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

[T. Foster]

I wrote up a class once like what you're describing, back-extrapolated from the sorcery/conjuration/witchcraft rules in Dangerous Journeys -- a "prestige class" sort of thing for evil magic-users and/or clerics. But alas I no longer have it

 

[tx7321]

Hey Foster, can you remember the jist of it? Did they have any unique spells or abilities?

 

[FEADIN]

Around the same years as the UA, may be even before, in White Dwarf (English piublication I think) came another Barbarian, with 6 sided dice and a power called "first attack ferocity".
If you won the initiative the damage from you first stike was multiplied by 2,3,4 or 5....
A kind of "backstab".
I don't remember the others powers from that strange class but I saw one NPC barbarian strike one of the group fighter, 120hp damage!!!!

 

[RFisher]

That's why I suggested an all-barbarian campaign.

Yeah. Except that of all the all-one-class campaign possibilities, all-barbarian seems like one of the least attractive. Unless we actually had barbarian-shaman, &c.

The barbarian personality is one which is always trying to be the top dog, falling in line only for a short time, until an opportunity presents itself to move up and dominate, (just like real male wolves).

So the "what he'll tolerate" table should be reversed!

 

[robertsconley]

I disagree. With single and double weapon specialization the UA fighter had much more combat punch than a barbarian with the same xp's. The barbarian also had a number of restrictions in use of magic items and association with magic-users which clearly differentiated him from a fighter. All in all, I thought barbarians might have been a bit overpowered (the original Dragon write-up which I believe excluded use of all magic items was more balanced IMO), but I certainly didn't think they rendered fighters obsolete.

One of the most memorable post-UA character I have seen was my friend fighter called Slice-Handler. He took specialization and double specialization in thrown daggers.

Lets just say that he rivaled the bow and arrow guy in "Hawk the Slayer" in the number of missile weapons he can get off in a round.

The crowning moment for the character is when we made it to last room of this killer dungeon a friend of ours was DMing for us. In the old days often DMs had a killer dungeon that was impossible to beat and filled with ludicrous traps and monster. Well myself playing a magic user and my other friend playing Slice beat the dungeon. We were about 15th level.

In the last room was the hand of Vecna. I gave into temptation and sliced my hand off and put on the hand. Slice was going "Oh crap" and I gave a little monologue and I attacked him.

Well I thought I had most of his daggers covered with Protection from Normal Missile. But the boy had a zillion magic daggers as well. It took a couple of round and I took a lot of hits but I finally had him down to his last hit point and he was out of daggers finally. Initiative was rolled for the last round and he won it.

Frantically he looked over his sheet for a half minute. Looked surprised and then showed the DM he what he found. The DM then nodded yes. My friend reached up to his ear, ripped off a earring in the shape of a dagger, and threw it at me. In mid-air grew into a +1 dagger. He rolled a natural 20 and max damage and took me down to 0 and thus I passed out. He walked over and killed me and burned the hand of vecna. He walked out with the remainder of treasure and retired

And thus ends Tale of Slice Handler the best dagger thrower that ever walked.

Rob Conley

 

[Mighty Halfling]

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

A proper binding that would actually keep the book from falling apart.

 

[dcas]

A proper binding that would actually keep the book from falling apart.

Later printings addressed this issue.

My copy is still solid (unlike my copy of Oriental Adventures).

 

[teitan]

Like in the DMG Appendix E?

I just looked at this when I got the chance and yeah, its listed but isn't explained by any means. Without reference in the rest of the book, it makes no sense to a 13 year old.

 

[T. Foster]

Hey Foster, can you remember the jist of it? Did they have any unique spells or abilities?

The class abilities all came from the Mythus Sorcery and Demonology K/S Areas and rules for Infernal Vows. My intention was to adapt the Sorcery spell list from Mythus Magick (50 or so new spells, IIRC), but in all honesty I never got around to actually doing so. This class wouldn't have been suitable for publication, but it might have made a fun house-rule.

It's still a back-of-my-mind intention to someday reverse-engineer a bunch of new AD&D classes out of the professions and K/S Areas in Mythus -- sorcerer, witch, mystic, jester, mountebank, heka forger (which would need a different name in AD&D -- "runesmith" or something), etc. The "guts" of the classes are all there, I'd just need to convert them to AD&D conventions (levels & xp, spell slots instead of heka points, class abilities instead of skills, etc.).

 

[TheAuldGrump]

common sense.

And good editing. Some of the bumbles (in regards to Thief/Acrobat) were inexcusable.

In many ways I hold UA up as an example of how not to write a game supplement, with bad rules balancing being weighed against bad editing.

The Auld Grump