If you read the issues of dragon magazine after this article and after the PHB, there was a lot of calling bullshit on this idea in the letters and columns. My own friends and I, playing this in our teens in the earliest 80s, thought it was stupid to have limits on female characters. Check that...*most* of us thought it was stupid. as my buddy Alex said "If a girl wanted to play with us, Im gonna tell her she has to play with a limit? hellll no" We still had an immature attitude about gender changing magic items, though
@ 12:26 -- "I'm trying to think what archetypes are they pulling off of when they are trying to make women and beauty entwined with seduction and evil." Morgan le Fey, the Sirens, and Circe immediately come to mind. So in that respect an evil female spellcaster will seem to be less about spamming "Fireball" spells and more about strategic use of "Charm Person"
Almost all of the Unearthed Arcana, if I remember correctly, was from Gary's articles in the Dragon Magazine called "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" and it was "official" changes to AD&D. So most of it was actually by Gary.
The d20 not being numbered 1-20 I think is the result of there not being a good way to make a d10. Basically the original dice were all platonic solids but there isn't a 10 sided platonic solid. So d20s were originally numbered 1-10 so they could pull double duty. In order to roll it as a d20 you had to roll a d6 with it and add 10 to the result if you got a 4-6 on the d6. That way you got a number from 1-20.
We colored one set of numbers in blue crayon and the other set in red crayon with blue being 1-10 and red being 11-20 and if we wanted to use it as a d10 we'd ignore the colors and read it that way . That was my Gamma World rpg and D&D rpg dice used with the little brown books until D&D came out with the red and blue box sets with actual d20s in them which we switched to but still used the old dice as d10s when needed
THAC0: I attended a convention at NCSU in 1988 - prior to publication of AD&D 2nd Edition. RPGA tournaments were already using THAC0 and d10 for initiative (representing segments) - lowest number went first.
I think they also wanted them to be less vulnerable to magical attack. Fighters tended to be the best at saving throws at high levels in AD&D, and this stuck to theme
I really don't understand the problem people have with THAC0. It was just taking the attack matrices from 1E and encapsulating them in a simple formula so you didn't have to consult a chart every time you make an attack.
Yeah I much prefer AAC (ascending armor class) to DAC and THACO, but if we're just comparing THACO to the Matrix I don't get why he has this strange problem with THACO. Like you could still write out the Matrix on your character sheet using THACO - in fact most of us did that. Or you could do the math in your head should you choose. THACO actually was in 1e but it was something included in certain DM supplementals as a way to abbreviate the Matrix because you couldn't fill a statblock with those things.
@@MrZcar350 Yep, this was the real change - but that doesn't alter my point that moving from attack matrices to THAC0 was a simplification, not a complication.
Just realized you were doing this when the new one popped up in my stream today and went back to watch from the start. And I know it’s silly but I really want to see what Danica the fighting woman would have looked like in these rules.
I've certainly known many women who got into RPGs, including D&D in the 70s and 80s, but yeesh. I understand why I've known so many women who bounced off it. My father's game group was half women and they switched from D&D to Basic Role-Playing almost as soon as the option presented itself and never turned back. I get it.
I think the comeliness charm spells is to try to simulate the seducer archetype in gameplay. Since AD&D didn't have a social system that worked on players (or really much of a social system in general), the only real way to mechanically represent the "she seduces you into betraying your friends" trope was to treat the charm as spell-like effects. And while it is certainly a negative view on women, to be fair, it's a pretty accurate portrayal of mythology tropes. And it's a negative view on men as well given they can be mind-controlled at the sight of a hot girl. Really, I think the female stat adjustments was more of Gygax's design philosophy where he pushed people towards tropes. I mean the class restrictions and stat mods on races were a strong indication of that. And since fantasy women were often beautiful he gave them a bunch of powers related to beauty as well. So you were more or less mechanically encouraged to be the sexy sorceress instead of the female barbarian. I doubt Gygax really saw it as sexist, but probably viewed it in the same way that he made dwarves be better fighters than halflings. You were a halfling you were expected to be a thief, because that was the trope. It's an ongoing design paradigm that goes on today as to whether we want rules to reward PCs for playing classical fantasy tropes, but definitely one we keep moving farther and farther away from as time goes on.
Lets be honest with ourselves. Who hasn't been dumbstruck by a beautiful woman? Done something incredibly stupid to impress a beautiful woman only to later go "what was I thinking!?" Let us not be so harsh on these men for acknowledging just how stupid a man can really be when it comes to woman or lie to ourselves that there are no such women that could cripple a man's reason simply by looking at them. As a DM/GM of nearly 30+ years I also think its important to note that in the realm of D&D morality; broadly speaking in terms of a numerical system where dice are rolled to simulate actions: the viewpoint of one's use of their appearance to influence others applies to both sexes, not only females. As it suggests, those who use their comliness against others are not lawful, as a lawful person would view this as manipulation. Even Matt acknowledges this in the video. Though I think he gets caught on it when applied to females. I view this as a double standard in this case, as ANY character who willfully uses their physical attractiveness to manipulate others is unethical, and therefore unlawful by their own action. I have on several occasions asked players directly who were Lawful and or Good if they really wished to commit to such an act. If they willfully manipulate another player or NPC via desception or seduction I change their alliengment one step towards chaotic or evil depending on their intent and method.
Regarding the weapon/attack adjustment table - Baldur's Gate actually did take a stab at implementing this but they did it in reverse. That is, if you go and look at the armor in BG you'll see there are hidden bonuses and penalties at the bottom of the description such as +2 vs. bludgeoning, -4 vs. piercing and so on. So while each armor gave a base AC, it was modified based on what kind of weapon (B, P, or S) the enemy was using. Sometimes wearing the wrong armor meant having almost no protection at all if the enemy was using the right weapon. Not perfect, but a good stab at the problem.
There was an easier way to figure weapon versus armor class, and they even describe it in OD&D (I don't know why they changed it). Chainmail, for example, is AC5. If you have a high dex, you don't subtract from your AC, you subtract from your opponent's roll to hit you. If you have a shield, it doesn't subtract from your AC, it again subtracts from your opponent's roll to hit you. That way, chainmail is always AC5, no matter your dexterity or your shield. ...and it's still cumbersome of course. But only slightly less so now. :)
Thanks for the trip to the past! Spent summers and weekends playing AD&D with my friends. Being excited about how strong our fighters were with 18(97) ST. So great to generate a character and see what they could do. So great.
Unearthed Arcana was the first d&d book I ever owned; my mom bought it for me at a garage sale when I was 10 or 12 or so. The previous owner had colored some of the illustrations in, but I, being me, decided to add to the coloring myself and make everyone resemble the Lego Castle figures of the period. Anyway, now that I own a copy of the reprinted core 1e books, I have to say that the spells and magic items in this book are a lot more interesting, and regardless of the circumstances of its creation, its impact on the shape of D&D is just as great as those three books.
We actually used Armor Class adjustment for a couple of years. We made a note on the character sheet we called armor type (AC without adjustments, just from armor choice). Then we used a calculator wheel published in an issue of Dragon Magazine. Instead of consulting the charts for a to-hit, you consulted the wheel, which you would rotate to the class and level and then read down the chart to unadjusted armor class. Once you got the hang of it, it was pretty easy. But I would never have tried this running from the DM screen. We only used weapon speed factor to settle arguments for the occurrence of simultaneous events where order was important. Great series, BTW, I'm really fascinated by the insights.
This Comeliness/Beauty section made me think that there might be an interesting design space with Abilities at peak human or superhuman values granting you spell-like powers. It fits an inherently magical world that beauty or willpower would give you an unconditional power to force others to do something (Charm or Command), agility to dodge attacks (Blink) etc.
The books Wilderness Survival Guide and Dungeoneers Survival Guide, both 1986, and then Dragonlance Adventures in 1987, provided an additional patch for AD&D 1st edition. These books introduced the Non-Weapon Proficiencies that became a part of 2nd edition and led ultimately to the 5e skill proficiencies.
From what I remember, even at high levels, fighters were the most important damage dealers most of the time because of the high magic resistances of enemies. A simple drow would have >70% magic resistance in addition to his saving throw and natural immunities.
The archetype of female power through beauty and manipulation is very well known - The "fem fatal" is a common enough trope, as is Medusa, Cleopatra etc. etc. That said, I remember those days in the hobby and, yeah, that stuff didn't last long for ALL the right reasons.
Awesome nostalgia. UA was the very first book I bought, with my paper route money. And at age 12, we totally used Comeliness, and thought girls were beguiling aliens!
In Basic D&D, fighters can cast wish-if they find a sword +1 of wishes (1-4 wishes) or a ring of wishes. They can also cast light, and cure light wounds with similar gear.
I ignored Cavaliers and lots of stuff from Unearthed Arcana. I allowed Barbarians. Nobody ever used Acrobats. The best thing about this book was the drawings of all the crazy pole arms so we finally knew what those were. Nobody used pole arms except Gnolls or maybe city guards.
that 9d6drop6 is insane lol. that comes out to a 62.29% chance of a 16 or higher, with a mean of 15.77. 17.83% chance of rolling an 18. i mean fighters are strong i guess, but jesus. edit: you have a less than 1% chance of getting a 10 or lower.
Hello Matthew....although i no longer play i stumbled onto your humble vids and "I love them!! you have a new subscriber and i think i read somewhere you might do an evolution on the goblin as well i love your knowledge of history of the game i get lost on the web sometimes reading this stuff....keep up the good work!
I wonder if the intended cost of weapon spec was that if you found a magic flail there was a chance you might not be able to use it. Or you'd give up bonuses to longsword you took up the important magical flail
I think that was exactly the reason. If you took proficiency in a longsword. But the module gave you a magical morning star. This gave the fighter a Slight disadvantage to use that magical weaponry. So that way they couldnt just use anything they found just because of more magical properties. Most DM encourage you to just give them a long sword even though it was a morning star. Just so they can make full use of the magical property and be good at using it.
The dragon warrior series for a few years had what was called a sex appeal status. Jessica in dragon quest eight was very known for her sex appeal and had entire skill trees for it
My copy of Unearthed Arcana is in perfect condition. Never heard of them falling apart. The cantrips are absolutely absurd. One paragraph each. Four or five ways to improve food (spice, salt, sweeten, freshen, etc.), five or six ways to make a person cough, giggle, scratch, etc. & it cost you a 1st level spell for 4 cantrips _and you must memorize them!_ Imagine deciding if you’ll need to make something damp today or make a person sneeze. It was bizarre.
I have a friend who played a character who rolled up a character with no scores above 9. He has almost been playing since D&D came out. His charisma was so low that in AD&D (1st edition) he could only be an assassin. He would become a “Grandfather of Assassins” and have his own guild. He was a force to be reckoned with. He would go on adventures; and sometimes some poor soul thought he would take the opportunity to take over the guild, only to be dispatched or go into hiding upon his return. Great character and nothing was above a 9 for a stat at the beginning.
i've always considered that one way the fighter contends with spellcasters is through consistency; the fighter can deal his damage every round, all day long. Spellcasters run out of slots, spells/day, etc.
and creativity. the fighter has more incentive to, say, dump a minecart full of dirt and gravel on the enemy because he isnt sacrificing a much more powerful ability -- just a couple attacks.
Interesting viewpoint on UA, Matthew. I played in a RPG gaming club of 20+ players and EVERYONE considered it a joke as well as an ill-conceived money grabbing endeavour. We used nothing from it. Conversely, nobody had a problem with THAC0, so I'm looking forward to watching the next video to find out why you thought it was "dumb". Cheers, Steve.
It was just counter intuitive. Like a lot of older D&D rules that were all kitbashed together that made no cohesive sense. I'm a smart guy but knowing if I hit or not always just dumbfounded me. When 3ed came out, I sighed in relief and never looked back.
If you had a longsword of returning, you could throw the longsword at the manticore repeatedly. Or if you had a bag of holding or portable hole with an ocean of longswords to throw :P
I know I come very late to this party, but maybe supernatural beauty comes from Jack Vance novels? I remember there being a supernaturally beautiful woman in the original Elric novel?
Yeah, but weren't those individuals literal magic beings in those stories? It's been a while since I read Elric but I remember the unnaturally beautiful lady in the first couple Dying Earth stories being some Dr. Frankenstein-esque sorcerer's magical project.
When this came out, my regular DM had us adopt the Comeliness stat. I got the logic behind it (Comeliness for immediate first impression, Charisma for anything after the first impression), but it was not that useful otherwise.
The magical abilities of women in early dnd remind me of some of the female characters in Dragon Quest games, even to this day. Though in the newest one they gave the positive beauty spells to the sexy female and the repulsive beauty spells to the gay male character. Interesting how these old school Japanese RPGs that were inspired by Dnd have also changed over time by the base created in this edition.
Now this is a really good topic I am new to this channel and only been playing for three weeks long story, just been kicked out of one group oh well desperately seeking people who are playing the becmi set in London, I am obsessively studying the 1011 basic rules 1983 edition....and wondering if anyone is still playing that edition!
I think the notions of the "Fascinate" spell and ideas of fantastic uses for feminine beauty possibly stem from some of the old romantic ideals (as expressed in poems such as "La Belle Dame sans Merci" et al)
Also, if anyone is interested in word "jade" being used for anything other than decorative green stone this site ask.metafilter.com/81056/You-dirty-jade-Wait-what can be a bit of an eye-opener.
The easiest way to balance casters vs fighters is to limit the casters spellbook - there's no reason you have to let them have all the spells, you can raise the level that a spell becomes available to them, you can make certain spells mutually exclusive, you can create wizard subclasses that restrict or modify their available spells, you can add requirements or risks to extremely OP spells like wish. If I were to let someone use something like wish it might cost a minimum of one level, and there would be a 1 in 4 or maybe 1 in 3 chance that it fails and maybe a 1 in 10 chance that it backfires: failing and possibly costing more levels or hurting or even killing the caster.
Hmm...my memory is pretty fuzzy now, but I think Comeliness also preceded UA in official material in an appendix of the Greyhawk Campaign Setting for AD&D. Along with Quasi-Deities (never explaining the difference between a demi-dog and a quasi-deity) as well as a weird system for creating a zero level character who eventually advances to 1st level and can learn a hodgepodge of skills while deciding what class to take.
I can attest to the poor binding of this book; when I go through my cache of disregarded books I still come across random pages of Unearthed Arcana every once in a while. Great series. Great channel.
One way to keep powerful wizards and clerics in check was to enforce casting times and casting interruption rules, usually through the use of hidden/concealed opponents with ranged weapons. Or fast opponents who got in the face of the mage to prevent them from casting with impunity. There was always tons of advice to DMs about limiting spell availability via damaging a character's spell books, making them expensive to replace, making it hard to find or research higher level spells, using the spell failure (the dreaded "% chance to learn" a spell roll). So many ways to mess with spell casters and power classes (making sure the paladin could never get away with even a whiff of non-lawful/good actions or would lose paladin status -- until the rest of the player group grows so tired of having to cater to the "awful good" character that *they* refuse to allow other players to play paladins...or else *everyone* plays a paladin or lawful good character...). The end result of all this messy game design led to some really messy (and memorable) campaigns and sessions. Still, I agree with the assessment that "magic-user as alterer of reality" is the natural conclusion when there is no campaign context. Same with paladin, monk, assassin, or any other class seen as the powerful class. Without the limitations of a campaign/story context, these classes do indeed throw game "balance" out the window.
I think this really shows why i say the attributes were a bigger problem. So many of the fighter fixes were incredibly front loaded and luck based. Duncan V is crazy powerful and will cleave through anything at early levels, but the only damage buff you can pick up is picking up a magic weapon your levels just being some hp, accuracy, and saves still. Rather than just....spreading these buffs out over the progression and integrating things into the fighter chasis that lets them tell wizards and monsters not to fuck with conan.
Before I comment, I want to express my gratitude for these informative videos and hope you'll eventually make the video of each Duncan versus a goblin! I have comments to make on each video but am waiting to see the entire series before saying too much... Except I have to mention the early 1-10 labeled twenty sided dice, you're the first person I've ever "met" who didn't know this- Use the crayon trick to fill in the numbers. Fill one set of 1-10 with one color and the other set of 1-10 with a different color... Red is one to ten and green is eleven to twenty! (or whatever colors you use and how you declare them)
The Duncan family line has, for generations, been losing their familial fortune on training, weapons, armor, and loss as they did not live long as knights. Duncan the 4th was the first true heir of the line to be a genuinely capable fighter, but by then most of their noble wealth was gone, though the family still prized classical education. Something happened between Duncan the 4th and the 5th. Duncan the 5th is truly the most masterful swordsman his family has ever produced, perhaps the best in the entire world. But the Duncan line has become destitute, with barely enough coin for nurturing the natural intelligence of the bloodline, let alone any equipment of note. We can only assume, then, that Duncan the 4th squandered the remains of the family wealth without accomplishing much beyond siring a worthy heir. If only Duncan the 1st had not been so stubborn, perhaps they would be a line of successful wizards.
A little bit before the 28 minute mark and there about is a total cluster fuck of audio. Matt starts talking about the power lever between the fighter and the magic users and then talks about simulating reality and then about a point buy system... and I think other things mixed in. Just a total editing mess.
I played D&D from Chainmail up and I never got Unearthed Arcana, as I just didn’t see the value of this quickly published book of which most of it showed up in Dragon Magazine.
I feel like the female stat limits are the combination of two things: One, it was 1976, and these were nerds, two things that have historically never really mixed well with reasonable attitudes toward women. Two, it was 1976, and these were nerds who came from a LONG history of wargaming. If I know anything about the arguments that go on over the superiority of the samurai over the knight, these were guys who needed to quantify every variable, and create absolute laws that stemmed from those known quantities. Hell, just flipping through some of the articles in those old Dragon magazines shows a much different attitude toward innovation or rule-bending than exists today. All the material I've seen from then seems to be a lot more concrete; the referee MUST do these things, and a character CANNOT do these other things. It's a very modernist sort of objectivism.
I wonder what archetype they had in mind when putting together women and seduction and "evil". Perhaps the one used all over literature? The one even used for Eve in the Bible?
Two things popped up in my mind during the first ten minutes. There is a Basic DnD ripoff game, Wizardry, which is also a Spelljammer ripoff... Kind-of great game actually, especially the 6-8 episodes... Which touched heavily upon this women are unicorns subject, by making one of the advanced classes the female-only Valkyrie (which did have a counterpart, but with a lot harder requirements and less perks), with its own set of titles. It was pretty neat. Also female characters got a minus 2 Strength, but a +1 Karma and Personality. Latter useful for overcoming magic resistance, Karma being the set-in-stone LUCK of the character. Basically girls were broken in that game. You would be shooting yourself in the leg if you did not make an Alchemist or better, a Bard or Thief, with the ability requirements for a Valkyrie, in your party, then switched classes to it after level 10-12ish. That was the equal of a win-game button. The Lord (paladin) couldn't come close to it. Talk about grrlpower. Anyway, the other thing that came to mind, was the Hubgarian derivative of ADnD, which had 9 (10 on its second and third edition, I don't know the fourth, I don't follow it anymore) basic abilities, one of which being Beauty. The system just ditched Charisma and made it into a skill. Etiquette and Fast-talking. M.A.G.U.S. did a lot of weird things, it kept Strength, then divided Dexterity into that and Speed, divided Constitution into Healthyness and Stamina, ditched Wisdom and shoved that under Intelligence, but introduced Willpower and *Astral*(tm). It was a weird game, but even at its first edition, it was a lot more concise and robust, than ADnD. Not the magic system. Wizards did NOT work, and by extension, no other magic user worked, if those were around. On its third edition, I honestly think the game was better than DnD 3rd ed because it became modular and kind-of classless, while still retaining the og roleplaying staples. I'm rambling. Been binge-watching and my mind wanders.
If you want to know how they thought about women - in Greyhawk, the goddess of volcanoes, anger, and petty arguments was named Joramy. Gary Gygax's ex-wife was named Mary Jo.
The whole beauty and female combat thing came from Greek Mythology and what happend among the Gods and Goddesses and their clergy / Disciples , and how the follows were instructed to be to honor their Deities on the prime material plane. Not necessarily necessary, but that was the structure in place if you wanted to use it.
My UA fell apart, too. And from a player perspective this was the last supplement we just accepted in "these are the new rules" terms... sort of We would never have dreamt about saying you couldn't play a cavalier. but we never even considered this gender stuff.
A few years back, I did a return to AD&D game, and I was going to use all the rules. All of them! (except maybe the disease and parasite chances). So, that meant the weapon vs. AC tables- I figured, hey, this will show the value of the crossbow, and maybe make some weapons beyond the long sword popular. The problem there is the table only really works against humans and other PC races; as Matt notes, it's not so much that you get a bonus or penalty against AC 4, it's that you get a bonus against chain mail and a shield. So fighting a griffon or a troll, just toss the chart aside. I tried to incorporate it with humanoid foes, like orcs and goblins. Except... an orc has an AC 5, because he's in chain mail, right? But statistically some of them are using shields. And do any orcs have a defensive adjustment for dexterity? As for weapon specialization, the arms race wasn't just with the magic-user, it's also with the cavalier. Those cavalier weapons he's taking, he's getting pluses to hit, and he gets numbers of attacks based on a character 5 levels higher, pretty much giving the same attack progression that a specialized fighter gets.
These videos are amazing. Your presentation is very professional. However, I think that your view is askew in some places. You make quite a deal out of how the classes are arranged. While I think that you re right, organizationally an conceptually, the classes and subclasses are kind of a mess BUT at this stage of the development the concept and story was still more important that the stats. Every time one of the "new" classes first came out it was overpowered and the next few published things were dedicated to "balancing" things out. The Barbarian was one of those. I forget the details at the time but I remember that there wasn't a civilized fighting man in all the land until weapon specialization came out. Also, the AC adjustment table was AMAZING. It was oddly implemented in my group: the PLAYER who wanted to keep track of such things for their character deployed the rule (mostly all the time. There's not a lot to keep track of on a fighter's character sheet.). Of course, this was at a time when we were getting into Squad Leader and Aftermath so fiddly statistics were't overly daunting to us.
12:30 hot take, but would the reason female clerics can't use their Comeliness stat have anything to do with alignments functioning like religion, and Lawful paladins functioning like Charlegmene's knights, thus suggesting that Lawful clerics would adhere to similar values to Roman Catholic ones?
I loved the Comeliness stat. We used it. It could still be incorporated today in 5E. A good example would be the Bard's School of Glamour. Comeliness would be a good secondary stat for that particular College. It could also be used in other interesting ways, stat used for charm person just off the top of my head.
This is a very good series. I was a bit apprehensive at the start of them, due to the length of the videos. But the background information is very interesting and I would like to see more.
FYI: I've listened to each of the videos in this series at least twice. Very good series; I like to listen to them as I work. Looking forward to the next installment. No pressure. In the meantime, I've purchased a (Kindle Edition) copy of the book "Priest". Is this a self-published work? Have you considered doing an audiobook version, for people who like to listen to stuff while they work?
cavalier973 Glad you like the videos! I think you'll see a new one in June. Yeah I'm an independant author. Hope you like the book! I've worked on an audiobook version, but my standard for that stuff is pretty high and it's hard as a non-actor to get there.
Matthew Colville I'm enjoying it as much as GRRM; more so, in fact, because *Spoilers!* the lead character hasn't been offed...yet. I thought it clever that the characters measured time in "turns".
cavalier973 I didn't want them to think in minutes, and I needed a unit of time less than an hour, so I went with "one turn of the moon" which is 20 minutes and has the amusing association with Old School D&D. :D
Fun video. I think this was one of the first books I started to digest with a more grown up mind around 1993. We used some of it directly in 2nd ed. Were you eating food at a couple points? Hah!
If you read the issues of dragon magazine after this article and after the PHB, there was a lot of calling bullshit on this idea in the letters and columns.
My own friends and I, playing this in our teens in the earliest 80s, thought it was stupid to have limits on female characters. Check that...*most* of us thought it was stupid. as my buddy Alex said "If a girl wanted to play with us, Im gonna tell her she has to play with a limit? hellll no" We still had an immature attitude about gender changing magic items, though
"They thought about girls all the time! But they didn't understand anything about them." Intensely whispered. Comedic gold.
@ 12:26 -- "I'm trying to think what archetypes are they pulling off of when they are trying to make women and beauty entwined with seduction and evil."
Morgan le Fey, the Sirens, and Circe immediately come to mind. So in that respect an evil female spellcaster will seem to be less about spamming "Fireball" spells and more about strategic use of "Charm Person"
Almost all of the Unearthed Arcana, if I remember correctly, was from Gary's articles in the Dragon Magazine called "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" and it was "official" changes to AD&D. So most of it was actually by Gary.
"Fighters get meteor..." What does that mean--oh, "meatier".
Nevermind.
*One Winged Angel Intensifies*
“Meatier”
“Meteor” *tears welling up*
fighters get meteor swarm at level 1. yknow, for balance purposes
The d20 not being numbered 1-20 I think is the result of there not being a good way to make a d10. Basically the original dice were all platonic solids but there isn't a 10 sided platonic solid. So d20s were originally numbered 1-10 so they could pull double duty. In order to roll it as a d20 you had to roll a d6 with it and add 10 to the result if you got a 4-6 on the d6. That way you got a number from 1-20.
We colored one set of numbers in blue crayon and the other set in red crayon with blue being 1-10 and red being 11-20 and if we wanted to use it as a d10 we'd ignore the colors and read it that way .
That was my Gamma World rpg and D&D rpg dice used with the little brown books until D&D came out with the red and blue box sets with actual d20s in them which we switched to but still used the old dice as d10s when needed
A "jade" is a flirty woman. . .or a broken down horse. . .
Or a class of vampire/demon in Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim books. "Her voice was like honey and heroin."
THAC0: I attended a convention at NCSU in 1988 - prior to publication of AD&D 2nd Edition. RPGA tournaments were already using THAC0 and d10 for initiative (representing segments) - lowest number went first.
at 13:50 - evidence is right there you could buy miniatures with 10' Poles. Amazing.
2:43 this is before "link in the dooblydoo"
I imagine that fighters got 5 dice for Wisdom because they are eventually going to become lords, and Gary wants you to be a wise ruler.
I think they also wanted them to be less vulnerable to magical attack. Fighters tended to be the best at saving throws at high levels in AD&D, and this stuck to theme
I really don't understand the problem people have with THAC0. It was just taking the attack matrices from 1E and encapsulating them in a simple formula so you didn't have to consult a chart every time you make an attack.
Yeah I much prefer AAC (ascending armor class) to DAC and THACO, but if we're just comparing THACO to the Matrix I don't get why he has this strange problem with THACO. Like you could still write out the Matrix on your character sheet using THACO - in fact most of us did that. Or you could do the math in your head should you choose. THACO actually was in 1e but it was something included in certain DM supplementals as a way to abbreviate the Matrix because you couldn't fill a statblock with those things.
Well, and removing the repeated 20 target numbers from the matrices. It is different and made hitting really good ACs harder.
@@MrZcar350 Yep, this was the real change - but that doesn't alter my point that moving from attack matrices to THAC0 was a simplification, not a complication.
Just realized you were doing this when the new one popped up in my stream today and went back to watch from the start. And I know it’s silly but I really want to see what Danica the fighting woman would have looked like in these rules.
I remember re-gluing the UA due to crappy binding.
I've certainly known many women who got into RPGs, including D&D in the 70s and 80s, but yeesh. I understand why I've known so many women who bounced off it. My father's game group was half women and they switched from D&D to Basic Role-Playing almost as soon as the option presented itself and never turned back. I get it.
I think the comeliness charm spells is to try to simulate the seducer archetype in gameplay. Since AD&D didn't have a social system that worked on players (or really much of a social system in general), the only real way to mechanically represent the "she seduces you into betraying your friends" trope was to treat the charm as spell-like effects. And while it is certainly a negative view on women, to be fair, it's a pretty accurate portrayal of mythology tropes. And it's a negative view on men as well given they can be mind-controlled at the sight of a hot girl.
Really, I think the female stat adjustments was more of Gygax's design philosophy where he pushed people towards tropes. I mean the class restrictions and stat mods on races were a strong indication of that. And since fantasy women were often beautiful he gave them a bunch of powers related to beauty as well. So you were more or less mechanically encouraged to be the sexy sorceress instead of the female barbarian. I doubt Gygax really saw it as sexist, but probably viewed it in the same way that he made dwarves be better fighters than halflings. You were a halfling you were expected to be a thief, because that was the trope. It's an ongoing design paradigm that goes on today as to whether we want rules to reward PCs for playing classical fantasy tropes, but definitely one we keep moving farther and farther away from as time goes on.
Lets be honest with ourselves. Who hasn't been dumbstruck by a beautiful woman? Done something incredibly stupid to impress a beautiful woman only to later go "what was I thinking!?" Let us not be so harsh on these men for acknowledging just how stupid a man can really be when it comes to woman or lie to ourselves that there are no such women that could cripple a man's reason simply by looking at them.
As a DM/GM of nearly 30+ years I also think its important to note that in the realm of D&D morality; broadly speaking in terms of a numerical system where dice are rolled to simulate actions: the viewpoint of one's use of their appearance to influence others applies to both sexes, not only females.
As it suggests, those who use their comliness against others are not lawful, as a lawful person would view this as manipulation. Even Matt acknowledges this in the video. Though I think he gets caught on it when applied to females. I view this as a double standard in this case, as ANY character who willfully uses their physical attractiveness to manipulate others is unethical, and therefore unlawful by their own action. I have on several occasions asked players directly who were Lawful and or Good if they really wished to commit to such an act. If they willfully manipulate another player or NPC via desception or seduction I change their alliengment one step towards chaotic or evil depending on their intent and method.
Regarding the weapon/attack adjustment table - Baldur's Gate actually did take a stab at implementing this but they did it in reverse. That is, if you go and look at the armor in BG you'll see there are hidden bonuses and penalties at the bottom of the description such as +2 vs. bludgeoning, -4 vs. piercing and so on. So while each armor gave a base AC, it was modified based on what kind of weapon (B, P, or S) the enemy was using. Sometimes wearing the wrong armor meant having almost no protection at all if the enemy was using the right weapon. Not perfect, but a good stab at the problem.
There was an easier way to figure weapon versus armor class, and they even describe it in OD&D (I don't know why they changed it). Chainmail, for example, is AC5. If you have a high dex, you don't subtract from your AC, you subtract from your opponent's roll to hit you. If you have a shield, it doesn't subtract from your AC, it again subtracts from your opponent's roll to hit you. That way, chainmail is always AC5, no matter your dexterity or your shield.
...and it's still cumbersome of course. But only slightly less so now. :)
Thanks for the trip to the past! Spent summers and weekends playing AD&D with my friends. Being excited about how strong our fighters were with 18(97) ST. So great to generate a character and see what they could do. So great.
BECMI weapon specialization does a decent job of balancing Fighter damage with Wizard damage in high level game play.
Unearthed Arcana was the first d&d book I ever owned; my mom bought it for me at a garage sale when I was 10 or 12 or so. The previous owner had colored some of the illustrations in, but I, being me, decided to add to the coloring myself and make everyone resemble the Lego Castle figures of the period.
Anyway, now that I own a copy of the reprinted core 1e books, I have to say that the spells and magic items in this book are a lot more interesting, and regardless of the circumstances of its creation, its impact on the shape of D&D is just as great as those three books.
We actually used Armor Class adjustment for a couple of years. We made a note on the character sheet we called armor type (AC without adjustments, just from armor choice). Then we used a calculator wheel published in an issue of Dragon Magazine. Instead of consulting the charts for a to-hit, you consulted the wheel, which you would rotate to the class and level and then read down the chart to unadjusted armor class. Once you got the hang of it, it was pretty easy. But I would never have tried this running from the DM screen.
We only used weapon speed factor to settle arguments for the occurrence of simultaneous events where order was important.
Great series, BTW, I'm really fascinated by the insights.
Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures both had a tendency to fall apart!
This Comeliness/Beauty section made me think that there might be an interesting design space with Abilities at peak human or superhuman values granting you spell-like powers. It fits an inherently magical world that beauty or willpower would give you an unconditional power to force others to do something (Charm or Command), agility to dodge attacks (Blink) etc.
The books Wilderness Survival Guide and Dungeoneers Survival Guide, both 1986, and then Dragonlance Adventures in 1987, provided an additional patch for AD&D 1st edition. These books introduced the Non-Weapon Proficiencies that became a part of 2nd edition and led ultimately to the 5e skill proficiencies.
From what I remember, even at high levels, fighters were the most important damage dealers most of the time because of the high magic resistances of enemies. A simple drow would have >70% magic resistance in addition to his saving throw and natural immunities.
The unearthed arcana also has a method for ensuring you don't get 1 hp. It has a system that lets you take half of the die if you roll less than it.
Morgan La Fey, Helen of Troy, Cleopatra are all Charisma/Comeliness archetypes
The archetype of female power through beauty and manipulation is very well known - The "fem fatal" is a common enough trope, as is Medusa, Cleopatra etc. etc. That said, I remember those days in the hobby and, yeah, that stuff didn't last long for ALL the right reasons.
I wouldn't consider Medusa a Femme Fatale, considering how she literally pretrifies people through her sheer ugliness.
@@jackodonail1980Her gaze was what turned people to stone, not them looking upon her.
Awesome nostalgia. UA was the very first book I bought, with my paper route money. And at age 12, we totally used Comeliness, and thought girls were beguiling aliens!
In Basic D&D, fighters can cast wish-if they find a sword +1 of wishes (1-4 wishes) or a ring of wishes. They can also cast light, and cure light wounds with similar gear.
I ignored Cavaliers and lots of stuff from Unearthed Arcana. I allowed Barbarians. Nobody ever used Acrobats. The best thing about this book was the drawings of all the crazy pole arms so we finally knew what those were. Nobody used pole arms except Gnolls or maybe city guards.
Always thought it was ironic that polearms are almost never used in D&D when in real life pole arms are the best medieval weapons.
that 9d6drop6 is insane lol. that comes out to a 62.29% chance of a 16 or higher, with a mean of 15.77. 17.83% chance of rolling an 18. i mean fighters are strong i guess, but jesus.
edit: you have a less than 1% chance of getting a 10 or lower.
Hello Matthew....although i no longer play i stumbled onto your humble vids and "I love them!! you have a new subscriber and i think i read somewhere you might do an evolution on the goblin as well i love your knowledge of history of the game i get lost on the web sometimes reading this stuff....keep up the good work!
I’d love to see you do the same with “2.5”, use all the players option stuff.
Of course also waiting to see Duncan in 4th.
Fighters become wiser as they are hit often.
I wonder if the intended cost of weapon spec was that if you found a magic flail there was a chance you might not be able to use it. Or you'd give up bonuses to longsword you took up the important magical flail
I think that was exactly the reason. If you took proficiency in a longsword. But the module gave you a magical morning star. This gave the fighter a Slight disadvantage to use that magical weaponry. So that way they couldnt just use anything they found just because of more magical properties. Most DM encourage you to just give them a long sword even though it was a morning star. Just so they can make full use of the magical property and be good at using it.
The dragon warrior series for a few years had what was called a sex appeal status. Jessica in dragon quest eight was very known for her sex appeal and had entire skill trees for it
I think comeliness comes from Tekumel/Petal Throne in 1975. Certainly it is mentioned in a Tekumel article "Jakalla Encounters" in Dragon #4.
My copy of Unearthed Arcana is in perfect condition. Never heard of them falling apart.
The cantrips are absolutely absurd. One paragraph each. Four or five ways to improve food (spice, salt, sweeten, freshen, etc.), five or six ways to make a person cough, giggle, scratch, etc. & it cost you a 1st level spell for 4 cantrips _and you must memorize them!_ Imagine deciding if you’ll need to make something damp today or make a person sneeze. It was bizarre.
I have a friend who played a character who rolled up a character with no scores above 9. He has almost been playing since D&D came out. His charisma was so low that in AD&D (1st edition) he could only be an assassin. He would become a “Grandfather of Assassins” and have his own guild. He was a force to be reckoned with. He would go on adventures; and sometimes some poor soul thought he would take the opportunity to take over the guild, only to be dispatched or go into hiding upon his return. Great character and nothing was above a 9 for a stat at the beginning.
i've always considered that one way the fighter contends with spellcasters is through consistency; the fighter can deal his damage every round, all day long. Spellcasters run out of slots, spells/day, etc.
and creativity. the fighter has more incentive to, say, dump a minecart full of dirt and gravel on the enemy because he isnt sacrificing a much more powerful ability -- just a couple attacks.
This series is great! Glad you're continuing it!
Interesting viewpoint on UA, Matthew. I played in a RPG gaming club of 20+ players and EVERYONE considered it a joke as well as an ill-conceived money grabbing endeavour. We used nothing from it.
Conversely, nobody had a problem with THAC0, so I'm looking forward to watching the next video to find out why you thought it was "dumb". Cheers, Steve.
It was just counter intuitive. Like a lot of older D&D rules that were all kitbashed together that made no cohesive sense. I'm a smart guy but knowing if I hit or not always just dumbfounded me. When 3ed came out, I sighed in relief and never looked back.
If you had a longsword of returning, you could throw the longsword at the manticore repeatedly. Or if you had a bag of holding or portable hole with an ocean of longswords to throw :P
I know I come very late to this party, but maybe supernatural beauty comes from Jack Vance novels? I remember there being a supernaturally beautiful woman in the original Elric novel?
Yeah, but weren't those individuals literal magic beings in those stories? It's been a while since I read Elric but I remember the unnaturally beautiful lady in the first couple Dying Earth stories being some Dr. Frankenstein-esque sorcerer's magical project.
And to this day AD&D 1st Edtion PHB, DMs Guide and MM were my go to solution for Fantasy TTRPG activities.
Long Live Unearthed Arcana. My brother and I appreciate double weapon specialization, as it gives more power to fighters. I also play a thief acrobat.
When this came out, my regular DM had us adopt the Comeliness stat. I got the logic behind it (Comeliness for immediate first impression, Charisma for anything after the first impression), but it was not that useful otherwise.
My handed down copy of the AD&D Unearthed Arcana had pages and pages just falling out of the binding
The magical abilities of women in early dnd remind me of some of the female characters in Dragon Quest games, even to this day. Though in the newest one they gave the positive beauty spells to the sexy female and the repulsive beauty spells to the gay male character. Interesting how these old school Japanese RPGs that were inspired by Dnd have also changed over time by the base created in this edition.
Now this is a really good topic I am new to this channel and only been playing for three weeks long story, just been kicked out of one group oh well desperately seeking people who are playing the becmi set in London, I am obsessively studying the 1011 basic rules 1983 edition....and wondering if anyone is still playing that edition!
Christ the insane pauses and the distant slurping really throwing me off this episode.
I think the notions of the "Fascinate" spell and ideas of fantastic uses for feminine beauty possibly stem from some of the old romantic ideals (as expressed in poems such as "La Belle Dame sans Merci" et al)
Also, if anyone is interested in word "jade" being used for anything other than decorative green stone this site ask.metafilter.com/81056/You-dirty-jade-Wait-what can be a bit of an eye-opener.
Those were all magic users at the same time as being beautiful, though
The easiest way to balance casters vs fighters is to limit the casters spellbook - there's no reason you have to let them have all the spells, you can raise the level that a spell becomes available to them, you can make certain spells mutually exclusive, you can create wizard subclasses that restrict or modify their available spells, you can add requirements or risks to extremely OP spells like wish. If I were to let someone use something like wish it might cost a minimum of one level, and there would be a 1 in 4 or maybe 1 in 3 chance that it fails and maybe a 1 in 10 chance that it backfires: failing and possibly costing more levels or hurting or even killing the caster.
there seem to be multiple sections in this video where things trail off and then it skips forward in time mid-sentence.
My dad's copy lasted until about 2000 but it utterly shed pages for the first time in my hands. Also for a cash grab it is a great book.
Hmm...my memory is pretty fuzzy now, but I think Comeliness also preceded UA in official material in an appendix of the Greyhawk Campaign Setting for AD&D. Along with Quasi-Deities (never explaining the difference between a demi-dog and a quasi-deity) as well as a weird system for creating a zero level character who eventually advances to 1st level and can learn a hodgepodge of skills while deciding what class to take.
Love this fighter series, I'd love to see more of this history delve
Hoping that Matt comes back to this after he gets the stream going.
I can attest to the poor binding of this book; when I go through my cache of disregarded books I still come across random pages of Unearthed Arcana every once in a while.
Great series. Great channel.
One way to keep powerful wizards and clerics in check was to enforce casting times and casting interruption rules, usually through the use of hidden/concealed opponents with ranged weapons. Or fast opponents who got in the face of the mage to prevent them from casting with impunity. There was always tons of advice to DMs about limiting spell availability via damaging a character's spell books, making them expensive to replace, making it hard to find or research higher level spells, using the spell failure (the dreaded "% chance to learn" a spell roll). So many ways to mess with spell casters and power classes (making sure the paladin could never get away with even a whiff of non-lawful/good actions or would lose paladin status -- until the rest of the player group grows so tired of having to cater to the "awful good" character that *they* refuse to allow other players to play paladins...or else *everyone* plays a paladin or lawful good character...). The end result of all this messy game design led to some really messy (and memorable) campaigns and sessions.
Still, I agree with the assessment that "magic-user as alterer of reality" is the natural conclusion when there is no campaign context. Same with paladin, monk, assassin, or any other class seen as the powerful class. Without the limitations of a campaign/story context, these classes do indeed throw game "balance" out the window.
I had one of those 1-10 twice d20s, and It took me the better part of a session to realize I wasn't just the unluckiest player in the world.
Slip it into your DM's dice pool.
@@williamwalton9154 You're evil.
From the future, ENGAGE.
This book and also the Oriental Adventures book, we got a lot of mileage out of those.
I think this really shows why i say the attributes were a bigger problem. So many of the fighter fixes were incredibly front loaded and luck based.
Duncan V is crazy powerful and will cleave through anything at early levels, but the only damage buff you can pick up is picking up a magic weapon your levels just being some hp, accuracy, and saves still. Rather than just....spreading these buffs out over the progression and integrating things into the fighter chasis that lets them tell wizards and monsters not to fuck with conan.
Oh man the editing bugs are kind of heartbreaking 😭
The first couple, I thought he was having some sort of medical emergency 😬
Didn't use comeliness?! It became a source of so much humor and hilarity for our table.
Before I comment, I want to express my gratitude for these informative videos and hope you'll eventually make the video of each Duncan versus a goblin! I have comments to make on each video but am waiting to see the entire series before saying too much... Except I have to mention the early 1-10 labeled twenty sided dice, you're the first person I've ever "met" who didn't know this- Use the crayon trick to fill in the numbers. Fill one set of 1-10 with one color and the other set of 1-10 with a different color... Red is one to ten and green is eleven to twenty! (or whatever colors you use and how you declare them)
Wow, give a whole new perspective on "Rolling for Hotness" you see in a lot of the Twitch streams of D&D.
The Duncan family line has, for generations, been losing their familial fortune on training, weapons, armor, and loss as they did not live long as knights. Duncan the 4th was the first true heir of the line to be a genuinely capable fighter, but by then most of their noble wealth was gone, though the family still prized classical education.
Something happened between Duncan the 4th and the 5th. Duncan the 5th is truly the most masterful swordsman his family has ever produced, perhaps the best in the entire world. But the Duncan line has become destitute, with barely enough coin for nurturing the natural intelligence of the bloodline, let alone any equipment of note. We can only assume, then, that Duncan the 4th squandered the remains of the family wealth without accomplishing much beyond siring a worthy heir.
If only Duncan the 1st had not been so stubborn, perhaps they would be a line of successful wizards.
A little bit before the 28 minute mark and there about is a total cluster fuck of audio.
Matt starts talking about the power lever between the fighter and the magic users and then talks about simulating reality and then about a point buy system... and I think other things mixed in. Just a total editing mess.
So lady thieves would become “gypsies” if they were high enough level? Oof. Big oof
Big oof indeed
And male wizards eventually become “Kurdish.”
Such a strange culture.
🤣😂If I only could have told my sister she had the opportunity to become a "Hag". I think I could have got her and her friends to play D&D with me.
I played D&D from Chainmail up and I never got Unearthed Arcana, as I just didn’t see the value of this quickly published book of which most of it showed up in Dragon Magazine.
Hooray, you're back! ^^
I love the chibi gyaru at 6:51.
I feel like the female stat limits are the combination of two things: One, it was 1976, and these were nerds, two things that have historically never really mixed well with reasonable attitudes toward women. Two, it was 1976, and these were nerds who came from a LONG history of wargaming. If I know anything about the arguments that go on over the superiority of the samurai over the knight, these were guys who needed to quantify every variable, and create absolute laws that stemmed from those known quantities. Hell, just flipping through some of the articles in those old Dragon magazines shows a much different attitude toward innovation or rule-bending than exists today. All the material I've seen from then seems to be a lot more concrete; the referee MUST do these things, and a character CANNOT do these other things. It's a very modernist sort of objectivism.
I wonder what archetype they had in mind when putting together women and seduction and "evil". Perhaps the one used all over literature? The one even used for Eve in the Bible?
more videos in this series please :)
Two things popped up in my mind during the first ten minutes.
There is a Basic DnD ripoff game, Wizardry, which is also a Spelljammer ripoff... Kind-of great game actually, especially the 6-8 episodes... Which touched heavily upon this women are unicorns subject, by making one of the advanced classes the female-only Valkyrie (which did have a counterpart, but with a lot harder requirements and less perks), with its own set of titles. It was pretty neat. Also female characters got a minus 2 Strength, but a +1 Karma and Personality. Latter useful for overcoming magic resistance, Karma being the set-in-stone LUCK of the character. Basically girls were broken in that game. You would be shooting yourself in the leg if you did not make an Alchemist or better, a Bard or Thief, with the ability requirements for a Valkyrie, in your party, then switched classes to it after level 10-12ish. That was the equal of a win-game button. The Lord (paladin) couldn't come close to it. Talk about grrlpower.
Anyway, the other thing that came to mind, was the Hubgarian derivative of ADnD, which had 9 (10 on its second and third edition, I don't know the fourth, I don't follow it anymore) basic abilities, one of which being Beauty. The system just ditched Charisma and made it into a skill. Etiquette and Fast-talking.
M.A.G.U.S. did a lot of weird things, it kept Strength, then divided Dexterity into that and Speed, divided Constitution into Healthyness and Stamina, ditched Wisdom and shoved that under Intelligence, but introduced Willpower and *Astral*(tm). It was a weird game, but even at its first edition, it was a lot more concise and robust, than ADnD. Not the magic system. Wizards did NOT work, and by extension, no other magic user worked, if those were around. On its third edition, I honestly think the game was better than DnD 3rd ed because it became modular and kind-of classless, while still retaining the og roleplaying staples.
I'm rambling. Been binge-watching and my mind wanders.
"What young lady doesn't look forward to someday being a hag?" LOL :D
Reminds me of this: ua-cam.com/video/Yic_e2vo_Eg/v-deo.htmlm4s
If you want to know how they thought about women - in Greyhawk, the goddess of volcanoes, anger, and petty arguments was named Joramy.
Gary Gygax's ex-wife was named Mary Jo.
The real advantage to not choosing weapon specialization is not having to take a negative as often when you find a magical weapon.
The whole beauty and female combat thing came from Greek Mythology and what happend among the Gods and Goddesses and their clergy / Disciples , and how the follows were instructed to be to honor their Deities on the prime material plane. Not necessarily necessary, but that was the structure in place if you wanted to use it.
Watching this now when you discuss the 20-sided die having 1-10 twice is funny considering you just launched a kickstarter for those.
My UA fell apart, too. And from a player perspective this was the last supplement we just accepted in "these are the new rules" terms... sort of
We would never have dreamt about saying you couldn't play a cavalier. but we never even considered this gender stuff.
Just got to the hag bit, fucking broke me - my sides are in orbit
18/93 is Minsc’s STR in “Baldur’s Gate”
A few years back, I did a return to AD&D game, and I was going to use all the rules. All of them! (except maybe the disease and parasite chances). So, that meant the weapon vs. AC tables- I figured, hey, this will show the value of the crossbow, and maybe make some weapons beyond the long sword popular.
The problem there is the table only really works against humans and other PC races; as Matt notes, it's not so much that you get a bonus or penalty against AC 4, it's that you get a bonus against chain mail and a shield. So fighting a griffon or a troll, just toss the chart aside. I tried to incorporate it with humanoid foes, like orcs and goblins. Except... an orc has an AC 5, because he's in chain mail, right? But statistically some of them are using shields. And do any orcs have a defensive adjustment for dexterity?
As for weapon specialization, the arms race wasn't just with the magic-user, it's also with the cavalier. Those cavalier weapons he's taking, he's getting pluses to hit, and he gets numbers of attacks based on a character 5 levels higher, pretty much giving the same attack progression that a specialized fighter gets.
These are GREAT video's, are you ever going to do more?
Yeah! In fact I'm editing the 2E video now!
+Matthew Colville Woo! Hoo!
Yep I played a Paladin....1st level was fun, lol.
I’m just now getting why Duncan V is so funny.
These videos are amazing. Your presentation is very professional. However, I think that your view is askew in some places. You make quite a deal out of how the classes are arranged. While I think that you re right, organizationally an conceptually, the classes and subclasses are kind of a mess BUT at this stage of the development the concept and story was still more important that the stats. Every time one of the "new" classes first came out it was overpowered and the next few published things were dedicated to "balancing" things out. The Barbarian was one of those. I forget the details at the time but I remember that there wasn't a civilized fighting man in all the land until weapon specialization came out.
Also, the AC adjustment table was AMAZING. It was oddly implemented in my group: the PLAYER who wanted to keep track of such things for their character deployed the rule (mostly all the time. There's not a lot to keep track of on a fighter's character sheet.). Of course, this was at a time when we were getting into Squad Leader and Aftermath so fiddly statistics were't overly daunting to us.
12:30 hot take, but would the reason female clerics can't use their Comeliness stat have anything to do with alignments functioning like religion, and Lawful paladins functioning like Charlegmene's knights, thus suggesting that Lawful clerics would adhere to similar values to Roman Catholic ones?
It's certainly a way to rationalize it that makes sense, that I don't think the authors did lol
I loved the Comeliness stat. We used it. It could still be incorporated today in 5E. A good example would be the Bard's School of Glamour. Comeliness would be a good secondary stat for that particular College. It could also be used in other interesting ways, stat used for charm person just off the top of my head.
I'm dying to know what got cut out at the ~16:30 Mark.
This is a very good series. I was a bit apprehensive at the start of them, due to the length of the videos. But the background information is very interesting and I would like to see more.
FYI: I've listened to each of the videos in this series at least twice. Very good series; I like to listen to them as I work. Looking forward to the next installment. No pressure.
In the meantime, I've purchased a (Kindle Edition) copy of the book "Priest". Is this a self-published work?
Have you considered doing an audiobook version, for people who like to listen to stuff while they work?
cavalier973 Glad you like the videos! I think you'll see a new one in June.
Yeah I'm an independant author. Hope you like the book! I've worked on an audiobook version, but my standard for that stuff is pretty high and it's hard as a non-actor to get there.
Matthew Colville I'm enjoying it as much as GRRM; more so, in fact, because *Spoilers!* the lead character hasn't been offed...yet.
I thought it clever that the characters measured time in "turns".
cavalier973 I didn't want them to think in minutes, and I needed a unit of time less than an hour, so I went with "one turn of the moon" which is 20 minutes and has the amusing association with Old School D&D. :D
just to add to this - I throw an earbud in and listen to stuff at work, too.
Fun video. I think this was one of the first books I started to digest with a more grown up mind around 1993. We used some of it directly in 2nd ed.
Were you eating food at a couple points? Hah!
Such great content.