What should have been included in 1E's UA that wasn't in there?

[molonel]

This thread is about the first edition AD&D Unearthed Arcana, so the anti-paladins to which I was referring are 1e anti-paladins (described in Dragon magazine). They are chaotic evil and are totally unplayable.

Under the 1e rules, paladins who "fall" simply become fighters.

The latter is also true of 3rd Edition paladins, although mechanics for the Blackguard PrC in core and the variants of the Paladin of Tyranny and the Paladin of Slaughter in UA to go somewhere. I like the roleplaying potential of it, and I've seen it work quite well.

We had an anti-paladin in 1st Edition where we just flipped the paladin on its head. He was lawful evil. That also worked.

Since the thread is about 1st Edition UA, I think there should have been a mechanic for that in that book. That is a lack in its material, IMO.

 

[Xyanthon]

At the time, I really liked UA. I haven't really read through it in years but I thought that there was some interesting info in there. However, I would have liked to have seen much more info on social classes and the like. I felt that if they were going to include the chevalier, they should address social standing, class systems, etc. There were several classes in Dragon that would have been cool to have seen in an official format.

You know, I'll have to go look through my copy of UA just to see what I think of it now. I'm sure there will be things that I don't agree with but there is such a level of hostility towards it and other later supplements that I just didn't feel at the time (I was quite happy to have new offical hardbacks to peruse). Granted I was around 13 or 14 when most of those books came out and probably much more of a "munchkin" style player than I am now.

 

[T. Foster]

At the time, I really liked UA. I haven't really read through it in years but I thought that there was some interesting info in there. However, I would have liked to have seen much more info on social classes and the like. I felt that if they were going to include the chevalier, they should address social standing, class systems, etc.

This is another area where I think UA represents an intermediate stepping stone on the way to Gygax's never-published 2E AD&D -- there are socio-economic class tables in UA, and at least the implication that the character's social class determines what classes he's eligible to pursue (e.g. if you have SEC 1 you can only be a thief or assassin, etc.) -- but it's something of an afterthought (except for cavalier characters), nothing like its importance in Gygax's later work -- Mythus, Living Fantasy, the Yggsburgh setting for C&C. I strongly suspect Gygax's 2E would've expanded the role of SEC in AD&D to something more like the latter works.

 

[Xyanthon]

This is another area where I think UA represents an intermediate stepping stone on the way to Gygax's never-published 2E AD&D -- there are socio-economic class tables in UA, and at least the implication that the character's social class determines what classes he's eligible to pursue (e.g. if you have SEC 1 you can only be a thief or assassin, etc.) -- but it's something of an afterthought (except for cavalier characters), nothing like its importance in Gygax's later work -- Mythus, Living Fantasy, the Yggsburgh setting for C&C. I strongly suspect Gygax's 2E would've expanded the role of SEC in AD&D to something more like the latter works.

I remember the whole social class for the chevalier and all. I would have liked to seen it expanded upon. I guess I'd have liked to have seen more info on 0 level peaseants and serfs (and what would be the expert in 3.x games). I'd have also liked to have seen more info on aristocrats as well as nobles, titles of peerage, etc. It just seems that it would have rounded out the whole chevalier thing a bit better. I'm going to have to flip through UA again very soon to see what I think of it.

 

[dcas]

You're probably right, Foster, though Gary's LA takes the opposite approach (one's social class is determined by one's "class" [Order]).

 

[teitan]

Like in the DMG Appendix E?

Well, yeah, just like that... that book has tooooooooo much stuff in it. LOL

 

[tx7321]

dcas: "This thread is about the first edition AD&D Unearthed Arcana, so the anti-paladins to which I was referring are 1e anti-paladins (described in Dragon magazine). They are chaotic evil and are totally unplayable.

Under the 1e rules, paladins who "fall" simply become fighters."

I think switching to an anti-paladin from a paladin would be unplayable as a PC (this to me would be like turning into a monster).

However, if you started out a PC CE fighter with appropriate stats (remember these guys can be dog ugly) and they gradually developed clerical like powers it would have been pretty cool. I think this could have been a very do-able class.

A perfect example of an anti-paladin btw, is the Kurgan? from the first Highlander movie (in the first battle). I think alot of players could get into starting with this as a PC. It would be unusual though, and require a very evil adventuring party.

 

[teitan]

I'm gonna have to say, and I await the flames, but I don't think Gygax's second edition would have been very well received when looking at what he said he was going to do and what he did in later games he designed.

 

[molonel]

I think switching to an anti-paladin from a paladin would be unplayable as a PC (this to me would be like turning into a monster).

However, if you started out a PC CE fighter with appropriate stats (remember these guys can be dog ugly) and they gradually developed clerical like powers it would have been pretty cool. I think this could have been a very do-able class.

Chaotic Evil has always been difficult to play in a party, even an evil party. Lawful evil, however, is quite doable.

I haven't seen anyone start evil and go good, but I'd like to.

 

[T. Foster]

I'm gonna have to say, and I await the flames, but I don't think Gygax's second edition would have been very well received when looking at what he said he was going to do and what he did in later games he designed.

I think this is almost certainly true. UA has a very mixed reputation among AD&D fans, both "old-schooler" grognards (who think AD&D peaked in about 1980 and was downhill ever since) and later edition fans (the core 2E books repudiated much of UA), and every indication I've seen, from Gygax's Dragon magazine articles, from his Gord novels, and from his post-TSR output (especially the Dangerous Journeys: Mythus game), is that his 2E would've gone even further in that direction -- heavier rules, power inflation, more specific "flavor" ingrained into the rules, more focus on "campaign" play (more focus on the social environment, the other planes, etc.). Rules-wise Mythus is very different from AD&D, and deliberately so (though it didn't keep TSR from suing over it anyway), but if you're able to look past the rules-differences and read between the lines there's an awful lot of similarity in flavor, milieu, stylistic assumptions, etc. between it and Gygax's late-period AD&D work (in my own group we saw it as the obvious successor to AD&D, much moreso than TSR's 2E which felt both cheesed-out and watered-down to us, and switched over immediately). The fact that Mythus is remembered fondly, if at all, by very few surely isn't entirely coincidental...