Need Help Deciding on New Character's Class 2e AD&D

I am starting a new campaign with a new character with one of my groups, and can't decide what class I want to try for. We play strict 2e AD&D with base classes and I usually play a thief or magic wielding class, in which I include Clerics, but not any classes which only learn magic later on or bards. So, I was looking for advice on which class to play. Btw, I don't want to do a plain fighter, because screw vanilla gameplay and I've seen conflicting sources on monks being in the game at all.

 

Paladins can be rewarding and are one of the best low-mid level classes imho. But depending on setting or DM preferences, you could end up with unwanted restrictions, both in roleplay and in acceptable tactics. If you have experience playing as a thief, a ranger could be more fun: some overlaps between the two classes, decent damage especially if you go the archery route and have no tank duties to fulfill and a sprinkle of magic and other misc features.

tl;dr paladin is better but blunt, ranger rewards creativity more.


edit 2nd edition bard suck royal monkey bollocks.

 

With my DM, it is whatever the book says, down to the T, unless he has no experience with the class, which is when we can fool him as to certain capabilities (nothing too cheap, just certain restriction removal).

 

Rules cannot explain clearly how to play a Paladin, it really depends on the background and setting. In my experiences, DMs should always bend the truth a bit to allow a choice to the player. If you go by the book, paladins and druids are unplayable (except for taylored adventures). Better to put the player in a difficult position once or twice with some phat moral dilemma than to costantly nag at him because he must be perfect. For example, a low level paladin could be considered sort of an acolyte up to level 5, this allows the group to indulge in some beloved low-level tactics (ambushes, some theft, trespassing) without a PC losing class features.
You could envelop such a situation in a bigger chain of adventures, use it as a plot hook, set things to become increasingly complex but manageable and so on.

If you go by the books, paladins are a stick in the ass and druids become hilarious due to muh balance and auld school true neutral. Just my two cents, ultimately is your DM choice obviously...


Maybe a conductor should move this to the gazebo... It's almost unused but cozy.

 

Roll 3d6 six times and pick whatever you qualify for you subhuman

 

To be fair D&D has certainly mellowed out in terms of paladins over the decades. For starters, barely anyone enforces the Vow of Poverty anymore.

I don't think a more normal paladin would be that rare, but it would have to be an older member with quite the experience on how the world actually operates, and who realizes going MUH CODE, SMITE SMITE SMITE generally doesn't work if you intended to not get shanked on pure annoyance factor and possibly make some friends/allies along the way. Kind of like a borderline disillusioned paladin by their own standards even though that would make him a lot more sensible to normal people. Kind of thing D&D would eventually introduce in 3.5 and call it Gray Guard, I guess.

 

That's what I was gonna do, but if you qualify for one of these, you qualify for at least one other

 

You might as well try a Paladin once to see how your DM feels about it - we'll assume you know at least some basic morality to not go around stabbing any peasants you don't like, but if your campaign suspiciously develops an outbreak of enemies wearing armor made out of live babies with bombs that detonate on death to "force hard decisions" on you, then don't play them again.

 

Take a ranger, don't forget to dualclass to mage at level 15.

 

... which will need to grind 16 levels as a mage without access to his old ranger skills, else experience for the fight is forfeit. Have fun with cantrip while the group is high level!

Unless :that's the joke.jpg:

 

High level group is a great help when you need to grind 16 levels quickly. Just find a good respawn point to camp at.

 

Unfortunately, if his DM is so strict by the books I think he would enforce the "one level up per adventure" rule. Otherwise each one of you should roll with a dual class, so that he learns to enforce said rule from the next campaign onwards...

 

I don't think he necessarily enforces that rule, but that's just been how it's been. (He didn't give us any/much XP from combat)