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T O P I C    R E V I E W
ChieftainTwilight Posted - 10 May 2011 : 21:27:56
so, as I've mentioned before, I have been looking into 2nd edition AD&D stuff lately. I want to know how it plays, how it works, what it's like, etcetera. I'm alsointerested in playing some AD&D 2nd Edition.

well, as I looked into it what I've found so far has intrigued me. I was particularly interested in the Character Creation/Advancement rules. I realy like the whole Proficiencies system, and I think that I could make some very interesting character models in this system, complete with background history and personality from the get-go!

anywho, as I was comparing this system to 3rd Edition ad 3.5 Edition D&D I came to a startling epiphany. 3rd Edition and 3.5 Edition were completely redesigned because they were designed specifically around the Character Creation/Advancement process!

in 2nd Edition, you can train as a Fighter for your entire career and still gain Spellcasting and othr Mage abilities simply by picking up the Proficiency. you'd spend twice the normal cost on all those proficiencies, but you would continue o advance in HP and Base Attack as a Fighter. alternatively, you could dual-class as a Fighter/Mage and give up some of your HP and Base Attack in order to learn Spellcasting at normal cost.

3rd Edition saw the possibilities of breaking this down even further, so that every little aspect of a Character's training was represented individually in detail. Characters can freely Multiclass (though there is a Multiclass XP penalty for unbalanced Multiclassing) by taking every Class Level sepperately. they customize their training and talents with Skill Points, Feats, and Class Features attained at higher levels of any given Class. it's essentially a bunch of tech-trees and components.

anywho, looking at it from this comparative angle, I can understand why fans of 2nd Edition are so against 3rd Edition; they probably feel like it is missing so much of it's filling just to try t fix a system that wasn't even broken. personally for me, D&D has always been the most about Character Creation. I love coming u with new interesting Characters, and I experiment with possibilities all the time. but because of my love for Settings and Stories I also want to try out 2nd Edition. they are realy two different games entirely, and each one satisfies different needs and tastes.

so, yeh. I just wanted to share this revelation with everyone. if anyone else has anything to add to this, opinions or comments, I'd be glad to hear'em! :D
30   L A T E S T    R E P L I E S    (Newest First)
Faraer Posted - 27 May 2011 : 02:38:07
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay

And yet, conversely, magic and wizards are extremely rare in those 'pulpy' types of works, and are usually associated with evil. Almost universally (within that genre), Sorcerers are looked upon with suspicion, and are fairly rare.
In sword and sorcery, yes. Gary's main magical models, though, were the Dying Earth and the Harold Shea stories, whose protagonists are indeed more struggling journeyman than all-seeing archmage. On the other hand, his main PCs included Mordenkainen and Bigby.
quote:
My settings - even when I ran FR - were humanocentric.
So is the baseline Realms, of course, with ten times as many named human characters as any other race.
quote:
I try to keep some of the wonder in fantasy - I think people have become too jaded these days.
There's no question that blasé normalization of the Player's Handbook races was part of a progressive flattening disenchantment involving that grim, unsustainable race to ever more novel PC types.
ChieftainTwilight Posted - 26 May 2011 : 22:24:33
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay

I never said it was bad. I cited both the SW minis and Zombies games as examples of fun romps with no RPing involved. The 4e rules are somewhere between, me thinks. The RP elements are added by the group, rather then by the rules, and there is nothing wrong with that.

I just think that the less rules you have, the more you have to rely on the story-teller mode for gaming. PURE Story-teller is NOT my cup of tea, so equal amounts of crunch and fluff work for me... but everyone is different.

I never used level caps - I had other ways of controlling demi-human dominance in my early D&D games (prejudice being one of them). I also insisted upon patrons, trainers, Sages, and apprenticeships after a certain point in ALL classes; you can only learn so much on your own. Later, I stopped doing this, but no campaign I ran in 3e ever advanced enough for it to become an issue.

I still like Kits from 2e, but some of them were over-powered. I like it when they simply add some sort of starter benefit, and not something that helps a character throughout their careers. In 3e I boiled-down a few kits into background feats, which worked well (everyone got a FREE background Feat, along with the usual feat AND a racial Feat). Personally, I think a 3-tiered feat system could have easily replaced PrCs altogether. If I ever run another game, I may borrow from 4e's model (the 3 tiers of play) and have organization-Feats available at higher levels (stuff like Red Wizard, or Purple Dragon) - I've always been a big fan of path-based systems, and using 3e's feats (with prerequisites) could form a good base for a very dynamic system of skill-trees. Of course, as it is with CCG's, the more you layer a system with 'exceptions', the more errata you need because of unforeseen combinations (which 3e suffered from toward the end of its run).

In 2e I simply started people out at lev3 (I hate those low-powered early sessions - they are no fun for anyone) to give that same boost.



actually, I have called it bad since it first hit teh shelves. hell, I've hated it before then! XD

so, what I wa strying to say is that I have given up hating 4th edition.
Markustay Posted - 26 May 2011 : 14:45:37
And yet, conversely, magic and wizards are extremely rare in those 'pulpy' types of works, and are usually associated with evil. Almost universally (within that genre), Sorcerers are looked upon with suspicion, and are fairly rare.

I believe Gary was trying to capture the 'bumbling novice' aspect of wizardry with D&D PCs, rather then the all-powerful, uber-archmages they evolved into. I doubt they were ever supposed to dominate the game as they eventually did.

My settings - even when I ran FR - were humanocentric. City-folk may have become used to the sight of an occasional non-human, but most rural folks would stare at such 'mythical' creatures (like in Middle Earth, or Mithgar). A setting can be high-fantasy and still be humanocentric.

I played on this heavily back when I ran GH, but not so much when I ran FR. People in small villagers would make hex-signs and what-not when seeing an elf for the first time. This is how I countered the human 'limitation' in early D&D - with prejudice. Most Inns wouldn't even rent a room to such 'magical' (evil) folk.

I also ran my non-human cultures the same way (like in LotR), so the dislike was a two-way street. Only halflings were generally accepted by all, and even they were still stared at in rural human areas. I didn't use gnomes.... kinda redundant with both halflings and dwarves (if someone wanted to run one, I would say it was a crossbreed of those two groups).

In my HB setting, the theocratic empire persecutes non-humans, which is going back to my humanocentric roots. I try to keep some of the wonder in fantasy - I think people have become too jaded these days.
Faraer Posted - 26 May 2011 : 00:31:06
Gary made D&D to resemble, chiefly, the books that inspired him, largely mid-twentieth-century swords and sorcery and weird fantasy, in which humans were in the centre and nonhumans in the periphery if present at all. It would have been a different game altogether if he'd tried to create a settingless game equally suitable for all conceivable kinds of heroic fantasy.
Lord Karsus Posted - 23 May 2011 : 23:08:08
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

Because almost all fantasy settings have humans as the dominant race. Not necessarily the best at any one thing, but the most populous civilized race. By giving them the advantage as adventurers, you ensure that people will want to play humans. If humans had no advantages at all, then who would want to play them?

I'm not saying I agree with how it was implemented -- I think 3.x did a much better job at that. I'm just saying I understand the logic.



-That's what I figured at first. I don't like it, since we're dealing with abstract rules, sans setting. Looks like the rules were designed too much with setting in hand, it seems.
Wooly Rupert Posted - 23 May 2011 : 23:02:36
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Karsus

quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

The point was to keep humans dominant. The only thing humans had on any of the other races was the unlimited level advancement and ability to take any class. They had no other bonuses or racial abilities at all.



-Why, in game design, would you purposefully try/want to keep 'Human' as the dominant PC race?



Because almost all fantasy settings have humans as the dominant race. Not necessarily the best at any one thing, but the most populous civilized race. By giving them the advantage as adventurers, you ensure that people will want to play humans. If humans had no advantages at all, then who would want to play them?

I'm not saying I agree with how it was implemented -- I think 3.x did a much better job at that. I'm just saying I understand the logic.
Lord Karsus Posted - 23 May 2011 : 22:09:51
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

The point was to keep humans dominant. The only thing humans had on any of the other races was the unlimited level advancement and ability to take any class. They had no other bonuses or racial abilities at all.



-Why, in game design, would you purposefully try/want to keep 'Human' as the dominant PC race?
Alystra Illianniis Posted - 23 May 2011 : 21:13:50
To me, that never seemed to matter. Most other races had to wait so long to even become adults that the humans would just outbreed them anyway. Seems pretty "dominant" to me....
Wooly Rupert Posted - 23 May 2011 : 20:39:36
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Karsus

-What was the point of class level restrictions in 2e, anyway? Game balance doesn't really seem to justify it too much, from what little I know of those rules (it's not like the PC Elf race was "broken" or anything).



The point was to keep humans dominant. The only thing humans had on any of the other races was the unlimited level advancement and ability to take any class. They had no other bonuses or racial abilities at all.
Alystra Illianniis Posted - 23 May 2011 : 19:56:30
I never quite understood that, either, to be honest. One reason why I threw it out. Made no sense to me.
Lord Karsus Posted - 23 May 2011 : 19:47:43
-What was the point of class level restrictions in 2e, anyway? Game balance doesn't really seem to justify it too much, from what little I know of those rules (it's not like the PC Elf race was "broken" or anything).
Alystra Illianniis Posted - 23 May 2011 : 19:40:42
You know, I never used level OR class restrictions in my 2nd ed games, and never had a problem. The reason? Because when all is said and done, those elf or dwarf adventurers are still roaming the world long after their human companions have retired/died/whatever, but they get in most of their adventuring experience AT THE SAME TIME as those humans and others. So it evens out in the end. If your campaign only takes a few years of game-time, why is the elf in the party so slow to level? He shouldn't be, as he is going through the exact same experiences as the gnome or the human- or even a kobold, if the DM allows it. So I threw that rule right out the window- along with the one about elves or such not being druids or paladins. Really? Why the heck not? Seems to me that elves make better cruids anyway- they're closer to nature than most humans. And a dwarf could just as easily be a paladin to a human god (or any deity, for that matter) who has them as a human could- he'd just be seen as a little odd by his fellow paladins. Or maybe respected that much more for choosing the path over that of his kin. 'Tis the reason I created my gold half-dragon/elf bard/paladin Palaxendor. He was unique for the time, as he pretty much broke all the (then) rules, but was great fun to play, and still maintained the purity, flavor, and fun of his clas(es)! (He was a bard first, then became a knight to help protect his twin sister after a nasty run-in with some human bandits. They made their living as traveling musicians, but he became devoted to his faith after that incident.)
Lord Karsus Posted - 23 May 2011 : 19:38:45
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay

I just think that the less rules you have, the more you have to rely on the story-teller mode for gaming. PURE Story-teller is NOT my cup of tea, so equal amounts of crunch and fluff work for me... but everyone is different.


-Eh, I don't think that's necessarily true. I play only using 3e (3.5e, whatever), and 3e is generally cited as being very mechanically-oriented, and all of that. I'd like to think that my games are generally story-driven moreso than mechanically-oriented. I use the 3e rules as I know them (which, I've found out, is very incorrect, in many cases), and there's plenty of dice rolling and such, but...

quote:
Originally posted by Markustay

In 2e I simply started people out at lev3 (I hate those low-powered early sessions - they are no fun for anyone) to give that same boost.



-I do that in my game(s, when the plural was applicable). Level 1 is boring, and Level 2 almost as.
Markustay Posted - 23 May 2011 : 19:18:52
I never said it was bad. I cited both the SW minis and Zombies games as examples of fun romps with no RPing involved. The 4e rules are somewhere between, me thinks. The RP elements are added by the group, rather then by the rules, and there is nothing wrong with that.

I just think that the less rules you have, the more you have to rely on the story-teller mode for gaming. PURE Story-teller is NOT my cup of tea, so equal amounts of crunch and fluff work for me... but everyone is different.

I never used level caps - I had other ways of controlling demi-human dominance in my early D&D games (prejudice being one of them). I also insisted upon patrons, trainers, Sages, and apprenticeships after a certain point in ALL classes; you can only learn so much on your own. Later, I stopped doing this, but no campaign I ran in 3e ever advanced enough for it to become an issue.

I still like Kits from 2e, but some of them were over-powered. I like it when they simply add some sort of starter benefit, and not something that helps a character throughout their careers. In 3e I boiled-down a few kits into background feats, which worked well (everyone got a FREE background Feat, along with the usual feat AND a racial Feat). Personally, I think a 3-tiered feat system could have easily replaced PrCs altogether. If I ever run another game, I may borrow from 4e's model (the 3 tiers of play) and have organization-Feats available at higher levels (stuff like Red Wizard, or Purple Dragon) - I've always been a big fan of path-based systems, and using 3e's feats (with prerequisites) could form a good base for a very dynamic system of skill-trees. Of course, as it is with CCG's, the more you layer a system with 'exceptions', the more errata you need because of unforeseen combinations (which 3e suffered from toward the end of its run).

In 2e I simply started people out at lev3 (I hate those low-powered early sessions - they are no fun for anyone) to give that same boost.
ChieftainTwilight Posted - 23 May 2011 : 18:29:13
I've actually joined an ongoing 4th edition game recently. it turns out it is actually very fun for those who like the high-action and excitement but arn't sticklers for realism.

so it's not bad... just not able to satisfy other gaming needs of mine. I think I will consider it a different gme altogether.
Lord Karsus Posted - 22 May 2011 : 23:29:26
quote:
Originally posted by Tyranthraxus

That's something I can live with but it can easily house ruled. The only thing bothering me is the level restrictions on demi-humans.


-Not Level caps, but Magic caps are something I've instituted in my own D&D setting. Human magicians can't go past 15th Level magician progression. Most other things, past 10th. Dwarves can't use magic, period.
Markustay Posted - 22 May 2011 : 18:27:17
Just found this thread.

I'd have to agree with CT's assessment: each iteration of D&D moved the game further from Roleplay and closer to Rollplay. I liked 3e, but I think that path was the outward limit of 'breaking it all down' that the rules should have tread upon - beyond that it just seems kinda hollow.

And yes, I understand FULLY that you can still heavily roleplay with 4e; I DM'd everything from Tunnels & Trolls to Chivalry & Sorcery (simplest to most complex), and RPing depends more upon the group then the rules. I understand that completely.

BUT, when rules are very 'loose' and you don't even have rules for most things, then the DM has to 'wing it' most of the time, and that's when you get into some serious (and FUN!) Roleplay sessions (IMHO). One of the funnest sessions I ever ran was with T&T, and those rules are hellishly minimalistic.

The extremely mechanical nature of 4e's combat model just seems to suck a lot of the mystery out of the game, and by extension, the fun. Mind you, I haven't played with the 4e rules, only read them, and I am FAR from familiar with them, so I am not the best judge of them. Obviously plenty of people are having fun with them (although at lower percentages then previous editions). A lot can account for that - they are trying to tap into a market dominated by eye-candy VG's.

BTW, I did play the SW minis game, and enjoyed it, despite the total lack of RP. I also played (for the first time) Zombies! the other night, and had a heluva lot of fun - sometimes all you want to do is kill stuff.

And we still managed to add in a tiny element of RP anyway, which was purely for fun and had nothing to do with rules (we made-up back-stories as we went along).
Tyranthraxus Posted - 20 May 2011 : 18:50:19
quote:
Originally posted by ranger_of_the_unicorn_run
<snip> The one thing that really bugged me in 2e was the racial restriction of classes. I wanted to play an elven druid, gosh darn it, and I couldn't do that in 2e!



That's something I can live with but it can easily house ruled. The only thing bothering me is the level restrictions on demi-humans.

After playing 4E for the last 2 years, I'm thinking of going back to 2E or even BD&D.
ranger_of_the_unicorn_run Posted - 20 May 2011 : 18:16:12
3rd edition is definitely more complicated, but I'm pretty used to it. Though that might have something to do with the fact that I picked it up when I was 10.

I like both 2nd and 3rd edition. I think that 2e tends to have a bit more fluff in their books, while 3e allows a lot of customization of characters in the crunch. I usually play 3e and add in 2e fluff, though I've played some very enjoyable 2e games. I do prefer 3e somewhat, though, because character creation is my second favorite part of the game, after the role playing. While a lot of that is background details, there is a bit more flexibility in what kind of character you can create in 3e. The one thing that really bugged me in 2e was the racial restriction of classes. I wanted to play an elven druid, gosh darn it, and I couldn't do that in 2e!
ChieftainTwilight Posted - 12 May 2011 : 23:40:16
still a great wellspring for "pick-and-choose" DMing. :)
Ayrik Posted - 12 May 2011 : 23:28:49
The Diablo and Diablo 2 materials are very interesting and have a few excellent ideas worth continuing. But, in my opinion, they are a poor attempt to duplicate rigidly defined D2 characters within a D&D system and they produce a terribly shallow "campaign setting" which assumes deep familiarity with the D2 game itself. They also seem rather amateur, thin, and low-budget, as if both companies involved were overly careful about each others' IPs and just didn't communicate productively. Characters, items, and spells created within this system are technically interchangeable with those from any other D&D setting - but IMO they would be unworkable under-/over-powered gamebreakers in many ways.

In short - these products seemed like failed experiments, they had a lot of potential but are a bit of an insult to both of the games from which they derive.
ChieftainTwilight Posted - 12 May 2011 : 22:54:34
quote:
Originally posted by Crennen FaerieBane

quote:
Originally posted by ChieftainTwilight

Diablo II adaptation for AD&D 2nd edition. o.o



Can never be good when Blizzard and D&D combine..



XD

well, I like it. >w< it's good for taking bits and pieces from. plus, as much as I hate the Gameplay of Word of Warcraft, I'd not mind playing WoW D&D, I love th Setting and Story for it... in fact, I think the WoW Graphic Novel Series is the best thing Blizzard ever did for it!

heh, but I'm getting off topic again...

og wait! XD it's my thread! YEE! ^w^
Crennen FaerieBane Posted - 12 May 2011 : 22:43:43
quote:
Originally posted by ChieftainTwilight

Diablo II adaptation for AD&D 2nd edition. o.o



Can never be good when Blizzard and D&D combine..
ChieftainTwilight Posted - 12 May 2011 : 21:42:52
Diablo II adaptation for AD&D 2nd edition. o.o
Hoondatha Posted - 12 May 2011 : 17:25:11
I don't know what book you're talking about, to be honest, and I've got pretty much everything TSR ever published in 2e. Paladin spellcasting was level dependent, and built into the paladin progression table in the Player's Handbook. Necromancer is (essentially) the same as the wizard, also in the PHB. Amazon is a kit for the fighter class and has no spellcasting whatsoever, and sorcerer flat-out doesn't exist.

What book are you drawing from?
ChieftainTwilight Posted - 12 May 2011 : 16:30:58
I can pull from just about anything and have my character done in no time. but mostly it's because I devote alot of attention memorizing options and avoid the min/max models in favour of character theme.

and as for the lack of Spellcasting proficiency, that's upsetting. I was misdirected by the book I have then, cause in it all of the Spellcasting Classes (Amazon, Paladin, Sorcerer and Necromancer) used a Spellcasting proficiency that said they needed to take at every level they take a proficiency or else they pause their Caster Level increase until the next time they pick up said proficiency. it also said that those proficiencies could be attained at extra costby other Classes.

the ones mentioned were Order of the Arrow (Amazon), Order of the Light (Paladin, includes Priest Spells), ... oh...

yeh, you're right, the Sorcerer and Necromancer don't have like that. XP never mind then.
Lord Karsus Posted - 12 May 2011 : 06:05:25
-Same here. Give me just the basic books, and I can have a high level character all done relatively quickly. Give me all the other books, and it'll take me longer, because I have more to pick and choose from, in terms of classes, spells, skills, feats, weapons, etc. I consider the extra detailability a good thing, though. I don't mind digging through various books for specific spells or feats or PrCs or whatever.
Thente Thunderspells Posted - 12 May 2011 : 00:04:44
quote:
Originally posted by Hawkins

My problem with making high-level characters is that our GM encourages min/maxing, and with the number of Pathfinder/3.x books at my finger tips I have a lot of choices.


Agreed... I CAN make a level 30 character in 10 minutes too if all I'm pulling from is PHB/DMG/MM1/ELH. If I have options that's where my mind breaks down because then I'm suddenly struck with thousands of permutations to get at a character build.

Really depends on how many books you can pull from for me I guess
Hawkins Posted - 11 May 2011 : 22:54:29
My problem with making high-level characters is that our GM encourages min/maxing, and with the number of Pathfinder/3.x books at my finger tips I have a lot of choices.
Hoondatha Posted - 11 May 2011 : 22:40:20
quote:
Originally posted by ChieftainTwilight

am I realy the only one here who can roll up a 30th-level 3.5 edition Character in under 10 minutes? o_O; sheesh, I have rolled up as many as a dozen fully statted NPCs complete with background history and motives for an Adventure in all of 20 minutes for th epast 6 years!

meh. maybe I'm just used to it. -.- but it seems quick and easy to me, and I'm talking about unique characters off the top of my head. all I need is that initial inspiration seed and the rest just comes to me.



I wouldn't say only, but I think it's a safe assumption that there are very few people who can do it. 3e is massively more complicated than 2e. Now, a basic stub, even figuring out the feats, I can do pretty quickly. But it's far from a complete character. Working out skills alone takes me more than rolling up a complete 2e character, and I've been playing 3e since it came out. And from the hints Ed's dropped over the years, he has similar issues. It's why he rarely wrote up full stat blocks for his NPC's in 3e game books. Or one of the reasons, at any rate.

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