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.