D&D 2E On AD&D 2E

[Maxperson]

Ascending AC just uses addition on the positive side of the number line. It’s easier. It’s also easy to port in to 2e. You, stop it.

That's like saying it's easy to pick up 5 pounds(THAC0), but it's easier to pick up 4 pounds(ascending AC). Yes 3e is easier, but THAC0 wasn't anything other than very easy.

 

[Maxperson]

I need to preface this post with a disclaimer. I love 2e. I played it for a very long time. But it has warts, and whether something is a bug or a feature is often in the eye of the beholder, so to speak.

2e is a very different game. It has tons of splatbooks to draw from, potentially giving you a bewildering array of options that is at least equal to the 3.5 era. You don't have to use them all, of course, but I played in a few campaigns where "if TSR wrote it, it's legal for use" and the disparity between a guy who plays a Fighter from the PHB to someone who is a specialty priest out of Faiths and Avatars, has psionic wild talents, a kit, and has a cracked-out race from outside the PHB like Sylvan Elf, Tiefling, Aasimar, or something from the Complete Book of Humanoids, is telling.

You have Elven Dualist Wizards, Wild Mages, Viking Rune Magic, Spellfire Wielders, Psionicists, Quest Spells, Elven High Magic, Elementalists, Sha'ir, and probably seven or eight even more esoteric powers I'm forgetting that are potentially available to players. The game can run from magic-high (Forgotten Realms), magic super-high (Arcane Age), magic-low (your typical Ravenloft game), and weird hybrids like Dark Sun (magic super low to Dragon Kings).

Just about every rule in the PHB can be bent or broken in later books (my Paladin can't have weapon specialization? I can't dual-wield long swords? I can't be a multi-classed Bard? Hold my ale!), and only once did TSR ever try to rebalance things (Complete Priest's Handbook)- most books are pure power creep. So you can embrace the gonzo madness, or try to lock things down to the bare essentials, as you like.

Character classes aren't balanced against each other, even if the different xp tracks might lead you think so. Some classes are useless until about level 5. Thieves can't reliably do anything at low levels (even with the best possible race/Dex combo in the PHB, it's going to take til level 4 to get to 95% hide and move silently, as examples, and you're going to be terrible at anything else).

Warrior classes are beasts for a good while, with ever-increasing saves, great hit points, and reliable damage....then one day out of the blue, spellcasters are able to break reality in half...or not, since "save neg." relegates many spells to worthlessness, and the game isn't shy about giving out immunities and magic resistance like candy.

Everything is slave to RNG- your character can be puny or godlike based on random chance, and random chance can fell even the most powerful character, forcing many to try and make ever stronger characters.

And you will find out quickly that, despite what the books claim, you can't just make whatever character you want- system mastery permeates the game, from what ability scores are best for you, to even what weapons you should use (longswords yes, two weapon fighting, yes, two handed weapons, no).

And finally, well, about Thac0, I'm not going to weigh in on whether it's good or bad, but instead I'm going to bring up how horribly it's presented, thanks to D&D-isms that were present from day 1.

As you level, your Thac0 goes down. And your AC goes down. But rather than subtract from Thac0, your ability scores and magic items increase your die roll. Your Dexterity defense mod. is a negative value, which makes sense, since it lowers your AC. But just about any other beneficial modifier to AC is represented as a positive value!

I've had new players express confusion that somehow a Shield +1 isn't a cursed item!

Combine this with the fact that you want to roll high on saving throws and attacks, but low on ability checks and Non-Weapon Proficiencies...and other times, rather than use a d20, the game wants you to use d%, and it's more than a little oblique to new gamers.

Oh and about those Non-Weapon Proficiencies- it's always interesting that the more books you use, the less characters can do without proficiency! Soon you need proficiencies to notice things, to observe things (not the same!), to fast-talk, intimidate, gather information, loot treasure quickly, beg for coin, mimic the sounds of animals, guide a boat down a rapid stream (no, sorry, Seamanship doesn't apply!), Acting, seduction, pretending to be asleep, walking on water, or even (a personal favorite), Giant Kite Flying!

All in a system that gives most characters 3 proficiency slots at level 1 and a new one every 3 levels! Oh sure, maybe your Class (Bard) or Kit gives you a few free ones, and you can always choose to know less languages, but there's no way you're going to get more than a few of these, and the system for improving proficiencies is, well, pretty draconian, to say the least. Oh and some proficiencies cost more than one slot!

(And while the PHB claims that proficiencies are optional, that flies out the window with the very first splatbook, lol).

TLDR: 2e has a great deal of charm, gonzo insanity, and wild ideas a plenty. It's also a hot mess of a system. If you're familiar with all of it's idiosyncrasies, you probably love it. Or hate it.

Most likely, a mix of the two. It's likely the most house-ruled version of the game that has ever existed, to the point that any two random players will have incredibly different experiences playing the game.

When it was good, it was and incredible, amazing experience. When it was not good, it was wretched, bitter experience.

And I haven't even gotten into Dragon Magazine content or the "Player's Option" books yet!

I agree with a lot of what you say here, but not that 2e rivaled 3e for options. It wasn't even close. Sure you had the Complete books and a few other books that provided kits and such, but that didn't even begin to touch the 66 full classes, 284 prestige classes and several hundred if not more than a thousand feats. 3e had 173 races. 2e had far less, but I can't find the exact number.

 

[Staffan]

I agree, but the DM's I played with back in AD&D seemed to think this was privileged information, and some even got annoyed when players would work out what a target's AC was.

One reason I like TORG: Eternity is that the GM is supposed to outright tell the players what the opposition's defensive stats are, so they can make informed decisions on what to do and what resources to use. The way I see it is that while the PC does not exactly know "The DN to maneuver the pixie is 12, but intimidate is only 7" they would know "That pixie is quick as heck but it looks really nervous so it scares easy."

 

[Maxperson]

2e

As an example, let's say I make up a new spell called Bravery of Tempus (Tempus being the CN god of War in the Forgotten Realms). The spell gives you +2 to hit, +2 to damage, +2 to saves vs fear, and +2 to AC.

Does the spell actually lower your AC because Tempus is shielding you from harm, or does it raise your AC because it makes you reckless and Tempus likes his blood sports? When written like that it's ambiguous. In 3e, a spell giving +2* to AC is unambiguously good.

* It would likely be further defined with a bonus type, but that's beside the point.

Spells that affected AC like Armor and Shield assigned flat armor classes. Armor gave a wizard an AC of 6, and Shield provided an AC of 2 against hand held missiles. For things like Protection From Evil and Invisibility, the enemy simply had minuses to hit you.

For something like Barkskin that had AC bonuses, the spell itself gave examples of how to use it.

"When a priest casts the barkskin spell upon a creature, its skin becomes as tough as bark, increasing its base Armor Class to AC 6, plus 1 AC for every four levels of the priest: Armor Class 5 at 4th level, Armor Class 4 at 8th, and so on."

If you wanted that +2 for your Tempus spell above to be a bonus, you would give the example of AC dropping lower. If you wanted it to be a penalty, you'd give examples of AC getting higher. Or you'd simply turn it into a -2/+2 to hit.

There was no confusion to be had.

 

[James Gasik]

I agree with a lot of what you say here, but not that 2e rivaled 3e for options. It wasn't even close. Sure you had the Complete books and a few other books that provided kits and such, but that didn't even begin to touch the 66 full classes, 284 prestige classes and several hundred if not more than a thousand feats. 3e had 173 races. 2e had far less, but I can't find the exact number.

Well you are probably right, but I remember a metric ton of weird, niche classes you could play in 2e (not even taking into account 1e stuff that was still playable). Scouts, Sha'ir, Witches, Runecasters, Champions, Psionicists, Demi-Bards, Ninjas, an endless array of specialty priests, Wild Mages, Elementalists, Wu Jen...yeah, it's hard to keep count. And this was the golden age of races too, since LA wasn't a thing (at worst you might have unbalanced stat bonuses or the Ogre Mage's double xp requirements to level). Xichil, Mongrelmen, Centaurs, Thri-Kreen, 37 flavors of Elf, Fremlins, Half-Trolls (not the ones you're thinking of, probably), Half-Dragons, and, uh, I don't know, Kender. Maybe.

It was a LOT of stuff.

 

[Staffan]

2e

Spells that affected AC like Armor and Shield assigned flat armor classes. Armor gave a wizard an AC of 6, and Shield provided an AC of 2 against hand held missiles. For things like Protection From Evil and Invisibility, the enemy simply had minuses to hit you.

For something like Barkskin that had AC bonuses, the spell itself gave examples of how to use it.

"When a priest casts the barkskin spell upon a creature, its skin becomes as tough as bark, increasing its base Armor Class to AC 6, plus 1 AC for every four levels of the priest: Armor Class 5 at 4th level, Armor Class 4 at 8th, and so on."

If you wanted that +2 for your Tempus spell above to be a bonus, you would give the example of AC dropping lower. If you wanted it to be a penalty, you'd give examples of AC getting higher. Or you'd simply turn it into a -2/+2 to hit.

There was no confusion to be had.

I'd argue that if you need to clarify that a +2 lowers your AC, or how barkskin works as in your example, there is confusion. In D&D 3+, there's no question that +2 to AC means your AC becomes 2 points higher. In 2e you have e.g. the slow spell which gives a "+4 penalty" to AC, while a suit of armor +1 lowers it. That is confusing and needs surrounding context to explain what you actually mean.

I mean, it's not a game breaker. But it sure isn't ideal.

 

[Maxperson]

I'd argue that if you need to clarify that a +2 lowers your AC, or how barkskin works as in your example, there is confusion. In D&D 3+, there's no question that +2 to AC means your AC becomes 2 points higher. In 2e you have e.g. the slow spell which gives a "+4 penalty" to AC, while a suit of armor +1 lowers it. That is confusing and needs surrounding context to explain what you actually mean.

That just isn't how confusion works. You can't get confusion from clarity. Now, I will acknowledge that without that clarity there could be confusion, but as written it's clear how the various modifiers affect AC.

I mean, it's not a game breaker. But it sure isn't ideal.

I agree. Consistency would be better. It just isn't confusing the way it is.

 

[James Gasik]

That just isn't how confusion works. You can't get confusion from clarity. Now, I will acknowledge that without that clarity there could be confusion, but as written it's clear how the various modifiers affect AC.

I agree. Consistency would be better. It just isn't confusing the way it is.

Well I have four guys who we tried to teach 2e to who would disagree about how confusing it was to them.

 

[Maxperson]

Well I have four guys who we tried to teach 2e to who would disagree about how confusing it was to them.

2e in general? Sure. How AC works? Each part is explained clearly. 1e and 2e were not written well, so confusion abounded.

 

[ValamirCleaver]

I mean, it's not a game breaker. But it sure isn't ideal.

1e & 2e will explicitly say "bonus" or "penalty". When ever I hear someone say that descending AC & THAC0 are too difficult, I assume that the individual is horrible at math and they are unable to handle addition or subtraction with negative numbers. There were even character sheets that either had a Target AC to Hit chart to fill in for each AC from 10 to -10 and/or a Weapon Combat chart to write the adjusted THAC0 for each the character's weapons.

Spoiler: 2e character sheets