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D&D Older Editions
What does AD&D 2E do better than 5E?
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<blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9010699" data-attributes="member: 6799660"><p>At the same time, magic items (or special regular items) can make less of a difference (to combat effectiveness or anything else), which means you can have more of them to play around with. 5e has compressed the total range of scores and simplified the mechanics where advantage/disadvantage cover many situations. That's usually good, but when you <em>want</em> to hand out tiny little bonuses, it can be a problem. </p><p></p><p>Best example might be 2E Thief abilities and the equipment section of the <em>Complete Thieves' Handbook</em>. There are all sorts of items like tar paper to quietly break glass windows and hand-warming lamps to help pick locks in the cold and dog pepper to evade being tracked and all sorts of bits and bobs which give +1-5% to your percentile chances or alter specific checks under super-specific circumstances. Towards the tail-end of my original time with 2E, I dismissed such things as 'faffing around at the margins, rather than addressing the actual issues [that being a thief in TSR-era A/D&D kinda sucked, also that you just have to convince your DM that a roll isn't called for in a given circumstance and you've probably contributed more to your overall success than all that special equipment ever would].' Thing is, and I realize this now, a certain type of gamer really likes that faffing about and minutiae-focus, and it works much better when it's 1-3% (that the system has room to accommodate) than if it is truly immaterial (except for roleplay). </p><p></p><p>Same is true for the magic items. Because AC is 10 thru -20 or whatever and your fighter's modified ThAC0 changes 20+ point over 20 levels, you as the DM can hand out an toe-ring of +1 AC here and a merit-badge of +1-to-hit there; along with (because there are so many sub-components of skill and attribute checks, which in 5e are rolled up into something simpler) weight belts of +5% bend bars/lift gates and blessings of +3% system shock checks and snorkels of +3 ocean swimming and so on.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Willie the Duck, post: 9010699, member: 6799660"] At the same time, magic items (or special regular items) can make less of a difference (to combat effectiveness or anything else), which means you can have more of them to play around with. 5e has compressed the total range of scores and simplified the mechanics where advantage/disadvantage cover many situations. That's usually good, but when you [I]want[/I] to hand out tiny little bonuses, it can be a problem. Best example might be 2E Thief abilities and the equipment section of the [I]Complete Thieves' Handbook[/I]. There are all sorts of items like tar paper to quietly break glass windows and hand-warming lamps to help pick locks in the cold and dog pepper to evade being tracked and all sorts of bits and bobs which give +1-5% to your percentile chances or alter specific checks under super-specific circumstances. Towards the tail-end of my original time with 2E, I dismissed such things as 'faffing around at the margins, rather than addressing the actual issues [that being a thief in TSR-era A/D&D kinda sucked, also that you just have to convince your DM that a roll isn't called for in a given circumstance and you've probably contributed more to your overall success than all that special equipment ever would].' Thing is, and I realize this now, a certain type of gamer really likes that faffing about and minutiae-focus, and it works much better when it's 1-3% (that the system has room to accommodate) than if it is truly immaterial (except for roleplay). Same is true for the magic items. Because AC is 10 thru -20 or whatever and your fighter's modified ThAC0 changes 20+ point over 20 levels, you as the DM can hand out an toe-ring of +1 AC here and a merit-badge of +1-to-hit there; along with (because there are so many sub-components of skill and attribute checks, which in 5e are rolled up into something simpler) weight belts of +5% bend bars/lift gates and blessings of +3% system shock checks and snorkels of +3 ocean swimming and so on. [/QUOTE]
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What does AD&D 2E do better than 5E?
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