Murdock Berk I hope you won't mind but I added your comment here as a comment on my blog. Since I don't want to forget about it. Of course you got credit. :-)
I dunno... I've found the 0e class variants in the old Dragon magazines that port over to Holmes very nicely, and I find that new classes are easier to design from scraps than it is to mess about with multi-classing from any edition! However, if I did have to create a new class, race, dual, or multi-class for BX, there is always Erin Smale's "Building the Perfect Class" PDF. I don't have a link, but I have a copy! ;) With some adjustments, it could work for 0e, Holmes, BECMI, or even Advanced versions of D&D.
Interesting.. I'm more of a 4 class purist myself, but a good, thoughtful read.
Took a long time to wrap my head around the cleric-as-militant idea as well, until I came around to the idea that any PC of any class could be a "priest", as in knowledgeable about a deity and its religion, making sacrifices to the divine, etc. The cleric then becomes more of a militant chosen one, and a class not available to all deities / religions (sorry pacifist deities ).
Agree with Robert Weber re: 0e variants porting to Holmes btw - make for a very good fit.
Thanks Andy. :) I guess I never looked at 'any class can be a priest' concept, although I did adopt the 'any class can be an assassin' from AD&D2e philosophy. I guess this is why there are so many people in 0e that believe they can get rid of the thief class - because 'anyone can be a thief' - but in order for this to work, you have to allow every class access to thief skills. Not so with poison, killing, murder, etc., in the case of assassins - a specific skill set is not necessary. The same goes with being a 'priest' - so long as only knowledge is assumed, not having any actual clerical skills.
My goodness, I think we are slowly sliding down that slippery slope allowing dwarves to be MU's! Ha!
Robert Weber Yep - you comparison with the assassin (and to a lesser degree the thief, since somewhat broken mechanics aside I think there's a place for the sneaky scout guy) is apt. If you consider it as more of "what you do" versus "who you are", then some of the lesser archetypes can be handled by the existing classes (with or without house rules) and things can be kept simpler.
What you posted - reconsidering a "priest" as someone with specialized knowledge (of a deity, how to perform sacrifices, etc.) versus a cleric (being a specific class for crusading priests of militant deities) both broadens the concept of priests in a setting and (IMO) makes for a richer, more diverse crowd of holy types.
By divorcing "being a priest" from the cleric class, you can have thieves being priests of thieving and other dark gods, magic users for deities of magic (and weird gods like the Great Old Ones), etc. Non-classed NPCs can be priests of minor and gentler gods who loan themselves poorly to being represented by the traditional cleric.
Someone on DF mentioned reading the pregens for 5e, one of them is a MU type with clerical stuff like a holy symbol, prayer book, etc, and being turned off the game as a whole because of that pregen, but I think there is a lot of choices within the game itself, without modifying the rules or classes to accomodate players - however, some class combos not in the rules do fit in my idea of a 'pure' 0e game. F'instance, I took the 1e half-orc cleric/thief combo & created a new single class called the Wax Prophet.
I like to rename my class combos, just so players don't mistake these multi-classes as any mix 'n' match templates - I don't think all combos would fit well into my game, and I prefer to convert it into a single class before allowing it in my game.
The elven/half-elven fighter/m-u class is called a Feysword, the F/MU/T is a Trickblade, and the Dwarven Fighter/Thief is a Rogue. Most name choices are tied to my Holmes Portown campaign, and not completely arbitrary or simply trendy names. And yes, Halfling thieves - are called Burglars, thank you JRR Tolkien! ;)
And yes (again), I will argue for the Thief as a class in 0e; I just don't see the game being the same without them, but from my perspective thieves have always been part of the game, as well as my favorite class, but it does have problems that IMO are easily fixed: I like the idea of placing points in thief skills, rather than the 0e through 1e mechanic of all skills rising at a set rate for all thieves. Each thief should be able to 'specialize' simply by being allowed to place more points in a preferred skill than a skill they have no interest or use for.
Murdock Berk Thank you for those ideas, I'll work them back into my house rules!
ReplyDeleteMurdock Berk I hope you won't mind but I added your comment here as a comment on my blog. Since I don't want to forget about it. Of course you got credit. :-)
ReplyDeleteI dunno... I've found the 0e class variants in the old Dragon magazines that port over to Holmes very nicely, and I find that new classes are easier to design from scraps than it is to mess about with multi-classing from any edition! However, if I did have to create a new class, race, dual, or multi-class for BX, there is always Erin Smale's "Building the Perfect Class" PDF. I don't have a link, but I have a copy! ;) With some adjustments, it could work for 0e, Holmes, BECMI, or even Advanced versions of D&D.
ReplyDeleteInteresting.. I'm more of a 4 class purist myself, but a good, thoughtful read.
ReplyDeleteTook a long time to wrap my head around the cleric-as-militant idea as well, until I came around to the idea that any PC of any class could be a "priest", as in knowledgeable about a deity and its religion, making sacrifices to the divine, etc. The cleric then becomes more of a militant chosen one, and a class not available to all deities / religions (sorry pacifist deities ).
Agree with Robert Weber re: 0e variants porting to Holmes btw - make for a very good fit.
Thanks Andy. :) I guess I never looked at 'any class can be a priest' concept, although I did adopt the 'any class can be an assassin' from AD&D2e philosophy. I guess this is why there are so many people in 0e that believe they can get rid of the thief class - because 'anyone can be a thief' - but in order for this to work, you have to allow every class access to thief skills. Not so with poison, killing, murder, etc., in the case of assassins - a specific skill set is not necessary. The same goes with being a 'priest' - so long as only knowledge is assumed, not having any actual clerical skills.
ReplyDeleteMy goodness, I think we are slowly sliding down that slippery slope allowing dwarves to be MU's! Ha!
Robert Weber Yep - you comparison with the assassin (and to a lesser degree the thief, since somewhat broken mechanics aside I think there's a place for the sneaky scout guy) is apt. If you consider it as more of "what you do" versus "who you are", then some of the lesser archetypes can be handled by the existing classes (with or without house rules) and things can be kept simpler.
ReplyDeleteWhat you posted - reconsidering a "priest" as someone with specialized knowledge (of a deity, how to perform sacrifices, etc.) versus a cleric (being a specific class for crusading priests of militant deities) both broadens the concept of priests in a setting and (IMO) makes for a richer, more diverse crowd of holy types.
By divorcing "being a priest" from the cleric class, you can have thieves being priests of thieving and other dark gods, magic users for deities of magic (and weird gods like the Great Old Ones), etc. Non-classed NPCs can be priests of minor and gentler gods who loan themselves poorly to being represented by the traditional cleric.
Someone on DF mentioned reading the pregens for 5e, one of them is a MU type with clerical stuff like a holy symbol, prayer book, etc, and being turned off the game as a whole because of that pregen, but I think there is a lot of choices within the game itself, without modifying the rules or classes to accomodate players - however, some class combos not in the rules do fit in my idea of a 'pure' 0e game. F'instance, I took the 1e half-orc cleric/thief combo & created a new single class called the Wax Prophet.
ReplyDeleteI like to rename my class combos, just so players don't mistake these multi-classes as any mix 'n' match templates - I don't think all combos would fit well into my game, and I prefer to convert it into a single class before allowing it in my game.
The elven/half-elven fighter/m-u class is called a Feysword, the F/MU/T is a Trickblade, and the Dwarven Fighter/Thief is a Rogue. Most name choices are tied to my Holmes Portown campaign, and not completely arbitrary or simply trendy names. And yes, Halfling thieves - are called Burglars, thank you JRR Tolkien! ;)
And yes (again), I will argue for the Thief as a class in 0e; I just don't see the game being the same without them, but from my perspective thieves have always been part of the game, as well as my favorite class, but it does have problems that IMO are easily fixed: I like the idea of placing points in thief skills, rather than the 0e through 1e mechanic of all skills rising at a set rate for all thieves. Each thief should be able to 'specialize' simply by being allowed to place more points in a preferred skill than a skill they have no interest or use for.