AD&D 1E What was so bad about unearthed arcana 1e?

[fuindordm]

If the PC doesn't spend any game time on collecting and tracking mistletoe, reduce all spell power by 50% assuming oak leaves or other improvised natural ingredients.
The PC is still casting 3rd level spells at level 3 and using one of the fastest XP tables in the game, so that spell power penalty is not exactly unfair.

 

[mixmastashizz]

If the PC doesn't spend any game time on collecting and tracking mistletoe, reduce all spell power by 50% assuming oak leaves or other improvised natural ingredients.
The PC is still casting 3rd level spells at level 3 and using one of the fastest XP tables in the game, so that spell power penalty is not exactly unfair.

I think there's a lot of things that in isolation seems unfair or unbalanced, but actually are reasonable when you consider the game holistically and in the lens of a long term campaign.

 

[haakon1]

The rules on mistletoe freshness and harvesting meant that if played by the book nearly all your spells would be at reduced efficacy compared to the actual spell description.

Was this rule followed much? Seems like a Weapon Speed Factor type rule - it’s there, it’s complicated, it’s ignored.

I don’t remember that rule happening in my groups, but I only remember one druid back then.

 

[Mannahnin]

Was this rule followed much? Seems like a Weapon Speed Factor type rule - it’s there, it’s complicated, it’s ignored.

I don’t remember that rule happening in my groups, but I only remember one druid back then.

I don't remember it getting discussed as much as WSF, but I put that caveat in there for a reason.

 

[Mannahnin]

In my current 1e game, I'm playing a 16 STR and 16 CON fighter. we are level 4 now. I am by far and away one of the most effective classes. A lot of folks forget that most of your spells as a MU are random, and you couldn't prepare but what your chart said so you better be lucky if you didn't know what you would face. Our wizard had spider climb as their spell at level 1. We joked that we didn't even know if he was a real magic user because he never cast a spell until the 4th session lol.

In 1E? So Spider Climb off the Defensive roll, Read Magic automatically... what were his Offensive and Misc spells? Not that it's impossible to have four low-utility spells. Could have gotten Push for offense and Erase for Misc, say, but 1E tends to mitigate against this better than if you were to roll in B/X. Of course B/X also doesn't make it random. It says the DM may choose or let the player choose their spell.

And if you're playing RAW initiative, spells are slow. Like, can carry over into the next round slow. That makes a world of difference. You also had to declare what you were doing at the start of the round. So if it got to your turn and the spell you said you were going to cast wasn't the best for that moment when it got to your turn? Too bad.

Most low level M-U spells are quick. M-U spells you'd use in combat are almost always 1 segment per level casting time. Cleric spells tend to be a bit slower.

Of course even 3 segments for a fireball can be too much, which is part of why wands are so important, and Gary talks about that in the spellcasting initiative section in the DMG. Part of the tactics of AD&D is deliberately using devices or low level spells in combat to be quicker. Magic Missile is specifically good for disrupting an enemy caster for that reason.

The restriction on not being able to move & cast did sometimes make for awkwardness, though IME it was very common to let them cancel the spell rather than losing it if the target wasn't available anymore.

I have never come across an explanation for why crossbows were so weak in AD&D, when IRL they were super effective. When I first got the 2E PHB I loved most of the new rules, but was baffled that they actually buffed long bows with the addition of sheaf arrows (1d8 damage) while leaving crossbows to languish.

It was the loading time. If they wanted to balance it out more accurately, they should have had a minimum STR requirement for longbows and not required a weapon prof slot for a crossbow. I think those two things would have resulted in more people using crossbows like we did historically.

As much as the slow ROF, I'm sure Toaster is thinking of the low damage. In 1E a longbow or shortbow (composite or not) does 1d6 and gets 2 shots a round. A light crossbow does d4 and gets 1 shot, a heavy does d4+1 S/M or d6+1 against L, but only shoots every other round. They have slightly better AC adjustments, but not nearly good enough by comparison. Heck, a longbow is just as good against plate as a heavy crossbow in 1E! Just bonkers.

Later editions of D&D let Wizards use light crossbows / made light crossbows a Simple weapon, so they got on board with your idea to make them more accessible. A strength minimums for heavy bows would definitely make sense, but of course part of making Dex a god stat has been D&D increasingly letting martials just lean on Dex and neglect Strength entirely if they want to.

This. Also, slings. Had Gary never heard of Balearic Slingers?

I'm sure he had, but one of the things unexplained by AD&D is that I think HE may have been thinking of shorter, more concealable versions. The reason Thieves can use them in AD&D is undoubtedly because they were a standard weapon for the Thieves Guild in Lankhmar, in Leiber's stories. Of course, that may not be it- he gave sling bullets the exact same damage as a heavy crossbow and stones the same as a light crossbow, so...

The equipment lists were expanded in UA.

Base PHB the clerics only ranged weapon is throwing hammers, and thieves only had slings.

Leiber, baby!

 

[Lanefan]

It says nothing of the sort just says that you gain four 1st level magic user spells but they use your seventh level spell slots if you cast them. No language about downplaying the power to a 1st level equivalent MU. Just that they come from the 1st level MU list, and you gain an additional 1st level MU spell from the list for each level above 14.

Edit: I suppose you could read that you cast the spells as a 14th level MU, but 14th level is just when you gain 7th level spell slots, therefore I don't think it's restricting the power to that level.
View attachment 416302

We agree, then, other than I misremembered 14th as 16th.

 

[Lanefan]

Was this rule followed much? Seems like a Weapon Speed Factor type rule - it’s there, it’s complicated, it’s ignored.

I don’t remember that rule happening in my groups, but I only remember one druid back then.

I vaguely remember some handwaving at mistletoe replacing other Druid/Nature Cleric components way back when, but that's it. Haven't seen that rule used since and, to be honest, had forgotten all about it. And we've had loads of Nature Clerics.

 

[Flying Toaster]

I remember quite liking it when it came back. Revisiting it, I have a sneaking suspicion that the Barbarian and Cavalier classes were power gamer traps. Like, the Barbarian front loads you with a ton of abilities, but then saddles you with not being able to use magic items and an extremely slow rate of advancement. On the other hand the Cavalier also has a lot of abilities, but its code of conduct practically guarantees an early demise.

I have seen suggestions that the UA barbarian and cavalier might have worked for one-on-one play, in which the DM does not have to worry about whether things are fair for the other players because there aren’t any. In the spirit of 80’s sword and sorcery movies, the solo PC barbarian could pick up some NPC henchmen or sidekicks like in the Schwarzenegger flick, or get your Marc Singer on and go beastmaster with a pet eagle or tiger or war mammoth . The cavalier could have a squire and a cleric chaplain.

I am getting interested in strongly themed campaigns with restricted player options and specialized focus, and I think that if for some reason you wanted to use UA barbarians and cavaliers as written they might work in a campaign focused heavily on one of those classes. There were several Dragon articles by (IIRC) Katharine Kerr which focused on real world history as a source for campaign ideas, and I think that could work well with these two classes.

You could have a campaign based on one or more of the “barbarian” cultures described by Classical Greco-Roman authors: Celtic and Germanic warriors fighting on foot, or Scythian, Sarmatian, and Alan cavalry. Lots of other options: Central Asian horse nomads like Turks and Mongols, desert camel nomads based on Bedouin Arabs or Tuareg Berbers, jungle warriors of Mesoamerica (maybe run them through C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan). Most of the PCs should be barbarians, either all from the same culture or from different ones if they want be a company of foreign misfits hiring themselves out as guards and mercenaries in civilized lands, which is basically what happened in Rome, Byzantium, and Tang China. Maybe bend the magic taboo a bit with a cleric or druid reskinned as a shaman from the same tribe(s) as the warriors.

You could have a party of several cavaliers or cavalier-paladins, each with an NPC squire and maybe a few PC or NPC clerics. You could have a semi-realistic low fantasy setting with feudal obligations, court intrigue, scheming merchant guilds, corrupt clergy, etc. Or go Arthurian high fantasy and have the PCs go on epic quests for holy relics, rescuing fair maidens, slaying dragons and giants. In case of killer rabbits, you can always have the clerics break out the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch... or just run away, run away!

 

[Flying Toaster]

We never used 3d6 in order in AD&D, since the DMG discouraged it, the ability score tables clearly weren't designed for it, and Gygax explicitly advises in the PH that a character will normally need at least two scores of 15+ to be viable.

My old AD&D groups never really settled on a consistent method. I think we sometimes used Method I (4d6, drop lowest, arrange as needed) or even a variant using 5d6, but I don’t think we even knew about the other three official PHB methods or the overpowered UA Method V. In retrospect we did not actually know the rules as well as we thought we did. My groups included older kids who had learned how to play from yet older kids who had graduated or moved away, so we used lots of B/X rules and house rules of unknown origin. I liked to just peruse the books for fun when I got bored, and almost always discovered something strange and surprising. Even though we often overruled the books when we disliked stuff like level limits or the RAW initiative system, we still could have solved lots of gaming questions if we had just RTFM .

At the time I compared the B/X rules with the PHB and noticed that the AD&D ability score system was much stingier with bonuses and much less consistent in general. B/X and BECMI had that nice smooth bell curve seemingly designed for 3d6 rolls, easily memorized once you got used to it. The pluses and minuses were consistent across the six abilities and you could get a +1 bonus from a mere 13, so characters did not really need super high scores. In fact a B/X character with all 13’s could probably be pretty successful (can’t remember if you needed higher scores to qualify for classes).

Whereas in AD&D even a 15 barely got you anything much, and the massive advantages for the highest scores and serious drawbacks for low or even medium scores created a perverse incentive to fudge or cheat. For warrior classes percentile strength and +3 or +4 hit points for 17-18 CON were too tantalizing to give up. Spellcasters needed very high INT or WIS if they wanted to get bonus spells, learn the highest level spells, or avoid getting locked out of good lower level spells by a failed attempt to learn. Thieves really needed that high DEX boost for their mediocre chances to use their abilities. And of course you had the “win more” XP bonus for high scores in prime requisites.

I think that retaining the 1E ability score tables was one of the biggest problems with the 2E PHB, no doubt done in the name of backwards compatibility. They then compounded the error by listing 3d6 down the line as the first of several methods. The 2E PHB had a sample fighter character called Rath with a 14 STR and no other high scores, and we mocked that character and the accompanying instructional text as unrealistic given the demands of the game. If I ever decide to run an “old school” D&D game again, I would probably use 2E with B/X ability scores and Method I.