AD&D 1E Revised and Rebalanced Magic-User for 1e AD&D

[fuindordm]

If I were redesigning the XP tables for all the classes, I would do it as follows:

1) Find the big milestones that represent a significant and roughly equivalent power-up for each class. For example:

• Cleric: gain 3rd level spells (C6), gain 4th level spells (C7), then 6th level spells (C11)
• Fighter: gain double specialization (F4), gain 3/2 attacks (F7), then 2 attacks (F12)
• MU: gain 3rd level spells (M5) gain 4th level spells (M7), then 6th level spells (M12)
• Thief: gain x3 backstab (T5), gain x4 backstab (T9), then scroll use (T10)

2) Choose xp totals that are roughy the same at these milestone levels (e.g. C7, F7, MU7, T9) so that the whole party feels a major power-up at about the same time. Derive XP for level 2 based on these pinned values and the doubling principle.

3) Choose name level and max HD to adjust the power balance up or down a little bit as desired.

4) Realize that some classes are fundamentally misaligned with the others, revise them, then return to step 1.

 

[TwoSix]

If I were redesigning the XP tables for all the classes, I would do it as follows:

1) Find the big milestones that represent a significant and roughly equivalent power-up for each class. For example:

• Cleric: gain 3rd level spells (C6), gain 4th level spells (C7), then 6th level spells (C11)
• Fighter: gain double specialization (F4), gain 3/2 attacks (F7), then 2 attacks (F12)
• MU: gain 3rd level spells (M5) gain 4th level spells (M7), then 6th level spells (M12)
• Thief: gain x3 backstab (T5), gain x4 backstab (T9), then scroll use (T10)

2) Choose xp totals that are roughy the same at these milestone levels (e.g. C7, F7, MU7, T9) so that the whole party feels a major power-up at about the same time. Derive XP for level 2 based on these pinned values and the doubling principle.

3) Choose name level and max HD to adjust the power balance up or down a little bit as desired.

4) Realize that some classes are fundamentally misaligned with the others, revise them, then return to step 1.

Yea, try to pin the classes together at certain key points of rough equivalence, and then curve fit based on those relationships, also makes quite a bit of sense.

The fighter XP chart is easily the smoothest, pretty much a pure doubling up to level 10, so I might want to use that as baseline and compare the other classes to it at various breakpoints.

 

[fuindordm]

I like your comment on the thief, it is the only class that does not get a significant power-up after name level. (Well, you could call x5 backstab at 13 a powerup but it's pretty flimsy compared to the other classes' gains around that point)

 

[Celebrim]

I like your comment on the thief, it is the only class that does not get a significant power-up after name level. (Well, you could call x5 backstab at 13 a powerup but it's pretty flimsy compared to the other classes' gains around that point)

Seeing as this whole project started with just a limited goal of revising the thief so that it fared well in comparison to the other core classes, I don't think that's a significant concern if we are speaking of the revised thief of the same project. RAW, then not only does the thief not get a significant power-up after name level, it gets no significant power up at all and is in fact falling further and further behind all classes after the 2nd level is obtained. The closest you get to any sort of power up at all is when you land at 5th level and finally get an upgrade to your saving throws and "to hit" and an additional weapon proficiency slot. The fact that you also get a x3 backstab at this point is nice, but pretty flimsy considering that it's at best RAW something like +3.5 damage very situationally (since only the weapon dice is multiplied). This is trivial compared to the damage upgrades other classes either have gotten by this point or will be getting.

 

[Moving Pictures]

And, while you can do whatever you want at your table, the goal of this series of revisions is to make the minimal sorts of changes necessary to increase play balance and reduce ad hoc rulings and kludges to make it all work. Ideally the revisions look like something someone might have written in 1989 or so, as an alternative 2e

Ok. In that case, I would do a 5e backport, as it were, and allow a flexible casting system using spell slots, and a shorter spell-slot recovery time (long rest rather than 24 hours.)

As for the XP progressions, I think they all need to be tweaked, and so have done that with a general doubling until 10th (in general).

 

[Celebrim]

Ok. In that case, I would do a 5e backport, as it were, and allow a flexible casting system using spell slots, and a shorter spell-slot recovery time (long rest rather than 24 hours.)

I don't think anyone in 1989 would consider a fix to then known problems to have been a backport of ideas from 5e, which I wouldn't even suggest as a fix to known problems of 3e - even though Monte, the games designer, foreshadowed what you are talking about in his variant of 3e in the Arcana Unearthed alternate Player's Handbook. Likely it was something he'd argued for in 3e design, but it was probably felt it was too big of a departure from what had come before.

In any event, none of the real problems of 1e M-U's have to do with the flexibility of the Vancian casting system. While there was a lot of groaning and complaining about Vancian casting circa 1987, and people would branch off to form their own fantasy heartbreakers, I feel that Gygax-Vancian casting has stood the test of time and usage, and things like the 3e sorcerer show how small of a change is required to produce a class that is more flexible if that's the main need. That said, while I could easily backport the 3e sorcerer into 1e, I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be good for the game because it would essentially be a class that "took only the good stuff". Without a major blanket revision of 1e spells, a sorcerer just wouldn't be balanced and doesn't IMO represent an interesting tradeoff. You can see that in my thinking with regards to specialist M-Us - it's enough that you are given a reasonably high chance of missing out "on the good stuff" to balance the subclasses.

As for the XP progressions, I think they all need to be tweaked, and so have done that with a general doubling until 10th (in general).

I'm not tied to doubling every level since that is never how the XP progressions ever worked, but rather just how they are remembered to have worked by people who didn't actually study or think about them. Doubling as a mechanic for 3e would work fine with a revised XP earned per CR/EL table, but it doesn't really work for 1e AD&D because that's not the design. The sacred cow here that needs to go has to do with an aesthetic about when the doubling happens. There is a pattern Gygax adhered to when you hit your HD cap that the next level requires N XP and then every level after that also requires N XP. That's the only sacred cow I think needs to die here, and it's such a small one that if I violate it without saying that I'm violating it 90% of people wouldn't notice what I did.

 

[Lanefan]

One thing that I'm trying to get away from that I feel is very 1e in feel but very poor in design is making lists. The problem with lists is that while they are very flexible, very flavorful, and can be balanced quite easily, they also are inimical to any expansion of the game with new content because they you have to make new lists and alter existing lists by various amendments. So you'll note that my version of the Illusionist avoids this completely by having neither a list of allowed and available spells nor a list of allowed and available magic items, a design choice that departs radically from the first instincts of just about every 1e era designer (and most 2e era designers). The class is durably designed so that it can fit into any homebrew without amendment, and doesn't really care how the game is expanded, the rules would still work as written without need for revision.

As @Moving Pictures points out, spreadsheets (and .html) can be Your Friend.

My spell lists and write-ups are all online such that everyone can access them at once (far better than passing a book around), thus if I want to add or delete a spell it's just a matter of a few minutes of telling the code editor what to do.

Back when I was banging this out on a typewriter every time, sure, changing lists was a bloody nuisance.

As for allowable magic items, instead of listing them by class the original 1e way of showing allowable classes in the item description works fine.

Charisma was under consideration but was rejected because I didn't want to have too many schools that depended on a particular secondary ability, and both Enchantment and Conjuration/Summoning more obviously depended on Charisma than Necromancy. I'm perfectly happy to have necromancers who are foul, unlovely and unattractive in personality or appearance as at least an option rather than to suggest that they all must be magnetic to the living as well as the dead.

Charming and controlling of both the living and the dead requires some force of personality, which is part of what makes Charisma what it is.

That, and I wanted to give Charisma a bit more to do n the game.

 

[Lanefan]

My gut feeling here.

1) Keep the classic numbers for level 2 (2500 for MU, 2000 for fighter, etc.) Keep the doubling until around level 5 for everyone.

I start tweaking after 3rd level for most classes, as beyond that straight-up doubling can get too slow even for me.

2) Have every class gain HD until 10, then go static HP increase. More elegance with pretty much no flavor loss.

The other option is to simply halve the hit die size after 10th and keep rolling. If you look, the static increase for all classes in 1e is the closest integer to the average of a half-size hit die for the class. Fighters have d10 for hit dice, half that is a d5, the average of which is 3; and look at that - the Fighter's static increase is 3!

Continuing to roll a half-size die rather than go static increase gives a very slight boost to Clerics and Mages (the d8 and d4 classes) who otherwise get slightly hosed by arithmetical rounding.

 

[Lanefan]

If I were redesigning the XP tables for all the classes, I would do it as follows:

1) Find the big milestones that represent a significant and roughly equivalent power-up for each class. For example:

• Cleric: gain 3rd level spells (C6), gain 4th level spells (C7), then 6th level spells (C11)
• Fighter: gain double specialization (F4), gain 3/2 attacks (F7), then 2 attacks (F12)
• MU: gain 3rd level spells (M5) gain 4th level spells (M7), then 6th level spells (M12)
• Thief: gain x3 backstab (T5), gain x4 backstab (T9), then scroll use (T10)

2) Choose xp totals that are roughy the same at these milestone levels (e.g. C7, F7, MU7, T9) so that the whole party feels a major power-up at about the same time. Derive XP for level 2 based on these pinned values and the doubling principle.

3) Choose name level and max HD to adjust the power balance up or down a little bit as desired.

4) Realize that some classes are fundamentally misaligned with the others, revise them, then return to step 1.

That seems a bit too close to the 4e-5e tier system, and tiers don't play well with parties of mixed levels.

Better if-where possible (and for sure it isn't always) to smooth out those jumps. The combat matrix is a great place to start this process, by making it more linear (mostly) rather than incrementing in big jumps every several levels like it does by RAW.