Advanced Dungeons And Dragons 2nd

That sounds more like Spelljammer than Planescape.

2nd Edition was what I started with as a kid. I had almost every book. I'm nostalgic for them, and they helped inform me about fantasy.

As an actual game it's bloated, unbalanced, and unfocused. I'd rather play a streamlined D&D like B/X or one of the retroclones out there.

I'd love to sit down in a pile of 2nd Edition books and have old fantasy movies playing in the background (Willow, Ladyhawke, Conan, etc.)

Oh shit, my bad. That was spelljammer. Did spend a bit of time doing planescape things out of Sigil. That's always a fun place to go. Especially when you have a party who are heroes back on the material plane, suddenly in a place where they're small fish. It's a great place to do higher level things... if you ever get to higher levels, it's 2e after all...

One of the best things to do with 2e is not to follow the rules too closely. I feel that the rules in 2e are best thought of as a starting point or as a guide, rather than as a balanced game system. Things like 5e manage to do balance quite well, but it always feels more like a game to me than an immersive roleplay experience. I want to spend more time in the setting, rather than in the rules.

Any good retroclones of 2e that are worth checking out?

Ive heard the 10th Age thrown about once or twice but know nothing of it

starting point / home.
most memories and comfy.
>always thought thaco and ac should have been made like d20.
> best monster manual.
too welfare for computer games.
campaign ideas galore, and usual 4d6, roll for each stat as they come along, and can replace one stat with a reroll 4d6.

maybe if you stick to core books, and stay away from 'players option' + those dastardly kit books (damn did bard become o.p.)

This is my favourite edition of D&D. I hold that it represents D&D with the strongest sense of identity. It always seemed to me that the previous edition was building up to this and that later editions became strangely dilute and less certain about what kind of fantasy it was trying to represent. Moreso as time went on.

One method we used for generation is in the 2e players handbook. It involves having all stats at 8, rolling 7d6 and then assigning the dice to the stats. It was a pretty good method that I don't think was reproduced in later versions of the game.

It also has the best initiative system in any D&D variant, where you are required to declare what you intend to do in the round -before- initiative is rolled. It's so great. It means folk will have fast weapons like throwing knives and the like so they can have a good chance of disrupting wizards if they spot them casting a spell.
It's completely incompatible with later editions thanks to multiple actions per round but whatever, its grand.

Ahh, kits, aye.
I remember our group muttering darkly about how things like the Samurai were OP becasue of the Kaiai strike or whatever it was. But in retrospect it allowed him to have 18/00 strength (or was it just 18?) for one attack, once per day.
Seems so quaint compared to the the feats characters can perform in the current era.

>Detect Evil Magic: An Inquisitor can detect magic radiating from any being, object, or location
enchanted by an evil being. This ability functions at will, subject to the same limitations and restrictions
as his ability to detect evil intent, described in Chapter 2. He may also perceive the intensity of
the magic (faint, moderate, strong, overwhelming); the sensations are like those listed in Table 11 in
Chapter 2. A protective spell cast by an evil necromancer upon himself could be detected in this
manner, as could a magical trap set by an evil priest.
Dispel Evil Magic: At 3rd level, an Inquisitor acquires the ability to cast dispel magic. The spell
requires no verbal or somatic components, but affects only evil spells and spell-like effects. The spell
has a base success chance of 100% and is cast at the level of the Inquisitor. Aside from these qualifications,
it operates exactly like the third-level priest spell. The number of times he can cast this spell
increases as he advances in level (see Table 19).
Immunity to Illusions: An Inquisitor has an 80% plus 1%/level immunity to illusion spells of all
levels. This immunity has a limit of 95%. (A 12th-level Inquisitor as a 92% immunity; a 16th-level
Inquisitor has a 95% immunity.)

Neat.
I thought the Inquisitor was fairly well balanced overall. No lay on hands, no turning undead, no curing disease in others, and no priest spells.

And they need 11 intelligence on top of the paladin's standard requirements.

True. And I just rolled a 16,16,10,15,13,17 so it leaves me ONE point short of the array of my "regular" Paladin I'm making

Editions won't be so long-running again, nor will their legacies be as enduring most like.

Some of the best art produced for D&D issues from the 2e era. Most, even, I say, though quite a lot of really brilliant stuff comes from 1e and other early or parallel sources.

The paladin is great fun, lad.
It is one of the most powerful classes (arguably the most powerful) but its advantages are set against the paladin lifestyle. You must be good, forthright, and true.

Also, while modern players mutter all week about evil acts and falling paladins (like the fools they are), don't take that too much to heart. It is very easy to not perform evil deeds. Its the chaotic acts that will get you...

Cleave to order and you will be well.

It's a less good warrior than a specialized fighter, it's a less good divine healer than a priest (god fucking help you if you're dumb enough to allow specialty priests), and a mage as usual can be a damn dangerous threat if it has time to get rolling.
It's a good class for lots of reasons. Great saves, useful powers, huge charisma is always good. A solid warrior class, though I have to say I prefer the 2e ranger.

Respectable.
I always find that the personal magnetism and inherent trustworthiness of the paladin to be incredibly valuable in the games I have played.

Man, I love the ranger too, though. Great class. They are both difficult to qualify for but when they appear they are a great boon.

I've played 2nd edition since 1989.
Every week, once a week for 28 years

You only really need one of either in the party, too, as their unique abilities are good but a little redundant (especially in the case of the ranger).
For most 2e games I used 4d6k3, though whether it's in order or in whatever slots depends on how high power I want the game to be. I've only used 3d6 in order for a few particularly brutal games that ended up with a lot of dead PCs, but it was intended to be a meat grinder dungeoncrawl with no real story so that's ok.

Google doesn't turn up anything either. It's a shame the guy who did Myth and Magic was such an unwashed ape scrotum. It had promise.

I played it tabletop, and we went 4d6 no drop because that was the way to get the character classes we wanted. But mentally I didn't have the brains to be at that table and I probably should've been playing BECMI.

I explored the classes in Baldur's Gate but never bothered finishing the game once my curiosity was satisfied. Same with Icewind Dale, NWN 1 & 2, and Tales Of The Sword Coast. There was period fluff written on the oldschool internet, like www.peldor.com, and I read all that, too.

I don't know that they are that redundant, really. Consider: the paladin is at his best within civilisation; he is a champion of order and protector of the folk. But in the wilderness, out amongst the chaos of the raw, living world... well, there be the ranger.

I have great memories but I know it wasn't as good as we all remember. It had great art great fluff and setting information. Everything else tended to be a mess. Classes and races were just as unbalanced as other editions and half the classes were terrible at things they were designed to do. Theres 3 weapons worth using and chain mail was cheaper than armors that were worse than it. They also made too many concessions to the evil bitch that stole the company and was quite open about hating the fanbase while allowing Ed Greenwood to put his faggot NPCs above everything in the most shilled for setting.

Remember the good times you had and focus on that rather than how it actually was

Only two I know of are:
For Gold and Glory
Myth and Magic

Story time?

What books do you use and recommend? Including the various reprints of the core since I'm on the prowl for them and the reprinted "premium" MM is like 90 bucks

It was a dumpster fire. There's a reason not even the OSR crowd will touch it.

It's saving graces were the awesome PC games and getting it's ass beat by Vampire, which single-handedly got me laid.

Look at these dark riders. Opinion?

OSR adores the MCs. Also a fair chunk of the setting splats.

they blow GW's greenskinned orks out of the water. i hate greenskin orks

Same. I'm a fan of gray orcs, personally.

grey, brown, furry, whatever. just not greenskinned shits

AD&D era art is best overall. Best period D&D ever had. Vanished immediately along with a plummeting art budget at the end of the 2e era.

Question: did D&D have rules for zonking someone with a cosh?

Like if I want to sneak up and cosh a man, are there rules listed?

I recall using cosh to inflict subdual damage. It worked great on ordinary folk; guards and the like with the backstab multiplier for thieves. Leveled adventurers are hard to cosh out simply because they are so experienced (hence the hit points) but that's not what i'm going for.

I don't remember if this was an official rule or if we made that up. Anyone know?

I love the old infinity engine games but after playing one game of AD&D tabletop I can firmly say never again. Classes like fighter and thief are only acceptable as units in a game where you control a full party that includes more complex characters.

An RPG isn't all about the combat of course, but D&D has always been pretty lacklustre for anything that isn't killing stuff or casting spells, so if I want something a little more narratively-focused I'll just play a different game.

Love a lot of the artwork and settings that was produced under TSR though - the guy who said it was the last time D&D had a really distinct identity had it spot on.

...

Yes, there was a sapping rule. It was quite good, but of course required them to be generally human and you to get them by surprise. They had to make a save vs death iirc and then were stunned for something like 2d6 rounds, plenty of time to beat them unconscious or kill them if you wanted. That, or the GM could just say they were out and not bother with that.

You don't happen to know where it was do you? Core book? Elsewise?

If you're going that way, all game systems work relatively the same. A good starting point, learn the actual rules, use the ones you want, don't use the ones that make shit overly-complicated just because they're printed in your book.
I really enjoyed my time in 2e, but people moved on. I liked THAC0, I felt the system itself had a LOT more flavor than 3.x, and it was what we started with.
I agree that 5e feels gamey, though; too easy to chump the system by accident.

Complete Thieves' Handbook. You get the normal bonuses for a backstab, target makes a save vs. petrification or falls unconscious for 2d8 rounds. The save is modified by the difference in level/HD (giving +/- to the save). Handy.

>One of the best things to do with 2e is not to follow the rules too closely. I feel that the rules in 2e are best thought of as a starting point or as a guide, rather than as a balanced game system.
The problem I find is that a lot of people who started D&D with 3e or later feel that they have to use ALL THE RULES AT ONCE for 2e, which makes the system more intimidating than it really is. For example, the Skills chapter has three separate methods of how skills can be handled, both from a mechanical perspective and from a fluff perspective. One gives each character a narrowly-defined set of specific skills, one gives them a broader area with more wiggle room, and one is basically "don't worry about keeping track of exactly which fields characters are competent in, just keep it reasonable".

2e is a toolbox that the DM can pick and choose from, which I think throws off people coming from 3e+ where every rule has to be in play at once or else the whole system locks up.

I played it for most of those 11 years. Fun was had but not sure because of or in spite of the system.

I fell in with some GURPS evangelists who showed me the glory of bell curves and point-based character creation and saved my soul.

I was thoroughly finished with 2nd edition by the time 3e came around and was more than ready to move on. People love their D&D though, so still ended up playing more of that than anything.

Any reccomended adventure modules or splatbooks?

This thread inspired me

Hackmaster 4e was AD&D2e with more awesome

But ad&d2e is by far my favourite D&D, still play it regularly on myth-weavers

found a Ranger's Handbook too but sadly no core except for pic which I'm fairly certain is 1st despite google's insistence

Thinking of making a Dwarven Fighter who is also a trader or caravan runner. Not really loving the kit Trader in the Book of Dorf though...

Best edition hands down.
Ruins of Greyhawk adventure just like the Temple of Elemental Evil.
Bloodstone series. Throne of Bloodstone in particular.
Great art.
Great places to adventure...Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, Ravenloft...
Orcus, Mephistoleles, Pazazu...if I remember the only demon to cast wish.

Dark Sun and Ravenloft are the tits
I can't wait for the Dark Sun stuff they've hinted at for 5e. But I wonder how they'll do that since I hear all the Sorcerer Kings were killed off in a book

They were and 4e... 4e-ized it. No sorcerer kings, and 5e would make it a laugh. Outlander, anyone?

I thought it was a 4e novel

I really admire 2nd edition's holistic approach to balance. Today, balancing pretty much begins and ends with combat but 2e took into account the breadth of the game.

Humans were worse than every other race who came with slews of advantages, multi-classing not the least of them. But humans could rise to any level in any class. Only they could be paladins, one of the strongest classes in the game. Only human mages could attain the highest level magics and it is implied that there is an ineffable human spirit than enables to the embody the greatest extremes of valour, power, etc. and be ascendant in the world. Its very true to traditional high fantasy. But that advantage only pays off after a long, long time campaigning.

Wizards are well known as examples of the 'weak now, mighty later' dynamic, even today. However, few modern D&D players are likely to appreciate what a struggle and gamble it was to strive after the heights of magical power. The class was balanced in respect to its entire lifespan not weather it has 'something to do' every round of combat.

By Grimnir... somewhere along the line every class became a warrior class, built and pinned on how it fights and kills. In the old eras, combat was the domain of the warrior classes. Others kept their heads down and contributed as and when they were able. They had areas they excelled in besides combat and shouldn't be expected to performers on the battlefield. They were balanced against the whole of the game not just the fighting parts.

4e had the Sorcerer Kings, it was considered to be one of the best settings done for 4e, though I think a large part of that was everyone was happy they didn't screw it up like the revised version.

>few modern D&D players are likely to appreciate what a struggle and gamble it was to strive after the heights of magical power
I find it incredibly compelling, but I have too many games I want to run so most campaigns end up quite short (5-10 sessions, certainly not year-long weekly ones) and it doesn't really work there. And while I could do a longer campaign of AD&D 2e or similar, at large the systems aren't very compelling for long campaigns to me.

>What are your thoughts and feeling on it?
Every change from 1E made it worse. No reason to ever use.

>half-rakshasa
Gets me every time.

Kits are way more constricting than I would've thought based of Baldur's Gate II
I suppose that makes it better than
>I'm you but stronger

I personally think it was a terrible approach to balance. Level limits have been discussed endlessly, but the gist boils down to "doesn't matter when they haven't been hit, cripple the character after." The balance with the casters can best be summed up as "these classes get meaningful mechanical input in the game, the others do not." Hell, even the fragility of wizards is overstated since their casting times were shorter than weapon speeds typically. The thief was balanced around the notion of being good at stuff out of combat, which is a terrible idea when combat is its own distinct thing that's both time consuming and mechanically intensive (to get at what I mean, consider that a complex task like disarming a trap is a single roll, whereas combat can be dozens).

Also the whole idea of something being balanced by how it progresses over the course of a campaign is absurd, considering that a particularly foul session can kill a campaign through players losing interest. We're talking about adults with responsibilities and social lives; if things become a drag, even if for a comparatively short time, they'll quite likely find other things to do rather than go through the headache of scheduling something like D&D again, and I don't blame them in the slightest.

>pic which I'm fairly certain is 1st
Naw, that's Revised 2E, Google told you the truth.

His hand isn't anatomically wrong, it's just an ugly pose. You can make it yourself, try in front of a mirror.

Yeah I downloaded it and opened it up to see
>THIS IS NOT 3RD EDITION
Oh well they had like two and I'm really on the prowl for the MM and the premium editions anyhow

You must be this tall to enter this dungeon.
Begone manlets!

Wanna run by that us again bub?

Counterargument: the thief class.

>There is a Beggar kit in the Thief handbook
Weird.

That last bit: combat is something distinct from the rest of the game; a time-consuming minigame. Nobody should be expected to sit on their hands for that. Similarly nobody should be expected to have less to do outside if combat; everyone should be expected to contributing to the game most, if not all of the time. There's a reason only regressive, nostalgia marketed OSR titles are designed anything like AD&D in those regards and the reason is simple: much of AD&D's design was dog vomit.

You mean that class that is heavily specialised in parts of adventuring that aren't fighting? The one that is balanced with the whole game in mind and not just how much damage he does/takes?

I'm not sure why anyone would be sitting on their hands in combat, but its clearly the arena of the warrior classes. The other classes... well, they kept their heads down and contributed as they were able.
Everyone does contribute to the game but the warrior classes contribute heavily in combat, rogues more heavily outside of it, wizards apply their magic where appropriate as do priests who also handle theology. No one stops playing until 'their bit' comes up, though, which seems to be how some folk imagine it to have gone down.

figured i should drop this here

>cj-resources.com/Storage 1/AD&D -2E -Complete Set of 26 Books.PDF

Does multiclassing and kits help mitigate the lack of proper combat participation among thieves and wizard classes?
I actually downloaded this yesterday what a coinky dink

>Does multiclassing and kits help mitigate the lack of proper combat participation among thieves and wizard classes?

Kits maybe, but multi-classing certainly. It's one of the greatest advantages of the non-human races that they can do this. Disregard later eras of multiclassing, 2e's method is amazing.

If you're a fighter/mage at level 1, in every sense that matters, you are all of a 1st level fighter and all of a 1st level mage. Meaning once you have used your magic you can put on your armour and draw steel and perform exactly as a fighter does with no penalties. You don;tn have to 'level into' your magic or fighting skills. You have them. You're a fighter/mage!

A level 7 fighter/5 mage (I forget the actual ratio) is all of both of those things. He takes the best thac0 and the best saves of his classes. He uses all the weapons and armour allowed (and can cast spells in armour IF it is elven chain).

Thieves multi-class extraordinarily well. Fighter/thief, mage/thief, fighter/mage/thief, all grand combinations.

There are two major disadvantages: your hit points will be lower on average and you advance slower. This is because you must split your experience between your classes evenly, and when one of them levels you roll your hit dice and divide the result by the number of classes you are in.

I love this method much more than the modern technique. It allows players to embrace classic concepts (like the traditional mystic swordsman elf) without having to build them as they play. I can be a dwarfen fighter/cleric to the war-god of the deep, right out of the gate without having to cobble together and maintain my concept and without my character's narrative being 'I trained as a fighter. Then as a cleric. Then as a fighter again' or whatever.

That's just what I reckon.

I ran Spelljammers for 15 years and it was glorious, from 1st level to 32nd level.

Pathfinder is the only edition of D&D where you can still do this.

hot damn I hope you laminated that character sheet or something

>Look at the MUSCULARITYYY

this works in theory, when everybody is on board with the same idea that you should avoid combat, and the DM can make combat happen rarely enough that non-combat classes still contribute, but not so rare that combat classes are the ones who get bored

in practice, nobody wants to sit and hide and watch other people have fun when combat happens, or for the fighter to have no fun when the only enemy in sight are locked doors

Like many before me said, there is a kind of balance called spotlight balance, where in certain situations each class have their time to shine: This is what you consider good, and is not intrinsic bad.

But modern game design aims for avoiding spotlight balance because it sucks to suck while other shine. It is more fun if everyone is shining together, each with its own hue.

What 3.0 did wrong from AD&D was:
>forgetting combat-as-fail-state
XP came from treasure, not monster slaying, that is obvious when looking at XP granted by monsters vs XP table of each class.

>different XP tables
That was a nice way to help balance LFQW. At 5000xp a Thief is at level 3, with 3d6 HP, while a Wizard just got to level 2, 2d4 HP and got access to his second (1st level) spell of the day.

>spheres of access
Clerics and Druids have minor and major spheres restricting their spells. This helped balance.

I was the GM.

And yes. I have the sheets safely buried away.

Because that is how it went down. Until wizards and priests got decent combat spells, they and the thief would form an ineffective peanut gallery of missed attacks.

I know you're a 2e grognard and would never admit fault in this game, but it was terribly balanced. There is a reason no game outside of games specifically duplicating it for nostalgia's sake takes any design cues from it.

Before you assume I just harp in it because I don't like it, I enjoyed AD&D for being simpler to run than later editions, but balancing everyone to be a useful combatant in a genre where fighting was an expected and time-consuming part of the game is just sensible. Choosing between fighting and other stuff would only make sense if fighting was handled as a single skill check with similar consequences and there is a reason basically no modern game forces you to make that choice.

This would work if combat was resolved with a single roll like other challenges in the game, which it obviously isn't. If an activity takes a large part of session then every player should be able to take part in it. It's the same reason why everybody hated the player who chose to play a Decker in CP2020.

Has there ever been a game that resolved combat in such a fashion?

Not really much of a story to tell. I'm just a married old fart that plays a bunch of D&D lol
I use the (((premium))) reprints. The only reason os that all my originals are now so used that I'm afraid they'd fall apart. The 1st edition reprints were more premium, the 2nd edition ones were a blatant money grab, tho I have to admit I bought 2 copies of each.

As an aside: I've never really done kits, I only play in greyhawk, and most of the 'canon' crap from later editions is just tossed right the fuck out and doesn't jive with my campaigns.

I've compiled all the stuff I need into a series of pdfs that I'm (eventually) gonna get printed into one-off leather bound books. I have some editing to do, but the wizard spells, priest spells, new classes/subclasses, proficiencies (weapon n nonweapon) are pretty much done, and the encyclopedia of greyhawk needs some final editing.

Bump

Anyone ever play as the Trader kit from the Book of Dorf?

I always looked at kits as a way to bridge the gap between min/max metafagging and pure immersive role play.
I used kits when they first came out, and I found myself thinking "This is just a framework on how to play a class a certain way..."

Balancing now vs. later never made any sense and was just a rationalization made up after the fact. Setting aside the fact that the vast majority of campaigns don't run from levels 1 to 20, is it really any comfort to anyone with a useless character that their character was useful eight months ago or will be useful eight months from now?

>was just a rationalization made up after the fact

Welcome to 50% of discussing old school D&D. Where coming up with post-hoc rationalizations for how a seemingly stupid design choice is actually genius and modern gamers are just too entitled to get it means that it was good.

The other half is explaining the author's rationale behind shitty design choices as though it makes them good by default.

Can half elves take Elf kits? I know Bladesingers are strictly no but it doesn't seem to mention it anywhere else

Kind of embarrassing that they just splashed tits across the entire cover.

yeah I have no clue what book, if any, those tiddies come from

Rolling up a new character and rolled the hottest in my life
18, 16, 16, 12, 11, 8
I was thinking a Fighter/Thief multiclass or a Archer Elf kit before I rolled my dick off

someone explain thaco to me please.