I started doing some 1e comparisons when I wrote the previous entry, but it quickly grew out of control and I decided to section it off, so that 2e classes also get to be compared on their own merits. That said, let's look how classes stack up in 1e vs 2e: What has been left out from the accumulations of classes from 1e? Monks and Assassins were in the 1e PHB and dropped. Thief-Acrobats, Cavaliers and Barbarians introduced in Unearthed Arcana didn't make the cut either. I say to all of this - Good riddance. Let's take a closer look: Monks . Mechanically, Monk was probably the shittiest class ever devised for D&D, and conceptually too marginal to merit being salvaged for 2e. Are 3-5e really richer for bringing it back? I think not. Assassins ! The original edgelord class. In Gygax' own words, "The anti-thesis of weal." Bleeeergh. Having a core class that must, by the book, be of evil alignment in your core rulebook is just a recipe for bad group dynamics, i...

The AD&D appraisal show is back on the road. Today is about classes and it's a bit long, so here is the  tl;dr - a high level run-through and review of the classes, priests get the most attention, we look at the weird asymmetrical XP progression inherited from 1st edition where warriors are the slowest to advance from 7th to 14th level and wrap up with what racial requirements and certain classes means for the implied AD&D world.  Alright, let's get to it. Don't tell me you seriously believed we were done showcasing art from the revised core rulebooks? Few things are more defining for a DnD game than its take on classes. And in 2e, we find probably the best take on it that has been done. Presentation-wise, they are, finally, organised into the sensible class categories the game has been asking for ever since OD&D introduced the spuriously defined notion of 'sub-class':  Warrior (Fighter, Ranger, Paladin) Wizard (Magic-User, Specialist) Priest (Cleric, Dr...

As an adult, my favorite class is the regular fighter, though I did enjoy playing a paladin straight for a campaign's worth. As a teenager, I did not mirror myself in glory fantasies or related all that well my own masculinity (so fighter wasn't all that for me) and power fantasies were rather fleeting for me (and so Wizards, while cool, were also a fleeting fascination for me). What I really related to was the second edition Bard. Not because I saw myself as a budding minstrel, but for all the non-entertainment aspects of the class. A jack-of-all-trades, extending even to magic, who seems to adventure, not for glory or power, but simply for the sake of adventure. That was something that resonated a lot with my teenage self. Reflecting on this today, makes me think on the strange fit the Bard is setting-wise.  This bard is about to rock your world with his flute and fat shortsword. I mean, what's the deal with a minstrel that knows magic and a bit of everything? Do all   ...

I've finished my write ups of both the Fighter and Rogue for my B/X-5e "RedNext" hack. Unlike the  Halfling , which was mostly written from scratch, these were a lot easier. Copy-paste from the SRD, trim and re-organise to make it easier to scan and fit into 3 pages each. The Figher (PDF) The Rogue (PDF) There are a few differences from the 5e PHB version though. No sub-classes, no feats, no race to be chosen (since race is a class), skill lists dumped and only the four core classes (+3 optional race-classes), trims a lot of the fat from the character dev mini-game that modern D&D so wants to become. There are two changes I use to cover the difference: A much increased focus on the simple combo of (4 core classes + background)  to define your proficiency and 'adventuring identity' as opposed to a proliferation of classes and long lists of skills (I do appreciate that 5e vastly cuts down on the skill lists. Still a bit too long for my taste). A choic...

Googling "Fixing the Cleric" in quotes give ca 17900 results. Obviously, this is a recurring theme of frustration among D&Ders. So here is take 17901 trying to do the same. Why this keeps coming up is not hard to see - There are no clerics in fiction. It doesn't match to any sort of narrative archetype. The only archetypes it is recognised as is gamist: "the healer". As it is, it falls squarely between the two stools of religious warrior (which is the Paladin) and Mystic (which doesn't really exist in D&D). It's not that divine classes themselves struggle with this. Paladins are an easily recognisable archetype, as are druids. Yet, somehow clerics seem to expertly evade narrative recognition after decades of being a core class in D&D. The Cleric as Gamist Archetype Maybe if they had made the cleric more like the monk, using simple weapons and little armor but being somewhat capable in melee anyway and then jazzed that up with cl...