Cool shit the Fighter could do in old school D&D

[Hades]

And the worst thing... that bard isn't even a "bard" (i.e. a wandering minstrel and entertainer), but more a "druidic loremaster".

Because that's not a Bard. It sounds like a Class Kit, but a bit extreme. AD&D's Bard wants 12 Dex, 13 Int, and 15 Cha. And you do gain Spells & Bardic Music, through Inspire sucks (takes 3 rounds before combat to use). They do use the Thief's XP table too which is pretty damn nice. I guess I could mention that for what it's worth.

2nd edition Bards do cast more powerful spells than Wizards for the same XP total as a result. If you just want to throw around the biggest fireball you can, Bard wins out at mid-levels (before the Wizard's higher level spell access gives them even better fireballs) due to the Thief table being about 1 level higher than the Wizard table.

Yeah, the 2nd edition bard was ridiculous. I didn't realize it until I was playing one, and thought "Crap... I'm basically a wizard, with benefits."

Another "crazy" class was the Defiler from Dark Sun: basically a wizard with the xp table of a rogue... but if you got catched when defiling, there were just some troubles XD

[Stratovarius]

Another "crazy" class was the Defiler from Dark Sun: basically a wizard with the xp table of a rogue... but if you got catched when defiling, there were just some troubles XD

That guy's back in 3.5 as well, as well as all of Dark Sun. One of the second party settings, but fairly cool.

If there was a DM interested in running a DS campaign, I'd sure as hell hop in.

[Hades]

Are you talking about athas.org version?

I truly loved their products... It's so sad that Dark Sun 4e basically "killed" that site

[Stratovarius]

Are you talking about athas.org version?

I truly loved their products... It's so sad that Dark Sun 4e basically "killed" that site

Yup, I was.

Also, how many people actually played single class characters in 2E? Most of the time (aside from something like the Bard), you hear of Fighter/Mage or Mage/Thief or Cleric/Thief and so on

[Hades]

When I played AD&D Fighter/X was a popular choice.

You had some restrictions: for example fighter/mage couldn't wear armor (besides elven chain), or fighter/cleric couldn't use slashing weapons, but multiclass was always better, since it was more like 3.5 gestalt.

[Keldar]

While we'll never get a statistical sampling worth a damn for 2E, I can provide an anecdotal amount from the long running campaign I was in in high school.

Lessee, counting the alts we swapped around through in the main group alone...
1 Human Fighter
1 Human Fighter, Cavalier kit
1 Krynnish Minotaur Fighter
1 Dwarf Fighter
1 Drow Fighter
1 Elf Fighter/Mage
1 Human Paladin
1 Human Mage
1 Human Cleric (Dual classed to Fighter)
1 Human Thief
1 Half Elf Bard
1 Human Thief (Three if you count the two that died while the DM was trying to introduce him.   )

So out of 12 characters, there were 5 single classed fighters, a Paladin subclass, and a Fighter/Mage, and a Cleric turned Fighter because I was sick of playing the Cleric.  (A tactic that didn't really work, but it did help kill a 5 year old campaign!)  Fighter was easily the most popular class.  It had juuuuust enough advantages to be relevant, and 2Es roll system made Paladins and Rangers rare.  (And wasting a 17 on useless charisma made Paladins kinda sucky til they could get a strength item or something.)

[MeanFightingGuy]

I wondered, though, what exactly made an AD&D warrior preferable over a ranger apart from weapon spec? Not regarding the fact that the warrior is a lot more accessible due to lower stat requirements, of course. Because the way I see it, a warrior didn't have much over a ranger unless you played a non-good party or wanted to multiclass.

- Intelligence was nigh-useless for everyone but Wizards, governing only how many languages you could speak. [...]
In 1st edition, [Clerics] also needed Wisdom of 18 to cast 7th level spells, and Wis ~16 or so to cast 6th level spells.

If you used the skill system, the # of bonus languages converted into additional skill points for level 1, which was quite handy considering most classes only had 3-4 of them and only gained 1 more point every 3-4 levels; the cleric's spell level cap also applied to 2nd ed., though.

Level 20
Druid: 2,000,000.
Thief/Bard: 2,200,000.
Cleric: 2,700,000.
Fighter: 3,000,000.
Paladin/Ranger: 3,600,000.
Wizard: 3,750,000.

This lists omit the fact that druids got royally screwed over since they had to restart again from scratch after becoming a hierophant. They advanced pretty quickly until the mid-levels, at which point their xp requirements went through the roof. Just to get to level 16, they needed 3,500,000xp, effectively making them the only class that needed 5,500,000xp to get to level 20. And one had to win against competitors in order to gain levels after a certain point (I think it was from 13-15 or something like that), with a defeat barring you from advancement or even costing you your newly gained level (can't recall). Unless one had a DM who was willing to hand out generous xp rewards for winning these duels, being a druid truly sucked at least in that regard.

[Amechra]

Druid truly was a silly class back then.

Which gives me an idea for a Druid fix! After xth level, you can only gain a new level in Druid by defeating a Druid of higher level than you in single combat.

Sounds totally fair, right? Survival of the fittest and all.

[Prime32]

As soon as you're talking about "mundanes" it should be obvious that they can only become worthless compared to magical/psionic classes at some point of advancement. [...] And it doesn't matter which system you're talking about. This point always comes. No matter how granular your advancement is. Because magic will always be open ended while mundanes will always have a ceiling called real world physics.

One thing I think would help is throwing out the division of Extraordinary, Supernatural and Spell-like abilities, and removing any mechanics which react to them differently (e.g. antimagic fields, letting magical damage ignore DR). Then describe high-level fighters as "supernaturally skilled" and such.

If you still want some kind of tags then use "Anatomy" and "Talent" so that you can clean up the wording for shapeshifting and possession mechanics.

[Stratovarius]

Druid truly was a silly class back then.

Which gives me an idea for a Druid fix! After xth level, you can only gain a new level in Druid by defeating a Druid of higher level than you in single combat.

Sounds totally fair, right? Survival of the fittest and all.

You'd have to start at level 5 to stop the brokenness

[SorO_Lost]

This lists omit the fact that druids got royally screwed over since they had to restart again from scratch after becoming a hierophant.

Yeah, but that's a whole in depth discussion into it's self. Short gist is lv14 massive ramps up the scale of required XP, text over table allows for a lv14 Druid with 200k XP, you have 5,000xp just as you happen to have 16 levels of Druid, but all together it takes 5.5mil XP for a Druid to "legitimately" hit level 20.

You just never really notice it. For example 2,250,000xp (my last example) is Fighter 16 vs Druid 13 / Wizard 13 or Wizard 12 / Druid 13 / Thief 13. We still see the Druid progression keeping up with the rest because the horrible part of the scale doesn't kick in until the 14th level, it's just up to this point those Druid levels have been gained like candy. Entire games will end before this point.

[MeanFightingGuy]

And it doesn't matter which system you're talking about. This point always comes. No matter how granular your advancement is. Because magic will always be open ended while mundanes will always have a ceiling called real world physics.

Well... okay, I discount the epic level-system were mundane skills can have effects beyond the possibilites of real world physics (like the balancing feat allowing to balance on clouds and water), because on the same level one is able to accomplish feats like that, casters are gods in all but name which is clearly better than reproducing some low level spells by entirely mundane means.

BUT who says that magic always has to be open ended under any circumstances? That's the D&D way, but by no means the only one (think of Middle Earth or The Hyborian age for a more limited use of magic)

[Stratovarius]

BUT who says that magic always has to be open ended under any circumstances? That's the D&D way, but by no means the only one (think of Middle Earth or The Hyborian age for a more limited use of magic)

Doesn't really change things though. The mere mortals (ie, non-magical folk) ran like hell when a Balrog showed up. Gandalf? Kicked its ass.

Hell, the ENTIRE Lord of the Rings is about mundanes having to try and defeat magic, and barely managing it with the help of every power on the side of good, some of whom were pretty damn magical themselves (Elves, Gandalf).

There isn't really a setting out there where magic isn't better at most levels than mundanes, even if magic is more limited in usage than the CoDZilla approach of D&D.

[SorO_Lost]

(think of Middle Earth or The Hyborian age for a more limited use of magic)

You mean like turning lead into gold (alchemy), killing people with a doll (voodoo), raining fire & brimestone (bible), healing injuries (indian shaman), invincibility during battle (circle of awe, norse), or controlling the weather (every. single. one. of. them. ever.)?

Oooh, you mean Gandolf. Who at full power air punched people across rooms, threw lightning bolts, and in the Hobbit teleport in and blow up like 30 Goblins at once as a Gray. Yeah, I'd say he's pretty limited to what he can hit with a stick like a fighter.

[linklord231]

There isn't really a setting out there where magic isn't better at most levels than mundanes, even if magic is more limited in usage than the CoDZilla approach of D&D.

Well of course.  There would be no point in learning magic if the mundane way of doing things was always better.  The trick is balancing things so that magic is better at some things, but not most things, or making it rare or costly enough that it's only usable in the most dire of circumstances, or both. 

[SorO_Lost]

OR you know. Follow other fantasy novels and the main character(s) can just use magic anyway.

Like the Seeker, Wheel of Time, Dragon Prince, Dark Sun, Harry Potter, Eragon, and so on series.

Edit - Speaking off. Can we play name that novel? The main character learns "wild magic" from impossible to get rid of books of sun, moon, and twilight(?). It turns out he's a super gish and pretty BA with a sword. He gets cast out of the city by the "high mages" (they gather magic energy off people) and chased to near death by animated gargoyles but is rescued by a unicorn. Said horsey responded to his wild magic call and he has to pay the price of remaining a virgin for one year. It becomes known the only way to hurt the BBEG is wild magic to weaken, and the high arcane to kill (at this point performed by a former high magic that learned how to bind elementals). There is also the last dragon ever who bonds to an elf. Dragon's in bonding trade their life span to pay for wild magic's cost. Any of this ringing a bell? I never finished that series...

[MeanFightingGuy]

Doesn't really change things though. The mere mortals (ie, non-magical folk) ran like hell when a Balrog showed up. Gandalf? Kicked its ass.

Oooh, you mean Gandolf. Who at full power air punched people across rooms, threw lightning bolts, and in the Hobbit teleport in and blow up like 30 Goblins at once as a Gray. Yeah, I'd say he's pretty limited to what he can hit with a stick like a fighter.

Can't exactly recall these scenes from the books - movies don't count, sorry. He also didn't talk to the butterfly to summon the eagles.
His single most impressive feats happen either off-screen (the fight against the Balrog, banishing Sauron's shade from Don Guldur) or don't look that awesome (his depowering of Saruman) - and all of them are strictly reserved against beings of equal status (Sauron, the Balrog and Saruman all being Maiar, i.e. angelic beings, as Gandalf is). Apart from that and considering his actual race (Maiar = angelic being), I guess I can safely say he was fairly conservative with the use of his powers, and given the stakes, it's unlikely that he was holding back for dramatic effect. Heck, he even explictly said when Legolas asked him "hey, why don't you just use magic to melt that annoying snow" that his powers didn't work that way.

An interesting read about Gandalf's powers is here. http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/29164/what-are-gandalfs-powers
Apart from solo'ing the Balor aaaahm sorry Balrog I guess most mid-level DnD wizards or sorcerors could accomplish infinitely more impressive feats with their powers. That magic means "bend reality at will" and "have a tool for every situation at your disposal" doesn't necessarily have to be, even though Monte Cook may say so.
 

[Amechra]

OR you know. Follow other fantasy novels and the main character(s) can just use magic anyway.

Like the Seeker, Wheel of Time, Dragon Prince, Dark Sun, Harry Potter, Eragon, and so on series.

Edit - Speaking off. Can we play name that novel? The main character learns "wild magic" from impossible to get rid of books of sun, moon, and twilight(?). It turns out he's a super gish and pretty BA with a sword. He gets cast out of the city by the "high mages" (they gather magic energy off people) and chased to near death by animated gargoyles but is rescued by a unicorn. Said horsey responded to his wild magic call and he has to pay the price of remaining a virgin for one year. It becomes known the only way to hurt the BBEG is wild magic to weaken, and the high arcane to kill (at this point performed by a former high magic that learned how to bind elementals). There is also the last dragon ever who bonds to an elf. Dragon's in bonding trade their life span to pay for wild magic's cost. Any of this ringing a bell? I never finished that series...

First book's named The Outstretched Shadow. I've been meaning to pick that series back up.

And I want to suggest another series to look at, but for the life of me I can't think of the name (best character is a 13th Century French Vampire with full investment in chivalry who was summoned into the body of a 14-year old boy. He wears a fake beard at all times.)

[MeanFightingGuy]

You mean like turning lead into gold (alchemy), killing people with a doll (voodoo), raining fire & brimestone (bible), healing injuries (indian shaman), invincibility during battle (circle of awe, norse), or controlling the weather (every. single. one. of. them. ever.)?

And that. It's not that I'm opposed to casters having nice feats that can't be reproduced by mundanes - what would be the point if they hadn't. I guess no one has a beef with classes being complementary to one another (the warrior kills the dragon, the priest patches up the warrior) - just that some classes can do everything by themselves.

OR you know. Follow other fantasy novels and the main character(s) can just use magic anyway.

Like the Seeker, Wheel of Time, Dragon Prince, Dark Sun, Harry Potter, Eragon, and so on series.

Didn't read half of them and from what I've heard, didn't miss that much. Okay, Harry Potter I know and TWOT at least partially. And both of these have in common that we don't have exactly classes, but scenarios where almost every major character is sort of a Caster or has other leet skillz. If Harry Potter was an RPG, odds are good you could only play different sorts of caster classes.
Funny thing: JKR herself stated that a wizard as a rule wouldn't be much of a match against a muggle with a shotgun. So Clarke's third law still applies.

[SorO_Lost]

Apart from solo'ing the Balor aaaahm sorry Balrog I guess most mid-level DnD wizards or sorcerors could accomplish infinitely more impressive feats with their powers. That magic means "bend reality at will" and "have a tool for every situation at your disposal" doesn't necessarily have to be, even though Monte Cook may say so.

Looks like you took the TL;DR route. Post #2 starts yapping about his theories about Gandalf not having any magical powers and neither did Merlin and you stopped there.

Gandalf helps Elrond to create the flood that sweeps away the Nazgûl:

I added a few touches of my own … some of the waves took the form of great white horses with shining white riders; and there were many rolling and grinding boulders. (Many Meetings)

He somehow repels the Nazgûl from Weathertop:

such light and flame cannot have been seen on Weathertop since the war beacons of old. (The Council of Elrond)

He knows a lot of spells for opening doors:

I can still remember ten score of them without searching in my mind. (A Journey in the Dark)

He repels the Nazgûl outside the gates of Minas Tirith:

It seemed to Pippin that [Gandalf] raised his hand, and from it a shaft of white light stabbed upwards. The Nazgûl gave a long wailing cry and swerved away… (The Siege of Gondor)

Add to this

But Gandalf sprang up the steps, and the men fell back from him and covered their eyes; for his coming was like the incoming of a white light into a dark place, and he came with great anger. He lifted up his hand, and in the very stroke, the sword of Denethor flew up and left his grasp and fell behind him in the shadows of the house; and Denethor stepped backward before Gandalf as one amazed.

Telekinesis.

shutting spell on the door of Mazarbul chamber and opening ones at the west gate of Moria, "words of guard and guiding" at Bill the pony, blessing on Butterbur's beer, Word of Command which seems like some special show of power to control material objects: "Then something came into the chamber - I felt it through the door, and the orcs themselves were afraid and fell silent. It laid hold of the iron ring, and then it perceived me and my spell. What it was I cannot guess, but I have never felt such a challenge. The counter-spell was terrible. It nearly broke me. For an instant the door left my control and began to open! I had to speak a word of Command. That proved too great a strain. The door burst in pieces.

Hold Portal.

You talked long in your sleep and it was not hard for me to read your mind and memory", communication of thoughts, inducing fear or strengthening courage, likely by the power of ring, mentally fighting the will of Sauron ,,I sat in the high place and strove with Dark Tower" trying to free Frodo's mind from Sauron's influence at Amon Hen, he was the voice that urged the hobbit to take off the ring, putting ,,fair visions and promptings of wisdom into the hearts of elves

Telepathy.

physically fighting with Balrog which is ,,stronger than a strangling snake", acting in ,,splintered second", ,,nimbly as a goat", ,,the old man was too quick for him", ,,Gandalf revealed the strength in him" while easily lifting Faramir's body, keen senses: ,,One sign of the change that he soon noticed was that he could see more in the dark than any of his companions, save perhaps Gandalf.

Divine Power.

Gimli started and then stood still like stone staring...

Come back, Saruman!' said Gandalf in a commanding voice. To the amazement of the others, Saruman turned again, and as if dragged against his will, he came slowly back to the iron rail, leaning on it, breathing hard. His face was lined and shrunken. His hand clutched his heavy black staff like a claw.

(Mass) Hold Person.

So he can shape water, blow up rocks, summon light, create fire grenades out of pinecones, knows almost a dozen spells to open doors, can read minds, control weaker wills, and telekineticly disarm people at least Mr. Nomovies. He also solo's a couple Encounters the rest of the party couldn't. He should not be taken for a conjuror of cheap tricks.

Saruman on the other hand can manipulate the weather and his voice can enslave men. As Gandalf promotes to White, we can add weather control too. Except, well Gandalf tried counter-spelling it and failed so he probably already could to start with.