I've introduced my 5th ed group to AD&D 2E

[overgeeked]

And your last sentence is kind of elitist, FYI.

I will never quite get the newer fans’ notion that it’s RAW or it’s wrong. This whole thing started as DIY in people’s basements.

 

[overgeeked]

But, it doesn't seem like you are playing 2e anyway. You are playing 2e as you think it should be played, not as it is actually written.

 

[Mad_Jack]

Thief isn't meant to be a Fighter, why compare them?

The thief was never meant to be a combat class in 1st/2nd Ed. Saying they're terrible because they don't do something as well as the class that was designed to do that thing is comparing apples and oranges and declaring that the apple sucks as a citrus fruit. For dungeon exploring or a lot of other adventuring functions, the thief was your go-to guy. Outside of combat, the fighter was a giant, useless clanking hunk of metal that just followed the rest of the party around twiddling their thumbs until it was time to break down a door, lift a gate or bend bars.

 

[Zardnaar]

What makes AD&D thieves fun is when they land that backstab and oneshot whatever.

To to 5E hot point bloat that's difficult to do in 5E even with a crit assuming you're facing things of similar CR.

A level 9 Rogue in 5E might struggle to one shot a CR3 baddie on full hp even with a crit.

It's harder to set up but you might one shot a dragon. That's not gonna happen in 5E unless it's a vastly higher level character critting a Mook.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It is worth playing 2e. Especially Night Below. I personally can't play it anymore since there are a few things that are too hard to get use to again.

My brother just told me he plays castle & crusades right now and likes it better than 5e.
There is a certain charm to those old rules. There was a different balance between fighters, wizards and thieves than today and that make the game a bit more differentiated.

 

[Helena Real]

I think I'm in a similar situation to you. After 5 years of running only 5E when it comes to D&D, I'm itching to go back to something like AD&D 2nd Edition (which was the edition I started in) and running it "properly" now that I have all the experience as a DM and could get all the resources I could ask for.

Thanks for sharing this! I'm super glad for you and your group and you've inspired me

 

[James Gasik]

What makes AD&D thieves fun is when they land that backstab and oneshot whatever.

To to 5E hot point bloat that's difficult to do in 5E even with a crit assuming you're facing things of similar CR.

A level 9 Rogue in 5E might struggle to one shot a CR3 baddie on full hp even with a crit.

It's harder to set up but you might one shot a dragon. That's not gonna happen in 5E unless it's a vastly higher level character critting a Mook.

Just a point of order here. You're not going to one-shot a dragon. Even if you could backstab a dragon, which, you can't (relevant rules text to follow), a Young White Dragon has 9 Hit Dice. That's about 40 hit points on average (9-72). A 13th-level Thief using a the best weapon for the job, a longsword (x5 damage modifier) would do 32 damage on average (5-60). Maybe you can close the gap with a Girdle of Giant Strength or a powerful magic weapon, but you can't count on either. And that's just a fairly weak dragon, worth 3000 xp, when you need 220 thousand for your next level.

 

[Zardnaar]

Just a point of order here. You're not going to one-shot a dragon. Even if you could backstab a dragon, which, you can't (relevant rules text to follow), a Young White Dragon has 9 Hit Dice. That's about 40 hit points on average (9-72). A 13th-level Thief using a the best weapon for the job, a longsword (x5 damage modifier) would do 32 damage on average (5-60). Maybe you can close the gap with a Girdle of Giant Strength or a powerful magic weapon, but you can't count on either. And that's just a fairly weak dragon, worth 3000 xp, when you need 220 thousand for your next level.

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Dragon might be a bad example. You're also not min maxing hard enough as in 2Evyou can backstab with a greatsword or lance.
That's 3d6 X5 potentially doubled with a lance. Harder to set up but silence and invisibility spells exist.

180 is most amount of damage you can hit without optional rules, 90 without them and cheese. That puts an average 20HD monster that's L size or bigger within one shot range excluding things like high strength and weapon specialists and magic weapons which can add another 50 odd damage or more.

We use strength spells a lot more now in 2E than we did first time round.

So yeah it's one thing 2E can pull off relative to 5E playing assassin types is better. Low level thief backstabbing an Ogre......

Try that in 5E big difference. Not to hard maxing move silently in 2E if they're not looking your way MS roll and bame dead ogre.

Assassin's Creed type gameplay is better in pre 3E. Maybe 3.5.

 

[James Gasik]

Dragon might be a bad example. You're also not min maxing hard enough as in 2Evyou can backstab with a greatsword or lance.
That's 3d6 X5 potentially doubled with a lance. Harder to set up but silence and invisibility spells exist.

Invisibility won't work, I just had to edit my post to add detect invisibility's text. And yeah, I guess you could, but a single-classed Thief can't become proficient with a greatsword or lance, so you'd have to take a -3 to hit. The Thief gets +4 with backstab, but the young dragon is AC 2 and a 13th level Thief's Thac0 is 14, so I guess it's not the worst in this situation, but again, that's a fairly weak dragon for our hero Thief.

 

[Zardnaar]

Invisibility won't work, I just had to edit my post to add detect invisibility's text. And yeah, I guess you could, but a single-classed Thief can't become proficient with a greatsword or lance, so you'd have to take a -3 to hit. The Thief gets +4 with backstab, but the young dragon is AC 2 and a 13th level Thief's Thac0 is 14, so I guess it's not the worst in this situation, but again, that's a fairly weak dragon for our hero Thief.

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Yeah I was talking about MC or dual classed thief but even a longsword can work.

Dragons might be a bad example but everything else is available.

Remember loot was a lot more abundancet in older adventures along with things like Gauntlets of Ogre Power.

Magic longswords were fairly common along with exceptional strength one way or another (read 2E strength spell).

You're still dealing 1d12 probably with modifiers in an edition where outside Dragons and stronger giants hit points are reasonably low.

If I wanted to run an Assassin's Creed type D&D game I would bother with modern D&D. Castles and Crusades supports that idea better than AD&D even.

2E still best toolbox edition espicially for oddball games due to settings and splat books. Want a stone age game easy, want a Napoleonic War themed campaign that's an option.