D&D 2E On AD&D 2E

[deganawida]

After many years, the 2e game I'm in has added a new player. And for the first time, I've noticed something that never stood out to me before; how different two characters can really be in terms of abilities; for fairness, I made a new character to adventure with the new player's character, a Human Noble Warrior.

She made a comment when looking at my sheet that I had way more stuff written on it than she did, and that got me to thinking.

I mean, for example, an Elf Fighter and a Human Fighter. The Elf has to record 90% MR vs. sleep/charm, 60' infravision, and the ability to notice/detect concealed and secret doors, and also gains a +1 bonus to attack rolls with long swords, short swords, and bows.

Then both get the same proficiency slots, and can record weapon specialization.

If both characters take Kits, some Kits are as simple as Gladiator/Myrmidon "get a free weapon specialization" and some comments about working for a standing military force or being very recognizable.

Other Kits, like the Cavalier or Berserker require a great deal more notes (Cavaliers get a lot of abilities, Go Berserk is extremely wordy).

Just using Core + Fighter's Handbook, the amount of bookkeeping can vary wildly!

I'm not sure what I think about this. It's not really a bug or a feature, I don't think, it's just how the game is. But it is interesting when you look at how gaming has evolved, and most characters now have several abilities of note, as opposed to a 2e Fighter you could fit on a notecard!

Yeah, I miss simple character sheets that one only glanced at a few times in the game.

What you noticed also means that no two fighters will play the same. Since ability scores are rolled, and weapon proficiencies are limited, you’lol see fighters pick weapon types that they can use well. Wasn’t uncommon to find a dagger fighter hanging with an archery fighter hanging with He-Man. Each one was equally skilled, though the delivery method was different.

…I may be saying the same thing you were, just in different words. If so, my apologies.

 

[Andvari]

Two fighters with identical character sheets play differently if they each have a different player. (And also do so if played by the same player and he roleplays them differently)

 

[James Gasik]

Yeah, I miss simple character sheets that one only glanced at a few times in the game.

What you noticed also means that no two fighters will play the same. Since ability scores are rolled, and weapon proficiencies are limited, you’lol see fighters pick weapon types that they can use well. Wasn’t uncommon to find a dagger fighter hanging with an archery fighter hanging with He-Man. Each one was equally skilled, though the delivery method was different.

…I may be saying the same thing you were, just in different words. If so, my apologies.

No apologies needed, it's just interesting that I never gave it much thought previously. Like, I knew the game can be "unpacked" by using more books and more options, and how some characters have more abilities (or more effectiveness) than others, even if all things are relatively equal.

You don't need to choose a kit. You don't need to be anything other than human. You don't need to scour books looking for the best weaponry (and in fact, if you play canned adventures or your DM uses random tables, you probably shouldn't!). You might not even need to have all your ability scores in the right places!

And even if you do all these things, there's still no guarantee that your tricked out, optimized character is going to be better. Yeah sure, your Fighter has 18/96 Strength, but you took the Savage Kit, so you're using a bone spear and have no armor! Let's see who survives, you or my 15 Strength guy wearing plate!

OTOH, when your Savage finds Bracers of Defense (AC 3), and a Ring of Protection, maybe the pendulum swings the other way....until I get a +4 magic sword and you're limited to +3 (since the DMG isn't going to give you a +4 spear*)!

*Well at least, not in the way you'd think it would. +5 Staff-Spears aren't really common, but they are a thing.

 

[deganawida]

Yeah, that’s one of the things which I find so fascinating about 2nd Edition and other TSR D&D games. There is so much variety, depending upon race, class, ability scores, kit, WPs, NWPS, and gear, that you end up with a smorgasbord or flavors for people to play. It’s not a case where every Fighter starts with a 16 or 18 in Strength and bumps it up every four levels, so they’re all equally strong (I’m ignoring 5e’s option to use Dexterity here). Here, you build your character around your rolls, and you’re still effective even if you’re of average ability, just maybe not as effective as the next guy.

 

[James Gasik]

Yeah, that’s one of the things which I find so fascinating about 2nd Edition and other TSR D&D games. There is so much variety, depending upon race, class, ability scores, kit, WPs, NWPS, and gear, that you end up with a smorgasbord or flavors for people to play. It’s not a case where every Fighter starts with a 16 or 18 in Strength and bumps it up every four levels, so they’re all equally strong (I’m ignoring 5e’s option to use Dexterity here). Here, you build your character around your rolls, and you’re still effective even if you’re of average ability, just maybe not as effective as the next guy.

To a given value of effectiveness; I mean like I said upthread, someone could get that high 18% Strength, go Elf, grab Two Weapon Style Specialization (and Ambidexterity if needed) plus Longsword specialization and at level 1 have a Thaco of 16 attacking twice for 1d8+6-8 and just murder all low level encounters, and only if they are a complete incompetent is the 15 Strength guy with a Warhammer and a Shield going to to keep up...

Unless the DM (or the RNG Gods step in) and give the Warhammer guy some Gauntlets of Ogre Power, maybe a magic shield, and now he's tankier and can at least kill 3/2 enemies a turn. Or hell, maybe the long gamble pays off, and he eventually ends up with a Hammer of Thunderbolts with the proper accouterments and starts one-shotting giants, lol.

But just as easily the Ginsu Elf could trip over a couple of magic swords. In the end, AD&D is more about searching for that moment where everything comes together and you become a legend. Careful build choices might get you there, but it's no guarantee.

 

[Voadam]

I think the options for good and bad options in many dimensions (stats, weapon choice, specialization, kit, race) tends to make the effectiveness inequality greater, not less. You don't have to balance picking a powerful kit with low stats, if you optimize you generally pick the powerful options everywhere you can. If not you might luck into some powerful options but you can also take meh or suboptimal options in many dimensions and be further behind the curve of the optimizer.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

To a given value of effectiveness; I mean like I said upthread, someone could get that high 18% Strength, go Elf, grab Two Weapon Style Specialization (and Ambidexterity if needed) plus Longsword specialization and at level 1 have a Thaco of 16 attacking twice for 1d8+6-8 and just murder all low level encounters, and only if they are a complete incompetent is the 15 Strength guy with a Warhammer and a Shield going to to keep up...

To be fair, the Warhammer guy can easily switch weapons to a longbow or two-handed sword, which will approximately double his damage against large monsters. And his job isn't necessarily to do damage anyway; even if he just acts as an AC 3ish bodyguard for an artillery wizard he's bringing a lot of value to the table by tripling the wizard's lifespan and handling minor threats that aren't worth a Shades spell or Fireball or whatever, thus conserving firepower as well as HP.

Yes, the elf is even better, but the Str 15 guy isn't bad. (And he also functions as a nice platform for wizard buffs like Enlarge and Strength.) "Keeping up" isn't required. Just survive.

 

[James Gasik]

To be fair, the Warhammer guy can easily switch weapons to a longbow or two-handed sword, which will approximately double his damage against large monsters. And his job isn't necessarily to do damage anyway; even if he just acts as an AC 3ish bodyguard for an artillery wizard he's bringing a lot of value to the table by tripling the wizard's lifespan and handling minor threats that aren't worth a Shades spell or Fireball or whatever, thus conserving firepower as well as HP.

Yes, the elf is even better, but the Str 15 guy isn't bad. (And he also functions as a nice platform for wizard buffs like Enlarge and Strength.) "Keeping up" isn't required. Just survive.

It depends on the group; I've played in a lot of parties without a Wizard at all, since the early game for the class is fairly miserable. In a lot of games the Warrior classes are the main source of damage, as they have the best weapons, multiple attacks, and access to weapon specialization and possibly exceptional Strength.

And "easily switch weapons" is a little bit of a misnomer; if you play with Proficiency, you might be waiting 2-3 levels to get the ability to use a new weapon, and if you chose to specialize in a poor weapon for whatever reason, you have to rely on the largesse of the DM if you want to change your mind, as the rules don't allow you to do so.

Anyways my point was simply that there are a lot of factors at play, and the difference between good choices and bad choices can be really telling. This applies to spellcasters as well, especially Wizards and Bards, as getting the best spells can be tricky; if your DM rolls for spells randomly, you could end up with Delude, Non-Detection, or Secret Page at level 5 instead of Fireball (or Melf's MInute Meteors without the 1,000 gp to actually obtain the necessary focus component)! Even if you are allowed a decent choice, the difference between spells of the same level can be dramatic, and wise choices prevail.

 

[cbwjm]

One good reason for a wizard to specialise in 2e was that you'd be guaranteed a spell of your school when you gained a new spell level. While the DM could choose the spell, as a DM I'd let the player choose.

 

[teitan]

I loved 2e for a bit, I started on a 0e/Greyhawk and 1e PHB hybrid and we got 2e in 1991 but still used a mishmash of 1e, 0e and 2e sources since they were really easy to use together. What I liked was the new way of doing Thieves so they weren't so ineffective before level 4 unless they were climbing a wall and specialty priests made them interesting even if the implementation of the explanation of how to use them left a lot of room to be desired in the PHB until the Complete Book of Priests or Legends & Lore came out. I thought they messed up the ranger, sorry, they did, they messed it up.

At first I liked the NWP system but as time went on and they added more some of them started to blur the lines with thieves skills etc so that two disparate skill systems allowed for non-thieves to do things better than a thief.

I also disliked how a lot of optional systems, when you cracked open a book, weren't so optional as time went by and the sourcebooks became very incestuous, referring to one another so that you needed to complete the eco system to really understand what you were reading. Examples include the reliance of Planescape on Legends & Lore, which was not in Print when the boxed set was released and when the GH98 materials came out the deities weren't even discussed, just a list of names and their sphere of influence and a reference to the then definitely OOP From the Ashes set that was already garnering high prices on the secondary markets. WOTC alleviated that a bit by making the pages available for download but it still hurt the project overall after busting it down from a boxed set to individually published books.

WHat 2e excelled at though was making AD&D easier to run. It was still AD&D at its core, it was simpler, initiative was easier to understand, THAC0 was easier (it was already part of the AD&D eco system by the time the 1e DMG came out) and the move of several rules over to the PHB helped as well. The DMG wasn't the 1e DMG by a long shot but it was NOT nearly as bad as its made out to be nowadays. It was a very different product from the 1e book in every way and was measured by the standard of the 1e book. It was the more easy to use material from the DMG, magic items etc and a toolkit, and advice but had moved to the standard for gaming at that time where the odd random tables etc had moved out of vogue and RPGs had become story games. The materials that once were the purview of the 1e DMG moved to the DMGR series. It made for a more practical DMG for new DMs. The Monstrous Compendium was a decent idea that in the long term was not a good idea. The Monstrous Manual and going to a book format really saved the Monster books.

The less said about the revised 2e books the better. So ugly. You had to tie a steak to its neck to get a dog to play with it.

 

[deganawida]

And "easily switch weapons" is a little bit of a misnomer; if you play with Proficiency, you might be waiting 2-3 levels to get the ability to use a new weapon, and if you chose to specialize in a poor weapon for whatever reason, you have to rely on the largesse of the DM if you want to change your mind, as the rules don't allow you to do so.

Just wanted to touch on this a bit, as I was re-reading my PoD copy of the ugly PHB (the revised version). I must have glossed over it all those years ago when I was a teen and first reading the rules, but you make a good point there, that WPs are an entirely optional rule in the core books. It's one that I thought was the way the game was played, but isn't baked in to the base game. I now think that this is super cool that they aren't required and will remove them moving forward.

Why do I think it's cool that WPs are optional?

First, it speeds up play, which is a grand thing in my opinion. Some people like getting into the nitty-gritty of combat. I'm not one of them any longer, as I tire of combats that take over an hour to resolve.

Second, since all 2e classes with levels higher than 1 are assumed to be fully trained, it makes more sense to me that classes would be proficient with arms and armor allowed by their class. 3e brought that assumption back.

Third, the power level is reduced. This closes the gap between Warrior group classes and Priest/Rogue group classes, which have middling THAC0. Warriors top out at 2 attacks per round, and everyone else at 1. Suddenly, clerics, druids, thieves, and bards can present more of a threat in melee combat.

Anyway, just some thoughts that I had.

 

[James Gasik]

Just wanted to touch on this a bit, as I was re-reading my PoD copy of the ugly PHB (the revised version). I must have glossed over it all those years ago when I was a teen and first reading the rules, but you make a good point there, that WPs are an entirely optional rule in the core books. It's one that I thought was the way the game was played, but isn't baked in to the base game. I now think that this is super cool that they aren't required and will remove them moving forward.

Why do I think it's cool that WPs are optional?

First, it speeds up play, which is a grand thing in my opinion. Some people like getting into the nitty-gritty of combat. I'm not one of them any longer, as I tire of combats that take over an hour to resolve.

Second, since all 2e classes with levels higher than 1 are assumed to be fully trained, it makes more sense to me that classes would be proficient with arms and armor allowed by their class. 3e brought that assumption back.

Third, the power level is reduced. This closes the gap between Warrior group classes and Priest/Rogue group classes, which have middling THAC0. Warriors top out at 2 attacks per round, and everyone else at 1. Suddenly, clerics, druids, thieves, and bards can present more of a threat in melee combat.

Anyway, just some thoughts that I had.

Really, the only reason I kept using WP's was because there are a few interesting things you can do with them in the Complete Fighter's Handbook (and a few others, like the Bladesong Fighting Style in the Complete Book of Elves). Weapon Groups, Fighting Style Specializations, and Punching/Wrestling/Martial Arts Specialization are all neat little options for a Fighter.

But yes, with the PHB-only, Weapon Proficiencies are a fairly restrictive way to play. Savvy players would never bother to get proficiency in oddball weapons, knowing that the chances of finding a +2 Awl Pike in an adventure were very slim. And if you wanted to add an oddball weapon to your game for flavor, nobody would know how to use the darned thing without a penalty to hit (that few people wanted to put up with), potentially for multiple levels!

The whole proficiency system seems built on some very strange assumptions; for example, Thieves, who we would see as the premier skill class today, actually got new non-weapon proficiencies at a slower rate than anyone else, so that their vaunted rapid level progression was mostly a wash, and they wouldn't have more skills than anyone else.

Intelligence gave bonus proficiencies, but since only Wizards (and to a lesser extent Bards) got rewarded for a high Intelligence over other ability scores, they typically would have far more skills than anyone else; this would make sense for academic skills, I suppose, but it could lead to some amusing results when your Wizard is a master of Blacksmithing, Etiquette, Fly Fishing, and Basket Weaving! So much for spending all their time poring over arcane tomes!

Things got really strange towards the end. In Dragon #243, Skip actually states in Sage Advice that multiclass characters gain more proficiencies than anyone else; they started with the best deal of all their classes, but then, whenever they would gain a proficiency from any of their classes, they got it! A friend of mine had a Gnome Fighter/Illusionist, and the amount of proficiency slots she had after awhile was pretty silly, between her high Int and gaining a new NPW every 3 Fighter and Wizard levels! After awhile, she started taking things mostly because they amused her.

 

[deganawida]

Really, the only reason I kept using WP's was because there are a few interesting things you can do with them in the Complete Fighter's Handbook (and a few others, like the Bladesong Fighting Style in the Complete Book of Elves). Weapon Groups, Fighting Style Specializations, and Punching/Wrestling/Martial Arts Specialization are all neat little options for a Fighter.

But yes, with the PHB-only, Weapon Proficiencies are a fairly restrictive way to play. Savvy players would never bother to get proficiency in oddball weapons, knowing that the chances of finding a +2 Awl Pike in an adventure were very slim. And if you wanted to add an oddball weapon to your game for flavor, nobody would know how to use the darned thing without a penalty to hit (that few people wanted to put up with), potentially for multiple levels!

The whole proficiency system seems built on some very strange assumptions; for example, Thieves, who we would see as the premier skill class today, actually got new non-weapon proficiencies at a slower rate than anyone else, so that their vaunted rapid level progression was mostly a wash, and they wouldn't have more skills than anyone else.

Intelligence gave bonus proficiencies, but since only Wizards (and to a lesser extent Bards) got rewarded for a high Intelligence over other ability scores, they typically would have far more skills than anyone else; this would make sense for academic skills, I suppose, but it could lead to some amusing results when your Wizard is a master of Blacksmithing, Etiquette, Fly Fishing, and Basket Weaving! So much for spending all their time poring over arcane tomes!

Things got really strange towards the end. In Dragon #243, Skip actually states in Sage Advice that multiclass characters gain more proficiencies than anyone else; they started with the best deal of all their classes, but then, whenever they would gain a proficiency from any of their classes, they got it! A friend of mine had a Gnome Fighter/Illusionist, and the amount of proficiency slots she had after awhile was pretty silly, between her high Int and gaining a new NPW every 3 Fighter and Wizard levels! After awhile, she started taking things mostly because they amused her.

Oh, yeah, it definitely got crazy, and, by the '97, I was totally put off by all the optional rules no longer being optional. Sure, I loved the new settings and all the lore, but once you added all those rules, man, it got bad to manage.

 

[Mannahnin]

WHat 2e excelled at though was making AD&D easier to run. It was still AD&D at its core, it was simpler, initiative was easier to understand, THAC0 was easier (it was already part of the AD&D eco system by the time the 1e DMG came out) and the move of several rules over to the PHB helped as well. The DMG wasn't the 1e DMG by a long shot but it was NOT nearly as bad as its made out to be nowadays. It was a very different product from the 1e book in every way and was measured by the standard of the 1e book. It was the more easy to use material from the DMG, magic items etc and a toolkit, and advice but had moved to the standard for gaming at that time where the odd random tables etc had moved out of vogue and RPGs had become story games. The materials that once were the purview of the 1e DMG moved to the DMGR series. It made for a more practical DMG for new DMs.

The biggest issue I had with the 2E DMG, which was indeed clearer and more user friendly than the 1E DMG (which I also had), was that it's so wishy washy and noncommittal.

For me as a teenage would-be DM without an experienced regular mentor (I knew some older folks who played, but didn't have a real teacher), it just didn't give enough clear guidance. A lot of "you could do it THIS way, OR you could do it THAT way" trying to both service the old school dungeon crawling audience and the newer Trad/story-oriented play crowd.

The XP system was a classic rough one. With gold for XP relegated to an optional rule, the suggested rules for xp awards by default would be painfully slow, which is a tough combo with the lethality of AD&D. If either set of optional XP rules (treasure or individual based on class) had been recommended for use alongside the baseline monster and goal XP, it would have been better.

There's still some vagaries and holdover over-cautiousness about powergaming in there too. The (extremely vague) rules for making magic items never got used by us. And we wound up eventually chucking the whole xp system since by the book it was so slow.

 

[deganawida]

Oh, something else I thought about last week, when @darjr posted his Phandelver & Below B&G news.

Easy money for WotC would be to license Beadle & Grimm do legendary editions of older material, especially the various campaign boxed sets. I'd pay a significant amount of money to have those.

 

[Voadam]

The biggest issue I had with the 2E DMG, which was indeed clearer and more user friendly than the 1E DMG (which I also had), was that it's so wishy washy and noncommittal.

For me as a teenage would-be DM without an experienced regular mentor (I knew some older folks who played, but didn't have a real teacher), it just didn't give enough clear guidance. A lot of "you could do it THIS way, OR you could do it THAT way" trying to both service the old school dungeon crawling audience and the newer Trad/story-oriented play crowd.

The XP system was a classic rough one. With gold for XP relegated to an optional rule, the suggested rules for xp awards by default would be painfully slow, which is a tough combo with the lethality of AD&D. If either set of optional XP rules (treasure or individual based on class) had been recommended for use alongside the baseline monster and goal XP, it would have been better.

There's still some vagaries and holdover over-cautiousness about powergaming in there too. The rules for making magic items never got used by us. And we wound up eventually chucking the whole xp system since by the book it was so slow.

For me the impression I had of the 2e charts at the time was that they were more generous on xp for monsters than 1e was.

Looking back now, an ogre in 1e was 90 +5/hp (4d8+1= ~19) so about 185 xp.

In 2e from MC1 a 4+1 HD ogre is 175 xp, a little less than 1e, but in the Monstrous Manual they are 270, about 50% more.

In 1e a troll is 525 +8/hp with 6d8+6 hp ~33hp so ~789 xp.

In 2e MC1 and MM a troll is 1,400 xp, about twice as much as in 1e.

I particularly liked that it was less steps in figuring out a monsters' xp in 2e. I was notoriously slow in handing out xp in my 1e campaign.

 

[Mannahnin]

For me the impression I had of the 2e charts at the time was that they were more generous on xp for monsters than 1e was.

That was definitely so, but for the thousands you need to get from 1st to 2nd or 2nd to 3rd, divided among the party. it definitely didn't make up for the lack of treasure XP. And you're not able to take on ogres or trolls for a few levels. Capping quest/goal XP at monster xp (as I recall) meant advancement was really rough BtB.

 

[Dioltach]

I posted here a few years ago that for a magic user to progress from 10th to 11th (I think - I don't have my 2E books anymore), they'd need to single-handedly slay 9 Great Wyrms. I get that high-level characters were supposed to be rare, but surely not rarer than super-powerful dragons?

In our group, even with the DM being relatively generous with XP, it would take years of real time to gain a level.

 

[Reynard]

I posted here a few years ago that for a magic user to progress from 10th to 11th (I think - I don't have my 2E books anymore), they'd need to single-handedly slay 9 Great Wyrms. I get that high-level characters were supposed to be rare, but surely not rarer than super-powerful dragons?

In our group, even with the DM being relatively generous with XP, it would take years of real time to gain a level.

Or 10,000 bandits. I'm not sure why one would assume that the XP had to come from rare and powerful enemies -- especially since 2E isn the only edition of the game to give mages XP for casting spells and creating spells and items.

 

[cbwjm]

Were people not also providing story rewards for xp? I'd often grant a bunch of xp (based on fighter progression in a regular group, wizard progression when my friends were only playing wizards) when quests were completed.

As for wwapon proficiencies, I wouldn't bother with individual weapons anymore, instead I'd use broad groups, including for specialisation. I think there was also an optional rule somewhere (fighters handbook probably) where fighters could use their intelligence bonus proficiencies for weapons, I might also use that rule but with broad groups drastically cutting down the number of weapon proficiencies I'm not sure it would be needed.