oD&D/AD&D Mearls' Gedanken zu den Problemen der 1E-Klassen

Skyrock

t. Sgeyerog :DDDDD
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Weil viele wahrscheinlich gar nicht wissen dass Mearls neben seinem Livejournal einen zweiten Blog unterhält, wo er u.a. auch über OD&D spricht, mache ich mal auf einen älteren Blogeintrag in "The Keep on the Gaming Lands" von ihm aufmerksam: The Keep on the Gaming Lands: My Old Flame, 1st Edition

Hier ist der relevante Part daraus für das schnelle zitieren:

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1. The fighter could use some other toy to play with. Rangers and paladins are strictly better, and that bugs me. I'd want to see something simple and in keeping with the spirit of AD&D, more like "+1 attack when using a weapon you are proficient with" than a feat or maneuver based approach of 3e or 4e.
2. The thief, oh the poor thief. From those who curse its appearance in OD&D, to people like me who really want to play the Gray Mouser without feeling like a chump, I'm not sure this class really makes anyone happy. I'd look to do a radical revision, though I'm not sure exactly what I'd want. Remove the proto-skill system? Make it a fighter sub-class more in-line with a swashbuckler? I'm not 100% sure.
3. The assassin is stuck in the same boat as the thief. This is the class I'd like to see embrace the backstab/assassination mechanic. To me, that's interesting, but I think the thief's backstab makes the assassin semi-pointless.
4. The monk! OK, I love the concept of the monk, but I always disliked Gary's implementation of it. The monk falls into the same category as the magic-user, in that you have to manage to survive low-level in order to gain massive power at higher levels. However, the magic-user's fundamental weaknesses remain at all levels. Whether a lowly prestidigitator or a mighty wizard, the M-U breaks into a cold sweat when a nasty ogre shuffles up to him. The monk, on the other hand, carpets over his weaknesses with innate, constant abilities. Having played a monk at low and high levels, it is essentially two classes. That shift in playstyle bugs me, and is far too bald a filter between a weak and strong character. I'd seek to balance the monk, strengthening it at low levels and toning it down at upper levels.

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In einem späteren Blogeintrag elaboriert er auch das Problem des Monks, und dabei am Rande auch die genaueren Probleme von Dieb und Assassine:

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A while back I posted some ideas for my 1e house rules. Of all the classes in the game, the monk needs by far the most work. The other classes range from fine as-is to "needing" a few tweaks just because that's what I feel like doing.

The monk violates one of the core precepts of class-based RPG design: it pulls a bait and switch. Most well designed classes stake out their core concepts and remain within them. In terms of game play, playing a fighter at 1st, 3rd, or 8th level is a relatively similar experience. You're good in melee, you have lots of hit points and a good AC, and you're probably at the front of any battle. Magic-users/wizards, clerics, and thieves/rogues all have similar, consistent identities.

Some games succeed in introducing some fundamental shifts in a class, but that's rare. AD&D and BD&D gave characters access to land holdings and groups of retainers at higher level, but most (all? I don't have my books with me...) of the classes underwent that change. It wasn't a shift in how the class played so much as a shift in how the *game* played at higher levels.

Rebuilding a class's identity over the course of gaining levels is bad for a number of reasons:

1. A player might like the class at certain levels, but hate it at others. That makes for a lame experience. The player either grits his teeth at low levels, or loses interest at higher ones. Note that AD&D classes that had an "initiation" phase, like the wizard, don't fall prone to this trap. Sure, a 1st-level wizard is weak, but the key is that at high levels the wizard plays mostly the same. He has more spells and more powerful ones, but it's not like he transforms into a melee monster or a healer. The class naturally improves at its core abilities.
2. Balancing power at high levels with weakness at low levels is a bogus design trick. The monk's weaknesses at low levels become strengths at high levels. Chewing through hordes of weak monks at low levels is cold comfort when a high level monk rips Orcus in two. The magic-user does gain in power at high levels, but its basic weaknesses remain the same. The class simply improves its core abilities. The monk's weaknesses go away. That's why the magic-user works, and the monk doesn't.
3. The monk lacks a clear identity. Is the class a martial artist that excels in melee? The 10 AC and 2d4 hit points dispute that. Is it a replacement for the thief? Maybe, but at high levels the monk replaces both the thief and the fighter. When a class shifts so much as it advances, it either starts without a niche in the game or it expands to cover more than one. In either case, it meshes poorly with the rest of the game.

These three points are major guideposts in 4e class design. I think we did a good job of defining each class and working within those definitions. The classes feel different in play, and each has a distinct identity.

In comparison, 3e fell into this trap with its item creation rules combined with the rules for wands. A low-level 3e wizard, sorcerer, cleric, or druid plays much, much different compared to a high level caster with access to plenty of long duration buffs, wands, scrolls, and potions. Whenever you see a shift like that in a class-based design, you're probably looking at deep issues with the class or maybe even the system.

It's interesting to note that the other class dropped from 1e to 2e, the assassin, suffers many of the same problems. The assassin is a crappy thief with a cumbersome, difficult to integrate assassination mechanic grafted on to it. On the other side of the coin, the bard went from a strange, optional mishmash to a core class in 2e. The bard has a pretty clear identity in fantasy novels, one that was strong enough to make it a class that cleanly severed its druid/fighter/thief heritage.

Here's what I'd do:

1. Pick a a few core mechanics for the monk and stick to them. I think I'd focus on the monk's thief abilities, good AC without armor, and multiple attacks with unarmed strikes. I'd give the monk 2 unarmed attacks per round at 1st level, but never let him go beyond that number. Damage would start with 1d6 and improve to 1d8, 1d10, and 2d6 at its highest point. A monk's AC would start around 6 or 7, improving to AC 2 at its best, and allow for Dexterity to improve it.

2. For the assassin, I'd first make the thief more of a Gray Mouser than a... whatever character the thief is actually supposed to be. I'd institute a mechanic to give the thief an equal AC footing with the fighter despite light armor, maybe some sort of active defense. I'd drop backstab, because...

3. The assassin would drop the assassination tables, but then steal the thief's backstab ability. That'd be the class's core ability, with an improved bonus to the attack roll and an increasing damage multiplier with level.

4. I'd drop the thief's abilities entirely, instead embracing an OD&D approach of using traps to challenge players, rather than a character's stats. This is one area, though, where I'd mess around with the fundamentals of the game. As DM, there are plenty of times when deciding if an orc sees a character trying to sneak past him is entirely open to my fiat. There's little the player can do to affect the situation, making the dice an ideal arbiter. I'd give monsters a perception-based defense, similar to AC, and give each class a sneak rating that improves with increased levels. Like the attack matrices, you might have a sneak matrix broken down into categories, like this:

* Thief, monk, assassin, ranger, the best sneaky characters.
* Magic-user, illusionist, druid, the average sneaky characters.
* Fighter, paladin, cleric, the anti-sneaky characters.

So, those are my thoughts on the monk, assassin, and 1e in particular, and class design in general.

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Was denkt ihr dazu?
 
AW: Mearls' Gedanken zu den Problemen der 1E-Klassen

Was er sich da so ausgedacht hat, macht schon Sinn wenn man die Absicht verfolgt dem Spiel über das Regelwerk und die Regeloptionen eine Struktur bzw. eine Art Stabilität zu verleihen. Das scheint mir aber ein gänzlich anderer Ansatz zu sein als der von OD&D verfolgte, bei dem das ganze über die Spielwelt(-logik) und die Spielleitung gemacht werden soll.
 
AW: Mearls' Gedanken zu den Problemen der 1E-Klassen

Wir reden hier von 1E, nicht von OD&D. 1E hat schon stärker auf Verregelung gesetzt und den Klassen mehr mechanische Spezialitäten gegeben (wie den Sweep des Fighting Man).

Ich denke auch (wie Mearls) das vor allem der Monk ein Störfaktor ist, da er keinerlei klare Identität hat, sondern in jedem Bereich irgendwie rumwurschtelt.
Der Ranger und Paladin sind einfach Fighting Men mit etwas anderen Spielzeugen (wofür man dem Fighting Man einfach so was wie den +1-Bonus mit einer bestimmten Waffe geben kann, so das er auch einfach "anders" und nicht "schlechter" ist); der Assassine ist einfach ein Dieb der etwas schlechter im "dieben" ist und sich dafür besser verkleiden und backstabben kann (kein Änderungsbedarf IMHO, allenfalls ein Ausbau der Fertigkeitendiskrepanz um den Unterschied zu betonen); nur beim Monk kann man nicht sagen "ist eigentlich nur ein XY mit lustigem Hut".
 
AW: Mearls' Gedanken zu den Problemen der 1E-Klassen

Wir reden hier von 1E, nicht von OD&D. 1E hat schon stärker auf Verregelung gesetzt und den Klassen mehr mechanische Spezialitäten gegeben (wie den Sweep des Fighting Man).

Ah.. stimmt.

Dann gilt das nur eingeschränkt. Auch wenn ich denke, dass die Spieler der 1E sehr stark die Prinzipien der 0E übernommen hatten und damit eben von genau der anderen Richtung an das Spiel herantraten, wie es Rollenspieler von heute womöglich tun würden. (Ich denke, die B!-Rezension zur deutschen Red Box ist dafür ein sehr gutes Beispiel.)
 
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