Ahhh--the old anti-paladin. This takes me back. In the 90s, back when I had one I modeled after Ted Bundy. He was a recurring villain from level 1 to level 12, and they really hated him. My players were cheering when they finally killed him. There were truly high fives around the room.
@@jonothanthrace1530 It was a lot of fun, and before that death, would leave tell tale signs that Sir Oswald Bloodbane was afoot---and in all likelihood operating under an alias. And you could just see the dread settle in on the players. There are a lot of videos out there on "how to make an unforgettable villain," and it goes into complex goals, motives, backstory. Oswald Bloodbane was so terrible that none of the players would have cared about any of that. He just needed to die. Even Drow in my world were impressed by Oswald Bloodbane, and they considered him a true artist. Sometimes they would get the upper hand and he would barley escape, or he would get the advantage of the situation and they would have to flee.
There was a later article, in Dragon #106, 1986, called A Plethora of Paladins. This provided a class for each of the 9 alignments. Paladin for LG, Anti-paladin for CE etc. I used an Illrigger (LE) and a Paramandyr (a violent variant of the True Neutral Paramander) as NPCs.
Yes! I loved that article so much! In fact, wait until you get to this part of the video: th-cam.com/video/YtbS9FX0FbU/w-d-xo.htmlsi=ETvPT70wEuUmfJH_&t=1322 I started reading Dragon with issue #76 but began subscribing with #90 and kept that up until the last print issue, #359. Thank you very much for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1I never really liked those other-alignment Paladins. To me, a Paladin wasn't just a fighter with cleric powers, but a class modeled after the Carolingian/Arthurian Knights, so LG alignment was part and parcel of it. I'd rather just have clerics with sharp weapons (which was also mentioned in another issue of *Dragon* at one point). If they work for your campaign concept, though, I say go for it.
The kind of History Class I like to attend to. Regarding the Berserk, the best approach in the OSR scene was designed for "Hyperboria" (former "Astonishing Sorcerers & Swordsmen of Hyperborea").
i remember when i first started playing AD&D 2nd edition in the late 90's, i absolutely adored Dragon Magazine. it was filled with so much cool stuff. new classes, settings lore etc and my favorite bit: knights of the dinner table comic strips
Having been introduced to D&D only through 5e it’s cool to see the history of the game from older editions and how that shaped what I know of the game today! I discovered this channel through the recommendations tab on TH-cam after I looked up video reviews for old game modules for Basic D&D and lore videos on old school monsters of D&D
In some D&D games my dad ran for me & my brother, he had an Anti-Paladin named Sir Snively Whiplash as a recurring villain. He of course had a curly mustache that he would twirl as he taunted us.
Such an interesting coincidence that I was just looking at the Anti-Paladin article less than 24 hours ago, as it's where I'm up to in my current read through of the Dragon from start to finish!
I love your historical vids, especially the Classes ones. YES by all means keep doing these. I began Playing in 1979 and became the forever DM around 1985. Today I am trying to recapture the OSR "feel" without the requisite "epic powers" of modern Classes but more versatile than the austere Classes of yesteryear. I enjoy hearing your comments about the old Classes and the general history of the game as it relates to the Class being developed or included in the game. Its always informative, but you also bring a nearly perfect amount of personal touch to it as well. So, thank you and please keep making these vids.
I think I know the tone you're talking about. It's what I call a heroic gritty campaign setting. I don't know if you're familiar with the Skills and Powers Player's Options, including Combat and Tactics and Spells and Magic, which came out in the late 90s, but it's something I've really come to like. It's basically D&D inspired by GURPS, allowing a player to purchase class abilities with character points. I use that in combination with a blend of 1st and 2nd edition rules in character creation. It's much more grounded than the modern feats system, which always seemed to me to create characters that belong in anime or video games rather than mythical & historical heroic fantasy or classic sword and sorcery. (I never made the leap to third edition for that reason) 5e seems to double and triple down on everything I didn't want in character creation. Couple that with death same mechanics, long and short rests---you have a table top simulation of a video game. That's not what I want out of D&D. It takes work the part of the DM, especially if you decide to use class abilities not listed in the Skills and Powers published books, because you have to balance the ability you're creating with the character point cost. But with a little work, you can create something like the Duelist class, (one of my all time favorites) from Dragon 73. Or you can create and elven blade singer from 2nd ed., just give the ability to both attack and parry in the same round a very high character point cost. You want to recreate specialized, warrior elite classes like the cavalier, barbarian, or Oriental Adventures's Samurai? Again assign character point costs to those special abilities, and character point class restrictions, and you can do it. And you can use those as models for creating other warrior elite types from all different cultures and mythos from around the world. It takes work and creativity, but it can be done. Whether it's a Spartan hoplite, a Persian Immortal, a Mongol or Turkish horse archer, or an Egyptian chariot archer, or the warrior elites from cultures such as the Mali empire or a Mezzo American civilization, with research into their mythical heroes and imagination, this can all be done and balanced out. This does make character creation is slow because it allows a player to tailor their character to their concept. And they have to make trade offs. That said, while it's complicated and crunchy in character creation, all the critical information a player needs in a combat situation can be distilled to a few numbers that are all on a single sheet of paper. So it's a lot of crunch under the hood, but a breeze to drive during game play.
It was the same in Early White Dwarf magazine 'new classes' Berserker,Demonist,Necromancer,Elementalist,Houri and Black Priest to mention a few! Great Video
An interesting class published in White Dwarf (Issue 24) was the Detective, written by Marcus Rowland. The class had some Thief abilities plus some unique spells, such as 'Reflect the Past' and 'Escapology'. I was never able to persuade any of my players to try the class, nor would any DM allow me to play one. 'Official classes only!' Oh well....
@@simonbeaird7436 I remember that one I allowed a player to be one but it turned out as a Detective-Acrobat the scenario was Eagle Hunt in WD40? That had Detective NPCs so the PC was a brother of one of them I just played it as a one shot!
Proper pronounciation of Gaelic has earned you a sub. Loved the combination of knowledge of D&D followed by the 'what am I drinking and listening to' section.
I am so glad to hear that! I try hard to learn how to pronounce this properly, especially when traveling, and I have had the privilege of having visited Scotland with my wife and a friend from Ireland a number of years ago, so I had some help from my friend and his Scottish friends in trying to perfect my pronunciation. Thank you for the support, and for watching and commenting. I'm glad you enjoy the "drinking and listening" section, as it's one of my favorites parts of the video to make.
Come to think of it, a history of the White Dwarf after you're done with Dragon magazine would be great too. It wasn't quite to the level of the U.S. magazine, but still a lot of really cool classes, monsters, and ideas.
I wrote a system for secondary skills. Each secondary skills consists of 3 attributes, which are added together. Then, divided by 3. This value is the success chance. A roll of 2 six sided dice for easy checks, 3 for normal, 4 and 5 dice for difficult checks. A roll equal too, or below the value is a success. If a normal person is assumed to have 10 for all attributes. Then, 0 level NPC has a secondary skill of 10. I made a list of accomplishments based on the number of required six sided dice rolled. There a few modifers that raise the rolled value, and others that raise the skill value. It appears to give consistent results and chance for success.
I always thought that the distinct character of the Paladin-style classes was diminished by allowing for every alignment. For me, it was only LG and LE that suited their nature. Lawful, because it meant they had to adhere to a knightly code, and Good or Evil, because it seemed silly to have a divine champion of the "middle ground." The very nature of the class relies on a pact between the Paladin and their diety, which in itself is inherently lawful, even more so than the relationship between a cleric and their god.
I love these history videos so much! You and Jordan Sorcery, also a newer youtuber who does warhammer history videos, are really catering to an under appreciated niche
This is great! I recall someone mentioning the Anti-Paladin when I was a new player in the late 80s / early 90s. I had a 1st and 2nd Edition PHB (we played a hybrid game) and I was familiar with "Basic" or "Classic" D&D. And I remember thinking "where the heck did you read that at?" Later, at my local hobby/pet store, I discovered Dragon Magazine, and figured it had to come from there. I never invested much into Dragon. My friends had some of them, and when you're a kid and minimum wage was 3 to 4 bucks an hour, you typically invested in trying to keep up with all the supplimental books. Thank you!
Aww man, you missed out. Dragon (and White Dwarf too) magazines were the best. Great art, great ideas, great stories and modules in there too. My parents' housekeeper was really nice to this nerdy little kid I was so she would often drive me to the hobby shop and spot me the $3 each month, when my dad expressly verbott it! lol
Great video. I’ve had this same magazine for 35 years at least and we used to have Samurai’s, Berserkers & Ninjas in our games. I’ve read this magazine so many times throughout the years. Thanks for posting.
I've had my copy almost as long! I loved all these different classes, but my DM at the time didn't allow any of them. I'm glad you enjoyed the video, and thank you for watching and commenting!
Dragon magazine was the best, man as a kid I ate that up (along with reading Tolkien, Ursula K LeGuin, Dune, etc). In my town no one played D&D so I made up the games in my head and would pour over the articles and dreamed up games in my head and made characters in the back of my school notebooks.
Anti-paladin created controversy in my after school group in 1981 or so, sparking a rash of PVP. In retrospect, kids can be cruel. I remember a Cloistered Cleric and an Oracle class. Not that they were special, just throwing it out there. The Cloistered Cleric was definitely more of an NPC class, and probably true for the Oracle, too.
In Baldur's Gate 1 Enhanced Edition, they added a new class and a companion who is a, guess what, Blackguard hahaha One of the titles of the Anti-Paladin, but named better
I remember when they used Blackguard as a Prestige Class in 3rd Edition! I always forget about the video game angle for stuff like this. I've never been much of a video gamer and I've never played any D&D licensed games, including any of the Baldur's Gate games. The last video game I played was Mario Kart on the Nintendo Switch with my daughter, in which she beat me handsomely!
Unaware of any of this, in my first few years in the hobby, late 80s, I proposed an alchemist class to my DM, coz it felt like such a heady medieval concept. In practice, it was really just a mage who threw magic rather than casting it, but I did make sure to slip in a slightly better hit die of d6 (I hated that d4 for magic users back then). :) Oh, would any of those Pogue tracks be suitable for game background music? I imagine folk-punk could work but it would depend.
I reckon a deep dive into individual classes would be fantastic. Honestly, I could listen to you endlessly; you're well informed and the history of the Sepia Age of Gaming is fascinating. If there was a University, you'd absolutely be on the faculty for history.
@@daddyrolleda1 I lived on a military base in Italy, one that was near the end of the supply line. Dragon 35, 38, 31...whatever we got we got. I used cute yard at $3/pop to get them.
When Dragon ended, I subscribed to Kobold Quarterly until it ended, and also checked out a few other magazines like Fight On! and Knockspell, but nothing really scratched the itch like those old issues of Dragon. Thanks for watching and commenting!
The player stuff is neat. But one thing I'd love to see, and that I never see anyone talking about, is good DM advise from these early publications. Whether Dragon, White Dwarf, or the smaller indie magazines.
I subscribed to your channel after watching a few of your videos today. They take me back to my teenage years in such an emotional way. Thank you so much for what you do.
I've been catching up on your videos, unfortunately life got in the way of regular viewing for a while. I love your deep dives into this game, as well as the running a game for your daughter and friends videos. The best way to improve your DM skills is to learn all the tips and tricks from those more experienced than you. I have found myself a better planner and note taker from watching your videos. I've got complacent in my old age and was working comfortably just improvising, with a few sketched out ideas, which allows for tremendous scope, but having a few detailed markers I can lean on has made my life much easier, plus it means I don't have to remember that random shopkeeper whose name I made up on the fly 6 months ago (There's so many random names of imaginary people floating around in my bonce). I also wanted to say that it's great to see how much your channel is continuing to grow. Keep up the excellent work.
It is so great to hear from you, and I sincerely thank you for taking the time to comment. I'm so glad you are still enjoying the channel and are able to be inspired by some of my content for your own games. That's a huge compliment. Cheers, and thank you again.
Petty new subscriber, always loved D&D this just came up on you tube as a recommendation, slowly working through the back catalogue, loving old school D&D
Using 2e rules I made a "Craftsman" class which could also be called a specialist / skilled labor. It's a class that never gains any combat abilities but they pick a NWP at character creation. Every time they level they also gain a level in the NWP so you can have these master craftsman to assist in making magic items and building strongholds.
I thoroughly enjoyed this. I hope you will be covering other "lost" classes, like the Archer, the Bandit/Brigand and the Chevalier. Actually, I think I may have already seen one from you on the Chevalier. Started playing D&D in 81. In 85 we found Mêlée the Fantasy Trip and played that well into our university years. Through the 90s and 2000s life, military, career and work/jobs all demanded much of our time. I missed D&D 2e-4e. Several of my old gaming buddies are now dead, but I have started playing and GMing with no less than 3 groups of young "whippersnappers" and 2 groups of old grognards! 😂
I am so glad you enjoyed the video, and thank you so much for letting me know! My condolences on the loss of some of your gaming friends. That's rough, but maybe your new groups will help you to relive some old memories to honor your lost friends. I'm definitely going to be making videos on the other classes, so stay tuned for those! I *also* started playing in 1981 with Moldvay Basic, which is why I talk about that particular edition so often. I sadly have never had a chance to play the Fantasy Trip but I've heard really good things about it. Thank you again for watching and commenting.
@@Sanguivore We played D&D from 1981 to 1985 and Mêlée from 1985 into the 1990s. Mêlée is a more tactical bare bones game. It is more batman than superman, if you know what I mean. I would recommend that game, if you do not want superman style heroic fantasy. Characters tend to die a lot in mêlée and it feels more like a tactical medieval fantasy game. So it is more table-top than D&D. Mêlée is quicker to learn harder to master than D&D 5e. A fantasy world (Cidri). You can use that or create your own world(s). I recommend this game. It is a matter of taste and what you like. Mêlée is relatively quick and easy to learn. It's a bit more brutal in terms of character surivability, so in that respect it is like 1st or second level D&D or OSE if you are familar with that. The game is more beer and pretzels than D&D with only 3 or 4 stats/attributes/abilities. Mêlée also has the advantage of being skills- based not class based. We play with a lot of house rules to make the game more survivalble, but we also play D&D 5e with a lot of House Rules to make it less ridiculous. I recommend the game, but whether you like it or not depends a lot on personal taste. If you have any other questions, post them here abd I'll gladly answer them as best I can.
@@manfredconnor3194 While I may have started playing D&D in 2003, I’m a *huge* fan of the more old-school games and modes of play (and definitely prefer Batman to Superman), so Mêlée sounds incredibly up my alley. Thanks a bunch for the concise take and info! :D If I may ask, do you have a list of your house rules written down somewhere~?
@@Sanguivore Hmm . . . I will be working this holiday season on the latest iteration/update of the rules. It could take a while. Let me give you a short list: A. We changed some attributes and added some derived attributes: 1.) We changed "IQ" to "KN" = Knowledge, just because KN sounded better than IQ. Knowledge is now a function of intelligence and education. You can now have up to double your KN in skills! This allows your character to do more than 2-3 things even if they hare a warrior. 2.) We added an attribute called EN which is 1/2 of your ST + 1D8 randomness + your species and any skill bonuses. (Yes, skills like "Running" or "Swimming" can increase your EN sccore). 3.) To make characters more survivable, we said that you no longer just get your ST as hit points (DPs = "Damage Points"), but rather you add your ST +EN together to get your DPs. You still suffer from wounds as before, but there is also an option to do thirds instead of fourths. (Normally you take your DPS and divide it by 4. You can take the first fourth of your DPs in Damage without being affected. After that, you are -2DX and -2MA, until you reach 1/2 your DPs and then you are -4DX and lose half your MA. If you take 3/4ths of your DPs in damage you are -6DPs and can move only 1 hex/square. You also must roll vs. your EN each turn, -1 minute - or be incapacitated from pain and wounds.) The other option is to divide your DPs into 3rds, whereby the first 1/3rd of your hits causes no ill effects. At 2/3rds you suffer a -3DX and a -3MA. btw. MA = Movement Allowance (in hexes/squares). There are several options for GMs and players with regard to character death. You can either go hard core and say that a character is dead as soon as they suffer damage that puts them into negative DPs. This is the old school way. Characters are unconscious at 0 DPs in this case. The other option it to say that characters have negative DPs equal to their EN score, 2x their EN score or 3 x their EN score. Characters usually bleed if they are not given first aid. Bleeding is usually at a rate of 1 DPs / 3 second phase, but can go up to 4 points of DPs per phase if you took a hard hit and suffered a severed an artery. (There are various rules for this, which I will not go into here for the sake of brevity.) 4.) Divide your DPs by 4 to get TOL ("Tolerance"). TOL = the number of hits you can take from one source without being stunned or knocked down. You do not need TOL, but it helps you see what 1/4th of your DPs is more easily. If you are stunned you lose your NEXT action. If you are knocked down you are put in the prone position and will likely have to regain your feet before you can do anything. B. Skills - We changed a ton of skills. 1.) We made some general skills that people can take if they are in a particular occupation. For example, there are Martial Weapons and Common Weapons, that give a character all-round weapons training with a a certain set of weapons. This skill is general and does not stack, but it is a way of saying that your character had some militia training for example. 2.) We added some specific skills and I guess what one might call "feats" in the D&D world. I cannot possibly go into all the new skills, but here are some off the top of my head: Timing - Enables you to strike sooner or later in the round. Critical Distance - enables you to gauge distance to the enemy better giving you bonuses to hit or to dodge/evade Toughness - Allows you to absorb damage like "warrior" skill did. Evade/Dodge - Makes it a little harder for the enemy to hit you, because you have practiced floating like a butterfly. Fast draw (weapon) - shortens draw time with 1 weapon. Fast draw (Item) -- shortens draw time with 1 item. Quickdraw (general) - shortens your draw time no matter what you are drawing. Herb lore Monster lore We added a tone of Academic skills that may or may not be available depending on what kind of a world your character is in. We added a ton of mundane skills that allow your character to be good at a few crafting skills. We split some of these skills up better than they were before and conglomerated other skills. 3.) We gave skills levels - The higher the level the more bonuses you get. Skills will never make you a superman, but they will make you batman and batman is a hell of a lot better than Cotton-eyed Joe off the street of your favorite medieval fantasy city or from your favorite medieval province. 4.) You spend experience points to increase your skill levels. In the old game you could buy attribute points only. In our game the first few attribute points are cheap in terms of the experience you have to spend to buy them. Then, for a while it gets cheaper to buy skill levels. After, you have gotten pretty good, then it becomes cheaper to by attribute points again. Finally, if your character survives that long they will peak out at about 42 points. Few characters ever make it that far. At this point Advanced and Mastery skills come into play. The reason this works is because of the experience point cost curves. Learning or improving is easy in the beginning then you hit a plateau. This is kind of realistic. There are also some skills that you must make a KN roll in order to progress in. Also you have to have been practicing a skill to get better in it. If you have been fighting for months, you cannot just increase your swimming skill out of the blue! We added rules for learning and training during downtime etc. Everything is modular and optional, so that the GM and players can decide what rules they want to use and how easy/"realistic" they want to get. C. We added other dice for the weapons tables. Before they were all just D6s. You can still play like that if you want, but we figured there are all the various dice. Everyone likes them. Why not use them? D. We added better rules for polearms. Polearms are very dangerous weapons with a lot of reach. We made them deadlier. E. We expanded the magic section. Creating 8 branches of magic for players to choose from (Rune Mages, Sorcerers, Necromancers, Druids, Summoners/Conjurers, Shadow Mages, Elementalists, Healers). There are also those who get their powers form their gods Animists/Warlocks/Witches/Priests. We added a whole lot of other dimensions here again everything is optional. You and your players decide what is to be used and what not. F. We changed armor effects - Armor does not only stop damage. It makes you harder to hit. Before Armor only stopped damage. If that all sounds more complicated it is, but like I said, you can pick and choose what rules you use and once your players are used to doing something a particular way, then, they know the rules and it is easy. If you can think of a way for me to send you a file, I could send you the next iteration of the rules when they are completed. It could be a while yet. You could check out Ye Old Geek's discord channel. I am on there and that would be a way for us to connect and for you to meet a bunch of gamers too. I hope this helps.
You mentioned (also previously) that only the classes Gary wrote in were considered official and tested. Did anyone else in the TSR staff write up classes for the magazine, and if so, were those also under the "at your own risk" policy? Or was it that Gary was basically the one who put in any classes that just came from TSR in general?
As I recall, I think Gary had the final say on what went into the books, but he did not forbid people from coming up with their own stuff as long as they were not competing with him. Some of those classes were OP, but in many ways they were cooler than what was in the books. They definitely "scratched the niche".
I have a couple of these Best of Dragon magazines, from the late 80's. One NPC/PC class I used for the fun of it was the Jester class. I started with the character at 1st level, then went as far as 3rd level. I retired him because it was more of a NPC with flavor.
I've definitely been waiting for this one. Absolutely awesome seeing people talk about the dragon magazine classes. I have plans to add the witch and jester to my next campaign for players.
I remember both of those classes (the witch had several iterations throughout Dragon's history)! I'll be covering them in a future video. Thank you so much for watching and commenting and I hope in the end that you enjoyed the video. Cheers!
@daddyrolleda1 Well, I very much dis love the video. Ya, the version of the witch I settled on was the first one with potion and candle abilities. It's definitely an amazing idea to publish these "npc" classes for people to add to the game in various ways. Hopefully, everything is going well for you.
Very interesting! I'll definitely look at the antipaladin for my S&W campaign. Reminds me of the 3e blackguard but seem much more powerful, which is perfect for a BBEG 😁
YES! Anti-Paladins are perfect for BBEGs in a campaign. I hope you end up using one, and if you do, that you'll check-in from time to time to let me know how it goes!
Slainte Shane MacGowan! One of my favourite cds, and my intro to the band, picked up at a Goodwill thrift shop for $3.00. I heard it said that if The Chieftains and the Sex Pistols had a child, it would be The Pogues.
That is a great way of putting it! Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and for sharing a bit about your history with this record. I always enjoy hearing peoples' personal connections to the things I post, and I also really appreciate that you watched that far in the video. Sláinte!
I had an Anti Paladin as an Npc in my Greyhawk campaign modelled after The Kurgan from Highlander. The players hated/loved him. The whole group were Highlander fans.
Thanks for reminding us of Aero Hobbies guys and Lee Gold. I made my own Ninja but he wasn't much fun in a group of higher level characters who didn't need him.
I'm glad you appreciated that bit of history! I had the pleasure of going to Aero Hobbies in the early 2000's and "met" Gary Switzer (without knowing who he was at the time, unfortunately). I also live very close to Cal Tech, so there's another connection there, as a lot of early D&D content was developed by college students there. Thank you very much for watching and commenting!
Aero hobbies is where John Eric Holmes bought his D&D supplies. He may have played there once as well. Some day you could do a video on the Warlock system from Cal Tech, aka Dungeons and Beavers, @@daddyrolleda1
I haven't watched this video yet, it is on my Watch Later list (I've watched the other "early classes" videos on your channel, and have learned a lot!). One thing I'll say, the anti-Paladin was my favorite, so dark and powerful reading it as a kid. You can play evil Paladins in 5e of course, but it's not the same. That class was REALLY evil. I wonder whether you will mention the sortof inappropriate (and not terribly useful) Houri class, although I can't remember now whether that was Dragon magazine or White Dwarf.
I never had a DM that would let us play any "unofficial" class from Dragon magazine! He also didn't let us play evil characters too often. Sounds like you had a blast with it, though!
I still use M/F mods. "Anything for St. Andrews" ? I always thought "Dirty Old Town" was their most popular song, but I've noticed many feel differently.
In this case, the Anti-Paladin as originally created in issue #39 (July 1980) was created for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, not OD&D or B/X. It can get confusing with all the different editions, but in this case we have a few clues: 1) The publication date of 1980 means it can't be for B/X, as that edition was not published until 1981. 2) Additionally, there was no Paladin sub-class in B/X (that didn't come until the BECMI Edition, specifically the Companion set from 1984) 3) While there was a Paladin subclass for OD&D (from the Greyhawk Supplement, 1975), OD&D has only a 3-point alignment system (Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic), and the Anti-Paladin from this article requires a Chaotic Evil alignment, using the 9-Point Alignment System that was created for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons starting in 1977/1978. Hope that helps! In VERY GENERAL terms, anything created prior to 1977 was for Original D&D and anything created after was for Advanced D&D. This isn't always fool-proof, as there were classes created post-1977 that were intended for either B/X or BECMI, but they are very few and far between and they always call out that they were created for those editions. Thanks for watching and commenting!
That sounds like such a great character! I remember both version of the Half-Ogre: Gary Gygax's original version, and then the revision done later by Roger Moore. I always thought it was an interesting concept. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Fear me for I am evil incarnate! One of the nastiest NPC's that we have ever encountered, the Anti-Paladin. A fight that we could not win and had no choice but to flee. As for the Ninja. None of our players wanted to play one and none of our DM's wanted one in their campaign. We did have one player that had a Healer but didn't play it but once or twice. Now the Scribe was used quite a bit in the Judges Guild products as was the Houri and Alchemist. It is always interesting to see how the game advanced through the years. No Blogs, no computer sites. Just magazines and fanzines and notice boards in game stores.
As a forever DM/GM I used to look forward to Dragon and Dungeon magz, id steal so many ideas from random articles. Now, I just look at a newspaper and apply a coat of fantasy paint to whatever gloom and doom story is headlined.
I am a big proponent of gaining inspiration from anywhere, for your newspaper idea is right up my alley. Hopefully it doesn't become *too* depressing, though! Thanks for watching and commenting!
In Warcraft the Anti-Paladin would be the Deathknight. I think in the original D&D game (the one separate from then-AD&D) the Anti-Paladin was the Avenger.
I always loved the Scribe class. I pitched a Scribe character for multiple games, but it was shot down for being to niche, weak, or in one case because the DM hated "magazine crap". It's a shame because it seems like an interesting concept. I almost got to play one in an Oriental Adventures game, but the game never got beyond character creation. One day...
It's possible, but it will take me a long time to go through Dragon since my plan is to cover roughly one year at a time (12 issues). So, that's roughly 30 episodes! Also, I didn't start collecting Dungeon until my friend started writing an article in the 3E era; I was really disappointed back in the day when the adventures were pulled out of Dragon to start a new magazine, but at the time, I was a player only, so I didn't see a need to collect Dungeon. As such, my own personal experiences with the early Dungeon issues is pretty much non-existent.
Yes! Archers and Archer-Rangers debuted in Dragon #45. I covered the version from Best of Dragon Vol. III in this video here: th-cam.com/video/hL06-RYlhPg/w-d-xo.htmlsi=RRCDS1Bhnds_T-e5 I liked them a lot, too, when I first came across them!
You're correct on the issue number... in face, will direct you to this part of the video where I talk about this very same article! th-cam.com/video/YtbS9FX0FbU/w-d-xo.htmlsi=QngX4v6cn5wi-2Mc&t=1315 It was published in 1986, so it was for 1st Edition (2E was published in 1989). Thank you for watching and commenting!
We had a mini game, two players one DM. And myself and my friend were playing AP. It just did not work, unsurprisingly I suppose 😂 White Dwarf has a ninja class spread over adventures and articles from ‘84, I lost my copies and can’t recall how they compared.
I loved reading all these classes, though many struck me as useless as PC classes. Obsessed by the anti-paladin, but I just reversed the existing AD&D abilities, which worked wonderfully (mandatory CE alignment tho). I did make a "Swordsman" class myself; a cross b/w fighters/thieves, based on the three musketeers movies and buccaneer type stories, basically they just used the sword and non-traditional weapons such as beermugs, tables, chairs etc. in innovative ways, DEX based, XP b/w thief & fighter, leather only. I even made a special sub-class that also use limited magic plus some theiving skills, the sword-mage, inspired by Swords of Lankhmars the Gray Mouser.
8:52 the hero is a paragon of virtue and the Paladin is nothing if not a hero. "Lawful Good" tells us nothing without the context of classical virtues as modified by the church fathers. Indeed "variant" was used quite a bit. One didn't say "home brew" but rather "variant" or "modified" was common. A blast from the past for sure, thanks man.
You would have thought the the female bonuses for the ninja might at least come with some downsides, but no, female ninjas are just better in every way. lol
Right? Wasn't that odd? If you were a min-maxer back then, I think you'd want to go for a female halfling ninja: a minimum of +10% to every skill; Pick Locks, Move Silently and Hide in Shadows all +15%, and Hear Noise +20%!
Another great video, though I will say that holding the magazine and having it shake in your hands made it unpleasant to try and read the text in those articles. I would have preferred that you left the issues still on the table while filming and then slowly pan across the pages. Maybe this is how you always do it and for whatever reason it only bothered me now so take my feedback however you choose.
Thanks... I think my hands were shaking a lot this time for whatever reason, but you're not the only one who has made this observation. I even noticed it while editing, but didn't have time to re-record it. I will endeavor to be more stable next time. I'm using a homemade hack to achieve my overhead shots and it's not sophisticated at all. I do appreciate you watching despite the shakiness. I promise I wasn't trying for a cinéma vérité style.
Very cool! Have you used them in a game? I actually haven't yet (I've had bandits, but I just made them either Fighters or Thieves, depending on the type of bandit). Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 Bandits tend to be more rural criminals. Kind of like highwaymen, or the people who would help smugglers get contraband off a ship. One player started as a Cleric of Pluto God of the Dead, he was going around collecting body parts of the "beautiful" people to create his own personal Proserpina (flesh golem). He then transitioned to being a Death Master.
I just looked through my collection and it looks like the 3rd one is the one I'm missing! I have 1, 2 and 4. I think around the time the third volume came out, it was catching up with my personal collection of the magazine so I felt it wasn't worth it. The 4th volume was a gift from a friend a few years later. I can always do a retrospective using the PDF, though. Thanks for the idea, and thanks for watching and commenting.
14:33 The Healer class spell list is a bit odd. Maybe not as odd as that version of an Alchemist class which lacked the ability to produce spell-like effects until 6th level, leading to a somewhat well known internet anecdote about a player character alchemist who worked as a travelling powdered drink mix salesman for five whole levels. There are no healing spells at all on the 1st level list with the result that the ability to cure/heal anything doesn't begin until 3rd level. And while the cure blindness is a 3rd level spell, the ability to cure deafness is a 7th level spell. That's a little hard to get your head around. Talk about your 15 second work day. too. Both 1st and 2nd level healers have a single spell per day and that will be a detection spell. Their patients better hope that the healer didn't prepare a Detect Poison the day they come in with an infectious disease. or vice-versa. A 1st or 2nd level healer can therefore diagnose something once a day, so long as they guess what situation will present correctly, but not do anything effective about it until 3rd level? And if they prepare Detect Phase, aren't they're more of a paranormal investigator than anything else ? The ability to work a shift seems to come at about 6th level, because before that a healer can't restore hit points more than once a day, hit points being the main way the game quantifies bodily harm. Then there's the minimum stat requirements. 15s in intelligence, wisdom and dexterity. The odds of that are similar to the improbably of qualifying for a monks minimums in 1e (the second highest barrier, exceeded only by the 1e bard class which required four 15s, a 12 and a 10, with a vanishingly small chance by the 3d6 down the line method). The monk class worked out to a likelihood of one in two thousand five hundred characters.
The base fighting-man only sucks because his main class ability was ignored by most players - myself and all my gaming groups included. A fighting-man is a leader of men. Even at first level, he can command a unit of ten figures. Then at second level, 20, plus a level one guy with ten more. By the time he’s name level, he can lead an army - and only the fighting-man gets to do that. Not a paladin, not a ranger, certainly not any of the other classes. 0e and 1e are wargames that scale down to 1:1 rather than RPGs like 2, 3 and so forth. The reason we think of the fighting-man as inferior is because we (most everyone) only played scenarios where he was disadvantaged by taking away his army. This would be like asking someone to play a magic-user or cleric with only 1st level spells, or a thief without his tools. It makes no sense in the original context of the game.
Martin. I just want you to know you do an awesome and amazing job. If I can get a PayPal address, happy to provide some support to at least by a fine bottle of something you enjoy.
I looked forward and appreciated the look back on those classes as I still have the magazines in my garage, and I wish your channel well, but your presentation of filming and flipping through the book is dizzying. I highly recommend scripting and focusing on the given parts with maybe stills, but not just flipping back and forth with quick camera movements up and down a page.
I appreciate you letting me know. I noticed the shaking a bit while I was editing the video but didn't realize it was quite that bad. I'm not sure why I was shaking so much during this particular video but this is the first time anyone has brought it up, so I hope it's not indicative of a bigger problem. I will definitely keep this in mind for future videos when I'm showing books from my collection so that doesn't happen again. As far as scripting, I've gone back and forth on the idea, but my channel was founded to be more conversational in nature, so I do make bullet point notes and look up key dates and names prior to recording, but so far after asking folks a few times, they seem to prefer this looser style versus a script that I'm reading. I sincerely hope that's not a deal breaker for you, as I'd love see you around here to chat about TTRPG history and such in the future. In any way, I really do appreciate you watching and commenting to share your thoughts to help me improve.
That will come later, as it didn't appear until Dragon #60 and this particular installment was covering "Best of Dragon: Volume II" which only included classes up through issue #39. I had no idea the Jester was such a popular class with folks, but so many people have mentioned it! I remember reading it myself but never got all that attached to it! Thanks for watching and commenting.
Ahhh--the old anti-paladin. This takes me back. In the 90s, back when I had one I modeled after Ted Bundy. He was a recurring villain from level 1 to level 12, and they really hated him. My players were cheering when they finally killed him. There were truly high fives around the room.
It's always fantastic when you make a campaign villain that elicits that kind of response.
@@jonothanthrace1530 It was a lot of fun, and before that death, would leave tell tale signs that Sir Oswald Bloodbane was afoot---and in all likelihood operating under an alias. And you could just see the dread settle in on the players.
There are a lot of videos out there on "how to make an unforgettable villain," and it goes into complex goals, motives, backstory. Oswald Bloodbane was so terrible that none of the players would have cared about any of that. He just needed to die. Even Drow in my world were impressed by Oswald Bloodbane, and they considered him a true artist.
Sometimes they would get the upper hand and he would barley escape, or he would get the advantage of the situation and they would have to flee.
That sounds fun
Remember a band named Molly Hatchet?
There was a later article, in Dragon #106, 1986, called A Plethora of Paladins. This provided a class for each of the 9 alignments. Paladin for LG, Anti-paladin for CE etc. I used an Illrigger (LE) and a Paramandyr (a violent variant of the True Neutral Paramander) as NPCs.
Yes! I loved that article so much! In fact, wait until you get to this part of the video: th-cam.com/video/YtbS9FX0FbU/w-d-xo.htmlsi=ETvPT70wEuUmfJH_&t=1322
I started reading Dragon with issue #76 but began subscribing with #90 and kept that up until the last print issue, #359.
Thank you very much for watching and commenting!
Have you a link to this article?
@@YouTellemFrosk www.donjondudragon.fr/site/ftp/pdf_forum/classes/add-paladin-DR106-VO.pdf
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@@daddyrolleda1I never really liked those other-alignment Paladins. To me, a Paladin wasn't just a fighter with cleric powers, but a class modeled after the Carolingian/Arthurian Knights, so LG alignment was part and parcel of it. I'd rather just have clerics with sharp weapons (which was also mentioned in another issue of *Dragon* at one point).
If they work for your campaign concept, though, I say go for it.
The kind of History Class I like to attend to. Regarding the Berserk, the best approach in the OSR scene was designed for "Hyperboria" (former "Astonishing Sorcerers & Swordsmen of Hyperborea").
i remember when i first started playing AD&D 2nd edition in the late 90's, i absolutely adored Dragon Magazine. it was filled with so much cool stuff. new classes, settings lore etc and my favorite bit: knights of the dinner table comic strips
I remember those days of Dragon very well!
Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
Having been introduced to D&D only through 5e it’s cool to see the history of the game from older editions and how that shaped what I know of the game today!
I discovered this channel through the recommendations tab on TH-cam after I looked up video reviews for old game modules for Basic D&D and lore videos on old school monsters of D&D
Yes! I cannot remember now if they were carried over into "Oriental Adventures" or not?
In some D&D games my dad ran for me & my brother, he had an Anti-Paladin named Sir Snively Whiplash as a recurring villain. He of course had a curly mustache that he would twirl as he taunted us.
Oh my goodness - that is AWESOME! He would need a Paladin nemesis named Dudley Doo-Right!
Such an interesting coincidence that I was just looking at the Anti-Paladin article less than 24 hours ago, as it's where I'm up to in my current read through of the Dragon from start to finish!
It's no coincidence! The forces of evil are skrying your activities! 😂
I love your historical vids, especially the Classes ones. YES by all means keep doing these. I began Playing in 1979 and became the forever DM around 1985. Today I am trying to recapture the OSR "feel" without the requisite "epic powers" of modern Classes but more versatile than the austere Classes of yesteryear. I enjoy hearing your comments about the old Classes and the general history of the game as it relates to the Class being developed or included in the game. Its always informative, but you also bring a nearly perfect amount of personal touch to it as well. So, thank you and please keep making these vids.
I think I know the tone you're talking about. It's what I call a heroic gritty campaign setting. I don't know if you're familiar with the Skills and Powers Player's Options, including Combat and Tactics and Spells and Magic, which came out in the late 90s, but it's something I've really come to like. It's basically D&D inspired by GURPS, allowing a player to purchase class abilities with character points. I use that in combination with a blend of 1st and 2nd edition rules in character creation. It's much more grounded than the modern feats system, which always seemed to me to create characters that belong in anime or video games rather than mythical & historical heroic fantasy or classic sword and sorcery. (I never made the leap to third edition for that reason) 5e seems to double and triple down on everything I didn't want in character creation. Couple that with death same mechanics, long and short rests---you have a table top simulation of a video game. That's not what I want out of D&D.
It takes work the part of the DM, especially if you decide to use class abilities not listed in the Skills and Powers published books, because you have to balance the ability you're creating with the character point cost. But with a little work, you can create something like the Duelist class, (one of my all time favorites) from Dragon 73. Or you can create and elven blade singer from 2nd ed., just give the ability to both attack and parry in the same round a very high character point cost.
You want to recreate specialized, warrior elite classes like the cavalier, barbarian, or Oriental Adventures's Samurai? Again assign character point costs to those special abilities, and character point class restrictions, and you can do it. And you can use those as models for creating other warrior elite types from all different cultures and mythos from around the world. It takes work and creativity, but it can be done. Whether it's a Spartan hoplite, a Persian Immortal, a Mongol or Turkish horse archer, or an Egyptian chariot archer, or the warrior elites from cultures such as the Mali empire or a Mezzo American civilization, with research into their mythical heroes and imagination, this can all be done and balanced out.
This does make character creation is slow because it allows a player to tailor their character to their concept. And they have to make trade offs. That said, while it's complicated and crunchy in character creation, all the critical information a player needs in a combat situation can be distilled to a few numbers that are all on a single sheet of paper. So it's a lot of crunch under the hood, but a breeze to drive during game play.
@@andrewlustfield6079 THX! will check them out straight away --- pretty sure I have3 them somewhere in my collection. Appreciate the tip.
@@jdkelley1508 My pleasure. Best and cheers!
It was the same in Early White Dwarf magazine 'new classes' Berserker,Demonist,Necromancer,Elementalist,Houri and Black Priest to mention a few! Great Video
Houri.. that was an interesting article. Around the same time as Irillian, IIRC.
An interesting class published in White Dwarf (Issue 24) was the Detective, written by Marcus Rowland. The class had some Thief abilities plus some unique spells, such as 'Reflect the Past' and 'Escapology'. I was never able to persuade any of my players to try the class, nor would any DM allow me to play one. 'Official classes only!' Oh well....
@@simonbeaird7436 I remember that one I allowed a player to be one but it turned out as a Detective-Acrobat the scenario was Eagle Hunt in WD40?
That had Detective NPCs so the PC was a brother of one of them I just played it as a one shot!
I'd like to play as a WD Necromancer and try to solo Tomb of Horrors by swarming the traps with undead.
I love that the writer specifically said "The ninja is not a psionic class." Small details like that are great.
“They have no mind power control”. Thats what they want you to think.
Proper pronounciation of Gaelic has earned you a sub. Loved the combination of knowledge of D&D followed by the 'what am I drinking and listening to' section.
I am so glad to hear that! I try hard to learn how to pronounce this properly, especially when traveling, and I have had the privilege of having visited Scotland with my wife and a friend from Ireland a number of years ago, so I had some help from my friend and his Scottish friends in trying to perfect my pronunciation.
Thank you for the support, and for watching and commenting. I'm glad you enjoy the "drinking and listening" section, as it's one of my favorites parts of the video to make.
Come to think of it, a history of the White Dwarf after you're done with Dragon magazine would be great too. It wasn't quite to the level of the U.S. magazine, but still a lot of really cool classes, monsters, and ideas.
When I was a kid, a friend of mine played the Samurai in our campaign. Those crits were crazy!
I wrote a system for secondary skills. Each secondary skills consists of 3 attributes, which are added together. Then, divided by 3. This value is the success chance. A roll of 2 six sided dice for easy checks, 3 for normal, 4 and 5 dice for difficult checks. A roll equal too, or below the value is a success.
If a normal person is assumed to have 10 for all attributes. Then, 0 level NPC has a secondary skill of 10. I made a list of accomplishments based on the number of required six sided dice rolled. There a few modifers that raise the rolled value, and others that raise the skill value. It appears to give consistent results and chance for success.
I always thought that the distinct character of the Paladin-style classes was diminished by allowing for every alignment. For me, it was only LG and LE that suited their nature. Lawful, because it meant they had to adhere to a knightly code, and Good or Evil, because it seemed silly to have a divine champion of the "middle ground." The very nature of the class relies on a pact between the Paladin and their diety, which in itself is inherently lawful, even more so than the relationship between a cleric and their god.
I love these history videos so much! You and Jordan Sorcery, also a newer youtuber who does warhammer history videos, are really catering to an under appreciated niche
This is great! I recall someone mentioning the Anti-Paladin when I was a new player in the late 80s / early 90s. I had a 1st and 2nd Edition PHB (we played a hybrid game) and I was familiar with "Basic" or "Classic" D&D. And I remember thinking "where the heck did you read that at?" Later, at my local hobby/pet store, I discovered Dragon Magazine, and figured it had to come from there. I never invested much into Dragon. My friends had some of them, and when you're a kid and minimum wage was 3 to 4 bucks an hour, you typically invested in trying to keep up with all the supplimental books. Thank you!
Aww man, you missed out. Dragon (and White Dwarf too) magazines were the best. Great art, great ideas, great stories and modules in there too. My parents' housekeeper was really nice to this nerdy little kid I was so she would often drive me to the hobby shop and spot me the $3 each month, when my dad expressly verbott it! lol
Great video topic! I'm sharing this with my players, none of whom were even alive when these were originally published
I very much enjoy these overviews of early semi-official d&d classes and look forward to more!
Thank you so much for letting me know! I really loved this issue of Dragon and was excited to make this video.
Great video. I’ve had this same magazine for 35 years at least and we used to have Samurai’s, Berserkers & Ninjas in our games. I’ve read this magazine so many times throughout the years. Thanks for posting.
I've had my copy almost as long! I loved all these different classes, but my DM at the time didn't allow any of them.
I'm glad you enjoyed the video, and thank you for watching and commenting!
I hope you continue doing these, like the alchemist and the witch.
Dragon magazine was the best, man as a kid I ate that up (along with reading Tolkien, Ursula K LeGuin, Dune, etc). In my town no one played D&D so I made up the games in my head and would pour over the articles and dreamed up games in my head and made characters in the back of my school notebooks.
Anti-paladin created controversy in my after school group in 1981 or so, sparking a rash of PVP. In retrospect, kids can be cruel. I remember a Cloistered Cleric and an Oracle class. Not that they were special, just throwing it out there. The Cloistered Cleric was definitely more of an NPC class, and probably true for the Oracle, too.
I have both Best of Dragon. In terrible shape but still useful. these vids hit my heart. thank you.
In Baldur's Gate 1 Enhanced Edition, they added a new class and a companion who is a, guess what, Blackguard hahaha
One of the titles of the Anti-Paladin, but named better
I remember when they used Blackguard as a Prestige Class in 3rd Edition!
I always forget about the video game angle for stuff like this. I've never been much of a video gamer and I've never played any D&D licensed games, including any of the Baldur's Gate games. The last video game I played was Mario Kart on the Nintendo Switch with my daughter, in which she beat me handsomely!
@@daddyrolleda1 Some pretty big signicant lore stuff happens in BG 1 & 2, and they upped the ante in 3, definitely check a walkthrough if you can
Unaware of any of this, in my first few years in the hobby, late 80s, I proposed an alchemist class to my DM, coz it felt like such a heady medieval concept. In practice, it was really just a mage who threw magic rather than casting it, but I did make sure to slip in a slightly better hit die of d6 (I hated that d4 for magic users back then). :)
Oh, would any of those Pogue tracks be suitable for game background music? I imagine folk-punk could work but it would depend.
I reckon a deep dive into individual classes would be fantastic. Honestly, I could listen to you endlessly; you're well informed and the history of the Sepia Age of Gaming is fascinating. If there was a University, you'd absolutely be on the faculty for history.
Best of vol2 was the second dragon I picked up. The tesseract, anti-paladin, intro to binary poisons...great memories.
I got it pretty early on after I discovered the magazine even existed. If memory serves, it was another "vacation purchase."
@@daddyrolleda1 I lived on a military base in Italy, one that was near the end of the supply line. Dragon 35, 38, 31...whatever we got we got. I used cute yard at $3/pop to get them.
You lifted one for Sahne, Sláinte.
Thank you so much for watching that far into the video, and for commenting. I truly appreciate it.
l love your deep dives dude, I also enjoy your dragon magazine.
Keep up the dnd stuff and others stuff my dude
It’s quaint that barbarian and cavalier were considered official and balanced classes.
Love these, oh so much. Class break downs are the best.
I really appreciate your support. Thank you so much for watching and commenting!
My brother had an anti paladin based on The Kurgan from the first Highlander film. Guy was an absolute monster.
That sounds like it could be a lot of fun! I love using movie characters as inspiration for PCs and NPCs!
I remember these old classes first coming out in Dragon! You are so right about the excitement I felt seeing a new class appear! Such nostalgia!!
When Dragon ended, I subscribed to Kobold Quarterly until it ended, and also checked out a few other magazines like Fight On! and Knockspell, but nothing really scratched the itch like those old issues of Dragon.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
As far as scribe, 2e did have the Geometer specialist in Player's Option.
Vale Shane MacGowan, the Chaotic Neutral bard prototype.
That sounds about right. Thank you so much for watching that far into the video. Cheers!
The player stuff is neat. But one thing I'd love to see, and that I never see anyone talking about, is good DM advise from these early publications. Whether Dragon, White Dwarf, or the smaller indie magazines.
I subscribed to your channel after watching a few of your videos today. They take me back to my teenage years in such an emotional way. Thank you so much for what you do.
huh! i would have never guessed that the female halfling ninja would be that much better in older editions, but that looks like a fairly strong build.
I've been catching up on your videos, unfortunately life got in the way of regular viewing for a while. I love your deep dives into this game, as well as the running a game for your daughter and friends videos. The best way to improve your DM skills is to learn all the tips and tricks from those more experienced than you. I have found myself a better planner and note taker from watching your videos. I've got complacent in my old age and was working comfortably just improvising, with a few sketched out ideas, which allows for tremendous scope, but having a few detailed markers I can lean on has made my life much easier, plus it means I don't have to remember that random shopkeeper whose name I made up on the fly 6 months ago (There's so many random names of imaginary people floating around in my bonce).
I also wanted to say that it's great to see how much your channel is continuing to grow. Keep up the excellent work.
It is so great to hear from you, and I sincerely thank you for taking the time to comment. I'm so glad you are still enjoying the channel and are able to be inspired by some of my content for your own games. That's a huge compliment. Cheers, and thank you again.
@@daddyrolleda1 You keep making it, I'll keep watching :)
I just checked my PDF of issue #16, and the mention of the ninja using "judo as a samurai" was in the original article, for the curious.
Brings back good memories, seeing the Best of Dragon Cover...
I'm glad to hear that! Thanks for letting me know, and for watching and commenting. Cheers!
We had a laugh-fest in high school at the Ninja’s incredible “save vs damage” ability
I once player an Archer that came out of one of the Dragon magazines. It was great to be able to get a magazine and add to AD&D. Good times!
The Archer (and Archer-Ranger) was such a fun idea! I remember begging my DM to let me play a Winged Folk Archer-Ranger, but he was not having it!
You bring back great memories of my youth.. thank you so much
I'm so glad you enjoyed the video! Thank you very much for watching and commenting.
Thanks for honoring Shane.
It felt like the right thing to do. Thanks for watching that far in the video.
Petty new subscriber, always loved D&D this just came up on you tube as a recommendation, slowly working through the back catalogue, loving old school D&D
Using 2e rules I made a "Craftsman" class which could also be called a specialist / skilled labor. It's a class that never gains any combat abilities but they pick a NWP at character creation. Every time they level they also gain a level in the NWP so you can have these master craftsman to assist in making magic items and building strongholds.
I thoroughly enjoyed this. I hope you will be covering other "lost" classes, like the Archer, the Bandit/Brigand and the Chevalier. Actually, I think I may have already seen one from you on the Chevalier. Started playing D&D in 81. In 85 we found Mêlée the Fantasy Trip and played that well into our university years. Through the 90s and 2000s life, military, career and work/jobs all demanded much of our time. I missed D&D 2e-4e. Several of my old gaming buddies are now dead, but I have started playing and GMing with no less than 3 groups of young "whippersnappers" and 2 groups of old grognards! 😂
I am so glad you enjoyed the video, and thank you so much for letting me know! My condolences on the loss of some of your gaming friends. That's rough, but maybe your new groups will help you to relive some old memories to honor your lost friends.
I'm definitely going to be making videos on the other classes, so stay tuned for those!
I *also* started playing in 1981 with Moldvay Basic, which is why I talk about that particular edition so often.
I sadly have never had a chance to play the Fantasy Trip but I've heard really good things about it.
Thank you again for watching and commenting.
Would you recommend Mêlée/The Fantasy Trip~? I’ve been thinking about picking it up.
@@Sanguivore We played D&D from 1981 to 1985 and Mêlée from 1985 into the 1990s.
Mêlée is a more tactical bare bones game. It is more batman than superman, if you know what I mean. I would recommend that game, if you do not want superman style heroic fantasy. Characters tend to die a lot in mêlée and it feels more like a tactical medieval fantasy game. So it is more table-top than D&D.
Mêlée is quicker to learn harder to master than D&D 5e.
A fantasy world (Cidri).
You can use that or create your own world(s).
I recommend this game. It is a matter of taste and what you like. Mêlée is relatively quick and easy to learn. It's a bit more brutal in terms of character surivability, so in that respect it is like 1st or second level D&D or OSE if you are familar with that. The game is more beer and pretzels than D&D with only 3 or 4 stats/attributes/abilities. Mêlée also has the advantage of being skills- based not class based. We play with a lot of house rules to make the game more survivalble, but we also play D&D 5e with a lot of House Rules to make it less ridiculous. I recommend the game, but whether you like it or not depends a lot on personal taste. If you have any other questions, post them here abd I'll gladly answer them as best I can.
@@manfredconnor3194 While I may have started playing D&D in 2003, I’m a *huge* fan of the more old-school games and modes of play (and definitely prefer Batman to Superman), so Mêlée sounds incredibly up my alley. Thanks a bunch for the concise take and info! :D
If I may ask, do you have a list of your house rules written down somewhere~?
@@Sanguivore Hmm . . . I will be working this holiday season on the latest iteration/update of the rules. It could take a while.
Let me give you a short list:
A. We changed some attributes and added some derived attributes:
1.) We changed "IQ" to "KN" = Knowledge, just because KN sounded better than IQ. Knowledge is now a function of intelligence and education.
You can now have up to double your KN in skills! This allows your character to do more than 2-3 things even if they hare a warrior.
2.) We added an attribute called EN which is 1/2 of your ST + 1D8 randomness + your species and any skill bonuses. (Yes, skills like "Running" or "Swimming" can increase your EN sccore).
3.) To make characters more survivable, we said that you no longer just get your ST as hit points (DPs = "Damage Points"), but rather you add your ST +EN together to get your DPs. You still suffer from wounds as before, but there is also an option to do thirds instead of fourths. (Normally you take your DPS and divide it by 4. You can take the first fourth of your DPs in Damage without being affected. After that, you are -2DX and -2MA, until you reach 1/2 your DPs and then you are -4DX and lose half your MA. If you take 3/4ths of your DPs in damage you are -6DPs and can move only 1 hex/square. You also must roll vs. your EN each turn, -1 minute - or be incapacitated from pain and wounds.) The other option is to divide your DPs into 3rds, whereby the first 1/3rd of your hits causes no ill effects. At 2/3rds you suffer a -3DX and a -3MA.
btw. MA = Movement Allowance (in hexes/squares). There are several options for GMs and players with regard to character death. You can either go hard core and say that a character is dead as soon as they suffer damage that puts them into negative DPs. This is the old school way. Characters are unconscious at 0 DPs in this case. The other option it to say that characters have negative DPs equal to their EN score, 2x their EN score or 3 x their EN score. Characters usually bleed if they are not given first aid. Bleeding is usually at a rate of 1 DPs / 3 second phase, but can go up to 4 points of DPs per phase if you took a hard hit and suffered a severed an artery. (There are various rules for this, which I will not go into here for the sake of brevity.)
4.) Divide your DPs by 4 to get TOL ("Tolerance"). TOL = the number of hits you can take from one source without being stunned or knocked down. You do not need TOL, but it helps you see what 1/4th of your DPs is more easily. If you are stunned you lose your NEXT action. If you are knocked down you are put in the prone position and will likely have to regain your feet before you can do anything.
B. Skills - We changed a ton of skills.
1.) We made some general skills that people can take if they are in a particular occupation. For example, there are Martial Weapons and Common Weapons, that give a character all-round weapons training with a a certain set of weapons. This skill is general and does not stack, but it is a way of saying that your character had some militia training for example.
2.) We added some specific skills and I guess what one might call "feats" in the D&D world.
I cannot possibly go into all the new skills, but here are some off the top of my head:
Timing - Enables you to strike sooner or later in the round.
Critical Distance - enables you to gauge distance to the enemy better giving you bonuses to hit or to dodge/evade
Toughness - Allows you to absorb damage like "warrior" skill did.
Evade/Dodge - Makes it a little harder for the enemy to hit you, because you have practiced floating like a butterfly.
Fast draw (weapon) - shortens draw time with 1 weapon.
Fast draw (Item) -- shortens draw time with 1 item.
Quickdraw (general) - shortens your draw time no matter what you are drawing.
Herb lore
Monster lore
We added a tone of Academic skills that may or may not be available depending on what kind of a world your character is in.
We added a ton of mundane skills that allow your character to be good at a few crafting skills.
We split some of these skills up better than they were before and conglomerated other skills.
3.) We gave skills levels - The higher the level the more bonuses you get. Skills will never make you a superman, but they will make you batman and batman is a hell of a lot better than Cotton-eyed Joe off the street of your favorite medieval fantasy city or from your favorite medieval province.
4.) You spend experience points to increase your skill levels. In the old game you could buy attribute points only. In our game the first few attribute points are cheap in terms of the experience you have to spend to buy them. Then, for a while it gets cheaper to buy skill levels. After, you have gotten pretty good, then it becomes cheaper to by attribute points again. Finally, if your character survives that long they will peak out at about 42 points. Few characters ever make it that far. At this point Advanced and Mastery skills come into play. The reason this works is because of the experience point cost curves. Learning or improving is easy in the beginning then you hit a plateau. This is kind of realistic. There are also some skills that you must make a KN roll in order to progress in. Also you have to have been practicing a skill to get better in it. If you have been fighting for months, you cannot just increase your swimming skill out of the blue! We added rules for learning and training during downtime etc. Everything is modular and optional, so that the GM and players can decide what rules they want to use and how easy/"realistic" they want to get.
C. We added other dice for the weapons tables. Before they were all just D6s. You can still play like that if you want, but we figured there are all the various dice. Everyone likes them. Why not use them?
D. We added better rules for polearms. Polearms are very dangerous weapons with a lot of reach. We made them deadlier.
E. We expanded the magic section. Creating 8 branches of magic for players to choose from (Rune Mages, Sorcerers, Necromancers, Druids, Summoners/Conjurers, Shadow Mages, Elementalists, Healers). There are also those who get their powers form their gods Animists/Warlocks/Witches/Priests. We added a whole lot of other dimensions here again everything is optional. You and your players decide what is to be used and what not.
F. We changed armor effects - Armor does not only stop damage. It makes you harder to hit. Before Armor only stopped damage.
If that all sounds more complicated it is, but like I said, you can pick and choose what rules you use and once your players are used to doing something a particular way, then, they know the rules and it is easy.
If you can think of a way for me to send you a file, I could send you the next iteration of the rules when they are completed. It could be a while yet.
You could check out Ye Old Geek's discord channel. I am on there and that would be a way for us to connect and for you to meet a bunch of gamers too.
I hope this helps.
You mentioned (also previously) that only the classes Gary wrote in were considered official and tested. Did anyone else in the TSR staff write up classes for the magazine, and if so, were those also under the "at your own risk" policy? Or was it that Gary was basically the one who put in any classes that just came from TSR in general?
As I recall, I think Gary had the final say on what went into the books, but he did not forbid people from coming up with their own stuff as long as they were not competing with him.
Some of those classes were OP, but in many ways they were cooler than what was in the books. They definitely "scratched the niche".
I have a couple of these Best of Dragon magazines, from the late 80's. One NPC/PC class I used for the fun of it was the Jester class. I started with the character at 1st level, then went as far as 3rd level. I retired him because it was more of a NPC with flavor.
I've definitely been waiting for this one. Absolutely awesome seeing people talk about the dragon magazine classes. I have plans to add the witch and jester to my next campaign for players.
I remember both of those classes (the witch had several iterations throughout Dragon's history)! I'll be covering them in a future video. Thank you so much for watching and commenting and I hope in the end that you enjoyed the video. Cheers!
@daddyrolleda1 Well, I very much dis love the video. Ya, the version of the witch I settled on was the first one with potion and candle abilities. It's definitely an amazing idea to publish these "npc" classes for people to add to the game in various ways. Hopefully, everything is going well for you.
Brought back a lot of memories.
Thanks
Very interesting! I'll definitely look at the antipaladin for my S&W campaign. Reminds me of the 3e blackguard but seem much more powerful, which is perfect for a BBEG 😁
YES! Anti-Paladins are perfect for BBEGs in a campaign. I hope you end up using one, and if you do, that you'll check-in from time to time to let me know how it goes!
Slainte Shane MacGowan! One of my favourite cds, and my intro to the band, picked up at a Goodwill thrift shop for $3.00.
I heard it said that if The Chieftains and the Sex Pistols had a child, it would be The Pogues.
That is a great way of putting it! Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and for sharing a bit about your history with this record. I always enjoy hearing peoples' personal connections to the things I post, and I also really appreciate that you watched that far in the video. Sláinte!
I had an Anti Paladin as an Npc in my Greyhawk campaign modelled after The Kurgan from Highlander. The players hated/loved him. The whole group were Highlander fans.
What a great idea! I really like using the Kurgan as a model for an NPC. Very cool!
I hadn't heard the news about Shane. 🥃🚬
This channel always has good games, good booze, and good music. Much like a proper pub.
Thanks for reminding us of Aero Hobbies guys and Lee Gold. I made my own Ninja but he wasn't much fun in a group of higher level characters who didn't need him.
I'm glad you appreciated that bit of history! I had the pleasure of going to Aero Hobbies in the early 2000's and "met" Gary Switzer (without knowing who he was at the time, unfortunately). I also live very close to Cal Tech, so there's another connection there, as a lot of early D&D content was developed by college students there.
Thank you very much for watching and commenting!
Aero hobbies is where John Eric Holmes bought his D&D supplies. He may have played there once as well. Some day you could do a video on the Warlock system from Cal Tech, aka Dungeons and Beavers, @@daddyrolleda1
Thank you! I will add this to the list of potential future topics.
I haven't watched this video yet, it is on my Watch Later list (I've watched the other "early classes" videos on your channel, and have learned a lot!). One thing I'll say, the anti-Paladin was my favorite, so dark and powerful reading it as a kid. You can play evil Paladins in 5e of course, but it's not the same. That class was REALLY evil. I wonder whether you will mention the sortof inappropriate (and not terribly useful) Houri class, although I can't remember now whether that was Dragon magazine or White Dwarf.
I miss my Anti-Paladin! It's a silly name but was a fun class to play.
I never had a DM that would let us play any "unofficial" class from Dragon magazine! He also didn't let us play evil characters too often. Sounds like you had a blast with it, though!
Such an appropriate album. Shane MacGowan was a giant of music.
He was not a giant of dental health though!
Is he still alive? Last time I checked he was. Love his singing.
I still use M/F mods. "Anything for St. Andrews" ? I always thought "Dirty Old Town" was their most popular song, but I've noticed many feel differently.
Were the Anti-Paladin class intended for OD&D or B/X when originally published?
In this case, the Anti-Paladin as originally created in issue #39 (July 1980) was created for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, not OD&D or B/X. It can get confusing with all the different editions, but in this case we have a few clues:
1) The publication date of 1980 means it can't be for B/X, as that edition was not published until 1981.
2) Additionally, there was no Paladin sub-class in B/X (that didn't come until the BECMI Edition, specifically the Companion set from 1984)
3) While there was a Paladin subclass for OD&D (from the Greyhawk Supplement, 1975), OD&D has only a 3-point alignment system (Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic), and the Anti-Paladin from this article requires a Chaotic Evil alignment, using the 9-Point Alignment System that was created for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons starting in 1977/1978.
Hope that helps! In VERY GENERAL terms, anything created prior to 1977 was for Original D&D and anything created after was for Advanced D&D. This isn't always fool-proof, as there were classes created post-1977 that were intended for either B/X or BECMI, but they are very few and far between and they always call out that they were created for those editions.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Dragon mag had my fav which was the Half Ogre, he was a cleric that at the end, rode his woolly mammoth into battle praising Kord all the way 😎🤘🍻
That sounds like such a great character! I remember both version of the Half-Ogre: Gary Gygax's original version, and then the revision done later by Roger Moore. I always thought it was an interesting concept. Thanks for watching and commenting!
Fear me for I am evil incarnate!
One of the nastiest NPC's that we have ever encountered, the Anti-Paladin. A fight that we could not win and had no choice but to flee.
As for the Ninja. None of our players wanted to play one and none of our DM's wanted one in their campaign.
We did have one player that had a Healer but didn't play it but once or twice.
Now the Scribe was used quite a bit in the Judges Guild products as was the Houri and Alchemist.
It is always interesting to see how the game advanced through the years. No Blogs, no computer sites. Just magazines and fanzines and notice boards in game stores.
As a forever DM/GM I used to look forward to Dragon and Dungeon magz, id steal so many ideas from random articles. Now, I just look at a newspaper and apply a coat of fantasy paint to whatever gloom and doom story is headlined.
I am a big proponent of gaining inspiration from anywhere, for your newspaper idea is right up my alley. Hopefully it doesn't become *too* depressing, though!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
In Warcraft the Anti-Paladin would be the Deathknight. I think in the original D&D game (the one separate from then-AD&D) the Anti-Paladin was the Avenger.
A recommendation for your gift idea show are the zines of J.P. Coovert.
I always loved the Scribe class. I pitched a Scribe character for multiple games, but it was shot down for being to niche, weak, or in one case because the DM hated "magazine crap". It's a shame because it seems like an interesting concept. I almost got to play one in an Oriental Adventures game, but the game never got beyond character creation. One day...
Is Healer an explicitly arcane white mage? If so, that's a class I've always wanted access to in D&D.
Are you planning on doing Dungeon magazine too?
It's possible, but it will take me a long time to go through Dragon since my plan is to cover roughly one year at a time (12 issues). So, that's roughly 30 episodes!
Also, I didn't start collecting Dungeon until my friend started writing an article in the 3E era; I was really disappointed back in the day when the adventures were pulled out of Dragon to start a new magazine, but at the time, I was a player only, so I didn't see a need to collect Dungeon. As such, my own personal experiences with the early Dungeon issues is pretty much non-existent.
Always liked the archer. Which was in Best of Dragon III. I think it was in Dragon mag 57(?) Or somewhere in there.
Yes! Archers and Archer-Rangers debuted in Dragon #45. I covered the version from Best of Dragon Vol. III in this video here: th-cam.com/video/hL06-RYlhPg/w-d-xo.htmlsi=RRCDS1Bhnds_T-e5
I liked them a lot, too, when I first came across them!
I have to stop you @8:52, go check out A Plethora Of Paladins in Dragon Magazine #106. I believe that was 2nd Ed...maybe?
You're correct on the issue number... in face, will direct you to this part of the video where I talk about this very same article! th-cam.com/video/YtbS9FX0FbU/w-d-xo.htmlsi=QngX4v6cn5wi-2Mc&t=1315
It was published in 1986, so it was for 1st Edition (2E was published in 1989).
Thank you for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1I should have been more patient, you corrected yourself later in the vid.
Good job...keep up the great work.....Semper Fi......
We had a mini game, two players one DM. And myself and my friend were playing AP. It just did not work, unsurprisingly I suppose 😂
White Dwarf has a ninja class spread over adventures and articles from ‘84, I lost my copies and can’t recall how they compared.
I loved reading all these classes, though many struck me as useless as PC classes. Obsessed by the anti-paladin, but I just reversed the existing AD&D abilities, which worked wonderfully (mandatory CE alignment tho). I did make a "Swordsman" class myself; a cross b/w fighters/thieves, based on the three musketeers movies and buccaneer type stories, basically they just used the sword and non-traditional weapons such as beermugs, tables, chairs etc. in innovative ways, DEX based, XP b/w thief & fighter, leather only. I even made a special sub-class that also use limited magic plus some theiving skills, the sword-mage, inspired by Swords of Lankhmars the Gray Mouser.
RIP Shane MacGowan.
I was shocked when I heard and had to spin this record right away.
Thanks for staying through the bonus content. I appreciate it.
8:52 the hero is a paragon of virtue and the Paladin is nothing if not a hero. "Lawful Good" tells us nothing without the context of classical virtues as modified by the church fathers.
Indeed "variant" was used quite a bit. One didn't say "home brew" but rather "variant" or "modified" was common. A blast from the past for sure, thanks man.
You would have thought the the female bonuses for the ninja might at least come with some downsides, but no, female ninjas are just better in every way. lol
Right? Wasn't that odd? If you were a min-maxer back then, I think you'd want to go for a female halfling ninja: a minimum of +10% to every skill; Pick Locks, Move Silently and Hide in Shadows all +15%, and Hear Noise +20%!
Nice!
Yay!
Another great video, though I will say that holding the magazine and having it shake in your hands made it unpleasant to try and read the text in those articles. I would have preferred that you left the issues still on the table while filming and then slowly pan across the pages. Maybe this is how you always do it and for whatever reason it only bothered me now so take my feedback however you choose.
Thanks... I think my hands were shaking a lot this time for whatever reason, but you're not the only one who has made this observation. I even noticed it while editing, but didn't have time to re-record it.
I will endeavor to be more stable next time. I'm using a homemade hack to achieve my overhead shots and it's not sophisticated at all.
I do appreciate you watching despite the shakiness. I promise I wasn't trying for a cinéma vérité style.
You should cover Gygax's Ultimist from Polyhedron #24(?) for a laugh
The Bandit and Death Master are fun.
Very cool! Have you used them in a game? I actually haven't yet (I've had bandits, but I just made them either Fighters or Thieves, depending on the type of bandit).
Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 Bandits tend to be more rural criminals. Kind of like highwaymen, or the people who would help smugglers get contraband off a ship.
One player started as a Cleric of Pluto God of the Dead, he was going around collecting body parts of the "beautiful" people to create his own personal Proserpina (flesh golem). He then transitioned to being a Death Master.
If you can get the 3rd best of Dragon, that’s the best one imo
I just looked through my collection and it looks like the 3rd one is the one I'm missing! I have 1, 2 and 4. I think around the time the third volume came out, it was catching up with my personal collection of the magazine so I felt it wasn't worth it. The 4th volume was a gift from a friend a few years later.
I can always do a retrospective using the PDF, though. Thanks for the idea, and thanks for watching and commenting.
@@daddyrolleda1 and actually they have a 5th one too, that’s the last one. It’s my least favorite.
Oh, that's right! I don't have that one, either.
the video is great. feedback -The shaky video was distracting. maybe have the book stationary on a table so we can read it with you eSier
uisghe bhath (whisky) is pronounced something like "wishker vaa".
Used to have some of these far too long ago...
14:33 The Healer class spell list is a bit odd. Maybe not as odd as that version of an Alchemist class which lacked the ability to produce spell-like effects until 6th level, leading to a somewhat well known internet anecdote about a player character alchemist who worked as a travelling powdered drink mix salesman for five whole levels.
There are no healing spells at all on the 1st level list with the result that the ability to cure/heal anything doesn't begin until 3rd level. And while the cure blindness is a 3rd level spell, the ability to cure deafness is a 7th level spell. That's a little hard to get your head around.
Talk about your 15 second work day. too. Both 1st and 2nd level healers have a single spell per day and that will be a detection spell. Their patients better hope that the healer didn't prepare a Detect Poison the day they come in with an infectious disease. or vice-versa. A 1st or 2nd level healer can therefore diagnose something once a day, so long as they guess what situation will present correctly, but not do anything effective about it until 3rd level?
And if they prepare Detect Phase, aren't they're more of a paranormal investigator than anything else ?
The ability to work a shift seems to come at about 6th level, because before that a healer can't restore hit points more than once a day, hit points being the main way the game quantifies bodily harm.
Then there's the minimum stat requirements. 15s in intelligence, wisdom and dexterity. The odds of that are similar to the improbably of qualifying for a monks minimums in 1e (the second highest barrier, exceeded only by the 1e bard class which required four 15s, a 12 and a 10, with a vanishingly small chance by the 3d6 down the line method). The monk class worked out to a likelihood of one in two thousand five hundred characters.
Great vid
Thank you very much! I appreciate you watching and commenting.
"You're a Fighter, but with all these extra abilities and no drawbacks": 90% of classes. See, even designers in the 70's new the base Fighter sucked.
The base fighting-man only sucks because his main class ability was ignored by most players - myself and all my gaming groups included.
A fighting-man is a leader of men. Even at first level, he can command a unit of ten figures. Then at second level, 20, plus a level one guy with ten more. By the time he’s name level, he can lead an army - and only the fighting-man gets to do that. Not a paladin, not a ranger, certainly not any of the other classes.
0e and 1e are wargames that scale down to 1:1 rather than RPGs like 2, 3 and so forth. The reason we think of the fighting-man as inferior is because we (most everyone) only played scenarios where he was disadvantaged by taking away his army.
This would be like asking someone to play a magic-user or cleric with only 1st level spells, or a thief without his tools.
It makes no sense in the original context of the game.
Iechyd da!
That berserker = Beorn.
I been watching your videos alot and I think u should do a hunter of the dead
Martin. I just want you to know you do an awesome and amazing job. If I can get a PayPal address, happy to provide some support to at least by a fine bottle of something you enjoy.
I looked forward and appreciated the look back on those classes as I still have the magazines in my garage, and I wish your channel well, but your presentation of filming and flipping through the book is dizzying. I highly recommend scripting and focusing on the given parts with maybe stills, but not just flipping back and forth with quick camera movements up and down a page.
I appreciate you letting me know. I noticed the shaking a bit while I was editing the video but didn't realize it was quite that bad. I'm not sure why I was shaking so much during this particular video but this is the first time anyone has brought it up, so I hope it's not indicative of a bigger problem.
I will definitely keep this in mind for future videos when I'm showing books from my collection so that doesn't happen again. As far as scripting, I've gone back and forth on the idea, but my channel was founded to be more conversational in nature, so I do make bullet point notes and look up key dates and names prior to recording, but so far after asking folks a few times, they seem to prefer this looser style versus a script that I'm reading. I sincerely hope that's not a deal breaker for you, as I'd love see you around here to chat about TTRPG history and such in the future.
In any way, I really do appreciate you watching and commenting to share your thoughts to help me improve.
Jester?
That will come later, as it didn't appear until Dragon #60 and this particular installment was covering "Best of Dragon: Volume II" which only included classes up through issue #39.
I had no idea the Jester was such a popular class with folks, but so many people have mentioned it! I remember reading it myself but never got all that attached to it!
Thanks for watching and commenting.
DM: roll to see if you hold the book steady so your viewers can read the text.
Daddy Rolled a 1
I still gave you a like because I love the content!
really cool video. could you just lay the magazine down and put the camera on a tripod. Video makes us sick cause of the constant movement.
Anyone notice the ninja is just a dude with his shirt wrapped around his head? 22:50
Of course female ninjas are better! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)