoning and/or controlling magic. This include a necromancer theme for the evil ones. Witchblades would be primarily magic using fighters as paladins could be considered blessed warriors. Practically every bard I've seen played was a romancing rogue that magically charmed their audience, so that works for me.

I wasn't able to really come up with a cleric / thief concept that didn't already fall into "priest of thieves" territory. I've ignored X/Y vs Y/X comparisons.That would be too nuanced an approach. That said, I have leaned toward the fighter or non-magical class as the base with the second class as an addition.

Have you checked out the "class and a half" rules in the back of the newest printing Castles and Crusades Players Handbook? It may feed well into doing what you want.

 

[jmucchiello]

With minor changes, this is brilliant. I'd have Str. modify all damage, and melee to-hits. Dex. modifies missile to-hits and AC. Cha. should also modify some other things: Cleric undead-turning, opponents' save vs. any mind-affecting spell you cast, etc.

My reason for removing Strength is simplicity. All attacks get your dex bonus to the to hit roll. Simple. No questions. Damage is affect by Strength unless it is obvious that the user's strength is not involved: crossbows, guns, catapults, cannons, etc.

Undead turning is a sore spot with me. I'd probably do something simple like d8 per level of damage to one specific undead creature, once per creature. Or 1d6 per level of damage to a group of undead, hitting the lowest level undead creature first and carrying damage over to the next lowest undead creature until used up. This makes it formidable against a serious undead threat and against underling undead as it always was.

That said, what die would you use for initiative and surprise checks? Any modifier on a d6 is going to be *much* more relevant than on a d20.
I'd rather have it just modify the ability score - it's simpler.

d10. d6 was always too small and d20 was too big.

While working out an ExP progression for every possible multi-class combination would be useful, it's a lot of work that I'm not about to do. (and I allow a lot more multi-class combinations than the RAW do). Also, I'd still like to keep the variable progression rate.

I think you misunderstood. There would be only a set number of charts 5, maybe 6. And each class and multiclass combo would refer to one of the charts: Cleric = B, Fighter = B, Mage = D, Thief = A, Cl/thf = C, Cl/ftr = D, ftr/thf = C, ftr/mu = E, etc. So you still have variable progression rates. They just aren't as arbitrary as 1e originally was.

Does nothing for me. I'd prefer that a weapon's actual rolled damage always be the same - thus, for a longsword you roll d8/d12 regardless what level you are. Messy otherwise, and asking players to book-keep their weapon damage at every level just wouldn't fly here.

Messy? I can understand not like effects based damage. But calling an effect that changes by level messy means you don't want 1e. Second, most people focus on 1e being a class system and ignore that it is a class and level system. I want level to have more meaning in my 1e. And weapon damage by class AND LEVEL is a great place to get it. A 7th level fighter is more formidable with ALL weapons than a 1st level fighter not only because he hits more often but because his hits are more dangerous.

Excellent. I'd like to see a third option somewhere between the two, however, and have that as the default; with these presented as rules-supported alternatives.

No, I'd rather have a really simplistic and a really complicated system and let everyone combine them however they like. Since the system supports the two extremely completely, any hybrid of the two should be equally supported. Supporting 3 system internally sounds wrought with difficulty.

Before getting too deep into this, we need to ask at what level the game will "cap out" at. If, like original 1e, it's going to cap out around 10th-12th, then only being able to cast 4th level spells by that point isn't much fun (particularly for Clerics, who really come into their own with their 5th-level spells). But if you think the redesign will remain playable well into the level-20's, then the slower spell gain is a good idea.

My experience with 1e never stopped at 10th-12th level. In fact, we usually started at 20,000 xp (around 4th-5th level depending on class/multiclass combo) and stopped in the teens. Adventuring with 6th-8th level spells in play is a lot of fun that I continue to be surprised by how many people avoided it when reading threads about 1e here and elsewhere on the net.

For the record, I would have there be levels 1-36 like in BECMI and move name level to 15th level. The details would be in the spells and monsters and I'm not going to go too deeply into that. (Name level: This is of course the spot where owning castles comes into play as an option in the DMG. I always hated that stuff being in the PHB.)

Clerics having books as well I'm not a fan of. They get their power straight from the divine. Also, I'd prefer to see pre-memorization done away with for all casters - the 3e designers really stumbled on to something good when they dreamed up the Sorcerer: all casters should work this way.
No real need to mess with them, I'd say; some minor tweaking to the tables and other than that 1e already has it pretty well nailed.

Here I'm torn. If I'm rewriting D&D completely, I'd nick Monte Cooks Arcana Unearthed spell system which combines preparation and spontaneous spell casting into a coherent whole which I wish he had come up with 5-6 years sooner and had made it the default for 3e.

Clerics are annoying on so many levels. I can imagine a whole pantheon of bureaucratic deities that will not lift a finger to help their clerics if the forget to bow at precisely a 37 degree angle when casting a spell and as such clerics of that religion carry around prayer books so that they don't make even the slightest error when casting a prayer. I can also imagine a deity with only one 5th level cleric who will show up at the drop of a hat to do anything to keep that cleric alive. Between these extremes there are many kinds of deities and many levels of strictness to their requirements for clerics to cast spells. I picked the most restrictive method because it mirrors the wizard's method of prepping spells and is therefore somewhat more balanced. That makes it a great default. DMs are free to lift these restrictions however they like.

 

[Baron Opal]

Have you checked out the "class and a half" rules in the back of the newest printing Castles and Crusades Players Handbook? It may feed well into doing what you want.

No, C&C never really cliced for me. Is there a non-torrent site it can viewed from?

Fighter / Thief = Ranger or Assassin depending on alignment
Cleric / Thief = Druid
Magic-user / Thief = Illusionist

Worked 'em in for you. The Bard and Monk are what is missing; they'd probably have to remain as unique classes.

Very interesting. It gives another reason why the locals were afraid of Aragorn. After staring for a while at the town drunk giving him lip, Aragorn's backhand knocked him cold for two days.

I think I'd like it as a single class, but the applications could be significantly different depending on alignment. Much like having animate dead on the cleric's spell list.

It does give the illusionist some interesting color too.

Also, how do folks feel about using attributes to qualify for a class? I dislike it greatly, actually.