Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

Gnomes weren't interesting before Dragonlance, and weren't mechanically tempting before 3e.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

In 1980 I was playing a gnome fighter/illusionist. First, and only, halfling I ever saw came after the publishing of Unearthed Arcana, a fighter/thief double specialised in darts. I believe it retired when we banned most of UA.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

From my groups in D&D, the only races I'd seen as PCs were humans, elves, half-elves, custom cat-folk with the same attributes as elves, and custom wolf-men with the same attributes as dwaves; these latter two were mostly used for clerics and paladins, respectively. Maybe our rogues were halflings sometimes, but I always remembered them as humans.

This probably contributes to why I've latched onto dwarves as awesome, and don't think they need much if any change from their depiction in bog-standard vanilla fantasy games. A dwarf wizard with a halberd-staff or a mace-wand is my favorite.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

LOL. Exactly. I don't think I could handle it without it
routing into non-stop laughter & suspension of disbelief
entirely shattered. I figured PCs would simply be the
staple type of fantasy character, but with the GURPS
system. It would be interesting to see something like
OD&D in a GURPS system (where standard classes &
demi-human races are treated as stand-alone classes).

Stories where Dragons & Pixies are the main characters
is probably something I'd quickly bypass in a bookstore..but
I guess somebody likes it.

HAHA. Well I would stick the first 3 books of the
1st Ed, avoid '1.5' other than maybe flavor. I recall
friends creating PCs out of all the NPC classes that
showed up in Dragon. Like find somebody running a
6th level grave digger..lol. Those would probably
be good for an evil PC campaign I suppose.

But I guess some of those wild classes are part
of the DF books, so I guess I can't complain if
somebody uses it.

We always had a guy that played Gnome illusionists or
some sort of gnome as well. He was always very
disruptive to the game but would say he was in
character. I think his DMing skill was better
than his PC skill.

Does anybody play plain jane Fighters anymore??

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

It's not that far from what you get out of the vanilla GURPS: Fantasy as written - Elves start with Magery 0 and Unaging, while Dwarves get higher HT, gold sense and greed. Dwarves make natural warriors, Elves get to be automatically "multiclassed" if you want for them to be.

With a bit of tweaking of the racial template, you'd have OD&D.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

And the next character is a human swashbuckler...

...with Weirdness Magnet.

Come to think about it, the player has given all his characters Weirdness Magnet so far. I really need to come up with something spectacular this time.

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

A lot of them were later generation AD&D, though. And setting dependent. If you could find a GM who'd let you play with Oriental Adventures race and/or you played Dragonlance, you had those races available.

To be fair, though, AD&D squashed player character monsters really badly . . . but earlier editions of D&D (Holmes blue-box D&D, for example, and OD&D) were fine with stuff like balrog player characters. You still had to start at level 1, so a 1 HD balrog was still pretty weak, and it might take a long time to level, but it was given the nod as okay.

Still, some people find it more fun to have pretty bland PCs in a strange world, instead of strange PCs in a strange world. It's really a matter of taste.

Just to be pedantic, you can't double specialize in darts. Or specialize at all if you are multi-classed. Per UA, page 18 - "Only melee weapons, excluding pole arms and the two handed sword, may be used in double specialization" and the latter per the UA errata publish in Dragon magazine 103, November 1985.

That said, at least one published module violated all the rules for specialization all over the place - characters with multiple specializations, often double (H2 The Mines of Bloodstone).

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

Back to the original topic -
I got three groups of DF players:

The “Ruins on the Bluff” vanilla crew:
Brother Smyth (Human, Cleric):
“Brother Smyth” is a Cleric of Wotan, God of Knowledge and Healing. His spells are mostly for healing, but he can throw a Sunbolt if need arises. In melee combat he uses a Mace and Shield.

Gimble Greenwheat (Halfling, Thief):
“Gimble” is a burglar. He is a master at hiding and sneaking, and is highly talented at opening locks and finding traps. Combat in not his forte. He will hide and snipe with his cross bow once in combat, or launch a surprise attack with his long knife if he must.

“Rook”, Thurin Stonebeard (Dwarf, Knight)
“Rook” is a Dwarven warrior. He is very skilled with his Axe and Shield. For ranged attacks, he has a crossbow and knows how to throw axes.

Willowwind Greenleaf of the Roanoaks (Wood Elf, Scout):
“Willowwind” is an elven ranger from the Roanoaks. She is talented at woodcraft, e.g., tracking, moving silently, navigating, etc. Her preferred weapon is a Composite Bow. She uses a quarter staff in melee combat.

Darien Tiberius (Human, Holy Warrior)
“Darien” is a Paladin of Protem the Light Bringer god of light and fire. His focus is fighting undead. He fights with a broadsword and shield. For ranged attacks, he has a crossbow.

Baer of the Blue Mountain Clan, (Human, Barbarian):
“Baer” is a huge (7’6”) human barbarian warrior. He wields a large sword in battle. He has a longbow for ranged attacks.

Saboo (Human, Martial Artist)
“Saboo” is a Discipline of the Tower of the Winds from the far east. He is skilled at unarmed combat, but will normally use a simple quarter staff. He carries a brace of Shuriken for ranged work.

Pascal de la Fort, (Human, Swashbucler):
“Pascal” is a wiry dexterous swordsman from the Azure Sea. He dual wields a pair of very fine sabers in battle. He has a brace of throwing knifes for ranged attacks.

Arcania Half-Elven (Half-Elf, Wizard)
“Arcania” is a wizardess in the Gray Guild. She knows a number of spells in the Air College, but also knows useful spells in the Fire, Knowledge, Light, Mind Control, Protection, and Sound colleges. She knows the Lightning and Explosive Lightning spells, but she is more of a scholar than battle wizard. She has her staff if she is forced into melee combat.

The “Blackwatch Legion” (DF Special Ops) current team –
“Vidar” (Shadow Elf Thief/Martial Artist); Team Infiltrator
“Ra’jir” (Cat-Folk Swashbuckler/Martial Artist); Team Close Combat-Weapons
“Forest” (Wood Elf Knight/Scout); Team Weapons/Shooter
“M” (High-Elf Wizard (specialist in the Fire College)); Team Demolitions
“Gunter” (Were-Bear Barbarian); Team Close Combat-Weapons
“Anastay Strix” (Nymph Wizard (Illusionist)); Team Face/Comm Specialist
“Azurite” (Mountain Elf Thief/Cleric), Team Medic / Backup Infiltrator


I’m preparing for my own one shot “The Monster M*A*S*H” (Murder*Assassination*Shanghai*Highjackers), and here is the current character list:
? (Corpse-Eater Thief) – A crazy (Phantom voices/split personality) Burglar
? (Dark-One Mystic Knight) – Doing the Death Knight thing
“Seth” (Elder-Spawn (Drow) Mentalist) – A Psientist / Tempest
“Ryder” (Elder-Spawn (Goblin) Cleric) – Earth God worshiper
“Oxyn” (Gargoyle Martial Artist) – An interesting build
? (Hell Gnome Bard) – (not sure about this one yet)
? (Infernal Scout) - (not sure about this one yet)
“Moag” (Ogre Knight (Halberd Weapon Master)) – Looks deadly

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

I play in two DF groups, both of which are actually pretty balanced.

Group 1:
Andreni - Wood Elf Greed Druid - The leader of our group, focusing almost singularly on plant spells.
Ironlimb - Ent Barbarian - He's the tank, he and Andreni have the Special Rapport advantage, and they wind up making sure that some of the other party members take care of nature.
Azriel - Celestial Cleric of a God of Death - Limited healing capability, lots of zombies.
Boziik - Shadow Elf Scout - Always good for putting two arrows into the foes vitals every turn.
Eybel/Kane - A human Psi - His has two disadvantage lists linked by Split Personality, so whenever something stressful happens the other personality pops out and takes over. Eybel is nice. Kane sets everything on fire and scalps slain foes...

Group 2:
Mandar - Human Holy Warrior/Barbarian - Tank, Healer, Leader. Stick in the mud about helping innocents, but that's probably not a bad thing.
Lakota - Human Druid - A beastmaster druid with a really good spell list and a bunch of animal allies. Basically he kicks butt better than any character than I've ever seen. I wish I had built Andreni closer to the way Braden built Lakota...
Rythe Doomblaster - Dwarf Demolisher - Explosives + Explosive temper for the win!
Oberon - Pixie Wizard - Really small and really smart. IQ 17 means that he's our go to for a lot of things because he has really good defaults.
Asaph - Nymph Bard - He's all communication skills and bardic magic. With a base +16 to reaction rolls and the Presence spell that's +32; he can reason with anything, although we've not had opportunity to negotiate with dragons or anything like that yet.

I play Andreni in Group 1, but in Group 2 I play Rythe and Asaph. Both games are by post, so it works out fine. Interestingly the groups are actually in the same world and have run into each other before, the gm made us split up again though, apparently gming two games of 5-6 is easier than one game of 11 lol. As you can see both groups are pretty well balanced with the exception of sometimes needing a thief, although group 2 makes due with the demolisher. "This door is locked." <Rythe places shattersand charge> BOOM! "What door?"

Re: Dungeon Fantasy party compositions
 

Well, if we're being all on-topic . . . The campaign that most strongly inspired DF had these PCs:

• Kaeso Curius Severus, a human alchemist and gadgeteer closest to what became the DF artificer.
  
• Leif the Lucky, a part-ogre, part-demon, mostly human barbarian, with what DF would call a druid or shaman lens (both and neither).
  
• Mushamee Potemkin, a straight-up human knight, right down to the sword, shield, and social status.
  
• Recnam Orcen, a cleric of the God of Death, complete with extensive holy powers and spells. Technically human, he eventually became partially undead. Yeah . . .
  
• Rufus Gordianus Falco, who singlehandedly inspired the justiciar added to DF in Pyramid #3/10. Also human.
  
• Vinz Clortho, human, whose exact profession was some combo of what DF would call assassin, martial artist, and wizard. Pick one and make the other two lenses.

Early on, there was another PC, played by a gamer who had to quit for family reasons:

• Vladimir Sepetski, a whip-wielding human slaver, closest to a DF thief in skills and attitude.

Prominent accompanying NPCs included:

• Brunhild, the 100% ogre grandmother of Leif. Definitely a barbarian. (Leif's granddad was around, too, but entirely as a kind of spirit guide.)
  
• Diandra, a human maidservant to Helena, and Leif's eventual wife. Functionally a low-points DF innkeeper.
  
• Helena Justina Claudia, human, the wife of Rufus and something like a DF 15 archer with the learned lens.
  
• Ilya, Josef, Oleg, and Vladimir, Mushamee's loyal bodyguards – all of them human – who would qualify as low-powered knights in their own right.
  
• Loclá, Vinz's apparently human lover, who would be hard to define in DF terms . . . a witch, and somewhere between the mentalist and the shaman in capabilities.