AD&D 1st ed. Character Progression

(Click on charts to the right to view larger versions.)

The top chart displays character progression from level 1 through level 20 for all the 1st edition character classes. Note that druid, monk, and assassin all have maximum levels above which the character cannot progress.

Recall that the 1st edition bard is not a class the player can start in; the character must begin as a fighter before switching to thief before becoming a bard. The bard curve on the chart assumes that the character spends five levels as a fighter and six levels as a thief, with no "wasted" experience. In other words, the character achieves just enough experience to obtain the necessary fighter or thief level, and then changes class. This is the "quick" bard, or the minimum fighter and thief experience necessary before beginning adventuring as a bard.

What the chart shows is that at the higher levels (from about 100,000 exp onwards, which corresponds to class levels in the range from 7 to 9), the different professions have markedly varied progressions. At the most extreme, the 20th level thief has spent half the experience points as the 20th level paladin.

The bottom chart zooms in on the first 100,00 exp. With the exception of the bard, this chart suggests that for the first 7 to 9 character levels (up to 100,000 exp) there is not much difference between classes.

The conclusions? Well, for one, if you're playing a campaign where you don't expect your characters to achieve 10th level or higher, then there really is no long term penalty for playing a slower-developing character class. But, in a longer-term campaign, picking a class with a better overall curve might be important.

In addition, there is the problem of bards. Since bards essentially "stack" three character class curves atop one another, they get an incredible boost in total character levels per earned experience relative to all other classes. (Note to my DM: I didn't fully realize this before-hand, honest.) All the curves begin to level off in the 150,000 to 300,000 exp range, but by then the bard has accumulated 20-plus character levels (5 as fighter, 6 as thief, and 9 as bard). The bard is essentially a 20th level character at 123,000 exp. Compared to this, the thief spends 2.2 million exp to reach 20th level and the paladin spends over 4 million exp. The 20th level bard has progressed through 31 character levels (fighter 5 / thief 6 / bard 20) and has still only spent 1.8 million exp!

The munchkin conclusion from all of this is to ALWAYS play a multi-class character. There's no reason not to start as a steep class, say thief or druid or cleric or illusionist, before switching to your 'real' class. You'll end up with better hit points and a relative advantage against pure characters. For the same experience, you can be an Illusionist 6 / Paladin 6 or straight up Paladin 6.