An early (1st or 2nd ed) version of the bard required something along the lines of 10 fighter, 10 mage, 10 thief; IIRC.
Agreed; the 1E bard was clearly a prestige class in 3E terms, and it predates the thief-acrobat.
I think the thief-acrobat was more like an archetype/alternate class feature, anyways.
While you're at it, take a look at the Bard. Used to be you had to do Fighter, Thief, and Druid(I think?) before you could be a Bard.
Correct, Bard's actually used to be more Divine oriented than Arcane.
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i think bard was first. it was in the back of a players handbook, by the psionics table IIRC
the only published bard I know of was Odin. The GOD. it was a beast of a class to get into because of the multi classing and the pre reqs to do that back then (had to have classes stat pre-reqs 2 higher than normal)
While you're at it, take a look at the Bard. Used to be you had to do Fighter, Thief, and Druid(I think?) before you could be a Bard.
No, just fighter and thief. The druidic spellcasting came from the bard class itself.
I think it is in the back of the players hand book, maybe an appendix?
you gentlemen are correct the bard was the original 1 man army and billyist of the badasses, a mere mention of one in the vecinity aka contenent sent deamon lords and godlings runnin scared.
Attempting to become a bard was usualy reserved for a unique or rare attempt at PC creation sutch as rolling natural strait 18's or rolling 100 on the psionics table. then and only then would one consider makeing a bard the most terifying of adventurers.
Dungeons & Dragons (1974-1976)The bard first appeared in The Strategic Review - Volume 2, Number 1.
[edit] Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition (1977-1988)Bards in First Edition AD&D were a special class unavailable for character creation. A character could become a bard only after meeting specific and difficult requirements, achieving levels in multiple character classes, becoming a bard only later. The process of becoming a bard in the First Edition was very similar to what would later be standardized in D&D as the prestige class — in fact, the First Edition bard eventually became the Fochlucan Lyrist Prestige class in the Third Edition supplement Complete Adventurer.
To become a bard, a human or half-elf had to begin with very high ability scores: Strength 15+, Wisdom 15+, Dexterity 15+ and Charisma 15+, Intelligence 12+ and Constitution 10+. These daunting requirements made bards one of the rarest character classes. Bards began the game as fighters, and after achieving 5th level (but before reaching 8th level), they had to dual-class as a thief, and after reaching 5th level as a thief (but before reaching 9th level), they had to dual-class again to druid. Once becoming a druid, the character then progressed as a bard.
Bards gained a limited number of druid spells, and could be any alignment that was neutral on at least one axis. Because of the nature of dual-classing in AD&D, bards had the combined abilities of both fighters and thieves, in addition to their newly acquired lore, druidic spells, all level dependent druidic abilities, additional languages known, a special ability to know legendary information about magic items they may encounter, and a percentage chance to automatically charm any creature that hears the bard's magical music. Because bards must have first acquired levels as fighter and thief, they are more powerful at first level than any other class.
Iconic Thief-Acrobat: Diana, from the old D&D cartoon. Of course, that means Bobby was the iconic Barbarian, Eric was the iconic Cavalier, etc.
they were neat I qualified to male one when I was a kid but the char died before making it. the really neat bit I recall is I think once you made bard you rolled hps as normal rather than the usual dual class silliness.
they become really strong.
An early (1st or 2nd ed) version of the bard required something along the lines of 10 fighter, 10 mage, 10 thief; IIRC.This doesn't seem to be right to me. I have to go find my DM's guide which is where the Bard was posted, I think. I always thought it was a 1rst level class even in those days.
booger=boy
According to the rules in 1st ed, it wasn't *multi* classing, it was *dual* classing (or, in this case *triple* classing) each class had a benchmark that needed to be reached before the next class step could be taken....(a Rule's Wonk pointed that out to me :D)
EDIT: Also mentioned above...wish I would entire threads before replying lol
In Basic D&D, I think the Companion level box set (15-25?) had the druid, blackguard, and knight classes. You needed to be a cleric to become a druid, or a fighter to become a blackguard or knight.
Druids were restricted to bludgeoning, non-metal weapons: club, quarterstaff, wooden mallet, slingstones.
In Basic D&D, I think the Companion level box set (15-25?) had the druid, blackguard, and knight classes. You needed to be a cleric to become a druid, or a fighter to become a blackguard or knight.
Druids were restricted to bludgeoning, non-metal weapons: club, quarterstaff, wooden mallet, slingstones.
I pretty sure the fighter "PrCs" were Knight, Paladin and Avenger, for Neutral, Lawful and Chaotic Fighters respectively.
Paladin and Avengers got "clerc-ish" powers, the Knight power over the mundane IIRC.
I remember that the Bard was first introduced as a base class in one of the issues of Dragon Magazine. Then the First Edition Players Handbook came out, where the Bard was in an appendix where you could not start as a Bard at first level, but had to work your way there.
So yes, I would say that the Bard was the first Prestige Class in Dungeons and Dragons.
I remember two other 1st Edition classes that also worked like prestige classes: the Thief-Acrobat from Unearthed Arcana and the Ninja from Oriental Adventures.
I also remember that it used to be common for NPC character types like Witches to be defined as having so many levels of one class, so many levels of another class, and special abilities unique to their type. There was no provision for PCs to gain these powers. The Druid was first introduced in this way in the original Greyhawk supplement, before being defined as a base class in the Blackmoor supplement. By the time the 1st edition Player's Handbook came out, they stopped doing this, instead defining "NPC Classes" for NPCs.
Dungeons & Dragons (1974-1976)The bard first appeared in The Strategic Review - Volume 2, Number 1.
[edit] Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition (1977-1988)Bards in First Edition AD&D were a special class unavailable for character creation. A character could become a bard only after meeting specific and difficult requirements, achieving levels in multiple character classes, becoming a bard only later. The process of becoming a bard in the First Edition was very similar to what would later be standardized in D&D as the prestige class — in fact, the First Edition bard eventually became the Fochlucan Lyrist Prestige class in the Third Edition supplement Complete Adventurer.
To become a bard, a human or half-elf had to begin with very high ability scores: Strength 15+, Wisdom 15+, Dexterity 15+ and Charisma 15+, Intelligence 12+ and Constitution 10+. These daunting requirements made bards one of the rarest character classes. Bards began the game as fighters, and after achieving 5th level (but before reaching 8th level), they had to dual-class as a thief, and after reaching 5th level as a thief (but before reaching 9th level), they had to dual-class again to druid. Once becoming a druid, the character then progressed as a bard.
Bards gained a limited number of druid spells, and could be any alignment that was neutral on at least one axis. Because of the nature of dual-classing in AD&D, bards had the combined abilities of both fighters and thieves, in addition to their newly acquired lore, druidic spells, all level dependent druidic abilities, additional languages known, a special ability to know legendary information about magic items they may encounter, and a percentage chance to automatically charm any creature that hears the bard's magical music. Because bards must have first acquired levels as fighter and thief, they are more powerful at first level than any other class.
+1 absolutely correct. Though half-elves were allowed...they actualy could not become bards....as they could not dual-class in 1st ed (only humans could). So that was a little confusing.
Also just remember another rule of dual classing...you could not use any of your previous class abilities til you equaled the level in the new class or if you did you did gain any exp. So a fighter 5/ thief 5 / bard 1...really could not use his fighter abilities or thief abilities till ge gained 5 levels of bard.
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In Basic D&D, I think the Companion level box set (15-25?) had the druid, blackguard, and knight classes. You needed to be a cleric to become a druid, or a fighter to become a blackguard or knight.
Druids were restricted to bludgeoning, non-metal weapons: club, quarterstaff, wooden mallet, slingstones.
Agreed. While I have nothing but love for bards (my favourite PC was a 1st Edition Bard/M-U) it was indeed the Druid (followed by the Paladin, the Avenger and the Knight) who was the first PrC way back in Basic.
Agreed. While I have nothing but love for bards (my favourite PC was a 1st Edition Bard/M-U) it was indeed the Druid (followed by the Blackguard and Knight) who was the first PrC way back in Basic.In Basic D&D, I think the Companion level box set (15-25?) had the druid, blackguard, and knight classes. You needed to be a cleric to become a druid, or a fighter to become a blackguard or knight.
Druids were restricted to bludgeoning, non-metal weapons: club, quarterstaff, wooden mallet, slingstones.
Basic expecially THAT basic, is younger than 1st edition AD&D.
While you're at it, take a look at the Bard. Used to be you had to do Fighter, Thief, and Druid(I think?) before you could be a Bard.
To bring some sense into the druid part, actual real world bards are bound to the celtic culture and fullfil the role of some kind of myth teller (and singer of course) and had some priest alike repuation just like druids and filis (see wikipedia for more)
(well, later on the term was used similar to "ministrel" so it's not that wrong to call a medieval ministrel or poet a bard)
While you're at it, take a look at the Bard. Used to be you had to do Fighter, Thief, and Druid(I think?) before you could be a Bard.To bring some sense into the druid part, actual real world bards are bound to the celtic culture and fullfil the role of some kind of myth teller (and singer of course) and had some priest alike repuation just like druids and filis (see wikipedia for more)
(well, later on the term was used similar to "ministrel" so it's not that wrong to call a medieval ministrel or poet a bard)
Yes. The earliest druids and bards in D&D were much more tied to that idea than in later editions.
Desert druids, urban, etc., came along shortly.
The first bards took levels in fighter, then thief, then got druid spells as bards.
wow, the historical roots thinger gets a little weirder. I'm checking out a description of 2nd classes and it mentions that classes were reduced to 4 metaclasses: Warrior, Wizard, Priest and Rogue. According to this classes were variations on these bases. I'm not an expert on Archetypes but it sounds similiar. Anyone got an idea on this one?
I didn't see anything that sounded prestigey, but so what? There could be one waiting to be found!
Yeah, I found my Players Handbook and it sounds like the Bard description is right. Anyone check out the funny illustrations in the spell section? They were quite humorous. The dancing Umber Hulk was good and so was the Fighter who had his path/string being rewound by a troll.
booger=boy
Not exactly, the types had some common ground, like saving throw bonuses, attack progression and proficiencies (feat/skills), but they werent by themselves a fully developed class.
Rogues could be either a thief or a bard for example but you couldnt be a level 10 rogue, rogue just was a collection of classes.
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the Ninja from Oriental Adventures.
I seem to remember that the Ninja was in fact a forced multiclass - every ninja was also a wu-jen, a yakuza, or some other base class at the same time, in the vein of 1e multiclassing with split xp. They were supposed to pretend to just be the other class - they lost honor (a tracked mechanic) if anyone found out they were a ninja - even the other PCs. Led to some bizarre metagaming as ninja was the only mechanical reason to keep multiclassing secret, so the other players could deduce your secret by noting that you were behind in level.
I do remember that ninja had a d2 hit die.
There were some bizarre goings-on in 1st Edition, which is one reason why 2nd Edition was needed to clear a bunch of things up. I think Hackmaster was written in part as a spoof on the 1st edition rules.
There were some bizarre goings-on in 1st Edition, which is one reason why 2nd Edition was needed to clear a bunch of things up. I think Hackmaster was written in part as a spoof on the 1st edition rules.I have to sit down some day and look at the differences between the two. I'm usually indifferent to changes in the system, oh well this is how the new class system works.
I know I'm cynical when I say this but I suspect that new editions are put out so they can boost sales, meaning it has less to do with cleaning up the rules than pulling in some more dough. If we get some new stuff along the way, than nifty!
booger=boy
Believe you me, I remember when 2nd Edition came out, and it was needed.
To roll up a character in 1988, one needed to go through several books. The main classes were in the Player's Handbook, but some essential information like saving throws and combat tables were in the Dungeon Master's Guide. The DMG also had the table to roll for prior profession. Unearthed Arcana had more features you might need, but to really get into skills, you needed the Dungeoneer's Survivors Guide and the Wilderness Survivor's Guide to determine how many non-weapon proficiencies you had.
Plus, we did not have THACO until about 1987, so you needed another book to calculate that.
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the Ninja from Oriental Adventures.
I seem to remember that the Ninja was in fact a forced multiclass - every ninja was also a wu-jen, a yakuza, or some other base class at the same time, in the vein of 1e multiclassing with split xp. They were supposed to pretend to just be the other class - they lost honor (a tracked mechanic) if anyone found out they were a ninja - even the other PCs. Led to some bizarre metagaming as ninja was the only mechanical reason to keep multiclassing secret, so the other players could deduce your secret by noting that you were behind in level.
I do remember that ninja had a d2 hit die.
The 1st Edition Oriental Adventures book was perhaps one of the most beautifully written of that edition's hard back rule books.
The Ninja class, being a secret class was not allowed to be a single class, the other class the Ninja took was the class the Ninja presented himself/herself to be (Dragon Magazine later had a Ninja as a stand alone class).
The Ninja had to multi class with Bushi, Sohei, Yakuza or Wu Jen. The d2 hit die was added to the hit points of the other class, but raising a level in the Ninja class took time.
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[To roll up a character in 1988, one needed to go through several books. The main classes were in the Player's Handbook, but some essential information like saving throws and combat tables were in the Dungeon Master's Guide. The DMG also had the table to roll for prior profession. Unearthed Arcana had more features you might need, but to really get into skills, you needed the Dungeoneer's Survivors Guide and the Wilderness Survivor's Guide to determine how many non-weapon proficiencies you had.
Plus, we did not have THACO until about 1987, so you needed another book to calculate that.
Reading the original DMG makes me think some of this was intentional. I really think players weren't supposed to know how attack rolls and saving throws worked; they would know that fighters were "better" at attacking than magic-users, but not the specifics of how much. Players were discouraged from reading the DMG so as to not spoil the "suprise."
But yeah, 2e's philosophy of the PHB containing everything needed to run your character was better. It worked until you added Tome of Magic, all the Complete books, Player's Option, etc. Bloat has always been there.
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2e also had a 'build your own class' table in the DMG. A novel concept except they admittedly weakened it so the core classes were always more powerful than what you could build. (i.e. you couldn't build a core class and have the XP cost come out)
I remember an NPC I built with that system once. He was a monster sage who wanted to follow the PCs around and take notes about what they were fighting. His class had attacks/saves always as level 0, d3 hit dice, no weapon profs, no armor, and he had 36 starting nonweapon proficiencies. (To give context, PC classes started with 2-4 NWPs usually). He also only needed ~200 XP to reach level 2. In the time it took the PCs to get to level 3, he reached about level 8 and then retired to dispense advice about monsters for cash.
He was a resource in later campaigns on that worlds whenever the PCs wanted to go find out about some strange creature.
I liked that little system - it was good for NPC builds that would never work as PCs.
Believe you me, I remember when 2nd Edition came out, and it was needed.
When 2nd edition came out it was a literal cut and paste job from 1st edition with some very common house rules (d10 initiative, etc) thrown in along side some unplaytested 'ideas'.
The spell lists of the arcane were smashed together, and the divine spell lists were smashed together as well. The rules for handling them were not thought through.. for example the former druid spell 'call woodland beings' that summoned good aligned forest creatures and wouldn't serve evil casters was unavailable to 2nd level druids but was available to LE clerics!
To roll up a character in 1988, one needed to go through several books. The main classes were in the Player's Handbook, but some essential information like saving throws and combat tables were in the Dungeon Master's Guide. The DMG also had the table to roll for prior profession. Unearthed Arcana had more features you might need, but to really get into skills, you needed the Dungeoneer's Survivors Guide and the Wilderness Survivor's Guide to determine how many non-weapon proficiencies you had.Plus, we did not have THACO until about 1987, so you needed another book to calculate that.
So you made your character with the DM, there's no real problem there. And needing several books is not something at which we, in playing 3e variants, should be throwing stones!
-James
Second Edition was more of a clean up of 1st Edition. It was not the transformation of the game that 3rd and 4th Editions were. The differences between 1st and 2nd were more like the differences between 3.0 and 3.5.
That was the intent. It was not just that stuff was spread out over several books, but that the various pieces were not very well thought out to work well together. Second also had its problems, which is why I never ran a 2nd edition game, and preferred to play in 1st edition.
I am a little concerned that Paizo might be going the route that 1st Edition took, with each new book not only adding new feats and spells and stuff that fit the concepts of earlier books, but also adding new concepts. Now I have to worry about whether I want an archetype, or a masterpiece, or a subdomain. This is the kind of thing that makes a game uber complicated, when the different pieces do not fit together like they did in 3.0 when every new addition was of the same type as what was defined in the Player's Handbook.
wow, the historical roots thinger gets a little weirder. I'm checking out a description of 2nd classes and it mentions that classes were reduced to 4 metaclasses: Warrior, Wizard, Priest and Rogue. According to this classes were variations on these bases. I'm not an expert on Archetypes but it sounds similiar. Anyone got an idea on this one?
I didn't see anything that sounded prestigey, but so what? There could be one waiting to be found!
Yeah, I found my Players Handbook and it sounds like the Bard description is right. Anyone check out the funny illustrations in the spell section? They were quite humorous. The dancing Umber Hulk was good and so was the Fighter who had his path/string being rewound by a troll.
In 2nd ed, the prestige class idea seems have been folded into "kits" which were variant versions of core classes available through the handbooks.