D&D 2E Let's Read the AD&D 2nd Edition PHB+DMG!

[Atomoctba]

Just to add: no, our DM never allowed "helpless" characters. Play with what you get. We never complained about, though.

 

[Mannahnin]

Just to add: no, our DM never allowed "helpless" characters. Play with what you get. We never complained about, though.

Hardcore.

One of my favored house rules when using 3d6 down the line is to allow "flipping" the set- the player has the option to subtract all values, in order, from 21. So no re-rolls are ever needed to avoid "hopeless" characters. Though it sounds like you made the best of one which might have been dismissed as such.

 

[Voadam]

Our group always used it... Just not in order. Roll six times 3d6 and then put in the stats you wanted. On old times, we saw a player paladin just once because the pre-requisites.

One of my Birthright chars had Str 6, Dex 7, Con 5. A abjurer mage whose mother had her womb trumpled by a horse when she was pregnant. Other players named me "Modo" from Quasimodo (just I was not "quasi", or "almost" in English). So, not a Quasi Modo ("almost Modo"), but a full Modo.

So you picked Dex and Con as dump stats? -1 hp on d4 HD is real rough. Seven Dex though is as good as a 14, no modifier either way on anything.

Wizard for SAD and back row role is a decent mechanical choice with three low stats in AD&D.

Abjurer requires a 15 minimum Wisdom so you had at least one decent stat.

I probably would have gone with Transmuter or Conjurer to put the 15 into Dex or Con for the survivability difference to get a +1 AC or hp/level (compared to -1/level) and build from there.

I've only seen one PC in a game I've played in or run where the player chose a Con with a -1 hp modifier, but that is in my current 5e game where it is much easier to bounce back from 0 hp.

 

[Atomoctba]

So you picked Dex and Con as dump stats? -1 hp on d4 HD is real rough. Seven Dex though is as good as a 14, no modifier either way on anything.

Yes, when I rolled three terrible stats, I deliberately chose to put all of them in the physical attributes. Abjurer instead of other specialist mage was because an idea I had when conceiving that char, so it was a "roleplay" decision. The -1 HP could be very harsh in a regular Campaign and I probably would not do that in normal circumstances, but that particular Birthright Campaign were more focused in domain managing and very few real adventures, so it was not so impairing as should seem. Most of time, I was in the castle basement as a "Bruno" from that house, building ley lines through the provinces.

 

[Voadam]

The -1 HP could be very harsh in a regular Campaign and I probably would not do that in normal circumstances, but that particular Birthright Campaign were more focused in domain managing and very few real adventures, so it was not so impairing as should seem.

I can see that. The trick would be accurately predicting that it would actually be that kind of campaign ahead of time when making the character. I played in a vampire game where I checked with the GM ahead of time that I would be OK making a wholly non combatant character. Once I got assurances I made a purely investigative reporter character whose closest thing to a combat skill or power was a little bit of brawl to represent defensively rolling with punches as he said "Not in the face!" It turned out great for a game that lasted years. Other vampire games I have been in we were in direct personal combat with werewolves and sabbat regularly.

Most of time, I was in the castle basement as a "Bruno" from that house, building ley lines through the provinces.

We don't talk about that.

 

[Nikosandros]

Me neither, but it was the official method, so I imagine SOME people must have used it.

When I started playing AD&D, I brought a lot of concepts from Basic, some consciously, many others not. When I approached 2e, I did the same with many concepts from 1e. My guess is that this was not uncommon at all.

 

[cbwjm]

I ended up using 4d6k3 rolled 8 times, discard the lowest. I was also pretty lenient with meeting ability requirements, I'd allow people to bump stats up if they put their highest roll into a requirement (so if you want to be a paladin and the highest you roll is a 16, that can be bumped to 17 for your charisma). Most of the time I didn't have to bump abilities.

I don't think it ever occurred to me to just ignore the class requirements, but I don't think the game would have played differently if I had.

 

[Staffan]

The Strength bonus table follows closely to 1st Ed., except while 1st Ed. goes from 3 to 18(00), 2nd Ed. goes from 1 to 25 (including percentile strength).

That basically just incorporates the expanded stat tables from Deities & Demigods (and, I think, Monster Manual 2) into the core rules. The only time those scores were really used was in Dark Sun (where the default stat rolling method was 4d4+4 and various alternates were based around 5d4; and most racial ability modifiers were in the -2 to +2 range except half-giants who got +4 to Strength so they could max out at 24), which walked back some of the more ridiculous results from the tables in question in its Revised & Expanded version.

 

[Iosue]

Just catching up on some comments I couldn't reply to while my previous post was in draft form.

I so much prefer that version of the 2e PH aesthetically to the later revised black cover one with full color art that they sell a PDF of now. I really wish there was a copy of that original 2e version to buy.

I also agree with this. This printing of 2nd Edition goes all in on the blue, and I'm here for it.

I think that sorta sums up why 2e is remembered so fondly by me. I played a little BECMI prior to 2e, but never played 1e so I couldn’t really be disappointed by anything they nixed going from 1e to 2e and instead just found a fairly well laid out book with rules that were pretty easy to understand.

Yes, that was roughly our experience, as well. I started with Moldvay Basic, and then got the Mentzer Red Box about a year later. I got orange-spine versions of AD&D 1st Edition after that. Because I started with Moldvay, I didn't feel any resistance to the style of the AD&D, but I definitely felt, even as a 13-14 year old, "Okay, obviously this is from the 70s. It's a bit old-fashioned." When 2nd Edition came out, I thought, "Now this is great, this feels like a modern book befitting the 80s!" The Mentzer boxes has made me a big fan of Elmore's work, so I was glad to see work in AD&D, too.

I never found it particularly backward or confusing. While the rules were rapidly getting to look a bit retro in contrast to newer systems coming out in the late 80s and early 90s, the increased clarity and very good organization were much appreciated by me as a younger and newer player.

To clarify, I don't think it's backward or confusing either, but I do think that's been the general opinion since 3rd Edition. Kind of like how B/X and BECMI were thought of as "kiddy D&D" with goofy stuff like "race as class". Like my Let's Read of the Moldvay Basic Rules, one thing I want to do is engage the books here on their own terms, and if possible understand why things are as they are.

My issue with them tends to be more what you've talked about in the Learning the Game and Example of Play sessions. While the organization is great, the books really fail at teaching a new or inexperienced DM HOW to run the game. The DMG, in particular, hems and haws all over the place trying to cater to both story-forward and classic players, but leaving new players lacking in direction and guidance.

It seems to me that no one at TSR (or WotC until 5e), understood the merit of having an on-ramp (distinct from just a starter set). It's a small jump from Basic Rules to Expert Rules, and then a small jump from Expert Rules to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (either edition). But instead of leveraging this, D&D was just considered this weird off-shoot, and especially after 1989, was slowly killed off.

The Bard (of Why HeroQuest is So Great fame) did a really detailed breakdown of and homage to this painting, acclaiming it as one of or the best of Larry Elmore's work. I don't know if I agree, but he makes some compelling arguments.

Thanks for that. He says everything I wanted to say, but cut for length!

 

[Iosue]

When I started playing AD&D, I brought a lot of concepts from Basic, some consciously, many others not. When I approached 2e, I did the same with many concepts from 1e. My guess is that this was not uncommon at all.

Very much the case with me. When we got 1st Edition AD&D, I didn't even realize that the character generation methods were not in the Players Handbook. I'm sure I must have read in the DMG that the preferred method was 4d6-drop lowest, but it never stuck, to the point that when I read the 2nd Edition Player's Handbook, I saw Method I and thought, "Yup, yup, that's the way it is. Jeez, why are these bonuses so low? Why is percentile strength even a thing?"

To the point that, until re-reading the 2nd Edition books a few years ago, I never realized that many of the things I took for granted, like the exploration turn, were not in 2nd Edition. And it wasn't until I was checking the 1st Edition books for another thread last week that I realized, they're not in the 1st Edition book, either. 1st Edition will make reference to such things. For example, in the section "Time in the Dungeon," it says, "It is essential that an accurate time record be kept so that the DM can determine when to check for wandering monsters," and Appendix C: Random Monster Encounters, it notes "When a random encounter is indicated by the periodic check...", but no where does it explain when and how such checks are done. Or if it is, it is so buried in some other obscure part of the DMG that I can't find it. But, coming from a B/X background, I just assumed that the procedure was to roll a 1d6 every two turns, with a 1 indicating wandering monsters, and never thought anything about it.

I find myself revising a lot of what I considered the received wisdom about the design and history of the game.