D&D Problems

[Hussar]

Ahh so pretty low level. Yup shouldn't expect balance issues too much.

 

[Zardnaar]

Ahh so pretty low level. Yup shouldn't expect balance issues too much.

We generally do not play the higher levels. Maybe a left over from 3rd ed and it takes a while to level up in OSR games. Damage doesn't need to be 2d6+20 or so from a martial character to be effective.

 

[Hussar]

We generally do not play the higher levels. Maybe a left over from 3rd ed and it takes a while to level up in OSR games. Damage doesn't need to be 2d6+20 or so from a martial character to be effective.

Agreed. Although, to be honest, I didn't see advancement that differently in 2e and 3e. Generally had a level about every 4-6 three to four hour sessions. For me, that's never really changed very much.

But yeah, when the monsters are a LOT weaker, it's perfectly fine to shoot it with a couple of darts and still feel like you're contributing. When the fighter can drop creatures in a round or two, it works out pretty well.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Though I found the spell disruption rules as written, used adversarialy by the DM, could make wizards all but unplayable. Given fighters didn't have a defender mechanic, outside of a bottleneck defense, there was no way within the rules for melee PCs to pin down enemies and actually defend the squishies. In practice it seemed to come down to a "gentleman's agreement" where the players made an effort to defend the squishies, and the squishies weren't pursued and hacked down as literal wargaming tactics might seem to dictate.

Where this wasn't the case, I saw campaigns where few or no wizards survived, maybe the occasional fighter mage.

I strongly prefer practical and transparent rules to rules that are applied situationally due to their brutality. I hated having to question DMs in 1e and 2e days to try and deduce whether wizards were worth playing in that campaign or a waste of my time.

Like a great many things from early edition games, certain rules that supported other rules were often discarded resulting in situations which seemed "broken" until the missing piece of the puzzle was returned to its place.

In OD&D and AD&D 1E melee combat was an abstract chaotic event. One couldn't choose specific targets. Targets were selectable for missile fire only. Thus what was "protecting" the squishy magic user in melee combat was pure luck. A gentlemens agreement to not concentrate melee attacks vs the magic user were not needed per the rules because of random targeting. Casting in melee combat is still plenty risky, but by the rules having more fighters to protect the caster does actually work because of two reasons:

1) More fighters means an actual physical barrier between enemies and the magic user. To be considered a possible target, the enemy must be able to reach the magic user.

2) Simple odds. If you have one fighter protecting the magic user and enemies can reach you then the magic user has a 50% chance of being the target. If you have four fighters doing the same then the chances go down to 20%.

The reason for large parties of mercenaries should now be readily apparent.

 

[Ratskinner]

Though I found the spell disruption rules as written, used adversarialy by the DM, could make wizards all but unplayable. Given fighters didn't have a defender mechanic, outside of a bottleneck defense, there was no way within the rules for melee PCs to pin down enemies and actually defend the squishies. In practice it seemed to come down to a "gentleman's agreement" where the players made an effort to defend the squishies, and the squishies weren't pursued and hacked down as literal wargaming tactics might seem to dictate.

Where this wasn't the case, I saw campaigns where few or no wizards survived, maybe the occasional fighter mage.

IME with 2e, it wasn't even necessarily the DM being adversarial per se (although that could turn the trick all by itself). Even the campaign setting could make balance very different. Games where the party did a lot of dungeon-delving could afford fewer heavies up front protecting the squishies. If you were playing more outdoors encounters...well lets just say that flight, illusion, and protection magic were hot items for the squishies.

That said, low levels were always dicey for anybody with less than a d10 hit die...and even some of them if you rolled 1st level HP.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm playing 2nd ed again and it is not that broken compared to 3rd ed. Percentile based strength is not coming back and some of the AD&D have ditched it as well. Castles and Crusades uses the BECMI modifiers for example, 13-15 is a +1 bonus,16-17 is +2 and 18 is +3.

I think a cleaned up d20 ized 2nd ed with optional feats could be fun. Use tweaked 3rd ed monsters probably toning down the ability scores and ACs in some cases.

I started on it again a few years back and can say it feels pretty balanced to me (more so than 3E in many respects). It is not as balanced as 4E, but that isn't the kind of balance i am after.

There are some rough edges with many of the complete books but they are not as bad as people say. There are some busted kits, but you can only do so much with kits and it is usually obvious just looking at it for the first time its a problem. There are also some questionable optional rules in the handbooks and questionable updates (for instance in the PHB only fighters can specialize, but the fighters book changes thatm allowing rangers and paladins to specialize too...that is a change I ignore).

That said, when I started playing 2E my original intent was to have a laugh at how broken it must be becaue it had been years since i played. When i re-read the rules throughly and applied them, it just wasn't that bad. In fact many of the problems we had been having using 3E simply were not there. I thin i started doing this sometime a little after the release of 4E because my group was split over the new edition so it created a vacuum and people started looking into other systems. I was quite surprised by the differene made by switching to 2E.

Obiously it isn't for everyone. Rolling high ability scores is rewarded with better class options, different xp progressions by class, and a variety of types of rolls (roll under NWP, versus roll over attack rollss and d10 initiative rolls where you take the lowest). I quite enjoyed the returnt o 2E though and foufd if youfavor balance over the campaign, it can be quite fitting.

 

[Bedrockgames]

That said, low levels were always dicey for anybody with less than a d10 hit die...and even some of them if you rolled 1st level HP.

Mages in 2E and 1E are quite vulnerable at early levels. I remember there was a short adventure in book of Crypts (may have the title wrong) where you go to Mordenheim's mansions and the door does like 1d2 splinter damage if you knock on it. This was enough to kill a level one mage in one of my games. But i think the problem there was, the adventure writer should not have given a damage rating for splinters.

 

[billd91]

We're going to look at 2e for balance mechanics? Really? Good grief, balance was so bad in 2e that it was ridiculous. The difference between two PC's just because of character generation could be night and day. A 1st level fighter in 2e, straight out of the PHB, could kill up to six HD creatures in a single round (not the first round, true, just the second). 18/percentile strength and weapon specs meant you had a minimum +5 to damage and double attacks every other round.

People tend to forget that 3e beefed up the monsters a whole lot. Most creatures got two or three times more HP going from 2e to 3e and doubled their damage as well.

3e, for all its higher level balance issues, is head and shoulders better balanced as a system than 2e was. That was the whole point.

3e was better at some aspects of balance... worse at others like the often aforementioned spellcaster issues. And since spellcaster issues are a big aspect of people's complaints at 3e, I would expect a better viewing of 2e's balance. The thief was pretty weak and had terrible saving throws, but the balance overall was, in many ways, quite good. I'm really not seeing the ridiculous badness of 2e's balance aside from some particular cases, particularly those introduced by the elf book and Skills and Powers.

 

[Bedrockgames]

[D][/D]

3e was better at some aspects of balance... worse at others like the often aforementioned spellcaster issues. And since spellcaster issues are a big aspect of people's complaints at 3e, I would expect a better viewing of 2e's balance. The thief was pretty weak and had terrible saving throws, but the balance overall was, in many ways, quite good. I'm really not seeing the ridiculous badness of 2e's balance aside from some particular cases, particularly those introduced by the elf book and Skills and Powers.

Fighters were pretty effective at fighting out of the gate in2E (though 18/00 strength is really rare) whch i think is a good thing. It wasnt perfect, but one of the later complaints during 3e was fighters were mot effective enough.

 

[Hussar]

Actually for me it's the complete Fighter that I usually turn to for a prime example of why balance matters.

The style specialization rules made two weapon fighting just so much better than sword and board or two handed weapon that after we introduced the book every single character who could (which is most since clerics could style specialize as well) always did it. After that point across multiple groups and a couple of countries I never saw single weapon fighters again.