D&D 2E Now I have the hankering to play a 2E game...

[cbwjm]

Well, one of the reasons for Level Drain was to put the DREAD of those monsters into players. Even a High Level Player could dread facing a creature with level drain.

The FEAR of that type of creature remained, even as you may level up to great levels and powers. One hit...and it was trouble.

Wights and Wraiths could be somewhat mitigated in 2e with restoration at high levels, but a 2 level drain hit from a vampire...

There's REASON Dracula rules the night.

The 3e negative levels are still pretty scary, they just have a chance of being removed without needing to resort to magic.

Man, just went in and checked the restoration spell in 2e, I thought it was down at 4th level but instead it is right up there at 7th! Turns out I'm thinking of the Baldur's Gate and icewind dale games which had lesser restoration, no idea if they also showed up in a supplement somewhere. I remember one time playing BG2 and Jaheira the fighter/druid managed to survive a fight with vampires after being drained to level 1 from somewhere around 10th level mostly by me scrambling and keeping her moving while the priests and fighters cut up the vampires.

 

[Zardnaar]

One of the reasons I'm looking at 2nd Edition so much is because I'm realizing it's so much easier to do horror in 2E than 5E. There's so much from the earlier editions, level drain, slow-as-molasses healing, DM control of spells, low hit points, less damage, etc that make it so much easier to evoke fear with the rules themselves. Unless the new 5E Ravenloft book has heaps of optional rules for cranking these dials, and I can find a group willing to play with those harsher rules, it's a return...well, a fresh start honestly...to 2E for me.

In I'm starting to think the same about Darksun.

It's easier to hack 2E than try and get 5E to do it without big rewrites.

 

[cbwjm]

In I'm starting to think the same about Darksun.

It's easier to hack 2E than try and get 5E to do it without big rewrites.

At least with 2e, you already have everything. 5e requires a lot of homebrew content since you need the monsters and psionics. Monsters can probably be reskinned, psionics as well I guess if you want to use spells as psionics but it seems like it would be easier to just remove it completely for a 5e game.

 

[Zardnaar]

At least with 2e, you already have everything. 5e requires a lot of homebrew content since you need the monsters and psionics. Monsters can probably be reskinned, psionics as well I guess if you want to use spells as psionics but it seems like it would be easier to just remove it completely for a 5e game.

That and it's easy to add modernisms to 2E if you want. Eg not using THACO, dumping level, alignment, racial restrictions etc.

 

[overgeeked]

That and it's easy to add modernisms to 2E if you want. Eg not using THACO, dumping level, alignment, racial restrictions etc.

Dropping lots of minor bonuses and penalties for advantage/disadvantage, adding in things like personality, ideal, flaw, trinkets, inspiration, cinematic advantage, etc. Though some kind of encounter balancing mechanic would be nice. I wonder how well the RC version would work with 2E.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Not quite. If the DM removed resurrection then the character who hits 0 hp starts making death saves. Fail one and you're dead.

You're right, but the basic concept is there: if you drop to 0, you aren't just dead. You still have a chance to survive.

It always seemed weird that this option hinges on removing resurrection magic from the game. We always just used both (otr at least allowed it) and it worked fine, and I know we weren't the only ones.

Just another fine case of conflating commonly used variants with RAW or even RAI, I suppose!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I didn't say it was. Which spells the wizard gets are DM fiat though.

Not sure which DMG you're looking at. The original blue header version has Item Saving Throws and Attack Forms on p39. And the spiffy updated one has Alignment on p39.

(snip)

First, apologies. I always use the 1e DMG. If you find that 2e requires too much "DM Fiat," I highly suggest using the other edition.

That said, I recommend looking at the page you just cited; it discusses that it can be either player choice, DM choice, or both, in terms of selection. Again, how things play at the table tend to be different, and "old school rules" tend to be more in terms of giving advice and options than strict "this is how things are played." YMMV.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The AD&D previews in Holmes Basic were added after the fact by Gary for marketing purposes. This is a fairly well-known fact. OD&D + the Supplements + some scattered Strategic Review and The Dragon material begat AD&D. (And as we know from interviews with Tim Kask, the creation of AD&D was pretty much him and Gary cutting up and reorganizing/recompiling/rewriting what was there. I don't think Holmes Basic had much to do with that. Which makes sense, given that Dr. Holmes wrote the Basic Set on his own, and it and the first AD&D hardcover both came out in 1977.)

There is a clear through-line, meanwhile, from OD&D to Holmes to B/X to BECMI to Classic. There is a reason that B/X clerics are still getting both 3rd and 4th level spells at the same experience level (just like in OD&D), or why BECMI straight up calls itself "the original DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game!" in its own text.

1974 White Box > 1977 Blue Box > 1981 Pink Box > 1983 Red Box > 1991 Black Box is the D&D lineage.
0e (White Box + Supplements) > 1e > 2e > 3e > 4e > 5e is the Advanced D&D lineage.



Magic-users in Greyhawk and 1e got 11d4 from hit dice. Illusionists got 10d4, and in 2nd edition so did all wizards.

While I appreciate some of the things you wrote which are correct, your conclusions are largely incorrect.

The two errors that I see (and that drive me crazy) are these:

1. You continue the incorrect assertion that Holmes Basic is of the line of Moldvay Basic. That's an absolute no.

2. You disregard that certain exogenous event that is related to all of this (aka, Arneson and legal issues).

So, to go into the full details which I normally avoid for purposes of brevity-

OD&D (aka the White Box and its supplements, which also includes additional material necessary for understanding it, such as Chainmail and material from the Dragon and Strategic Review) is the ur-D&D. Of course, OD&D, today, is nearly unplayable without some understanding or grounding in the practice of playing then. It is, quite literally, a hobbyist's game. This is all from '74 to '76.

TSR hires Dr. Holmes in 1977 to create a unified "Basic" D&D that incorporates aspects of Supplements 1 & 2. It also included "OD&D" modules (B1, then B2- bonus fun trivia, these eventually migrated to the later Moldvay/Mentzer platform, but you can still find some OD&D goodness in them). At the same time, TSR was releasing "Classic" D&D (the White Box) while announcing "Advanced" D&D (aka 1e, aka the Gygax edition).

Whew. 1977 was a big year! So, the White (Classic), the Blue (Basic) and the Intangible (announcement of Advanced- remember, when you say that AD&D was "released" the same year, it wasn't. The monster manual came out that year. The PHB came out summer of '78, and the DMG was late spring '79).

Why? What was TSR doing? Well, very simply - they were screwing Arneson out of royalties. Advanced D&D was a "Gygax D&D" and therefore not part of the D&D line that was going to allow Arneson to get his royalties.

But to be clear what Holmes Basic was- it was Dr. Holmes making an accessible, readable, and playable version of OD&D. I don't want to minimize his contributions as a mere editor; there are distinctions between Holmes Basic and OD&D (LBB+ Greyhawk), everything from certain demi-humans having minimum ability score requirements to magic missiles requiring a roll to hit to dexterity for initiative. In addition, there is the small matter that there was clearly coordination between Gygax and Holmes as Gygax added material to the Holmes original manuscript prior to publication (such as flaming oil)- therefore, it would be incorrect to say that there was no coordination between the Holmes edition and the upcoming Advanced D&D by Gygax. In fact, AFAIK, there is a lively debate as to the possibility that Holmes was hired to write an introduction to OD&D and Gygax "edited" portions of it to make it more of an introduction to AD&D, but that is neither here nor there.

Which leads us to the lawsuit. "Advanced D&D" is obviously a continuation of OD&D and within the same lineage as Holmes- it's just more. A lot more. And renamed and slightly modified in order to not pay Arneson.

(Side note- just to show you how absurd all of this was, just prior to Arneson filing, TSR had announced that there would be an "Expert" set from the Holmes Basic rules, despite the rules themselves saying they lead to Advanced D&D, solely to avoid paying royalties, because Advanced was incompatible with OD&D ... for reasons, or something?)

So you have a distinct lineage going on. You have:
OD&D. Holmes Basic. AD&D. They are all part of the same root.

Then, in 1981, you have a settlement of the Arneson lawsuit. At that time, you have the introduction of .... Dungeons & Dragons. Aka, Moldvay/Cook. Aka, "Basic" (or "B/X"). (And this is without going into the whole, "Arneson gets paid for D&D, but not AD&D, except for certain things etc.").

Now, B/X is compatible with AD&D. And with OD&D. And with Holmes Basic. But they are different in terms of lineages. The easiest distinction to make, of course, is "race as class." Essentially, however, the "Basic" line is a fork in the road. While it is compatible with the "Advanced" line, it is a separate path completely- one that has more a little to do with that certain lawsuit. While Moldvay took the very basic LBB as a baseline, however, he ignored the OD&D supplements. Personally, I think Moldvay wrote the purest distillation of the "D&D experience" to date, but that's neither here nor there.

The main point is that while all of these TSR-era products are inter-operable and compatible, the best lineage is really:
OD&D -> Holmes -> AD&D -> 2e
(separately)
OD&D -> B/X -> BECMI -> RC

But putting Holmes within the Moldvay/Mentzer line does a disservice to both Dr. Holmes and to Moldvay/Cook/Mennzer, for no reason other than the shared use of the term "Basic."

Ya don't wanna be basic.

Finally, because it's fun, here's a post where Holmes reviews Moldvay:

Holmes compares his Basic D&D boxed set to the Moldvay Basic D&D boxed set

From Dragon Magazine #52 by J. Eric Holmes Editor, first edition D&D® Basic Set rules The first thing to realize about the rules for the ...

swordandshieldrpg.blogspot.com

 

[Jack Daniel]

The main point is that while all of these TSR-era products are inter-operable and compatible, the best lineage is really:
OD&D -> Holmes -> AD&D -> 2e
(separately)
OD&D -> B/X -> BECMI -> RC

But putting Holmes within the Moldvay/Mentzer line does a disservice to both Dr. Holmes and to Moldvay/Cook/Mennzer, for no reason other than the shared use of the term "Basic."

That's absurd. Obviously Moldvay was revising Holmes's Basic Set. Why else would both sets go up to 3rd level, both include the same seven playable character options, and both cover essentially the same ground? Your imagined "OD&D -> B/X" leap would leave no reason for Moldvay to include thieves, for example. Holmes is also where we first see the foundation of what become the race-classes in Moldvay, with elves and halflings both rolling d6 hit dice. To claim that it's not a step along the way between the '74 rules and the '81 rules is just… I can only call it "wishful thinking," though I can't imagine why one would wish such a thing. Many elements of Moldvay clearly had their origin in Holmes, and you cannot say the same for AD&D.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

That's absurd. Obviously Moldvay was revising Holmes's Basic Set. Why else would both sets go up to 3rd level, both include the same seven playable character options, and both cover essentially the same ground? Your imagined "OD&D -> B/X" leap would leave no reason for Moldvay to include thieves, for example. Holmes is also where we first see the foundation of what become the race-classes in Moldvay, with elves and halflings both rolling d6 hit dice. To claim that it's not a step along the way between the '74 rules and the '81 rules is just… I can only call it "wishful thinking," though I can't imagine why one would wish such a thing. Many elements of Moldvay clearly had their origin in Holmes, and you cannot say the same for AD&D.

Absurd?

You are as unpleasant as you are incorrect. I will simply note that you completely ignored everything I wrote, and instead regurgitated the same points you made last time. I have no wish to continue this conversation with you, as I enjoy discussing D&D with people that also enjoy discussing it- and given that we have everyone here from DMDavid to Grodog to Rob Kuntz to (occasionally) Jon Peterson, all of whom are more knowledgeable and pleasant ... this isn’t worth it.