2.0... oh how I've missed you!!!

[Yora]

While I think second Edition is still the best, really having learned the game with 3rd Edition makes all the huge faults of second stand out very clearly. The math is just really, really bad!

But from what I've seen Myth & Magic really cleans that up and from what I've seen so far I like it even a lot more than Castles & Crusades.
If 5th Editioon can't deliver, than I think this will be the game for me in the future.

 

[Crothian]

While I think second Edition is still the best, really having learned the game with 3rd Edition makes all the huge faults of second stand out very clearly. The math is just really, really bad!

How is the math bad? I'm pretty sure they got all the addition and subtraction correct in the books.

 

[delericho]

While I think second Edition is still the best, really having learned the game with 3rd Edition makes all the huge faults of second stand out very clearly. The math is just really, really bad!

Yeah, I had an absurd amount of fun with 2nd Edition, but I couldn't ever go back. As you say, the relatively clean nature of the 3e rules just made the flaws in the 2nd Ed design too apparent.

Of course, 4e did the same thing with regard to 3e... but it also had enough about it that I didn't like that I didn't switch. For me, the most frustrating thing about 4e was that it made me like 3e a whole lot less, without itself being better.

 

[Yora]

How is the math bad? I'm pretty sure they got all the addition and subtraction correct in the books.

I see your sunglasses, but anyway: I thought it was only THAC0 that was weird with the strange way of "negative numbers are better, except when they are not", and you roll a dice for your character, but then you add to that a number from your target and compare the result against one of your numbers. Then why do I make the roll and not the target rolls for itself? But then when I got deeper into it, the percentage tables for Thief skills are also completely jumbled, adding bonuses and removing substractions everywhere, while it would have been perfectly okay to have everything for a human thief with Dex 10 and leather armor to be zero and compare all other Dexterity scores, and races, and armor against that. And why have a d100 when a d20 works just the same? And then I looked at the saving throw progressions and while some of them make sense, you have stuff like clerics who gain like a +2 bonus every 5 levels. Not a plus +2 bonus over 5 levels! And you can also look at the tables for Ability scores where you can find two identical colums next to each other, except that one is moved down by one row. Or "exceptional strength"!

When someone told me I might like Myth & Magic, I abandoned any attempt at cleaning up 2nd Edition math after reading the preview for about 10 minutes. The preview has a terrible combination of alternative rules for Initiative as the only presented system and the Class Traits may not be original 2nd Edition (they are feats), but everything else about it I just love.
They are currently at finishing up the typesetting to send it to the printer.

 

[billd91]

That's not really bad math, as I would define it. That has more to do with inconsistency, which is or isn't bad on a case-by-case basis. I think one of the really nice things 3e did was provide more consistency in stat bonuses, but taking inconsistent things and forcing them into a systematic structure doesn't always work that well. Clerical spheres and putting druid spells into that framework are a prime example of that. All of that incorporated an ambitious idea of providing an overall framework. But the first attempt at it needed a lot of revision to make the druid work as well as it did in 1e. 3e was, I believe, right to back off of the overall structure and give druids back their own, unique spell list.

I think bad math would better characterize structures where the game seems to intend one thing, but delivers another because the numbers don't match at a certain point. For example, the saving throws in 3e sometimes get accused of involving bad math because they really don't keep up with the challenges faced in the game, particularly when the save DCs from the monsters tends to be based on their hit dice, which grow faster than the CR (and thus faster than the PCs' saves), and because large monster stats and optimized caster stats rise faster than defensive stats. By comparison, 2e's saves just become stronger as the character becomes more experienced... a result more people seem to favor.

 

[Yora]

My idea of bad math is not whether or not the statistical results ara balanced with each other, but whether or not that end result is reached using the most convenient path of calculations.
d20 games are straight to the point. Roll d20, add favorable conditions, substract unfavorable conditions, compare against opponents roll or static Target Number. And that cover 98% of all rolls you'll ever make (excluding damage rolls).
That's straightforward, while AD&D runs all over the place before telling you what the actual outcome of an action is. Math is not "counting and calculating", but finding relationships and dependencies and describing them as simple as possible. And that AD&D does very poorly.