I've introduced my 5th ed group to AD&D 2E

[DarkCrisis]

Keep the updates coming! I miss playing 2E and wish my group would give it a try. Most of the group started with 3.5E, with 1 person having 5E being their first so there isn't really the nostalgic curiosity to want to see if it holds up.

What type of campaign are you playing? Dungeon crawl, mostly outdoor, etc? Is this the DL group you mentioned in another thread? As someone mentioned, my fuzzy memory of 2E druids were they had some pretty key stuff that made them fun to play in the outdoor wilderness but limited them in a dungeon crawl to basically being healers.

How have you been doing initiative? Wasn't RAW something like everyone declares their action then everyone rolls initiative, so for instance if a caster gets a bad roll they risk getting interrupted on their spell by a quick attack? I think my group back when I played used to just simplify it and keep the same roll each round and still having people declare actions before resolving them according to the rolled order. Maybe less risky if you already knew your base roll, but sped things up a little bit.

2 of the 5 have died and made new characters. The Ranger and Barbarian. Now they are a Fighter and Illusionist. The Kender got turned into a statue and rolled up a Gnome Bard who died, but that was okay because they de-statued the Kender. The Barbarian was my first Gelatinous Cube kill ever, I think. He tried to run past it... he chose... poorly.

Initative is declare actions and one person rolls a D10 add everyone adds their your weapon speed or spell speed etc to that D10 roll. It's still a lot of "one side goes before the other".

The levels range from 2 to 4. New Illusionist on the low end and Thief on the high end.

I'm using old modules and linking them together as a story. They just finished up the Rashasia module. Doing some Lairs Books stuff before heading out for the Flints Axe module.

I have to say its wild that a boss fight can be ended by one roll of the save die. Though a character can die just as quickly. As opposed to how 5th ed drags things out with multiple easy saves and tons of HP. Last session they were getting manhandled by a giant land octopus... looked grim. One potion of animal control later and a failed save.... Problem solved.

I don't think I'll ever go back to modern D&D, unless I have no choice.