Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9018158" data-attributes="member: 6877472">See I disagree.  The sheer amount of options available to characters in the various 2e books is an optimizer's fantasy land- the issue is more whether or not those options are available to you, and, of course, many are RNG locked.For example, one could, using the PHB, make a Fighter with an 18*xx Strength, specialize in a long sword, and dual-class into Ranger so that by level 3 you can dual wield without any penalty using a long sword and a short sword for 5/2 attacks per turn...but you need, obviously, very high ability scores to do so.Add the Complete Fighter's Handbook, and our Fighter spends proficiency slots on Ambidexterity and Two-Weapon Style Specialization to dual wield long swords.  And can take a Kit like Cavalier to get even more bonuses to hit over time with their long swords, and at this point, if you're not going to multiclass, be an Elf for another bonus to hit.  Maybe the Complete Book of Elves is on the table and you also dump proficiency slots into Bladesong Fighting style for more bonuses.  And maybe your DM doesn't care about the "never leaves their forests" restriction and lets you play a Sylvan Elf with 19 Strength!Or maybe Psionics are allowed and you roll like a madman to get a couple potent Wild Talents on top of everything else?By the time most of the Forgotten Realms books are in play, you have some of the crazy Mythos and Specialty priests options discussed upthread, where you can mix and match abilities from multiple classes to create bizarre super characters.  Chaotic Good Multiclassed Paladin/Priests of Horus?  Why not?  Dip into Complete Planeswalker to have Aasimar characters with strange multiclass options like Ranger/Mage?  Some of the Complete books allow multiclass characters to have Kits as well.What's that, you say, dual-wielding a pair of cestuses (cesti?) on a Fighter with multiple proficiency slots devoted to punching specialization?  Sure why not, but hey, good luck finding magical punch gloves, lol.With Complete Humanoids, you want to be an Ogre with 20 Strength?  Sure, go for it.  Or an Alaghi Druid or a Saurial Wizard?And then by the time we got the Option books, you have people making custom races and classes the likes of which won't be seen again until later 3.5 with Unearthed Arcana and the various alternate class abilities (or later Pathfinder, take your pick).Now am I saying this was the norm?  No, not hardly.  But all the tools were theoretically there.  All that was missing was the internet, and you'd have had a bustling 2e optimization community.As it was, every time I encountered another player, I was instantly regaled with the horror story of what was allowed in their games, like Spellfire wielders, Half-Dragons (from Dragon Magazine), and refugees from Dark Sun, Council of Wyrms, and Birthright adventuring alongside normal PHB characters!At this point, 2e started to look more like RIFTS than anything else!</blockquote>

Verification