RO PHB, Part 10: Proficiencies 2

Ten parts? Seriously? And I'm not done?

The System - Or Is It?

- The PHB proposes three different systems for character skills. That's right, there are optional rules for an optional rule. This shit gets recursive real quick.

- 'Using what you know' suggests using player knowledge and/or ability whenever the question of character knowledge and/or ability comes into play. Taken to the logical extreme, this is the foundation of the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon as well as Army of Darkness.

- 'Secondary skills' are broad groups of knowledge that you can choose or roll randomly (there's a lot of that). Beyond that, there's no detail as to how they work beyond DM fiat. I appreciate the effort, but if you don’t know how something's going to work, don't go to press with it. Save it for Unearthed Arcana.

- The last method is the proficiency system; you know, what the chapter is named after.

- NWPs are divided into groups based on class groups (class group groups, if you may). You can choose any NWP you like, but if it's not in the proficiency group based on your class, you have to spend an extra slot to learn it. Some of these group associations make sense: fighters pick from the warrior group, clerics from the priest group, etc. Some do not. Why do rangers have access to the wizard group? Meanwhile, why do druids get access to the warrior group? Why don't fighters, rangers, and mages get access to the rogue group? There's some crossover between groups (ancient history is in the wizard, rogue, and priest groups), but some of it doesn't make sense as to what classes have access to (jumping is a rogue group skill).

- Bards have the most availability/least restriction when it comes to proficiencies. However, they don't get any extra proficiencies, so they're tied down with thief as having the least number of slots.

- The entire proficiency system is very soft. If the three methods of proficiency weren't enough of an indication, the check mechanics for the most detailed option should be enough evidence. If the task is simple or has "limited game use" (nice definition, though it looks like crafting skills fall into this category), there's no check required. If it's difficult or subject to failure (read: whenever you use any proficiency because the DM always wants to know when/if you fail), you roll a d20 modified by the proficiency in question (with a handy-dandy table of arbitrary modifiers); if it's less than the relative ability score, you succeed. This leads to the best line in the book so far: "A roll of 20 always fails." At least it's consistent in that bonuses are good and penalties are bad.

- Okay, here's the kicker: the proficiency check modifiers don't modify the die roll, they modify the ability score. Somehow that's even more confusing. So if you're making a Navigation check, and your Intelligence is 13, it's actually an 11 for the purposes of making the skill roll. This accomplishes the same result, but leads to a counterintuitive and unfortunate implication: you are DUMBER when you use the Navigation skill.

- You can improve your NWPs by devoting more proficiency slots to them. Each additional slot gives a +1 bonus. Woohoo. Still, the option is there.

- There's no mention of untrained skill checks. Do characters automatically fail if they don't have the proficiency? Can they still try with a -2 to the target number?

- Some proficiencies require more slots than others. I don't know why and a reason isn't given, but I assume it's because certain skills are harder to learn than others. From the fact that many NWPs share the same cost, this implies a number of things: 1) Learning a new language is as easy as learning how to make shoes, tie ropes, sew, or how to swim; 2) Mining is twice as hard to learn as singing, pottery, or fire-building; 3) Not only is riding a winged horse twice as hard as riding a regular horse, but knowing how to ride one doesn't confer any familiarity with the other (though that's a problem with proficiency division).

RO PHB, Part 9: Proficiencies 1

A tale of nerd rage in (hopefully only) five parts.

Proficiencies (Optional) - Overview and Weapon Specialization

- We're off to a good start.

- The PHB defines a proficiency as "a learned skill that isn't essential to the character's class". It then proceeds to use a ranger as an example, which is the one class that's defined by its ability to track, which is a nonweapon proficiency (NWP).

- "Weapon proficiencies are tournament-level rules." What is this I don't even

- Despite its previous assertion, the number of proficiencies your character knows is entirely dependent on his/her class and level. I'm tired of this double-talk game.

- Something I apparently missed from all the way back to my first update: Intelligence modifies the number of proficiency slots you get at 1st level. It's the "Number of Languages" column; instead of automatically learning extra languages, you instead get extra slots which you can use to purchase those languages.

- The classes have a fairly even NWP slot distribution. Warriors and rogues have the same number of starting NWPs (despite warriors having double the weapon proficiencies), and only have one less than wizards and rogues. Players of later editions may find it funny that rogues have the least initial (at 3) and worst progression of (1 every 4 levels) proficiency slots; this may be due to the fact that rogues already have access to a class-specific, proficiency-like system.

- When fighting with weapons they are not proficient with, warriors get a -2 penalty to attack rolls, rogues and priests -3, and wizards -5. I do not know what happens when a fighter/mage picks up a shillelagh.

- If you want to include instruction and training time into your game, good luck. The book touches on the subject, but doesn't give any guidelines.

- You have to fill out your proficiencies IMMEDIATELY, DO IT OR THEY'RE LOST. They don't have to be so dramatic about it.

- Table 35 is titled "Specialist Attacks Per Round". I assume, based on previous experience, this is the number of attacks a fighter gets per round when using a weapon he's specialized in, as it is an increased rate from what was discussed in the fighter class description. However, the text doesn't call out the table so who knows. Having worked on government documentation, this is a glaring error that I'm sure no one else cares about.

- If you use a weapon that you're not proficient in, but is kinda-sorta like a weapon you are proficient in, you halve your nonproficiency penalty. That's pretty cool. I think this idea later evolves into weapon groups detailed in Player's Option: Skills and Powers.

- Multi-class fighters can't use weapon specialization. That's bullshit.

- A fighter gets a +1 to hit and +2 to damage when he specializes in a melee weapon only omg. Somehow this horribly breaks the system if this bonus applies to bows; however, bows and crossbows get a +2 to hit when used at point blank range (within 30/60 feet, respectively). Also, as a nice hidden rule I never even heard of until now, bow and crossbow specialists can fire a shot at the beginning of an encounter, before initiative is even rolled, if they have an arrow/bolt ready and can see their target. That's pretty badass.

- Now they call out the table, two pages later. I wonder if it's just my PDF copy? I'll have to check my hard copy once I remember where it is.

RO PHB, Part 8: Alignment Part 2

Update schedule only partially hosed. Finishing up alignment tonight, regular schedule to continue tomorrow at some point.

Alignment, Part II

- Sometime around the release of 3e, Wizards of the Coast released an online questionnaire that, supposedly, determined what your "real-life" alignment was (though I imagine you could answer in the "voice" of your character to get the desired result). One of my friends rated as neutral, mostly because he was being deliberately obtuse, demanding more information from each question. However, not one, but two others scored as chaotic evil; one of them happened to be my at-the-time DM.

- In case anyone wondered or cared, I placed as lawful neutral. To illustrate the disparity between the two editions, I don't agree with the 2e write-up for "my" alignment.

- "'My character is going to act like a person who believes this.'" Great advice in such a simple sentence. I also like this gem that people forget when edition change comes around: "[W]hat's the point of playing a game if the players don't have fun?"

- Unfortunately, you can't have fun if you play evil alignments. "A group of players who play a harmonious party of evil characters simply are not playing their alignments correctly." Probably true, but this doesn't preclude them from working together as a team (like most adventuring parties), nor does it automatically disqualify them from having a fun time at the table regardless of party dynamics. Playing evil alignments is discouraged, but it feels like a token attempt to pacify potential objectors to the game; it may help to consider the politics surrounding the game at the time.

- There's a play example in here concerning the actions of a nine member party, each representing a different alignment. They go to a ruined castle to rescue a kidnapped peasant, eventually throwing down with the kidnapper and his gorgon pet; two of them die in the fight, and conflict arises when the remainder discuss how the treasure is to be divided. I'm kind of sad that it ends before they start stabbing each other.

- Going back to my comments about alignment and intelligence, there's a real lack of it here. The chaotic neutral character could easily be a rabid boar or an animated rag; he just does whatever strikes him at the time, not because it sounds like a good idea or because it's what he wants to do, but because that's what his alignment dictates he should do. Give the CN character any capacity for rational thought, and he becomes the true neutral character, who sounds like he's just waiting for an excuse to drop the hammer on the dungeon or the party, depending on /who's winning/.

- With the exception of the neutral evil character, all of the neutral characters seem like they are (or are being played by) utter morons. I think this might be due to a lack of understanding about how neutrality operates on the ethical and moral axes. 3e's approach was to consider them as "pure" alignments: neutral good was "pure good", chaotic neutral was "pure chaos", etc., and that seemed to work pretty well. No, true neutral was not "pure pure".

- You can almost hear the nerd lisp coming out of the lawful neutral character's mouth.

- Finally, the chapter ends by reneging on its "alignment is not a straightjacket" stance. If the DM thinks you're not playing the alignment you have written on your character sheet, you'll be penalized for it through the docking of experience points (which, depending on your class, may be the least of your concerns). Change and growth of character, it seems, cost experience points rather than award them.

RO PHB, Part 7: Alignment Part 1

Does anyone even read these? I think even I am getting on my nerves...

Alignment

- Alignment, the backbone of character action, personality, identity, and decision-making, is Chapter 4. Take that as you will.

- "Always consider alignment as a tool, not a straitjacket that restricts the character. Although alignment defines general attitudes, it certainly doesn't prevent a character from changing his beliefs, acting irrationally, or behaving out of character.” We'll come back to this.

- The author asks you to picture law, neutrality, and chaos (and later, good, neutrality, and evil) as "points of a triangle, all pulling away from each other". This sounds similar to the cosmic assumptions of Dragonlance, where neutrality is an active force that balances two extremes. That said, neutrality probably should have been removed from the initial discussion and reserved for after the definitions of good, evil, law, and chaos.

- It's a noble effort to define all of human (and non-human) behavior into a 3x3 grid, but its oversimplification by necessity has caused alignment to be one of the most discussed and debated aspects of D&D, for good or ill. (As to why it doesn't work, see top of page). That said, the concept of alignment when paired with the "guideline" principle works as a good shorthand to loosely define how a given character can or will act. For player characters and BBEGs, full-fledged personality descriptions are never a bad idea, but there's nothing wrong with condensing it into two letters in a statblock.

- The alignment descriptions waffle between personal behavior and behavior of a society as a whole. Then again, due to the complexity of the subject matter, various interpretations are expected. I just like the 3e descriptions better.

- Lawful good characters "strive for those things that will bring the greatest benefit to the most people and cause the least harm". Now that's how you justify a villain!

- Seem like many, if not all, of the alignment descriptions rely on an "attribute vacuum" of sorts, as they don't take into account the potential intelligence of those who might belong to them. It's hard not to think of lawful neutral characters as complete morons, for example; believing in government with absolute control, without question, regardless of its intentions, is not something we normally attribute to smart people.

- Lawful evil is probably my favorite alignment, because you can act like a jerk but you can work well with others. There's a lot of potential to add subtle nuances to your character. DMs are still hesitant to let you, though, because of the E after the L on your character sheet.

- Neutral good, on the other hand, is probably my least favorite. It's very bland and ill-defined. However, you could probably make the case that Bill and Ted are both neutral good. That would be awesome; going around as a pair of NG bards, random air guitaring, spouting things like "Be excellent to each other!" and "Party on, dudes!"

- Because of the "active neutral" approach, true neutral gets a very nonsensical description. They're "compelled to side with the underdog", to the point that they switch allegiances at the drop of a hat to make sure neither side gets ahead. I keep getting the picture in my head of a druid setting off some trap to capture an adventuring party, then immediately letting them go because the group he works for suddenly has the upper hand. If you take what the book says as gospel, true neutral characters sound like the most dangerous things you can have in a party.

- Chaotic good could easily be the anti-hero alignment.

- Chaotic neutral, on the other hand, is the alignment jerks pick when the DM won't let them play anything evil. You can behead orphans all day and justify it with "I'm chaotic neutral lol!" To further cement this: Heath Ledger's Joker is chaotic neutral.

- The description for chaotic evil doesn't paint them as credible villains or threats. Basically, they won't cooperate unless forced, and then only until an opportunity presents itself to take power. While a fundamental part of Saturday morning cartoon villainy and technically true of the alignment et al, a group of chaotic evil characters/creatures can't, by definition, get anything done without backstabbing each other whenever possible. To go beyond basic fodder levels of competency and get anything diabolical done would require a neutral evil big bad at best.

RO PHB, Part 6: Classes, Part 4 (Multi-/Dual-Class Characters)

I swear this is the last class update for the time being until I change my mind or something else comes up in the book maybe.

Multi-Class and Dual-Class Characters

- One would think that a dual-class character would be a multi-class character with only two classes. One would be wrong.

- The multi-class combinations table doesn't match the racial descriptions in Chapter 2. The multi-classing list for elves is confusing due to poor editing work, but lists that they can be multi-class ranger/whatevers and/or fighter/mage/thieves; the table doesn't list either combination. Half-elves are the multi-classers du jour, but the table says they're restricted to just cleric/ranger and not the druid/ranger in their description, nevermind its redundancy.

- Halflings have the fewest multi-classing options (next to humans, for obvious reasons). And, really, I should say "option": fighter/thief.

- Gnomes and half-elves can be cleric/thieves; dwarves, elves, and halflings inexplicably cannot.

- Gnomes are the only race that can multi-class as a specialist wizard, but only one type thereof. Half-elves are the only race that can combine the destructive power of the mage with the cleaning healing power of orange the cleric.

- The 2e multi-classing rules are largely the same as the eventual gestalt rules in 3e Unearthed Arcana. That may explain why multi-classing was such a good option. The only real balancing factor for multi-classing is the restrictions placed on individual classes, namely the armor restrictions for wizards and rogues.

- Dual-classing is unique, much like a spoon with an extra head jutting out at an odd angle. It's about as useful, too. I've confused the rules for dual-classing in my mind over the years, but reading them again does nothing to improve its utility. Basically, a human (and only a human) levels up in a class as much as he wants. At any time past 2nd level, he can jump ship and start leveling another class, keeping his statistics from his previous class. He can never again level his previous class, and if he uses any of its abilities, he gains no experience for that encounter and half experience for the adventure. In case you don't think that's so bad, this includes his old THAC0 and saving throws. That restriction disappears once he out-levels his previous class, and at that time he suddenly gains all of the hit points from his current class all at once (which would explain the use of the footnotes in the CON table; see Part One).

- A human that wants to dual-class has to have a 15 in all of the prime requisites of his first class, and a 17 in all the prime requisites of his second class. In essence, you could have a human who is already really good at once class, but is better at the class he switches to. Certain class combinations also have soft restrictions due to this prerequisite; a paladin/ranger would have to have STR, DEX, WIS, and CHA over 17, as well as a CON of 14 (which I believe is a 0.02% chance on 3d6).

RO PHB, Part 5: Classes, Part 3 (Rogues)

At Dan's insistence, this and future RO posts will be moderately shorter.

Rogues: Thieves and Bards, but Mostly Thieves

- I think thieves are the only class that causes problems in D&D parties based solely on its name. Novice players (and players who are just dicks) at times use the name "thief" to justify swiping things from their fellow party members - y'know, their friends.

- Thieves are the most customizable character class among non-spellcasters. You get to choose which of your skills you want to improve not only at 1st level, but every thief level you gain. Also, your thief skills draw a lot from other aspects of your character: your Dexterity score, your race, what kind of armor you're wearing (though this might slow down play if you switch out armor and have to recalculate your percentages). I am somewhat disappointed that these skills don't share the same mechanics as the optional proficiency rules (at least, as far as I recall; I'm not there yet), but system consistency might be asking a lot at this point.

- However, this doesn’t explain or excuse some of the modifiers to your skills. I guess dwarves are pudgy so it's harder for them to climb things, but why are they worse at reading? Does the beard get in the way? Why do elves, naturally dexterous with what one would assume are tiny hands, get a penalty to open locks? Half-elves don’t have any penalties to their skills, which is pretty good, but what makes them better at picking pockets than full elves while at the same time they're worse at hiding?

- You have to have better than average Dexterity (assuming 10.5 is average) before you stop taking penalties to your thief skills. Shouldn't a character with average Dexterity not have penalties to begin with?

- I was going to make a comment about the lack of leather armor on the Thieving Skill Armor Adjustments table, but then I caught the note at the end of the class's armor proficiencies. Reading is fundamental!

- Why wouldn't you mark an optional rule? Regardless, to calculate a thief's chance to be detected when picking someone's pocket, if using the optional rule in the Pick Pockets explanation, is 100 - victim's level * 3 + (thief's level - victim's level). This is needlessly complex, if for no other reason than it doesn't help the thief very much at all. In the example given, Ragnar (thief 15) picks Horace's (fighter 9) pocket. The optional rule increases Ragnar's detection threshold from 73 to 79, a whole 6%. In perspective, the rule lets a thief pick a target's pocket who's almost half his level as if… he were picking the pocket of a target almost half his level.

- Open Locks falls into the same category of failure as bending bars and learning spells. Can't pick that lock in one to ten minutes? "Oh well, it's just too difficult, guys! There's no way I can open this, even if I spent another one to ten minutes on it. Let's move on. We'll come back when I've slaughtered a few more goblins." Also note that this skill can be rendered useless by the knock spell or, I would assume, a good hammer.

- Exactly half of the thief's skills are rolled by the DM.

- I don't remember any DM allowing a thief to roll a Climb Walls check. Dungeon and tower walls had a habit of being coating in Teflon, in my experience. I'm going to have to take the book's word on thieves being better at climbing walls than other people, since I don't have a baseline of comparison yet.

- "At 4th level, the thief has enough exposure to languages that he has a chance to read most nonmagical writing." So you can't use this skill until 4th level? A footnote would have been nice a few pages ago.

- Backstab is an out-of-combat combat ability. I imagine this was put in to emulate the "sneak into the castle and take out the guards so your friends can climb over the walls undetected" scenario, just I'm not sure how well it works in that regard. Consider a 1st level thief using a longsword: on average, the thief can take out a 1st level priest in one shot thanks to the damage multiplier. That's pretty strong. However, this applies just to a 4th level thief (as damage modifiers won't go up significantly if at all by then), at which point it's not quite that strong. Seems to me a good rule of thumb is that a thief can usually one-shot a person of a level equal to his backstab multiplier. I can see people thinking I'm picking nits - the thief can /one-shot/ things, after all - but keep in mind the thief pretty much has to; after the initial attack, if the target is still alive it can call for help as a free action, and the sound of combat will probably attract others, not to mention the thief's general proficiency in combat (which is to say, very little).

- I thought bardic knowledge was one of those sacred cows 3e brought over, but there's no mention of it in the bard write-up. Bards do automatically know local history though, and they can guess what magic items do, so that's something.

- I really don't have much to say about the bard. They seem pretty blah on paper, which is probably why I didn't play them and very few saw their way to our table.

RO PHB, Part 4: Classes, Part 2 (Wizards and Priests)

Wizards: Mages and Specialist Wizards Who May or May Not Be Illusionists

- Ah yes, wizards. The PHB spends several paragraphs detailing the reasons why wizards are allowed very few weapons and no armor, yet oddly enough I find one of the explanations the book automatically discounts as the most compelling. The PHB essentially says that wizards can't use armor or more than a few weapons because they can't be bothered to learn how. Isn't that the player's decision? Besides, as academics out to explore tombs and catacombs in the search of knowledge and riches, this makes wizards just sound either incredibly lazy or terminally stupid. The book debunks the explanation that armor disrupts magical energy. I think that makes perfect sense; if a wizard is weaving eldritch patterns to warp the fabric of reality, might not metal links and plates on her body disrupt these patterns and cause her spells to fizzle - or worse, go out of control? This explanation might lead to allowing wizards to wear leather or hide armor, but I'm fine with that since it's not exactly unprecedented (I may cover this later when I get to druids).

- Wizards can't make scrolls until 9th level, but they can copy spells into their spellbooks from 1st level on. A bit of rules dissonance, here.

- Wizards are cursed with the dreaded d4 hit die. You can offset this with a decent CON, but 2 extra HP a level can only do so much. However, considering the wizard regularly makes causality his bitch, this is seen as acceptable for many years. Doesn't necessarily excuse the fixed 1 HP per level after 10th though.

- Taking what one has read from the PHB up to this point with the wizard spell progression table, a 1st level wizard can cast one 1st-level spell. From the accompanying paragraphs, however, it seems that the wizard can read her spellbook and make that spell available again immediately (or, at least, once the fight is over). This can't be the case, though that would help those lower levels out considerably were it true.

- Humans, elves, and half-elves can be mages. It's cute that the book pretends there's a meaningful choice here.

- A mage's prime requisite is Intelligence, but even with a 16 a mage can't cast her highest level spells. That's almost like saying fighters can use chainsaws with a 16 STR, but can't use lightsabers at 17th level unless they have an 18 STR.

- The Schools of Magic, 2nd paragraph: "You'd think someone could start an academy like Hogwarts to teach future magic users, but this is unnecessary so long as the young'uns can be taught by magic hobos."

- There are nine schools of magic, except one kinda sucks and is just the beginning levels of study of one of the others. Lesser Divination could have easily have been Lesser Invocation, or Lesser Transmutation, except the game designers couldn't come up with enough spells for divination so it got the short straw.

- Confession time: I didn't really understand what abjuration was or its purpose until I read Complete Arcane for 3.5.

- Elves can only be diviners or enchanters. Apparently getting freaky with the humans opens up your magical pathways, as half-elves can also be conjurers and transmuters. Gnomes can be illusionists - and only illusionists. I still can't shake the feeling that these restrictions are completely arbitrary, and the ability score requirements reinforce this. Why would a conjurer need a 15 CON as opposed to, say, CHA? Why does illusionist have a DEX requirement at all? Doesn't an enchanter with a 16 CHA kind of defeat the purpose?

- The illusionist class is just a reiteration of the specialist wizard rules, possibly for padding, possibly to keep the gnome players happy.

Priests: Clerics and Druids

- …Why are there 16 priest spheres? Did they just kinda stop there, or did they stretch them out for the sake of symmetry? Oh, major and minor access to spheres sounds like oodles of fun. Hey, why did they come up with minor sphere access when they could have just as easily made the spheres Lesser Charm and Lesser Sun? Nah, 32 spheres would be too many, now that I think about it; 16 keeps it nice and simple!

- The magic of wizards is divided into nine spell levels, with each spell level beyond 1st accessed at wizard level *2 - 1. The magic of priests is divided into only seven levels, with the same spellcaster level algorithm, so priests begin to top out four levels before wizards.

- Now that I think about it, demi-human spellcasters can't cast anything beyond 7th level spells at best (unless you use the optional "exceeding level limits" rule in the DMG, which is also where I found the level limit table when it should be in the PHB to begin with; seriously, screw this system mastery zeitgeist BS and put the level limits in the PHB and the optional rules - all of them - in the DMG where they belong).

- It's odd that the class description doesn't limit clerics to being good or to specific gods/mythoi, but assumes that all clerics "combine military and religious training" like "the Teutonic Knights, the Knights Templar," etc. It's also strange that all clerics are "granted power over undead" when a cleric of, say, a harvest god or spirit of civilization might not have anything to do with them.

- As an aside, the book's use of the term "mythos/mythoi" makes me want to play a cleric of Azathoth.

- As we journey into the "Priests of Specific Mythoi" section, I'd like to briefly reminisce on my character from the only Forgotten Realms game I've played for more than an hour. After a somewhat exhaustive question and answer period with the DM about what I wanted to play, I was given free reign to play a specialty priest of Tempus. Tempus is (one of the many) god(s) of war within the Realms, and my DM had some sort of unrequited crush on the fictitious deity. My cleric (and yes, it said cleric on my character sheet) had a fighter THAC0 and attacks per round, wielded a two-handed sword, and could incite a berserker rage in a number of people per day equal to my level. Eventually, after a brief sojourn into Barovia, I picked up the fully powered sun sword from the Castle Ravenloft module, which doubled my attacks per round (that's three attacks, by the by) and did like triple damage to undead. I was level 8, I think. From the fact that I was a raging badass, and that the powers and abilities I've recounted here are by no means exhaustive, you might be able to see that specialty clerics, depending on DM, setting, and splatbooks, can get pretty sick.

- That said, the section on specialty priests should either be transplanted into the DMG or filled with more specifics along the lines of specialist wizards in order for them to be remotely useful. In the era of "NO" DMGing, giving players a toolbox to build their own class is pretty much a waste of page count.

- Why can't elves be druids? This seems counterintuitive to their "one with nature" shtick. On that note, why can humans (traditionally viewed as the natural predator of forested areas) be druids?

- Why is it that druids are limited to natural (read: non-metallic) armor, yet half of their available weapons (scimitar, sickle, dagger, possibly dart and spear) probably have a good amount of metal in them?

- Druids are the only class that have to beat others of their class to advance in level. There's two pages worth of information about the life of druids past 11th level that assumes that they're cognizant of metagame concepts. For example, there can only be nine druids of 12th level within a geographic region, and if the player is number 10, someone's gotta throw down, with the loser reverting to 11th level. First off, how does any of these druids know what character level their peers are? "My name is Grim Feathertail and I just dinged 12th level." Second, why nine? If we're going to be arbitrary, why not 57, or 23 - hell, make it just one so you can turn it into Highlander: the Treehugging! Third, this implies that, in any geographic region, there are nine 12th level druids that do nothing but sit around when they could be out solving any of the problems the party comes across (however, see the Forgotten Realms NPC problem). Fourth, what if the druid doesn't want to be part of this particular region? What if he just moves to another one? Can he just set up an enclave in the Hidden Valley (there's a ranch there!) and chill, or does this count as a forfeit and he shimmies back on down to 11th level. This is just the first step of this nonsense; at 15th level, the up-and-coming druid is required to take a desk job, which is not exactly conducive to an adventuring career. Oh, and the whole druidic advancement hierarchy is bookended by the druid's class abilities and only lasts from 12th to 16th level.

RO PHB, Part 3: Classes, Part 1 (Overview and Warriors)

Player Character Classes

- Classes in 2e were divided into archetypal groups. You had Warrior (fighter, ranger, and paladin), Wizard (mage, illusionist, and "other", meaning a specialized mage), Priest (cleric, druid, and another "other"), and Rogue (thief and bard). Each group shared many similarities like THAC0 (even typing that is annoying), saving throws and hit points. Occasionally there would be some naming confusion, like denoting something that belongs to fighters when it applies to all warrior types; this was usually from the equation of the group name with the exemplar of that group as interchangeable synonyms of each other.

- You might be able to make the case that 2e was defining character roles with its class groupings. Shuffle some of the classes around and you're pretty much there - throw ranger in with the rogues (where it fits better IMO) and bard with the clerics, and you've basically got Defenders, Controllers, Leaders, and Strikers. They don’t set out to purposefully do those jobs (fighters aren't sticky and are half-strikers, thieves have a striker ability no DM would let them use), but the groundwork is there and was probably there since the days of fighting-man and magic-user.

- Each class has ability score requirements. The basic classes (fighter, mage, cleric, and thief) have prerequisites of 9 STR, INT, WIS, or DEX respectively, while the others had more exacting requirements. Paladins needed a 17 or 18 Charisma, while rangers needed 13s or better in four different attributes.

- The book says all but the basic classes are optional. The book lies. Of them, only the specialist wizards and clerics are optional, only because (IIRC) they’re pretty ill-defined. We'll see.

- Characters with a 16 or better in their prime requisite ability scores (Strength for fighters, Intelligence for mages, etc.) gain 10% additional experience. If you are naturally better at your class than the rank and file - and, hence, your job is easier - you advance quicker in your class. There's some Darwinian, "jocks are better" undertones here.


Warriors: Fighters, Paladins, and Rangers (oh my!)

- It mentions that warriors get additional hit points for high CON, but doesn't mention exceptional Strength in any capacity. A footnote would have been good here, if for no other reason than to make the fighter feel better about the fact that they have one class ability.

- Warriors can make additional melee attacks as they rise in level. At level 7, they can make 3 attacks every 2 rounds. You may realize that this is somewhat problematic in the lack of half-attacks, and you would not be alone; what this means is that, on the first round, warriors make one attack, then two attacks the next round, then one attack the round after, so on and so forth. No, you can't make two attacks on the first round, and I'm pretty sure you can't "save" your two-attack-rounds for later. At level 13 they can make 2 attacks in a round and skip this stupidity.

- Fighters are the only class that can take weapon specialization. Rather than actually detail it in the fighter description, since no one else can take it, the book refers you to Chapter 5. Note that weapon specialization uses the optional weapon proficiency system, so DMs are well within their rights to keep fighters from ever being useful beyond walking sacks of hit points.

- In fact, being a fighter is viewed as a punishment. If you fuck up as a paladin or ranger (more later) you become a fighter. A fighter without weapon specialization, no less, so fighters in games without the optional proficiency rules can, at best, be on the same level as characters used to actually be good and fun to play.

- There are tables for fighter cohorts and followers. The only time any character in any game I played in or ran had a follower was in 3e. In this case, the fighter has to own land with some sort of impressive-sounding fortification built upon it to attract followers, and it flat-out says that a fighter can't do ANYTHING of note worthy to bring in the fodder until 9th level, at which point s/he becomes a household name.

- It occurs to me that the explanations of some of these rules may be a bit snarky. I must disclaim that I'm only embellishing a little. If there is one given, it's likely that my explanation is pretty close to that in the book, mostly because I'm lazy.

- Paladins. I'd like to think that this class was designed by some prophetic crone who had foreseen the creation of the Internet and the flame wars that would arise at the mention of this class. It's been said that Gygax made this class with the design goal that being lawful good was enough of a punishment to balance it out; this isn't true. Paladins have to be human, and that is their punishment.

- I could have sworn paladins were immune to fear. My mistake. They still get +2 to all saves, which is nice.

- Paladins gain a class ability that has no effect until they gain a specific magical item. Since getting any magical item is a crapshoot anyway, this is essentially a passive-aggressive way for a player to slowly wear away at the DM's patience as they constantly say things like, "Oh man, I can't wait 'til I get my holy sword!"

- They get a horse, too. Useful for those long dungeon crawls.

- At level 9, paladins can cast a spell (one, usually cure light wounds) like a 1st-level priest. To simulate this in real life, jump start your car with a AAA battery.

- Paladins don't have the same motivation to adventure as other characters. Paladins are in it for the greater good, the cosmic cause. You can see this in the drawbacks for the class; paladins pay their bills, plus a 10% income tax, then give all their shit away. In practice, this means the paladin takes a few gems from the dragon's hoard and lets the other members of his party divvy up his share, creating loot imbalances with his very presence.

- One of the neat workarounds of the 2e paladin is that they can actually get along with and even adventure alongside evil characters without too much fuss, provided the characters behave themselves in his/her presence. In 3e, paladins can't knowingly be associated with evil characters or they lose their powers; essentially, they have to willingly not use one of their defining class abilities, detect evil, in order to maintain plausible deniability. I recall this being something of a pain when some jackhole rolls up Stabby McStabbington III, contract killer and lifelong companion of Sir Derek Evilsbane.

- Rangers have three prime requisites, one of which does not matter until 8th level and doesn’t really affect their performance at all. I stand corrected: they don't get bonus spells based on Wisdom, so it's really just there to keep rangers from getting their extra experience.

- The book doesn't list Aragorn or Legolas as ranger archetypes. Funny, that. Also doesn't list Drizzt Do'Urden, legendary canon sue of the Forgotten Realms that affected the ranger in this edition with the inclusion of dual-wielding. I didn't do a lot of dual-wielding in 2e, but I do remember setting myself to receive the charge of creatures many orders of magnitude greater than myself with naught but my awesome spear of badassitude (read: +2 spear).

- The ranger is the only class that can say, "Fuck you and your optional proficiency systems, I can track shit!"

- Rangers can be stealthy, but only in "natural surroundings", where you will spend approximately 10 minutes of game time per session on average. It doesn't actually define what "natural surroundings" are, though, so you might be able to make the case that they get their full bonuses in caves and caverns, which begs the question as to why no dwarf rangers.

- There's no real justification as to why rangers have to be good, nor what prevents them from keeping more treasure than they can carry beyond DM fiat.

- I'm sorry I used the phrase "DM fiat" while talking about 2e, when I never heard it until the days of 3e. I like it.

Retro Observations: 2E PHB, Part 2: Player Character Races

Part the Second of my re-reading of the 2e PHB. At some point I started assuming those who might read this either had access to a copy or had already read it at some point. If you don't fall into either category and are skeptical of my statements, you can take my word for it that what I've read is actually in the book. Besides, I can back it up with screenshots if need be.

Player Character Races

- The introductory paragraphs for the player character races chapter emphasize that the racial descriptions are broad generalities to which players aren't necessarily bound. It then gives a table for racial minimums and maximums to which your character must conform before modifiers, and then says that races other than human have level restrictions and/or can't be members of certain classes.

- I imagine class and level restrictions exist for non-human races because humans are intended to be the vanilla baseline for those races; every other race is better than humans. I don't think we ever played with racial level restrictions. They do not matter until, at minimum, level 8, and then only if you're a halfling cleric. What level do the majority of games start at? I'll probably go into this later.

- Halflings can't have exceptional Strength. The Strength penalty might have something to do with it, but what happens if they increase their Strength beyond their initial score? Something tells me I'm gonna have to read the DMG again.

- Dwarves can be clerics, fighters, or thieves. They can be fighter/clerics or fighter/thieves, but not cleric/thieves. Why? Because.

- Elves have five different branches: aquatic, grey, high, wood, and dark. Elven PCs are assumed to be high elves ("the most common type"), but can choose to be another type with the DM's permission. Choosing another type confers "no additional powers", until the players get a hold of the Complete Book of Elves, one of the more popular (and arguably broken) splatbooks because it dared to give players meaningful options.

- According to my copy, elves can't be multi-class clerics or rangers. Rangers I can kinda understand, since they're already fighter/thief/druids on their own, but I don't understand the cleric bias. There's actually something of a campaign hook hovering here underneath the surface, I think.

- I remember gnomes being beneath our notice during our Grand Age of Gaming that was middle school. Except for Steve - not that one, the other one. I knew enough Steves for it to be confusing. Anyway, gnome Steve had a fascination with, of all things, gnomes. He always played one, without question. The only one I really remember eventually became something that was pretty far from a gnome if I recall correctly. In that game, we were playing characters who'd been exposed to a meteorite and got random (I can't emphasize this enough, there were charts and everything) mutations. Steve's character eventually had black skin, four legs, and a spiked tail. He was like a xenomorph. It was crazy.

- Okay. Explain to me why gnomes can be illusionists - which are defined as specialist wizards - but can't be mages. You can't use the phrase "yeah-huh" as part of your explanation. While we're on the subject of classes, I may have been reading the multi-class restrictions wrong. The elf entry refers me to the end of the classes section for more information on multi-classing; neither the dwarf nor the gnome have this reference. The gnome entry says they "can have two classes, but not three," implying there's more choice in the matter of multi-classing than the previous two entries indicated. Were these entries written by different people, without an editor?

- Gnomes are dwarves that aren't as cool, and that's saying something. In fact, they're nearly identical, save for their class selection, ability adjustments, and what pool they can select languages from. They even have the dwarvish magic-resistance abilities, yet can be (a type of) mage(s).

- "Half-elves are the most common mixed-race beings." Thus far they're the only mixed-race beings. It's stated pretty plainly that once you go human you never go back; if a person has even one human ancestor, they're a half-elf at best. Half-elves have none of the strengths and all of the weaknesses of their parents, though they multi-class well. They have no racial ability adjustments, and only two-and-a-half elf abilities. Half-elves look to be the worst race to pick so far; human is probably worse, though.

- Halflings are hobbits with the serial numbers filed off (though someone forgot to rename the halfling types something other than hobbit surnames). For the average D&D player, if they wanted to play a fat, hedonistic midget, they could probably just stay home and roll a joint. They don't become cool until 3e, at which point they become arguably the best race choice (tied with humans, oddly enough).

- Halflings have to roll to see if they get a racial ability every other race (except humans) gets by default. Is this like Paranoia, where you roll to see if you die during character creation? It probably leads to the same result: abandoning that character for something else.

- Humans suck unless you're planning for the long haul or are starting a game at 15th level or higher. I shouldn’t have to explain why.

- My first D&D character ever was a 7th-level elf ranger with an 18/96 Strength, 6'6" tall and weighed 76 pounds. To this day I have no idea how those stats came to be, except Roland told me what to do and I just chucked the dice. I got a sweet +2 spear out of the deal, only because Roland's character had one she wasn't using. I think it was a she, anyway. I've never been weirded out by people playing characters of the opposite sex - this may be because I modeled my ranger after Alan (Ail) from Sailor Moon (R), who was pretty close to begin with.

That concludes my write-up on PC races. Next time: Observations, Part 3: Classes, Part 1!

Retro Observations: 2E PHB, Part 1: Ability Scores

Edit: ImageShack ate the original image.

While perusing the Internets at work, as I am wont to do when I'm not forced to spend two hours looking for $45 worth of parts, I came across this thread on ENWorld. Basically, someone called out the notion that AD&D 2e was a "rules light" edition of the game and that most, if not all, players and DMs of that edition ignored whatever rules and subsystems that were (in)convenient. Honestly I can't fault their hypothesis, mostly because - in my case, at least - he's absolutely right.

It was around the time that someone pointed out that there's six different ways to punch someone in 2e that I kinda got nostalgic for the old girl. 2e was my first exposure to Dungeons and Dragons, and it allowed me to meet some of the best friends I've ever had my entire life. But, well, it's been almost 9 years since I've played and a lot has changed in the 2 1/2 editions so I began to wonder how I'd view my first love with the knowledge I've accumulated since then.

So, with a song in my heart and a PDF on my computer, I started reading the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook, 2nd Edition. And, lucky you, I've made some… observations as I've reacquainted myself with the game. Fortunately or not, my notes are pretty long, and they're probably snarkier than I truly intend, but hell with it, I'll be posting them in sections.

Attributes

- Exceptional Strength is weird. A warrior with an 18 Strength can roll percentile dice to add to their Strength score. Why do you do this? It's not explained, beyond that warriors are "entitled" to do so, and that exceptional Strength "improves the
character's chance to hit an enemy, increases the damage he causes with each hit," et cetera (but any improvement to Strength does this). Do the 0.5% of warriors who were lucky enough to roll an 18 on Strength need further differentiation between them? The difference between a regular 18 and 18/00 is +2 to hit and +4 to damage; in the world of 2e, where you only get bonuses from a 16 or higher, that's a huge difference. I have "fond" memories of my friends and I bringing freshly rolled fighters, paladins and rangers to the table who "just happened" to have rolled 18/90+ with 4d6 drop lowest. Steve was the most blatant about it, having a string of characters with 18/00 Strength. Uh-huh. Totally legit.

- Meanwhile, Strength is the only attribute to have exceptional scores: there's no 18/51 Dexterity, or 18/00 Intelligence. It's also joined by Wisdom and Charisma as the only attributes that you can't increase with racial adjustments (but all three can be decreased) by choosing races in the PHB.

- Also note that, while you can only have exceptional Strength by being a warrior, class selection occurs after you've rolled ability scores. Since you cannot be a warrior at the time you roll your ability scores, no character can have exceptional Strength at character creation.

- The Strength table has entries for specific feats of strength (for lack of a better phrase), namely the ability to Bend Bars/Lift Gates and Open Doors. Opening doors (and no, this only applies to stuck doors and not any door you may encounter) requires a d20 roll; BB/LG is a percentile roll. In both cases, lower results are better. Lord help you if you fail, because you can NEVER EVER EVEEER try again. You don't have a snowball's chance in Hell (>5%) of lifting a gate until you hit 14 STR, and the open door roll doesn't really become useful until you hit 18/91 when you can try to open barred or magically locked doors (but only on a 1, 2, or 3; players can't hope to get this roll beyond 6 or less). In the Attributes section, at least, there's no mention of what happens should more than one character try to perform these tasks at once. Hopefully that's somewhere else.

- Dexterity annoys me. It affects three things: your chance to avoid surprise, your ability to hit with ranged weapons, and you Armor Class. Like many other areas of 2e and before, positive numbers are better except when they're not; negative Defense Adjustment is better because. Also, if your DEX is 7-14, you may as well write "doesn't matter" next to the entry, as scores in this range have no effect on your character at all.

- Constitution is misleading in that the table header reads "Regeneration" at the end; without magical assistance (and even then I'm not sure) players can never have a regeneration beyond "Nil". Even if you pumped your CON to 20, you're still only regaining 1 hit point every 50 minutes. That might matter in the early levels, but by the time you've gotten your CON that high it's pretty much inevitable that someone else will have run across a ring of regeneration (which gives back as much HP as a 25 CON) and you'll have so many hit points that 1 HP an hour will not matter.

- Once again warriors get special consideration from having a high CON. A 15 or better CON gives additional hit points per die to a maximum of +2, or +7 if you're a warrior, and then only until 10th level (9th for warriors and priests because), at which point you start gaining fixed hit points like you should have been since 1st level. There are footnotes for CON scores over 20 that indicate low hit die rolls count as higher results (1s become 2s, 1s and 2s are 3s, up to 1s, 2s, and 3s being 4s). Seeing as how a 20 CON is monumentally difficult to achieve (and, by the time you do, you've forgotten what your HP rolls were and you've probably stopped rolling for HP anyway), and monsters don't have CON scores, I don't know why these footnotes are there beyond yet more false hope.

- The Intelligence table is the only attribute table to include a column for an optional rule (Maximum Number of Spells per Level). An INT of 19 or better can automatically pass their saving throws versus illusion spells of ever-increasing levels; coming back from a post 3e viewpoint, seeing this under Intelligence and not Wisdom (which the Perception skill(s) are based on in later editions) seems odd.

- If you want to be a competent priest-type (cleric, druid, etc., I think maybe ranger or paladin too), your Wisdom needs to be over 13. This is the point where you no longer have to roll to see if your spells fail outright. Oddly enough, this is also the point where you (i.e. a priest) start to earn bonus spells; you go from failing to cast 1 in 20 spells to knowing more spells than your average priest should in 1 point, without a transitional period.

- "The Charisma (Cha) score measures a character's persuasiveness, personal magnetism, and ability to lead." Your Charisma score gives you a penalty or bonus to your initial reaction with non-player characters. From the NPC reaction table I was able to find, when the PCs encounter an NPC (or group thereof) the DM rolls 2d10 and cross-references the result against the PCs attitude. Going by this mechanic, it is detrimental for the PCs to have a high Charisma; high Charisma adds to reaction rolls, and the table goes from (low to high) friendly to hostile. To reiterate, things are more likely to hate you because you're more likable.

Next time: Races!