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What's the name of the AD&D book (1st Edition) that has the other character classes that were popularized in the Saturday morning cartoon?

I'm talking about the Cavalier, Acrobat, Barbarian, and others.

It's been 25 years since I've played (starting up again, because my kids found my old books and wouldn't let me rest until I came up with an adventure for them) and I can't find or even remember the name of that reference manual.

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The 1985 book Unearthed Arcana book contained the Barbarian, Thief-Acrobat, and Cavalier:

Unearthed Arcana includes the barbarian (found in Dragon #63), cavalier (found in Dragon #72), and thief-acrobat (found in Dragon #69) character classes, and also includes expansions and revisions of the druid and ranger classes.

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You're thinking of Unearthed Arcana, supplement first published in 1985:

Unearthed Arcana cover
(source: boardgamegeek.com)

Unearthed Arcana contained the Cavalier, Barbarian, and Thief-Acrobat, as well as new material for existing classes and races, race variants such as the High Elves and Drow as PC races, new spells, new weapons, weapon specialization rules, and the infamous Comeliness ability score.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Ah....Comeliness. That brings back memories, none of them good. \$\endgroup\$
    – Stewbob
    Sep 13, 2010 at 20:13
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    \$\begingroup\$ Yeah. That is the one notable "innovation" that was a total flop. Other things that UA introduced—like Drow as PCs, weapon specialisation, and sub-classes of main classes—are still with us all the way into D&D 4th edition. \$\endgroup\$
    – SevenSidedDie
    Sep 13, 2010 at 20:15
  • \$\begingroup\$ Technically, Comeliness was introduced in Oriental Adventures before UA, although I wouldn't be surprised if it showed up in Dragon before that. \$\endgroup\$
    – ucbpaladin
    Nov 17, 2019 at 20:08
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This isn't what you're asking, but I figure it was a good place for a bit of extra info. Those all came from Dragon Magazine before Unearthed Arcana was published.

The barbarian was in Dragon #63, the Thief-Acrobat was in Dragon #69 and the Cavalier was in Dragon #72.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Most of the Unearthed Arcana content appeared in Dragon before UA was published, and Gygax was quite open about the fact that this was the stuff that would be in the book. He was confident, and rightly so, that subscribers would want all the content in a single bound source book, even though they had it in their magazines. The material in Dragon helped build excitement for the new book. \$\endgroup\$
    – ruffdove
    Aug 15, 2020 at 21:20

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