Now, for a brand new point - if the internet and forum blogs were around 30 years earlier, I would love to see how it would have looked like for second edition D&D. Part of me believes we would still have endless blogs about this or that option being "overpowered" or "useless". Okay, more a random thought than a point.
TSR had a page on AOL. It was the only reason I used AOL for a long time. There were a ton of discussions and the chat rooms were usually pretty busy.
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I had fun and disliked 2E in equal measure. I liked most of the kits. Even though some had some truly dumb restrictions. Apparently Cavaliers are supposed to go into battle wearing the best looking armor. Even if it provides less protection. Simply for vanity reasons. Playing a Drow was asking to commit sucked. As the devs REALLY did not want anyone taking a Drow.
I like the spheres. I find them better tha domains. At the very least some of priest kits have better abilities than domain powers. Racial level limits to Demi-humans. If they had at least given a good logical reason. And no telling us that it needs to be done because no one would take human is not a good reason IMO. Whose fault is it when the 2E devs got lazy and were unwilling to give humans better advantages. I liked many of the settings in 2E. Too bad not many if them were translated to 3E.
I like most of what was done in 3E. Except for fighters. Enough said IMO. The game does slow down at high levels. One does need a well prepared group. Crafting items takes too long. Too many abilities in PF that are very flavourful yet not worth taking at all.
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We didn't have the internet to tell us about that. I never saw alternative ability score systems either. Even point buy would not have worked.
It's on page 13 of the PHB.
Let’s first see how to generate ability scores for your character, after which definitions of each ability will be given. The six ability scores are determined randomly by rolling six-sided dice to obtain a score from 3 to 18. There are several methods for rolling up these scores.
Method I: Roll three six-sided dice (3d6); the total shown on the dice is your character’s Strength ability score. Repeat this for Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, in that order. This method gives a range of scores from 3 to 18, with most results in the 9 to 12 range. Only a few characters have high scores (15 and above), so you should treasure these characters.
Method I creates characters whose ability scores are usually between 9 and 12. If you would rather play a character of truly heroic proportions, ask your DM if he allows players to use optional methods for rolling up characters. These optional methods are designed to produce above-average characters.
Method II: Roll 3d6 twice, noting the total of each roll. Use whichever result you prefer for your character‘s Strength score. Repeat this for Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. This allows you to pick the best score from each pair, generally ensuring that your character does not have any really low ability scores (but low ability scores are not all that bad anyway!).
Method III: Roll 3d6 six times and jot down the total for each roll. Assign the scores to your character’s six abilities however you want. This gives you the chance to custom-tailor your character, although you are not guaranteed high scores.
Method IV: Roll 3d6 twelve times and jot down all twelve totals. Choose six of these rolls (generally the six best rolls) and assign them to your character’s abilities however you want. This combines the best of methods II and III, but takes somewhat longer.
As an example, Joan rolls 3d6 twelve times and gets results of 12, 5, 6, 8, 10, 15, 9, 12, 6, 11, 10, and 7. She chooses the six best rolls (15,12,12,11,10, and 10) and then assigns them to her character’s abilities so as to create the strengths and weaknesses that she wants her character to have (see the ability descriptions following this section for explanations of the abilities).
Method V: Roll four six-sided dice (4d6). Discard the lowest die and total the remaining three. Repeat this five more times, then assign the six numbers to the character’s abilities however you want. This is a fast method that gives you a good character, but you can still get low scores (after all, you could roll 1s on all four dice!).
Method VI: This method can be used if you want to create a specific type of character. It does not guarantee that you will get the character you want, but it will improve your chances. Each ability starts with a score of 8. Then roll seven dice. These dice can be added to your character’s abilities as you wish. All the points on a die must be added to the same ability score. For example, if a 6 is rolled on one die, all 6 points must be assigned to one ability. You can add as many dice as you want to any ability, but no ability score can exceed 18 points. If you cannot make an 18 by exact count on the dice, you cannot have an 18 score.
Most of the rules that people couldn't find were actually in the PHB and DMG. Some were added later (AoO for example). I agree that the system wasn't perfect but all you have to do is look in the Table of Contents or the Index to find quite a bit of stuff.
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2E D&D was a very good game, but like any other rpg it was a product of its age and lineage.
2E AD&D was built as a successor to 1E. 1E D&D came out before GURPS and Shadowrun and the other middle 80s games that were built on the idea of a unified game structure.
2E D&D was instead just tried to have a rulebook that updated the 100s of subsystems that had been created for 1E to allow D&D adventures in weird environments or under odd conditions. There were already games that had "skill" systems but instead it had an updated version of non-weapon proficiencies that had first appeared in dragon magazine.
Then there was the fact that many of the rules were arcane, and not in the way that D&D players would actually like. They were dense, many didn't make ANY sense on first reading. The game was not something that anybody was expected to pick up at the games store and just get into. Its whole culture was like 70s and 80s wargames where it was expected that SOMEBODY would teach you the game before you invested anything in it or tried to read it for yourself.
Because there were so many rules, and so many subsystems you could get tables that played very differently. Figuring out which ones were really needed to make the game function was tedious.
While the game was slated with levels 1-20 the game really was playable from levels 1-10 or maybe 1-15 for rogues, 1-12 for clerics and fighters, and 1-10 for wizards. After that the game played more like what was labeled for d20 D&D as "epic" play. The games math was a lot LESS variable after level 10, and the only class that was still getting new interesting thing was the mage.
The power of the 6 attributes was a LOT different and they were considerably LESS equal. In 1E it had been figured out that fighters need a larger advantage than they were getting from strength so the 18/** system was born. High Dex is good, but nowhere NEAR as good as high dex in d20. Even when wielding a ranged weapon. Clerics basically got bonus spells similar to what they currently get for wisdom above 13 and it helped your saves but Warriors had saves good enough that they simply didn't care. Int determined how many spells a wizard could know per level effectively acting to LIMIT the abuses of well prepared wizards in d20 D&D. and Charisma was a dump dump dump. In 2E paladins and bards were the ONLY classes where people had ANY charisma at all.
AS you can tell from these stats, there tended to be two schools of play. The first was were people rolled characters 2-3 times and ended up with lots of 9s-15s. These ability scores would let people play various most classes but with almost NO bonuses to ANY roll. You relied on your class progression and therefore each class was very different. Also you NEVER saw paladins when playing like this.
The other way people played was to assume that you needed at least 18 to be relevant. Warriors NEEDED 18 strength otherwise they missed out on one of their few class abilities. (They also needed at 17 or 18 constitution or would miss out on their bonus hit point class feature).
Rogues needed an 18 dex or they would forever suck at their rogue abilities.
Clerics needed an 18 wisdom or they wouldn't have enough bonus spells to memorize both curing and buffing spells.
Wizards needed an 18 int or they would fail to learn a lot of the spells they tried to learn, would have significantly curtailed numbers of spells available per level.
This dichotomy generally resulted in the first group thinking the second group were nothing but childish power gamers and the second group thinking the first were boring old stooges who didn't want anybody to ever have any fun.
Generally, classes didn't gain much except statistical gains after 1st level.
2E did have some good features:
It had a functional multi-classing system that actually allowed people to play real hybrids in a way that mostly worked with people also playing single class characters. (Note that dual classing, however, was either broken because it was too good or broken because it was too awful.)
Spells didn't actually dominate the game the way they have come to in d20 D&D. In part because warriors (fighters/paladins/rangers) all had quite good saves against spells and things like dragon breath. Also with the NUMBER of hit points on monsters and PCs in 2E it was often harder (and scarier) to face wizards loaded down with evocations.
So why don't people play it anymore?
D20 D&D WORKS better. The subsystem is always the same (roll a d20). The classes are more interesting even IF they are less balanced. The game also has a lot more player choices during character building. Although, it doesn't really have many more choices once you are actually playing.
Don't forget age modifiers. Everyone got +1 Con for being young once, and then +1 to Str for becoming an adult. Middle age was worth +1 Wis.
Wis was the only stat that could naturally exceed 18...you could do it with age.
Dwarves had a max 17 Dex because they had a max 19 con. +1 Con, -1 Dex was their ability mod...the exact opposite of elves, btw.
Thieves in my campaign tended to multi class with fighters. They took so little xp to level they barely slowed advancement down, and a fighter doing a backstab was impressive, to say the least. Just max out the move silent and find/remove traps and you were pretty golden.
Yeah, the stats were realistic by gender...men were indeed stronger then women. Crazy, right? gauntlets of ogre power made equality a non-issue.
19 Str was literally as strong as a hill giant. It's called a Girdle of HILL GIANT strength for that reason. And they went up right in pace with the giants...20 Str was stone giant, 21 was frost giant, 22 was fire giant, 23 was cloud giant, and 24 was Storm Giant Str. I will have you know that in all of published FR, all official Girdles of Storm Giant Strength were owned by halflings (3 of them, over the years). One in Waterdeep (works for the temple of Elistraee), one in Luiren (the Halfling nation) and one somewhere in the heartlands I forget the particulars of.
People cry about level limits for demihumans, but the fact was the game was pretty balanced to top out in the 10-12 level range. Level 7/11 elven f-mu's could contribute VERY solidly alongside level 15+ humans. And they still had infravision, spoke 8 different languages, could hide 90% in woods, and blahblahblah. Demihumans didn't suffer. Enough of the game was about gear that it didn't matter very much.
==Aelryinth
In fairness, all of those are rolled methods. None of them come close to point buy. They shift the odds around, but you can still roll lousy while someone else rolls superman.
That's fine. 2E wasn't as stat reliant as current incarnations. Also, he said that they couldn't find any alternate ability score systems. There were 6 different methods in the PHB. Skills and Powers added a couple more.
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It's on page 13 of the PHB.That's missing the point. Stats 8-14 having virtually no effect on the game system wasn't fixed by page 13. Bend Bars/Lift Gates using a completely different ruleset from the bonuses to hit and damage wasn't fixed by page 13 either. I think the ability score system was one of the two or three biggest flaws in pre-3e D&D.
So you weren't talking about generation? Because that's what I got out of it when you mentioned point buy.
Also, to be honest, the stats really didn't mean as much as they do now. I saw plenty of characters without any bonuses do just fine and in fact do better because they weren't all cocky about having that 18/00 strength.
The biggest problem I ever had with 2nd edition was managing all the people who wanted to play in my campaigns. I started playing in 1994, began DMing shortly after that, and at one point I was running three separate groups, in three separate campaigns, each playing at least once a week. It was glorious.
Nobody I ever played with ever had any issues with THAC0; it was a little counterintuitive, but if you could add, you could manage it OK. After a couple of times, everybody had it down. I do think that the DM had a much greater impact on the game in second edition that in third, and definitely more than in fourth. So much relied on the DM's ability to make stuff up on the fly.
A minor quibble was a lack of consistency; not only in the rules systems, but also in items and spells and such. But like everything else, the final call was up to the DM, and what the DM ruled went. As a DM, one advantage of the hodgepodge of rules systems is that you could make pretty much anything work.
When 3rd edition rolled around, it definitely made the game simpler. The universal mechanic used for all actions was great, and prestige classes were a great idea. I think the only concept out of 4th edition that I really liked was the idea of ritual spell spells. Some character concepts of mine from earlier editions would have landed much closer to my ideas if ritual spells had been an item earlier.
I tell you, though, I miss the greater degree of open-endedness of 2nd edition, and the fact that there wasn't am attempt to have rules in place to cover every possible development in the game. I liked that magical items could be kept very rare and mysterious without it crippling the game or the characters. I also think that balancing classes by the xp needed to level works better than trying to pretend that a fighter and a wizard of equal level will ever be at the same power point. The only way to make that work is to make all of the classes mechanically identical, which was the 4th edition approach.
I also vastly prefer the multiclassing approach of 2nd edition. Some character concepts make no sense as one-class-at-a-time advancement.
Dwarves had a max 17 Dex because they had a max 19 con. +1 Con, -1 Dex was their ability mod...the exact opposite of elves, btw.
I don't mean to single you out, Aelryinth, but there's a lot of misinformation going on in this thread. Are people reading from different books, or just not checking the actual book?
(My AD&D 2e PHB says dwarves get +1 Con and -1 Cha.)
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I also miss the optional xp rules for the classes in 2nd ED. Fighters gained a small amount each time they killed an enemy, Wizards for casting spells (that were useful, not casting for its own sake), Rogues for pilfering treasure etc.
Little things that added up over time and was a simple reward for each class doing the things they were good at.
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The things i miss the most about 2e:
Specialty Priests - the different specialty priests had tons of flavor and cool unique abilities for each religion. Their "domain spells" were either something they couldn't normally cast or something they could cast at a lower level than normal. 3.5 definitely took a big step back on the cleric fun factor.
Combat was slower and had less of the rocket tag feel.
2nd ed. Fire Giant
HP 77 (15 HD +2-5 hp)
weapon +15 (thaco 5) 2d10
AC 21 (-1 AC in 2nd ed)
A sample combat of 2nd edition:
2 Fire giants fighting each other
6 to hit = 14/20 chance to hit = 70%
Avg. Dmg = 11
70%hit ratio * 11dmg = 7.7 average dmg per round
77hp/7.7hp per round = 10.0 rounds of combat
A sample combat of Pathfinder:
2 PF Fire Giants fighting each other
HP 142 (15d8+75)
greatsword +21/+16/+11 (3d6+15)
AC 24
Needs a 3/8/13 to hit itself, 17/20 (85%) + 12/20 (60%) + 7/20 (35%) = 1.8 chance to hit = 180%
Avg. Dmg = 25.5
180% hit ratio * 25.5 dmg = 45.9 average dmg per round
142 hp / 45.9 dmg per round = 3.09 rounds of combat
So with the simplest breakdown the 2nd edition combat would last 10 rounds vs the 3 rounds of combat with pathfinder. When you add in the feats like power attack and other abilities of pathfinder monsters you start getting into the 2 round mark for an even fight and a 1.5 round mark for a uneven fight like a big bad guy vs a single pc.
I prefer the longer fights myself.
I prefer the longer fights myself.
I woudl like to remark than although they taked more round, A 2e edition round taked less real time than in PF. At least that is how I remember it.
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I woudl like to remark than although they taked more round, A 2e edition round taked less real time than in PF. At least that is how I remember it.
I prefer the longer fights myself.
I agree, even with the lower damage, combat never seemed to drag in 2nd Edition like i feel it does with 3.5 often times. I think the main benefits of speed with 2nd edition were lower number of attacks and modifiers along with less rules questions (and more DM rulings).
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Dwarves had a max 17 Dex because they had a max 19 con. +1 Con, -1 Dex was their ability mod...the exact opposite of elves, btw.I don't mean to single you out, Aelryinth, but there's a lot of misinformation going on in this thread. Are people reading from different books, or just not checking the actual book?
(My AD&D 2e PHB says dwarves get +1 Con and -1 Cha.)
You are right Tequila, those are the mods
But check page 20 in the first printing of the 2nd ed PHB under Minimum/Maximum Ability Scores.
While Dwarves didn't have a -1 to Dex, Aelryinth is right, they are listed as a 3/17 (min/max) stat for Dex.
So an 18 would be a 17, but otherwise no penalty. Same goes for Halflings, no penalty to Wis, but they had a max Wis of 17.
I think elves needed a minimun of 8 in charisma...The memories, I now want to play some 2e :/
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I think elves needed a minimun of 8 in charisma...The memories, I now want to play some 2e :/
Yes Elves had (min/max)
Str (3/18)Dex (6/18)
Con (7/18)
Int (8/18)
Wis (3/18)
Cha (8/18)
I don't know how that maxes jive with their Dex and Con mods, I allowed for max 19 exceptional Dex if they rolled it (and I think some latter material supported this in the actual detailed race write ups).
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I also enjoyed the various encyclopedia series. As well as the book of artifacts. I always wished as a player to come across the organ if lum the mad or whatever it was called. Really hated barbarians getting Xp from destroying magic items. It lead go a big fight between player vs player. Being younger and inexperienced I allowed one player who tried to get his way with every class in the fame. Even if it meant screwing the rest of the group. It was a mid level game. I flat out told the player that the paladins holy avengers was strictly off limits. The first opportunity he takes the sword and throws it into the deepest part of the ocean the group was travelling on. Paladin players did not take it do well and proceed to kick the barbarian players behind. After a few minutes I broke up the fight and tossed the barbarian player out of my place.
I found energy drain attacks to be too powerful . Needing magical weapons to hit certain creatures another element I disliked, it assumed the group had a DM that would give them magic items they needed.which was not always the case.
In 2e (besides really low stats) there was no problem with rolled stats method because you do not "build" a character. There was no build to worry about.
Well, no. Your build was composed of your stats and your class. As you say, low stats sucked, and you never got better. So much for builds. If someone had better stats than you, they could do more, they succeeded more often, more happened when they did, they had more options for classes and dual-classing... oh, and they got a +10% XP bonus as compensation for outshining you in every way.
Yeah.
True. You just couldn't contribute. All because of a set of lousy rolls from perhaps a year or more ago.
The problem with 2E is no one actually remembers how it went anymore thanks to rose-tinted glasses and Alzheimer's. :)
They're called bifocals, whippersnapper! = )
/waves cane menacingly
Roll Initiative!!
/rolls d10, adds weapon speed, minuses 1/2 levels of fighter, minuses dex bonus, minuses any magical pluses
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I'm looking over my old AD&D Players Handbook. (How do I tell if it's 1st or 2nd edition?)
It's got so many weirdly arbitrary restrictions. A dwarf PC can only be a fighter, a thief or an assassin. If a fighter, they can't go above 9th level. (If their strength is below 17, they are limited to 7th level.) But they can rise to unlimited level as a thief. As a cleric they can reach 8th level, but only NPC dwarves can be clerics. WHY?
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No. I am pretty sure dwarves can be clerics or I did something wrong way back. Yeah it is hard to tell which version of AD&D your PHB is. All I know is one has pictures and one doesn't.
Edit: Wait, assassin? 1st ed. 2nd ed didn't have assassins in it, I am sure.
Yeah, that's 1st ed.
Believe it or not, the perception was that the demi-human races were pretty powerful, so some brakes had to be placed on what they could do (plus Gygax preferred humanocentric game worlds). Most of these restrictions were lifted in 2nd ed.
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To the OP:
The main downside to 2nd Ed.
PCs actually died. Not because they did something stupid, not because the DM deliberately killed them, not because the storyline demanded it. PC death was just an accepted part of the game. It happened.
3.X and it successors have made death fully irrelevant. To the point that many players argue that "Death" is actually just a (poorly developed) Condition.
YMMV
I liked 2nd Ed. At the time I played it.
It was looser, faster and oddly more "balanced".
It was also more arbitrary.
It had a very narrow set of Base (Core) Rules and a lot of optional rules built in. On top of the near universal assumption that House Rules would be in place with most established groups.
D20 attempts to have a rule for everything and a system of unified mechanics that tie as many of those rules together as possible. For some reason this creates bloat and actually seems to cause even more rules arguements.
A lot of those early rules were convoluted. Yet they more or less worked even though the DM would have to wing it on occasion. But it was pretty easy to wing it.
It did suffer from Bloat, later on, with Kits and supplements. But at it's worst, 2nd Ed., was no where near 3.X or PFRPG.
It also suffered much less from power creep I think.
Unlike more modern games, you didn't play it to "Win". It did offer that sense of accomplishment when something was wrapped up. Even when you died.
YMMV.
3.X and it successors have made death fully irrelevant.
MMV. In the three Adventure Paths I've been in as a player, I've seen around seventeen PCs die permanently.
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True. You just couldn't contribute. All because of a set of lousy rolls from perhaps a year or more ago.Low stats in pre-d20 editions weren't nearly as crippling as even medium-low scores in d20 editions.
You could even play a magic-user rather effectively with an Int of 9. Looking at my PHB, a magic-user with a 9 for Intelligence could cast up to 4th level spells. Now, you need a 14 to do that. Having fairly average stats back in 2nd edition didn't mean you were crippled. Your highest stat could be a 15 and you weren't considered a useless drag on the others.
You could even play a magic-user rather effectively with an Int of 9. Looking at my PHB, a magic-user with a 9 for Intelligence could cast up to 4th level spells. Now, you need a 14 to do that. Having fairly average stats back in 2nd edition didn't mean you were crippled. Your highest stat could be a 15 and you weren't considered a useless drag on the others.True. You just couldn't contribute. All because of a set of lousy rolls from perhaps a year or more ago.Low stats in pre-d20 editions weren't nearly as crippling as even medium-low scores in d20 editions.
True I rolled really bad once. Usind the 4d6 method
3 9's, an 8, a 12 and a 14.The DM suggested I reroll, but I said I wanted to give it a try anyway and I managed to survive quite long actually.
I decided to make a Fighter/Cleric/Mage with the 9 on the prime stats.
so str 9/ wis 9/ int9/
an 8 on con, a 12 on dex and a 14 on charisma to explain why he was taken seriously at all!!
I managed to play several sessions before we ran into a giant skeleton that started fighting by throwing a fireball at the party. The worst part was that I knew what was coming but had no way to realise that in character and so the character died. But we had a lot of fun and we seriously surprised that the character had lasted as long as it did.
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Well, no. Your build was composed of your stats and your class. As you say, low stats sucked, and you never got better. So much for builds. If someone had better stats than you, they could do more, they succeeded more often, more happened when they did, they had more options for classes and dual-classing... oh, and they got a +10% XP bonus as compensation for outshining you in every way.But you weren't expected to be competing against the other PCs, so I don't see anything necessarily wrong with that.
...When did D&D/PF start expecting PCs to compete with each other?
You could even play a magic-user rather effectively with an Int of 9. Looking at my PHB, a magic-user with a 9 for Intelligence could cast up to 4th level spells. Now, you need a 14 to do that. Having fairly average stats back in 2nd edition didn't mean you were crippled. Your highest stat could be a 15 and you weren't considered a useless drag on the others.True. You just couldn't contribute. All because of a set of lousy rolls from perhaps a year or more ago.Low stats in pre-d20 editions weren't nearly as crippling as even medium-low scores in d20 editions.
...Until the wizard hit 9th level, at which point s/he more or less stopped gaining spell slots due to being unable to learn 5th+ level spells.
Really, abilities are always important -- different editions just shift the areas of importance around a bit.
True. You just couldn't contribute. All because of a set of lousy rolls from perhaps a year or more ago.
UNless your roll where really really low this is not true. We used to roll 4d6 and drop the lowest, really low (overall) rolls were very unusual and most likely re rolled.