D&D General The Rules Cyclopedia - Unlearning Dnd Preconceptions from a 3e player

[ccs]

It didn't used to be, before WotC put up a print version on DriveThru. If you didn't want to drop a mint plus shipping on Ebay, the only way to get your hands on an RC was to get really lucky at a game shop or a secondhand bookstore.

Trust me, there were PDFs & files of it out there looong before that.

 

[jeffh]

Alignment Languages still existed in 1e AD&D. P. 34 of the 1st edition Player's Handbook.

It was quietly dropped in AD&D 2e, probably because nobody ever really used them.

"Still"? AD&D 1st Edition predates BECMI, as others have already gone over in more detail. This particular compilation came out about the same time 2nd Edition started, but even the original boxed sets it compiled were from several years after the three core AD&D1 books. The later ones were roughly contemporaneous with Unearthed Arcana.

 

[Ath-kethin]

Hiya!

Wow. Talk about different strokes and all that! Personally I consider the slightly modified DD combat "To Hit" determination to be one of it's better modifications!

For those that don't know, here's how you figure if you hit or not:

1d20 + Adjustments + Opponents AC >= 20, then you Hit

Example: You swing your sword. You roll 1d20 and get 14. You have a +2 for Strength, so 16. You are also a 4th level Fighter, so you have a "Base Attack Bonus" of +2, so you are at 18 now. Your opponents AC is 4, so you have 22. You hit. ... ... ... in other words, if your opponents AC was 1 or better, you'd miss.

That said, you could always just use the Attack Charts from the BX/BECMI/RC books in stead and ignore the BAB for the DD classes. Wouldn't change a thing.

For those that want a physical copy of the Rules Cyclopedia...well, hope you have deep pockets, because the typical price for even a "Fair" condition is a bit lower than $200. So...yeah. PoD of DD will be $15 ($26 for Hardback; $90 for Hardback, full colour on premium paper...which, I must say, is of VERY high quality! ).

^_^

Paul L. Ming

But here's the issue: changing the combat system to a different counterintuitive methodology, one not used by ANY other games, makes it that much harder to use the countless volumes of material available through the years.

I can take my footnoted RC and use it easily along adventures published for OD&D, BECMI, AD&D, 2e, Basic Fantasy, DCC, Swords & Wizardry, and dozens of others with minimal fuss. To use any of those with DD, I'd have to either a) convert both DD and the module to a simple additive system or B) footnote DD to THAC0 or similar to use it.

Dark Dungeons is one of the most disappointing TTRPG purchases I've ever made, and I wish I'd read the combat section more closely before I bought the hardcover. Such a letdown for an otherwise great book.

Also, the RC is available PoD through DriveThru, for a price comparable to Dark Dungeons. While it really wish I still had my 1st printing copy I picked up in the back of a pawn shop for like $15 in 1995, the PoD is more than serviceable and costs WAY less than buying one now.

 

[dave2008]

So I got a chance to borrow my friend's Rules Cyclopedia recently (which as far as I understand it is the collection of all of the Box sets back in the day, I believe before 2e came out). Though I played a little 2e, I never "looked under the hood" of the game before 3e....so it was really neat to see some of the early rules for the game. It was cool to see how some things evolved, and honestly....I found some rules that I thought were pretty good even today. So here are a few general notes and interesting things:

I think others have touched on this, but I just wanted to point out the Rules Cyclopedia compiled the Dungeons and Dragons rules, not the Advanced Dungeon and Dragons rules. They were different product lines until 3e came out. 2e was strictly a AD&D product.

 

[Voadam]

For those that want a physical copy of the Rules Cyclopedia...well, hope you have deep pockets, because the typical price for even a "Fair" condition is a bit lower than $200. So...yeah. PoD of DD will be $15 ($26 for Hardback; $90 for Hardback, full colour on premium paper...which, I must say, is of VERY high quality! ).

You can also directly order a POD of the Rules Cyclopedia itself, $21 for a softcover, $26 for a hardcover (add $2 more to combo with the PDF).

 

[dave2008]

1) Alignment: As much as we like to talk about the "9 alignments" as a sacred cow, it actually was just Law, Neutral, and Chaos back then. It seems that Law was "Big L, little g" and Chaos was "Big C, little e".

Just to clarify, but 1e and 2e AD&D used the 9 alignment system. D&D (B, BX, BECMI, rules cyclopedia) had the 3 alignment system.

2) As we talk about bounded accuracy today, there are several places where I find it interesting how much more "bounded" the game was back then. Some examples:

a) Ability scores were more spread out. You had to get very higher scores just to get even a +2 or +3, and you didn't go above 18.
9-12 +0
13-15 +1
16-17 +2
18 +3

I've thought about going to 16 max score for humans to go back to +3 max. We currently use 18 max, so it is no much different.

.c) Hitpoints were tighter. Fighters only had d8 hp, and you only gained a single HP at 9th and beyond.

This was also an AD&D thing. We are probably going to go back to something similar in our next 5e campaign. Our current idea is standard HP until lvl 10 and then at 11+ you get the following based on your class HD (with no CON bonus):
d6 = 1hp
d8 = 2hp
d10 = 3hp
d12 = 4hp

I think if you do this, higher CR monsters in 5e are more effective for most groups.

8) Its no wonder that nature clerics and druids have overlap nowadays, as back then a druid was simply a "prestige class" for a cleric.

I personally prefer druids as a subclass of cleric

19) The Monster Reaction and Morale tables are actually very simple and yet I really like how they make encounters more organic. Monster reactions showcases things like animals that may not be hostile due to certain circumstances, and morale gives you reasonable "checkpoints" on when to consider if a monster should just leave a fight. Its very clear that back then, it was more common for monsters to leave the battlefield than to just get killed.

There is a moral variant rule in the 5e DMG. But I agree it be nice if it was a line in the stat block, even if it is clearly an optional rule. It makes it clear that is an option.

 

[Shadow Over Mystara]

Great post, it's a masterpiece!

1) Alignment: As much as we like to talk about the "9 alignments" as a sacred cow, it actually was just Law, Neutral, and Chaos back then. It seems that Law was "Big L, little g" and Chaos was "Big C, little e".

I'd rather drop the alignment system from the game altogether, but this was always my favorite way to implement it. I would just add one more: Unaligned, which would be the default for most PCs and NPCs alike. Paladins would be Lawful, Druids would be Neutral, and Clerics would match their patron deity, because that's a big part of what those classes are about, but everyone else would just be Unaligned unless a PC specifically requested an alignment.

2) As we talk about bounded accuracy today, there are several places where I find it interesting how much more "bounded" the game was back then. Some examples:

a) Ability scores were more spread out. You had to get very higher scores just to get even a +2 or +3, and you didn't go above 18.
9-12 +0
13-15 +1
16-17 +2
18 +3

b) Many more things used static rolls instead of adding in ability scores. Several skills, initiative, surprise, even your saving throws were almost entirely dependent on level than on your ability scores.

c) Hitpoints were tighter. Fighters only had d8 hp, and you only gained a single HP at 9th and beyond.

Personally I much preferred that approach to ability scores. I get why we moved away from it but I think the 3e-5e system of getting an additional +1 every other point, and having those modifiers apply to many more things, is LESS needed in 3e-5e due to skills, feats, subclasses, and other customization options that weren't around in previous editions.

And hit point progression plateauing at "Name" level was like the E6 (I guess it would be E9?) of the old days! I'd like to see it brought back.

9) It was interesting to read the "Mystic" which is the original monk. The monk honestly hasn't changed nearly as much as I had expected, and many of its current abilities you can see traces of in the original class.

Still the best name for it IMO!

18) Initiative was very different back then. It was a simple d6 and done by each group. The ideas of adding dex to the roll and rolling it per person were actually optional variants at that time. So was surprise, there was again no perception check back then just a simple d6 done by both sides. I like the simplicity of it, but considering how deadly surprise can be its probably a good idea they changed it.

19) The Monster Reaction and Morale tables are actually very simple and yet I really like how they make encounters more organic. Monster reactions showcases things like animals that may not be hostile due to certain circumstances, and morale gives you reasonable "checkpoints" on when to consider if a monster should just leave a fight. Its very clear that back then, it was more common for monsters to leave the battlefield than to just get killed.

20) Weapon Speed did exist in a very simplified version: Ranged Attacks went first, then Spells, then melee weapons.

I love all of these and hope they come back in some form! Initiative by side, with weapon speed determining order, was elegant in being simple yet still encouraging the PCs to coordinate in battle.

And not only does a morale system just make sense, even in a fictional fantasy setting, it goes really well with XP-for-treasure. I'd like combat to be an interesting and an assumed part of the game, yet still have it be an obstacle to the ultimate goal rather than the goal itself.

23) THAC0 tables really are as nasty as I remember

The one change I would make to any of the editions prior to 3e.

25) But at high levels, the opposite is true—high-level characters almost always make saves, and this didn't change until 3rd edition borked the saving throw math for ever afterward. And you'll notice that dwarves and halflings hit those good save numbers way sooner than everybody else, followed by fighters next—fighters being able to make most saving throws is one of their hidden bits of awesomeness (along with their use of magic swords) that makes a "plain" looking class actually rock the house in Basic when played rules-as-written! (Even if you don't use Weapon Mastery!)

Great point, this is probably part of why BECMI/RC Fighter always seemed the least generic to me. As in all editions it was still a simple class, but out-of-the-box I felt it had more flavor than usual.

 

[Voadam]

Just to clarify, but 1e and 2e AD&D used the 9 alignment system. D&D (B, BX, BECMI, rules cyclopedia) had the 3 alignment system.

The first one, the Holmes Basic set, actually had a five alignment set up of LG, LE, N, CG, CE which you can also see in the 1e AD&D MM.

 

[Weiley31]

I wouldn't mind playing Rules Cyclopedia/BECMI honestly. Course I'd be crazy enough to add in the four Creature Crucible Gazeteer's playable monster races in as well.

Then again, this is also coming from a guy who would play Lamentations of the Flame Princess using the Rules Cyclopedia rules/add-ons while ALSO ALLOWING the Creature Crucible Gazeteer's playable monsters races in as well.

 

[el-remmen]

It didn't used to be, before WotC put up a print version on DriveThru. If you didn't want to drop a mint plus shipping on Ebay, the only way to get your hands on an RC was to get really lucky at a game shop or a secondhand bookstore.

I got mine used off eBay in 2009 for $25 (including shipping). But I remember looking for a second copy soon after and the cheapest copies I found were already more than double that. I just looked and the cheapest one I found was around 80 bucks, but most were $100 or more.