Tell me about Illusionists, Rangers, and Bards

[tombowings]

I'm interested in getting some informating pertaining to the Illusionist, Ranger, and Bard classes as they appeared in the Strategic Review. I don't need scans or anything, but could someone highlight the major differences between the OD&D representation and the AD&D 1st Edition representation.

[kenmeister]

I have an OD&D ranger and an OD&D bard in my Rules Cyclopedia campaign. Both are working out great. The OD&D bard is start-from-first, and gets magic-user spells rather than druid ones.

[Finarvyn]

Interesting to note that by Strategic Review #2 they were already proposing use of the d8 for Ranger hit dice as per the Greyhawk system. It certainly does suggest that the Greyhawk Supplement was well underway before the SR. It was noted that the Ranger is a sub-class of Fighting Man, but no "Fighting Capability" was listed so I assume it would have been simililar to that of the fighter. Spells are a mix of MU and Cleric.

The Illusionist entry (SR#4) is particularly short, with a brief paragraph explaining kind of what an Illusionist does, a short spell list, and details about what the spells do. There aren't any hit dice numbers or Fighting Capability, leading one to suppose you use the MU numbers.

By contrast to the Illusionist, the Bard entry (SR#6) is extremely text-heavy. It opens up with a lot of general "bards do this" stuff and has an XP table that runs all the way to level 25. As was mentioned before, the Bard begins as a bard with zero XP and 1st level (compared to some later versions where I think you had to advance for a while in another class then switch to bard). Bards are given % numbers for charm and for lore. Spells are MU.

It's been a while since I looked at AD&D, but my guess is that the classes are pretty similar.

[waysoftheearth]

A few more details on "The Ranger" -- as presented in The Strategic Review Vol 1, No 2...

Requirements

• Must be lawful (or else become a "regular" fighter)
  
• Prime requisite strength,
  
• Minimum intelligence 12, wisdom 12, constitution 15.
  

XP Progression
0, 2.5k, 5k, 12k, 25k, 50k, 100k, 175k, 275k, 550k, 825,...

Restrictions

• May only own what he can carry,
  
• May not hire any help,
  
• May only operate with one other ranger.
  

Benefits
As per a fighting-Man, but...

• 2 HD at level 1. +1 HD per level until 10 HD at level 9, then +2 hp per level thereafter,
  
• No regular XP bonus. Instead gain 4 XP for every 3 XP earned (until 8th level).
  
• Tracking,
  
• Surprised only 1 in 6,
  
• +1 damage per level versus "Giant-class" creatures (everything from Kobolds to Giants),
  
• Able to employ magic items which heal/cure at 8th level,
  
• Gains use of (very few) cleric spells starting at 8th level,
  
• Able to employ magic items to do with clairvoyance, ESP, telepathy, teleportation etc. at 9th level,
  
• Gains use of (very-few) magic-user spells at 9th level,
  
• Attracts 2-24 "special" followers at 9th level (cannot be replaced).
  

And for all this, the class is described by the author as "relatively weak"!

In my humble opinion it is actually rather over-powered -- probably why they had to restrict players to just two rangers per party

[tombowings]

Thanks for the information guys.