1E vs. 2E.

[MGibster]

Howdy folks,

I played a lot of D&D starting with 1st edition. When I finally got around to buying books for D&D 2nd edition was the big thing. I don't remember any radical difference between 1E and 2E. (Not counting the S&P books.) I don't see how anybody who played 1E could look at 2E and say "That's not for me." What was the difference?

Marc

 

[DonAdam]

I grew up on 2e, but having looked at the rulebooks think that many of the changes weren't terribly sound.

The addition of the proficiency system was much needed. Not that it was a great system, it was better than nothing. Being able to place thief skill points was also good.

Some of the irregularities went away (rangers getting 2d8 hit dice at first level). I am a huge fan of conventions for balance reasons.

As far as the bad changes...

You should never get rid of a core class such as the monk when there is no effective way to build them in the new rules. It wasn't until the Scarlet Brotherhood, right before 3e, that there was a viable monk class. What was the worst was the lame explanation for this in Forgotten Realms Adventures (monks wandered off into the sunset).

I dislike the schools of magic system that we have now. There are no clear distinctions between some of the schools, which have been chosen for balance. Hopefully 4e will run completely off of descriptors. I like 1e illusionists better than their recent incarnations.

Rangers picked up two weapon fighting.

Half orcs went away.

This doesn't affect the core rules, but there simply weren't as many good second edition modules as first edition modules. There were a few gems in there, especially when some of the current 3e team came on board, but for the most part it was just bleh.

On the whole, though, there weren't that many changes. The biggest was the proficiency system, which was easily modular. I would consider that a problem rather than a benefit though. Why buy all these books that I already have?

 

[Grazzt]

* Spheres of Influence for clerics/priests were a 2e incarnation. The 3e cleric is more like the 1e cleric (with the addition of domain spells).

* Dragons got bigger and meaner in 2e. In 1e they dealt damage equal to their hit points and could only breathe a max of 3 times per day.

* Assassins were a core class in 1e. They were "killed" (no pun intended) in 2e.

* Like DonAdam mentioned above, the Illusionist was a class all to itself, and not a specialist wizard/mage/magic-user. (The 1e illusionist was a very cool class, btw.)

* Demons became Tanar'ri, Devils became Baatezu, Daemons became Yugoloths, etc. in 2e (TSR wanted to remove all references to demons and devils from the game basically, at least in the eyes of non-gamers that loved to attack the game)

* DonAdam was right about the proficiency system being added, though it first started really appearing in 1e with Oriental Adventures, the Dungeoneeer's Survival Guide, and the Wilderness Survival Guide

* In 1e the planes were hostile places that were not a lot of fun to visit (more or less). In 2e, Planescape changed all that and made them "user friendly"

* A lot of 2e adventures and additions seemed to push the idea of "DM hand-holding" and DMs leading players by the nose through a module. In 1e, you had to learn to fight a bit, run away, return, fight some more, run away again, etc...

 

[Dark Jezter]

I'm not an expert on the differences between 1E and 2E. All I know is that a lot of 1E D&D players left the hobby or moved on to other RPG systems when 2E D&D was published, and didn't return until the publication of 3E.

I know that one of my friends was a little irate that the Assassin (his favorite class) was removed as a core class.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I'm not an expert on the differences between 1E and 2E. All I know is that a lot of 1E D&D players left the hobby or moved on to other RPG systems when 2E D&D was published, and didn't return until the publication of 3E.

*raises hand*

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

What was the 1e illusionist like?
For that matter, what was the 1e monk like?

 

[Grazzt]

*raises hand*

Me too. Well, we didnt completely walk away. We basically continued to play 1e and just incorporated a handful of 2e stuff into the game. So, really we played like AD&D 1.5 I guess.

 

[rounser]

What was the 1e illusionist like?

1E Illusionist: Exceedingly cool. The class had it's own little spell list seperate from the Magic-User, with funky spells like Demi-Shadow Monsters all to itself. If ever you need an argument as to why consolidation of classes into elegant rules constructs can lead to flavour losses, look to the difference in feel between a 1E Illusionist and it's 2E and 3E counterparts, where it becomes Just Another Specialty Mage.

For that matter, what was the 1e monk like?

1E Monk: A bit underpowered, which led to a number of fixes in Dragon magazine later on. Looked good on paper at level 20, but had trouble holding it's own in combat...sound familiar? Doubly crippled by having to fight the current holder of the level title at high levels (i.e. to advance from 19th to become 20th level Grandmaster of Flowers you had to defeat the current one or wait until he/she retired, and if you lost the duel, you lost the XP you gained to level too). Had an assortment of special abilities, such as falling without taking damage, feign death, that sort of thing. This was later fixed up with Oriental Adventures, where the martial arts rules in that turned the monk into a machine...

 

[hong]

I played a lot of D&D starting with 1st edition. When I finally got around to buying books for D&D 2nd edition was the big thing. I don't remember any radical difference between 1E and 2E. (Not counting the S&P books.) I don't see how anybody who played 1E could look at 2E and say "That's not for me." What was the difference?

Fewer syllables.


Hong "dweomercraefter milieu doxy" Ooi

 

[Grazzt]

What was the 1e illusionist like?
For that matter, what was the 1e monk like?

The 1e illusionist was a subclass of magic-user (1e wizard) and got 1d4 hp per level up to 10th. Thereafter it gained 1 hp per level.

It had its own spell list (of 1st through 7th level spells) which was rolled into the list of 2e mage spells, though some never made the conversion (and still havent), like Tempus Fugit, for example. Its spell progression was slightly different than a magic-user's.

For example, a 1e magic-user at 10th level had the following spells:

1st-4; 2nd-4; 3rd-3; 4th-2; 5th-2

A 1e illusionist had: 1st-5; 2nd-4; 3rd-3; 4th-2; 5th-1

But the biggest difference would have to have been its spell selection. The spells were just different than what an M-U could cast, though an illusionist could eventually learn to cast 1st level M-U spells.


The 1e monk was limited to 17 levels (Grand Master of Flowers), started play with 2d4 hp (gaining 1d4 per level up to 17) and gained a lot of special abilities (some of which it still gets)

A 17th-level monk in 1e dealt 8d4 points of damage with an unarmed strike (called open hand damage); they added 1/2 their HD/level to weapon damage rolls (the Grand Master of Flowers dealt x + 8 points of damage with a weapon attack)

Monks could speak with animals, use ESP, immune to disease, feign death, heal damage on his body (1d4+1 base, plus 1 per level after 7th), speak with plants, certain mind-influencing spells (suggestion, beguiling, charm, hypnosis) only had a 50% chance of affecting a monk (this resistance increased as the monk went up in level).

Mind attacks (telepathic and mind blast) were not easily done against a monk, immune to poison, immune to geas and quest spells, quivering palm.