What were the problems with 2nd ed?

[Stoat]

There's a lot I didn't like about 2E, mostly stuff covered above, but the core rules worked pretty well. My big beefs with the system are:

1) Rules bloat/Power Creep. 2E splatbooks were plentiful, and AFAICT, no effort was made to balance one against the others. I never used them, but my understanding is that the "Players' Option" books turned this problem up to 11.

2) In my experience, the game got kinda dull at higher levels. Because all monsters use mid-range Thac0 chart (the same as a Cleric), a well-armored party can become nigh-invulnerable. Because monsters don't get a con bonus to hit points, even high-level opponents are pretty squishy. Generally, to my recollection, monster AC's are relatively poor, and higher-level fighters hit more or less at will. In short, I had a hard time challenging characters over about lvl 12.

 

[kenobi65]

First, there was the unified mechanic. That made it much easier to explain to new players how the game was played. In addition, a lot of other rules bits were cleaned up. For example, ability scores went to using a universal modifier rather than a number of different tables.

Similar to this was how 3E cleaned up the magic system, with a small, consistent number of ranges, AoE templates, etc. In 2E (and 1E before it), it was as though each spell was an independently-designed thing, with little consistency between spells on anything.

 

[tankschmidt]

Right off the bat, I want to say that I don't currently play 2nd edition AD&D, and it was never my D&D of choice, but some of the comments above need to be addressed.

One 'word': THAC0

Cute response, but in practice, THAC0 works out pretty much the same as BAB. Don't get me wrong, BAB is more elegant and is easier for beginners to grasp, but THAC0 alone is no reason to condemn a gaming system.

Spells were even more ridiculously overpowered than they were in 3e. Charm person on a low intelligence character would last for months for example...

That was kind of the point. You might have only gotten one spell as a 1st level wizard, but it was a pretty good spell. With these new editions, there's really not a lot of difference between spells and "TOB/4E powers" (I don't know what the actual term is - stances?) that everyone else gets in combat.

Some of the problems with 2e were the same with 1e, with the mechanics not being as elegant as they could be, six or seven different ways of doing what were very clsoely related things. There were times when you wanted to roll high, other times when you wanted to roll low, sometimes you were rolling percentiles for things, sometimes just a d6, or even rarely a d10 (surprise, for example).

That's definitely a taste issue. Some people (most on these boards, I assume) like a unified system, and some people find it too bland. Personally, I like rolling a d6 for surprise, a d6 for initiative, and a d6 to spot secret doors. I also like it when a DM asks you to roll a d10 but doesn't tell you why. Then you know you're in trouble.

Then there were the kits.

You won't get an argument from me here. Kits added nothing but power creep.

Then there were all the settings...

They did fracture the market, but they don't make 2nd edition any less of a system.

Oh, lordie, where to start?
* Only demihumans can multiclass
* Demihumans have limits as to the level they can attain in several classes (though, for some reason, never thief), sometimes quite low.

These rules lead to frequent arguments among players of older editions. Some like 'em, and some don't. If you don't like level limits, a 10-15% experience penalty for demihumans works just fine.

* Armor Class goes from 10 to -10, 10 being your bare skin.

I'll admit that ascending ACs are easier for beginners to grasp, but like THAC0 vs. BAB it's really not a big deal.

* There's something like 9 different saving throws types, each different for every class.

Actually, there are five saves. The nice thing about them is that they don't depend ability scores.

* Clerics might as well never take any spells but healing spells. They can't switch out spells.

Even at low levels, bless, prayer, and chant are worth much more than a little healing.

* You stop gaining hit dice after your 'name' level but that doesn't much matter since the XP tables roughly double the number of XP you need for each level; by the time you're worrying about not getting hit dice anymore you're up in the millions of XP. Very few people ever saw past about 12th level in a normal campaign. That took about 12-20 months to attain

I thought we were talking about what was wrong with 2nd edition!

Magic items were not all that rare if you used the treasure you see in modules as an example; usually it was chock full of magic items. Mainly because unlike 3E, many monsters in 2E are invulnerable to weapons that are not over a certain '+' value.

I agree that there was way too much treasure in printed modules. In fact, if the original poster wants a good point for his bullet list, 2nd edition AD&D modules were for the most part really bad and extremely railroady. When 3rd edition came out, and they were claiming to go "back to the dungeon," I was pretty excited.

- too long rounds (1 arrow per 20 seconds?)

I thought they were 10 seconds? I might be remembering wrong.

- overpowered multiclassing

In my experience, multiclassed characters were generally weaker than single-classed. They took twice as long to gain levels and generally had fewer hit points.

- very deadly monsters without a real way to protect/heal yourself (energy drains, stat drains, aging, death poisons)

Um... run? The best monsters are the ones you are afraid of - or at least you are afraid to go toe-to-toe with.

- extreme dependency on stats (fighter with 18 strength was a lot better than one with 17 str)

You'll get no argument from me on this one. There's always been way too much power-creep through high stats.

Awkward multiclassing/dualclassing rules.

These were intended to discourage multi-classing and preserve the archetypes of the game. 2nd edition players didn't have to suffer through endless multiclassing and "builds." The game was better for not having fighter4/bard1/demon sorcerer6/master of chains 12 or what have you.

Limited extra options for characterisation with no prestige classes, no feats.

Mechanical characterization, yes. Although I have no love for kits/prestige classes, and I've always seen feats as a list of 1,000 things your character cannot do.

Psionics really were busted back in 2e.

I can't comment; psionics don't exist in my campaigns.

Druids having to replace their superiors to gain a level.

A cool piece of flavor and a great reason for a high-level adventure.

Death and dying rules are a lot harsher. Hit 0 hp? You're dead.

We definitely played with death at -10 hp. It must have been an optional rule in the DMG. One of the things I disagree with the 4E designers with is death. They seem to think that death is a problem with the game instead of part of the game.

There are fewer hard-and-fast rules for skill adjudication, which leads to a lot of inconsistency.

Some might say that there too many of these rules in AD&D. It's a matter of taste.

Only the thief and ranger have thief-style skills readily available, and they use a wacky percentage-based, conditional system. Want to hide or sneak as a cleric? Better hope the situation is right and the DM's feeling accommodating.

Percentage-based thief skills have been a pain since Greyhawk. The d20 system actually works quite well for them, although I'd prefer some good d6 rolling with situational modifiers.

There are different XP tables for each class. (The unified progression, along with the unified d20 + modifier mechanic, were the 'Hallelujah!' moments for me when 3e was released.) XP is handed out not only for combat, but also for various class-based goals, which, while a nice idea, leads to a lot of disparity in advancement.

I love different XP tables for each class - it makes balance so much easier. I never understood why they made them unified, except to encourage multiclassing.

Initiative is rolled anew every round. In theory, this makes for more dynamic combat. In practice, it bogs things down significantly, and causes a lot of confusion.
Weapons have "speeds" which affect initiative, as do casting times on spells.

Oh man, if your 2nd edition combats are taking half as long as they would in 3E, you are doing something wrong! First off, drop the weapon speed and casting time effects on initiative posthaste!

 

[withak]

Oh man, if your 2nd edition combats are taking half as long as they would in 3E, you are doing something wrong! First off, drop the weapon speed and casting time effects on initiative posthaste!

Preaching to the choir, man. I'm not the DM.

 

[tankschmidt]

No real skill system. You had options for secondary skills and such but they were poorly defined, lacked a breadth of choice, and ultimately were a disaster of game design. So much so that I don't think I ever played with a single group that used them in actual play. If they had wanted to add skills as an option, they should have just added skills, not one-off nebulous abilities that sort of mimicked skills but only made sense with a lot of handwaving.

I don't completely agree with you here because I think D&D works fine with no skill system. But the problem was the tacked-on system of NWPs. They were just miserable, only half were useful, and they could have just been replaced with character background + ability check.

The removal of races and classes considered to be "standard" D&D by that time (Assassins, Half-orcs, etc). Sure, the changes were justified in official settings, but since most people I knew didn't play in official settings, this justification was worthless. The lack of those races and classes just meant that a lot of people playing in campaigns that contained them stuck with the AD&D 1e rules.

You are dead on here. 100% bad move.

1) Rules bloat/Power Creep. 2E splatbooks were plentiful, and AFAICT, no effort was made to balance one against the others. I never used them, but my understanding is that the "Players' Option" books turned this problem up to 11.

That's a definite problem that has happened in several editions of D&D (Greyhawk/Blackmoor supplements, 1985 Unearthed Arcana, Complete series, Players Option, most of 3.x). Player's Option: Combat and Tactics was the worst book I ever bought from TSR, and I bought a lot of them. As far as I could tell, the purpose of that book was to make combat take five times as long. And don't even get me started on Skills and Powers...

Similar to this was how 3E cleaned up the magic system, with a small, consistent number of ranges, AoE templates, etc. In 2E (and 1E before it), it was as though each spell was an independently-designed thing, with little consistency between spells on anything.

Are you claiming this inconsistency is a bad thing or a good thing? I'd say good.

 

[Clavis]

2nd Edition suffered from including all of the worst parts of 1st Edition AD&D, while removing the soul and charm that made AD&D great. It kept the messy mechanics, but took away the adult-oriented sword and sorcery aspects (assassins, half-orcs with questionable origins, nekkid succubi, etc.) Gygax wrote the AD&D books with a certain charm, from one gamer to a fellow gamer. 2nd Edition cemented the trend of sanitized, boring rulebooks that read like they were run past a corperate focus group before being released.

The other big problem with 2nd Edition was the power creep that started with the introduction of kits. Unfortunately, the worst of the 2nd Edition power creep (Skills & Powers) was taken as a primary inspiration for 3rd Edition design.

Of course, unlike 3rd Edition, 2nd Edition could still be easily modified and customized without breaking the system entirely.

 

[Delta]

Ok, Clavis is the first person here I sort of agree with. Coming from the other direction from 1E, I thought 2E was a huge step down, and I skipped it. To me, 3E looks more like 1E, between that and the OGL, that's why I came back.

I fundamentally like 1E mechanics. 2E took that and just steamed out all the interesting parts of 1E, leaving it bland and white-washed. Things such as:
- Taking out Gygax's voice, anecdotes, and behind-the-curtain "why this way?" discussions.
- Wiping out novel races & classes like half-orcs, assassins, monks, and bards.
- Wiping out dark monsters like Demons & Devils and related spells.
- Power-inflating giants & dragons on poorly considered grounds.
- Completely hand-waving magic item construction.

The funny thing is that I think the "core mechanic" change from THACO is one of the most minor, unimportant changes in the game. It's mathematically identical, so I never thought it was important. I had an "attack bonus" scribbled in my 1E books long before 3E came around, so I don't really consider any of that a change in how the game played out. (In fact, I think downward-scaling AC works better with attack bonuses because then everything's purely additive.)

 

[MichaelK]

These were intended to discourage multi-classing and preserve the archetypes of the game.

And they did so poorly IMO.

2nd edition players didn't have to suffer through endless multiclassing and "builds." The game was better for not having fighter4/bard1/demon sorcerer6/master of chains 12 or what have you.

Actually I agree. I like simple use of the 3e multiclassing/prestige rules, not leaping about like a frantic grass hopper. I absolutely hate the idea of builds and I think they go against everything that multiclassing is about. Multiclassing is about being free to change your mind and try different things as your character's story progresses. Building the exact path of your character for the next 20 levels defeats the whole point for me.

Mechanical characterization, yes. Although I have no love for kits/prestige classes, and I've always seen feats as a list of 1,000 things your character cannot do.

Having a class, attributes or THAC0 is a mechanical characterization. Unless you advocate a system with no distinguishing mechanical traits it's obvious that some mechanical characterization is good. The question is how much. I personally like a little more than 2nd edition provided.

I can't comment; psionics don't exist in my campaigns.

Often a wise decision. I used to run dark sun however so it wasn't really an option.

A cool piece of flavor and a great reason for a high-level adventure.

It crosses the 4th wall a bit too much for me, but I do like the idea behind it, just not the implementation.

I love different XP tables for each class - it makes balance so much easier.

Me too.

Oh man, if your 2nd edition combats are taking half as long as they would in 3E, you are doing something wrong!

Frankly I think if people's 3E combats are lasting as long as people imply they are doing something wrong. On average my 3E combats take 1 minute per round.

 

[Voadam]

Problems with 2e:

Ability score bonuses being wildly skewed to extreme scores with middle range ones being fairly meaningless.

THACO and AC being counterintuitive math.

Different xp amounts needed for different classes to level.

Nonintuitive save classifications (e.g. spell vs. wand vs. petrification)

Different mechanics for task resolution (roll high for saves and attacks, roll low for skills, init; roll a d20 for attacks and saves and ability checks, d10 for init, % for rogue skills and bend bars, various dies for surprise and damage, etc.).

Monsters only having int as an attribute.

Contradictory definitions of infravision and its capabilities.

Lack of balance among classes.

Lack of balance among races.

Racial multi/dual classing and level limits.

Intense requirements for minor item creation.

Random mage spell learning.

Priest sphere spells that don't fit class archetype.

Priest spell list expansion from noncore sources.

Variation in power of specialty priests.

Different rogue skills versus other skills.

Unclear how to handle touch type attacks.

Weapon immunities of many monsters being all or nothing.

 

[Delta]

Death and dying rules are a lot harsher. Hit 0 hp? You're dead. Our DMs have houseruled this to make characters below 6th level less death-prone by adding negative hit point rules, but once you hit 6th level, you can no longer go negative...

Quick note: You really don't need to house-rule that, since there's an existing option (-10 hp for all) in the 2E DMG under "Combat > Character Death > Hovering on Death's Door". And that's largely the same as in the 1E DMG, too.