Pretty much what the title says.
I never got to join (or even found) an actual group until recently, way past the introduction of 3.5. Now a friend who won't stop talking about how 2nd edition was so much better and is part of a campaign using 2nd edition rules asked me to join his group.
I haven't said yes for two reasons:
1. Obviously making up for lost time I'm now part of one group and running another.
2. Trying to understand 3.5 alone makes my head hurt. A LOT. The only reason I'm dm one session is it was my idea to start it. IOW
I'm really afraid to learn another system.
I am curious though, what are your memories of 2nd edition like compared to now? It seems some people I know saw it as a big mess and others see it as some holy grail?
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2nd edition was hard to grasp. If you notice, alot of people are talking about how they left the hobby for most of 2nd edition's term. Some loved the rules and stuck with it. I found it to be very cumbersome and confusing and left the game behind because it seemed like I was using mathematic formulae to establish whether or not I hit something. THAC0 sucked IMO. THAC0 stands for "to hit ac 0" and was used like the BAB progression of today. The lower your ac the better. people had -4 ac's and such. I just found the system to be counter productive in advancing the game. Steep learning curve couple with the syndrome of "which of the 100's of hardcover rulebooks do I need to play" turned alot of potential gamers away and soured some who were gamers, like myself.
Nostalgia can paint a pretty picture. We remember making love in the front seat of a certain car with a high school sweety (well, maybe not some of you geeks;)), but we rarely remember the bruised knees and horrible back cramps of the next day.
Why? Nostalgia.
2nd edition had its problems. Some loved it, some hated it. Nothing has changed. 3.5 has its problems. Some love it, some hate it. I hated 2nd Ed. I love 3.5. Who knows why?
FH
well, 2nd ed had the problem of a world that couldnt exist under its own rules for one thing. Such as where do those swords +1 come from if crafting them drains a wizard of 1 irreplacable con point?
Which in turn was finally covered by s special spell allowing you to drain others... but yeah.. not something for anyone but the worst monsters around, not to forget how this opens up the path to magic factories massproducing artifacts when no investment of your own is needed. Heck, you gained xp from crafting items.. :D
Oh and plenty of "no, you cannot do this, its impossible. Yes built by the ancients and noone can repeat it"
Still, it was faster to whip up a new charcter, roll the stats and chose a class and thats almost it. Skills paid no meaningful part, and no feats.
Multiclassing for humans was `tarded, and demihumans couldnt go beyond level 8-15 depending upon class and race.
I suppose i could say good riddance.
Well, 2nd edition WAS fun. But, then again, it is because we made it fun. It had its good sides and bad sides. But ask me which I prefer now and I’ll tell you the 3rd edition will always get my vote.
The good side of 2nd edition: I would say...
Combat was resolved faster, even at higher levels. This was due to the lack of options that was available. Even though I prefer the combat system in 3rd edition, the pace of battles is what I miss the most from second edition.
Characters were more stereotyped, in a way that the Fighter was the fighter and the Wizard was there to cast spells... Period. I didn’t mind this because I’m an old fashioned, classical loving kind of guy. If I wanted to fight and cast spells, I played a Ranger. End of story. I still don’t see the need to put out books and books of new (prestige) classes like the third edition is doing. I think it’s just too much.
Character creation was quicker, since there were no skills and no feats to choose. Yup, you could create a 12th level fighter in about six minutes flat. Nowadays it could take you anywhere from a half-hour to a full day fleshing out your character.
The down side of 2nd edition:
As mentioned above, combat was way less detailed, and a bit more confusing. Just the “THACO” (To Hit Armor Class ZERO) system sucked big time. Many times there just wasn’t that rule you needed when something came up in a fight. In the 3rd Edition, I think they got pretty much everything covered.
Although I didn’t mind, the fact that when you chose a class, say Ranger, there would be no way in hell that you’d be able to learn how to disable traps. That was strictly for the Thief. Likewise, only the Ranger could follow a set of tracks in the woods. That bothered many.
And, of course, the way you can flesh out your character in the 3rd Edition is phenomenal. You can now have a party of four Fighters in a group and they’d all be very different. In 2nd edition, a fighter was a fighter, with the only difference between four fighters would be their strength, dexterity and constitution scores.
Sure, there are other differences, like the saving throws, the percentile strength scores, and many more.
I say it isn’t really the rules that make D&D fun. It’s the whole story and experience you get from playing such a game. If the DM is good, and the story is interesting, then it doesn’t matter what system you play. Heck, you could play in a game where you would just toss a coin to determine the outcome of battles... And you’d still have a blast.
My official advice to you: Stick with the 3rd edition, just because the rules are well made and cover just about every situation.
Ultradan
The 2E THAC0 system was a simple matter of positive and negative numbers. It confused me a bit, but once we covered positive and negative numbers in pre-algebra, I wasn't confused anymore (I'm talking fifteen years ago, mind you).
Of course, 2E didn't have the class stacking, feat selection, +1 to an ability score every four levels, etc...
What 2E DID have was easy rules. They might not have always clicked well or made sense right away, but the rules were simple compared to 3.5. I had 2E rules memorized by the early 90s, and in 3.5, I could NEVER hope to have all the rules memorized. It's impossible. Spell durations don't have much uniformity, attack actions are mostly different, and I'm ALWAYS paging through book to brush up on a rule.
I love 3.5, but I really enjoyed 2E.
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The main advantage of 2E is probably for DMs - it is a bit whacky and illogical, but as other posters have made clear is that it was easy to remember the fairly limited rules set. Monsters and NPCs are simple to create (unlike the hours it takes now to create a moderately complicated adversary in 3E).
The main disadvantage is probably for players - characters of the same class are all pretty similar. Not much customisation or choice. Multiclassing is very different (limited only to non-humans, and set at the start of the character) and humans can only dual-class (a bit like multilclassing in 3E, with significant extra hindrances). No feats, and skills are limited (and hardly ever used - stuff like fishing or carpentry).
As the U'dan says, it is down to the gaming experience more than anything. But if someone says 2E is a much better system than 3E, they are somewhat deluded - 3E is complex but rather elegant and logical in comparison, and offers many more options and rules for specific occasions. Someone used to 3E may be frustrated at the limitation of 2E. I didn't really play 2E, though I had the books. 3E brought me back to the D&D fold as a player.
What I remember about 2E was that is was fast and the wonderful world of weapon profiencies, a fighter knew how to handle 4 weapons at 1st level but a rogue knew only 2 and a wizard knew only one.
And you had 6 different saving throws ;>
But mainly it was fast, you could do 6 encounters in three hours compared to the one encounter in 3 hours nowadays.
Well, the stat blocks in published adventures took up a lot less space, considering the lack of options. Wizards (called Magic-Users and then Mages) could only cast one 1st level spell at 1st level, regardless of their scores while a cleric or druid got bonus spells based on their Wisdom score. Rangers, Paladins, Druids, Bards and Specialist Wizards had some strict attribute score requirements as opposed to how it is now.
I'm not going to repeat what has already been said in this thread, because it's all true.
DMing 2nd edition was so much easier because of the abovementioned lack of options. However, since DMs could pretty much make up anything with impunity, since there was little in the rules to limit them (like templates) DM's had to be masterful at higher levels to not kill off the PCs or make their game too monty haul or ridiculous. A lot more trust had to be put on the DM, even while the game was easier to run.
However, I got so frustrated with 2e by 2002 that I quit D&D altogether for almost 2 1/2 years. The only thing that pulled me back was reading PH 3.5 and realizing how many of the problems of 2e had been fixed with 3.5.
My advice is--go play in your friend's campaign--I bet you'll have a blast playing retro style, you'll be able to make a much more educated decision about which game system you want to play. Gaming isn't about the rules as much as it is about having fun with your friends. One of my favorite games had a total of about 60 pages of total rules (FASA Star Trek RPG)...the game's the thing...not the rules.
Having said that, I personally wouldn't ever go back to 2e...had 3.5 not come out, I probably would have stopped playing RPGs altogether (during my D&D hiatus, we were still playing FASA Star Trek and a Spacemaster variant)
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I was into other systems during the 2e., but the few times I did play it, I just brought my 1e. PHB along for grounding, looked at the 2e. PHB a little, and I was off to the races.
It wasn't that too difficult, and the THACO thing never bugged me; I was used to the grid charts to hit from the 1e. DMG and it was kinda a logical step from that.
What was it like? A random, cobbled-together mess. Ugh. Some things you wanted to roll low; others you wanted to roll high. Sometimes surprise was a percentile roll; sometimes it was a d6 or a d8. There were lots of "this acts as that" ... "this creature saves against spells as a thief but saves against poisons as a cleric" type of rules.
1e/2e made me walk away from D&D entirely and play the HERO System, which for all its math, at least had a unified system that made sense. The only problem was that you had to pretty much create everything yourself.
3.0 was a godsend! :) And 3.5 is even better.
-The Gneech
I think that as a player, 2nd ed isn´t probably a nightmare. As a DM, I found it waaay better than 1st ed, as 1st ed had even more special rules (remember the bard or the psionics rules from 1st ed, anyone ?) And as some others noted as well, after several years DMing 3.x, I still haven´t grasped all the rules.
That was easier in 2e, as many things weren´t ruled with such level of detail as in 3e. In 2e, you don´t have as many choices, but that makes it probably easier to play, rules-wise.
As a player, I´d say, give it a try. Create a character and just play.
Oh, and the original skill system of 2e was crap. I replaced it with an adapted skill system from the chaosium rules (percentile-based), which is still a very simple yet elegant system.
Stefan
The down side of 2nd edition:
As mentioned above, combat was way less detailed, and a bit more confusing. Just the “THACO” (To Hit Armor Class ZERO) system sucked big time. Many times there just wasn’t that rule you needed when something came up in a fight. In the 3rd Edition, I think they got pretty much everything covered.
Thac0 isn't that complicated. It's simply adding positive and negative whole numbers, which I learned in 5th grade math. Also, the fact that 3rd ed has everything covered in the rules is one of it's DOWN sides in my opinion. Slows down game play while someone looks up the range and damage for flinging poo because your character has the Poo Flinger Prestige Class with specialization in nose picking.
In 2nd ed, the first rule was: If you don't like a rule, change it or throw it out. The second rule was: If it's not there, make it up! There were TONS of optional rules that could make things very complicated, yes... but the key word was OPTIONAL. Strip it all out and you have lots less math headache. The DM ruled based on what logically made SENSE given what a player described they were doing, and combat is MUCH faster in 2nd ed which I think everyone is agreeing on.
Do I understand the need for standardization for tournaments and such? Yes. But one of the complaints I've seen about 2nd ed was that it was so broken, everyone had their homebrew rules and 3rd ed has changed all that....... except from the discussion I see on the boards every day, people are STILL modifying and interpreting rules in their own way for 3rd edition. It just isn't that prevalant yet because 3rd ed is so new, but give it time. 2nd ed AD&D had over 10 years for players to adapt it on their own (going from the copyright dates in my 2nd ed PHB to my 3.5 Monster Manual). 3.5 is just getting started relatively speaking.
Will you like going from 3rd ed by the book to 2nd ed by the book? Likely not..... less options for races, classes, and damage is much lower. That's why I don't play by the book 2nd ed. But if you take the best of 3rd ed (flexibility in races / classes and increased damage adjustments) and the best of 2nd ed (simplified rules and one action per player in a combat round...... PERIOD) you can come up with something pretty cool.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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2e also lacked the tactical combat system that 3e has. On the one hand, you didn't need minatures and a battlemat to play (an accessory, which, I might add, many people scoffed at when 3e first came out.) The lack of interesting tactical decisions made combat boil down to I-hit-him-he-hits-me until someone fell down. No flanking, no tripping, no attacks of opportunity.
An earlier poster mentioned that spell durations were more uniform under 2e - I completely disagree with that point. In 3e, spells basically have four ranges (touch, short, medium, long) and 4 durations (rounds, minutes, 10 minutes, hours). They are much more uniform than they used to be. Under 2e, spells had random durations. Including spells that you really want to know in advance when they will expire (fly, invisibility, etc).
Your stats only mattered if they were really high (above 15) or really low (below 8). Everything in between those numbers was basically the same.
The skill system didn't really exist. Thieves used percentile dice to determine success, rolled against static target numbers. You chance to hide in shadows against a beholder was the same as against a 4 intelligence kobold.
I could go on. Basically, your friend is either suffering from a severe case of nostalgia or is using some homebrew version that he likes and fixes some (but probably not all) of these problems.
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I remember it being easier to create a character (every rogue was the same, every fighter was the same, etc. -- or at least very close), but it seemed to be difficult to figure out how the mechanics worked.
Many classes stopped getting hit die after a certain level -- they just got one hit point.
At the same amount of XP, a fighter, cleric, rogue, and wizard could all be at different class levels.
Saving throws had a heirarchy progression that really didn't seem to make sense to me. If it was magical poison, did you use a poison save or a magic save? When was it actually a magic poison? Similar problems with petrification and death.
A Dexterity score from 6 to 16 had pretty much the same stats as far as game terms went.
There weren't really skills as such. Many of the skills were grouped into the stats and had a percentile attached (which I really hated). A big fighter with magical enhancement with a 24 strength had a chance to fail opening a door -- while a wizard with a 6 strength had a chance (albeit a small one) to open an iron barred door.
Creatures didn't have stats like Strength, Intelligence, etc.
There weren't really rules to advance creatures at all -- either in classes or simply a larger creature. Most people had house rules to bypass this, but there weren't really official rules to this.
Multi-classing and Dual-classing were different and confusing. Instead of "stacking" the classes, you took the better score (saves, THAC0, etc.) and left it at that.
XP was fixed for each creature. An orc was worth 8 XP (or whatever) -- no matter what level the party was at. Now if the party is at 16th level, they really don't get any credit for defeating a level 1 encounter.
Clerics didn't get domains, but they (often) got special abilities depending on what god they worshipped.
You rolled initiative every "round" with a d10. Weapons had different weapon speeds. You might go multiple times in a round, but not necessarily all at the same time. In many ways, this method makes a lot more sense, but it could also take longer.
My personal opinion is that fighters really lost their effectiveness at higher levels while wizards became much more god-like with their spells and how effective they were.
Psionics were insane. I didn't do much with psionics in 2nd edition, but what I remember was that it was WAY powerful.
Kits were definitely not balanced. (Kind of a precursor to prestige classes.)
2nd edition might have been considered "simpler". But I never felt that the rules in 2nd edition made sense. It was just something that we accepted. I think it would probably be good for the experience to check out how it was played. You will most likely end up coming back to 3.5. I think that I would need to get a Masters degree in Mathematics before I try and figure out THAC0 again.
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Thac0 isn't that complicated. It's simply adding positive and negative whole numbers, which I learned in 5th grade math.
It isn't the adding or subtracting integers that I had a problem with, it was what to add or subtract and when.
In 3.5, I roll a d20 and add a number. This is the AC I hit.
In 2nd edition (and it has been a LONG time, so correct me if I am wrong) -- you would roll a d20. You would then add the AC to the d20 and compare that to your THAC0. If the result was the same or greater than the THAC0, then you hit. Alternatively, you could subtract your d20 roll from your THAC0 (THAC0 minus d20 roll) to figure out the AC that you would have hit.
While I can subtract 4-18 to get -14, I would much prefer to to add 4+14 to get 18. Maybe personal preference, but if you don't need to deal in negative numbers, then why do it? The other problem with subtraction is order of operation -- 4 - 18 is different than 18 - 4.
Don't forget kits, the forerunner of prestige classes. There were several new splat books a year that offered options for character creation that changed hit points, skills and weapon proficiencies. The problem was that NO thought was given to balance. Some people complain about the same with prestige and base classes now, but they are infinatly better than the kit system.
The other thing that I like better about 3.0 & 3.5 is a good skill system that allows for increased difficulty for tasks, as well as oppositional tests.
Take, for example, the Thief. The thief class had very little combat potential (d6 hit points, fairly bad THACO, only special combat ability a couple extra dice damage for "backstabbing"), but much like in 3.x, you needed one for most adventures. Their ability to do things like hide, or pick a lock were a percentage roll. If you rolled under the percentage, you succeeded. It didn't matter how perceptive the person you were hiding from was, or how expensive and difficult the lock, you succeeded. The only other option was to impose an arbitrary negative to their percentage to succeed.
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2 Ed. was crap. 1 Ed. was quick and easy - while most of it might have been illogical (like the different Saving Throws), misconceived (THAC0) or unbalanced (demihuman multiclassing. Want to know why a lot of old-timers dislike elves? Look no further), you could make a character in 5 minutes and get going.
2 Ed. then kept the bad mechanics and tried to make things more "realistic" by introducing a bunch of extras, turning it into a complete mess. Nobody's mentioned the split stats yet - for example, CHA was divided into "Personality" (I think) and "Appearance" and so forth.
We dumped AD&D in favour of Rolemaster during the 2 Ed. phase - sure, it was a little complex, but at least its rules seemed to be written at the same time... To me, 3.x D&D is better than its predecessors because it has a unified mechanical system with saves, BAB, stats etc. All of that was missing in the previous editions.
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2ED was kinda like a 1987 Ford Taurus. It's a good enough vehicle to get you where your going...probably, but there are problems with lots of the systems and there's not any flash to it.
Like pretty much everyone before has said, the THAC0 system isn't rocket science, but it's nowhere as simple as 3ED's. 3ED has codified pretty much everything, which is alternatingly wonderful and annoying, but it does help eliminate a lot of confusions (eliminates more than it creates, anyway). And the freedom of choices that 3ED has built is is nice... but we had no problems dumping rules or restrictions that we thought didn't work well with our playing and story aims (i.e. a non-human party that had a lizardman ranger, ettercap wizard, and brownie barbarian (um, don't ask)) advancing on up into the teen levels).
What will really make or break your gaming experience isn't the rules set used, it's the players and the DM involved. The vehicle may be a shuddering 2ED Taurus or a zippy 3ED Mitsubishi Eclipse (like the jackass that almost side-swiped me today...sorry, personal baggage), or it could be a roomy but not spectacular AEC Eagle-like GURPS. The trip is what's important.
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I have some of those nostalgic memories of 2E. That is the system I first did any serious gaming under. My original group, consisting of my brother, a friend (the DM) and his brother, and two other guys, was a great bunch, and we had some great times. That said, and as others have mentioned, 2E did have its good and bad points. In the end, it only really boils down to whether or not you havd fun, which relies more on the people than the rules.
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One of the issues I haven't seen anyone mention yet deals with new rules. People love to complain about all the new rules ("crunch" as some people call it) coming out from us and from Wizards of the Coast. Well, second edition was the same way, but there's a fundamental difference...
In third edition (3.0 or 3.5), when you add a new rule bit (like a feat or maybe even a subsystem) it generally fits within the rules that already exist. You can easily integrate every new rule system because they are all based on the same skill/feat/class feature/spell infrastructure presented in the Player's Handbook. A campaign can incorporate, for example, psionics, incarnum, weapons of legacy, and truenamers (from Expanded Psionics Handbook, Magic of Incarnum, Weapons of Legacy, and Tome of Magic, respectively) and all of their new systems more or less work together and work with the rules presented in the Player's Handbook.
This was not the case in second edition. In second edition, every new system that came out was its own separate entity, usually completely independent of all others and utterly unclear as to how it interacted with any other system (including the rules from the Player's Handbook). In fact, by the end of second edition, the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide were completely unnecessary. The last five years I played second edition I never even looked in those books, as the Player's Options books and Complete Guide books made them obsolete. Second edition made up new rules for every new situation (and good luck trying to figure out how new rules from two different books worked together).
And we won't even get into the issue of game balance... ;)
But hey, since you're curious about it, check it out. If you like it better, then it's the game for you. If not, we'll welcome you back to the third-edition fold with open arms. :)
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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2 Ed. then kept the bad mechanics and tried to make things more "realistic" by introducing a bunch of extras, turning it into a complete mess. Nobody's mentioned the split stats yet - for example, CHA was divided into "Personality" (I think) and "Appearance" and so forth.
That didn't happen until near the end of the 2e lifespan with the player's option books. They were definitely a bad thing (Str in particular, was broken into a stat that controlled encumbrance and a state that controlled hitting and damage - guess how people distributed that number), but the player's option combat book was the predecessor of 3e combat.
The argument that 2e had more house rules because it was older is incorrect. People had heavily modified rules for 2e within a few years of it coming out. The game could not be played out of the box. 3e can be played out of the box, and 3.5 was really a minor set of tweaks. The house rules that people have for 3e aren't fundamental changes to the system like you saw in 2e (ex: 2e stats were rolled on 3d6. Anything else was a house rule.)
for me playing 2ed was like being pulled backwards throu a knot hole while being hit in the head with a ballpien hammer because the dm i had was the type that played exactly by what it said in the book.
Mostly yeah 2nd edition was cumbersome with its high and low rolls, it's negative armor classes, incomplete rules that made it impossible for some classes to do certain actions, and most of all a list of saves that had no rhyme or reason to them. Some classes were harder to petrify, some harder to use a wand on, but why?? Some monster attacks would ask for a save--seemingly at random--that had nothing to do with what the attack was. Yarg.
Despite that there were some fun things about 2nd edition. It was less uptight about rule balance and so the spells and magic items were allowed to have a bit more flavor to them (magic items nowadays are relatively bland collections of tacked on special abilities). Likewise the old monster manual seemed to have a lot more information on the various monsters without the cut and paste special abilities you get in 3rd. The fact that you only got something like six points of skills with a couple more every few levels made the skills really feel like they were defining the character--if your Druid could sing or your Wizard gambled or your Fighter knew astrology it really focused the character--whereas now everyone has tons of skills and they don't mean as much (though feats now do about the same thing--its just not the same though). Best of all was Skills and Powers--probably the best system for making a custom character D&D has ever had.
I still like going back to do games in 2nd edition for all its flaws, but I would say 3rd edition is a refined version of the game that fixes a whole lot more problems and adds a lot more flexibility compared to the costs, which sometimes make me sigh whistfully, but really are comparatively minor.
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for me playing 2ed was like being pulled backwards throu a knot hole while being hit in the head with a ballpien hammer because the dm i had was the type that played exactly by what it said in the book.Ouch! You know, I've had dates like that....
There's fokes whut pays losta money for dates like that.
Is all about havineg fun.|
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for me playing 2ed was like being pulled backwards throu a knot hole while being hit in the head with a ballpien hammer because the dm i had was the type that played exactly by what it said in the book.Ouch! You know, I've had dates like that....There's fokes whut pays losta money for dates like that.
Is all about havineg fun.
You can get PAID for doing that to people??
Likewise the old monster manual seemed to have a lot more information on the various monsters without the cut and paste special abilities you get in 3rd.
I miss the 2nd Edition Monster Manuals. I want more information about the monster than just what it can do in combat.
Best of all was Skills and Powers--probably the best system for making a custom character D&D has ever had.
And probably a min/maxer's best friend. I could twink the hell out of a first level character, and a friend of mine was even better at it.
Likewise the old monster manual seemed to have a lot more information on the various monsters without the cut and paste special abilities you get in 3rd.I miss the 2nd Edition Monster Manuals. I want more information about the monster than just what it can do in combat.
Best of all was Skills and Powers--probably the best system for making a custom character D&D has ever had.And probably a min/maxer's best friend. I could twink the hell out of a first level character, and a friend of mine was even better at it.
I remember making up an elf ranger under the Skills and Powers system, by maxing out his Power stat, and his Aim stat, and picking the racial traits that enhanced archery, and buying the ranger archery ability, that 1st level elf could hit like a . . . well like a cencored word with his composite bow, at first level.
One of the best things about 2E was the initiative modifiers to weapons. That was great, because it's VERY realistic to be able to strike with a rapier before the other person can swing their greataxe around. Using dexterity as a catch-all for "readiness" works, but if an individual combat round is 6 seconds, then things like weapon weight and type ought to be relevant.
Brianfowler, if you have the free time give this guy's game a try. I played 2nd edition so I'd say that he's delusional when he talks about it like it's the holy grail. However, if it's the system that he's comfortable with, chances are that you'll have fun. You're the player so you don't have to worry much about all the bogus rules and weird mechanics--he does. Like Ultradan said, the rules aren't as important as just playing the game and having fun.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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One of the best things about 2E was the initiative modifiers to weapons. That was great, because it's VERY realistic to be able to strike with a rapier before the other person can swing their greataxe around. Using dexterity as a catch-all for "readiness" works, but if an individual combat round is 6 seconds, then things like weapon weight and type ought to be relevant.
The problem is that that mechanic doesn't work in 3e for a number of reasons. Under 2e, you would announce your action, roll iniative, and then take your action. The problem with systems like this is that invariably, you will arrive in a situation where the action announced is no longer viable. For example, if you said, "I'm going to stab the orc with my broadsword" and the orc was disintegrated before your turn came up, your action is no longer valid. Assuming you can switch actions (I don't remember what on earth the "official" rule was for changing actions, most groups let you do so if your original action was no longer viable, some required intelligence checks), your original initiative number no longer is relevant to how you are behaving.
With 3e's one roll per combat system, this problem becomes worse. You take a variety of actions each round and it wouldn't make any sense to base those actions on the weapon you were wielding at the start of combat.
Now, all that being said, it was nice that daggers and other small weapons had a speed advantage. I don't know if I would drag poor old realism into the conversation, but I did like that it provided some disincentive from choosing the biggest nastiest weapon you could find.
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My own way of thinking says that it doesn't matter what system you use as long as you have fun with it.
I have alot of fond memories of 2nd edition, but I have the same from 3rd. Just find a group you enjoy playing with, run in or create great stories, and pretty soon the system will fade into the background.
More oddness with 2ed:
1. A lot of us struggled with trying to make the one-minute combat rounds work in a coherent way. Yech!
2. Why play an ordinary fighter when virtually every other warrior-type class offered superior combat options and color. 3ed really rescusitated the fighter.
3. None of the power gamers wanted to play a human - so many other races offered so much more and without draw backs. I don't think game balance was as strongly entrenched in the game designer's consciousness as it is now. (Or alternatively, the tools to implement it just weren't as readily available.)
But 2ed was the best we had and we loved it!
We suddenly had something more than the generic cleric and started to care about our deities, wizards had this new school specialization thing. Non-weapon proficiencies were helping us to customize our characters better than ever before.
Good times indeed. It's just that there may be even better times ahead.
I played second edition for 12 years and 3.X for the last five, and I still find myself missing 2nd. Everyone else has given you ideas about the rules. Just try it. I happen to like both systems equally, and it's just going to come down to your personal preference.
I don' t miss the second edition rules at all. 3E is a huge improvement- the rules now have a sense of logic and unity about them. One thing that hasn't bee mentioned much is campaign progression. In 2E it takes a lot longer to advance in levels, and the monsters aren't as tough. You can end up taking on dragons and lichs around 7th or 8th level, and in 2E 9th level I always considered high. None of the campaigns I run ever got higher than around 7th level, although I was much less experienced as a dm, so it wasn't as easy for me to keep a story line going. In 3E I've run campaigns that have reached 16th and 17th level, which has been a real blast.
A couple in 2E there were no rules for wealth by level, so you'd often end up with PC's carting around treasure at 6th level that you wouldn't get in a 3E campaign until 12th level. The modules that were produced by TSR were crap in 2E, at least until the end where some of the new designers that are now well known started making their mark in the industry. I had fun playing 2E because it was all I knew, but I would never go back. I eventually started playing shadowrun, and didn't look at dnd again much until 3E came out. Now D&D is my main rpg again.
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I don't agree that 2nd was easier to learn than 3.5. Sure, there were less options to think about for DMs and players alike, but as already mentioned, the more different subsets of rules you used in the game, the more complicated it got (anyone remember the 2nd psionics rules? I still have nightmares after all these years...;) ). When introducing people to the game, 3.5 is soooo much easier, because the mechanics are nearly always the same. Roll a d20, the higher the better. This is basically everything a new gamer needs to know when delving into his first adventure, while 2nd was a mess to grasp for a newbie: "Now you've got to roll higher", "this check requires a low roll", "this is solved with percents" and on and on. I remember many confused newbies back in those days and this totally stopped with third.
Sure, it is hard to keep on track with all the rules, but this was the same with 2nd and back then it was even worse.
Don't forget oddities like 18 00 strength!
That was messed up.
Hooray for ability scores that follow integer progression.
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I've played since the Red (or pink if it'd been in a store window too long) box, and the short answer is:
3 (.5) is better.
More options for players AND DMs.
Better combat (tactically speaking)
More balanced rules.
More straight-forward dicing and numbers
Up until recently, didn't suffer from the "look, another book" issue that killed 2nd ed. Now I guess WotC has decided to bury it's gamers in hardbacks just like TSR. I understand it's a business, but we really don't need a book for every subrace, PrC, etc.
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I think the main difference between now and then is, that 2nd became more confusing with every new book. If there was something cool I wanted to use from a new book I went mad thinking about how to make it work with the official rules and the legions of house rules all the supplements spawned. I remember groups that had binders for houserules that were larger than the 2nd PHB. Today I don't care if they release new PrC-books or PHB-follow-ups every month. I just have to decide if I find new books interesting for my campaigns or not. I know that the content will fit into the existing rules perfectly and that is an aspect I really really love about 3.5 . Back then even the cool books (like the already mentioned Psionics Handbook) could wreck your game to pieces in terms of balance and I'm glad these problems are solved now. Sure, there may be certain spells or classes that seem unbalanced, but this is nothing compared to 2nd edition-chaos...:)
And, by the way, female dwarves had beards back then! Raaahhh! The Horror! :D
I don't understand all the griping about THACO...
Back in 1st Ed, you had to look at "combat tables", cross
referencing HD and AC to figure out what roll (on a D20) you needed "to hit". THACO simplified this, because you could compute the number using the simple expression:
"number needed to hit" = THACO - AC
So, if your THACO was 15, you needed to roll a 10 to hit AC 5,
and 20 to hit AC -5.
All the people who thought, "duh... math is hard" played other games (like tic-tak-toe, maybe?). This led to the stigma that DnD was a game for only "smart people" (a.k.a nerds).
The 3.5 edition rules for grappling, Attacks of Opportunity, and magic item creation are, IMO, much more difficult to get right than simple addition and subtraction (eventhough 3.5 is supposed to be "easier" to play).
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I don't understand all the griping about THACO...
Back in 1st Ed, you had to look at "combat tables", cross
referencing HD and AC to figure out what roll (on a D20) you needed "to hit". THACO simplified this, because you could compute the number using the simple expression:
"number needed to hit" = THACO - ACSo, if your THACO was 15, you needed to roll a 10 to hit AC 5,
and 20 to hit AC -5.
THAC0 is not intuitive. It's not that the math is hard nor is it that people who dislike THAC0 lack the basic ability to add/subtract negative numbers. The rule is hard to explain, a pain to use in play, and not friendly to new players.
Look at it this way; if you're driving someplace, all else being equal, do you want to make a right hand turn or a left hand turn? Generally speaking (and assuming you are driving in the U.S.), you want to make a right hand turn. Is that because you can't drive well enough to make a left hand turn? No, it's because right hand turns are quicker, safer, and easier to accomplish.
THAC0 is the left hand turn version of the BAB. Yeah, it's completely doable, but it's no where near as convenient as the right turn. Or, if you don't like the left turn analogy, how about parallel parking. All of you who are good at parallel parking can go pat yourselves on the back for that skill, but for the rest of the world, perpendicular parking is easier.
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What I did was, I lived out in Hobo Flipping Mulhorand back in the day, and I was bored on my dad's 30 acres, so I set up some barrels to be cars and the curb, and practiced it until I could do it right about 10-12 times. The reason parallel parking is so hard is because you never get to practice it adequately; if you hit somebody's car it might cost you some ducats.
One of the things I do miss about the 2nd Edition books was the art work. I'm definitely not saying that the artwork in the 3.5 Edition book is by any means bad, but there was something about the artwork in 2nd Edition; before the golden age of digital coloring made everything look basically the same. Not as stream-lined and sexy as the newer stuff, but there was a charm that just isn't present in the 3.5 books.
I played by the book 1 edition AD&D when I started playing when I was 15yrs old. It really wasn't a good experience because the DM I was playing with was on a power trip. I started DMing with 2ED AD&D and haven't stopped since, (3ed &3.5 be damned!) 2ed is no more or less complicated to play than 3ed, but they are night and day in their mechanics. Like Tiger Lily said: The First rule in 2ed is if you don't like something, throw it out. If you can't find a rule, make it up. a very simple concept that leads to alot of house rules. I know that some people get down on house rules. My advice to you is "Then don't use them." After 17 yrs of playing 2ed, my house rules work, my game play is fast, I have a psionics class that is usable, my fights don't last a week, and my bad guys don't take me a month of work for someone who will live five minutes. True, the character classes were limited. This is where roleplaying came in to develope characters without the mess of a million prestige classes and ten million feats and skills. Don't get me wrong, if you want a game that is by the book completely inflexable, this is the way to go. But I like my game more fluid. In 3.5 the Dm is more like a sports ref. In 2ed the DM was more like a story teller. Were there drawbacks to 2ed? Yes. Are there Draw backs to 3.5? yes. I like alot of the changes that have been made to 3.5. Most we had already made in our 2ed game (Opening up character classes to any race, multiclassing for all species, stacking ht pts, faster advancement, epic level gaming, etc.) But while the changes have been good, they haven't been enough to make me want to switch to 3.5 at the expense of the thousands of dollars of 2ed stuff that we own. At this point I can convert 3.5 stuff back to 2ed in my head, and have a modual ready to run in a 30 minutes without breaking a sweat. But from what I've seen of 3.5, it's not as great as everyone keeps saying it is, and 2ed wasn't that bad. And as far as the need for house rules in 2ed? We might not have needed them if we had had a place where we could have bounced ideas off the heads of people in the RPG business and fellow gamers. This message board has helped ALL of you avoid having to use house rules that you hate so much in 3.5.