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General Tabletop Discussion
D&D Older Editions
Thinking of doing up some 2e house rules.
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<blockquote data-quote="Orius" data-source="post: 6141329" data-attributes="member: 8863"><p>Ok, on to classes.</p><p></p><p>I'd simplify the warrior melee attacks per round to 2 attacks at level 7 and 3 attacks at level 13. The whole 3 attacks per 2 rounds bit was more complicated than it needed to be and really switching this to whole numbers shouldn't be overpowered when compared to the abilities wizards and priests have access to at these levels.</p><p></p><p>Otherwise, I see no need to make big changes to fighters and paladins.</p><p></p><p>Rangers on the other hand could use a bit of tweaking. I'd probably remove alignment restrictions like 3e did and have the class be the expert hunter rather than the wilderness protector. I'd adjust the species enemy ability. In 2e, it only works against 1 specific monster which is a limited compared to the giant class bonuses from 1e or the favored enemies from 3e. I'm not entirely sure how I want to approach it though.</p><p></p><p>Wizards I'll probably treat like a single class like 3e does. 2e was already moving toward that approach as the edition progressed and the 2e and 3e wizard is about 90% identical anyway. The biggest difference is 3e applying feats to the class. I might dial back the ability score requirements for the specialists but not remove them completely. I'll also let the player choose the opposition schools, the fixed opposition schools from 2e were kind of arbitrary. They also didn't properly reflect the schools' actual power either, why for example did Illusion have 3 opposition schools? I assume it's a holdover from 1e's illusionist which I understand was more powerful than the MU, but the 2e illusionist isn't really all that powerful. Anyway, choosing opposition schools will be similar to 3.0's approach which recognized that some schools were stronger than others and had more restrictions (3.5's flat two schools ignore how some schools are better than others). Bascially each school is worth a certain number of "points" and to specialize in it, a wizard needs to give up at least 2 (Divination only requires 1) schools that have an equal or greater number of points. </p><p></p><p>Divination: 1</p><p>Abjuration, Necromancy: 2</p><p>Enchantment/Charm, Illusion/Phantasm: 3</p><p>Conjuration/Summoning, Invocation/Evocation: 4</p><p>Alteration: 5</p><p></p><p>No Greater or Lesser Divination silliness either. That was just a kludge to make sure all wizards got <em>detect magic</em> and <em>read magic</em>. Divination is a single school, and the Universal magic school from Spells and Magic will be used instead.</p><p></p><p>Priests first and foremost would get the sphere fixes from Spells and Powers, as well as the Tome of Magic spheres mentioned in the Priest's Spell Compendium (Wards and either Law or Chaos depending on alignment for clerics, Travelers for druids and rangers, and Law for paladins).</p><p></p><p>I probably wouldn't tweak anything else for clerics. Druids I'd probably expand alignment to at least NG and NE, and I'd get rid of the level restrictions that require the druid to fight higher level druids to advance.</p><p></p><p>Thieves won't get too many changes. I'm thinking of letting aplayer choose 8 starting abilities including some of the new thief abilties introduced in Skills and Powers for more customization options. Then let the thief add new abilities gradually at higher levels. High Level Campaigns adds all the S&P abilities at once at level 21, but that's a bit high. I would restrict the detect magic and detect illusion abilties to higher levels though (that is a thief don't get to take them at level 1, but can learn them later). I'd probably treat the Backstab ability much like 3e's Sneak Attack for clarity, that is the sorts of situations where Backstab applies.</p><p></p><p>Bard would probably get a spell list tweak. The RAW lets the bard pretty much learn any wizard spell, which is a bit powerful for the class. I'd probably use the Player's Option school of Song as a baseline for the bard, and probably let the class freely choose from Enchantment and Illusion (though a lot of the spells in Song come fromthose two schools to begin with).</p><p></p><p>Finally, there's the whole matter of dealing with 2e's multi- and dual-classing rules, which are kind of arbitrary.</p><p></p><p>I have a bigger problem with dual-classing that multi-classing. For one, it's pretty restrictive: you need a 15 prime requisite in your first class, and a 17 prime requisite in the new class just to do it. Then there's the whole can't use abilities from a previous class or you get massively penalized on XP bit. The RAW tries to rationalize it as gimping the learning process, but it's honestly a bit too restrictive, and why do demihumans have no problem using more than one class at once?</p><p></p><p>I think I'll kind of combine the two, using the multi-classing as a baseline. The rest goes like this:</p><p></p><p>Humans can't start as multi-classed characters. Demihumans can because they have longer lifespans (and thus the time to train multiple casses to level 1), and/or a natural affinity for certain classes (thus halfling fighter/thief, or dwarf fighter/cleric, frex).</p><p></p><p>Any character can add a multi-class after level 1. There are no ability score requirement other than the class minimums. Demihumans are restricted to adding a class only in their given multi-class combinations. </p><p></p><p>Humans can multi-class with up to three classes. They can pick any combination of fighter, ranger, wizard, cleric, druid, or thief, but cannot have more than one class from the same class group. Paladins and bards cannot multiclass.</p><p></p><p>If a new class is chosen after level one, previous class abilities can still be freely used. XP is simply divied equally among the classes like a typical multi-classed character.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Orius, post: 6141329, member: 8863"] Ok, on to classes. I'd simplify the warrior melee attacks per round to 2 attacks at level 7 and 3 attacks at level 13. The whole 3 attacks per 2 rounds bit was more complicated than it needed to be and really switching this to whole numbers shouldn't be overpowered when compared to the abilities wizards and priests have access to at these levels. Otherwise, I see no need to make big changes to fighters and paladins. Rangers on the other hand could use a bit of tweaking. I'd probably remove alignment restrictions like 3e did and have the class be the expert hunter rather than the wilderness protector. I'd adjust the species enemy ability. In 2e, it only works against 1 specific monster which is a limited compared to the giant class bonuses from 1e or the favored enemies from 3e. I'm not entirely sure how I want to approach it though. Wizards I'll probably treat like a single class like 3e does. 2e was already moving toward that approach as the edition progressed and the 2e and 3e wizard is about 90% identical anyway. The biggest difference is 3e applying feats to the class. I might dial back the ability score requirements for the specialists but not remove them completely. I'll also let the player choose the opposition schools, the fixed opposition schools from 2e were kind of arbitrary. They also didn't properly reflect the schools' actual power either, why for example did Illusion have 3 opposition schools? I assume it's a holdover from 1e's illusionist which I understand was more powerful than the MU, but the 2e illusionist isn't really all that powerful. Anyway, choosing opposition schools will be similar to 3.0's approach which recognized that some schools were stronger than others and had more restrictions (3.5's flat two schools ignore how some schools are better than others). Bascially each school is worth a certain number of "points" and to specialize in it, a wizard needs to give up at least 2 (Divination only requires 1) schools that have an equal or greater number of points. Divination: 1 Abjuration, Necromancy: 2 Enchantment/Charm, Illusion/Phantasm: 3 Conjuration/Summoning, Invocation/Evocation: 4 Alteration: 5 No Greater or Lesser Divination silliness either. That was just a kludge to make sure all wizards got [I]detect magic[/I] and [I]read magic[/I]. Divination is a single school, and the Universal magic school from Spells and Magic will be used instead. Priests first and foremost would get the sphere fixes from Spells and Powers, as well as the Tome of Magic spheres mentioned in the Priest's Spell Compendium (Wards and either Law or Chaos depending on alignment for clerics, Travelers for druids and rangers, and Law for paladins). I probably wouldn't tweak anything else for clerics. Druids I'd probably expand alignment to at least NG and NE, and I'd get rid of the level restrictions that require the druid to fight higher level druids to advance. Thieves won't get too many changes. I'm thinking of letting aplayer choose 8 starting abilities including some of the new thief abilties introduced in Skills and Powers for more customization options. Then let the thief add new abilities gradually at higher levels. High Level Campaigns adds all the S&P abilities at once at level 21, but that's a bit high. I would restrict the detect magic and detect illusion abilties to higher levels though (that is a thief don't get to take them at level 1, but can learn them later). I'd probably treat the Backstab ability much like 3e's Sneak Attack for clarity, that is the sorts of situations where Backstab applies. Bard would probably get a spell list tweak. The RAW lets the bard pretty much learn any wizard spell, which is a bit powerful for the class. I'd probably use the Player's Option school of Song as a baseline for the bard, and probably let the class freely choose from Enchantment and Illusion (though a lot of the spells in Song come fromthose two schools to begin with). Finally, there's the whole matter of dealing with 2e's multi- and dual-classing rules, which are kind of arbitrary. I have a bigger problem with dual-classing that multi-classing. For one, it's pretty restrictive: you need a 15 prime requisite in your first class, and a 17 prime requisite in the new class just to do it. Then there's the whole can't use abilities from a previous class or you get massively penalized on XP bit. The RAW tries to rationalize it as gimping the learning process, but it's honestly a bit too restrictive, and why do demihumans have no problem using more than one class at once? I think I'll kind of combine the two, using the multi-classing as a baseline. The rest goes like this: Humans can't start as multi-classed characters. Demihumans can because they have longer lifespans (and thus the time to train multiple casses to level 1), and/or a natural affinity for certain classes (thus halfling fighter/thief, or dwarf fighter/cleric, frex). Any character can add a multi-class after level 1. There are no ability score requirement other than the class minimums. Demihumans are restricted to adding a class only in their given multi-class combinations. Humans can multi-class with up to three classes. They can pick any combination of fighter, ranger, wizard, cleric, druid, or thief, but cannot have more than one class from the same class group. Paladins and bards cannot multiclass. If a new class is chosen after level one, previous class abilities can still be freely used. XP is simply divied equally among the classes like a typical multi-classed character. [/QUOTE]
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