D&D 2E On AD&D 2E

[deganawida]

And "easily switch weapons" is a little bit of a misnomer; if you play with Proficiency, you might be waiting 2-3 levels to get the ability to use a new weapon, and if you chose to specialize in a poor weapon for whatever reason, you have to rely on the largesse of the DM if you want to change your mind, as the rules don't allow you to do so.

Just wanted to touch on this a bit, as I was re-reading my PoD copy of the ugly PHB (the revised version). I must have glossed over it all those years ago when I was a teen and first reading the rules, but you make a good point there, that WPs are an entirely optional rule in the core books. It's one that I thought was the way the game was played, but isn't baked in to the base game. I now think that this is super cool that they aren't required and will remove them moving forward.

Why do I think it's cool that WPs are optional?

First, it speeds up play, which is a grand thing in my opinion. Some people like getting into the nitty-gritty of combat. I'm not one of them any longer, as I tire of combats that take over an hour to resolve.

Second, since all 2e classes with levels higher than 1 are assumed to be fully trained, it makes more sense to me that classes would be proficient with arms and armor allowed by their class. 3e brought that assumption back.

Third, the power level is reduced. This closes the gap between Warrior group classes and Priest/Rogue group classes, which have middling THAC0. Warriors top out at 2 attacks per round, and everyone else at 1. Suddenly, clerics, druids, thieves, and bards can present more of a threat in melee combat.

Anyway, just some thoughts that I had.

 

[James Gasik]

Just wanted to touch on this a bit, as I was re-reading my PoD copy of the ugly PHB (the revised version). I must have glossed over it all those years ago when I was a teen and first reading the rules, but you make a good point there, that WPs are an entirely optional rule in the core books. It's one that I thought was the way the game was played, but isn't baked in to the base game. I now think that this is super cool that they aren't required and will remove them moving forward.

Why do I think it's cool that WPs are optional?

First, it speeds up play, which is a grand thing in my opinion. Some people like getting into the nitty-gritty of combat. I'm not one of them any longer, as I tire of combats that take over an hour to resolve.

Second, since all 2e classes with levels higher than 1 are assumed to be fully trained, it makes more sense to me that classes would be proficient with arms and armor allowed by their class. 3e brought that assumption back.

Third, the power level is reduced. This closes the gap between Warrior group classes and Priest/Rogue group classes, which have middling THAC0. Warriors top out at 2 attacks per round, and everyone else at 1. Suddenly, clerics, druids, thieves, and bards can present more of a threat in melee combat.

Anyway, just some thoughts that I had.

Really, the only reason I kept using WP's was because there are a few interesting things you can do with them in the Complete Fighter's Handbook (and a few others, like the Bladesong Fighting Style in the Complete Book of Elves). Weapon Groups, Fighting Style Specializations, and Punching/Wrestling/Martial Arts Specialization are all neat little options for a Fighter.

But yes, with the PHB-only, Weapon Proficiencies are a fairly restrictive way to play. Savvy players would never bother to get proficiency in oddball weapons, knowing that the chances of finding a +2 Awl Pike in an adventure were very slim. And if you wanted to add an oddball weapon to your game for flavor, nobody would know how to use the darned thing without a penalty to hit (that few people wanted to put up with), potentially for multiple levels!

The whole proficiency system seems built on some very strange assumptions; for example, Thieves, who we would see as the premier skill class today, actually got new non-weapon proficiencies at a slower rate than anyone else, so that their vaunted rapid level progression was mostly a wash, and they wouldn't have more skills than anyone else.

Intelligence gave bonus proficiencies, but since only Wizards (and to a lesser extent Bards) got rewarded for a high Intelligence over other ability scores, they typically would have far more skills than anyone else; this would make sense for academic skills, I suppose, but it could lead to some amusing results when your Wizard is a master of Blacksmithing, Etiquette, Fly Fishing, and Basket Weaving! So much for spending all their time poring over arcane tomes!

Things got really strange towards the end. In Dragon #243, Skip actually states in Sage Advice that multiclass characters gain more proficiencies than anyone else; they started with the best deal of all their classes, but then, whenever they would gain a proficiency from any of their classes, they got it! A friend of mine had a Gnome Fighter/Illusionist, and the amount of proficiency slots she had after awhile was pretty silly, between her high Int and gaining a new NPW every 3 Fighter and Wizard levels! After awhile, she started taking things mostly because they amused her.

 

[deganawida]

Really, the only reason I kept using WP's was because there are a few interesting things you can do with them in the Complete Fighter's Handbook (and a few others, like the Bladesong Fighting Style in the Complete Book of Elves). Weapon Groups, Fighting Style Specializations, and Punching/Wrestling/Martial Arts Specialization are all neat little options for a Fighter.

But yes, with the PHB-only, Weapon Proficiencies are a fairly restrictive way to play. Savvy players would never bother to get proficiency in oddball weapons, knowing that the chances of finding a +2 Awl Pike in an adventure were very slim. And if you wanted to add an oddball weapon to your game for flavor, nobody would know how to use the darned thing without a penalty to hit (that few people wanted to put up with), potentially for multiple levels!

The whole proficiency system seems built on some very strange assumptions; for example, Thieves, who we would see as the premier skill class today, actually got new non-weapon proficiencies at a slower rate than anyone else, so that their vaunted rapid level progression was mostly a wash, and they wouldn't have more skills than anyone else.

Intelligence gave bonus proficiencies, but since only Wizards (and to a lesser extent Bards) got rewarded for a high Intelligence over other ability scores, they typically would have far more skills than anyone else; this would make sense for academic skills, I suppose, but it could lead to some amusing results when your Wizard is a master of Blacksmithing, Etiquette, Fly Fishing, and Basket Weaving! So much for spending all their time poring over arcane tomes!

Things got really strange towards the end. In Dragon #243, Skip actually states in Sage Advice that multiclass characters gain more proficiencies than anyone else; they started with the best deal of all their classes, but then, whenever they would gain a proficiency from any of their classes, they got it! A friend of mine had a Gnome Fighter/Illusionist, and the amount of proficiency slots she had after awhile was pretty silly, between her high Int and gaining a new NPW every 3 Fighter and Wizard levels! After awhile, she started taking things mostly because they amused her.

Oh, yeah, it definitely got crazy, and, by the '97, I was totally put off by all the optional rules no longer being optional. Sure, I loved the new settings and all the lore, but once you added all those rules, man, it got bad to manage.

 

[Mannahnin]

WHat 2e excelled at though was making AD&D easier to run. It was still AD&D at its core, it was simpler, initiative was easier to understand, THAC0 was easier (it was already part of the AD&D eco system by the time the 1e DMG came out) and the move of several rules over to the PHB helped as well. The DMG wasn't the 1e DMG by a long shot but it was NOT nearly as bad as its made out to be nowadays. It was a very different product from the 1e book in every way and was measured by the standard of the 1e book. It was the more easy to use material from the DMG, magic items etc and a toolkit, and advice but had moved to the standard for gaming at that time where the odd random tables etc had moved out of vogue and RPGs had become story games. The materials that once were the purview of the 1e DMG moved to the DMGR series. It made for a more practical DMG for new DMs.

The biggest issue I had with the 2E DMG, which was indeed clearer and more user friendly than the 1E DMG (which I also had), was that it's so wishy washy and noncommittal.

For me as a teenage would-be DM without an experienced regular mentor (I knew some older folks who played, but didn't have a real teacher), it just didn't give enough clear guidance. A lot of "you could do it THIS way, OR you could do it THAT way" trying to both service the old school dungeon crawling audience and the newer Trad/story-oriented play crowd.

The XP system was a classic rough one. With gold for XP relegated to an optional rule, the suggested rules for xp awards by default would be painfully slow, which is a tough combo with the lethality of AD&D. If either set of optional XP rules (treasure or individual based on class) had been recommended for use alongside the baseline monster and goal XP, it would have been better.

There's still some vagaries and holdover over-cautiousness about powergaming in there too. The (extremely vague) rules for making magic items never got used by us. And we wound up eventually chucking the whole xp system since by the book it was so slow.

 

[deganawida]

Oh, something else I thought about last week, when @darjr posted his Phandelver & Below B&G news.

Easy money for WotC would be to license Beadle & Grimm do legendary editions of older material, especially the various campaign boxed sets. I'd pay a significant amount of money to have those.

 

[Voadam]

The biggest issue I had with the 2E DMG, which was indeed clearer and more user friendly than the 1E DMG (which I also had), was that it's so wishy washy and noncommittal.

For me as a teenage would-be DM without an experienced regular mentor (I knew some older folks who played, but didn't have a real teacher), it just didn't give enough clear guidance. A lot of "you could do it THIS way, OR you could do it THAT way" trying to both service the old school dungeon crawling audience and the newer Trad/story-oriented play crowd.

The XP system was a classic rough one. With gold for XP relegated to an optional rule, the suggested rules for xp awards by default would be painfully slow, which is a tough combo with the lethality of AD&D. If either set of optional XP rules (treasure or individual based on class) had been recommended for use alongside the baseline monster and goal XP, it would have been better.

There's still some vagaries and holdover over-cautiousness about powergaming in there too. The rules for making magic items never got used by us. And we wound up eventually chucking the whole xp system since by the book it was so slow.

For me the impression I had of the 2e charts at the time was that they were more generous on xp for monsters than 1e was.

Looking back now, an ogre in 1e was 90 +5/hp (4d8+1= ~19) so about 185 xp.

In 2e from MC1 a 4+1 HD ogre is 175 xp, a little less than 1e, but in the Monstrous Manual they are 270, about 50% more.

In 1e a troll is 525 +8/hp with 6d8+6 hp ~33hp so ~789 xp.

In 2e MC1 and MM a troll is 1,400 xp, about twice as much as in 1e.

I particularly liked that it was less steps in figuring out a monsters' xp in 2e. I was notoriously slow in handing out xp in my 1e campaign.

 

[Mannahnin]

For me the impression I had of the 2e charts at the time was that they were more generous on xp for monsters than 1e was.

That was definitely so, but for the thousands you need to get from 1st to 2nd or 2nd to 3rd, divided among the party. it definitely didn't make up for the lack of treasure XP. And you're not able to take on ogres or trolls for a few levels. Capping quest/goal XP at monster xp (as I recall) meant advancement was really rough BtB.

 

[Dioltach]

I posted here a few years ago that for a magic user to progress from 10th to 11th (I think - I don't have my 2E books anymore), they'd need to single-handedly slay 9 Great Wyrms. I get that high-level characters were supposed to be rare, but surely not rarer than super-powerful dragons?

In our group, even with the DM being relatively generous with XP, it would take years of real time to gain a level.

 

[Reynard]

I posted here a few years ago that for a magic user to progress from 10th to 11th (I think - I don't have my 2E books anymore), they'd need to single-handedly slay 9 Great Wyrms. I get that high-level characters were supposed to be rare, but surely not rarer than super-powerful dragons?

In our group, even with the DM being relatively generous with XP, it would take years of real time to gain a level.

Or 10,000 bandits. I'm not sure why one would assume that the XP had to come from rare and powerful enemies -- especially since 2E isn the only edition of the game to give mages XP for casting spells and creating spells and items.

 

[cbwjm]

Were people not also providing story rewards for xp? I'd often grant a bunch of xp (based on fighter progression in a regular group, wizard progression when my friends were only playing wizards) when quests were completed.

As for wwapon proficiencies, I wouldn't bother with individual weapons anymore, instead I'd use broad groups, including for specialisation. I think there was also an optional rule somewhere (fighters handbook probably) where fighters could use their intelligence bonus proficiencies for weapons, I might also use that rule but with broad groups drastically cutting down the number of weapon proficiencies I'm not sure it would be needed.