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<blockquote data-quote="Derro" data-source="post: 4120537" data-attributes="member: 51010">I gotta call you on this. There was a unarmed strike/wrestling table on the PHB combat section. Primitive by today's standards but did have flavorable desciptors like rabbit punch, haymaker, and bear hug (3 + Strength bonus damage!!!).The priest splat also featured a monk variant with unarmed combat rules. But that's a splat.The abundance of magic items was less of a problem than their unbalanced nature. They did have a scale of sorts but were often over-powered in some weird way or particularly useless. Especially when it came to items that had multiple functions.&nbsp; 2e's biggest downfall was incoherence. Even the core rules (PHB, DMG, MM) contradicted themselves in some cases and once the splats were introduced it was a downward spiral from there. The Player's Option revisions attempted to make some things more coherent and even introduced elements present in 3e (AoO, unified combat maneuvers, etc.) but that stuff was really a last stab for a dying system.The best thing that can be said about 2e is that it was a much more open game. There were less rules you had to follow to make the game playable. This openness was also one of its worst qualities because it gave rise to easy power-gaming and munchkinism. The GM had to have a much heavier hand to make 2e work but if everybody had a similar vision it sometimes did.I would not play 2e again but I do recognize it as a watermark for D&amp;D. It's just a watermark for both good and bad qualities.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Derro, post: 4120537, member: 51010"] I gotta call you on this. There was a unarmed strike/wrestling table on the PHB combat section. Primitive by today's standards but did have flavorable desciptors like rabbit punch, haymaker, and bear hug (3 + Strength bonus damage!!!). The priest splat also featured a monk variant with unarmed combat rules. But that's a splat. The abundance of magic items was less of a problem than their unbalanced nature. They did have a scale of sorts but were often over-powered in some weird way or particularly useless. Especially when it came to items that had multiple functions. 2e's biggest downfall was incoherence. Even the core rules (PHB, DMG, MM) contradicted themselves in some cases and once the splats were introduced it was a downward spiral from there. The Player's Option revisions attempted to make some things more coherent and even introduced elements present in 3e (AoO, unified combat maneuvers, etc.) but that stuff was really a last stab for a dying system. The best thing that can be said about 2e is that it was a much more open game. There were less rules you had to follow to make the game playable. This openness was also one of its worst qualities because it gave rise to easy power-gaming and munchkinism. The GM had to have a much heavier hand to make 2e work but if everybody had a similar vision it sometimes did. I would not play 2e again but I do recognize it as a watermark for D&D. It's just a watermark for both good and bad qualities. [/QUOTE]

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