How to Do the Most Damage in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Second Edition

Sure you know how to put together a character in the second edition of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, role-play your way out of a paper bag and perform a few tactics that make the new players gasp in amazement, but you still can't take down a kobold in three rounds, and your fellow players aren't doing any better. Time to ratchet up the damage by more than a few points. Read on to learn how to do the most damage in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons second edition.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Warrior

1. Select the "Fighter" class for not only breadth of weapon selection but also for the weapon related skills, such as two weapon style that can double your attacking capacity. You can find these skills in the "Complete Fighter's Handbook and Combat & Tactics."
2. Specialize in a weapon that makes the most of your attributes. As a Fighter, you should probably rely on close-combat weapons. Pole-arms have the greatest amount of damage per hit, but are difficult to use in cramped environments like dungeons and are difficult to find magical versions of.
3. Choose the "Weapon Smithing" skill as a non-weapon proficiency so that you can routinely attempt a masterwork with "+1 to hit/+1 to damage" abilities, increasing your damage output when you don't have a magical weapon with better bonuses.
4. Use magic items to boost the damage of your weapons--oil of fire, for instance--or your strength. These will increase the overall damage of your weapon and possibly extend the time that you are damaging them; especially if they catch fire.
5. Pursue Grandmastery in your weapon as you enter the epic levels (15+).

Mage

6. Level as quickly as you can. Low level mages are notorious for their uselessness in combat. Fifth level is where the field starts to even out with combat spells such as "Fireball" available.
7. Specialize in a school of magic that is not divination or abjuration. Divination is not a school for causing damage, although it can give a strategic or tactical advantage. Abjuration specialists cannot cast the many deadly alteration spells.
8. Study the spell descriptions for nuances that you can use at a moment's notice. Many spells have some ambiguity to the description that can be used to your advantage.
9. Carry plenty of spell components. It's easy to lose track of this most important element of spell casting, but it can render you unable to utilize your best spell.

Priest

10. Worship a god of justice. The justice gods are far more likely to to whip out the weaponry and let you wield a sword or other weapon. They're also likely to be lawful, which will come in handy with other resources.
11. Remember that although you alone are not the bad ass of the party, you belong to an organization with resources above and beyond the rest of the party. There's a whole military branch of martial religions: Paladins. If your cause is right, they'll field them for you. Otherwise, you may still have other priests and possibly a god on your side.
12. Use the church as a means of preparing. If you've kept up on your tithing, you might be due for an upgrade in equipment.
13. Godcall sometimes. You don't get to abuse this ability, but once an adventure you can roll for personal intervention on your behalf. Circumstances will modify the roll, so encourage things in your favor.

Rogue

14. Look innocent. The opposition won't suspect that the guy in the merchant garb is the reason they're about to die if he appears to only have contracts up his sleeve. You can also attempt to "stumble" upon the combat and do the "I'm not with them" routine.
15. Back stab early and often. It only works once per combat, but every combat is a new opportunity to make your weapon gleam with the blood of your foe. Remember that you aren't limited to using daggers for this.
16. Level frequently to gain all of the advantages the rogue classes offer. The strength of the rogue class comes from it's ability to gain ranks and proficiencies at astonishing speeds.
17. Remember the domain of the rogue is really the urban environment, where his resources are far less limited than that of the fighter or the mage. The thieves' guild, if you're a member, can offer services and provide assistance that proves immediately advantageous.

Tips & Warnings

• Know your source books. There are plenty of opportunities to max out the damage potential by expending a few development points, exchanging class abilities for more damage oriented abilities or even using some of those proficiency slots you've stored up.
• Study tactics. Even the least of your team can contribute significantly if they know how they fit into the group and how tactics work.
• Take into account the size and nature of your opponent before attacking. White Dragons, for instance, are vulnerable to flame and heat based attacks and is an obviously large creature.
• Remember the way that game mechanics work. Vulnerability is often described in terms of percentages ("+25 percent damage"), so you can estimate a sort of scaling of attacks.
• Pay attention to the descriptions that the DM gives you. Any part of your environment can be used against your foe if you know how or have some sort of resource.
• Choose human as your race. Although the other races have many immediate perks, such as bonuses to strength for the half-orc, they don't have unlimited level advancement like humans do.
• Poison bladed weapons to increase damage and force your opponent to make a saving throw to avoid death.
• Get every psionic ability in the book as a wild talent. Do this by looking at the tables for wild talents and applying tip eight vigorously.
• Exploit the exact wording of magic item descriptions to yield high bonuses to damage as well as direct damage itself. This includes the use of artifacts.
• Alignment-specific weapons exist in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, as do some artifacts. Find out which ones are in your game setting and go after those that won't kill you before you get to use them.