graelth
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 111 
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Post by graelth on Nov 2, 2019 20:13:26 GMT -6
Hi all, just thought this might be useful for discussion and analysis. If we take the weapons and armour allowed by class to refer to both magical and non-magical arms and armour, we get the following list. Note, I have only included exceptions where they would increase the number of weapons available beyond the weapon categories listed for the class (such as the four magical staves usable by magic-users). All generic entries (sword, dagger etc.) assume both magical and non-magical types, but note!: the only kind of magical armour in OD&D is plate armour. Thus classes like the thief or bard have no access to magical armour!
Men & Magic (1974)
Fighting-Man
All weapons
All armour
Magic-User
Dagger
Staff of Commanding
Staff of Striking
Staff of Power
Staff of Wizardry
Cleric
All non-edged weapons
All armour
Greyhawk (1975)
Thief
Swords
Daggers
Leather armour
Paladin
All weapons
All armour
Blackmoor (1975)
Monk
All weapons
Assassin
All weapons
Leather armour
Shields
Eldritch Wizardry (1976)
Druid
Daggers
Sickle or crescent-shaped swords
Spears
Slings
Oil
Leather armour
Wooden shields
Staff of Healing
Staff of Commanding
Snake Staff
Staff of Striking
Staff of Withering
The Strategic Review, vol. 1, no. 2 (1975)
Ranger
Unclear, but presumably as Fighting-Man (above) with addition of Staff of Healing from Level 8
The Strategic Review, vol. 1, no. 4 (1975)
Illusionist
Unclear, but presumably as Magic-User (above)
The Strategic Review, vol. 2, no. 1 (1976)
Bard
All weapons
Chainmail
Leather armour
White Dwarf #4 (1977)
Barbarian
Sword
Spear
Hand axe
Battle axe (Strength 13+)
Up to six other weapons (Strength 13+)
Shield
Leather armour (Level 6+)
Chainmail (Level 11+)
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graelth
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 111
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Post by graelth on Nov 2, 2019 20:25:30 GMT -6
Some interesting points:
• Thieves have by far the most restrictions. No shields, no magical armour, no ranged weapons... just swords, daggers and leather armour!
• Bards also have no magic armour options, as they cannot even use shields!
• Assassins have no magical armour option but can use shields, so they can thus use magical shields as well, although they would only get the benefit of this one-third of the time! Same goes for the Barbarian!
• Since only plate armour is ever magical, then presumably magical shields are also made of metal. Thus the druid doesn't get magical shields.
• Magic-users, thieves, illusionist and barbarians cannot use oil. Seems odd, considering that Conan always seemed slathered in the stuff in the movies...
• If you reverse-engineer the weapon permissions, then the magical staves allowed to magic-users also mean they can use mundane staves. Otherwise it is daggers only!
• Three classes have basically no armour options (except for things like Ring of Protection etc.): Magic-User, Monk and Illusionist. Five classes have few armour options: Thief, Assassin, Druid, Bard, Barbarian. Four classes have full armour options: Fighting-man, Cleric, Paladin, Ranger. At high (name) level, the first category will have AC around 9. The second category may have armour around AC 6 (with a one-third chance for a magical shield lowering the AC another few points). The third category would have AC hovering at or below AC 0 at high level. The notable exception is the Monk, who has armor around AC 3 or 4 by high level.
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graelth
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 111
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Post by graelth on Nov 2, 2019 20:37:03 GMT -6
only kind of magical armour in OD&D is plate armour Where, exactly, does it say that? It is not stated explicitly (like most things in OD&D), but it seems to be the strongest interpretation of Greyhawk page 15! |
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Post by captainjapan on Nov 3, 2019 0:54:36 GMT -6
Where, exactly, does it say that? It is not stated explicitly (like most things in OD&D), but it seems to be the strongest interpretation of Greyhawk page 15! I'm glad somebody understands that table, as poorly laid out as it is. However, what it seems to say is that wearing chainmail and carrying a +1 shield gives the character an effective armor class of 2. Ordinarily, Chainmail + shield yields an AC of 4. Wearing no armor and carrying a +1 shield gives the character exactly the protection you'd expect, 7. So what is special about the Chainmail entry on the Magic Armor Effects table, that when it is combined with the same +1 shield you get an AC one class lower than it should be, which is 3? You don't see that with the Plate armor + magic shield entry. It's exactly right, at AC 1. |
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graelth
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 111
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Post by graelth on Nov 3, 2019 4:21:16 GMT -6
It is not stated explicitly (like most things in OD&D), but it seems to be the strongest interpretation of Greyhawk page 15! I'm glad somebody understands that table, as poorly laid out as it is. However, what it seems to say is that wearing chainmail and carrying a +1 shield gives the character an effective armor class of 2. Ordinarily, Chainmail + shield yields an AC of 4. Wearing no armor and carrying a +1 shield gives the character exactly the protection you'd expect, 7. So what is special about the Chainmail entry on the Magic Armor Effects table, that when it is combined with the same +1 shield you get an AC one class lower than it should be, which is 3? You don't see that with the Plate armor + magic shield entry. It's exactly right, at AC 1. Yup, that was a typo. Gygax errata'd it in a Strategic Review, if I recall correctly! Chainmail plus a +1 magic shield should be AC 3. Note though that Book 2: Monsters & Treasure indicates that a magic shield only gives its bonus one-in-three times when the bonus of the magical shield is better than the enchantment of the armour (which would certainly apply when you have a magical shield and mundane armour). |
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Post by captainjapan on Nov 3, 2019 8:11:23 GMT -6
graelth,
Do you know which issue of SR the correction was in? Vol2 #1 has Greyhawk corrections, but I didn't see it there.
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graelth
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 111
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Post by graelth on Nov 3, 2019 8:35:09 GMT -6
graelth, Do you know which issue of SR the correction was in? Vol2 #1 has Greyhawk corrections, but I didn't see it there. Whoops, you are right, sorry. My mind always goes to that article in SR vol.2, no.1. In this case, the errata about the Chainmail and +1 Shield was just added directly to page 68 of Supplement I: Greyhawk. It appears in my printing (12th printing, November 1979). If you would like proof, I can snap a picture later today... just let me know. Here is what it written (along with other errata): Page Correction or Addition15 Magic Armor Effects... : Chainmail and +1 (shield) should be Armor Class 3 (not 2). On an unrelated note, wow... I should look at that Greyhawk errata more often! It says that Dwarves get +1 to hit and improve their AC by 1 point against the "Giant Class." The Giant class, of course, does not refer to just Giants in OD&D, but basically all miscellaneous human-shaped creatures that don't fit into other categories (men, undead, lycanthropes etc.). That includes elves, orcs, goblins, other dwarves (of course, it would be a wash in that case), giants, gnolls, ogres, trolls, hobgoblins, ents and so on. That's a pretty significant boost! That's also why I generally dislike Supplement 1... I play with everything in OD&D, from all the supplements to magazine articles, Judges Guild, Alarums and Excursions and so on. But Greyhawk always seemed like power creep to me. Strength became more important, everything did more damage, there were more spells, many more magical items... meh. Most of Supplement I is completely unnecessary, in my personal opinion! |
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Post by delta on Nov 3, 2019 9:54:01 GMT -6
the only kind of magical armour in OD&D is plate armour That is a really interesting interpretation that I hadn't heard before. I got tripped up a few weeks ago with the lack of clarity in Vol-2 and made up a "what kind of magic armor" table on the fly. Will have to think about that; part of me wants magic chain or plate to be possible, but not leather. On the issue of the "Giant Class", note that the Strategic Review #2 presentation of the Ranger says they "gain a special advantage when fighting against monsters of the Giant Class (Kobolds - Giants)". To me, that points to specifically to the first 6 lines after Men on the Vol-2 roster, that is, the evil humanoids from goblins/kobolds down to giants. This is echoed again in the AD&D ranger class specification (PHB p. 24) that explicitly lists out those same types. |
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Post by captainjapan on Nov 3, 2019 10:29:32 GMT -6
It is maddening, honestly, that we should be consulting errata 11 printings on. By the time of the release of your copy, AD&D would have become the authority on the particulars of magical items. And, in that, Leather Armor +1 is the very first entry.
Thanks for tracking that correction down, graelth.
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graelth
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 111
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Post by graelth on Nov 3, 2019 10:46:20 GMT -6
the only kind of magical armour in OD&D is plate armour That is a really interesting interpretation that I hadn't heard before. I got tripped up a few weeks ago with the lack of clarity in Vol-2 and made up a "what kind of magic armor" table on the fly. Will have to think about that; part of me wants magic chain or plate to be possible, but not leather. On the issue of the "Giant Class", note that the Strategic Review #2 presentation of the Ranger says they "gain a special advantage when fighting against monsters of the Giant Class (Kobolds - Giants)". To me, that points to specifically to the first 6 lines after Men on the Vol-2 roster, that is, the evil humanoids from goblins/kobolds down to giants. This is echoed again in the AD&D ranger class specification (PHB p. 24) that explicitly lists out those same types. Yes, that's right, Joe Fischer's excellent Ranger class is SR 1.2 specifies the first six lines of the Giant-type table. Note, however, that the errata for Supplement I makes no such limitations! Thus one could reasonably presume that a Greyhawk Dwarf indeed gets +1 to hit and -1 AC vs Elves (for example). If I am right about the armour, then it was perhaps simply a situation where it would merely not have occurred to the authors in 1974 that players might assume different armour types could be meant by "Armour +1." Armour Classes were "types" and not "values," as has been often pointed out on this very forum, and Leather was simply "Type 7" in Men & Magic. A +2 suit of leather armour would be the same "type" as Chain Mail, which seemingly contradict the "AC as armour type" system and in any case be unnecessary. After all, why not just put on regular chainmail armour if it is the same benefit? The classes in Men & Magic that can use leather can all use chainmail as well! Once you get Thieves etc., then suddenly it becomes very important whether leather armour could be magical. Of course, another interpretation is possible: magical armour is made of anything you like... it could be leather, chain, or anything else besides! The benefit of Armour +3 is always an AC of 0, regardless of what it is made of. |
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Post by gemini476 on Nov 5, 2019 8:34:32 GMT -6
Magical armor being entirely plate makes perfect sense in the context of the LBBs, where you can either wear everything (Fighting-Man, Cleric) or nothing (Magic-User). A theoretical +1 Leather Armor would be somewhat useless when Chainmail exists and is one better. It would be a dud prize, only useful for how it saves encumbrance.
On the other hand, in a post-Greyhawk world it makes perfect sense to incorporate all the other armor types. +1 leather is hardly a dud prize for a Thief, who can wear nothing better!
Note that there's more in Greyhawk that supports the "plate-only" hypothesis: +4 armor/shield is "made of mithral", and +5 "a strange alloy known as "adamantine"". Armor of Etherealness is also explicitly a "suit of plate armor", which you can wear as "normal +3 armor" and "becomes merely +3 armor" when its charges are spent.
Also, while AD&D added in +1 Leather etc. it's also worth noting that it somewhat revamped the entire armor system by filling in every AC with an armor type and whatnot. And magic armor is weightless, so now +1 plate actually is strictly better than +1 chain.. It also made it so that only 65% of magic armor is man-sized, and added magical non-longswords. When given the option to be exhaustive, AD&D generally went for it.
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Post by murquhart72 on Nov 7, 2019 16:08:11 GMT -6
There was a barbarian in White Dwarf #4?
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graelth
Level 4 Theurgist
Posts: 111
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Post by graelth on Nov 9, 2019 20:35:45 GMT -6
There was a barbarian in White Dwarf #4? Yes, quite a good one in my opinion! There were some other classes I left out, such as a couple from the early issues of Dragon magazine, because I don't use them (although I could perhaps be talked into allowing the Samurai). Attachments:
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Post by Porphyre on Nov 10, 2019 8:07:45 GMT -6
I would still use magical chainmail just because of Bilbo's mithril coat.
Also I don't allow elves to cast spells while wearing plate armor.
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Post by derv on Nov 10, 2019 12:07:10 GMT -6
In my mind no mundane armor should be equivalent to magical armor.
Treat all magical armor as platemail+ regardless of type.
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Post by Scott Anderson on Nov 11, 2019 0:21:14 GMT -6
Pre-greyhawk magical leather has just as much use as nonmagical leather, except with the added bonus.
In a game without the thief the other types will often do thief things. Right now in my BX era rules game I have a gnome (Dwarf class) who functions as a thief. He wears leather (but carries a shield) so he can sneak around better.
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