REALLY What Was So Bad About 2nd Edition?

[Rashak Mani]

THE BOOK WAS SOOO UGLY !! THOSE BLUE DRAWINGS !!!

The cover was good thou....

 

[med stud]

Sorry if I high jack, but during the three years I DM:d 2nd edition, I couldnt find anything about the chances of finding secret doors; what mechanics were used to find secret doors?

 

[Zappo]

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.

You bet. It has been one of my major gripes constantly, funny I forgot it in my first post. I started giving monsters class levels even before buying the High Level Handbook. I still dislike that in certain aspects in 3e monsters are still treated differently from races. For example, monsters can advance by HD, they can have no class, they have types, their natural weapons work differently from a humanoid's punches, etcetera. In my opinion, there should be *no* difference between mechanics for monsters and for playable races.

 

[2WS-Steve]

Saving Throws

Most of the other problems I could deal with via a few pages of house rules but saving throws made it hard to GM. Way too many insta-kill things floating around and good saving throws were very hard to get. In order to fix that with house rules I needed to change about half the monsters in the book and do something about poisons and 3rd level clerics. We tried hero points for this and that worked okay but it generally overcompensated.

3e's temporary ability damage for posion and disease is a vast improvement; in general the move away from all or nothing effects is much better. The variable Save DC based on level of spell also makes a lot more sense. Saves are something a character can focus on now so they can choose how much they want to gamble on the dice rolls.

 

[Ciraeus]

Hmm... I'll have to agree with most everything I've seen, but there is one thing mentioned that I actually LIKED about 2E, and that's the dice situation. I remember playing with a guy who had a d20 that ALWAYS rolled high, that he only used for hit rolls and the like, and another that was "normal", that he used for every other roll. The look on his face when the DM made him use the same d20 for every roll in one campaign was priceless! Now, with rolling high being the desired effect (unless I'm forgetting something) of EVERY roll, that d20 would be killer...and probably banned from the table!

I liked that sometimes you wanted high rolls and sometimes low rolls. It kept things interesting. Just my opinion of course.

Ciraeus

 

[RobNJ]

Hmm... I'll have to agree with most everything I've seen, but there is one thing mentioned that I actually LIKED about 2E, and that's the dice situation.

Anyone noticed that the d12 has all but disappeared from 3E?

 

[Staffan]

Anyone noticed that the d12 has all but disappeared from 3E?

Eh... it's used more in 3e than in 2e, as far as I can see. In 2e, it was basically only used for longsword damage against large creatures. In 3e, it's used as greataxe damage *and* Barbarian HD.

 

[Steve Conan Trustrum]

Among the problems that I had with 2e was the complete lack of organization to the books; it seems that the info you always seemed to need was buried in a paragraph rather than being entitled or even placed in bold or italics. It made it very hard to find the core elements of most rules.

 

[Forrester]

I liked that sometimes you wanted high rolls and sometimes low rolls. It kept things interesting. Just my opinion of course.

Ciraeus

Absolutely! One thing I really miss as a DM is the look on a player's face after he rolls a '20' on a die I've just asked him to roll. Or, for that matter, a '1'.

Because, of course, I'd simply ask him to roll a die -- whether it was for a skill check, or a saving throw, I wouldn't say. So whether he's just turned to stone/been disentegrated, or managed to miraculously avoid the Pit Trap of Doom -- well, he just doesn't know, does he? . Ah, those were the days.

 

[Destil]

The 'preachyness' of the 2e books, in telling you you how you were supposted to play always bothered me a lot, particuarly after reading 3rd.

2nd - 2 or 3 pages of rants saying you're wrong if you want to start a player as the son of a well to do family with a bit more money than usual, or above 1st level.

3rd - 1 setence in a sidebar saying basicly "Go ahead, and have fun."

Likewise 2nd edition was fell apart baddly around 10th level. Kits, for instance, were good for the game because you had to start over to take them by the rules, and to entice you to take them they got progressivly more powerfull. And thus you keep playing low levels.


Though I do miss planescape.