REALLY What Was So Bad About 2nd Edition?

[Sigma]

18(XX) strength. The only advantage orther than specialization that a fighter had, and you had to have an 18 in Strength to get it.

Thieves. I don't think I ever saw anyone play a single classed thief in all the years I played 2e. The way MS/HS worked was especially obnoxious.

Priest spheres. Ill-defined and easily abused, especially if a player got to pick the ones they wanted.

No magic in armor. Period. Best way to subdue a wizard in 2e? Put him in a chain shirt.

Humans. Without heavy DM influence, the average group had more demi-humans than not. There wasn't a point in playing them other than dual-classing (which also stunk).

The weapons. There were one or two good weapons per class, and you never touched any other. Giving a character personality with a non-standard weapon meant having them attack slower or do less damage.

Druids. The limited alignment choice made them virtually unplayable (especially with the way True Neutral was described in the core books.)

Charisma. It's still the good munchkin's dump stat in 3e for most classes, but in 2e only paladins and specialists needed a decent score here.

That's my short list. Right before 3e came out, I had given up on 2e. Every time I picked it up, I'd start tinkering and quickly become overwhelmed with how much I would have to change to make the game playable. There are only so many pages of house rules you can expect players to digest. If 3e hadn't come out, I probably wouldn't be playing D&D.

 

[Holy Bovine]

I agree also with everything Sigma just listed

Espicially that Strength thing. Made even more annoying when you consider that the 2E PHB had an example charatcer rolled up that would get no bonuses in anything - but implied that you were some kind of power gamer if you didn't play this kind of character. 3E used a similar example character that had the exact same stats but had a +1 or +2 bonus in 3 out of 6 under the new rules.

 

[smetzger]

I didn't mind DMing 2e with my house rules. However, I did not like playing 2e because the DM didn't use my house rules.

However, with 3e I have so few house rules that I actually enjoy playing a game that someone else DMs.

 

[Master of Monkeys]

I kind of miss 2E, I myself am a wizard, and do you know what a 20th level wizard can do in 2E? Any damn thing he pleases, thats what. Include the epic level campaign book and 10th level spells, and oh wait... you couldn't play that character unless everyone else in your party was a wizard and you fought gods constantly. Still... oh, the power of a wizard...

 

[Bob5th]

(I know, I know you can always extend the tables past -10 but I defy you to find any offical monster that had an AC better than -10).

Check out some of the older dragons then. The oldest of the golds had a -12 I think.

 

[LostSoul]

No consistency in the rules system.

Somtimes it was better to roll low, other times high. Sometimes your stats modified your roll, sometimes they didn't.

I think that 3e improved on this, but not totally...

 

[shadow]

KITS! I hated kits! Essentially they were a subclass, but for some reason they called them kits instead of subclasses. They were poorly balanced. They were either extremely weak (such as the kits in the Complete Thieves Handbook), or extremely powerful. A lot of the kits were poorly design with no consistancy to the core system. The rules of the kits and the relative powerlevel of them greatly varied from book to book. I'm glad 3e has done away with the abomination of kits.

 

[RogueJK]

Also to Monks and Assassins. The 3E Monk is actually pretty cool, but I wish there were an Assassin base class (supposedly the Green Ronin Master Class series will have an assassin base class)

Check out AEG's Ninja class. It could work as an assassin class with only a little modification. It has a Fighter's BAB, d6 HD, 4 skill points/level, and the Rogue's skill list (minus Use Magic Device). They also get lots of class abilities, including Poison Use at second level, Uncanny Dodge, Ninja Dodge, Blind Fight, Deflect Arrows, Sneak Attack, and one or two others.

To convert it to an assassin class, the only things that you might want to change are their weapon proficiencies, which consist mainly of Oriental weapons, and their lack of any armor proficiencies.

If you don't have the Rokugan sourcebook, you can download the Ninja here: http://l5r.alderac.com/rpg/rokugan_ninja.pdf

(Note that the good Will save has been changed to a good Reflex save in the errata.)

 

[FungiMuncher]

For myself, all the unbalanced kits and S&P rules really got me to hate 2nd Edition. I had abandoned AD&D for other games, and got back to it before 3E came out. All the characters I made in that time felt terribly useless. I didn't have the resources (all those books) or the experience of manipulating the rules. The other players' characters were consistantly asthmatic, arachnophobic psychopaths of the rarest cult of whatzit, but, boy, they sure could rip through the monsters! My characters frequently wondered why they bothered to show up.

Now, with 3E, a character has to at least give up something or meet the requirements to take the more unusual roles. And for the most part, everything is reasonably balanced. While I like the idea of the S&P rules, I'm glad that designers will be thinking about balance when/if they try to tackle it for 3E.

By the way, I never had a big problem with the varied mechanics of 2nd Ed., but one of my groups had returned to 2nd Ed after the 3E rules were out. It was like going back to calculus class! Sure, it can be done, but why would you want to!

FM

 

[Psion]

First off, let me preamble this by saying that there were many things I liked about 2e. 2e was definitely an improvement over 1e (frex, got rid of munchy assassins, barbarians, and cavaliers), and there are things about 2e that I miss. See below.
(like kits - not specific kits, mind you, because many were poorly executed, but the general idea of kits were a very useful tool in shaping the game. I also LOVE planescape. Best. Setting. Evar.)

However, the sheer inflexibility of 2e would have had me quitting if Players Option hadn't come out (and even players option needed some jimmying to get to work right.)

The biggest thing compared to 3e that was a major bother was the sheer morrass of inconsistancy. The cheif example of this was the dice systems. Thief skills - percentile low. To hit - d20 high. Saves - d20 high. Proficiencies - d20 low. Secret door checks - d6 low. Surprise, initiative, yadda yadda yadda.

Other examples of inconsistency were the PHBR books. Though some were gems of utility (Wizards, Thieves, and Priests stand out in this department), they were pretty much a crap shoot, with different approaches and power levels.

Another was the inflexibility of classes. There was little or no choice in what you could do except for a thief. Skills & Powers was a godsend in this department. In some ways, Skills & Powers outdid 3e in this department.

Attributes were intolerable. It didn't really matter what you had if it was less than 14, which always struck me as lame. Further, I always founds percentile strength to be both a wart and munchkin bait.

On the other hand, the proficiency system made attributes too important. Spend one slot on a proficiency you are good at - TADA! You are an instant master. However, additional slots only gave you +1 each and you only got one every three levels. As a result, characters rarely, if ever, spent more than one slot on a proficieny.

Multiclassing and dual classing. Why the difference? I had some justifications for myself, but ultimately they rang hollow. Eventually I conflated the systems.

Human versus demihuman balance - never really worked. The only balancing factor there was was that if you were demihuman, you would eventually be restricted in you advancement. Not only was this ill justified from a gameworld viewpoint, it really didn't accomplish much because of the next point.

Power level. After 11th-12th level, hang it up. The system creaked under the strain at these levels, as great wyrm dragons and balors are insignificant before your might. And all those neat high level spells you have been drooling over like shapechange and prismatic spray, you will never get to cast.

60 second rounds. The justifications rang hollow here, too.

Lack of support of oriental adventures. OA was one of the best, most imagination capturing 1e books, with a wonderfully detailed martial arts system and other interesting and unique classes. But it was pretty much ignored for most of 2e, and martial arts replaced with some lame chart system.

Finally, treatment of monsters. This never really bugged me while I was playing, but once I bought and started reading the 3e monster manual, I realized what a great restriction played with a reduced set of restrictions for monsters was. When I played 2e, Drow and Humans were always my major villains, as the tools to individualize nonhumanoid monsters just weren't there. Now I have many more options, and can make things like mind flayer sorcerers without having to ad hoc it.


There were some great things about 2e as well, though.

Planescape was the best published setting ever, IMNSHO. It was fantasy pushed to the limit. It was more than just fantasy-seasoned europe. It was a trip to a reality that operated by a totally different set of rules. It had the hitherto and since unmatched combination of givning the DM a ton of ideas and source material AND being incredibly flexible and open ended.

Dead Gods and Tales of the Infinite Staircase: Best adventures ever. Return to the Tomb of Horrors and Rod of Seven Parts are way up there as well. All are better idea-wise that and 3e/d20 system adventure I have seen to date.

World builders guide and Complete Villains Handbook: Fantastic tools for the GM, still useful today.