2e: What do I need?

[Remathilis]

Obviously, the core rules (PHB, DMG, MM)

Beyond that...

Tome of Magic: Adds a bunch of new domains for clerics and the much awesome elementalists. Oh, and a bunch of new spells.

Scarlet Brotherhood: Want 1e-like monks and assassins done 2e style?

Complete Book of Humanoids: Add a wealth of good humanoid races (including half-orcs) into the game.

Player's Option: Combat and Tactics: Avoid the clunky new initiative system and go straight for the improved unarmed combat, weapon mastery and other proficiencies.

Player's Option: Spells & Magic: No matter what, GET THIS BOOK! Even if you avoid the character-point wizards and priests, you get the crusader, priest-monk, and shaman priest classes, more wizard specializations than you shake a stick at, the best detailed material component rules, new proficiencies, a bunch of "new" spells that seem strikingly familiar to 3e players, (Cure Moderate Wounds) and, most important, the re-balanced cleric domains that improve the druid, tone down the cleric, and make much better sense. Bonus for the most complete spell-lists short of the WSC.

Core Rules 2.0 + Expansion: Good luck with this one, but this THE definitive 2e product. 20 books in RFT/HTML/TXT format, one of the most robust char-gens, plenty of custom-editing material, monster DB, 2 mapper programs (one a stripped down campaign cartographer), and general awesomeness. Oh, and the Necromancer's Handbook if you hunt down the patch on the internet.

 

[justanobody]

Core Rules 2.0 + Expansion: Good luck with this one, but this THE definitive 2e product. 20 books in RFT/HTML/TXT format, one of the most robust char-gens, plenty of custom-editing material, monster DB, 2 mapper programs (one a stripped down campaign cartographer), and general awesomeness. Oh, and the Necromancer's Handbook if you hunt down the patch on the internet.

This shouldn't be too hard to come by unless people want to fight over my spare copy of the Expansion. I know people say I should eBay and get $100 or more, but I don't need more than retail for it so refuse and don't want to see someone else buy it just to sell it for more. The only problem with it is the damn copy-protection that requires the CD in the drive. But you CAN copy the disk and use a copy to run from and prevent your original from having to be in the drive all the time, and you only need the Expansion to run once you have it so you don't even need a copy of the original, just install and then install the Expansion.

That is why the 2.0 original sells so often because people install it and then just install the expansion and never need the original again.

I will keep my original though as well my own Expansion disk and if I ever find someone willing to get and use my sealed spare Expansion then I will part with it.

You are right that it is excellent and the low requirements that allows it to run in anything that can emulate Windows 98 really is all you need to play 2nd editoin if you have a computer to install it. Also one of the mappers is Campaign Cartographer 2 watered down version.

The Windows Help version of all the books is vastly superior to the DDI Compendium even.

Wizards of the Coast - Electronic Media - The Complete Book of Necromancers!

Sadly the other patch to core rules is no longer on WotC site, and I don't think ENWorld allows attachments that large.

 

[RFisher]

So far the only 2e supplements I’ve really had any interest in are the HR series.

Core Rules 2.0 + Expansion

This is definitely a good acquisition. You can look at all the splats and—better yet—search them without wasting space on them. If you find one of them actually appeals to you, then you can seek out a hard-copy.

 

[Orius]

Is that a way-back machine?

The Time Machine from the 1960 movie.

All your really need for 2e is core, just like all the other editions. If you want some extra material though, the Tome of Magic and Arms and Equipment Guide are a good start. After that, the splats aren't really necessary, but the Fighter's Handbook has some decent combat options, and the Thief's Handbook has a bunch of extra NWPs (some of which carried over to 3e) as well as thieves' guild creation guidelines for the DM. The Priest's Handbook does a decent job of trying to flesh out specialty priests, but they tend to be very underpowered. Wizard's Handbook has a bunch of spells, and some other good material, but you could live without it. Psionics Handbook is necessary if you want to use psionics in the campaign.

The compilations (Encyclopedia Magica and Spell Compendiums) can add a lot of extra stuff to a campaign, but you can skip them, especially if they feel overwhelming. The MC annuals have a decent selection of additional monsters which can be easily used in most campagins (MCA 3 though just copies and pastes stuff from their sources, so they are loaded down with a lot of setting-specific fluff), and often have some of the most useful and probably easily ported monsters from the campaign settings.

The Player's Option books (including High-Level Campaigns) introduced a lot of ideas that later got added to 3e, so you might want to work some of that in if your group likes 3e. Go with some of the combat rules from C&T, the NWP system (optionally the easier psionics if you want them) from S&P, and the extra spells (particularly the spells added to 3e) from S&M. Don't use the subabilities from S&P (horribly broken!), though. It's up to you whether or not you want to tinker with buying class and race abilities (IMO, there's good ideas, but needs the DM to do some work balancing it out). Even if you don't want to customize PC abilities, you can still use CPs like action points.

For world building, the World Builder's Guidebook is invaluable. Other good DM tools are the Villain's Handbook and the Dungeon Builder's Guidebook.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Must-haves? Let's see. When we played 2e, our group required the following books on hand:

- The core rules (PHB, DMG, MM)
- Scarlett Brotherhood (for monks and assassins)
- Complete Ninjas and Psionics Handbooks (for ninjas and psionicists, obviously)
- Player's Option: Combat & Tactics (for guns and martial arts)
- Player's Option: Spells & Magic (for the spell points system)
- DM's Option: High Level Campaigns

 

[Treebore]

I LOVED, absolutely LOVED specialty priests, so I would have to get that, and adapt whatever deities I want to use to that format. Other than that? The PH, and the monster manuals. I used the 1E DMG for my DMG. I don't remember ever really needing the 2E DMG, but I do own it.

Yes, go for the black covered versions.

 

[Treebore]

"That" is the Faiths and Avatars book for the Forgotten Realms setting.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

If you plan on doing some world building I'd reccomend The Castle Guide, Creative Campaigning.

If you wou want some premade adventure sites then I'd reccomend Castle Sites, City Sites & Country Sites

 

[delericho]

You only really need the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monstrous Manual. To be honest, sticking with just these three (or perhaps adding additional Monstrous Compendia as desired) might well make for the best game.

However, there was a lot of really good material produced for 2nd Edition, despite its poor reputation. I recommend:

Tome of Magic (this is as close to a "fourth core rulebook" as you get for this edition)
Wizard Spells Compendium (4 volumes)
Priest Spells Compendium (3 volumes)
Encyclopedia Magica (4 volumes)

and a setting of your choice. 2nd Edition had several really good settings: Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Birthright, Planescape amongst others.

Some of the later "Complete X Handbook" volumes are actually really good, but they do have a significant element of power-creep. If you want psionics in your game (especially if running Dark Sun) you need "The Complete Psionics Handbook". (And, for any psionic campaign, I recommend the Dark Sun sourcebook "The Will and the Way".)

Personally, I would avoid the "Player's Option" material. As "Book of 9 Swords" and similar were test-beds for 4e mechanics, these books seemed to me to be test-beds for 3e mechanics ("Combat & Tactics", in particular, seemed to be a big step towards the 'tactical mini-game' of 3e combat). There are some nice ideas in here, but the implementation is pretty bad, and really unbalanced.

Additionally, I recommend the "Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide" and "Creative Campaigning". These are (almost?) completely rule-free - I actually recommend them to almost any DM. They're really good.

 

[Aus_Snow]

World Builder's Guide, Aurora's, Dark Sun box set.

Note: I've never used any of those with AD&D 2e, but I have used them, quite a bit. Nice, if you can pick up a cheap 2nd hand copy of each (like I did).