Yep, looking at the AD&D 1e Player's Handbook with some fresh eyes.
I've been enjoying looking at the old D&D / AD&D rulebooks with fresh eyes. Today I look at the AD&D 1e Player's Handbook, starting with the back cover and then moving to the front. My God, Rangers are powerful at low levels (and powerful again at name level)Link to Episode #40: https://anchor.fm/tavernchat/episodes/Episode-40---Looking-at-the-ADD-1e-PH--Back-to-Front-e1n5r1
Rangers and Paladins are powerful but it seems people always forget (or handwave) the ability score minimums for these classes.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I was never able to naturally roll up a Ranger or Paladin. These classes were either assigned to our group as pre-rolled characters, or the DM would allow us to massage our ability score rolls until we reached the minimum requisites. We mostly played one-off adventures though, so "growing" into an over-powered character wasn't a problem.
DeleteThere was a post here about Bards awhile ago, too. I've never encountered a "natural" bard. No one in our group ever had the prerequisites or patience to play one.
Anyone have any experience with a "natural" bard?!
Being that June was the 40th anniversary of its release I'm glad someone is breaking it out.
ReplyDeleteI really like the way classes and leveling work in AD&D. But I never liked the combat sequence, even when I was running 2nd Edition as a teenager. Declaring your actions before initiative? Segments of a round? a d10 roll but how bonuses were applied was a bit confusing especially if not doing individual initiative.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I love about OSR is so many great house ruled combat systems that I wished I had known when I was running games all those years ago.