AD&D 1E Three Things that can't be Fixed in 1e AD&D

[Celebrim]

Caster % to learn spell rolls and % spell failure are indeed going to be a problem as you level up.

I've met people who played "1e AD&D" for over a decade who weren't even aware those things were rules because they'd always played characters with 18's and generally never read the rules and so had ignored those tables explicitly or implicitly. Generally the solution in many cases is just to play with characters with stats optimized or near optimized for the class. How those characters came into being whether by cheating, generous attribute generation methods, making multiple characters and keeping the one you wanted, or whatever is an interesting discussion but often not even a rules discussion. If the goal is to make rules, referencing processes external to the rules isn't helpful.

Max level cast for M-Us is going to be super-weird in that it isn't a problem right up until it is, and then it's character defining. I can definitely see an entire party going on an epic quest for a fabled Manual of Int-boost to let the party mage cast the next level of spells.

It rarely comes up because people can play for decades and never have a single campaign that goes long enough to hit 13th level characters. You meet people who've played for 40 years and never stuck with one group of characters for more than five.

In my own experience, people play around the problem by foreseeing it and choosing to play multi-classed demi-humans that are going to hit hard level caps around the same time as the soft level caps anyway. It doesn't matter if your elf can't cast 7th level spells if they are going to hit a cap on M-U at 13th level anyway. But that's definitely playing around the problem.

All this really goes back to why at the start of my thinking I was thinking very much, "If you only fix the thief, you fix so much of the game, without having to deeply change the game into some unrecognizable form." But, the more threads I pulled, the more things unravelled. Fix the thief, well then you need to fix the assassin. Then it felt like I needed to fix the other skill defined class, the Barbarian. Then it feels like I need to fix NWPs as a whole. And along the way there are all sorts of small irritants that need to be fixed. And at some point I probably needed to produce a toned down cavalier.

And I had intended at some point to fix initiative and surprise.

But fixing the ability scores? That may be a bridge too far. A fix for that that leaves the game recognizable as 1e AD&D isn't obvious. The redone thief still feels like a 1e thief, but a redone fighter will lose all of its elegance and I think cause people to balk.

 

[Celebrim]

Depending on the stat-generating regime, if I was truly concerned about stat-dumping abuse, I'd raise the minimum stat requirement for Fighter (and other base classes if I expanded the methodology) to somewhere between 11 and 13.

Wholesale changes to ability minimums is one of the things I'm thinking about as a way to "fix ability scores" while still leaving the game recognizable 1e AD&D.

 

[TwoSix]

Wholesale changes to ability minimums is one of the things I'm thinking about as a way to "fix ability scores" while still leaving the game recognizable 1e AD&D.

Method V + raising ability requirements would get you pretty far from "the dice screwed me over" while still providing a fair amount of randomized character "texture", I feel.

 

[Celebrim]

Method V + raising ability requirements would get you pretty far from "the dice screwed me over" while still providing a fair amount of randomized character "texture", I feel.

I think that the solution is actually somewhat the reverse - make paladin, cavalier, ranger, barbarian, bard, and so forth actually easier to get into. You have a choice to go into classes that give you a lot of benefits that aren't tied to ability scores if you have a broad but achievable level of competence. The classes don't suck if you don't have 4 16's because they have so much going for them already. I already did this to the Barbarian, removing some of its front-loaded dependence on ability scores and also at the same time reducing the ability score minimums.

That would leave method V (or some variation of it) open as an option for those that wanted fiat characters, since the average ability score of choosing to be a ranger or cavalier would go down because your floor went down, while at the same time leaving Method II or Method III or variations of that for people who wanted to retain the 1e AD&D feel of playing what you were given rather than deciding what to play.

It also has some of the advantage of pushing the game subtly toward being humancentric since otherwise a lot of the times your choice with a bad roll that doesn't favor any class is multi-class as a demi-human, and hope the ability score bump and the broad range of abilities will make up for the lack of focus.

 

[TwoSix]

I think that the solution is actually somewhat the reverse - make paladin, cavalier, ranger, barbarian, bard, and so forth actually easier to get into. You have a choice to go into classes that give you a lot of benefits that aren't tied to ability scores if you have a board but achievable level of competence. I already did this to the Barbarian, removing some of its front-loaded dependence on ability scores and also at the same time reducing the ability score minimums.

That would leave method V (or some variation of it) open as an option for those that wanted fiat characters, since the average ability score of choosing to be a ranger or cavalier would go down because your floor went down, while at the same time leaving Method II or Method III or variations of that for people who wanted to retain the 1e AD&D feel of playing what you were given rather than deciding what to play.

Oh, I agree. I was thinking more of raising the requirements on the core 4, and lowering the requirements on the other classes.

 

[Mannahnin]

It also has some of the advantage of pushing the game subtly toward being humancentric since otherwise a lot of the times your choice with a bad roll that doesn't favor any class is multi-class as a demi-human, and hope the ability score bump and the broad range of abilities will make up for the lack of focus.

This is tickling a memory of someone opining that the main use-case in AD&D for playing a demi-human and multiclassing is if your ability scores are mediocre, so you get a nice variety of abilities despite not having the top end power. Can't remember right now whether this is something I heard a designer talk about or whether I'm just remembering one of your older posts, but it's a neat insight either way.

 

[Willie the Duck]

The problem with your specific concept is counter intuitively, the best way to make a fighter is to "dump stat" strength. That is, given an array of ability scores, you maximize your character's power by choosing to be a fighter if you are generally high in scores other than strength, since you get strength for free.

Unless this is a deliberate gimme to the player, I would think that if you are going to replace a stat, you shouldn't also get to roll that sixth attribute. I suppose if you did it for all players and classes (wizard can do the same with Int, cleric with Wis) it would make an interesting dynamic where placing your lowest stat in your prime one is the best option -- unless you roll an 18, and then the decision becomes really interesting.

It doesn't really though, or at least, not much.

The omitted middle part of that sentence is rather important.

Regardless, none of these things make up for a loss in the other if all are on the board. A character with two attacks per round and +6 damage from Str is going to do more than one with two attacks per round and no strength bonus. No argument.

However, a character without that Strength bonus still can do things to address the damage issue other than fixing their Str (which, given the presence of Gauntlets of Ogre Power, is really the answer). If those efforts come at the expense of solving strength, it may be reasonable to fix those first (depending on how easy each is to fix). If they can get specialization bonuses or extra attacks through 2wf, or a magic (maybe flaming) weapon, or have the magic user cast haste* on them a lot, this will chip away at their damage issue.
*here assuming the DM doesn't enforce aging or at least the resultant system shock check, otherwise this is never a good gamble

All of this is predicated on the notion that fixing one is at the expense of fixing the other. If the PC can indeed have all of it, then yes maxing strength is always great (and yes, compounds per attack).

The problem is hypothetically a 1st level fighter can have +6 to hit and +9 to damage from first level. This is an insane number compared to the increases likely available for magical weapons.

Here's the big problem (+3/+6 is from the Strength, and those without 18/00 str can still get specialization, but still...). The big issue with the lopsided attribute bonuses to the top of the scale isn't just that 14 has no benefit, but also that the benefit is so huge. Constitution too -- +4 is as big as the difference in average from magic user and barbarian. BX and BECMI have both a wider distribution (pluses start at 13, IIRC), but the bonuses only go up to +3 (which is only one more than what you get for a 17 stat). It makes having maxed out attributes just. that. great., and that makes finding a solution that manages all the other concerns we've been talking about rather troublesome.

 

[Celebrim]

Oh, I agree. I was thinking more of raising the requirements on the core 4, and lowering the requirements on the other classes.

We're on the same page then.

Gutting the ability score system is a bridge too far, and you can't fix it and have something that is recognizably 1e AD&D. But I think changing the way classes interact with it is something you could do.

I also think now that it would really help if I port down some of my 3e homebrew classes to 1e. Leaving aside things like Sorcerer, that may or may not fit, I really think that there needs to be a class with Charisma as a prime requisite, because one thing that would help is if you had more options for classes depending on what the dice gave you. And I have one in mind that I think would be fun.

 

[TwoSix]

This is tickling a memory of someone opining that the main use-case in AD&D for playing a demi-human and multiclassing is if your ability scores are mediocre, so you get a nice variety of abilities despite not having the top end power. Can't remember right now whether this is something I heard a designer talk about or whether I'm just remembering one of your older posts, but it's a neat insight either way.

I do think a reachable goal for an AD&D revamp would be to keep the generation of character stats consequential for determining character concept (and ideally, something that can be strategized around). But also without being overly punitive to the point of making any set of rolls completely undesirable, or only allow a few options instead of just favoring some.

 

[Lanefan]

How many wishes does it take to go from 12 to 16 strength? The answer is four.

How many wishes does it take to go from 16 to 18 strength. You probably know the answer isn't two. The answer is 20.

Now, how many wishes does it take to go from 18 to 18/00 strength - which is the same you admit as going from 18 to 24. The answer is 10.

Clearly something is weird here. We've got stacks of kludges and we're trying to get it to work out.

How many wishes are available in your setting/game? And how many of those are used to increase stats? IME the answers are, in sequence, not many and none.

If you spilt out percentile strength into integers then at least it becomes consistent: 10 wishes per point above 16. It also makes the Cavalier's percentile-increment system work consistently with itself and not have most Cavaliers hitting 18.00 by mid-high level, and also allows one to port that same system out to every class rather than just Cavaliers (a move we made instantly, once we saw how the percentile-increment system worked).