Random thoughts on 2nd Ed.

[Drowbane]

That's what all the groups I was in did. Mostly to ensure that you get a mix of character classes... the problem with the '3d6 in order' rule is that vagaries of the dice might mean that you end up with a party with no cleric, no mage, etc... something that doesn't bode well for the longevity of the group. You can survive with a group of PCs who all have average stats, but it's harder to survive if you're missing one or more of the basic classes...

My memory may just be fuzzy, but what you say here smacks of "that is modern thinking!". In my 2e days we often had no Casters due to poor the dice and/or people not wanting to start off so squishy. Fighters and Thieves can get by quite well on their own, thank you! It often meant running back to town and paying for healing, but we got by.

 

[Leif]

My memory may just be fuzzy, but what you say here smacks of "that is modern thinking!". In my 2e days we often had no Casters due to poor the dice and/or people not wanting to start off so squishy. Fighters and Thieves can get by quite well on their own, thank you! It often meant running back to town and paying for healing, but we got by.

Now that's a hard-core D&Der for you! More power to you.

 

[David Howery]

My memory may just be fuzzy, but what you say here smacks of "that is modern thinking!". In my 2e days we often had no Casters due to poor the dice and/or people not wanting to start off so squishy. Fighters and Thieves can get by quite well on their own, thank you! It often meant running back to town and paying for healing, but we got by.

'modern thinking' in 2E days? Perish the thought... Yeah, you can run a group without spellcasters and whatnot, it's just a harder slog to do it. Plus, I was never crazy about the idea that the dice rolls dictate what you could play... if someone wants to run a mage but rolls up a fighter, hell, let them rearrange the rolls so they can...

 

[jaz0nj4ckal]

I cut my teeth on rpgs with AD&D 2E and unfortunately base everything fantasy on it since; however, I understand the limitations with the system.

The system is OK; however, I prefer more Bell Curve dice rolls for a grittier game. In addition, the Brown Class Book add on were OK, but started to make the game system a little unbalanced, since the major rules never anticipated the Brown Class Books.

However, the main beef I had was the Power & Skills (S&P) extra books, which I really hate. That started changing everything, and made the game super unbalanced. After the S&P books, even a thief could be weapon specialized. Also, the S&P changed the NWP and gave some arbitrary base number for.

Another concept I didn’t care for was the new CrossBow rules. Original there was no logical reason why someone would selects CrossBows; however, S&P gave major bonuses to attack rolls with crossbows, which could stack on top of weapon specialization. For example: it was possible for a 1st level fighter to have a +7 To Hit with a crossbow at start due to special Armor piercing rule that was introduced with S&P.

I think a better approach would have been to base the crossbows off the original arquebus rules. For example my house rules – Light Crossbow did 1d6 but had a 25% (1 on 1d4) chance for exploding dice damage like the Arquebus.

Despite the items I mentioned – I still feel that 2E is a great quick and dirty percentile based rpg. It allows for just enough detail but with little fuss.

 

[fletch137]

My memory may just be fuzzy, but what you say here smacks of "that is modern thinking!". In my 2e days we often had no Casters due to poor the dice and/or people not wanting to start off so squishy. Fighters and Thieves can get by quite well on their own, thank you! It often meant running back to town and paying for healing, but we got by.

Yikes! We adopted the "arrange to taste" method because the only alternative was the "keep rolling until you get a character that fits the class you want to play" method. We never even considered not getting to pick what class we wanted.

 

[fletch137]

Right off the bat, I had the impression that actual stat scores weren't as important in 2nd edition as they later became. After that bat, I realized I was wrong.

Sure, you can adventure quite successfully with a 14 in your prime stat and a 6 in Charisma (today's gamers are quite spoiled with their point buy systems and character optimization), but not since 2nd edition have you been specifically forbade from playing certain things based on your stats.

I already mentioned the harsh requirements for specialists, but even the demi-human races have stat requirements. Heck, to be a halfling, you need a 10 in Constitution. However unjustly, though, the maximums are laughably unlimiting. While I'd be okay with saying "halflings can't have strength scores higher than 14," they're actually limited to a rarely-ever-reached-anyways 18.