Those arguments come down to DM Fiat and changing existing rules.
Now, you generally do need to join an organization to get most of the Prestige Classes in PF, I'll grant you. But not all of them. And there's no 'training montage' required to do so, only that you join and you're a member of the organization. If you leave, you even get to keep the levels! The 'core' ones carried over from 3.5E have no such organizational reqs, either.
Spells can be gained by buying them or simply electing them as you level. You need DM Fiat to say 'only from Archmage Wu can you gain this spell.' And so...you'd probably trade or do a favor for him. No training involved.
Ditto feats. None have "Master Fung trains you" as a requirement. Because there's no training and no teachers, they aren't part of the system. You can just take it, and it's all background and you never need to actually train with anyone anywhere at all.
What it sounds like is you'd like to introduce training and the requirements thereby, using these tried and true story hooks to do so. I agree, those would all be great, except they don't work in the current game.
So, yes, bringing such back would be great.
As for high levels...past Name level you were allowed to train yourself, as your peers were few and far between. But considering how empty some levels were, introducing tricks and stuff some rare master could teach you was not out of line.
===Aelryinth
But with no training, you can't add that kind of story even if you want to.
Which basically cuts free a whole genre of adventures. Being able to find a master who can teach you in a great secret is at the heart of SO many stories.Irrelevant in PF.
==Aelryinth
That's the point. If I wanted to tell that kind of story I'd have training requirements. I don't want to tell that story, so they're not there. And if I at some point decide I do want to incorporate those types of stories, training will then become a thing. See how simple that was?
Sorry if I'm not playing the game the way you think I should be playing, but I'm not going to change it just because in your view I'm having wrongbadfun with my existing game.
Those arguments come down to DM Fiat and changing existing rules.
===Aelryinth
So what? You speak as though GM fiat is some horrible thing to be avoided at all costs. You seem way too hung up on this notion that for training to be a legitimate thing it has to be officially supported by some Paizo product or supplement. Either that or you think because you like training that it should be codified in the rules as a way of saying that your preferred playstyle is the correct one and people who prefer something else are playing the game wrong.
But with no training, you can't add that kind of story even if you want to.
Which basically cuts free a whole genre of adventures. Being able to find a master who can teach you in a great secret is at the heart of SO many stories.Irrelevant in PF.
==Aelryinth
That's the point. If I wanted to tell that kind of story I'd have training requirements. I don't want to tell that story, so they're not there. And if I at some point decide I do want to incorporate those types of stories, training will then become a thing. See how simple that was?
Sorry if I'm not playing the game the way you think I should be playing, but I'm not going to change it just because in your view I'm having wrongbadfun with my existing game.
So what? You speak as though GM fiat is some horrible thing to be avoided at all costs. You seem way too hung up on this notion that for training to be a legitimate thing it has to be officially supported by some Paizo product or supplement. Either that or you think because you like training that it should be codified in the rules as a way of saying that your preferred playstyle is the correct one and people who prefer something else are playing the game wrong.Those arguments come down to DM Fiat and changing existing rules.
===Aelryinth
If you want players who demand non-core stuff they downloaded, to have their characters go learn it from a reclusive master, fine, because you're the GM!
Uh, guys, tons of vitriol.
Look at the name of the thread. Old Rules you'd bring back. :) If you don't like it, that's fine, but the reason I'd bring them back is so I wouldn't have to use GM Fiat to go around the existing rules to make such a story apply!
:)
==Aelryinth
I'm really not that well versed in older games, having only started in 4th edition, but there is one thing I really liked and that was Gygax's old chart for randomly generating dungeons. That thing was neato.
And though I'm not into restricting races to each class, I do rather like the idea of having "racial classes". They should just be another option on top of everything else.
And reading through Unearthed Arcana, I liked the rules to make some classes prestige classes. Namely, I wouldn't mind turning Paladin's into Prestige classes.
That's an interesting twist that I'd either never noticed or forgotten. It does explicitly say that helf-elves can be bards, but only humans can dual class, which is the mechanism used to switch class to qualify.Close.
Half Elves could be Bards as well.
In possibly my 1st ever power gamer move in 1989 I played a Bard in Throne of Bloodstone, where PCs could play up to 100 level PCs.
Using the crazy high character generation rolls from Unearthed Arcana and grimores to add to my stats I created a 7th Level Ranger, 8 Level Thief, 13th Level Bard.
Why a Ranger? Because Rangers got d8's but at level 1 had 2d8's and Constitution bonuses to each die, and there was a rule that if a Ranger did a none good act knowingly he would become a regular Fighter. And Rangers could use weapon specialization back then as well. So know I had 3d8 + 5d10 instead of 7d10 but +5 per hit die because on my Con 19, with Thief and Bard Levels got me 130 Hit Points which was higher than ancient red dragons with 88 HP or Lolth with a mere 66.
Still, my DM classified me as a mere 16 Level PC in power, this was long before the days of the term CR, and most other players in the campaign were level 19 equivalent.
Some groups I was in treated that the half-eleven note was a typo. The description of class progressions is clear enough to show it must be what was called a "character with two classes" which must be human, others allowed humans who followed the progression and half-eleven fighter/thief characters to become bards, because the xp tables could be correlated to meet the proper level requirements.
Our reconciliation basically allowed half-elves to dual class in that specific instance - so if you were a fighter, you could switch to thief along the way but you were then committed to becoming a bard.
Having said that, I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually make it to becoming a bard..
Having said that, I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually make it to becoming a bard..
A few posts up I started trying to remember what we did about haf-elf bards. I ended up realizing that it never came up for us.
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Close.
Half Elves could be Bards as well.
In possibly my 1st ever power gamer move in 1989 I played a Bard in Throne of Bloodstone, where PCs could play up to 100 level PCs.
Using the crazy high character generation rolls from Unearthed Arcana and grimores to add to my stats I created a 7th Level Ranger, 8 Level Thief, 13th Level Bard.
Why a Ranger? Because Rangers got d8's but at level 1 had 2d8's and Constitution bonuses to each die, and there was a rule that if a Ranger did a none good act knowingly he would become a regular Fighter. And Rangers could use weapon specialization back then as well. So know I had 3d8 + 5d10 instead of 7d10 but +5 per hit die because on my Con 19, with Thief and Bard Levels got me 130 Hit Points which was higher than ancient red dragons with 88 HP or Lolth with a mere 66.
You must have house ruled, because rangers couldn't become bards.
Bards also ended up with more hit dice then any other class, as I recall. But they only got +2 Con bonus for those non-fighter levels, so you did some house-ruling.:)
===Aelryinth
It was all core rules but very power gamer.
As I stated, the Ranger "lost his way" off camera so became a Fighter, and was allowed to use those +5/hit die for his first 7 levels (which was 8 hit dice worth because of the Ranger level), and then +2/hit dice for 2 levels of Thief and 10 levels of Bard. To get to the Bard's qualifications we used the generation table from Unearthed Arcana for a Fighter.
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others allowed humans who followed the progression and half-eleven fighter/thief characters to become bards, because the xp tables could be correlated to meet the proper level requirements.
Right, I think there was an early Dragon Magazine that had a Half Elf Fighter/Magic-User/Thief swap out the appropriate leveled Fighter/Thief parts and viola you now have a Bard/Magic-User in 1 st Ed.
Heh, Bard/Magic-user is not on the list of allowed multiclasses. ;)
==Aelrynth
Dotting. Need to use this thread to mix up a spicy house-rule salsa.
Heh, Bard/Magic-user is not on the list of allowed multiclasses. ;)
==Aelrynth
I advise against bringing them all back. Does anybody even know why Bard/Magic-user wasn't allowed? Does it have something to do with negative AC?
Heh, Bard/Magic-user is not on the list of allowed multiclasses. ;)
==Aelrynth
That's something worth considering in contrasting the old and new. Strange as it may sound, it wasn't terribly important for the rules to be consistent - as a consequence "playing D&D" had a different meaning. Deciding how initiative is going to work (for example) isn't houseruling. There are various mutually inconsistent systems and its not always clear exactly which is the "default".
I advise against bringing them all back. Does anybody even know why Bard/Magic-user wasn't allowed? Does it have something to do with negative AC?Heh, Bard/Magic-user is not on the list of allowed multiclasses. ;)
==Aelrynth
Hey, you couldn't have druid/clerics or M-U/Illusionists, either. Even theif/assassins weren't permitted, nor fighter/ranger/paladin combos.
I'm guessing it wasn't permitted because a bard is already a triple multi-class, basically a fighter/theif/pseudo-druid. Having a 4th was beyond the multi-classing paradigm.
as for that ranger instead of fighter trick...well, I suppose it picked you up 4.5 hit points. Still, very cheesy!
All in good fun, tho. :)
==Aelryinth
I second Snorb's #71, I liked the level titles. I like them so much I still use them.
And as Aelryinth mentioned, I also like the limited number of monks and/or druids. These orders require a challenge to move up beyond a certain level to attain a new rank. I still use this.
As for training, I only require it at certain levels (around 5, 10, 15, depending on the class, looking for a major new class ability). A monk who defeats the Master of the Four Winds and ascends to 15th level is taught the secret of the Five Point Exploding Heart Technique, or the Dim Mak, or the Quivering Palm or whatever you want to call it . . .
Unless the campaign is in overdrive and taking time to train would mean , literally, the end of the world.
I'm really not that well versed in older games, having only started in 4th edition, but there is one thing I really liked and that was Gygax's old chart for randomly generating dungeons. That thing was neato.
That was pretty cool even if not something that I used except to try out once. Written to work without a computer (back then, computers existed and were commonplace in corporate use, and I even used them outside of corporate environments, but most people didn't have computers of their own).
And though I'm not into restricting races to each class, I do rather like the idea of having "racial classes". They should just be another option on top of everything else.
Doesn't have to be a hard-limiting rule, just a cultural guideline. Pathfinder in the early days kept racial ability modifiers that encouraged this (although occasionally not in the direction intended), but in the old racial flavor text went too far in the other direction, removing most of the acknowledgement that certain race/class combinations would be more common.
And reading through Unearthed Arcana, I liked the rules to make some classes prestige classes. Namely, I wouldn't mind turning Paladin's into Prestige classes.
I liked this also -- Paladins/Holy Warriors (and for that matter Inquisitors)(*) make more sense as prestige classes -- but unfortunately, it never caught on, with the closest thing being Hellknights.
(*)I like the Inquisitor chassis -- just that it makes more sense that a religion wouldn't trust some random off the street beginning priest with being an inquisitor for them, but would require some track record. Also, the Inquisitor chassis looks like the way Cleric should have been built. So (not an old rule, but a recommendation for a new one) -- I would say that Cleric (which currently is very powerful but tends to be boring) should be rebuilt on an Inquisitor chassis with some Warpriest stuff added, and have a separate d6 Priest class (like this one from Adamant Entertainment but not necessarily tied to the Knowledge Domain) for those that want the 9/9 casting; Inquisitor itself would be a prestige class. Holy Warrior (including Paladin) would be a prestige class as well (but redesigned so that you wouldn't have to come in with existing spellcasting).
There were contradictions in rules in 1e beyond the half elf bard option. I'm trying to remember if it was half-elves who could be multiclass druid rangers. Druids of course must be true neutral and not good while rangers must be good and not true neutral.
yes, half-elves could be NG druid-rangers. IN FR, they HAD to be worshippers of Mielikki, and were among the most blessed of her servants.
The 2E bard is NOT the 1E bard by any stretch of the imagination, so my statement still stands. ;)
==Aelryinth
Actually, I've heard mention of the 2nd Edition Bard being different from that of both earlier and later editions, but never seen a class table for it. What WAS this like?
It was a Rogue subclass in 2nd Ed, but with some wizard spells.
2e was where they changed it from historical/celtic/druid centered design (bards are the keepers of tales, diplomats between kings, and news spreaders between tribes and clans) to the arcane 'William Shakespeare/performer' paradigm, more akin to a modern trickster or a showman who uses magic.
It didn't go over very well, but it was certainly easier to qualify for.
==Aelryinth
5. SMAAAAASH! Hit: In ye olden days, a fighter could take a -5 penalty to an attack roll made with a two-handed melee weapon. If he still hits his target, the lucky fighter adds his Strength score to his damage in addition to his Strength modifier and weapon damage.
I don't recall that one. What edition was that?
I don't recall that one. What edition was that?5. SMAAAAASH! Hit: In ye olden days, a fighter could take a -5 penalty to an attack roll made with a two-handed melee weapon. If he still hits his target, the lucky fighter adds his Strength score to his damage in addition to his Strength modifier and weapon damage.
That really gives a whole new meaning to Power Attack Full
I don't recall that one. What edition was that?5. SMAAAAASH! Hit: In ye olden days, a fighter could take a -5 penalty to an attack roll made with a two-handed melee weapon. If he still hits his target, the lucky fighter adds his Strength score to his damage in addition to his Strength modifier and weapon damage.
It's in BECMI. You also lose initiative. But it's a solid tactic against things with lots of Hit Dice.
Keep in mind that BECMI were restricted to stats of 18, and could get by on less.
Girdles of Giant Str doubled your base weapon damage, as I recall (which, when combined with later weapon mastery, could get very impressive).
==Aelryinth
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Girdles of Giant Str doubled your base weapon damage, as I recall (which, when combined with later weapon mastery, could get very impressive).
Weapon mastery in general got pretty impressive. It's one of the things that I really liked about BECMI/RC. I don't really understand why it never made it's way into 2E or later editions. (Short of me forgetting something from 2E).
Not even close on a damage basis. More utility powers then anything. I vaguely remember a size increase, and larger weapons lowering their Speed Factor by 5.
Not much else.
You did get Weapon Supremacy at level 18 for a General (!) Feat for a fighter in 3.5, and that was pretty awesome. Extra attack, take 10 on one attack, +5 on one iterative, could use in a grapple. It just took too long to come online.
==Aelryinth
Man, if they were so hard to get into, what kind of perks did the old bard have to make it worthwhile?
Man, if they were so hard to get into, what kind of perks did the old bard have to make it worthwhile?
Bragging rights, mostly.
Although because of how Dual-Classing worked back then, you gained the benefits of being both a Fighter, Rogue, AND Druid together, but you didn't have to be True Neutral to use them (you just had to be Neutral on one axis).
But a Bard back then was much, MUCH different in theme than it was today.
1st Edition Bards were a bit more like Myrddin Whilt - a wild wise-man, who'd probably seen a thing or two in his life that kinda broke his perception of reality (a LOT of Bards were Chaotic Neutral as a result). Bards gained song- and poetry-based powers largely because that was the ancient Celtic perception of magic: it was invariably tied to music and poetry, thus ALL musicians and poets had to be inherently magical, and ALL magicians had to be musicians and/or poets.
Modern Bards are based on Vainamoinen - a chaotic badass who casts magic, makes music, and fights all in equal parts, often melding the three together (Vainamoinen use music and words to bend magic to his will, and his two Kanteles were the greatest instruments ever created).
Man, if they were so hard to get into, what kind of perks did the old bard have to make it worthwhile?
I'm sure there is a lot of variance, however (for me at least) one of the huge differences between modern games and AD&D is that you don't "plan" your character - learning what class you've qualified for is part of playing the game.
So (since my preferred stat generation method is 3d6, six times, in order) most of the time, I can't play many classes. As a consequence - whenever I qualify for an "exotic" class, I generally take it. It's not so much a choice based on benefits (ie "I what makes it worthwhile?") as an opportunity that arises (rarely) to play something you haven't played for a while.
I'm not sure if bards have stat prerequisites (I'd expect they would) but in that specific case, another barrier is that it's stuck in an appendix so it doesn't "jump out" as an option.
Ah, there we go. A bard needs a 15 in strength, wisdom, dexterity and charisma. Plus a 12 intelligence and a 10 constitution. No wonder I've never played one!
Man, if they were so hard to get into, what kind of perks did the old bard have to make it worthwhile?I'm sure there is a lot of variance, however (for me at least) one of the huge differences between modern games and AD&D is that you don't "plan" your character - learning what class you've qualified for is part of playing the game.
Except you could, and HAD to, plan to become a Bard in 1st Ed.
The requirements were SO specific that you needed to plan on it from lv1 if you had the right stats.
I'm sure someone probably "stumbled" upon it at some point in their career, and for them it was the ultimate easter egg, but for most players it was a very difficult process (because it HAD to be Fighter-Rogue-Druid in that order, and it was VERY easy to overshoot with the Rogue and miss the window to enter and begin playing a Bard).
2nd Ed took away a lot of that nonsense by making it a standard class in the "Rogue" family of classes.
But pre-planning existed even back then, to a degree, depending on what other options you wanted to take, especially in things like Non-Weapon Proficiencies, or gaining Weapon Proficiencies (and, as has been said, Weapon Mastery in BECMI), to say nothing of trying to mix & match different class abilities via dual-classing so that you could make the character you wanted in the end.
Feats, Skills, and easy multiclassing give a lot more options than before, and thus people may feel the need to pre-plan a bit more than they used to (back when classes were EXTREMELY linear, and rarely ever gave you in-class choices), but in the long run perhaps not as much as it seems (keeping in mind that people are generally more spontaneous and lack forethought when we're younger, but as we age, we learn to pre-plan thing, so what you did then and what you'd do now with the same system are probably two radically different things).
I'm not reminiscing. Those are my preferences now. I don't enjoy planning characters out at all and although it still works with more modern games, survivability gets tough reasonably quickly. It's easier to get away with it in 0E and AD&D.
I was replying to the golux's query as to why you'd be a bard - the "what class do I qualify for?" approach, seems almost friendless nowadays, but is part of the AD&D rules we were talking about.
But yeah, there's a lot of play style variance no matter what game you play and I'm sure there's been optimising since the first table of stat bonuses was invented.
The major advantage of the bard is it had more hit dice then any other class, as I recall, so you ended up with more hit points.
It was based more on the traditional Celtic bard, who were wanderers and lorekeepers moving from holding to holding, sharing news and entertainment between rival kingdoms, welcome everywhere and beholden only to the land. Great bards were treated like kings.
But the combo of multiple attacks, theif abilities, druid spells, charming people, lore, and tons and tons of hit points was pretty potent back in the day.
The Kalevala, the Finnish national Epic, is all about mighty bards as the heroes.
==Aelryinth
No, you could dual class to as many as you qualified for...but that meant a bunch of nat 17+'s.
Bard was actually EASIER to dual-class into, then doing it the usual way. Aye, tells you something about the dual class rules.
You could also multiclass to triples, with the iconic being the f/m-u/tf. I don't remember if f/m-u/cleric was possible, or cleric/m-u/thf or what not. Only elves and/or half-elves of course.
==Aelryinth
^Half-Elves could be Cleric/Fighter/Magic-users. Both Elves and Half-Elves could be Fighter/Magic-User/Thieves. All of these (and indeed all multiclass combinations) were severely hampered (after getting past low levels) by the level limits for non-full-Humans for being anything other than Thief (except Half-Orc was instead "unlimited" in Assassin, except that the Assassin base class had its own hard limit). When you hit a level limit in 1st Edition, the hard-limited class still siphoned experience points in the same proportion as it did before. AD&D 1st Edition Unearthed Arcana allowed slight ability-score-dependent increases in the level limits, and introduced Drow, of which females were allowed Unlimited progression in Cleric (and unlike every other race in AD&D 1.x, female Drow got better ability score adjustments and ranges than male Drow). (The level limits were conceptually weird in cases like that of Elves, which were supposed to be more magical than Humans, but limited to medium-high levels of Magic-User.)
No, you could dual class to as many as you qualified for...but that meant a bunch of nat 17+'s.
Bard was actually EASIER to dual-class into, then doing it the usual way. Aye, tells you something about the dual class rules.
You could also multiclass to triples, with the iconic being the f/m-u/tf. I don't remember if f/m-u/cleric was possible, or cleric/m-u/thf or what not. Only elves and/or half-elves of course.
==Aelryinth
ft/mu/cl was possible for half-elves; in 2e (not sure if 1e,) half-elves could replace cleric with druid.
To the above re: 1e bard: it was actually not possible to overshoot the window for dual-classing from thief to druid. If you managed it, either you were doing it wrong, or your DM was running a houserule that excluded Level Training. :)