Joined: Dec 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 813 Location: The Echo Chamber Karma: 24
OD&D Survivor « Thread Started on Dec 18, 2007, 1:36pm »
So, which classes would you vote "off the island" and why? I've been thinking quite a bit about the character classes that were introduced and that gained wide currency before the release of AD&D. Even though I plan only to use the three classes from the LBBs, should the game last long enough, I am sure either my players or I will feel some need to include other classes (or maybe we won't but I figured it's best to plan ahead). I've also been thinking about the notion of classes as archetypes rather than professions and I think D&D -- any version -- is at its strongest when we think of classes in this way.
With that in mind, here's my run-down:
1. Fighting Man, Magic-User, and Cleric: Keep, obviously.
2. Thief: I am coming round powerfully to the notion that this class is the thin end of a very large wedge and should be eliminated. Even leaving aside the issue of the thief's de facto skill system (which is a BIG issue), the fact is that, for me, thieving is something you do; it's not who you are. Conan was frequently a thief but he wasn't a Thief. So, gone.
3. Paladin: I would keep the paladin, probably with some small changes, most notably the elimination of the Charisma requirement, as I think it shifts the focus too much toward ability scores and away from the class itself.
4. Assassin: See Thief. Gone.
5. Monk: The monk as written is not a traditional fantasy archetype for me. The notion of a martial ascetic, however, does have a long pedigree and might be suitable in some settings. I'd be inclined to keep the class around as an option but would rarely, if ever, use it myself.
6. Druid: I'd keep this. In a game where clerics, as written, must choose between Law or Chaos after a certain point, the option for a Neutral "cleric" makes good sense and wise man/shaman who communes with nature, etc. is a powerful archetype.
7. Bard: Unless it were re-written, I'd get rid of this class. The bard is too schizophrenic and lacks a strong archetypal core. He could be reworked into many different related classes but, as of now, he's too disjointed and unclear to be a solid archetype.
8. Ranger: Very tough call. On the one hand, I like the idea of rangers, perhaps because I was always very fond of Aragorn from Tolkien. On the other, he has some of the Thief's problems: his greatest claims to fame are things that I think characters of most classes (especially fighting men, elves, and halflings) might be able to do, if their background makes it plausible. So, I'm torn. I'd give rangers a tentative thumbs down.
9. Illusionist: Gone. A separate spell list is not sufficient basis for a new character class. Likewise, the illusionist sets a bad precedent for later violence inflicted upon the magic-user class and I'll have none of that.
Joined: Dec 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 813 Location: The Echo Chamber Karma: 24
Re: OD&D Survivor « Reply #2 on Dec 18, 2007, 2:13pm »
Quote:
Any consideration to a barbarian of some sort?
Barbarians are a bit like the ranger for me, further complicated by the fact that (so far as I know) there was no OD&D barbarian class, so that automatically puts them under suspicion for my purposes. What I mean is that, like the ranger, most of the hallmarks of a putative barbarian class are just outdoorsy abilities I'd let several classes try their hands at rather than anything unique to the archetype of the Barbarian.
Now, were I to create a barbarian class, I'd have to think about the core of his archetype, which for me isn't simply his outdoorsy-ness or even his toughness (which is probably a consequence of the former) but rather his being an outsider to Civilization. What exactly that means mechanically I'm not sure and I fear that defining it would probably be very campaign specific* and thus further undercut the class's utility.
*For myself, I'd probably make a connection between barbarians and Chaos (but not necessarily evil) but that's based on my unique take on Law vs. Chaos and how it could play out.
Joined: Aug 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 323 Location: Leander, TX Karma: 14
Re: OD&D Survivor « Reply #3 on Dec 18, 2007, 2:18pm »
Quote:
So, which classes would you vote "off the island" and why? I've been thinking quite a bit about the character classes that were introduced and that gained wide currency before the release of AD&D. Even though I plan only to use the three classes from the LBBs, should the game last long enough, I am sure either my players or I will feel some need to include other classes (or maybe we won't but I figured it's best to plan ahead). I've also been thinking about the notion of classes as archetypes rather than professions and I think D&D -- any version -- is at its strongest when we think of classes in this way.
With that in mind, here's my run-down:
1. Fighting Man, Magic-User, and Cleric: Keep, obviously.
2. Thief: I am coming round powerfully to the notion that this class is the thin end of a very large wedge and should be eliminated. Even leaving aside the issue of the thief's de facto skill system (which is a BIG issue), the fact is that, for me, thieving is something you do; it's not who you are. Conan was frequently a thief but he wasn't a Thief. So, gone.
3. Paladin: I would keep the paladin, probably with some small changes, most notably the elimination of the Charisma requirement, as I think it shifts the focus too much toward ability scores and away from the class itself.
4. Assassin: See Thief. Gone.
5. Monk: The monk as written is not a traditional fantasy archetype for me. The notion of a martial ascetic, however, does have a long pedigree and might be suitable in some settings. I'd be inclined to keep the class around as an option but would rarely, if ever, use it myself.
6. Druid: I'd keep this. In a game where clerics, as written, must choose between Law or Chaos after a certain point, the option for a Neutral "cleric" makes good sense and wise man/shaman who communes with nature, etc. is a powerful archetype.
7. Bard: Unless it were re-written, I'd get rid of this class. The bard is too schizophrenic and lacks a strong archetypal core. He could be reworked into many different related classes but, as of now, he's too disjointed and unclear to be a solid archetype.
8. Ranger: Very tough call. On the one hand, I like the idea of rangers, perhaps because I was always very fond of Aragorn from Tolkien. On the other, he has some of the Thief's problems: his greatest claims to fame are things that I think characters of most classes (especially fighting men, elves, and halflings) might be able to do, if their background makes it plausible. So, I'm torn. I'd give rangers a tentative thumbs down.
9. Illusionist: Gone. A separate spell list is not sufficient basis for a new character class. Likewise, the illusionist sets a bad precedent for later violence inflicted upon the magic-user class and I'll have none of that.
That mostly covers it, I think.
Neat topic. Except that I don't watch 'reality shows'. :P Still, I'll play.
1. Trifecta: Obviously keep, as you say.
2. Thief: Also just as you say, I would ditch the Thief. I think that a Fighting Man should be able to sneak in light or no armor, should be able to hide if there is a place to hide, should be able to climb if he has the physical potential and there are handholds or rope, etc. An OD&D "Thief" for me is just a Fighting Man who wears little or no armor and has a good enough Str and Dex to handle the appropriate attribute checks. He could don heavy armor if he wanted to and could afford it (of course I make Plate 10 times as expensive as normal... otherwise very few people cannot afford it). Maybe he would not don heavy armor even if he could - it does have some disadvantages. Anyway, the "Scout" abilities ought already to be the province of the Fighting Man. As for the technical abilities: Pick Pocket and Open Locks, etc. (the larceny and "boxman" type stuff), those can be the province of technical experts, or Fighting Men who include it in their background (of course, if your background was as a pickpocket then you weren't a boxman or a mercenary or a watch officer, etc. - the background has to be limited and make sense).
3. Paladin: The Paladin is not a class generally fitting for the milieus that I tend to run. I would only use him in a Judeo-Christian setting. My D&D tends to be further removed in space and time. So, no Paladins.
4. Assassin: Also gone. As per the Thief, but kills rather than steals.
5. Monk: Also gone. Doesn't really fit with my fantasy games. "You know, walk the earth, meet people... get into adventures. Like Caine from "Kung Fu."" Or not.
6. Druid: Gone! I like my stuff a bit more polarized. If I'm doing nature worshippers, they'll be more like the Pagans from Thief: The Dark Project (very cool computer game). So, just Chaotic clerics.
7. Bard: Blech! Gone! Don't sing at the monster, stab the monster.
8. Ranger: Here's a class I like. But also gone! It doesn't do anything significant that a Fighting Man with the appropriate pedigree couldn't do.
9. Illusionist: Gone. This is just a Magic-User who casts Phantasmal Forces a lot, and perhaps has a flamboyant personality.
Wow. That's everybody except the original three. Guess I'm a hard-nose. :)
Joined: Dec 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 669 Karma: 35
Re: OD&D Survivor « Reply #5 on Dec 18, 2007, 2:30pm »
The idea of classes as archetypes is something I've been thinking about as a result of many recent discussions. Some of my thinking runs in parallel with some of the rest of you, but it also diverges. Here's my thinking:
Fighters: certainly make sense Clerics: also makes sense Magic-users: also makes sense, but because I like a variety of magic and magical themes, I am retaining illusionists, and may add other sub-classes, such as alchemists. Thieves: I actually find the Thief archetype to be an appropriate one and I'm not so bothered by it as others are. (This might bear some further writing, but not right here) Paladins: I like the idea of paladins, but I also think it is a status to which one aspires, so I wouldn't let characters start off as paladins. Rangers, Scouts, and the ilk: this is a thorny problem. I'm also influenced by Tolkien, so the idea of Rangers is interesting. But it is also so tied into Middle-Earth that I have to think a bit more about whether or not it really translates well into other settings. Having seen a Scout class (which seems to combine Rangers and Thieves), I'm still thinking about what I am trying to represent with this sub-class. Monks: I've always tended to object to Monks as a class, simply because they are so clearly grabbed from a different milieu ("kung fu" movies and the like), and so I've wondered if there is a good "fit" for them in a more European-like fantasy setting. (This also suggests that if you vary the cultures in your campaign from that Euro-centric assumption, you get different answers about what fits and what doesn't.) Assassins: I think this is where I notice that "thin wedge" falling squarely on my toes (to mix my metaphors). Never really liked them, and felt as though they were simply too unbalancing and not what I felt was heroic in fantasy. Bards. They need to be re-worked. I might take a stab at this and see what comes out. Druids. I like the concept, but I find myself looking for some other kind of name or identifier for this class. Druids, like monks, are more culturally specific than we really let on, so while I like the outlook of the class, their name and cultural underpinnings need work (see Monk for similar thoughts). And there may be other sub-classes or classes I'd want to include, such as the Houri and the Beastmaster, but in either of those cases, actual examples would be fairly rare.
More to follow, as I'm still working things out. I will note that I looked at the last list of classes I allowed in a D&D game, and tossed a bunch of them out, including Merchants and Detectives (both written up in White Dwarf, when more and more classes seemed like the thing to do).
Joined: Dec 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 669 Karma: 35
Re: OD&D Survivor « Reply #6 on Dec 18, 2007, 2:32pm »
Quote:
Barbarians are a bit like the ranger for me, further complicated by the fact that (so far as I know) there was no OD&D barbarian class
Not quite true; there was a Barbarian character class that appeared in White Dwarf, and then was considerably modified for AD&D a short while afterwards.
Joined: Dec 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 813 Location: The Echo Chamber Karma: 24
Re: OD&D Survivor « Reply #7 on Dec 18, 2007, 2:34pm »
Quote:
Not quite true; there was a Barbarian character class that appeared in White Dwarf, and then was considerably modified for AD&D a short while afterwards.
Do you remember anything about it? What was it like?
Joined: Jul 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 2,503 Karma: 57
Re: OD&D Survivor « Reply #8 on Dec 18, 2007, 3:10pm »
Quote:
[*] Bards. They need to be re-worked. I might take a stab at this and see what comes out.
I'd like to see what you come up with. I like Bards, but I've never played the Bard from the SR so I don't know how unbalanced or schizophrenic it really is.
Dieter the Deathless, anger-fueled fighting machine.
Finarvyn Administrator Dungeon Master member is offline
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Re: OD&D Survivor « Reply #9 on Dec 18, 2007, 3:19pm »
Not a single definitive answer, I know, but just some thoughts off of the top of my head....
It always seemed to me (but as far as I know was never actually stated anywhere) that the main purpose for the cleric was to chase off undead kind of like in The Omen or other horror movies. Since I don't use an abundance of undead in most of my campaigns, the cleric becomses something similar to a fighter-wizard with a slighly different spell list (healing, etc). From that perspective, I might be tempted to vote the cleric (of the "big four") off of the island.
If you want to include all classes and sub-classes instead of the main 4, then I wouldn't get rid of one of the main 4 but a sub-class. I might lean towards the Illusionist as being the least useful. Or, since we're keeping the Cleric, one could get rid of the Paladin since he's just a fighter-cleric anyway.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC playtester (2011) C&C playtester (2003) I'm partly responsible for the S&W WhiteBox Builder of the TrollBridge Master of Mutants; MA since 1976 OD&D Player since 1975
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" - Dave Arneson
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Re: OD&D Survivor « Reply #10 on Dec 18, 2007, 3:20pm »
See, I think it's okay to have all these neat classes, as the requirements for them are so stringent (except thieves) that you won't have many of them. Except everybody then wants to play one, and so they start to complain about their attribute rolls. Then you get attribute creep and it all goes to Hell. So if you have players that are willing to accept that maybe one out of every 30 characters might be good enough for a sub-class, you are okay. But it doesn't seem likely
Joined: Jun 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 505 Karma: 15
Re: OD&D Survivor « Reply #11 on Dec 18, 2007, 4:14pm »
My thoughts:
Fighting Man, Magic User, Cleris: in
Thief: in (but only for humans and halflings, and halflings have a level limit and don't multi-class). I am open to ideas for eliminating the thief but having started with Holmes Basic, it's been a part of D&D my entire gaming life
Paladin: in, though I've got to re-think, it may not really fit what I'm doing
Assasin: out, doesn't fit
Monk: out, I've always thought WTF about this class...
Druid, Ranger: out, I don't see a place for these in a mega-dungeon campaign
Bard: out, also doesn't seem to fit a mega-dungeon, and good points above about the archetype
Illusionist: illusions have always been tricky to run, someone always wants to create an illusory dragon as a 1st level character... No need to have a class that's all about illusions.
Barbarian: I would be open to a good light armor fighter class, though I'm not sure how well it would fit the megadungeon concept.
Joined: Aug 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 323 Location: Leander, TX Karma: 14
Re: OD&D Survivor « Reply #12 on Dec 18, 2007, 4:28pm »
I might also add that, in certain circumstances, I would be willing to drop the Cleric. Especially in something like a Zothique game.
If the Cleric is there to provide healing and chase away undead... well, chasing away undead isn't necessary, because you can always destroy them with sword and spell (and that's more fun anyways). If you want to have magical healing (I know I would keep it in), you can always just give it to the Magic-User.
One thing I thought up while pondering running a B/X Zothique game was to give the Magic-User a power called "Channeling". He can 'forget' any memorized spell to Channel its power into healing: roll 1d6 of healing for each level of the spell (so he drops a knock spell and can cast a 2d6 cure, etc.). Makes the Magic-User very flexible.
Joined: Dec 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 813 Location: The Echo Chamber Karma: 24
Re: OD&D Survivor « Reply #13 on Dec 18, 2007, 4:35pm »
Quote:
I might also add that, in certain circumstances, I would be willing to drop the Cleric. Especially in something like a Zothique game.
I'm open to the notion of dropping the cleric too, especially in certain kinds of fantasy. It's the topic for a whole 'nother thread, but there aren't many pulp fantasy analogs of the cleric. Likewise, the entire class reeks of meta-game considerations, just as the thief does.
However, not only is tradition is on the cleric's side (which alone is not sufficient, as the thief is pretty traditional too) but its abilities do not do violence to other elements of the game in the same way that the thief's do so. That is, whether a cleric is appropriately archetypal or not is ultimately a matter of taste, but if one does decide in favor of the cleric, for whatever reason, you can at least be assured that its abilities are both distinct and don't open the door to the violence thief skills inflicted upon the game.
James Maliszewski, Writer and Sleep-Deprived Dad Grognardia
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Re: OD&D Survivor « Reply #14 on Dec 18, 2007, 5:29pm »
1. Fighting Man: RETAIN 2. *Magic-User: See below 3. *Cleric: See below 4. Thief: I like the thief, so I'll RETAIN 'em. 5. Paladin: RP a Fighting-Man this way. DROP. 6. Assassin: They seem rather superfluous to me. DROP. 7. Monk: A touch of the exotic east? RETAIN. 8. *Druid: See Below 9. Bard: Once again, superfluous. DROP. 10. Ranger: See Paladin 11. Illusionist: I've never cared for "Specialists". DROP.
*I like korgoth's latter suggestion regarding Clerics & Magic-Users. I've always flirted with the notion of combining these (2) classes (+ the Druid) together into a single "Spellcaster" class. I suppose the way I would do it is to keep all the mechanics of the MU, add the Cleric & Driud's spell lists & special abilities, & then get down to all the things that this now "uber" class CAN'T do. Like maybe the "Spellcaster" has to earn double the listed XP to advance levels, is forbidden to use ANY type of armor or weapon, slowly loses their Constitution & sanity, etc.--I don't know. I could never figure out the right balance I was comfortable with, so I 've never done it. Maybe in the next campaign I run I'll sit down & really flesh it out... Fun topic though, jamesm.
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