1st Edition Dungeons and Dragons gives its players a few strategic options during character creation, many of which are restricted by randomly generated attributes. With this in mind, what are some ways to maximize a character's effectiveness, even with a mediocre set of attributes? For instance, what weapons and equipment available at start are most efficient and/or effective? Are there especially potent race/class combinations? Tell me how to cheese this game!
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Choosing a ridiculously over powered race is important. There is no level adjustment in 1E Svirfneblin, Drow and Derro all gain innate spell casting powers, numerous bonuses and magic resistance! Dragonlance Minotaurs gain enourmous Str and Con. The first edition Bard is also tasty... but I can't beleive no one mentioned Psionics. Stupid and arbitary rules thankfully prevent most becoming Psionic... but the powers are basically free and overpowered. |
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I won a AD&D fight tournament back in the mid 80s with a high level Druid and a selection of Magic Items. I picked it because the combination of the Druid's special powers and items made for a pretty broken combination. Special abilities + can use a scimatar + adequate spell casting (including entangle and other movement hindering spells) + the right items made the druid about the best class to powergame. |
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Honestly, the Hackmaster Gamemaster's Guide is full of cheese, and is almost completely compatible with 1st Ed. AD&D, that being the system it is largely based on. Ridiculous magic items can bridge any gap in ability scores early on. If you're looking to really push your AD&D over the top, I can think of no better reference or inspiration. |
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Most old schoolers curse Unearthed Arcana, because most of the player classes within (particularly, as mentioned, the Barbarian) are far more powerful than classes in the regular Players Handbook. Weapon specialization, particularly the dreaded double specialization can be ridiculous when applied to bows. An elf with a bow and double specialization (if your clueless DM allows it!) will be a one-man wrecking crew. And of course there is the old chestnut of having your 18+ STR fighter carry a bunch of darts around to use as missile weapons....three attacks a round, and as they are hand-held the fighter can include his damage bonus. A +3 dmg bonus leads to 4-6 pts per dart, for a whopping 12-18 pts a round in dart damage! Better than a longsword! If your fighter can get away with not having a shield, choose a two handed sword or trident as a weapon. The damage vs "Large" creatures is ridiculous, and a couple of fighters swinging two handed swords (with the 3-18 dmg vs large creatures) or tridents (3-12 dmg) can quickly chop an ogre or even a giant to pieces in a few short rounds (even if the fighters are low level). These are just combat "fixes", and just the tip of the iceberg, but remember that less "cheese" inhabits old school D&D than later editions. |
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Play the barbarian from Dragon Magazine / Unearthed Arcana. They have the remarkable benefit of rolling 9d6 and keeping the three highest for Strength, with similar methods for Constitution and Dexterity. No magic items, but great surprise rolls. In general, Dragon is a good source for less balanced material. However, you're not going to find the same degree of cheese you'd find in later editions of the game, for better or worse. |
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This depends on a host of factors. The first thing to consider is what rulebooks are you using. Next you need to consider what ability score method is being used. Third the level you're starting at. Finally, the context. To start I'll assume Player's Handbook, 3d6 in order, level 1, campaign play. When you're doing 3d6 in order, it's really the dice that determine the class and race combination to - you need to pick what's optimal to increase your survivability. If we make one tweak, and take one of the alternate rolling methods, like 3d6 6 times for each stat and pick the best one, you get a few more options. At this point multiclassing becomes a good option. Another variation would be 3d6 arrange to taste, or 4d6 drop the lowest, arrange to taste. Here you might get one or two high scores. If your highest score is 13 or 14 a good choice is Cleric - you get good armour, Splint Mail puts you at AC 4, good weapons - Mace and Flail are always a good choice, and you get 1-2 bonus spells, making you among the most versatile characters possible. If you've got scores in the 15-16 range, especially more than one, some of the other classes become viable. Thief with high scores in Con and Dex gives you a boost to hit points as well as AC on top of a boost to your regular thieving abilities. If you're hitting 17-18, and especially 18, then Fighter and Wizard become some good options. Fighter thanks to percentile strength, Wizard thanks to having a good chance to learn spells and the potential to cast 9th level spells (if you start at 17, you'll probably get an age boost to 18 at some point). Obviously the Cleric still benefits from higher scores as well, but is the optimum choice in the 13-14 range. Thief and Cleric are both options in the 15-16 range and all the base classes are good options at 17-18. If you're stuck with 12 or lower, strangely the Thief ends up the best option. A Wizard is useless, a Fighter can wear barely any armour at that strength, a Cleric starts making mistakes, only the Thief can still do what it's good at with low scores across the board. If you're starting at a higher level, or thinking about a tournament rather than campaign play, things change. Also, if you're taking non-core supplements, simply picking an overpowered race or class (especially in a front loaded game at low levels) will be easy, but I wouldn't consider that particularly sophisticate powergaming. The best kind is making use of the resources you have. |
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One way to raise effectiveness in AD&D is to reach outside the system; For example, where 3e would call for an Intimidate or Diplomacy skill check, AD&D has no mechanic for social coercion. In one game I ran, a character negotiated a deadly, trap-filled corridor by taking a knowledgeable NPC hostage and forcing him to lead the party past the traps. While this is not a character build issue, it is a very effective way to "win or break" the game. (The only defense is for the GM to play NPCs as suicidally resistant.) |
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just a passerby, having bought Carcosa recently and wanting to see how the ODD world taste... So, in the old days we used to play ADD 1th ed in a very hardcore and higly powered setting. Our basic dungeon level was level 12-14. How to twink a fighter for instance ? (some of the stuff listed downthere is essential for all classes in these power dungeons. Like the scarab of protection):
and a lot more !... Nota : we where "in character" but we used to play high end game, it was really fun, and I could go on and on, because twinking was nearly infinite just with the somewhat gamebreaking stuff found in official DD modules (Blackrazor anyone ? ^^) and the arefacts/relics... |
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When I played AD&D, we used to make the characters by fudging the dice rolls. Like, instead of three six-sided dice we'd throw 4 and throw one out. Or we'd roll them and put the numbers in whatever order we wanted. To be honest I don't know why we didn't just make the numbers up. One memorable campaign involved invading a kingdom where the area was covered by an anti-magic shield. We, the invaders, managed to convince the DM that we had a powerful druid and were attacking the place with a hurricane. Since lightning from a hurricane isn't magical, we easily overcame the anti-magic shield. |
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