D&D 2E Returning to 2nd Edition

[Reynard]

The lethality of combat is only one aspect of the differences between 5E and 2E that make them feel very different.

The one that matters more to me is the "fantasticality" of the PCs. 5E is not just inherently higher magic than 2E, it is higher octane and more vibrant for lack of a better word. The mechanics support a cinematic, tentpole blockbuster style in combat and interacting with the world I don't really want in this particular context.

There's also the issue of casters: 5E casters are too capable, with too few restrictions on them and too many resources at their disposal. For certain kinds of fantasy, the squishy wizard with powerful but limited spells works much better in play and, IMO, helps maintain versimilitude in a setting meant to look something like our own European medieval period. It may mean that people don't want to play wizards, and that's okay, too. In this case, I am looking for fantasy so low its in the mud.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The one that matters more to me is the "fantasticality" of the PCs. 5E is not just inherently higher magic than 2E, it is higher octane and more vibrant for lack of a better word. The mechanics support a cinematic, tentpole blockbuster style in combat and interacting with the world I don't really want in this particular context.

Cool as that sounds, I'm not sure I see it.

Your 5e wizard can dive behind cover and squeeze off magic missiles while prone, which you couldn't do in 1e (and, I'm just gonna stick with examples from the AD&D I'm more familiar with, from here-on in), so there's that.

There's also the issue of casters: 5E casters are too capable, with too few restrictions on them and too many resources at their disposal. For certain kinds of fantasy, the squishy wizard with powerful but limited spells works much better in play and, IMO, helps maintain versimilitude in a setting meant to look something like our own European medieval period. It may mean that people don't want to play wizards, and that's okay, too. In this case, I am looking for fantasy so low its in the mud.

If you want a true-to-life, medieval European wizard, in 5e, take the Charlatan Background! You'll be able to do a fair Paracelsus imitation.

But, even if you want a true-to-legend medieval European wizard, look elsewhere than D&D, Vancian is not going to cut it, not remotely. It's far too repeatable, dependable - and not nearly dangerous or limited enough. Also, to really go medieval on your campaign's hapless wizards, their stuff prettymuch has to fold when opposed by the divine. Less save:1/2, more quoting-scripture:negates.

That said, if you want a classic-D&D glass cannon of a wizard, sure, 5e does make it tempered glass in a big way. You could, without messing with 5e in any too-fundamental ways: return Concentration to all casting (not all durations, just the act of casting a spell), add back opportunity attacks vs casters in melee, and allow readied actions to interrupt spells. If that's not enough, you could give select spells a 'casting time,' even just simply finishing at the end of the round rather than on initiative, making them that much easier to interrupt (no Ready required, just hit the wizard on the round he's casting, before or after his turn, and force Concentration).
That, alone, should make caster's lives a lot harder, in an old-school sorta way. For bit more pain, failing the concentration check when interrupted means loss of the slot, too, or even loss of the prepared spell (for wizards &c who prep spells, that'd be pretty serious).

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Going to -10 wasn't a house-rule in 1E. It is on page 82 in the 1E DMG.

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Hm, I don't remember that from 1E at all. As far back as I can remember in any group I was in, being brought back from negative HP to positive HP meant the character was able to get up and do stuff. None of that coma stuff.

 

[Reynard]

But, even if you want a true-to-legend medieval European wizard, look elsewhere than D&D, Vancian is not going to cut it, not remotely.

I don't want that. I want a world that looks something like medieval Europe, and wizards that are rare because they either die young or sequester themselves away in their towers because research is much safer XP helps with that. Cantrips as they appear in 5e change everything if even 1st level casters are slightly less rare than 4 leaf clovers.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Hm, I don't remember that from 1E at all. As far back as I can remember in any group I was in, being brought back from negative HP to positive HP meant the character was able to get up and do stuff. None of that coma stuff.

Yep. That was why you needed to keep ahead of damage with healing, instead of doing the 5e whack-a-mole.

...OK... fine, there's a difference I admitted to.

I don't want that. I want a world that looks something like medieval Europe, and wizards that are rare because they either die young or sequester themselves away in their towers because research is much safer XP helps with that. Cantrips as they appear in 5e change everything if even 1st level casters are slightly less rare than 4 leaf clovers.

Might try Ars Magica, or Mage: Dark Ages.

OK, but seriously... cantrips aren't all that. If you can cast one Vancian spell, you're as conspicuously magical in setting terms as you are casting cantrips. Systematically using magic with no risk or cost is systematically using magic with no risk or cost, whether it's 1/day or 1/round hardly makes a difference at all in the grander scheme of things.

That said: banning cantrips, giving casters that lose 'em, say, X-bow proficiency if they don't already have it, not going to make a huge difference until some levels have gone by. Simply taking them away, not a huge issue, either: 5e casters have power & to spare. Plus, the lower-magic the setting, the greater the relative power of casters, so there's really no such thing as a nerf too far...

 

[Mort]

There's also the issue of casters: 5E casters are too capable, with too few restrictions on them and too many resources at their disposal. For certain kinds of fantasy, the squishy wizard with powerful but limited spells works much better in play and, IMO, helps maintain versimilitude in a setting meant to look something like our own European medieval period. It may mean that people don't want to play wizards, and that's okay, too. In this case, I am looking for fantasy so low its in the mud.

This is not my recollection of 2e at all, and I played A LOT of it in high school and college!

Once you got past the lower levels (where admittedly mages, at least, could have a rough time), casters were basically superheroes. The linear fighter, quadratic wizard was a huge issue back then. I remember getting access to stone skin: when the DM has to change his approach to encounters just to challenge 1 spell, there's a problem.

And once you got past those low levels, low magic as a setting ceases to exist for the players - casters had access to too much.

Now if you dump/nerf casters, maybe you'd get there.

 

[Mort]

I don't want that. I want a world that looks something like medieval Europe, and wizards that are rare because they either die young or sequester themselves away in their towers because research is much safer XP helps with that. Cantrips as they appear in 5e change everything if even 1st level casters are slightly less rare than 4 leaf clovers.

The problem is, it doesn't really matter how rare wizards are in the world if the party has 1 or more of them.

That said, published 2e settings and adventures had wizards be anything but rare - they were around every corner.

 

[Xaelvaen]

One of the reasons I initially liked 5th Edition is how, to me, it felt a lot like 2E. Second Edition was what I call my "formative" edition. It wasn't my introduction to D&D (that was the BECMI line). I came to it after a brief stint with 1E -- we played BECMI for a long time before discovering AD&D and 2E came out within a few months of that discovery -- but 2E WAS D&D from 1989 to 1999. Through it I played my most memorable and affecting campaigns in both high school and after, and through it I fell in love with the world of Dragonlance.

After a few years of running 5E on and off, and bouncing off of it more than once, I have started to wonder if I should give 2E another try. If nothing else, I will find out whether it is merely nostalgia pulling me back toward level limits and non-weapon proficiencies. I feel like I want to return to that world of faux medieval fantasy, unburdened by the d20 era and its excesses.

Has anyone else returned to 2E since adopting 5E, or even since 3.x/Pathfinder? What was your experience? Is there more there than nostalgia?

Absolutely have, and will again. After playing 5E, some of the odd mechanics of 2E certainly take some effort to enjoy again, but it is mostly all the wonderful modular character creation of 2E that has me still enjoying it. Kits, multi-classing vs. dual-classing, and the ability to create your own class with the point buy supplement (forget the name of it, but somewhere in my 2E archive). It was my formative edition, and like you, I believed it would be purely nostalgia making me remember it fondly - however, upon practice, it didn't end up feeling that way at all.

I'll admit to 20+ years of house rules being involved there - things made up by my DM from highschool that just made a lot of sense, and we carried over (like level restriction removal, to name one off the top of my head).

 

[Azzy]

I don't want that. I want a world that looks something like medieval Europe, and wizards that are rare because they either die young or sequester themselves away in their towers because research is much safer XP helps with that. Cantrips as they appear in 5e change everything if even 1st level casters are slightly less rare than 4 leaf clovers.

Wizards dying young or choosing to research rather than adventure doesn't make for a good player experience. If you want wizards to be rare in your campaign/setting, that's entirely in your hands. All you need to do is say that only PCs and important NPCs can be wizards, and *boom* that's it. I've been doing this since the early 90s when I decided that I didn't like the idea of spellcasting priests (and wizards) being as ubiquitous as they are protrayed in setting books.

 

[Bacon Bits]

I have a lot of nostalgia for 1e/2e AD&D, basic D&D and OD&D. Out of all the rules, there's only one that keeps me from playing it ever again: Descending armor class. Everything else I can deal with. I'm never going to put up with the attack roll -- the most basic roll in the entire game -- being even slightly more complicated than it is in 3e+. I don't care if the DM is willing to completely handle the charts or run THAC0. It's not happening.

It's not that I think it's difficult. It's not difficult. It's needlessly cumbersome. It's rolled sometimes upwards of a dozen times in a single combat round, and it's needlessly cumbersome! It's the single most severe design flaw of all 20th century RPGs. It touches every PC, NPC, and monster in the game. Hard pass.

I'm not wasting my time recalculating all those ACs to ascending, either. The nostalgia is simply not worth the time.