Has anyone done this; where D-H instead of being their own classes (ie. "Elf" class) are actually a race and must take a class (ie. Dwarf Fighter)? Did you just copy/paste the stuff from AD&D? Would there be any problems with doing it that way, would it be better to do particular house rules for RC-D&D?

Did you limit class choices? If so, which? Did you allow multiclassing?  Did you use level limits?

What works?

RPGPundit

I just use the Basic Custom Class Template system by Scott Ludwig. It is simple, elegant, and hasn't failed me in over 5 years of use. Works great for B/X, RC, and BECMI systems.

Quote from: RPGPundit;305029Has anyone done this; where D-H instead of being their own classes (ie. "Elf" class) are actually a race and must take a class (ie. Dwarf Fighter)? Did you just copy/paste the stuff from AD&D? Would there be any problems with doing it that way, would it be better to do particular house rules for RC-D&D?

Did you limit class choices? If so, which? Did you allow multiclassing?  Did you use level limits?

What works?

RPGPundit

The way everyone played AD&D1 during the eighties was like Basic D&D with bits from AD&D1.

For example, they liked the higher hit dice the AD&D classes had, so they used those.  They liked demi-humans being able to choose classes, so they used those and ignored level limits.  They liked expanded spell lists, but ignored spell components.  Weapon proficiencies were only used once Unearthed Arcana came out and introduced weapon specialization.  

When people said "AD&D" what they really meant was a game of Basic with anything simple and obviously mechanically useful from the AD&D books.  Anything restrictive (like training costs or weapon versus armor modifiers) was ignored or simply not acknowledged as existing.

AD&D1, AD&D2, and Basic are all pretty much interchangable, and they were gamed as such.  The main thing to remember was that "Basic is for retards."  So, you might be using a Basic module, but the rulebooks had to be AD&D hardcovers which you ignored 90% of.

I kind of prefer the simple, iconic combined classes and races of basic D&D.

I can see why they split it out in AD&D and how the different combos helped add variety (especially with dual-classes) which in turn gave the game increase replayability and a longer shelf-life, but I think I never cared for it. Especially half-elves and paladins.

or you could play Basic Fantasy which is B/X D&D without the race classes

Quote from: Gabriel2;305060The main thing to remember was that "Basic is for retards."  So, you might be using a Basic module, but the rulebooks had to be AD&D hardcovers which you ignored 90% of.

Heh. That's how I remember it too - tends to get forgotten in these days of  old school revisionism. At the time I was almost embarrassed to buy the Rules Cyclopedia, and others must have felt the same as it didn't sell too well. Now it's an object of reverence...

One more thing a little more focused on demi-humans.

Nearly everyone ignored level limits.  I tried to pay attention to them for a while, but gave up.  I realized it was an extremely poor and insidiously destructive rule.  Level limits serve one purpose: to break up the group and disintegrate a campaign.  Here's why:

Firstly, Uncle Gary encouraged slow advancement and always starting at level 1.  So it was always supposed to be an arduous and painful climb up the ladder.  D&D is definitely structured in this way.

Uncle Gary always encouraged long term campaigns.  He spent a lot of time going on about how the game was "balanced" because character ability evened out over time, or certain characters became supercharacters after tedious lower levels.  The main point is that the idea was the campaign would go on for a long time with continuing characters.

Level limits set a cap on demi-human advancement, and some of the level limits were completely irrational.  In AD&D1 they tended to be fairly low, meaning it wasn't too unusual to hit them in a multi-month campaign.  After the level limit was hit, the character could still be useful for a time, but the human members of the party would keep advancing.

Within a few adventures, those characters without level limits would outstrip the demi-humans in ability.  The demi-humans could no longer offer anything to the game.  What options were then available?

One option Gary offers is that players are so plentiful that the GM should just have the outleveled demi-human players make up new 1st level characters and merge them into a brand new campaign, while he continues running the higher level party on another day.  Gary was truly a lifetime gamer.  This solution isn't really practical for those of us who only have one group and like to do things other than play D&D.

The next option is to simply tell the player, "goodbye."  Considering these are often our friends who we WANT to do things with, that isn't a very appealling option.

Another possibility is to have the player make up a new character.  Keep in mind though that this is old school D&D.  Making up a character at a higher level than 1st is a big no-no.  If the 6th level character couldn't contribute anything, then what fucking good is a 1st level newbie character?

The final option was to scrap the entire campaign and start over.  This would only piss off everyone.  "I don't want to start a new campaign just because the pussy dwarf got outleveled!"

And who was really going to want to abandon a character they had spent so much time on?  

The rule is pretty much designed to short circuit a campaign.  That's it's only purpose.  It doesn't address any "balance" whatsoever.  It's just a generally shittastic rule.

Gabriel2, my experience was quite different from yours.  Every group I played 1e AD&D in observed racial level limits.  It didn't 'ruin' our campaigns, and actually did serve a 'balance' function by making human PCs more attractive (which was its purpose, viz., to maintain a 'human-centric' setting).  Of course, almost every demi-human character was a multi-class thief (I don't think anyone ever played a human thief!)...  

In any case, your rant against demi-level limits in AD&D is rather tangential to this thread, which is about the RC.  Thanks to 'attack ranks', the RC effectively did not have 'hard' level limits (i.e., an Elf with 3 million experience points was still useful when compared to a Fighter with 3 million experience points).

Quote from: jeff37923;305032I just use the Basic Custom Class Template system by Scott Ludwig...

That's a good system, but I personally prefer the more fine-grained system found in an old issue of Dragon (#109 or 117, iirc).

Quote from: Soylent Green;305094I kind of prefer the simple, iconic combined classes and races of basic D&D...

I run Basic/RC D&D so infrequently these days that I generally find the core classes more than adequate.

For a quick-fix, call your 'Human' Fighter a 'Dwarf' Fighter, modify (Or get the GM to) the stats a bit and role-play.

Quote from: Akrasia;305120That's a good system, but I personally prefer the more fine-grained system found in an old issue of Dragon (#109 or 117, iirc).

Now I've got something to look up today. Cool!

Jeff Rients had some unusual ideas on this one, but unfortunately, as of yet he hasn't fleshed them out.

At least it inspired me to put Elven bakers as an alchemist variant into my FtA! setting... and to play an Elve with a bakery background in a "you're all village kids"-Red-Box-game last convention.

...That, actually, makes a lot of sense. If you're going for simplicity, why would a Dwarf Warrior be the same as a Human Fighter?

Maybe trade the extra attacks for more damage? Some sort of berzerk? Damage bonus depending on number of dead allies?

...More damage depending on how much gold he has?