Differance between Warcraft 1st and 2nd edition.

[chubbyloremaster]

I don't know if my post is in the correct part of the forums but here I go.

I and my players are looking for some nice sword & sorcery warcraft handbooks. I were lucky to see some 1st edition games and flip trough the core rulebook and some suplements which I found quite apealing to my taste.

Now as I tried to hunt down at least the core rulebook I found the 2nd edition and it was horrible, extremly cheap compared to its 40$ price tag. Pictures from the old book, from the box art of the game, even screens from the game. SOme pictures which I didn't reconize were half descent and some looked like from a fanart artist. I have absolutly no intention to buy this as a book or as a pdf but are there any suplements to the 2nd ed and are they also so hideus?

Are these editions very different from one another?

Please tell me if you know anything.

 

[Yora]

The main difference is, that 1st Edition is based on the 3.0 rules of D&D and 2nd Edition is updated to the 3.5e rules.

Which is to say, the differences are rather minor. The main changes of 3.5e were to change how Damage Reduction works, and they also dialed down resistances and immunities to energy damage like fire or electricity. The other changes were rather minor.

And I agree, the Basic Rulebook, Manual of Monsters, and Magic & Mayhem where better than their 2nd Edition counterparts. "Lands of Mystery" has only few rules in it, so even though it's 2nd Edition, it should work perfectly fine in a 1st Edition game. The other books mostly just replace the old 1st Edition books with updates on the rules.

 

[chubbyloremaster]

Excellent. I am extremly happy to hear that although I must admit that I think 1st edition lacks any published adventures when compared to the 2nd one. Or are there some 1st ed adventures from the books that I can run?

 

[Yora]

No idea, but running adventures from either edition should not be a problem.

The stats for monsters and NPC in a 2nd Edition adventure might not be completely identical to those made from the 1st Edition rulebook and Manual of Monsters, but there shouldn't be a problem fighting them with 1st Edition characters. The only thing you need to change is Damage Reduction, which I'm not even sure is common in the Warcraft RPG. If you have a creature with "Damage Reduction 10/cold iron" or something like that, just make it "Damage Reduction 10/+1", and you're completely fine to go.

 

[Dimitri Mazieres]

IIRC, the "first edition" (Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game) is based on the 3.5 rule set, and work pretty much like a campaign setting in that you need the 3.5 Core books (PHB, DMG & MM) to play.
The "second edition" (World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game) is an OGL-based game, meaning that it includes character creation rules, as well as variations on the 3.5 rule set (different set of attributes, among others, from what I remember).