Quote from: HappyDaze;999113The AD&D (1e) Bard was a mess.

Fortunately it was nearly impossible to roll the needed scores and achieve the needed levels to become a hard so it was always a moot point when I used to play AD&D. You were better off playing a fighter and strapping on a lute  and calling yourself a bard or minstrel or whatever.

Quote from: Elfdart;998333I love kung-fu movies as much as the next guy (Black Belt Jones is one of my all-time favorite movies) but I think both the monk and ranger are pretty retarded. They should just be fighters and if the player wants their fighter to use his bare hands and no armor, or roam the wilderness looking for humanoids to kill, they can do so.

[video=youtube;APTdjG6Xo9A]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APTdjG6Xo9A[/youtube]

The badguys were better martial artists than BB!  I LOVE IT!

Quote from: tenbones;998371Post D&D 2e - The Fighter

3e- most of the classes and PrC's outside of the core book.
4e - all of them.
5e - Warlock. Eldritch Knight, Sorcerer, Druid.

Knives out, boys. Let's do this.

*Stands with and gets the great sword.*

Quote from: Dumarest;999114Fortunately it was nearly impossible to roll the needed scores and achieve the needed levels to become a hard so it was always a moot point when I used to play AD&D. You were better off playing a fighter and strapping on a lute  and calling yourself a bard or minstrel or whatever.

Is a "hard" a specialty class for a tougher bard?

Quote from: Dumarest;999114Fortunately it was nearly impossible to roll the needed scores and achieve the needed levels to become a hard so it was always a moot point when I used to play AD&D. You were better off playing a fighter and strapping on a lute  and calling yourself a bard or minstrel or whatever.

True of the Paladin as well yet there were lots of Paladins at tables. Almost as if the 3d6 rolled in order claims were BS.

Quote from: Voros;999131True of the Paladin as well yet there were lots of Paladins at tables. Almost as if the 3d6 rolled in order claims were BS.

3d6 in order Paladins existed, just rare as fuck.  3d6 in order 18/00's...anything's possible.  People win the lottery all the time. I've rolled a god-awful amount of PCs and NPCs though and the only 18/00 was a 4d6 arrange.

Personally I think for OD&D 3d6 in order or 3d6 arrange is fine.  Basic can do either I guess, but once you hit AD&D1, 4d6 in order or 4d6 arrange is probably "better" as you'll get a better chance to actually use the whole stat table and rarer classes.

Yeah but my point is that Paladin weren't rare at any of the tables I saw. So many people were obviously not using 3d6 in order, claims to the contrary since notwithstanding.

I have no idea what others did at their tables.

I have had exactly 2 Paladins rolled up at my table.

Considering how fucking powerful they are, that's a good thing.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;998626Actually, the one that doesn't really fit into Sword and Sorcery literature, from the very dawn of D&D, is the Cleric. You just don't get that many fictional Cleric types in fantasy literature. In my ideal system, there would be these four base classes: Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Wizard.....with the Ranger taking the role as a healer and auxiliary fighter just as per the Cleric in many respects. In many D&D editions, indeed, I feel that the Ranger struggles with it's core identity largely because it had it's niche taken from it.

   You have a point, although the Ranger also suffers from trying to decide whether it wants to be Aragorn or Robin Hood. I'd rather go back to some of Gygax' inspiration and refluff the cleric/ranger as Knights Templar (who were not priests, although they took monastic vows), Rangers of the North/the Rim , vampire hunters, and/or Jedi. Basically, any group of healers/mystic warriors without the religious baggage, especially once Supplement IV introduced pagan religions and started the drift towards Neutralist Symbiotic Henotheism.

  But of the classic D&D classes, the monk still stands out for me if only because the mental image of someone using a punch against plate armor jars me most.

Quote from: Bren;999124Is a "hard" a specialty class for a tougher bard?

Heck, my phone wants to turn "pickle" into "Portland," we're  lucky, at least it rhymed with the original word.

And yes, it's the hard-ass bard who beats down hecklers. You need higher Strength and Constitution to qualify.

Quote from: Voros;999131True of the Paladin as well yet there were lots of Paladins at tables. Almost as if the 3d6 rolled in order claims were BS.

I believe it. I mean, I always manage to roll 18/00 Strength for my fighters. Someday there will be a witness.

Quote from: Voros;999133Yeah but my point is that Paladin weren't rare at any of the tables I saw. So many people were obviously not using 3d6 in order, claims to the contrary since notwithstanding.

So you're claiming that...

1. Paladins were not rare at ANY of the tables you physically saw.
2. People claim they used 3d6 in order.

You realize that unless the people you're fighting with on the internet these days somehow happen to be the same people you once saw playing, those two things have nothing to do with each other, right?  

For example, Gronan, one of the grogs you're probably lumping into this group of liars you're concocting, claims 3d6 in order and only two paladins.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;998217Original D&D was meant first and foremost to be a GAME!

So, yeah, if you want Franciscans running around doing flying kung-fu kicks, go for it!

Crom, now I have an idea for different techniques available for Franciscans, Cistercians, Benedictines...

This guy gets it.

I like the Monk class, and in a campaign setting I had an idea for, Monks were styled like a mix between Professional Wrestlers and MMA Fighters. Essentially WWE meets UFC with a bit of Street Fighter and Dead or Alive thrown in for good measure.

A class only doesn't fit a game if you don't want it to. D&D is first and foremost a fantasy game (emphasis on game) and so if you want Kung Fu monks in a faux Medieval European setting, I say go for it!

I did roll a dwarf fighter with 18/00 Strength once, 4d6 method unwitnessed and actually just rolled in the stack of characters rolled up for the heck of it so he was picked out of maybe a dozen other characters in the same stack and it's hardly the only stack of those I've ever rolled and it's the only time I've rolled it.  The DM let me play him any how.  I'd have accepted rerolling the 00.  Grungi Hassenbrath, a Dwarf raised by Gnolls based on a Dragon Magazine Ecology article.  Wore chainmail he'd squeezed a man out of and wielded a morning star made from a fence post run through with iron spikes and bound with flayed flesh, never bathed.  He died, don't remember how really, we were only second or third level and on a spell jamming ship.  Elves I think.  It happens.

One option I used sometimes with second edition was 3d6 in order and start at third level or 4d6 take the best three and put them where you want and start at first level.  I might go back to that.  Fifth edition plays well enough but somehow it's a disappointment I think all that balancing just winds up bland and uninspiring a lot of the time.

I still hate monks though I've got a bad case of post eighties post ninjafication traumatic stress disorder.

Quote from: CRKrueger;999184For example, Gronan, one of the grogs you're probably lumping into this group of liars you're concocting, claims 3d6 in order and only two paladins.

Man you're a borderline mental case.

Do you think I was gaming with grognards in the 80s? Course not, nothing of what I said has to do with Gronan you manchild.