AD&D 1E Redesigned and Rebalanced Thief for 1e AD&D

[fuindordm]

The funny thing about the UA barbarian is that they are actually the least offensive class in the fighter group. They have buckets of abilities and every single one is defensive. Plus their initial weapons are constrained.

The player goes in thinking they'll kick ass and find themselves tanking, while the fighters and rangers are racking up bonus damage. Even the paladin has an offensive power with turn undead, but not the poor barbarian.

 

[Celebrim]

The funny thing about the UA barbarian is that they are actually the least offensive class in the fighter group. They have buckets of abilities and every single one is defensive. Plus their initial weapons are constrained.

The player goes in thinking they'll kick ass and find themselves tanking, while the fighters and rangers are racking up bonus damage. Even the paladin has an offensive power with turn undead, but not the poor barbarian.

The barbarian ends up with like 50% more hit points than any other class, but it really needs that 18 CON (presumably, you'd never bother to play one without it). The troubles are numerous. You are still 1st level with the thief is hitting 4th level, and you are 13th level when a fighter is hitting 18th level. So your THACO isn't as good, nor are your attacks per round. You lag even a non-specialized fighter. Equally bad, you are required to forgo early picks for magical items when playing in a group, so you're weapons and armor won't be as good because the party was dividing up magic items you couldn't take.

Really, the Barbarian is a thief with a ton of hit points and fighter THACO and weapons. You're reasonably stealthy and broadly skillful, but you aren't overpowered. An argument could be made they are underpowered.

The big problem with them is they can't be in a party with a M-U or Cleric for the most part. That's party dynamics you just don't need. You see them show up mostly when a player is told like, "Make an 10th level character". They are powerful for their level, but they are always going to lag behind equal XP characters.

This makes me think I should write up a fixed Barbarian.

 

[Celebrim]

The most effective way to make a thief more effective it to have the DM allow them to be played how they originally were intended to be played (but that got lost in the translation...err...the rulebooks later on).

A thief will ALWAYS succeed with their abilities unless opposed. For example, a Thief will always be able to open a lock under normal circumstances...but if their is a time limit, someone is trying to kill them, it's a magical lock, etc...that's when they will need to roll to see if they succeed.

Can you cite some text to support this assertion? And for a lot of skills this interpretation doesn't work, because what is "normal circumstances" for picking pockets? And how would that interpretation apply to hearing noise or reading a magical scroll?

I'm not sure what to make of your assertion being that originally they automatically succeeded at things, given I've never read that anywhere, and the only place automatic success shows up is in a note in the 1e AD&D DMG about thieves can set traps automatically with enough time if they have appropriate tools for making a trap because in this one circumstance only they are allowed to reroll failed results.

Unfortunately, even by the time AD&D 1e rolled out, this idea of automatic success was no longer being held by many groups and it's THAT which nerfed the thief rather than what the thief originally was intended to be able to do from my understanding of it.

Where did the groups you are talking about get the idea that automatic successes were intended?

 

[cbwjm]

Yeah, from what little I recall about the 1e barbarian the xp requirement and penalties really leads to it needing a rewrite. It also ignored the standard ability modifiers for Dex and Con which further complicates the class.

 

[Celebrim]

Yeah, from what little I recall about the 1e barbarian the xp requirement and penalties really leads to it needing a rewrite. It also ignored the standard ability modifiers for Dex and Con which further complicates the class.

The bonuses to DEX and CON modifiers are literally the only things that the class has going for it. Without it, you are going to actually lag the Fighter in hit points, and probably in AC.

The only real problem with either idea is the DEX is front loaded. The CON modifier develops over time, but you get the same advantage from DEX at first level as at any other. This leads to the theoretical 18 DEX, 18 CON barbarian being OP compared to any other class with the same stats at 1st level.

The only thing the Barbarian does that I feel is really unfair, is the fact that not only is it immune to backstabs, but if you try to attack them in the back they get a free attack on you. They don't get a free attack in any other circumstances, only in the situation where they are most disadvantaged. I'm OK with barbarians having an "uncanny dodge" where they negate penalties from being attacked from behind, but not with the free attack.

The main things that needs a rewrite though is removing the limitation of who they can associate with without losing the flavor of the class. I have some ideas.