Strategic Review classes?

[thegreyelf]

I know many folk around here are purists about the 3LBBs....but assume for a minute that you're using all the available character classes from all the supplements.

The early issues of The Strategic Review included a Bard, Ranger, and Illusionist class to supplement those already in the 7 booklets.

What are your thoughts--LBB purism aside--on incorporating the bard, ranger, and illusionist into the game? Anyone tried it? Are the classes balanced against what's already there? Do they advance too fast? Too slow?

I'm likely including them--in modified form, getting rid of % rolls a la Philotomy's revised Thief class--in my Wasted Lands setting, and wanted to be aware of any problems I might encounter. So thanks, and discuss!

[Finarvyn]

The Ranger always seemed very OD&D-like since I always associated LOTR with OD&D, so we brought that class onboard pretty quickly.

We tried the Illusionist and frankly found that illusions are a pain to DM because often the players know when something is an illusion even if their characters don't and they didn't much like that.

For whatever reason, few of our group was interested in playing a Bard. I'm guessing it is because they spread their talents out so thin.

[rick krebs]

If there were rules to govern a class, we played it and modified it as necessary. Try it with your group and see how it works.

[Deleted]

I used the thief, monk, bard, illusionist; along with a variety of one-shots and huh/what? type classes in my campaign. That was when I referee ... when I am a player I tend to stick with basic classes.

[thegreyelf]

Hey, Rick! I just read your Dragon #26 article. Given today's technology, seeing you write that you were lucky enough to get one of those 4K (4,000 bit) memory, BASIC speaking microcomputers was quaint, but d**n, it's cool to know that as far back as 1979 people were adopting computers for use at the game table. The grognards who are all "NO COMPUTERS AT MY TABLE" should sit on that for awhile!

[rick krebs]

thegreyelf: me, computers and TSR are a whole other interesting story. #26 was just the tip of the iceberg. I'm not sure how I would have reacted to the players using computers. But, I had this strange traveling medicine show back then to promote D&D to some "high end" clients. But, the star of the show was the game, not the technology. Lesson I soon learned was an Apple was easier to program and to transport than a TRS-80.

[Falconer]

There seem to be two popular approaches to OD&D. One is to essentially recreate AD&D as much as possible (without actually crossing over into AD&D-branded products). Greyhawk is used completely and thoroughly, all 11 PHB classes are brought in from their various OD&D sources, etc. Remember that both the PHB and the DMG state that “AD&D is a world” in their preface. That is a fascinating world, one that brings together Monks and Rangers and hundreds of other diverse fantasy types.

The other approach is what you called 3LBB Purism. But 3LBB Purism doesn’t really mean you have to ignore all Supplements and Strategic Reviews. It means you treat the 3LBB as the base game, and build your game from that base up in your own unique way. So you can look at the Ranger class and say, yes! That fits in my Middle-earth campaign! Or you can say, I like the Ranger concept, but I’d write it up completely differently to better match how I see Aragorn. But you wouldn’t add in the Blackmoor Monk to your Middle-earth campaign.

Just my thoughts. I know this doesn’t address any issues of balance between the classes as presented. I don’t know of any problems there, for what it’s worth. Regards.

[garish]

When I was introduced to OD&d in 1976, my friend Tim Jones had the SR with Rangers, and the 3LBB. We learned the game on our own, sometimes with hilarious misunderstandings. Quite often, our gaming consisted of "You run our two characters today, and I'll run the monsters."

One of the things we WERE shrewd enough to understand was that Rangers were a lot tougher than anything else human, especially at first level (and we had to start there, didn't we?). Thus most of our games were two rangers roaming around the Outdoor Survival map, fighting wolves, goblins and kobaolds, and running from a lot of bigger, badder stuff.

Then Tim quit school, left Georgia for Lake Geneva, and went to work at TSR.......

[grodog]

Jun 20, 2009 8:33:41 GMT -6 garish said:

Then Tim quit school, left Georgia for Lake Geneva, and went to work at TSR.......

Tell us more about Tim, garish: the name doesn't ring a bell---do you mean Tim Kask??

[garish]

No Tim Jones went to work in shipping, but has credits as a playtester/contributor on a few early products. He was one of three people who ever played a game of Avalon Hill's 1914 to completion with me. That says a lot about endurance and stamina. The last time I heard from him directly was 1978 when he stopped off in Macon on the way to Florida.

[rick krebs]

Tim Jones was on the TSR review committee for Bloody 20s, along with Mike Carr, Brian Blume, and Allen Hammack. Definitely a staff member at TSR.

[scogle]

I very much like them and am not really a 3LBB purist. I like starting a campaign with the 3LBBs and then adding more books as we go along, particularly if the players aren't familiar with OD&D. What with the diversity of mechanics OD&D + supplements can be very complicated and confusing if you're not familiar with 3LBB: it's basically a combat system borrowed from a wargame with hundreds of house-rules added on, which is quite fun but not to be jumped into right away (and of course some of the rules are ridiculous/cumbersome).

I'm not really sure how balanced they are; IIRC it's not even clear who made them, or maybe it even says that they were fan-submissions. But the thing with OD&D is that when a player sits down he's not going to think of power-gaming and optimizing his PC for the simple reason that he's sitting at an OD&D table. They expect to play a fun simple game with light-hearted role-playing and not worry too much about mechanics (since the wits of the actual player count for more than anything else).

OD&D is not balanced whatsoever - one of the coolest things about it, to me. For example, the hobbit characters always fall behind everyone else in power after the first few months or so but people still have a blast playing them.