There are Bard and Monk classes in dragon magazine.
Any compeling reason to stick with the core 1e phb versions?
If I ever get my 1E game off the ground, I was leaning toward the dragon magazine versions.
But I would love to hear a defense of the origionals.
If you're looking for defense of the originals, you won't get it from this long time and current AD&D player.
The Dragon magazine monk is loads better than the PHB, and I use the 2e bard rules in my 1e games.
Quote from: Bill;578692There are Bard and Monk classes in dragon magazine.
Any compeling reason to stick with the core 1e phb versions?
If I ever get my 1E game off the ground, I was leaning toward the dragon magazine versions.
But I would love to hear a defense of the origionals.
Which issues? :-D
One thing for the Bard is that the ones in Dragon Magazine generally eliminate the Dual Class requirement.
But in the last AD&D campaign I participated in several months ago, my group and I found the concerns are overblown if you are award experience the way AD&D says you should award experience.
This is because roughly the amount of XP to get additional levels is doubled for the each succeeding level. So you get to 5th level Fighter to switch to Thief. But you are still adventuring with the same party gathering the same XP per character. So while they need another 10,000+ xp to get to 6th level. That same 10,000 xp will get you several levels of thiefs.
Then when you finally switch to Bard the process repeats itself. So when the party hits 8th level, you find yourself with a couple of levels of fighter, a couple of levels of thief, and a few levels of Bard. Eventually you will slow down to where your Bard Level is one or two levels behind the highest level in the party.
Here my blog post where I talk about it.
http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2012/03/ad-dual-classing-doesnt-suck-much.html
Quote from: estar;578703Which issues? :-D
One thing for the Bard is that the ones in Dragon Magazine generally eliminate the Dual Class requirement.
But in the last AD&D campaign I participated in several months ago, my group and I found the concerns are overblown if you are award experience the way AD&D says you should award experience.
This is because roughly the amount of XP to get additional levels is doubled for the each succeeding level. So you get to 5th level Fighter to switch to Thief. But you are still adventuring with the same party gathering the same XP per character. So while they need another 10,000+ xp to get to 6th level. That same 10,000 xp will get you several levels of thiefs.
Then when you finally switch to Bard the process repeats itself. So when the party hits 8th level, you find yourself with a couple of levels of fighter, a couple of levels of thief, and a few levels of Bard. Eventually you will slow down to where your Bard Level is one or two levels behind the highest level in the party.
Here my blog post where I talk about it.
http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2012/03/ad-dual-classing-doesnt-suck-much.html
Xp wise, a 1E bard is not much different than a multiclassed character, sure.
But the stock bard still gets 'free' hd and thats a bit odd.
The dragon magazine bard swaps out 'thief stuyf' for 'illusionist magic'
Different flavor.
I suppose the monk is a bigger problem than the bard.
Quote from: Bill;578712I suppose the monk is a bigger problem than the bard.
Back in the day, in my area in rural northwest PA, we invariably substituted the Monk class in Dragon #53*. I will read it tonight to see if I brings back any memories as far as issues goes.
*I can't believe that I remembered that off the top of my head. Geesh
For clarification, do you mean the Bard of Doug Schwegman, which is essentially a fighter subclass with half-level thieves skills, percentile charm and lore, and a splash of MU spells? It sounds alright.
I'm a huge fan of the AD&D bard, however. I've played one under the high levels of experience and, contrarily to popular belief, in my particular case it was far from being a piece of cake to survive. I had to be inventive and rely on my bag of tricks - magic items of all types. The charm were handy abilities, but far from being always effective. The lore ability however was pretty much always useful to some extent (depending on DM interpretation of the actual, practical effects of the ability and where/how it exactly applies).
The beginning levels were fine as a fighter. Playing as a thief afterwards was kind of sucky but I basically zoomed past those levels (because of the discrepency in experience points with the other members of the party). Then being a bard proper under druidic tutelage meant I had to catch up yet again, but this was also pretty fast. The bard shines then briefly, on the character sheet at least, when you got a few levels of bards and have basically completed the sequence in such a way that you can use your different fighter/thief abilities plus a few druidic spells with an honest (around 1 in 3) chance of charming. Then, though you already feel the difference with single-classed humans, your sheet looks pretty cool. The more the campaign progresses, however, the more you'll feel the burn compared to single classed individuals. I ended the campaign adventuring with single-classed humans in their 20s, level-wise, and I was frankly outclassed in terms of raw power. But that made the game all the more interesting to me. I didn't meteor swarm my way through problems, and had to rely on tricks more often than not.
I had a blast playing Odhanan. You need two things to make the bard work though: decent DMs who don't screw you on magic items, research of lore and sages and the like thereof, so you can effectively build your bag of tricks over the course of play, and a long campaign that allows you to actually get there and start the character at level 1, because that's really cool to play and the character ends up different in terms of RP than if you'd started him in mid-campaign immediately with levels of bard. So, if you like the game play of things like MUs at low level, that you actually like the challenge that represents, and that you have these two conditions basically alright, then you'll have tons of fun with the PH Bard. At least that's how it played for me.
As for the monk, all I can say is that I've seen it played, and it felt cool. One player I knew in particular managed to raise a monk from level 1 to high level and he was kind of an on and off, recurring character in the campaign. He seemed to have a lot of fun with it. I don't see any particular issue with the class myself, except I remember that this player couldn't stop threatening people (especially PCs) with his quivering palm (or try to) once he obtained the ability.
Quote from: Benoist;578726As for the monk, all I can say is that I've seen it played, and it felt cool. One player I knew in particular managed to raise a monk from level 1 to high level and he was kind of an on and off, recurring character in the campaign. He seemed to have a lot of fun with it. I don't see any particular issue with the class myself, except I remember that this player couldn't stop threatening people (especially PCs) with his quivering palm (or try to) once he obtained the ability.
:rotfl:
Brings back memories of an old monk character and the song Good Vibrations.
Quote from: Benoist;578726As for the monk, all I can say is that I've seen it played, and it felt cool. One player I knew in particular managed to raise a monk from level 1 to high level and he was kind of an on and off, recurring character in the campaign. He seemed to have a lot of fun with it. I don't see any particular issue with the class myself, except I remember that this player couldn't stop threatening people (especially PCs) with his quivering palm (or try to) once he obtained the ability.
The monks 'issues' that may not bother many people, are mechanical;
Lackluster ability to hit anyone, despite having some cool effects if they DO hit.
Lackluster armor class and lackluster HP (until super high level)
Roleplay wise they are fantastic.
One reason I don't really mind these types of things is that for me AD&D campaigns don't play like 3rd ed campaigns in the sense that I do not follow this assumption that all the members of the party should be at *this* particular level and tag along over neat progression curve. Characters come and go, the same players often have differing characters on different points of the experience curve and mix and match them as the campaign allows, etc.
If you are playing a megadungeon campaign in particular with several expeditions going on, an open table policy where players and their characters might come and abstain from playing at their own leisure, that you enforce the demi-human level limits and the like, that players have different characters for different levels of experience all within the same campaign, then what you'll end up with is parties that venture into the unknown with different levels and XP counts, sometimes with huge discrepencies actually, depending on the particulars of the situation and specific goals the PCs want to achieve.
So the comparison of classes in a vacuum assuming that all PCs are the exact same level at all points of the campaign is simply not realistic from that POV. It's a white room concern, that actually doesn't play out that way at my game table.
Quote from: Bill;578729The monks 'issues' that may not bother many people, are mechanical;
Lackluster ability to hit anyone, despite having some cool effects if they DO hit.
Lackluster armor class and lackluster HP (until super high level)
Roleplay wise they are fantastic.
Those issues were all fixed in the Dragon magazine version
Quote from: Benoist;578730One reason I don't really mind these types of things is that for me AD&D campaigns don't play like 3rd ed campaigns in the sense that I do not follow this assumption that all the members of the party should be at *this* particular level and tag along over neat progression curve. Characters come and go, the same players often have differing characters on different points of the experience curve and mix and match them as the campaign allows, etc.
If you are playing a megadungeon campaign in particular with several expeditions going on, an open table policy where players and their characters might come and abstain from playing at their own leisure, that you enforce the demi-human level limits and the like, that players have different characters for different levels of experience all within the same campaign, then what you'll end up with is parties that venture into the unknown with different levels and XP counts, sometimes with huge discrepencies actually, depending on the particulars of the situation and specific goals the PCs want to achieve.
So the comparison of classes in a vacuum assuming that all PCs are the exact same level at all points of the campaign is simply not realistic from that POV. It's a white room concern, that actually doesn't play out that way at my game table.
Sure, but its difficult to ignore that your character can't hit or take a hit.
This is only a problem if you are roleplaying a warrior monk; some people don't expect a monk to be an uber warrior.
Quote from: Bill;578733Sure, but its difficult to ignore that your character can't hit or take a hit.
Well, like I said, that's not how it plays out in my games.
When you have enemies that are not all the same, that you have a variety of objectives, that any combat might involve different types of targets and the like, you learn to adapt your tactics to what's going on in the game. If you play a monk and you are two levels behind the fighters and you come to a room with a chieftain wearing what looks like a magic chainmail and his underlings fighting next to him with a bunch of guys behind lobbing arrows at the party, it may be smarter to let the fighter engage in melee, avoid that hot spot to jump over the chasm or whatnot to reach the guys firing arrows and kick their asses. That kind of thing.
Sure, you'll have situations where there's just one baddy and he's so tough you got to be careful, but unless that particular encounter is boring and one dimensional and you basically have to go in melee, there are plenty of other things you could do.
I don't mean to derail the thread though. I'm just explaining how the strict comparison of character classes and abilities as though they were always all fighting the exact same foe and doing the same thing in every encounter and all strictly of the same level all the time just doesn't phase me one way or the other.
Both play much smoother then their 1st edition counter parts. Thumbs up from here.
To come back to the actual topic of the thread, I think you should just go with what feels right to your players and game table. Just select one or the other, Dragon or core version, not both, and you'll be good from there.
Quote from: Benoist;578738To come back to the actual topic of the thread, I think you should just go with what feels right to your players and game table. Just select one or the other, Dragon or core version, not both, and you'll be good from there.
In regards to monks, I think its a matter of the players expectations.
Mystic Monastic flavor, or Warrior Monk flavor.
Quote from: Bill;578692There are Bard and Monk classes in dragon magazine
Please provide the issue numbers.
Quote from: Rum Cove;578752Please provide the issue numbers.
Not sure about the bard, but the monk is issue #53
Quote from: Rum Cove;578752Please provide the issue numbers.
Bard is 56, Monk is 53
wasn't the monk also in best of dragon vol. 3? if it's the same one, i like it much better than the original.
I earned a reputation in our old group for always playing monks. I might have done it a few times, but spellcasters were usually my thing. Don't recall ever getting over 8th, but I did find them a 'challenge' to play given the relative power disparity between them and the fighter classes. I certainly recall at least one of them snuffed it at about 5th and we were generally a pretty low body count group.
As for bards, I only ever tried one as per core 1E. It was fun, and other posters are correct about the fact that you had to switch class wasn't such a huge deal as you hoovered up XP at a rate of knots. In fact, sometimes the biggest problem was the fact you couldn't advance more than 1 level at a time - led to our old group's in-joke about going looking for an orc in a box. One thing that does stick in my mind though was they had a ludicrous number of HP. One of our group played one who went as far as he could in fighter before switching, and once he hit double figures levels in bard he was well into 3 figures without even a huge Con score.
The AD&D by-the-book bard can be a real pip to play. They're essentially the James Bond of the game, with a dash of Lloyd Alexander's Ffewder Fflam from The Chronicles of Prydain throw in for good measure. The dashing back and forth between fighter and thief then magic-user and at the last trying to "find" the Bard's Circle (or whatever organization you decide to put there for the training of the bard) practically creates adventures by itself.
I once had a guy run a character in a game of mine (T1-4) who said he'd wanted to go the bard route; I told him that was fine but that there'd be no "automatics" - that is, changing over, gaining levels, even finding out how to become a bard, etc. was in my hands. We role-played it out and everyone, even the other players at the table, had a blast over the years we played through that.
So yes while the AD&D bard can be rather baroque if not down right Byzantine to try and "put together" just think of it as more opportunities for both DM and player to have new and different adventures along the way. The character who makes it to be a Bard who can identify items just by handling them, sing the party to victory, fight like a myrmidon and so on has fought a long, hard road and deserves the benefits, and the boons the party who have supported him get likewise. By that point most everyone is probably already 7th or 8th level so no-one is going to be outshone by the bard on a blow-by-blow basis, so I wouldn't sweat that. The Instant bard from Dragon Magazine has its own charms, I just prefer the by-the-book one.
Nobody I know played a monk until Oriental Adventures came out. I liked the 1e PHB bard. I don't remember anyone playing the one from Dragon magazine.
I loved the monk in OA because the martial art rules made them much more interesting and varied.
I saw plenty of 1e monks over the years, but no bards.
RPGPundit
Not really related to the topic, but why exactly does a 1E Ranger lose the ability to track if he performs an evil act? :)
Quote from: Bill;580089Not really related to the topic, but why exactly does a 1E Ranger lose the ability to track if he performs an evil act? :)
Because the Ranger's uncanny ability to track is based on his connection with Valinor err Forces of Good.
Quote from: estar;580105Because the Ranger's uncanny ability to track is based on his connection with Valinor err Forces of Good.
If only it was possible to learn tracking without supernatural means....
Quote from: Bill;580127If only it was possible to learn tracking without supernatural means....
It is. You can have the "hunter" secondary skill.
RPGPundit