AD&D 2e martial class

So I got invited to play AD&D 2e with my friend's brother. I've played 3.5, 4, and 5, but never this iteration. What are some of the better martial classes to choose? I'm not (necessarily) looking for min-maxed munchkins; I just want avoid the bad and the traps. No casters; I can't stand vancian magic.

>AD&D
>Choosing your class
>not rolling 3d6 down the line and letting the dice decide

You got some learning to do son.

What the shit? Is that even a thing?

At least skim the PHB before asking questions

Yeah, though to be fair, stats in 2e are worthless unless you roll extremely high or extremely low.

Like you could have a 16 in STR and only get a +1 bonus to damage and the minimum requirement for a class is usually a 9 or something along those lines.

A 2e Fighter becomes one scary mother at high levels. Multiple attacks, excellent to-hit, high damage, and some of the best saves, which lets you shrug off magic like a boss.
There aren't really any "trap options" IMO, apart from the poor old Thief. (Nobody runs him the right way, and that makes him weak.)

Proper roll for AD&D is 4d6, drop the lowest. It's how Gary did it.
Besides, by RAW, if you roll 3d6, there's like a 0.0001% chance to have a Paladin or some of the other high entry barrier classes, which is silly. 4d6 drop lowest brings it up to like 1 in 54 rolled characters being eligible for the Paladin class.

Yep, it's a common old-school thing. I dig it, but a lot of folks do allow you to arrange the stats in any order you please.

Fucking this.... im suspicious this thread is thinly veiled b8
>t. 2e player since 89, a literal oldfag

How new are you?

There aren't any. Go Psionicist. Sensei is psionic monk that is pretty cool. Also, play Darksun. Or, if you are really stuck on the martial thing, since you're playing Darksun now, make a Half-Giant gladiator.

Magic User and Magic User multiclass are the best. Once you get to mid level, having day long or hour long buffs from spells is the best. You don't want to play a caster though.

That takes Ranger and Paladin out unless you're staying low level. Ranger is good, even if the stealth skills don't really kick in till higher level. Paladin is a walking evil divination beatstick, but the limitation on magical gear can be a 'hindrance' in a high magic or monty haul game.

Thieves can melee, even if they're not as good at stand-up fights as warriors. Picking and choosing targets to backstab is the optimal strategy for a combat thief.

Fighter, Berserker or Barbarian is your best bet. If you're going to specialize in a weapon, swords are the best, due to magic item tables, but it really doesn't matter if your DM if cherry picking rewards and treasure.

Barbarian is from the Barbarian Handbook. More of a primitive warrior than a Viking or Mongol. Ranges from cave man to stone-age tribal. Berserker is from the Viking campaign supplement, more of a traditional berserker, complete with some shapeshifting at higher levels.

remember that 2E mages are glass cannons, and low-level 2E mages don't get a lot of ammo for that cannon.

long ago when i was learning 2E i was told that the best investment a mage could make with their starting gold was to buy very good armor, put it on the party fighter, and hide behind him.

as the party meat shield, consider making a similar deal with your mage.

also, if your problem with magic users is just Vancian spell slots (which i hate too), the Psionics system is basically casting with spell points instead of slots.

It's all down to luck.

>implying stats are all that important

It ain't 3e where stats are massively important, you just need to git gud.

>Thri-Kreen Fighter or Gladiator
>Use the Natural Weapons and Chatkcha Specialization in the Thri-Kreen of Athas book.
>Start with 5/1 Claw and 3/2 Bite Attacks/round or 3/1 Chatkcha/Round
>Cap with 6/1 Claw and 5/2 Bite Attacks/round or 5/1 Chatkcha/round


The only downside is you have shit performance vs shit that requires a magic item to hit. But you could get a wizard or priest friend to make you a magical Chatkcha.

Disregarding stats makes it purely luck based. Fighters are literally incapable of doing something other than standing still and attacking, and usually they won't be good at it either.

>It's how Gary did it.

Of course, Gary had been gone for 4 or 5 years by the time 2e AD&D came out. The default method for 3e is indeed 3d6 straight down, or Method I. There are other methods in the PHB, but Method I is the default and the other methods explicitly require DM permission.

It depends. If you're treating the game like an arena match, sure. If you're doing the dungeon expedition thing, they can poke stuff with a 10 foot pole just as well as anyone else.

Oh, pic for proof of how AD&D 2nd Edition did things (and that the other methods need DM permission)

I'm not treating the game like anything. I'm just saying it's all about luck.

Well sure, that is the default method, but that's as silly as post-Gary TSR trying to make 2e all about high flying heroic fantasy without doing anything about the ultra lethality of the system.

I didn't know anybody who used 3d6 down the line in AD&D 2e, pretty much everyone had gone 4d6 drop the lowest by '89, apart from the folks who were using Basic or still playing OD&D, where stats were REALLY unimportant.

>it's all luck

>denying player skill

>in TSR editions of all things

Nonsense, you gotta git gud.

Fighter if you aren't using supplements. If you are, look for a neat kit from Complete Fighter to go with it. You can also use certain kits for paladin to get rid of the spellcasting for other bonuses, (Inquisitor, I wanna say?) which is also a good option.

There's more to the stats than just your combat adjustments.

>the ultra lethality of the system
Make sure to make use of hirelings and henchmen, and then it's only exceptionally lethal 1/3 of the time!

Only with the clinically retarded.
Gygax himself called out rolling for stats as stupid.

Nope. Gygax preferred 4d6 drop the lowest for stats. In his latter years he would often run OD&D, using only the three LBBs with no supplements, and these house rules.

Asymmetric xp tables mean it really doesn't matter, but the fanciest sounding martial class you qualify for is probably your best bet. I forget if 2e has monks, but if it does then they're garbage.
Note also that 2e is high lethality. Don't act stupid, don't leave outcomes up to dice, don't write a long backstory, and don't expect the DM to tailor a narrative for you. It's not that kind of game.

Stats have very little impact in play. But yes. See also, Psionicist is really, truly crap. They start with their best tricks and basically never improve, which turns out to be a bad trade around level 3.
Taking some very long downtime to spam Empower gets stupid fast, but that's one of the few level locked powers (post Name level, at that) so it's basically irrelevant.

>Magic User and Magic User multiclass are the best.
You really think someone would do that, just go on the Internet and tell lies?

>2007 Additions
Those aren't additions, and most are redundant with the first chunk. The blogger who compiled that cited 2 sources.

There are but you're still not going to get anything significant unless you roll really high or really low, they're practically vestigial unless you're going for the higher tiered classes like Paladins or Monks.

>You really think someone would do that, just go on the Internet and tell lies?

In my last 2E game the paladin and my PC (bow-focused fighter) were definitely the scariest fuckers in the party damage-wise. The wild mage could do some crazy shit too, but well, wild magic.

2E is cool, OP. Don't be much concerned about builds and the like.

The scale of abilities in AD&D isn't particularly suited to straight 3d6. For instance, in Basic (where 3d6 *is* appropriate), a 13 strength gives you +1 to hit and +1 damage. To get that in AD&D, you need a 17 strength. Rolling 3d6, you have a 25.93% chance to roll a 13 or higher, but only a 1.85% chance to roll 17 or higher. So you're 14 times more likely to get at least a +1/+1 in Basic as you are in AD&D. Even if you switch to a 4d6 drop low method, you're still only at a 5.79% to get +1/+1 in AD&D (which is only slightly better than your chance of getting a +2/+2 in Basic), so you're hardly overdoing things.

The hp hit isn't worth it.

5 levels of Cleric then dualclassing to Fighter is amazing though.

I wasn't disagreeing with you, just adding the image macro.

Fighter is the best if you are using Weapon Specialization, which you probably are. Ranger takes more experience to level which is something to keep in mind. If you've got one 16 to put in Strength then a Fighter will get a 10% experience bump, while a Ranger needs 16s in 3 stats to get that bonus on top of requiring more experience per level.

Paladin requires a 17 in Charisma, so they are only good if you've got ridiculously high stats. If you've got one 17+ and are playing a warrior and then not putting it in Strength is a real heartbreaker.

Fighter also has some decent kits if you are using splats.