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

[overgeeked]

What were the go to Books, aside from the usual edition trinity, to get for 2E? I know the Book of Elves had the Bladesinger. That covers your OP cravings so that's a given. Couple of the Leatherette books like the Celts and the DMG to Necromancers are a no brainer as well. I just don't know what other must haves there were in the Edition line.

Player's side, mostly the PHB leatherette books. Back in the day, if someone wanted to play something out of one of those they had to pick up a copy themselves and lend it to the DM for approval. The DM leatherette books were almost all amazing resources.

There's a thread reviewing them here.

 

[Orius]

What were the go to Books, aside from the usual edition trinity, to get for 2E? I know the Book of Elves had the Bladesinger. That covers your OP cravings so that's a given. Couple of the Leatherette books like the Celts and the DMG to Necromancers are a no brainer as well. I just don't know what other must haves there were in the Edition line.

I had a list I posted several times in 2e discussions of the past, but I can't find the threads. So I'll have to post from memory.

Tome of Magic is practically the fourth core book. It's probably the most heavily used optional book in 2e, so it has a place in every collection.

Demons and devils aren't really in the core books, so you'll need the first Planescape MC to use them. They're also in MC 8, but that source massively overinflates their XP. There is a handful of them in the MM, but too few to be useful, and they have the MC 8 XP values on top of that. Unfortunately the DM Guild has MC 8, but I'm not sure if they have the Planescape MC.

Scarlet Brotherhood if you want their rules for monks and assassins.

Spells and Magic for the sphere errata as well as the guidelines for spell research and magic item creation. Lots of other useful goodies in here as well.

Combat and Tactics compiles and updates optional combat rules from the Fighter's Handbook and other sources. It also has the most comprehensive weapon and armor list for 2e.

If you want more recommendations, I'll post a list of the really good optional material. The above stuff are the more essential options.

 

[Weiley31]

If you want more recommendations, I'll post a list of the really good optional material. The above stuff are the more essential options.

Oooh nice and glad to hear about the ones mentioned prior.

 

[GreyLord]

What were the go to Books, aside from the usual edition trinity, to get for 2E? I know the Book of Elves had the Bladesinger. That covers your OP cravings so that's a given. Couple of the Leatherette books like the Celts and the DMG to Necromancers are a no brainer as well. I just don't know what other must haves there were in the Edition line.

The GO TO books were only the core three.

Everything else was per group preference.

For us, we didn't care for most of the supplements. Many of the Core supplements introduced the 1e versions of classes again, thus there was the Ranger and Druid, Assassin and Monk that were pretty much the 1e versions. I'd allow a 1e PHB in that light if one wants to use the alternate classes of it.

Other than that the only thing we really needed was either the Complete Fighters handbook or Combat and Tactics (which covered the same material that I allowed from the Fighters Handbook which were different combat styles and weapon mastery).

If you want to go High Level over 20th you can make your own rules or you have your choice of the Forgotten Realms method (numbers going up to at least level 40 with allowances to go higher) or the High Level Book which only let people go up to level 30th max.

Other books I liked to use was sometimes the Oriental Adventures from 1e which is almost a crossover book, or Sages and Specialist which have some neat NPC classes as well as NPC classes players could use as PC's if they really want to (weaker than PH classes, but if you are a Demi-human and the DM doesn't allow the 4x XP option, then it's a way to get ultra high level characters that are demi-humans).

I think I used Complete Wizard (or was it Mage) but ONLY for the spell making ideas with in it. WE normally did not play with Kits as they were too unbalanced in general and made a mess of things.

 

[DammitVictor]

What were the go to Books, aside from the usual edition trinity, to get for 2E?

Definitely the Core Rulebooks plus Tome of Magic.

As a Forever DM who doesn't like running the same world twice in a row: Player's Option. Skills & Powers for races and subraces, Spells & Magic for priesthoods and magic systems, Combat & Tactics for era-appropriate weapons and technology. World Builder's Guidebook and Complete Priest's Handbook are also critical. Also, consider the Complete Book of Humanoids.

If you like more Asian-inspired stuff, The Scarlet Brotherhood (for Greyhawkupdates the Monk and Assassin classes, the Complete Ninja's Handbook revises OA's martial arts systems, and you can rebuild the spellcasters with Spells & Magic. The Kara-Tur sub-setting for the Forgotten Realms might be able to flesh this out further, but I've never run with it.

For high-level gaming, DM's Option: High Level Campaigns is very useful. Dragon Kings, for Dark Sun is more useful in other settings than it would appear to be. I can't vouch for the FR high-level stuff.

The encyclopedias (of spells and magic items) aren't terribly inspiring or evocative, but they are incredibly dense-- if you can stomach just sitting and reading the equivalent of a phone book for a few hours, you'll come out of it with a handful of neat ideas.

A lot of the setting-specific stuff can be really useful for homebrewers, but I'm not really in a position to make recommendations-- beyond the Planewalker's Handbook and Complete Spacefarer's Handbook.

 

[Lyxen]

The one great thing from 2e was everything Planescape (then Dark Sun, then Spelljammer). I'm running lots of Planescape stuff for 5e with almost no adaptation.