D&D 2E Jumping back into 2e

[McTreble]

So in preparation for D&D Next, my group decided to dust of 2e (our favorite) from a stint with 4e since the system was released. We're going to emulate what we think WotC is doing, and begin very basic (PHB, DMG, MC) until we feel it's time to add something, then we'll vote on what modular pieces to add.

Anyway, while I remember pre 3e games being very much in the imagination and abstracted, for the life of me, I can't remember how we did combat without a grid. 4e has had me so firmly in that mindset, with 3e leading up to it, that I really have a hard time removing my dependancy on it. I'd love for it to mostly exist in the collective imagination rather on a regimented grid, and I know we once did it... how?

Any thoughts or advice?

 

[krupintupple]

To be honest, it wasn't even within the realm of our possibility. I mean, sure, we knew about maps and grids, but felt that our 2e game was just fine. To be frank, it was a lot of "Okay, you're in a X by Z room, it has this and that on the walls, and dead ahead, you see an ABC and they are about...40 feet away?" and a lot of guess work. Combat didn't get too bad, unless there was a bottleneck, or you had a lot of people battling at the same time, but I suppose since we weren't using the combat and tactics rules, or whatever they were, it was mostly "Okay, I bash him three times this round, and my thac0 is 8."

We still played 2e routinely until 3.5 made the scene, and although we weren't stubborn holdouts, we primarily didn't want to learn a new system.