D&D 1E AD&D Adventure Characters Start With No Class?

Marc Radle

Legend
Does anyone remember an AD&D adventure where you started without a class? You were just normal people that kind of assumed a class based on what you did in the adventure. I think I remember you were all shipwrecked on a Wizard’s island or something ....

I can’t remember the name and it’s driving me crazy!!
 

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I played that adventure sever times in 5e.
(and 4e and 3e and as a player in ADnD)

If you want to convert it to 5e, I have following guidelines:

- have your characters start with race and background and 4 + con hp (or 6 + con) if you want to go easy on your PCs.

Since stats are more important in 5e for your character choice than in ADnD, you should allow some stat modifications after (or during) the adventure.

If you use standard array, you should use 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 instead of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8. If you feel generous, you can allow to have 3 10s instead of a 9 and an 11.

For point buy, a possible way is reducing point buy points and only allow stats up to 13 (not including racial modifiers). Since the 15 is reduced to 11 and the 14 is reduced to 9, that makes it 6 points less per stat, so 12 points less than 27 which is 15.

- the pirate orcs and goblins should not use the goblin and orc stats. Those are way too powetful and don't represent those wretched creatures well.

Use the commoner stat block instead and modify it with the "standard racial abilities" agressive for orcs, nimble escape for goblins.

As stats, you can either just use 10s on all stats for orcs and goblins, or what I did was giving Goblins just 8 (or 10) Strength and Orcs 12. Since orcs in the module have more hp on average and are generally more wretched, you could also just give goblins 8 in all stats (including consitution) except dexterity. That makes Orcs more dangerous than goblins.


Actually I already bought the conversion and I remember using the ability score variant as suggested. The stats for orcs and goblins are a little bit off however.
Except for elves with proficiency in swords and bows, everyone has a bad time hitting AC 12 or 11 respectively (I know in ADnD, the AC was 10 and hitting was even more difficult back then), but todays expectation is hitting a little more.
What is more problematic are the static bonuses added to damage on each attack Str 16 and dex 14 means that every attack does 3 or 4 points of damage at least, with a high possibility to one shot PCs. With my proposed stats, a fight is actually possible, but still very dangerous.
 
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Aaron L

Hero
Does anyone remember an AD&D adventure where you started without a class? You were just normal people that kind of assumed a class based on what you did in the adventure. I think I remember you were all shipwrecked on a Wizard’s island or something ....

I can’t remember the name and it’s driving me crazy!!

The Greyhawk Adventures hardback, published right on the cusp of 2nd Edition's release, had a system for creating 0-Level PCs who worked their way up to full 1st Level characters based on a sort of training points system, and could even end up with a customized Class based on what Class(s) tutor(s) they trained with and how long and far they took their training. The book also included an adventure for Classless 0-level characters, during which was determined your final Alignment, Ability Scores, and character Class based on how you played, the decisions you made, and who you trained with and how long, with the possibility of ending up with a custom Class that borrowed features from any number of Classes other than what your final class ended up being. I remember that having a Fighter who could Turn Undead and/or cast one or two 1st level Magic-User spells per day was a possibility.

Your PC starts out under the tutelage of a teacher (you could seek out additional tutors to learn additional skills from other Classes) and would build up points throughout the course of the adventure through training and/or adventuring (the whole adventure and training system could last several months or even years) and use these toward paying for your finalized Ability Scores and Class Abilities. The cost to reach full class level 1 was based on the XP table of the the Class you were aiming for, with cheaper Classes (like the Thief) being much easier to achieve than more expensive Classes like the Magic-User, Ranger, or Paladin (Classes with Ability Score requirements, like the Ranger and Paladin, cost even more points to raise your Ability Scores to the minimums needed to enter the Class.)

If you achieved 1st level in any Class while still paying training points for abilities from other Classes, you could take an XP penalty to your base Class XP table to retain the non-standard Class Abilities for the rest of your career, with the XP penalty being based on whatever non-standard Class Abilities you learned.

I tried running it once back around 1995 or so, and it was a very interesting, if somewhat clunky, system (sort of like the custom Class creation/Class modification system included in the 2nd Edition Dungeon Master's Guide) but it did allow for some Class customization in 1st/2nd Edition; Greyhawk Adventures was specifically advertised on the cover as being compatible with both 1E and 2E, but it was a mishmash of both, with the Ranger Class Abilities of Karll, the Duke of Urnst, being a kind of weird mix of the 1E and 2E Ranger (as I recall, he was listed as having both Weapon Specialization and Magic-User spells from the 1E Ranger, along with the Hide in Shadows and Move Silently percentages of the 2E Ranger.)
 
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