I had a DM who would not let me play a Bard but finally let me play a Jester. I had an absolute blast and the rest of the table loved the character, the climax of the adventure I was able to hit the evil Sorcereress with a Pie and with a inappropriate quip I managed to break her concentration and fouled up her gate spell...also became the focus of all her attacks (huzzah for tumbling) 😅
2nd ed used kits extensively to introduce class variants. They were relatively small packages on top of an existing one, creating a quick variant class. Usually by giving you a handful of free proficiencies and adding or changing an ability. At the cost of locking in your proficiencies or adding a roleplaying obstacle.
Your videos have inspired me to pick up a bunch of books for OSE and try to run it for my first in-person game. I love how lean the rules are compared to modern systems, and all the old material made over thirty years that's so easy to thatch onto it. Very excited to start in the next couple of months. Thank you for all the GMing advice, recommendations, and history lessons over the past couple of months, they've been very enlightening and entertaining.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! Just seeing that you've been inspired by my videos really makes my day. I really appreciate that. Thank you!
Oh man, I remember back with my college group, had a dm who LOVED dragon magazine , and we played a lot of them. I myself played a cloistered cleric based on Philip the Mouse from Ladyhawke, a duelist with a snotty attitude, and a Half-Ogre who actually did well and the whole group had fun with him! :) Gods I miss those days, thanks for the reminders! :)
Those all sound like such fun characters! I remember after seeing "Ladyhawke" in the theater with my mom and sister, I immediately came home and began to detail all three main characters as what I thought their D&D classes would be. I made Phillippe a Thief and Navarre a Cavalier. I think Isabeau I made as a Fighter (because that was the most "generic" class I could think of, other than making her a 0-level Human). Glad you enjoyed the video, and thank you so much for watching and commenting!
The Deathmaster was my favorite of the Dragon classes! The 2E DMG had a chart that allowed you to make your own character class mods and combos! I made a "spellcasting bandit" character for my forest gnome, Could only cast illusion school spells and had Climb walls, move silent, hide in shadow and pick pockets!
It's one of my favorites as well, as it was the first AD&D class I ever saw that wasn't in the Player's Handbook! So, I have some nostalgia for it. Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 I was a much bigger fan of the duelist. The death master was a little too fiddly and limited. The duelist conversely was a great counterpoint to both the barbarian and cavalier as they appeared in Dragon. While I do understand why it's a class that's geared toward lower classes in the game---it doesn't jibe with the fencing schools they are based on. The fencing masters and students of those schools were either nobility or very well-to-do. My next two favorites in this Best of Dragon, were the bandit and bounty hunter. The whole half-ogre was also a lot of fun.
My friend thank you for all the consistently amazing content! I am currently making the rounds commenting out of the carb induced holidays. I have liked, literally and in youtube sense, everything you've done this year! If I think of more relevant comments, I'll add them!
There are some really interesting ideas back in the day. I'm a brand new 5e dm but I'm always looking at older editions, see what I can add to my games.
That is such a great way to approach things, and I applaud you, *especially* as a new DM, that you're looking beyond current materials to improve your game. There is a ton of stuff out there, both from prior editions but also from 3rd parties that are system/edition neutral or even for other games, that are so useful for inspirations and ideas. That's a big theme on my blog - that inspiration can come from anywhere. Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I'd love to hear how your DM'ing is going if you're willing to share. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 Sure! So while preparing I wanted a good hook before starting 5e's Lost Mines of Phandelver since everyone online was saying it was important to connect an NPC to the players. I ended up finding AD&D's 4N Treasure Hunt. We ended up playing that, with my players at level 0, and switched out the DMPC for that adventure with the NPC I needed for Phandelver. Went better than I expected. I'm also looking into AD&D Non-Proficiency skills, give more options during character creation. One video talking about non proficiencies gave me the idea of a Wizard who because he came from a family of log cutters was stronger and hardier than the average wizard and had a proficiency with axes.
I love the Ralph Bakshi LotR, and Leonard Rosenman's soundtrack is a favorite, which I have used as both inspiration and background session music many times! 😁
The bounty hunting class sounds interesting enough. It could support its own game outside of Dungeons and Dragons. But the bandit does sound like it could've become a classical D&D class along with barbarian.
While I like the idea of the Bandit and Bounty Hunter, these days I think they could just as easily be created by either playing a multi-class Fighter/Thief or a Ranger and then roleplaying it the right way. That said, I really do love creating new classes! I guess you could call it a love-hate relationship with classes!
Thank you so much! I appreciate you watching and commenting! Throughout the decades, I have often homebrewed stuff only to later see an article or game published that used a lot of the same ideas!
Ha! Yes! Very early on in one of my videos, I mentioned the name Roger Moore and I put a picture of James Bond on the screen with a caption that said, "No, not THAT Roger Moore." But nobody said anything!!! 😀
@@daddyrolleda1 I may have missed it, cause I'm guilty of listening to these videos when I'm either trying to sleep or am playing something mellow on my computer. Now I gotta go back and find that!
You may want to get your hands on some of the arduin stuff. I remember my friend used a lot of that weirdness early on. Strange classes that sort of fit but often were far more powerful.
Arguments over how many classes the game should have, and which ones they should be, are as old as the game having supplements. I well recall the outcry and contoversy over the 1e Unearthed Arcana, and though it was before my time, I've no doubt folks argued the Thief class was an unnecessary addition to the original Fighting-Men, Magic-Users, and Clerics.
Definitely - I think it could be a lot of fun for a later-era style of game, although I always thought it was strange that it was limited to the lower social classes.
I like the addition of the recipe to the bonus content! It might be hard to find the liqueur, but I’ll check it out if I ever see it. It might be worth creating sanctioned links to the music you feature, if that’s possible?
My first step is always "Does an existing class do the thing I want?" Instead of an archer class, I might just give a fighter a rifle and think "These chaps have attack bonus with all weapons including missiles, job's done". Then I can move on to something I can't find an equivalent of. Making up a class has been easier than dealing with multiclassing. Skill-based BRP games can still have roles. A PC can have a sphere of skills complementing eachother. BRP is built so you can't be good at everything. Chaosium suggested that at least 60% is necessary to work professionally with a skill. A soldier or a thief or a professor doesn't have a single defining skill, they got a sphere or field. Shadowrun suggested set team roles. The drone/ECM dude, the shooter, the infiltrator, the face, the spellcaster etc. A PC who wants to measure up against the challenges you throw at them will probably specialize in one role, double up in two close ones (like a drone dude/hacker or face/spellcaster) or have one main role and dabble in a couple. Sometimes the crew itself has a focus, you are a paramilitary team and all of you have skills with paramilitary weapons. Or all of you are spies, all of you can sneak into a place.
Speaking of classes, what’s your opinion on the “class kits”. These became huge during 2nd edition, and are prevalent in the specific books about classes.
Thanks for watching and commenting! I do mention kits in this video toward the very end in which I discuss how some of the ideas from the classes in this book became Kits in 2E (and some are also now backgrounds in 5E but I didn't call that out in the video). I think the *idea* of kits was a good one, as it allowed for a bit of customization and, in the same way that a new class can do (as I discuss in the video), they also help define the aesthetic of the campaign world. What I didn't like about some of the kits were that they started to become excuses to add a bunch of abilities with little or no hindrances, to the point that *not* having a kit was detrimental. It was a form of "power creep" and I didn't like that. I use the idea of kits in the 1981 B/X Game I run for my daughter, but they're done more for flavor versus mechanical benefits. There are a bunch on my blog if you're interested - just search for the "Subclass" label.
@@daddyrolleda1 ok I will. I’m not a fan of kits, never was. I thought they became way over powered and too many abilities for what the class is, like you said. That said I do play in a 2e game that we run kits, and it’s cool but still a little too OP for me.
Very interesting video. I have never heard of the Jester class, it's very interesting and I might consider making it a class in my game. It has a Disc World feel to it. In terms of the general class discussion at the beginning. I pretty much agree with you I find many classes interesting but I feel you need to be very sure about which ones fit in your milieu (to use a Gygax word). So having interesting and unique classes is good and just the right amount, I do not like a kitchen sink where every class is available makes the world feel boring and is very "Matrix" min-max thinking. I will add that I absolutely hate multi-classing and think it is one of the worst things to happen to D&D. Why have a class system if you are going to undermine it with multi-classing? It's the worst form of soulless min-maxing because it's never done for story reasons or character motivation reasons it's always for more power. If you want to change class that's possible, your fighter had a religious awakening and feels connected to the Gods make him a Paladin. Multi-classing leads to people unironically talking about and even worse making TH-cam videos about their "build", here is my build guide bro! I just really hate when people make this just a numbers game. If you just want a big number then write whatever you want on a piece of paper and just stare at it but stay away from my game.
Some of the shift away archetypes to mechanics based classes has paralleled D&D's move from genre emulation to becoming *self referential*. (Super) heroic fantasy combat simulation is now its own thing.
I love a good selection of Classes, and even Combo Classes (like the Beguiler) from 3.5e. That said--I totally think the most important issue is to maintain the distinction between classes.
In Pathfinder 2e, the Cloistered Cleric is one of the two "doctrines" (essentially specialization paths) a cleric can choose from, being much more focused on spellcasting than the Warpriest.
It's so much fun to see how these ideas that have been around for decades are still being used in modern game design! I played a ton of Pathfinder 1E but never made the jump to 2E. The change to that edition happened around the same time I decided to "go backwards" and run 1981 B/X for my daughter's game.
Kits and specialty wizards were great in 2e. If players need the game to provide options though, they volumtarily limit their creativity. TPG companies market to the mundane and uneducated masses to make money which works in the highlt uneducated, lazy, and ignorant US masses. As for 5e, they also have multiple classes, they just hide it from nonsentient players that do not recognize it.
I'm surprised you didn't cover Phil Foglio's take on the Jester in the "What's New" comic in one of the Dragon Magazine April issues. Also I'm surprised that WoC hasn't made an official College of Jesters for 5e. 3rd Lvl gain Acrobatics, Slight of Hand, and Performance as skills if you don't already have it. Pratfall: (3rd lvl) You can use a Bardic Inspiration to attract an attack being made against another character towards you; you add your Bardic Inspiration die to your AC. Controlled Chaos: (6th lvl) You gain Vicious Mockery and Expeditious Retreat as additional spells; Your mind is peculiar in that it embraces madness--you are resistant to psychic attacks and take half damage or no damage from such attacks. Punfighter: You can use a bad joke to taunt an opponent; you can use a Bardic Inspiration point to force a Will save, if they fail they take a Bardic Inspiration die plus your Proficiency plus Charisma modifier in damage. The target is at a disadvantage on Attack rolls until your next turn.
Interesting to listen to, I never could understand the obsession with classes; give 4 players a fighter with mail and shield armour, a sword and dagger, (as an example) they will play 'the same character' 4 different ways, allow for (or factor in) stat variations = more variety. However the play concept variations (world development) should be allowed through npc interaction, this should cost the player time and gold pieces (or in exchange for a service....) these are the thing that drive the narrative.... The Cloistered Cleric: as soon as I heard it metioned I thought of the novels by Ellis Peters featuring her character Brother Cadfael. These novel were very popular in the 80's 90's even becomming a tv series (I avoided that), if it is something that passyou by maybe take another look.
At the time we thought these were so cool, but looking back, most of them are pretty lame and/or niche. Like do people seriously want to play a freakin' clown? I think those work best in profession/skill games like Warhammer.
I had a DM who would not let me play a Bard but finally let me play a Jester. I had an absolute blast and the rest of the table loved the character, the climax of the adventure I was able to hit the evil Sorcereress with a Pie and with a inappropriate quip I managed to break her concentration and fouled up her gate spell...also became the focus of all her attacks (huzzah for tumbling) 😅
I bought this off the rack when published, and still have it! I even convinced my DM to let me play a duelist.
That Duelist was intriguing.
2nd ed used kits extensively to introduce class variants. They were relatively small packages on top of an existing one, creating a quick variant class. Usually by giving you a handful of free proficiencies and adding or changing an ability. At the cost of locking in your proficiencies or adding a roleplaying obstacle.
Your videos have inspired me to pick up a bunch of books for OSE and try to run it for my first in-person game. I love how lean the rules are compared to modern systems, and all the old material made over thirty years that's so easy to thatch onto it. Very excited to start in the next couple of months. Thank you for all the GMing advice, recommendations, and history lessons over the past couple of months, they've been very enlightening and entertaining.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! Just seeing that you've been inspired by my videos really makes my day. I really appreciate that. Thank you!
Oh man, I remember back with my college group, had a dm who LOVED dragon magazine , and we played a lot of them. I myself played a cloistered cleric based on Philip the Mouse from Ladyhawke, a duelist with a snotty attitude, and a Half-Ogre who actually did well and the whole group had fun with him! :) Gods I miss those days, thanks for the reminders! :)
Those all sound like such fun characters! I remember after seeing "Ladyhawke" in the theater with my mom and sister, I immediately came home and began to detail all three main characters as what I thought their D&D classes would be. I made Phillippe a Thief and Navarre a Cavalier. I think Isabeau I made as a Fighter (because that was the most "generic" class I could think of, other than making her a 0-level Human).
Glad you enjoyed the video, and thank you so much for watching and commenting!
I remember the Jester was by far the class most requested to be used for PCs, probably even more than the Anti-Paladin (IMO)
They were *so* popular! I honestly was never that into them back in the day, but looking back on them decades later, I see the appeal.
@@daddyrolleda1 Yeah. I don't remember any of my friends playing one in a long term campaign. I'd imagine that would get pretty annoying.
The Deathmaster was my favorite of the Dragon classes!
The 2E DMG had a chart that allowed you to make your own character class mods and combos! I made a "spellcasting bandit" character for my forest gnome, Could only cast illusion school spells and had Climb walls, move silent, hide in shadow and pick pockets!
It's one of my favorites as well, as it was the first AD&D class I ever saw that wasn't in the Player's Handbook! So, I have some nostalgia for it.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 I was a much bigger fan of the duelist. The death master was a little too fiddly and limited. The duelist conversely was a great counterpoint to both the barbarian and cavalier as they appeared in Dragon. While I do understand why it's a class that's geared toward lower classes in the game---it doesn't jibe with the fencing schools they are based on. The fencing masters and students of those schools were either nobility or very well-to-do. My next two favorites in this Best of Dragon, were the bandit and bounty hunter. The whole half-ogre was also a lot of fun.
My friend thank you for all the consistently amazing content! I am currently making the rounds commenting out of the carb induced holidays. I have liked, literally and in youtube sense, everything you've done this year! If I think of more relevant comments, I'll add them!
There are some really interesting ideas back in the day. I'm a brand new 5e dm but I'm always looking at older editions, see what I can add to my games.
That is such a great way to approach things, and I applaud you, *especially* as a new DM, that you're looking beyond current materials to improve your game. There is a ton of stuff out there, both from prior editions but also from 3rd parties that are system/edition neutral or even for other games, that are so useful for inspirations and ideas. That's a big theme on my blog - that inspiration can come from anywhere.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting! I'd love to hear how your DM'ing is going if you're willing to share. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 Sure! So while preparing I wanted a good hook before starting 5e's Lost Mines of Phandelver since everyone online was saying it was important to connect an NPC to the players. I ended up finding AD&D's 4N Treasure Hunt. We ended up playing that, with my players at level 0, and switched out the DMPC for that adventure with the NPC I needed for Phandelver. Went better than I expected. I'm also looking into AD&D Non-Proficiency skills, give more options during character creation. One video talking about non proficiencies gave me the idea of a Wizard who because he came from a family of log cutters was stronger and hardier than the average wizard and had a proficiency with axes.
@@FoolsGil This is a great way to begin.
I love the Ralph Bakshi LotR, and Leonard Rosenman's soundtrack is a favorite, which I have used as both inspiration and background session music many times! 😁
The bounty hunting class sounds interesting enough. It could support its own game outside of Dungeons and Dragons. But the bandit does sound like it could've become a classical D&D class along with barbarian.
While I like the idea of the Bandit and Bounty Hunter, these days I think they could just as easily be created by either playing a multi-class Fighter/Thief or a Ranger and then roleplaying it the right way. That said, I really do love creating new classes! I guess you could call it a love-hate relationship with classes!
Great Stuff! Thanks for this. Once upon a time I had all the Best of Dragon volumes.
Great job 👏🏻 was one of my favorite issues way back when. Funny forgot how alike my concept was for my necromancer versus the DeathMaster 👍🏻
Thank you so much! I appreciate you watching and commenting!
Throughout the decades, I have often homebrewed stuff only to later see an article or game published that used a lot of the same ideas!
Every time I hear about Roger E. Moore, I always think of the James Bond actor lol
Ha! Yes!
Very early on in one of my videos, I mentioned the name Roger Moore and I put a picture of James Bond on the screen with a caption that said, "No, not THAT Roger Moore." But nobody said anything!!! 😀
@@daddyrolleda1 I may have missed it, cause I'm guilty of listening to these videos when I'm either trying to sleep or am playing something mellow on my computer. Now I gotta go back and find that!
I wish I could remember which one it was so I could let you know!
You may want to get your hands on some of the arduin stuff. I remember my friend used a lot of that weirdness early on. Strange classes that sort of fit but often were far more powerful.
Arguments over how many classes the game should have, and which ones they should be, are as old as the game having supplements. I well recall the outcry and contoversy over the 1e Unearthed Arcana, and though it was before my time, I've no doubt folks argued the Thief class was an unnecessary addition to the original Fighting-Men, Magic-Users, and Clerics.
Woooooo Hoooo here it is.... Jester is back! I played one of these for a little while and retired him. It was fun to try something different.
Duelist sounds like a fun class to play if you want to be any of the male characters in Romeo and Juliet.
Definitely - I think it could be a lot of fun for a later-era style of game, although I always thought it was strange that it was limited to the lower social classes.
I like the addition of the recipe to the bonus content! It might be hard to find the liqueur, but I’ll check it out if I ever see it. It might be worth creating sanctioned links to the music you feature, if that’s possible?
Thanks for the reading
You're welcome! Thank you for watching and commenting!
Would love to have you cover the avenger class. The first D&D I ever played was the 4e version of the class and it gave me a great love of the game
I would like the Jester class and role-play as Cicero from *Skyrim*
My first step is always "Does an existing class do the thing I want?" Instead of an archer class, I might just give a fighter a rifle and think "These chaps have attack bonus with all weapons including missiles, job's done". Then I can move on to something I can't find an equivalent of. Making up a class has been easier than dealing with multiclassing.
Skill-based BRP games can still have roles. A PC can have a sphere of skills complementing eachother. BRP is built so you can't be good at everything. Chaosium suggested that at least 60% is necessary to work professionally with a skill. A soldier or a thief or a professor doesn't have a single defining skill, they got a sphere or field.
Shadowrun suggested set team roles. The drone/ECM dude, the shooter, the infiltrator, the face, the spellcaster etc. A PC who wants to measure up against the challenges you throw at them will probably specialize in one role, double up in two close ones (like a drone dude/hacker or face/spellcaster) or have one main role and dabble in a couple. Sometimes the crew itself has a focus, you are a paramilitary team and all of you have skills with paramilitary weapons. Or all of you are spies, all of you can sneak into a place.
Speaking of classes, what’s your opinion on the “class kits”. These became huge during 2nd edition, and are prevalent in the specific books about classes.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
I do mention kits in this video toward the very end in which I discuss how some of the ideas from the classes in this book became Kits in 2E (and some are also now backgrounds in 5E but I didn't call that out in the video).
I think the *idea* of kits was a good one, as it allowed for a bit of customization and, in the same way that a new class can do (as I discuss in the video), they also help define the aesthetic of the campaign world. What I didn't like about some of the kits were that they started to become excuses to add a bunch of abilities with little or no hindrances, to the point that *not* having a kit was detrimental. It was a form of "power creep" and I didn't like that.
I use the idea of kits in the 1981 B/X Game I run for my daughter, but they're done more for flavor versus mechanical benefits. There are a bunch on my blog if you're interested - just search for the "Subclass" label.
@@daddyrolleda1 ok I will. I’m not a fan of kits, never was. I thought they became way over powered and too many abilities for what the class is, like you said. That said I do play in a 2e game that we run kits, and it’s cool but still a little too OP for me.
Banger 🔥
Super cool LP \m/
Yeah, it's really fun! My friend gave it to me with a few other fun records that I'll be showing in the future.
First. Love these videos.
Thank you very much! I really appreciate you letting me know. Cheers, and Happy New Year!
Very interesting video. I have never heard of the Jester class, it's very interesting and I might consider making it a class in my game. It has a Disc World feel to it.
In terms of the general class discussion at the beginning. I pretty much agree with you I find many classes interesting but I feel you need to be very sure about which ones fit in your milieu (to use a Gygax word). So having interesting and unique classes is good and just the right amount, I do not like a kitchen sink where every class is available makes the world feel boring and is very "Matrix" min-max thinking.
I will add that I absolutely hate multi-classing and think it is one of the worst things to happen to D&D. Why have a class system if you are going to undermine it with multi-classing? It's the worst form of soulless min-maxing because it's never done for story reasons or character motivation reasons it's always for more power. If you want to change class that's possible, your fighter had a religious awakening and feels connected to the Gods make him a Paladin. Multi-classing leads to people unironically talking about and even worse making TH-cam videos about their "build", here is my build guide bro!
I just really hate when people make this just a numbers game. If you just want a big number then write whatever you want on a piece of paper and just stare at it but stay away from my game.
Do you *only* do videos on D&D?
🎇
Some of the shift away archetypes to mechanics based classes has paralleled D&D's move from genre emulation to becoming *self referential*.
(Super) heroic fantasy combat simulation is now its own thing.
Better to create a system that alliws players to build their own classes...like HiBRiD
I love a good selection of Classes, and even Combo Classes (like the Beguiler) from 3.5e.
That said--I totally think the most important issue is to maintain the distinction between classes.
In Pathfinder 2e, the Cloistered Cleric is one of the two "doctrines" (essentially specialization paths) a cleric can choose from, being much more focused on spellcasting than the Warpriest.
It's so much fun to see how these ideas that have been around for decades are still being used in modern game design! I played a ton of Pathfinder 1E but never made the jump to 2E. The change to that edition happened around the same time I decided to "go backwards" and run 1981 B/X for my daughter's game.
_🐅
Art is beautiful index are communial
Kits and specialty wizards were great in 2e. If players need the game to provide options though, they volumtarily limit their creativity. TPG companies market to the mundane and uneducated masses to make money which works in the highlt uneducated, lazy, and ignorant US masses. As for 5e, they also have multiple classes, they just hide it from nonsentient players that do not recognize it.
I'm surprised you didn't cover Phil Foglio's take on the Jester in the "What's New" comic in one of the Dragon Magazine April issues. Also I'm surprised that WoC hasn't made an official College of Jesters for 5e. 3rd Lvl gain Acrobatics, Slight of Hand, and Performance as skills if you don't already have it. Pratfall: (3rd lvl) You can use a Bardic Inspiration to attract an attack being made against another character towards you; you add your Bardic Inspiration die to your AC. Controlled Chaos: (6th lvl) You gain Vicious Mockery and Expeditious Retreat as additional spells; Your mind is peculiar in that it embraces madness--you are resistant to psychic attacks and take half damage or no damage from such attacks. Punfighter: You can use a bad joke to taunt an opponent; you can use a Bardic Inspiration point to force a Will save, if they fail they take a Bardic Inspiration die plus your Proficiency plus Charisma modifier in damage. The target is at a disadvantage on Attack rolls until your next turn.
Interesting to listen to, I never could understand the obsession with classes; give 4 players a fighter with mail and shield armour, a sword and dagger, (as an example) they will play 'the same character' 4 different ways, allow for (or factor in) stat variations = more variety. However the play concept variations (world development) should be allowed through npc interaction, this should cost the player time and gold pieces (or in exchange for a service....) these are the thing that drive the narrative....
The Cloistered Cleric: as soon as I heard it metioned I thought of the novels by Ellis Peters featuring her character Brother Cadfael. These novel were very popular in the 80's 90's even becomming a tv series (I avoided that), if it is something that passyou by maybe take another look.
At the time we thought these were so cool, but looking back, most of them are pretty lame and/or niche. Like do people seriously want to play a freakin' clown? I think those work best in profession/skill games like Warhammer.