AD&D 2E Do you consider the Handbooks canon?

[DammitVictor]

For 2e however, the Complete Handbook series wasn't just a collection of optional rules. There were standalones meant to be part of the core game. So that begs the question, do you consider the Complete Handbooks as part of the core game, or an optional expansion? Do you only consider some of them core, like the Fighter's Handbook, while others optional, like the Psionics handbook (by the way, my favorite version of psionics in the game)?

No... my AD&D "core rules" are all the black border books (minus Council of Wyrms) plus Oriental Adventures; I love the idea of psionics in D&D, but I'm not a fan of the 2e rules.

I use the hell out of the PHBRs when I run AD&D, but not as-written. Pretty well understood that some Kits are more like 5e Backgrounds and some Kits are more like Pathfinder Archetypes; I replace the Fighter and Thief with narrower classes based on the Handbook Kits, and the Cleric and Mage with Specialty Priests and Specialist Mages and incorporate some of the Handbook Kits into those. Then, instead of using Kits... all of those narrower classes get bonus proficiencies.

It sounds like a huge, horrible pain in the ass, but it's actually pretty elegant when you have all the classes laid out already and you just have to pick your whitelist for the campaign.

 

[James Gasik]

Close, it was already an optional rule in the PH, the PHBR says it offers so many things with proficiencies you need to use that rule.

PHBR1 page 58:

Intelligence and Proficiencies
We're going to be showing you a lot of interesting things you can do with the Weapon Proficiencies rules. Therefore, you need to use the rule for extra Proficiencies given on page 51 of the Player's Handbook. There, it says that you may, with the DM's permission, take extra proficiencies when first created equal to the number of extra languages the character gets from high Intelligence (see Table 4, page 16, Player's Handbook). These extra proficiencies may be divided as the player chooses between Weapon Proficiencies and Nonweapon Proficiencies.

In the revised 2e PH the proficiency thing is on page 22:

If the DM allows characters to have proficiencies, this column also indicates the number of extra proficiency slots the character gains due to his Intelligence. These extra proficiency slots can be used however the player desires. The character never needs to spend any proficiency slots to speak his native language.

It's been awhile, obviously, but I think pre-Fighter's Handbook, I had someone argue with me that it doesn't specify that you can use Int slots for weapon proficiencies, and that where it says that is closer to the NWP section (they didn't even believe I could get bonus NWP's until I showed them the PHB section). So yeah, it was probably intended, I just encountered someone who needs to have things spelled out for them.

It's just like how I had someone complain that NWP's were an "optional" system in the first place, and didn't want to use them, but then I confronted them with the 2e Bard, who gets several NWP's for free (something similar happens with the Acrobat Thief Kit, where they are like, hey look, even if you don't use jumping, tightrope walking, and tumbling- the Acrobat gets these anyways!).

Over time how "optional" NWP's were was kind of glossed over/forgotten by TSR writers.

 

[cbwjm]

It's just like how I had someone complain that NWP's were an "optional" system in the first place, and didn't want to use them, but then I confronted them with the 2e Bard, who gets several NWP's for free (something similar happens with the Acrobat Thief Kit, where they are like, hey look, even if you don't use jumping, tightrope walking, and tumbling- the Acrobat gets these anyways!).

Over time how "optional" NWP's were was kind of glossed over/forgotten by TSR writers.

Eventually, NWPs were no longer really considered optional since they were everywhere, but I agree with the one who called them optional and not wanting to use them. Even if the bard and thief acrobat do get them, they just become special abilities that they can use, you don't need to implement the whole system for every character.

When it comes to weapon proficiencies, I'm considering not using them in 2e (assuming I can even get someone to play it, we have played some OSE so there is a chance), just go with what your class says you can use and let the fighter pick a weapon that grants them a specialisation bonus.

 

[James Gasik]

Eventually, NWPs were no longer really considered optional since they were everywhere, but I agree with the one who called them optional and not wanting to use them. Even if the bard and thief acrobat do get them, they just become special abilities that they can use, you don't need to implement the whole system for every character.

When it comes to weapon proficiencies, I'm considering not using them in 2e (assuming I can even get someone to play it, we have played some OSE so there is a chance), just go with what your class says you can use and let the fighter pick a weapon that grants them a specialisation bonus.

Outside of things like Style Specializations, Specialization in Punching/Wrestling/Martial Arts, Bladesong, or the strange "feats" in the Celts book, you can totally do without weapon proficiencies and the game is probably better for it, since there's a wide variety of possible weapons and being "locked out" and not being able to gain proficiency in the cool new weapon you acquired for 3 or more levels is something I've never particularly cared for (like, ok, I understand the people who feel you should train with a new weapon for a bit, but that could be done between adventures, plus, some weapons are pretty easy to figure out- if you know how to use a quarterstaff, you pretty much know how to use a spear and potentially several polearms).

I once ran a "simplified" game for new players where I assumed they had all of their weapon proficiencies, general and class NWP's in the PHB, which really allowed the players to try their hands at a wide variety of things- they couldn't specialize in a NWP, but really, that was more for NPC's anyways- most PC's aren't really going to need to spend multiple slots in Blacksmithing, for example.

The equally optional "background" variant of the skill system works pretty well to. Oh, you were a sailor? Then you can do sailor things- rope use, climbing, balancing on the deck of a ship, possibly navigation, etc. etc. without much incident.

A lot of people who played original D&D have told me of the days when you could always attempt a task, with the DM's permission, something the Thief, for example, ruined for most people. While I'd prefer to know what my character can attempt and roughly how good they are at it, I can certainly see the appeal of letting players attempt a wider variety of tasks than what their character sheet would imply.

 

[Mannahnin]

It's been awhile, obviously, but I think pre-Fighter's Handbook, I had someone argue with me that it doesn't specify that you can use Int slots for weapon proficiencies, and that where it says that is closer to the NWP section (they didn't even believe I could get bonus NWP's until I showed them the PHB section). So yeah, it was probably intended, I just encountered someone who needs to have things spelled out for them.

It's just like how I had someone complain that NWP's were an "optional" system in the first place, and didn't want to use them, but then I confronted them with the 2e Bard, who gets several NWP's for free (something similar happens with the Acrobat Thief Kit, where they are like, hey look, even if you don't use jumping, tightrope walking, and tumbling- the Acrobat gets these anyways!).

Over time how "optional" NWP's were was kind of glossed over/forgotten by TSR writers.

The Complete handbooks almost all have a note up front explaining that you'll need to be using the optional proficiency rules from the PH to use the handbook fully, because the handbook has a bunch of content predicated on proficiencies being in play. Just looking at the ones I have on my shelf, Complete Fighter has it on page 1, Complete Priest has it in page 3, Dwarves on page 5 and Elves on page 6.

Psionics, interestingly, is an exception and does not have that exact verbiage; it talks about "if" you're using proficiencies, how Psionicists use them vs if they're not in play.

 

[Sacrosanct]

A lot of people who played original D&D have told me of the days when you could always attempt a task, with the DM's permission, something the Thief, for example, ruined for most people. While I'd prefer to know what my character can attempt and roughly how good they are at it, I can certainly see the appeal of letting players attempt a wider variety of tasks than what their character sheet would imply.

Not just OD&D, but B/X and Holmes was like that too. Even though there were thieves in B/X, the rules were so light you pretty much had a game where you did just that: anyone could attempt a task.

 

[James Gasik]

The Complete handbooks almost all have a note up front explaining that you'll need to be using the optional proficiency rules from the PH to use the handbook fully, because the handbook has a bunch of content predicated on proficiencies being in play. Just looking at the ones I have on my shelf, Complete Fighter has it on page 1, Complete Priest has it in page 3, Dwarves on page 5 and Elves on page 6.

Psionics, interestingly, is an exception and does not have that exact verbiage; it talks about "if" you're using proficiencies, how Psionicists use them vs if they're not in play.

Though as I recall, one of the NWP's in the Psionics book allows you to recover PSP's faster, so it's kind of a big deal not to use it.

 

[Mannahnin]

A lot of people who played original D&D have told me of the days when you could always attempt a task, with the DM's permission, something the Thief, for example, ruined for most people. While I'd prefer to know what my character can attempt and roughly how good they are at it, I can certainly see the appeal of letting players attempt a wider variety of tasks than what their character sheet would imply.

Not just OD&D, but B/X and Holmes was like that too. Even though there were thieves in B/X, the rules were so light you pretty much had a game where you did just that: anyone could attempt a task.

This has been discussed at exhaustive length in the OSR over the last 20 years, ja. A lot of hardcore OD&D fans have opined that the Thief was fundamentally a mistake, and that its introduction in 1975 limited the play space for all characters by defining certain skills and activities as owned by Thieves, and then harshly limited the odds of success for them. The introduction of Find Traps as a separate Thief skill in the 1978 PH further limited the space for narrative/negotiated "playing at the world" to dice rolling and made the poor Thieves' odds of dealing with a trap safely even worse.

Back in the '70s you might see more DMs push back on that, in 80s and 90s you saw people come up with workarounds (including an official one, the 2E system of point-allocation to allow Thieves to be more competent at at least a couple of skills) and of course in modern OSR play a lot of this got reexamined, with various fixes such as dumping Thieves entirely OR reconceptualizing Thief skills to cover truly extraordinary/borderline superhuman feats rather than the mundane skills D&D actually described them as and Gary's advice in AD&D relentlessly reinforced.

 

[Sacrosanct]

modern OSR play a lot of this got reexamined, with various fixes such as reconceptualizing Thief skills to cover truly extraordinary/borderline superhuman feats rather than the mundane skills D&D actually described them as and Gary's advice in AD&D relentlessly reinforced.

Which is weird this was a new thing, because Tim Kask is on record saying that's how it was supposed to be from day 1--thief skills were only for those tasks where it would be unlikely for a "normal" person to have a chance of succeeding at it.

 

[Mannahnin]

Which is weird this was a new thing, because Tim Kask is on record saying that's how it was supposed to be from day 1--thief skills were only for those tasks where it would be unlikely for a "normal" person to have a chance of succeeding at it.

Maybe that's how Tim always reconciled those low percentages.

The minimalist way the thief skills are described on pages 4-5 of Greyhawk doesn't imply movie ninja-type extraordinary abilities, and the more detailed descriptions in the '78 PH (pages 27-28) and '79 DMG (p19-20) are strongly grounded in nonmagical reality. Gary making super clear not to let those Thief players get away with anything a real person couldn't do. The way they're described there is distinctly different from how Jason Cone and other OSR folks later suggested Thief skills be interpreted to work- ie: anyone can climb a wall, Thieves can roll to climb a SHEER surface with no apparent handholds. Anyone can move quietly and have a chance to surprise foes, but Thieves can roll to move with absolute silence and automatically achieve surprise. Anyone can hide, but only a Thief can hide in nothing but a shadow, becoming functionally invisible, etc.

The latter kinds of rulings do tend to run directly contrary to AD&D's rulings and guidance, though.