Gelatinous Icosahedron

 A while back I wrote about how the B/X fighter was underpowered relative to other classes, and offered some ideas to help bring it up to par. Perhaps even more underwhelming, though, is the thief class.  The thief, as an archetype and concept, has a lot going for it. Tricksters, opportunists, sneaks, knaves, and rogues of all stripes fit neatly under the thief banner. There's a lot of potential for players who relish the idea of succeeding by wit, cunning, and deceit rather than magic or combat prowess. The time-honored rule of awarding experience points primarily for treasure recovered rather than monsters slain or any other metric seems practically tailor-made for thieves. Unfortunately, the thief class as written in Classic D&D has some really glaring problems that make it a difficult and frustrating one to play. Many have complained about the class's d4 Hit Dice, a gripe which wholly misses the mark in my opinion. Thieves are not meant to be durable stand-up fighters....

 Allow me to preface this post with the (probably needless) statement that I truly love B/X D&D. It was the edition which introduced me to the game, and still the one I consider the most perfect in its RAW form as well as the most customizable.  But it does have a few glaring flaws. They don't make it unplayable by any means, but they make certain elements perhaps less enjoyable than they might be (but see above about the ease of customization via house rules!) One of those flaws is the design of the fighter class relative to the other classes. In the rules as written, the fighter has three advantages over other classes: a d8 Hit Die, the ability to use any weapon, and the ability to wear any armor. You could add a fourth, better attack probabilities, but that doesn't kick in until 4th level, so for the first three levels, arguably some of the most fun to play through as well as the most vulnerable of a character's career, it doesn't count. Excepting Strength bonuse...

 Yesterday, I read this post at DM David, talking about the evolution of the non-human player character races in D&D. (He focuses much more on 5E and modern sensibilities than on anything I'd call old school, but generally has interesting things to say, even if not always directly useful to an old schooler such as myself.) Of course, I have some observations and opinions of my own on this topic. On the one hand, we have D&D's most prominent founder, Gary Gygax, whose preference for a human-centric game prompted him to impose strict limits on the demihuman races. On the other, we have modern games, in which almost anything distinguishing dwarf, elf, halfling, or other fantastic folk from humankind is to be spurned as too restrictive to player freedom, if not somehow a manifestation of real-world racism.  I reject both those views. I can certainly respect Gygax's affection for human-centric fantasy, emulating some of his favorite literary sources (which, as I underst...

 Weapon and armor restrictions by class are some of the most iconic features of D&D (particularly older editions. I'm not well-versed in 3e and beyond.) There are a few reasons for it, primarily game balance, but also in-fiction flavor, to depict a particular archetype in a class. Weapon restrictions are consequential in a few ways. In editions with variable weapon damage (or with optional rules for such in use) they limit the amount of damage a character can do in battle. A magic-user limited to dagger only is also limited to d4 damage, where other classes have access to d6, d8, or even d10 weapons. A cleric's restriction to non-edged weapons effectively eliminates the d10 and d8 weapons (those dice being mainly used for swords, polearms, and battle axes) and the d6 missile weapons, leaving only the d4 sling. Even if you're playing d6 damage for all weapons, weapon restrictions still have one important effect, as many others have already noted: it sharply limits who ma...

 Last post, I came to the conclusion that the vast majority (if not all) D&D classes are, functionally, built around three primary approaches to adventuring: combat and physical prowess (fighter,) magic (magic-user,) and mundane non-combat skills (thief.) By hybridizing these three, you can adequately model almost any sort of character without creating a new class for every single variation on a theme.  There are a few different ways we can go about hybridizing classes. One way is to make the new class fully functional in both of the basic classes, or nearly so, and making XP requirements much higher to compensate and/or applying a level limit. It's essentially a "best of both worlds" concept, applying the most advantageous aspects of each class, e.g. the higher hit die, the less restrictive weapon and armor strictures, the better combat, spell, and/or skill progression of the two base classes. Basic D&D does this with the Elf class. Except for the d6 hit die inst...

 How many classes does D&D need? Some editions, especially OD&D and the "basic" D&D games (B/X and BECMI) stick to a few essentials, at least in the core game. AD&D and its supplements add quite a few more that are considered iconic to one degree or another, and have been adapted innumerable times for basic D&D and its retroclones, but I don't believe any of them really breaks any new ground.  I suppose how many classes you need depends on what exactly a character class represents to you. Is it a broad archetype, a representation of a specific legendary or literary character, or does it encapsulate a particular approach to the business of adventuring? For me, it's this last definition. Building upon that, three character classes seem most essential to the game (and it's not the original three, oddly enough.) The first approach to adventuring is to face it with physical prowess and skill at arms; the way of the fighter . This simple class model...