The most iconic "classic" 1E party?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm going to give Expeditious Retreat Press' Unbound Adventures solo rules a go, with a four-character party: A fighter, a rogue, a cleric and a wizard.

For my initial characters, I think I want to go with the absolutely most iconic characters, only replacing them with more wacky takes (an all-gnome party, a tiefling anything, an all-evil party, etc.) once the first line falls.

Of course, that raises the question: What constitutes the most classic 1E party?

Fighter: ____________

Rogue/Thief: _____________

Cleric: _____________

Magic-User/Wizard: ______________

 

[the Jester]

Do you mean what are the iconic race choices? Human all around except rogue (go halfling). Remember, 1e is the most humanocentric edition.

If you want the 'typical iconic' 1e party, imho you need to do a six-man party, with two of them typically being one of a couple variants that broadly fill the same party role:

1 human fighter
1 human cleric
1 human magic-user
1 halfling rogue
1 elf magic-user/thief; OR 1 gnome illusionist/thief; OR 1 half-orc cleric/assassin
1 half-elf cleric/fighter/magic-user; OR 1 elf fighter/magic-user

 

[steeldragons]

Fighter: A Human male. Strength 18/53. Chain & shield. Primarily fights with longsword also carries a spear and dagger.

Cleric: A human (or half-elf?) female. Wisdom 17. Chain & shield. Fights with a mace and carries a throwing hammer.

Magic-user: For an "iconic" 1e party, this is probably an elf fighter/magic-user vs. a straight wizard-type...So let's say an Elf/male (that'd be a "High elf" for the uninitiated. Other elf races were not originally intended to be PCs). Elvin chain mail (or at least leather armour) beneath his billowy tunic/robes. Primarily fights with his spells or staff, but carries a short sword and longbow for when the spells run out.

Thief: gotta go 1e classic- Halfling/male. Leather armour, no shield. Carries short bow (or sling), short sword and multiple throwing daggers.

Or, you could go human/female on the cleric and dwarf/male on the fighter...but 1e was always much more humanocentric than later incarnations. So I think 2 humans, an elf and a halfling strike me as a very 1e group.

Or...well...I could come up with a thousand combo's for this. So I'll leave it here.

Have a great time with it.
--Steel Dragons

 

[billd91]

I would think an iconic 1e party would probably have more than 4 characters. Here's what I've often done for games like the SSI computer games (Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, etc):

dwarven fighter
halfling thief
human cleric
elven fighter/magic user
human ranger
human paladin

 

[steeldragons]

HAH! Jester beat me to it!

I agree, an "iconic" 1e group should be more than 4 PCs. So...just for kicks, my "ideal" 1e group would look a little something like this.

1 human fighter
1 dwarf fighter
1 elf fighter/magic-user or magic-user/thief
1 half-elf cleric/magic-user
1 human cleric
1 halfling fighter/thief


--SD

 

[Dykstrav]

Have you considered using an iconic party from D&D settings of the 1E era? Perhaps the Heroes of the Lance (Caramon, Raistlin, Goldmoon, et cetera) or maybe the lineup from the Icewind Dale Trilogy (Drizzt, Wulfgar, Catti-brie, et cetera)? They were actually designed to be iconic adventuring parties for their respective settings, so that factor would have some appeal to me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Have you considered using an iconic party from D&D settings of the 1E era? Perhaps the Heroes of the Lance (Caramon, Raistlin, Goldmoon, et cetera) or maybe the lineup from the Icewind Dale Trilogy (Drizzt, Wulfgar, Catti-brie, et cetera)? They were actually designed to be iconic adventuring parties for their respective settings, so that factor would have some appeal to me.

I was playing long enough before the TSR novels came out that they all still feel too newfangled to me to count as classic. Lord knows that everyone who plays a wizard in my games has to be a Raistlin-sized pain in the ass, though. (Including me, when I play in other people's games.)

 

[JRRNeiklot]

The classic 1E party had about 6-8 pcs so:

Human or Dwarven fighter
Human or Half Elven ranger
Human Paladin
Human MU
Elven Fighter/MU
Halfling/Gnome/Dwarven thief
Human Cleric

 

[howandwhy99]

Fighting-Man Dwarf

Thief Halfling

Cleric Human

Magic-User Elf

Human of any of the 4 are pretty iconic too, but racial preferences split up as the above IMO. Oh yeah, and the 1/2 Elf M-U, F-M, Thief

 

[Votan]

Dwarf (or Human) Fighter

Elf Fighter/Magic-user

Gnome Thief/Illusionist

Human Ranger

Human Cleric

Half-Elf Fighter/Magic-user/Cleric

That would be reasonably typical of the sorts of 1st level 1E AD&D parties I have seen. A Paladin might replace one of these if your DM was exceptionally generous with ability rolls. Pure class halfling thieves existed (and the gnome could also have been a halfling thief), but I saw a lot of multi-classing of magic-user and thief class choices.

I did see a pure human magic user in the GDQ series, but that was the exception in my neck of the woods.