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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 8642914" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Oh yes, all the demihuman classes are quite good in B/X.  Dwarves are arguably a bit overpowered; they get significant benefits over a regular Fighter for only a mild upcharge in XP.  The inability to use longbows and two handed swords (which stink) is trivial, the infravision and abilities, especially the saving throws, are excellent.  Elves are almost ubermenschen, but pay out the nose in XP for it.  They are usually a level behind the rest of the party, and they feel that in HP, especially.  Still, being able to wear plate and cast spells with the same progression as an M-U is amazing.  Halflings are the "secret Ranger" class and quite good.  Their level cap of 8th is only a real detriment in particularly long-running games.2nd edition has some virtues, but is where TSR lost their way in some regards.  TSR was trying to transition to a more story and quest-oriented game a la the "Hickman Revolution", compared to 1E and OD&D, but the re-write didn't actually tackle this, other than telling the DM to use story/achievement awards for xp, with close to zero guidance.  They had an editorial mandate to try to maintain maximum compatibility with existing published modules and materials, and were trying to be all things to all gamers, in terms of supporting story-oriented D&D ("Trad") and dungeon-oriented ("Classic"), and wound up serving neither group well.There was little guidance for Trad gamers on how to award xp and design adventures, and characters were about the weakest and most fragile that they've been in any edition.  The inexplicable decision to default to 3d6 in order for ability score generation while retaining (somewhat rationalized and simplified) AD&D ability score charts that generally required high scores for any appreciable bonuses left characters pretty feeble unless you house ruled that.  Death remained at zero, though the simplified optional rule for Death's Door (death at -10) was near-universally adopted.  Still, the restrictive recovery rules meant that if you got knocked into negatives your character was incapacitated for a length of time inconsistent with action movie/high fantasy pacing.  Which meant most people playing Trad ignored that restriction too.Ill-serving the Classic/dungeon-crawly gamers, we see the first edition of D&D with no proper dungeon-crawling procedures. This should have been the edition to explain those really well, with more detail and examples than Basic had space for.  But nope.  Dragonlance and epic quests were not about wandering monsters and random encounters and dungeon time management.  Reading the 2nd ed DMG is really frustrating for a new DM in a different way than 1E.  The 1E DMG is terribly organized but full of inspiration.  The 2nd ed one is wishy-washy and full of "you could do it this way or that way" without much by way of guidance or direction.All that being said, the 2nd ed rules ARE much cleaner in many ways.  Initiative, especially, is massively easier to understand, though I don't think the system is actually better than just cleaning up and simplifying the 1E system would have been. The cleaning up of spell descriptions and entries is VERY welcome.</blockquote>

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