# I've introduced my 5th ed group to AD&D 2E



## DarkCrisis (Jul 24, 2022)

Preface: I'm not here to poopoo on 5th ed.  I like playing it, I just got real real tired of DMing it.

So I’ve been having my group play an AD&D 2E campaign. 3 of the 5 of the players have only ever played 5th ed when it came to D&D.

The 2 youngest 14 and 16 are really liking it.

The youngest is playing the Thief.  She always plays that sneaky stabby  guy in whatever we play.
Whe I first told her that when sneaking you either are or you are not.  There is no chance to see you.  She said ”It should always be like this!”  I agreed.

The older kid is playing a Fighter (as he usually does) and he told me he really likes that combat comes down to AC instead of HP.  He likes that he can turn the tide of battle in a swing or two of his axe.  He feels more “useful.”  He likes that it was more deadly.  And I agreed, to much HP/healing etc bogs it all down.

Of course getting used to the way “skills” work and how saves work and of course THAC0 (which i just convert to modern AC in my head anyways) is an ongoing process but they’ve mostly got it down.  Not to mention stuff like have 3/2 attacks.

The other person who has only played 5th may have the hardest adjustment due always playing Druids and the drop in power to AD&D can be a bit off putting. So I gave her character a magic ring so she can shapechange into an animal and back once per day and a magic staff.

But so far for a group that’s played mostly 5th Ed since we got together a few years ago, it’s been a big success.  They have even learned to search for secret doors and be more cautious.  That sense of fear and danger, that’s the best part!  It’s an adventure not just obstacles to roll over.  It’s been amazing seeing them go from just brazen kick in the door super heroes to using scouting and listening etc because they know assaulting a cult filled dungeon should actually be dangerous.   And everyone keeps having “hero moments” which rarely seemed to pop up in 5E aside from "how do you want to do this" when killing a boss.

A Harpy charmed 4/5 of the party and it was down to the Cleric/Wizard.  Remember this was one save period not fail 3 times and get repeat saves each turn.  The C/W used his one arcane spell per day to fry her, made a few charm saves himself and finished her with his mace to her face.  Clutch moment.

And I have found a renewed passion for DMing D&D.  It has been missing a long time.

AD&D is always will be D&D to me.  It just feels more like an actual adventure.  IMO.

Now I’m not trying to say one edition is better than the other.  If you are having fun that’s what’s important.

I will simply say, maybe branch out and try the older Ed’s. If you feel you want a tad more danger and a lower power level.

There a few good 0E, Basic, 1E, 2E clones out there.  Try one of those.  “For Gold and Glory” is one book and has everything you need in it and is my go to when playing 2E (along side the original books as well for more monsters etc).  Or “OSRIC” for 1E.  These clones format the old systems into a more modern RPG book.  OSRIC was a big help to understand 1E for me.

Speaking of ”all in one book” the original “Rules Cyclopedia” which covers BECMI era is great all on its own.
Most of these clones (and Rules Cyc) can be printed off DrivethruRPG for cheap.  The clones I mentioned PDFs are generally free.







Edit: Kid who plays the fighter told me today he likes that its one save and not multiple saves like in 5th ed because it mean's that your single roll/save means more.


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## Sacrosanct (Jul 24, 2022)

We just had our second session of me DMing Night Below using Chromatic Dungeons (1e/2e hybrid, but with ascending AC).  Most of the group hasn't played those older editions, so it's been fun so far here as well


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## billd91 (Jul 24, 2022)

I don‘t think I could run 2e without house-ruling the crap out of it. But then, that’s what I was doing back in the 90s too.
Top of my list these days, were I to run some 2e, is fixing saving throws. They’re still based on 1e’s obsolete combat tables and thieves get the shaft, badly.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 24, 2022)

First of all, that’s awesome, I’m glad it seems like you’re all having a lot of fun!



DarkCrisis said:


> The youngest is playing the Thief.  She always plays that sneaky standby guy in whatever we play.
> Whe I first told her that when sneaking you either are or you are not.  There is chance to see you.  She said ”It should always be like this!”  I agreed.



I’m not sure what this means. How is this different from how it works in, say, 5e?


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## DarkCrisis (Jul 24, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> First of all, that’s awesome, I’m glad it seems like you’re all having a lot of fun!
> 
> 
> I’m not sure what this means. How is this different from how it works in, say, 5e?




In 5E your for has a chance to see you.  His perception check vs your sneak roll.

AD&D if you roll well enough on your hide and move silent you simply are doing it and they can’t see/hear you.  There is no perception check to counter it.


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## The-Magic-Sword (Jul 24, 2022)

DarkCrisis said:


> In 5E your for has a chance to see you.  His perception check vs your sneak roll.
> 
> AD&D if you roll well enough on your hide and move silent you simply are doing it and they can’t see/hear you.  There is no perception check to counter it.



How is rolling well enough on your hide different from rolling high enough on your sneak roll to beat their perception number?


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## James Gasik (Jul 24, 2022)

Oh well, you see, the way Thieves work, they have a percentage chance to Hide in Shadows and Move Silently, based on points you've placed in those abilities, Dexterity, and Racial modifiers.

So, for example, a 1st level Halfling Thief might have 50% Hide in Shadows.  You try to hide, the 50% chance is rolled- as long as you meet the requirements for the ability (and your DM isn't a monster), voila, you're hidden.  Eventually, in a few levels, you can rise to 95%.

Monsters don't have "perception" as we know it, so it generally just works.


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## Charlaquin (Jul 24, 2022)

DarkCrisis said:


> In 5E your for has a chance to see you.  His perception check vs your sneak roll.
> 
> AD&D if you roll well enough on your hide and move silent you simply are doing it and they can’t see/hear you.  There is no perception check to counter it.



Ok, I see what you mean.


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## The-Magic-Sword (Jul 24, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Oh well, you see, the way Thieves work, they have a percentage chance to Hide in Shadows and Move Silently, based on points you've placed in those abilities, Dexterity, and Racial modifiers.
> 
> So, for example, a 1st level Halfling Thief might have 50% Hide in Shadows.  You try to hide, the 50% chance is rolled- as long as you meet the requirements for the ability (and your DM isn't a monster), voila, you're hidden.  Eventually, in a few levels, you can rise to 95%.
> 
> Monsters don't have "perception" as we know it, so it generally just works.



Oh, interesting, so your ability to sneak past something is completely decoupled from that thing-- so like an ancient dragon and the farmer have the same shot at seeing you, weird.


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## billd91 (Jul 24, 2022)

The-Magic-Sword said:


> Oh, interesting, so your ability to sneak past something is completely decoupled from that thing-- so like an ancient dragon and the farmer have the same shot at seeing you, weird.



But you also have the situation where if you fail the hide/sneak roll, you're noticeable by everyone from said ancient dragon to the goblin village idiot who thinks that the potatoes are conspiring against him.


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## James Gasik (Jul 24, 2022)

The-Magic-Sword said:


> Oh, interesting, so your ability to sneak past something is completely decoupled from that thing-- so like an ancient dragon and the farmer have the same shot at seeing you, weird.



In general, yes.  There are some caveats to the Thieving abilities- depending on how strictly your DM conforms to what the books say, you might run into difficulties.  There was a forum thread about this several months back, where we had quite a back and forth about how well these abilities performed in games, and how often one could actually employ abilities like Backstab.  But if your DM isn't a jerk about it, it can play fairly smoothly.

EDIT: for example, the caveat that you can't use Hide in Shadows in total darkness....


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## Yaarel (Jul 24, 2022)

I learned to play D&D from a group that is playing 1e − of course with their own houserules.


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## DarkCrisis (Jul 24, 2022)

The-Magic-Sword said:


> How is rolling well enough on your hide different from rolling high enough on your sneak roll to beat their perception number?



Because a perception test can beat your sneak check no matter how good you roll.

 In AD&D there is no opposing check(s).  You simply are sneaking or you aren’t.


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## tetrasodium (Jul 24, 2022)

The-Magic-Sword said:


> Oh, interesting, so your ability to sneak past something is completely decoupled from that thing-- so like an ancient dragon and the farmer have the same shot at seeing you, weird.



It was balanced by the fact that you might not be the one rolling & may not know if you are being stealthy or not and by PCs being _far_ more fragile when out on their own.  Sneaking past monsters & interacting with stuff while sneaking was pretty dangerous


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## DarkCrisis (Jul 24, 2022)

The-Magic-Sword said:


> Oh, interesting, so your ability to sneak past something is completely decoupled from that thing-- so like an ancient dragon and the farmer have the same shot at seeing you, weird.



Dragons can see invis and can smell you, as can some monsters with better senses.  So sort of but not exactly.

Remember Smog could still smell Bilbo.


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## James Gasik (Jul 24, 2022)

I don't think there exists an AD&D group that uses the rules as written.  Either they don't actually know all the rules and came up with their own solutions, or they just don't like how the rules work, it's all academic.

I used to have to deal with some obnoxious rules lawyers when I started DMing, so I made sure to read the rulebooks constantly, to the point that, even if I didn't know it by heart, I knew where a given rule was in the book, and could quickly find it.

To this day, there are rules that, when I bring them up, make long-time veterans of the game look at me like I'm speaking arcane gibberish.  Then I show them the passage in a book, and they go "oh well, we never played it that way", lol.


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## The-Magic-Sword (Jul 24, 2022)

DarkCrisis said:


> Dragons can see in is and can smell you, as can some monsters with better senses.  So sort of but not exactly.
> 
> Remember Smog could still smell Bilbo.



Is that reflected mechanically somehow as part of the sneak or is this part of that "Gygaxian skilled play" thing where you would have to think to prepare to have a way to disguise your scent to not get auto found?


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## DarkCrisis (Jul 24, 2022)

Charlaquin said:


> Ok, I see what you mean.



I see the confusion.  I forgot the “No” when saying “no chance to see”


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## James Gasik (Jul 24, 2022)

Hide in Shadows and Move Silently do nothing to mask your scent.  However, it is worth nothing that most creatures, in addition to lacking perception, do not have exceptional senses.  Dragons are an exception, however:




The Complete Thief's Handbook, however, has some items you can purchase that can mask your scent and help you camouflage yourself, to supplement your own abilities.


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## Mind of tempest (Jul 24, 2022)

interesting, this seems like it is nice for you.


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## aco175 (Jul 25, 2022)

My group has no desire to play 2e, maybe 4e if they had to choose.  Although some of them would just like to see elf, dwarf, and halfling as classes again, but more for nostalgic sake than wanting to play one again with class level limits.


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## Tales and Chronicles (Jul 25, 2022)

I'd kill for a nice 2e game (with the option of ascending AC), but my players are pretty much set on 5e when it comes to D&D. I think they would actually prefer 4e, but wont accept to learn the system. Oh well.

We had a lot of fun playing Beyond the Wall, tho.


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## a.everett1287 (Jul 25, 2022)

Tried this with 2 of my 3 groups.

They hated it, and I remembered why I hated it too. I don't think any of the people I play with have any desire to go back to any edition, and we've quickly gotten over the nostalgia.


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## cbwjm (Jul 25, 2022)

I'd love to run a game if 2e or BECMI, I love those editions. We're only just now getting back into the 5e campaign after a long hiatus, so probably not worth bringing it up. I did have a time travel idea where the PCs go back in time and I just switch rule sets while giving them new character sheets, that could still be an option. Might also be a good option for something like the mindspin spell from dragonlance.


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## overgeeked (Jul 25, 2022)

DarkCrisis said:


> They have even learned to search for secret doors and be more cautious. That sense of fear and danger, that’s the best part! It’s an adventure not just obstacles to roll over. It’s been amazing seeing them go from just brazen kick in the door super heroes to using scouting and listening etc because they know assaulting a cult filled dungeon should actually be dangerous.



That's the best part of TSR-era D&D.


DarkCrisis said:


> And I have found a renewed passion for DMing D&D. It has been missing a long time.



Congrats.


DarkCrisis said:


> AD&D is always will be D&D to me. It just feels more like an actual adventure. IMO.



Same. Followed closely by B/X.


DarkCrisis said:


> I will simply say, maybe branch out and try the older Ed’s. If you feel you want a tad more danger and a lower power level.
> 
> There a few good 0E, Basic, 1E, 2E clones out there. Try one of those. “For Gold and Glory” is one book and has everything you need in it and is my go to when playing 2E (along side the original books as well for more monsters etc). Or “OSRIC” for 1E. These clones format the old systems into a more modern RPG book. OSRIC was a big help to understand 1E for me.
> 
> ...



To add to this, if you want something in print that's actively supported, one of the best options right now is Old-School Essentials. 

Old-School Essentials Classic Fantasy is a B/X clone, all in one book. Check out the Rules Tome. The SRD is here. And the publisher offers a free version of the rules here.

Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy is a B/X clone...with the addition of all the classes, races, monsters, spells, and magic items from AD&D. That's split between two books. The Player's Tome and the Referee's Tome.


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## Zardnaar (Jul 25, 2022)

I noticed something similar when I ran 2E in 2012 for 3.X players. 

 The fighter player loved it. 

 I ditched thaco and level limits though.


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## DND_Reborn (Jul 25, 2022)

My older group just started a B/X game last weekend. They loved the simply character sheet, lack of features, etc. and felt they had to use their imagination more. We're going to keep playing it for a while I would imagine.

In my new group on Monday nights, one of the players has prints of the 1E books and would like to try it, but as they are all still learning 5e, that won't happen for quite some time I imagine.


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## TwoSix (Jul 25, 2022)

I'd do a 2E game if it was Skills and Powers.


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## Celebrim (Jul 25, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Oh well, you see, the way Thieves work, they have a percentage chance to Hide in Shadows and Move Silently, based on points you've placed in those abilities, Dexterity, and Racial modifiers.
> 
> So, for example, a 1st level Halfling Thief might have 50% Hide in Shadows.  You try to hide, the 50% chance is rolled- as long as you meet the requirements for the ability (and your DM isn't a monster), voila, you're hidden.  Eventually, in a few levels, you can rise to 95%.
> 
> Monsters don't have "perception" as we know it, so it generally just works.




Long time 1e/2e player.  Just wait until she learns just how incredibly useless a thief is.  If you backstabbed every round successfully, you'd still be a bad fighter.

But, it doesn't seem like you are playing 2e anyway.  You are playing 2e as you think it should be played, not as it is actually written.


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## DarkCrisis (Jul 25, 2022)

Celebrim said:


> Long time 1e/2e player.  Just wait until she learns just how incredibly useless a thief is.  If you backstabbed every round successfully, you'd still be a bad fighter.
> 
> But, it doesn't seem like you are playing 2e anyway.  You are playing 2e as you think it should be played, not as it is actually written.



Thief isn't meant to be a Fighter, why compare them? The Fighter compared to the Thief is awful at sneaking and finding and removing traps.

By the by, she's a Kender has a 19 Dex, she can hit with her hoopak sling better than almost everyone else combined. 

And your last sentence is kind of elitist, FYI.


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## overgeeked (Jul 25, 2022)

DarkCrisis said:


> And your last sentence is kind of elitist, FYI.



I will never quite get the newer fans’ notion that it’s RAW or it’s wrong. This whole thing started as DIY in people’s basements.


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## overgeeked (Jul 25, 2022)

Celebrim said:


> But, it doesn't seem like you are playing 2e anyway. You are playing 2e as you think it should be played, not as it is actually written.


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## Mad_Jack (Jul 25, 2022)

DarkCrisis said:


> Thief isn't meant to be a Fighter, why compare them?




 The thief was never meant to be a combat class in 1st/2nd Ed. Saying they're terrible because they don't do something as well as the class that was designed to do that thing is comparing apples and oranges and declaring that the apple sucks as a citrus fruit. For dungeon exploring or a lot of other adventuring functions, the thief was your go-to guy. Outside of combat, the fighter was a giant, useless clanking hunk of metal that just followed the rest of the party around twiddling their thumbs until it was time to break down a door, lift a gate or bend bars.


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## Zardnaar (Jul 25, 2022)

What makes AD&D thieves fun is when they land that backstab and oneshot whatever. 

 To to 5E hot point bloat that's difficult to do in 5E even with a crit assuming you're facing things of similar CR. 

A level 9 Rogue in 5E might struggle to one shot a CR3 baddie on full hp even with a crit.

 It's harder to set up but you might one shot a dragon. That's not gonna happen in 5E unless it's a vastly higher level character critting a Mook.


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## UngeheuerLich (Jul 25, 2022)

It is worth playing 2e. Especially Night Below. I personally can't play it anymore since there are a few things that are too hard to get use to again. 

My brother just told me he plays castle & crusades right now and likes it better than 5e.
There is a certain charm to those old rules. There was a different balance between fighters, wizards and thieves than today and that make the game a bit more differentiated.


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## Helena Real (Jul 25, 2022)

I think I'm in a similar situation to you. After 5 years of running only 5E when it comes to D&D, I'm itching to go back to something like AD&D 2nd Edition (which was the edition I started in) and running it "properly" now that I have all the experience as a DM and could get all the resources I could ask for.

Thanks for sharing this! I'm super glad for you and your group and you've inspired me


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## James Gasik (Jul 25, 2022)

Zardnaar said:


> What makes AD&D thieves fun is when they land that backstab and oneshot whatever.
> 
> To to 5E hot point bloat that's difficult to do in 5E even with a crit assuming you're facing things of similar CR.
> 
> ...



Just a point of order here.  You're not going to one-shot a dragon.  Even if you could backstab a dragon, which, you can't (relevant rules text to follow), a Young White Dragon has 9 Hit Dice. That's about 40 hit points on average (9-72).   A 13th-level Thief using a the best weapon for the job, a longsword (x5 damage modifier) would do 32 damage on average (5-60).  Maybe you can close the gap with a Girdle of Giant Strength or a powerful magic weapon, but you can't count on either.  And that's just a fairly weak dragon, worth 3000 xp, when you need 220 thousand for your next level.


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## Zardnaar (Jul 25, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Just a point of order here.  You're not going to one-shot a dragon.  Even if you could backstab a dragon, which, you can't (relevant rules text to follow), a Young White Dragon has 9 Hit Dice. That's about 40 hit points on average (9-72).   A 13th-level Thief using a the best weapon for the job, a longsword (x5 damage modifier) would do 32 damage on average (5-60).  Maybe you can close the gap with a Girdle of Giant Strength or a powerful magic weapon, but you can't count on either.  And that's just a fairly weak dragon, worth 3000 xp, when you need 220 thousand for your next level.
> 
> View attachment 255143View attachment 255144View attachment 255145




 Dragon might be a bad example. You're also not min maxing hard enough as in 2Evyou can backstab with a greatsword or lance. 
 That's 3d6 X5 potentially doubled with a lance. Harder to set up but silence and invisibility spells exist.

 180 is most amount of damage you can hit without optional rules, 90 without them and cheese. That puts an average 20HD monster that's L size or bigger within one shot range excluding things like high strength and weapon specialists and magic weapons which can add another 50 odd damage or more.

  We use strength spells a lot more now in 2E than we did first time round.

 So yeah it's one thing 2E can pull off relative to 5E playing assassin types is better. Low level thief backstabbing an Ogre......

 Try that in 5E big difference. Not to hard maxing move silently in 2E if they're not looking your way MS roll and bame dead ogre.

 Assassin's Creed type gameplay is better in pre 3E. Maybe 3.5.


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## James Gasik (Jul 25, 2022)

Zardnaar said:


> Dragon might be a bad example. You're also not min maxing hard enough as in 2Evyou can backstab with a greatsword or lance.
> That's 3d6 X5 potentially doubled with a lance. Harder to set up but silence and invisibility spells exist.



Invisibility won't work, I just had to edit my post to add _detect invisibility_'s text.  And yeah, I guess you could, but a single-classed Thief can't become proficient with a greatsword or lance, so you'd have to take a -3 to hit.  The Thief gets +4 with backstab, but the young dragon is AC 2 and a 13th level Thief's Thac0 is 14, so I guess it's not the worst in this situation, but again, that's a fairly weak dragon for our hero Thief.


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## Zardnaar (Jul 25, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Invisibility won't work, I just had to edit my post to add _detect invisibility_'s text.  And yeah, I guess you could, but a single-classed Thief can't become proficient with a greatsword or lance, so you'd have to take a -3 to hit.  The Thief gets +4 with backstab, but the young dragon is AC 2 and a 13th level Thief's Thac0 is 14, so I guess it's not the worst in this situation, but again, that's a fairly weak dragon for our hero Thief.
> 
> View attachment 255153View attachment 255154




 Yeah I was talking about MC or dual classed thief but even a longsword can work. 

 Dragons might be a bad example but everything else is available. 

 Remember loot was a lot more abundancet in older adventures along with things like Gauntlets of Ogre Power. 

 Magic longswords were fairly common along with exceptional strength one way or another (read 2E strength spell). 

 You're still dealing 1d12 probably with modifiers in an edition where outside Dragons and stronger giants hit points are reasonably low.

 If I wanted to run an Assassin's Creed type D&D game I would bother with modern D&D. Castles and Crusades supports that idea better than AD&D even.

2E still best toolbox edition espicially for oddball games due to settings and splat books. Want a stone age game easy, want a Napoleonic War themed campaign that's an option.


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## James Gasik (Jul 25, 2022)

Zardnaar said:


> Yeah I was talking about MC or dual classed thief but even a longsword can work.
> 
> Dragons might be a bad example but everything else is available.
> 
> ...



And then of course, there's the caveat of you having to be able to reach a "significant target area".  You have to jump through so many hoops to get a backstab I tended to ignore the ability was even on my character sheet.  Not to mention the need for a creature to have a "definable back", which you wouldn't think would be an issue, but the rules specifically exclude Beholders, so, yeah.  

It all depends on how permissive your DM is.  But by the rules, backstab is hard, and worse, if you don't kill the monster, you're now at ground zero for it's reprisal.


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## Zardnaar (Jul 25, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> And then of course, there's the caveat of you having to be able to reach a "significant target area".  You have to jump through so many hoops to get a backstab I tended to ignore the ability was even on my character sheet.  Not to mention the need for a creature to have a "definable back", which you wouldn't think would be an issue, but the rules specifically exclude Beholders, so, yeah.
> 
> It all depends on how permissive your DM is.  But by the rules, backstab is hard, and worse, if you don't kill the monster, you're now at ground zero for it's reprisal.




 Idea is you don't try and backstab beholders. 

 And backstabbing huge creatures is iffy.


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## Dausuul (Jul 25, 2022)

Celebrim said:


> But, it doesn't seem like you are playing 2e anyway.  You are playing 2e as you think it should be played, not as it is actually written.



That _is_ how one plays 2E. Who ever played AD&D by the book?


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## Celebrim (Jul 25, 2022)

Dausuul said:


> That _is_ how one plays 2E. Who ever played AD&D by the book?




Sure.  But the other thing is that all the reflexive responses are just convincing me that the people responding never played nearly as much 1e/2e as I did.  I've got probably 2000+ hours of playing 1e/2e as a thief, and the class is only really balanced between about 1200 and 2000 xp when you are second level and get 2HD and other classes are still just 1st level.  At practically every other point, you are weaker than every other class.  It's this recognition that the thief was useless that lead to all the radical improvements that gave us the 3e Rogue.

It's practically criminal and abusive to allow a naive young RPer to play a thief in 2e, which the OP seems to recognize when he suggests that a DM that would use the RAW is "monstrous".   

But consider the suggestion that of course the fighter is better at combat than the thief because that's it's shtick whereas the thief is skilled at the exploration pillar.  Hogwash.  The thief is arguably worse than the fighter at trap detection, and is clearly the fourth strongest class in exploration play among the traditional four.  But worse, it's not just that the fighter is a little better in combat than the thief, it's that the thief is useless in combat after about 5th level.  The thief is also by a long distance the worst character for combat.  And combat will always be a thing so being useless in combat is pretty harsh.  

The trouble with the thief in exploration play is no good thief player uses their thief skills except as saving throws.  At low levels, your thief skills are so unreliable that proposing to climb walls or find and remove traps is in the medium term just the first stage of rolling up a new character.  You can't trust them at low levels because they will usually fail.  Instead, you use them as saving throws when proposing strategies that don't depend on the dice - like probing ahead with a 10' pole fails.   But the trouble of course is that any character can propose those strategies regardless of class.  And as the good people who wrote 'The Gamers' noted in the joke, sometimes the best strategy with a trap was let the fighter find and disarm it because unlike the thief the fighter wasn't squishy.  You weren't good at exploration play as a thief because you saving throws were worse than every other class.  You weren't good at exploration play as a thief because you fewer NWP's than every other class.  

Most importantly you weren't good at exploration play as a thief because about the time that your thief abilities start to become reliable, they can all be replaced easily by trivial expenditure of spells.  Your climb walls as a 20th level thief, is strictly inferior to the 1st level M-U spell 'Spider Climb'.  You 'Hide in Shadows' as a 20th level thief, is inferior to the 2nd level M-U spell 'Invisibility'.  Your much less helpful at finding traps, than a Cleric that casts the 2nd level spell 'Find Traps' or a M-U that has a wand of secret door and trap detection.  Moving silently is largely useless in a party that can't, and if the party really needed to move silently well there is a spell for that too.  And arguably finding a trap just is replaced by a Cure Wounds spell anyway.  So what you can try to do as a high level thief is save the spell slots of your useful party members for other things, but what you eventually discover is that the number of spell slots you are saving is less than the number of spell slots you would have if you were an equivalent level caster - and you'd be useful for other things as well.

And there isn't really a counter argument to this about the player's skillful play, because sure you can use flasks of flaming oil and apply poison to your weapons and I have done that in attempts to stay relevant playing the thief, but you aren't really that much more skillful at those sorts of things than other party members.  It's just you have to rely on those sorts of tricks to be useful.  It's a class that offers almost no character abilities and it's all about player ability.  

But as for your specific argument, it is an obvious fallacy to say that there is not a problem because you can always change or ignore the RAW.   After a while, if you've really played lots of 1e/2e AD&D you either have house ruled it to the point it's increasingly not recognizable in attempts to fix the problems or you are going to be really frustrated.

I have a lot of nostalgia for 1e/2e AD&D.  There are aspects of it I still love and wish I could find a way to import into modern editions - like the exponential increases in XP per level, some of the play patterns encouraged by gold for XP (but not all of them), the 1e weapon vs. AC modifiers, etc.   It's great to have fun with the game.  But it's funny to listen to people declaring a DM would be "monstrous" for playing with the RAW, while praising how great the system is.


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## DarkCrisis (Jul 25, 2022)

I don't think the thread move was warranted as this was talking to the modern playing crowd (who won't see it now).  

The post was not just about 2E, and retro clones are still thriving.

Now it's been moved here to die.  Unnoticed.  Sad.


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## James Gasik (Jul 25, 2022)

I might be to blame, since I started talking about 2e mechanics extensively.  Mea culpa.


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## Sacrosanct (Jul 25, 2022)

DarkCrisis said:


> I don't think the thread move was warranted as this was talking to the modern playing crowd (who won't see it now).
> 
> The post was not just about 2E, and retro clones are still thriving.
> 
> Now it's been moved here to die.  Unnoticed.  Sad.



I don't know about that.  I'm guessing a lot of folks are like me, and I go to the Community page (since it's the boldest and most noticeable font) instead of individual forums to see the threads every day.


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## overgeeked (Jul 25, 2022)

DarkCrisis said:


> I don't think the thread move was warranted as this was talking to the modern playing crowd (who won't see it now).
> 
> The post was not just about 2E, and retro clones are still thriving.
> 
> Now it's been moved here to die.  Unnoticed.  Sad.



It really is a crap shoot what stays and what’s moved.


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## Mannahnin (Jul 25, 2022)

Thieves were always sad in TSR editions of the game, alas.  They were mostly playable as a multiclass option.

Definitely one of the things I appreciate about WotC's tenure has been upgrading Rogues to genuinely useful.  And I appreciate how some of the OSR games also make them more powerful and useful than TSR did.

I played for quite a while in an OSR Discord server over the last couple of years with a bunch of younger players, including a few teens and some college age.  Definitely one of the cool things was seeing how younger folks could also enjoy OSE and older, more stripped-down rules.


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## Retreater (Jul 25, 2022)

AD&D 2e was my introduction to Dungeons & Dragons, so I have some nostalgia for it. My longest campaign (before I became a Killer DM) was in that system. I'm glad to read new players are enjoying it and that it's reinvigorated a passion for DMing in the OP. 
I just can't imagine going back to it, personally. Some sort of 2.999 edition would be cool - like if it still had the traditional approach to the game with a little better balanced classes, more unified mechanics, no THAC0, etc.


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## DarkCrisis (Jul 25, 2022)

Kid who plays the fighter told me today he likes that its one save and not multiple saves like in 5th ed because it mean's that your single roll/save means more.


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## Ralif Redhammer (Jul 25, 2022)

That's an interesting observation. I would also add that how long it takes to rest to regain HP further makes the lower HP feel more impactful.



DarkCrisis said:


> The older kid is playing a Fighter (as he usually does) and he told me he really likes that combat comes down to AC instead of HP.  He likes that he can turn the tide of battle in a swing or two of his axe.  He feels more “useful.”  He likes that it was more deadly.  And I agreed, to much HP/healing etc bogs it all down.




0E/BECMI/1e/2e thieves are rough. I don't think I ever played one higher than 7th level before either dying or getting sick of it back in the day. 

I will say that the kit system at least helped make a thief that could be somewhat decent at a few things, between the kit bonuses and the equipment in the Complete Thieves' Handbook.



Celebrim said:


> Sure.  But the other thing is that all the reflexive responses are just convincing me that the people responding never played nearly as much 1e/2e as I did.  I've got probably 2000+ hours of playing 1e/2e as a thief, and the class is only really balanced between about 1200 and 2000 xp when you are second level and get 2HD and other classes are still just 1st level.  At practically every other point, you are weaker than every other class.  It's this recognition that the thief was useless that lead to all the radical improvements that gave us the 3e Rogue.




I keep thinking about running a throwback 2e campaign. I did a 1e one some years ago, and enjoyed that immensely. I go back and forth on including kits, though. On the one hand, they're a signature element to 2e. On the other, there's a metric ton of them, some of which are terribly balanced.


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## Celebrim (Jul 26, 2022)

Retreater said:


> AD&D 2e was my introduction to Dungeons & Dragons, so I have some nostalgia for it. My longest campaign (before I became a Killer DM) was in that system. I'm glad to read new players are enjoying it and that it's reinvigorated a passion for DMing in the OP.
> I just can't imagine going back to it, personally. Some sort of 2.999 edition would be cool - like if it still had the traditional approach to the game with a little better balanced classes, more unified mechanics, no THAC0, etc.




Several times I have thought about doing a reworking of the NWP system to make it more useful for adjudicating skill challenges, reworking the class balance, cleaning the initiative roll and cleaning up the surprise rule, clean up the rules for when opponents get free attacks on you, fixing monster balance, fixing infravision to produce fewer table arguments, fixing the detect invisibility rules to account for animal senses, reworking THAC0 to be a little more intuitive, and so forth.  And I get really excited for a few minutes imagining what this system will be like that retains the feel of 1e/2e but with all the warts removed, and then I realize two things.  First, that it's a like 400+ hour project, and secondly that at the end of it you'll be like 90% of the way to 3e anyway.  It would be easier to change out the XP system in 3e to make it work more like 1e, have HD caps like 1e, and bring back segments and casting times than it would be to try to turn 1e/2e or a retroclone into something that plays smoothly.


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## RuinousPowers (Jul 26, 2022)

Mannahnin said:


> Thieves were always sad in TSR editions of the game, alas.  They were mostly playable as a multiclass option.
> 
> Definitely one of the things I appreciate about WotC's tenure has been upgrading Rogues to genuinely useful.  And I appreciate how some of the OSR games also make them more powerful and useful than TSR did.
> 
> I played for quite a while in an OSR Discord server over the last couple of years with a bunch of younger players, including a few teens and some college age.  Definitely one of the cool things was seeing how younger folks could also enjoy OSE and older, more stripped-down rules.



Which OSR games have you found that updated Thieves to be more balanced? I've been thinking of running some 2e, and was planning on reinventing the class myself...


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## James Gasik (Jul 26, 2022)

If 2e suffers from anything, it's that what it is, and what people wanted it to be, were never in sync.  I know a lot of people who wanted D&D to be a game where they could make any character concept they want and have fun with it.  The reality is, though, there are things that work in 2e. And things that work well in 2e.  And a lot of things that just...don't.

The Thief is one of those things.  Many people believed that being a Thief would make you the lightly armored, artful dodger, cunning rogue. The outlaw, the bad boy.  The guy who fights with his wits, not his brawn.   You're Raffles or Lupin, Maverick or Han Solo.

The reality is, however, you're not any of these things, or at least, if you are, it's likely not because of your class, but in spite of it.  You're almost bottom of the barrel when it comes to weapons and armor.  Almost bottom of the barrel when it comes to survivability.  Your contribution to combat are slightly better than that of a Wizard without spells, and your primary ability, to facilitate exploration challenges, is unreliable for a few levels.  Race and Kits help, but a very high Dexterity score matters more for your abilities than anything else.  If you decide to play a Thief with a 15 or even a 16 Dexterity, you're in for a rough time.

Backstab is very conservatively designed, to the point it can be nearly impossible to use unless the DM gives tacit permission.  Your abilities should be superior versions of what anyone could do, but they are not treated as such- often, the rules imply no one can attempt things you have abilities for.  Despite being somewhat nonsensical (like, seriously, no one else can actively listen in a dungeon?).  The ever expanding Non-Weapon Proficiency list actually steps on the toes of the Thief at times- ironic, since you'd think the Thief is *the *skilled hero, so NWP's should bolster, not detract from your talents.  But the sad truth is, you get less NWP's than anyone.  Oh sure, you level faster, and so you might not notice it in most campaigns, but you get a new NWP every 4 levels, and everyone else, even Clerics, who are the next fastest class to level, get them every 3.

If you're an old hand, and you understand which ability scores to prioritize, which races give the best features, which weapons have the most utility and are likely the ones most easily acquired, which NWP's are going to see a lot of play (and which ones are a waste of slots), and you understand your role, the game works perfectly fine.

But if you want to play a human warrior with a greatsword who disdains armor, a cunning Halfling swashbuckler who runs into the fray with a rapier in hand, or a Half-Elven Fighter/Cleric/Magic-User who is convinced he's a Red Mage from Final Fantasy, you may be in for some rude awakenings.

It took me a long time to realize that, every time I was making house rules for 2e, I was fighting against the system itself.  That my problems weren't that some options didn't work right, but that some concepts ran against the grain of what the game was designed for.  A lot of people decry "optimizers" as the enemies of roleplaying and fun, but the fact that the system itself punishes you for "doing it wrong" and only the DM can change that fact, is where it all starts.

You played a happy go lucky Thief with a Charisma of 17, and died to a trap or a random arrow and wonder "what went wrong?".  Maybe you ask a friend.  Next thing you know, you're a Wood Elf Fighter, specialized in long swords, with ambidexterity and specialization in two-weapon fighting style, making 5/2 attacks per round with a Thac0 of 15 and dealing d8+9 damage at 1st level!

Well now you're effective...but at what cost?


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## cbwjm (Jul 26, 2022)

I don't think thieves were really all that bad in 2e, being able to focus your skill points meant you could get a decent chance right out the gate of a couple of skills. However, I think that I'd probably drop the class altogether a d make their skills into proficiencies like in that Gothic earth version of ravenloft. I'd probably also turn backstab into a proficiency as it is in ACKS. This way, you could just use the fighter and give them thief skills if they feel the need for them. 

I guess you could still keep the thief, but make them able to trade in their normal skills for different rogue proficiencies so that they could specialise in different areas, like a master of disguise, a burglar, or the typical adventuring thief.


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## James Gasik (Jul 26, 2022)

cbwjm said:


> I don't think thieves were really all that bad in 2e, being able to focus your skill points meant you could get a decent chance right out the gate of a couple of skills. However, I think that I'd probably drop the class altogether a d make their skills into proficiencies like in that Gothic earth version of ravenloft. I'd probably also turn backstab into a proficiency as it is in ACKS. This way, you could just use the fighter and give them thief skills if they feel the need for them.
> 
> I guess you could still keep the thief, but make them able to trade in their normal skills for different rogue proficiencies so that they could specialise in different areas, like a master of disguise, a burglar, or the typical adventuring thief.



That depends on what you think a "decent chance" is.  Of your 60 starting discretionary points, you can put 30 in a skill.  The base for, say, Find/Remove Traps is 5%, so that raises it to 35%.  Barring Kits (I'm not sure which ones grant a bonus to this off-hand), only an 18 Dexterity increases this (by 5%); otherwise, you need to be a Dwarf (+15%), Gnome (+10%), or Halfling (+5%).  Just with the PHB, it's impossible to get more than a coin flip at level 1.  Which given how frail the Thief is, could very well mean a 50% chance not to die upon encountering a trap.

I'm not particularly keen on those odds myself- best to stick with poking everything with a 10' (or 11') pole for the first few levels.


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## Mannahnin (Jul 26, 2022)

Chris Currie said:


> Which OSR games have you found that updated Thieves to be more balanced? I've been thinking of running some 2e, and was planning on reinventing the class myself...



I was thinking of 5 Torches Deep specifically.  Lamentations of the Flame Princess also does a pretty good job with their Specialist class.

Other than that, there are also some common house rules I often see used for Thieves.  If I'm running B/X or OSE, for example, giving them d6 HD and having all their skills work on the Hear Noise chance (with a +2 for Climb Walls) is a good simple improvement.  Plus just giving their abilities the benefit of the doubt instead of being harsh in adjudicating Thief abilities like Gygax sadly recommended in the 1E DMG and as 2E largely also recommended.


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## Alzrius (Jul 26, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> If 2e suffers from anything, it's that what it is, and what people wanted it to be, were never in sync.  I know a lot of people who wanted D&D to be a game where they could make any character concept they want and have fun with it.  The reality is, though, there are things that work in 2e. And things that work well in 2e.  And a lot of things that just...don't.



That's not a 2E thing, it's a D&D thing, regardless of edition.

I told a story a while back about how I was trying to talk a guy I knew, who loved comic books, into giving D&D (5E, which isn't my edition of choice, but which seemed like the easiest access point for a newcomer) a chance. He asked if he could make a character who was just like The Flash. I hesitated, then started to describe how there were certain builds (which I was reasonably certain were out there) which could get him up to more than twice the movement speed of most characters, along with one or two extra attacks per round. He just shook his head and said "That's not even close to what The Flash can do."

And he was right. If you've got a particular inspiration from some other media, including most comics, video games, or anime/manga, then most of the time D&D isn't going to let you play what you want, particularly at 1st level. Heck, just look at the differences between Vancian magic and how magic works in most other media; that one's been a sticking point for decades.

The game is what it is, and there's always going to be a gulf between that and what people want it to be, at least in terms of when they start playing their first character.


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## MadArkitekt (Jul 26, 2022)

How long did it take to explain THACO?


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## Celebrim (Jul 26, 2022)

Alzrius said:


> That's not a 2E thing, it's a D&D thing, regardless of edition.
> 
> I told a story a while back about how I was trying to talk a guy I knew, who loved comic books, into giving D&D (5E, which isn't my edition of choice, but which seemed like the easiest access point for a newcomer) a chance. He asked if he could make a character who was just like The Flash. I hesitated, then started to describe how there were certain builds (which I was reasonably certain were out there) which could get him up to more than twice the movement speed of most characters, along with one or two extra attacks per round. He just shook his head and said "That's not even close to what The Flash can do."




Ok, wow.  Yeah, that's a huge disconnect.  The most difficult time I ever had was with a new player that said, "I want to play a character that rides a dinosaur that shoots lasers out of their eyes."

I said, "You can do that, but it's not really a concept for a new character.  It's more of a goal to work towards.  But I can tell you how to build a character that is like "Tarzan of the Dinosaurs" and then by the time your character is powerful enough to meet dinosaurs, you'll be able to befriend them and ride them."  And, I could do this because I have the house rules for that and he was OK with that explanation.  Of course, he split the party and got the character killed before he ever met dinosaurs but I really did have a plan for him meeting dinosaurs and a potential path to getting a cyborg techno-magic dinosaur that shot 'lasers' from its eyes.   

But yeah, there is a whole different level of disconnect in saying you want to be The Flash.  Like, most actual Superhero RPGs break down and are unplayable with characters of The Flash level of power.  He's right off the bat certainly hit the nail on the head for what sort of character a power gamer would choose to play if the options were unlimited.  I've yet to see any rule system that really deals well with the problems Speedsters bring to the table.  If I ever ran a supers game, I'd be strongly tempted to ban Speedsters or at least ban Speedsters with more than single digit multiples of human normal speed.  

The problem is of course action economy.  And in particular The Flash can play an entire adventure while the rest of the party is leaving for the tavern door.


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## RuinousPowers (Jul 26, 2022)

MadArkitekt said:


> How long did it take to explain THACO?



Subtract AC from this number to find what you need to roll to hit. (If you don't mind giving out AC)
THAC0 subtracts attack roll to determine what AC is hit. (If you don't)

It's not exactly rocket science.


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## James Gasik (Jul 26, 2022)

Celebrim said:


> Ok, wow.  Yeah, that's a huge disconnect.  The most difficult time I ever had was with a new player that said, "I want to play a character that rides a dinosaur that shoots lasers out of their eyes."
> 
> I said, "You can do that, but it's not really a concept for a new character.  It's more of a goal to work towards.  But I can tell you how to build a character that is like "Tarzan of the Dinosaurs" and then by the time your character is powerful enough to meet dinosaurs, you'll be able to befriend them and ride them."  And, I could do this because I have the house rules for that and he was OK with that explanation.  Of course, he split the party and got the character killed before he ever met dinosaurs but I really did have a plan for him meeting dinosaurs and a potential path to getting a cyborg techno-magic dinosaur that shot 'lasers' from its eyes.
> 
> ...



It doesn't even have to be an outlandish character concept either!  After reading _The Weird of the White Wolf_, a friend of mine shows up to game with this idea he had for playing an "albino drow" Fighter/Magic-User.  He rolls up this character, who takes his dump stat as Constitution (I think it was a 5!) and takes bastard sword proficiency (suggested by the DM, who saw where this was going, and was planning to eventually run _White Plume Mountain_).

Of course, with his atrocious hit point total, "Not-Elric" never got that far, and we tried, because he was really into the character!  I don't know how many of us (myself included) would be inspired by a work of fantasy and be like "ooh ooh, I want to play a character like _that _only to be stymied by the game itself!


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## DarkCrisis (Jul 26, 2022)

MadArkitekt said:


> How long did it take to explain THACO?




Not long at all.  It's not quantum physics. Their sheets have a chart so all they have to do is compare the roll to it and see what AC they hit, anyways.


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## Celebrim (Jul 26, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> It doesn't even have to be an outlandish character concept either!  After reading _The Weird of the White Wolf_, a friend of mine shows up to game with this idea he had for playing an "albino drow" Fighter/Magic-User.  He rolls up this character, who takes his dump stat as Constitution (I think it was a 5!) and takes bastard sword proficiency (suggested by the DM, who saw where this was going, and was planning to eventually run _White Plume Mountain_).
> 
> Of course, with his atrocious hit point total, "Not-Elric" never got that far, and we tried, because he was really into the character!  I don't know how many of us (myself included) would be inspired by a work of fantasy and be like "ooh ooh, I want to play a character like _that _only to be stymied by the game itself!




Yeah, playing Elric without all the potions he's using to keep his health magically robust is probably not going to work in much any system.  The way to do this would be to do it as color, which is how Raistlin was run by the player in Dragonlance.  Raistlin's CON was actually a 12, but he roleplayed it as Raistlin had very poor health and only kept going because of the potions and herbs he was continually consuming.  Raistlin's "poor health" had no actual impact on play, it was just a quirk of the characterization.  

Ironically, the player probably did this because he knew that in 1e AD&D M-U with less than 15 CON was basically unplayable single-class because without a CON bonus they were permanently under threat of being one shotted by just about every peer level threat.  So like even though in reality 12 CON is a bit above average, for a survivable PC M-U it's terrible.


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## James Gasik (Jul 26, 2022)

Celebrim said:


> Yeah, playing Elric without all the potions he's using to keep his health magically robust is probably not going to work in much any system.  The way to do this would be to do it as color, which is how Raistlin was run by the player in Dragonlance.  Raistlin's CON was actually a 12, but he roleplayed it as Raistlin had very poor health and only kept going because of the potions and herbs he was continually consuming.  Raistlin's "poor health" had no actual impact on play, it was just a quirk of the characterization.
> 
> Ironically, the player probably did this because he knew that in 1e AD&D M-U with less than 15 CON was basically unplayable single-class because without a CON bonus they were permanently under threat of being one shotted by just about every peer level threat.  So like even though in reality 12 CON is a bit above average, for a survivable PC M-U it's terrible.



Oh definitely, and I tried to explain it, but the guy was inspired!  So what could I do?  I've seen dozens of pastiche characters come and go, or just "hey wouldn't it be neat if..." characters, and they all basically fall down the same well as poor Timmy.

You want to play Conan?  Which one?  I never read the AD&D Conan stuff, but I'm guessing it was a lot like Lankhmar, where the only way to get it to work was to have rules like humans being able to multiclass.

This can affect NPC's too, like the old Hall of Heroes book for the Forgotten Realms, and it's terrible attempt to stat up everyone's favorite Dark Elf Ranger (which involved creating special critical hit rules for him out of thin air).  Or worse, the 3e Drizzt stat block, which resulted in, not the legendary hero, but a terribly built, unplayable mess...


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## Bacon Bits (Jul 26, 2022)

a.everett1287 said:


> Tried this with 2 of my 3 groups.
> 
> They hated it, and I remembered why I hated it too. I don't think any of the people I play with have any desire to go back to any edition, and we've quickly gotten over the nostalgia.




The only edition of D&D or d20 I've ever had a desire to actually play again _after _opening the old book is 4e. Anything prior to 3e and THAC0 and busted class balance turns me off. 3e and d20 the quantity of rules and the poor class balance have turned me off.

I could see a small group of 3-4 players in a 4e game working well; our original 4e group was 6-8 and it was unworkable. There's a lot that I intensely dislike about 4e, but also a lot that I intensely like. 4e really deserves to be spun off as its own game and reborn in a new edition, but I doubt Hasbro is interested in doing that.


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## Retreater (Jul 26, 2022)

Bacon Bits said:


> The only edition of D&D or d20 I've ever had a desire to actually play again _after _opening the old book is 4e. Anything prior to 3e and THAC0 and busted class balance turns me off. 3e and d20 the quantity of rules and the poor class balance have turned me off.
> 
> I could see a small group of 3-4 players in a 4e game working well; our original 4e group was 6-8 and it was unworkable. There's a lot that I intensely dislike about 4e, but also a lot that I intensely like. 4e really deserves to be spun off as its own game and reborn in a new edition, but I doubt Hasbro is interested in doing that.



Yeah, and it's the only edition of D&D you can't really approximate on a VTT. You can easily play OD&D - 3.5 (or their retro clones equivalent). 
4e is the dead edition, regrettably.


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## Mannahnin (Jul 26, 2022)

Retreater said:


> Yeah, and it's the only edition of D&D you can't really approximate on a VTT. You can easily play OD&D - 3.5 (or their retro clones equivalent).
> 4e is the dead edition, regrettably.



Well, people have done it.  Matt Colville just ran a short 4E campaign on Foundry, IIRC _(EDIT: Fantasy Grounds; thanks Bacon bits!)_.  Unfortunately due to the GSL vs. OGL debacle I understand no one can really sell an automation package for a VTT, so people have to code all that stuff themselves if they want it. :/


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## James Gasik (Jul 26, 2022)

Retreater said:


> Yeah, and it's the only edition of D&D you can't really approximate on a VTT. You can easily play OD&D - 3.5 (or their retro clones equivalent).
> 4e is the dead edition, regrettably.



I started off by hating 4e.  Then a few years in, I got roped into playing, and suddenly, it felt like a whole new game.  Certainly, it was the easiest game for me as a DM to run.  Encounter design was a snap!  I'll always hate how it wasn't just abandoned, but killed.

But that doesn't mean I don't have a fondness for older versions of the game.  I still wax nostalgic for all my old AD&D books.  But it is far less forgiving, on it's face, than later editions, for oddball character concepts.

Everything else, from it's rules that don't always make sense, love of strange, tacked-on subsystems, and odd sense of balance is just...what the game was at the time.  But if a guy comes to me wanting to play a Witcher, I would want to be able to say more than "Well, I guess you could be a Half-Elf Fighter/Magic-User, but..."


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## James Gasik (Jul 26, 2022)

By the way, back to the Thief problem, I realized I'd discussed it previously, and if anyone is interested, here is that thread:  D&D 2E - 2e Fighter vs Fighter/Thief vs Thief Play Balance


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## Bacon Bits (Jul 26, 2022)

Mannahnin said:


> Well, people have done it.  Matt Colville just ran a short 4E campaign on Foundry, IIRC.  Unfortunately due to the GSL vs. OGL debacle I understand no one can really sell an automation package for a VTT, so people have to code all that stuff themselves if they want it. :/




It was Fantasy Grounds, one of the few VTTs that existed in 2007. Matt also supposedly added a lot the 4e stuff to FG himself. I'm not even sure how much FG sold for it; probably only what was actually in the GSL. If you look at the FG 4e forum, you can see a lot of people using community mods that add 4e Compendium content. The GSL and WotC's business plan put the game in a super weird spot for third party VTTs.


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## Celebrim (Jul 26, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Oh definitely, and I tried to explain it, but the guy was inspired!  So what could I do?  I've seen dozens of pastiche characters come and go, or just "hey wouldn't it be neat if..." characters, and they all basically fall down the same well as poor Timmy.
> 
> You want to play Conan?




All your examples have in common characters which within their own narratives have the power of plot.  The Flash in particular is an egregious example of a character whose power level varies tremendously from scene to scene as is needed by the plot, in a genre where power of plot dominates the story telling.  (Which is why Supers RPGs have a notoriously hard time replicating the genre of the comic books.)  You start gaming it and it's basically impossible to keep The Batman relevant in a world of Superman and The Flash, or to recreate any of the comics with the upper echelon of supes involved.

And Conan is fundamentally the same problem.  Which of book Conan's attributes are below 12?  In fact, Conan is the consummate example of a character who has 18 in every stat - he's strong, fast, hardy, whip smart, perceptive, and has a magnetic animal charisma that makes him instantly attractive to every woman and manly man he meets.  He's good at everything he does from swinging a sword to leading an army.  There is no skill he attempts that he fails at.   And the same basic problem occurs with Drizzt Do'Urden.  All the characters you are mentioning break the 1st rule of RPGs - "Thou shalt not be good at everything."

So when a player tries to build one of these uber characters that really don't need a party to succeed and who in the stories never fail at anything, they are going to quickly find that the rules by necessity prevent it.  Even if the rules are flexible enough to allow the concept, what you end up with is not a character that is good at everything but a rather a character that is mediocre at everything and good at nothing.  

This is not a failing of the game system.  This is success in a game system.  

Which isn't to say that the problem of "you can't build the character you imagine" isn't a huge failing of 2e, because it is.  I'm only saying that in an RPG there are some characters from fiction  that you shouldn't be able to import because they don't support the core aesthetics of gameplay in the game.


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## James Gasik (Jul 26, 2022)

My worst D&D character.  I was a huge Castlevania fan in high school, so naturally, I foolishly decided to make a whip-using Fighter.  "Sure I only do d2 damage, but if I'm strong, that's not so bad!"

Turns out, whips suck.  You think I would have recognized this fact right away, but....lol.

Then again, sometimes the rules actually allow for crazy builds to *work*, like dart specialists, elevating "throwing darts" as something low level Magic Users did to feel useful into an actually dangerous thing to do!


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## Retreater (Jul 26, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> My worst D&D character.  I was a huge Castlevania fan in high school, so naturally, I foolishly decided to make a whip-using Fighter.  "Sure I only do d2 damage, but if I'm strong, that's not so bad!"
> 
> Turns out, whips suck.  You think I would have recognized this fact right away, but....lol.
> 
> Then again, sometimes the rules actually allow for crazy builds to *work*, like dart specialists, elevating "throwing darts" as something low level Magic Users did to feel useful into an actually dangerous thing to do!



Spiked chain in 3.x? 
I think 4e Essentials also had an assassin build that used a whip/garrote/etc.
D&D (and most other TTRPGs I've seen) seem to work best when a concept is informed by the rules.


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## Bacon Bits (Jul 26, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> By the way, back to the Thief problem, I realized I'd discussed it previously, and if anyone is interested, here is that thread:  D&D 2E - 2e Fighter vs Fighter/Thief vs Thief Play Balance




IMO, because the XP table had it so that you needed the same amount of XP that it took to get to level N in order to reach level N+1 (at least for the first 7-8 levels or so) multiclassing was just pretty universally the better option. Especially in 2e AD&D where racial level limits were raised, but even then multiclassing is how demihumans could utilize all that spare XP.

Being a Thief that could stop and put on real armor and draw real weapons when the situation demanded it -- especially with Fighter magic item equipment draw -- or otherwise stow the short swords and sling spells was just a better adventurer than trying to backstab, which was nearly impossible to pull off from my memory.


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## James Gasik (Jul 26, 2022)

Oh yeah, well the spiked chain really came down to "here kids, a reach weapon that you can actually *use *in close combat"!  If all reach weapons worked that way, the spiked chain would have been a footnote.

I never really grokked why it annoyed people so much though.  For the first time, a Fighter could actually control enemies and keep them from attacking the back line...the thing that everyone said was their hat...and somehow, it was driving the early 3e DM's out of their skulls!


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## Celebrim (Jul 26, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> By the way, back to the Thief problem, I realized I'd discussed it previously, and if anyone is interested, here is that thread:  D&D 2E - 2e Fighter vs Fighter/Thief vs Thief Play Balance




Nice thread.

I have several times thought of cleaning up the problems with AD&D 1e/2e including the problem that thieves  are pointless, and that included brainstorming what it would take to make thief balanced with fighter, cleric, and M-U.

And I think at a minimum it would require something like:

a) Improve Thief THAC0 progression to the cleric standard.
b) Improving Thief savings throws by 2 versus petrification/polymorph, rod/staff/wand, and breath weapon.
c) Giving Thief the same 1 NWP per 2 levels that Fighters get.
d) Giving Thieves automatic advances in existing NWP every other level as if they had double/triple selected the NWP, thus, making them true skill monkeys.
e) Granting thieves multiple attacks per round as a specialized fighter of 1/2 their level.
f)  Granting thieves the ability to improve Dexterity as a 1e Cavalier.  
g) Making explicit that you can backstab any monster you surprise that has discernable anatomy.  

And at that point, yeah, playing a thief might be fun and worthwhile.


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## James Gasik (Jul 26, 2022)

Bacon Bits said:


> IMO, because the XP table had it so that you needed the same amount of XP that it took to get to level N in order to reach level N+1 (at least for the first 7-8 levels or so) multiclassing was just pretty universally the better option. Especially in 2e AD&D where racial level limits were raised, but even then multiclassing is how demihumans could utilize all that spare XP.
> 
> Being a Thief that could stop and put on real armor and draw real weapons when the situation demanded it -- especially with Fighter magic item equipment draw -- or otherwise stow the short swords and sling spells was just a better adventurer than trying to backstab, which was nearly impossible to pull off from my memory.



By the rules, backstab was very hard.  By the DM...it ranged from "oh yeah, sure go ahead" all the way to "if you can perform a triple backflip while on fire, and can reach the vital nerve area on the dragon's body 8' above you, there's a 23% chance you can backstab.  Then the dragon will eat you.  I think that's a fair ruling."


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## Celebrim (Jul 26, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> For the first time, a Fighter could actually control enemies and keep them from attacking the back line...the thing that everyone said was their hat...and somehow, it was driving the early 3e DM's out of their skulls!




It was mostly because of the trip combo where a player could soft lock opponents or abuse of the 5' step to stay permanently out of range of opponents that lacked reach.


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## Bacon Bits (Jul 26, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> By the rules, backstab was very hard.  By the DM...it ranged from "oh yeah, sure go ahead" all the way to "if you can perform a triple backflip while on fire, and can reach the vital nerve area on the dragon's body 8' above you, there's a 23% chance you can backstab.  Then the dragon will eat you.  I think that's a fair ruling."




Yeah, my experience was that the victim had to be unaware of you. You had to move silently, hide in shadows, or be invisible. Which is ironic because it means the best backstabber is now the thief/magic-user with improved invisibility, and as an added bonus you get lightning bolt, mage armor, charm person, silence, knock, detect magic, alter self, etc.

Your description also seems to apply to how racial level limits worked in actual play. In my experience, _every_ table 100% enforces racial level limits... at level 1. However, when you actually have PCs hitting the limits, the DM magically forgets that they exist. Or, sometimes, applies a penalty. 10% to 20% XP penalty seemed to be standard in my area. Because stopping progression was obviously dumb. It meant you should just retire, and neither the player, nor the rest of the party, nor the DM were ever interested in that.


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## James Gasik (Jul 26, 2022)

Celebrim said:


> It was mostly because of the trip combo where a player could soft lock opponents or abuse of the 5' step to stay permanently out of range of opponents that lacked reach.



The one time I played a spiked chain character, I was often facing multiple foes, so I was more worried about keeping them attacking me instead of anyone else, so the 5 foot step thing was never a tactic I employed- I wanted the enemy stuck to me like glue.

And by 5th level, I was facing enemies that were darned near impossible to trip, due to being big and strong.  My first fight with a centaur, I just gave up trying, lol.


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## James Gasik (Jul 26, 2022)

Bacon Bits said:


> Yeah, my experience was that the victim had to be unaware of you. You had to move silently, hide in shadows, or be invisible. Which is ironic because it means the best backstabber is now the thief/magic-user with improved invisibility, and as an added bonus you get lightning bolt, mage armor, charm person, silence, knock, detect magic, alter self, etc.
> 
> Your description also seems to apply to how racial level limits worked in actual play. In my experience, _every_ table 100% enforces racial level limits... at level 1. However, when you actually have PCs hitting the limits, the DM magically forgets that they exist. Or, sometimes, applies a penalty. 10% to 20% XP penalty seemed to be standard in my area. Because stopping progression was obviously dumb. It meant you should just retire, and neither the player, nor the rest of the party, nor the DM were ever interested in that.



What I saw done a lot was requiring double xp to advance beyond the level cap.  Not that I ever saw a lot of characters actually reach said level cap!


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## Bacon Bits (Jul 26, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> What I saw done a lot was requiring double xp to advance beyond the level cap.  Not that I ever saw a lot of characters actually reach said level cap!



Oh, yeah it was very rare for us as well. I literally remember one character of mine hitting the limit before, and I think it was in 1e when they were much lower. And the DM still let me progress.

I do remember playing a one-shot 1e game where the multiclass thief/magic-user was level 11/10, and the party's human paladin was only level 9. Once I saw that I don't think I ever played a single class character ever again. Though my experience is a bit odd because I played 2e _before_ I ever played 1e... I went BECMI or B/X --> 2e --> 1e --> 2e --> 3e.


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## billd91 (Jul 26, 2022)

Bacon Bits said:


> Yeah, my experience was that the victim had to be unaware of you. You had to move silently, hide in shadows, or be invisible. Which is ironic because it means the best backstabber is now the thief/magic-user with improved invisibility, and as an added bonus you get lightning bolt, mage armor, charm person, silence, knock, detect magic, alter self, etc.



Not just unaware, *surprised by* the thief - if you were a stickler for the conditions. And that meant that even if you successfully moved silently and hid in shadows (or were invisible), there was a flat out 30% chance they weren't even surprised in 2e and completely negated the possibility of backstab.

Most of the time we were not sticklers on all that.

So, no wonder people initially kind of freaked out that a rogue in 3e got sneak attack so much easier and often. If they played anything close to AD&D's restrictiveness on it, 3e was a huge leap forward in rogue combat effectiveness.


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## James Gasik (Jul 26, 2022)

Yeah but then 3e got you with all the monsters who were just plain immune to sneak attack for various reasons, lol.


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## overgeeked (Jul 26, 2022)

Alzrius said:


> That's not a 2E thing, it's a D&D thing, regardless of edition.
> 
> I told a story a while back about how I was trying to talk a guy I knew, who loved comic books, into giving D&D (5E, which isn't my edition of choice, but which seemed like the easiest access point for a newcomer) a chance. He asked if he could make a character who was just like The Flash. I hesitated, then started to describe how there were certain builds (which I was reasonably certain were out there) which could get him up to more than twice the movement speed of most characters, along with one or two extra attacks per round. He just shook his head and said "That's not even close to what The Flash can do."
> 
> ...



Yeah. That’s the biggest weakness of class- and archetype-based games. They limit what you can do to the point of constraining your imagination. A free-form approach lets people imagine more broadly and create what they want to play, but you run the risk of not fitting the premise of the game. High fantasy vs superheroes. As much as 5E tries to be fantasy superheroes, it’s really bad at actually doing fantasy superheroes.


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## billd91 (Jul 26, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> Yeah but then 3e got you with all the monsters who were just plain immune to sneak attack for various reasons, lol.



Same with 2e, really, because there they had to be generally humanoid (so the same oozes and elementals immune in 3e were immune in 2e too) and you may have needed the ability to reach the vitals, so no backstabbing giants unless you were up off floor level (or the giant was sitting down...). The nature and specific rules behind the restrictions may have changed, but the restrictions weren't exactly new.


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## billd91 (Jul 26, 2022)

overgeeked said:


> Yeah. That’s the biggest weakness of class- and archetype-based games. They limit what you can do to the point of constraining your imagination. A free-form approach lets people imagine more broadly and create what they want to play, but you run the risk of not fitting the premise of the game. High fantasy vs superheroes. As much as 5E tries to be fantasy superheroes, it’s really bad at actually doing fantasy superheroes.



And, honestly, this is perfectly reasonable. Some genres may overlap a little, but an RPG that goes fully into the comic superhero genre is going to do it better with a speedster concept than one that doesn't. And the Flash is a poor fitting concept for fantasy heroes, even if they do overlap a little with the superheroic genre.


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## MadArkitekt (Jul 26, 2022)

Chris Currie said:


> Subtract AC from this number to find what you need to roll to hit. (If you don't mind giving out AC)
> THAC0 subtracts attack roll to determine what AC is hit. (If you don't)
> 
> It's not exactly rocket science.



Huh, I say a buddy down and played Baldur‘ s Gate 2 and you would have though the game was written in Sanscrit and I was speaking Aramaic


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## MadArkitekt (Jul 26, 2022)

DarkCrisis said:


> Not long at all.  It's not quantum physics. Their sheets have a chart so all they have to do is compare the roll to it and see what AC they hit, anyways.



ah, never played the tabletop version or seen the sheets. Learned from Baldur’s Gate II. That’s pretty cool the sheets have the formulae


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## Celebrim (Jul 26, 2022)

overgeeked said:


> Yeah. That’s the biggest weakness of class- and archetype-based games. They limit what you can do to the point of constraining your imagination.




It depends on just how badly you implement a class or archetype based system.  A well implemented one allows for just about any character your can imagine that is also a character that is gameable  - by which I mean it is social, balanced, and does things that can be handled at a table.  Any system whether skill based or class based for example will tend to have problems with characters that can prophetically see the future, because that's really hard to game.

The limitations in free form approaches are typically just as tightly constrained it's just less obvious what those constraints actually are at first.  Typically point buy systems also have a limited pool of powers to buy from and although at first you feel unconstrained, the more familiar you become with the system the fewer viable choices you tend to find.  Often point buy systems suffer heavily from lack of balance so that spending your points on X is vastly more efficient than spending your points on Y, effectively making Y a non-choice.  And typically even more so than in a class based system, you are punished point by systems for spreading your points across different archetypes so that you are vastly less powerful with a complex build than you would be with leaning into Johnny One Trick and putting all your points into that one thing that you do.

I'm happy enough with my 3.X homebrew to think my homebrew classes cover all possible characters that are gameable with two known exceptions - a character who has luck as their superpower and "Sherlock Holmes".  I have concepts for implementing both, but getting the balance right is really hard and I haven't yet had a player excited enough for those concepts to put in the work to get it right.  Getting away from a class based system and having some sort of point buy wouldn't make those problems go away, nor do they necessarily even go away in abstract build it yourself systems based on keywords.


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## Bacon Bits (Jul 26, 2022)

MadArkitekt said:


> How long did it take to explain THACO?




THAC0 isn't hard to explain. The explanation is easy. The trouble is that It's harder to _execute_. Like the fact that you have to stop and read these to figure out which one is right is part of the trouble:

THAC0 - (die roll + modifier) 
THAC0 - (die roll - modifier)
THAC0 - die roll - modifier
THAC0 - die roll + modifier
Doing it in your head correctly when sometimes you have a circumstantial -1 or +2 or -2 or +1 that varies from round to round and that sometimes you forget until after you think you're done is not easy. Worse, because AC basically "reflects" around 0, it's easier to miscalculate without noticing. If you get a result  between -3 instead and 3 as the AC you hit, that generally feels always about right with THAC0. It's harder to look at your die roll and say, "wait a minute, that doesn't make any sense because it's lower than the die roll".

THAC0 isn't difficult, but it's _precise _and that makes it _cumbersome_. It's just as cumbersome as the attack routine tables from AD&D 1e. That makes it error prone in ways that adding numbers isn't. Because it's literally the most common roll in the game, being rolled as often as 3 or more times in a single round every round, having the mechanic be even slightly more complicated than it absolutely needs to be is a failure of design.

Remember: Nobody ever made a THAC0 wheel for 5e.


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## Orius (Jul 26, 2022)

Oh yeah, pre-3e thieves suck.  They suck at combat, and at low levels they're terrible at picking locks, disarming traps and pretty much anything else they're supposed to be good at.  Then there's the issues with backstab, where everything is vague and left up to the DM, who's usually advised to take the most restrictive approach possible.  Even allowing generous backstabbing, the damage output really isn't that impressive.  The 3e rogue was a huge improvement in every way.



Celebrim said:


> Several times I have thought about doing a reworking of the NWP system to make it more useful for adjudicating skill challenges, reworking the class balance, cleaning the initiative roll and cleaning up the surprise rule, clean up the rules for when opponents get free attacks on you, fixing monster balance, fixing infravision to produce fewer table arguments, fixing the detect invisibility rules to account for animal senses, reworking THAC0 to be a little more intuitive, and so forth.  And I get really excited for a few minutes imagining what this system will be like that retains the feel of 1e/2e but with all the warts removed, and then I realize two things.  First, that it's a like 400+ hour project, and secondly that at the end of it you'll be like 90% of the way to 3e anyway.  It would be easier to change out the XP system in 3e to make it work more like 1e, have HD caps like 1e, and bring back segments and casting times than it would be to try to turn 1e/2e or a retroclone into something that plays smoothly.




Tell me about it.  I might not take the same specific approaches you would but for me fixing the things I want to fix in 2e would push things close enough to 3e that I might as well just use 3e.  It's less work to ban 3e's most egregious crap, limit available options, and tweak a few other things than to hammer out 2e's legacy problems, work out the inconsistencies, and reconcile the differences where certain parts of the rules have multiple independent systems.

I already use some 3e elements in my current 2e game.  First off, initiative.  I had some combat planning sheets that I used in an earlier 3e campaign that I grabbed to use in the game before remembering that 2e's initiative system was different.  But modern D&D initiative works well enough for 2e that I kept it.  Then I switched to 3e's healing amounts though I kept the 2e levels for the spells.  It makes them a bit more potent, and the party cleric doesn't need to load up on a ton of heals.  I do 3e critical hits too, except without the specialized crit ranges or multipliers though I think crits are too powerful for 2e.

Oh and ascending AC.  I've been using that since it got previewed in Dragon as an upcoming feature of 3e in late 1999.  THAC0 itself isn't bad, it's just that using subtraction on the fly is less intuitive than addition.


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## tetrasodium (Jul 26, 2022)

Bacon Bits said:


> THAC0 isn't hard to explain. The explanation is easy. The trouble is that It's harder to _execute_. Like the fact that you have to stop and read these to figure out which one is right is part of the trouble:
> 
> THAC0 - (die roll + modifier)
> THAC0 - (die roll - modifier)
> ...



At the time the sheets themselves had slots for the math to be done ahead of time beside your weapons. If you had some kind of one off or situational temporary modifier you could just start a point or two up/down & if your die roll was not good enough it was easy to see at a glance.  If it was a long term thing like an attrib change or a new weapon you would redo the math.





Not having those on the 5e sheets was a strange choice despite all of the efforts to simplify things was a strange choice


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## Bacon Bits (Jul 26, 2022)

tetrasodium said:


> At the time the sheets themselves had slots for the math to be done ahead of time beside your weapons. If you had some kind of one off or situational temporary modifier you could just start a point or two up/down & if your die roll was not good enough it was easy to see at a glance.  If it was a long term thing like an attrib change or a new weapon you would redo the math.
> View attachment 255410
> 
> Not having those on the 5e sheets was a strange choice despite all of the efforts to simplify things was a strange choice




The trouble is those charts don't really work that well with the amount of circumstantial modifiers you'll see from flanking, charging, long range, etc. One guy casts bless or prayer and they're all wrong for everyone. I know they're useful, and I know they suck when you level up or find a new weapon (or get to the level where you typically face things with negative AC) because I used them, too.

They don't exist on 5e character sheets because... you really don't need them. Nearly always, you take your ability modifier, base bonus, and any permanent passive bonus and write "+X" on your sheet and it stays that way for 2-4 levels. Then your attack is adding just that number and the die roll together. Usually your circumstantial bonuses are either advantage or bonus dice, so it's difficult to forget them and you're always adding (barring rare exceptions like Bane). The only common flat bonus in the game is cover and firing into melee, both which could easily be replaced with a d4 (and arguably should be). You never feel like you have to think about confusing ideas like "bonuses subtract and penalties add".

You also never have a scheme where _rolling_ lower is better like with ability checks adding further confusion. Just having a scheme of "higher is always better" is a remarkable level of simplification that eliminates a significant amount of mental overhead. You don't go from needing to roll an ability check with a +4 bonus to get _under_ a 10 to rolling an attack with a +2 charging bonus and _higher is better_ but your target number is on scale where _lower_ is better.


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## James Gasik (Jul 26, 2022)

MadArkitekt said:


> ah, never played the tabletop version or seen the sheets. Learned from Baldur’s Gate II. That’s pretty cool the sheets have the formulae



It's still a little counterintuitive, and some people have trouble with it.  I know I still sometimes do, which is amusing since I've had many decades to get used to it.

But any time I visit my buddy who refuses to switch from 2e (and will still rant about that "WotC edition" despite the fact we're on 5e by now), there's a few fun moments.

"Ok, his AC is -2."

"Uh, I rolled a 8...but have +4 to hit so that's 12 and my Thac0 is 10..." _does math_

"Jimmy, you hit."

"Oh did I?  Cool!"

"Why is this so hard, it's just math."

_grumbles unintelligibly_


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## billd91 (Jul 26, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> "Why is this so hard, it's just math."



Yep. That's just it. It's math. Some people have a good relationship with it, and some *really* don't. And, truthfully, some people only have a good relationship with parts of it - cross that 0 line and all hell breaks loose for them. This is why ascending ACs was such a user experience improvement in D&D.


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## James Gasik (Jul 26, 2022)

billd91 said:


> Yep. That's just it. It's math. Some people have a good relationship with it, and some *really* don't. And, truthfully, some people only have a good relationship with parts of it - cross that 0 line and all hell breaks loose for them. This is why ascending ACs was such a user experience improvement in D&D.



I'm not entirely sure why OD&D settled on these systems.  Ability checks to roll under your ability score, ok, that makes sense.  But there's so much else that can trip up newbies, lol.

DM: "Ok, so, your AC goes down, based on what armor you wear, and your defensive adjustment from Dexterity lowers your AC."

Player: "Right, ok, so in that case, my Platemail gives me 3, my 15 Dex reduces that to 2 and my shield...oh!"

DM: "Oh?"

Player: "So that magic shield +2 is cursed then!  I want to get rid of it!"

DM: "No, it's not cursed, it lowers your AC by 2."

Player: "Wouldn't that be a Shield -2 then?"

DM: "....."


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## billd91 (Jul 26, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> I'm not entirely sure why OD&D settled on these systems.  Ability checks to roll under your ability score, ok, that makes sense.  But there's so much else that can trip up newbies, lol.
> 
> DM: "Ok, so, your AC goes down, based on what armor you wear, and your defensive adjustment from Dexterity lowers your AC."
> 
> ...



The idea was cribbed from a naval wargame, so the story goes. In that naval wargame, a ship's armor class was something akin to 1st rate, 2nd rate, 3rd rate, etc with 1st rate being the best and things descending in quality from there despite the numerical value ranking increasing.


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## DarkCrisis (Jul 26, 2022)

James Gasik said:


> I'm not entirely sure why OD&D settled on these systems.  Ability checks to roll under your ability score, ok, that makes sense.  But there's so much else that can trip up newbies, lol.
> 
> DM: "Ok, so, your AC goes down, based on what armor you wear, and your defensive adjustment from Dexterity lowers your AC."
> 
> ...



Baldurs Gate introduced me to the rules of AD&D. 

So I load up the game and make a fighter and start off next to the inn.

I go in and buy some leather armor and equip it…. Why did my Armor Class go down?  I figured I wasn’t trained to use it yet and took it off and went about my way to explore..


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## Emirikol (Jul 30, 2022)

DarkCrisis said:


> And I have found a renewed passion for DMing D&D.  It has been missing a long time.
> 
> AD&D is always will be D&D to me.  It just feels more like an actual adventure.  IMO.



Great to hear. Im always nostalgic when I read these things.


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## Emirikol (Jul 30, 2022)

During the forced world shutdown, we played A4 Slavelords dungeon with 1e (yes, naked with a dagger). We had a blast. No Im keen to run it again.
During 2008-2014-ish  we switched to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. It has MUCH lower hit points (wound threshold) but damage still scales up dangerously.
Since we use milestone xp for all our games, players really use their skill and creativity more often to solve problems.


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## Jahydin (Jul 30, 2022)

@DarkCrisis

Had a blast reading about your experience and feel the same way. I was a bit too young to play AD&D, so no nostalgia at play when I say I find it more exciting to run than the current edition. As a player though, I prefer to run two different classes to keep things more interesting. Leveling up at different intervals, getting more use out of random treasure, and solving different sets of problems are just some of the perks.

Have you tried Castles & Crusades? It's free to check out!

Keeps all the combat math of AD&D, has well written classes, uses a simple d20 attribute check system, and ascending AC!

For those that dislike the Thief's low-success rate, C&C has that covered as well. Thieves usually start with at least a 50% chance to succeed in their Dex Skills.

But if you're really in love with AD&D rules, Hyperborea is also a fun read just for the 22 subclasses alone!


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## Alzrius (Aug 13, 2022)

Celebrim said:


> The way to do this would be to do it as color, which is how Raistlin was run by the player in Dragonlance. Raistlin's CON was actually a 12, but he roleplayed it as Raistlin had very poor health and only kept going because of the potions and herbs he was continually consuming.



Minor nitpick, but Raistlin's Constitution score was 10, not 12. I checked in _Dragonlance Adventures_, _DLC3 Dragonlance Classics Volume III_, and _Dragonlance Classics: 15th Anniversary Edition_, and they're all in agreement on that point. Not that it makes much of a difference, but I thought it was worth noting.

_Please note my use of affiliate links in this post._


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## Celebrim (Aug 13, 2022)

Alzrius said:


> Minor nitpick, but Raistlin's Constitution score was 10, not 12. I checked in _Dragonlance Adventures_, _DLC3 Dragonlance Classics Volume III_, and _Dragonlance Classics: 15th Anniversary Edition_, and they're all in agreement on that point. Not that it makes much of a difference, but I thought it was worth noting.




Fair enough.  I was going on memory and should have looked it up before stating it as a fact.  Thank you for the correction.

The point however stands.  Constitution of 10 is not a particularly low score suggesting fragility and ill health.  It's perfectly average.  Neither CON 10 or CON 12 would have in 1e AD&D provided bonus hit points.


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## Reynard (Aug 13, 2022)

Celebrim said:


> The point however stands.  Constitution of 10 is not a particularly low score suggesting fragility and ill health.



Rolling a 1d4 for HP at first level might be thought of that way, though.


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## Mallus (Aug 13, 2022)

A 2e game sounds great!

Maybe 2e will be our next D&D campaign. We’re playing 5e now after a 2-year 0e (Labyrinth Lord) game and I admit it a nice change of pace to be able to do heroic practically from the start.

2e with the common house rules and all the kits/splatbooks would make a nice middle ground between 5e and (the oldest) old-school.


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## DarkCrisis (Aug 14, 2022)

We are having a blast with 2E.  All but one of the players that is.  I think she (Druid player) feels under powered compared to what shes used to in 5E.


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## James Gasik (Aug 14, 2022)

DarkCrisis said:


> We are having a blast with 2E.  All but one of the players that is.  I think she (Druid player) feels under powered compared to what shes used to in 5E.



Yeah, AD&D Druids had a lot of spells that only work in specific environments, and their ability to take on animal forms wasn't nearly the powerhouse it became in the WotC era.  It gets better at higher levels...but then you have to start fighting other Druids for supremacy!


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## deganawida (Aug 14, 2022)

DarkCrisis said:


> We are having a blast with 2E.  All but one of the players that is.  I think she (Druid player) feels under powered compared to what shes used to in 5E.



Not surprising, as all of the classes have less overall power. However, I hope that she finds a way to enjoy it. My 18 year old’s Druid (initially 5e, then Castles & Crusades) was more fun for her after changing rules sets, as she focused more on how her abilities reacted with the world than in focusing on combat.  Not entirely an apples-to-apples comparison, but there is hope.


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## sithholocron (Aug 15, 2022)

DarkCrisis said:


> AD&D is always will be D&D to me.  It just feels more like an actual adventure.  IMO.




AD&D 2e, is where my D&D stops. I always loathed things like feats, the elimination of importance of AC and many other things.


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## corwyn77 (Sep 11, 2022)

Bacon Bits said:


> Yeah, my experience was that the victim had to be unaware of you. You had to move silently, hide in shadows, or be invisible. Which is ironic because it means the best backstabber is now the thief/magic-user with improved invisibility, and as an added bonus you get lightning bolt, mage armor, charm person, silence, knock, detect magic, alter self, etc.
> 
> Your description also seems to apply to how racial level limits worked in actual play. In my experience, _every_ table 100% enforces racial level limits... at level 1. However, when you actually have PCs hitting the limits, the DM magically forgets that they exist. Or, sometimes, applies a penalty. 10% to 20% XP penalty seemed to be standard in my area. Because stopping progression was obviously dumb. It meant you should just retire, and neither the player, nor the rest of the party, nor the DM were ever interested in that.



Yeah, my first character was a single-class Halfling Thief named Purloin (I know, I know, I was young) because I didn't know any better. Every Thief after that was a MC Thief/MU or Thief/MU/Fighter or Thief/Illusionist. I don't think any of those games went high enough to bother about limits. The last one only went to level 7 (2e) before being converted to gurps.


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## corwyn77 (Sep 11, 2022)

billd91 said:


> Yep. That's just it. It's math. Some people have a good relationship with it, and some *really* don't. And, truthfully, some people only have a good relationship with parts of it - cross that 0 line and all hell breaks loose for them. This is why ascending ACs was such a user experience improvement in D&D.



It's still a problem for some people. Running encounters, I have had multiple players need a calculator to figure out their D20+mod to see what AC they hit.


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## Iosue (Sep 11, 2022)

billd91 said:


> The idea was cribbed from a naval wargame, so the story goes. In that naval wargame, a ship's armor class was something akin to 1st rate, 2nd rate, 3rd rate, etc with 1st rate being the best and things descending in quality from there despite the numerical value ranking increasing.



The important thing to note was that, like in many wargames of the period, the most salient information was in the table referenced. With the table doing all the math, how the armor is classified is somewhat superfluous; they could have just called Armor Class A, B, C, etc. The central design conceit is that you're trying to keep the target numbers "on the die," so that you can just roll, see the result, and know the outcome. Arneson & Gygax just happened to use ordinal numbers for the classes, which allowed for further expansion using negative numbers.

THAC0, then, was just a later innovation from people noticing, "Hey, the to-hit numbers go down by one counting armor class from 0, so if you subtract the Armor Class number from the to-hit number for AC 0, you get the to-hit number for that AC." And from there, "So if you roll a d20 and subtract the result from the to-hit number for AC 0, you get the number for the lowest AC that you can hit!" And they started using that so they didn't have to reference the tables. Then, that shortcut was put into the official game.

The innovation of 3e was its embrace of "imaginary die results". By which I mean, you have an attack bonus of +7, and your opponent has an AC of 21. Not only is the target number "off the die", but so is the final result if you roll a 14 or higher. This is certainly a cromulent way of doing things (though things got out of hand in 3e and 4e, IMO, when AC and attack bonuses could be so high, that the die roll was a proportionately smaller contributor to success).

But such a system (and THAC0 for that matter) would have been thought inelegant from a design perspective in 1970s wargaming culture. Why make the participants do math in their head in the first place, when you can just get all the math out on a table, and a few plusses or minuses notwithstanding, roll the die and immediately see if you were successful or not.


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## Mannahnin (Sep 12, 2022)

Iosue said:


> The important thing to note was that, like in many wargames of the period, the most salient information was in the table referenced. With the table doing all the math, how the armor is classified is somewhat superfluous; they could have just called Armor Class A, B, C, etc. The central design conceit is that you're trying to keep the target numbers "on the die," so that you can just roll, see the result, and know the outcome. Arneson & Gygax just happened to use ordinal numbers for the classes, which allowed for further expansion using negative numbers.
> 
> THAC0, then, was just a later innovation from people noticing, "Hey, the to-hit numbers go down by one counting armor class from 0, so if you subtract the Armor Class number from the to-hit number for AC 0, you get the to-hit number for that AC." And from there, "So if you roll a d20 and subtract the result from the to-hit number for AC 0, you get the number for the lowest AC that you can hit!" And they started using that so they didn't have to reference the tables. Then, that shortcut was put into the official game.
> 
> ...



Good post!

I will note that a draft version of OD&D actually used exactly a THAC0-style calculation for Fighter (Fighting-Man) attacks of 5%/+1 to hit per level, which wound up being collapsed into irregular tables in the published OD&D, so the later "innovation" of THAC0 was more of a return to the original idea. Lawrence Schick, who claims responsibility for the appearance of THAC0 in the monster stats appendix at the back of the 1E DMG (before THAC0 actually became a rule in 2E) says he thinks he got the idea from a Judges' Guild product.  But it turns out Gary originally did it that way.









						Why Did Armor Class Descend from 9 to 2?
					

One of the great riddles that has vexed D&D players for generations is this: why did armor class in original D&D descend from 9 to 2 inst...




					playingattheworld.blogspot.com


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## DarkCrisis (Sep 12, 2022)

Update:  The Druid player (who until know inly ever played 5th) still isn't digging it.  She doesn't like that she's the main healer and feels she has to use all her spell slots for Cure spells.

I've expressed to her that she is the main healer.  The only other is the Cleric/Mage.  2E is more about scrolls and potions and wands etc and less about having a ton of spell slots and extra powers.  I reminded her that the group does in fact have several cure potions and scrolls and she should feel free to use her spell slots for whatever spells she wants.

Everyone else, still loving it.  The excitement the Fighter got when he rolled HP at level up and got a 9!  People love the level up because it mens more survivability. Never saw that in 5E.    The Cleric/Wiz is just praying for the day he gains a few levels under each class..


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## James Gasik (Sep 12, 2022)

DarkCrisis said:


> Update:  The Druid player (who until know inly ever played 5th) still isn't digging it.  She doesn't like that she's the main healer and feels she has to use all her spell slots for Cure spells.
> 
> I've expressed to her that she is the main healer.  The only other is the Cleric/Mage.  2E is more about scrolls and potions and wands etc and less about having a ton of spell slots and extra powers.  I reminded her that the group does in fact have several cure potions and scrolls and she should feel free to use her spell slots for whatever spells she wants.
> 
> Everyone else, still loving it.  The excitement the Fighter got when he rolled HP at level up and got a 9!  People love the level up because it mens more survivability. Never saw that in 5E.    The Cleric/Wiz is just praying for the day he gains a few levels under each class..



That's rough.  I've encountered this with Druids before, they have a lot of cool spells they can cast, yet, just like Clerics, are expected to fill every spell slot with "Cure X Wounds", as if they are some kind of healing potion dispenser.

What I've always seen as part of the problem is that player characters who have ready access to healing tend to take silly risks, and ones that don't have to learn to be cautious.

What worked for me was the time I played the Cleric of a Neutral deity, who demanded a small tithe for the use of "her" magic (my Cleric being but the vessel), so I carried a small pouch specifically for donations to the faith.

This led to some irate players, but I told them it was out of my hands, it's what the Goddess demanded.  Once there was an actual cost to healing ("my precious golds!"), the party started to use their brains more, lol.


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## UngeheuerLich (Sep 12, 2022)

DarkCrisis said:


> Baldurs Gate introduced me to the rules of AD&D.
> 
> So I load up the game and make a fighter and start off next to the inn.
> 
> I go in and buy some leather armor and equip it…. Why did my Armor Class go down?  I figured I wasn’t trained to use it yet and took it off and went about my way to explore..




I remember when I looked at the gelatineous cube and saw AC 6 along with the other stats and thought: wow, hard for that CR until I realized, how bad AC 6 is in 5e...
Even though it is 22 years ago that I last played 2e, I read AC below 10 as improvement on first glance, because it is so rare in 5e.


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## Velderan (Oct 24, 2022)

DarkCrisis said:


> Update:  The Druid player (who until know inly ever played 5th) still isn't digging it.  She doesn't like that she's the main healer and feels she has to use all her spell slots for Cure spells.
> 
> I've expressed to her that she is the main healer.  The only other is the Cleric/Mage.  2E is more about scrolls and potions and wands etc and less about having a ton of spell slots and extra powers.  I reminded her that the group does in fact have several cure potions and scrolls and she should feel free to use her spell slots for whatever spells she wants.
> 
> Everyone else, still loving it.  The excitement the Fighter got when he rolled HP at level up and got a 9!  People love the level up because it mens more survivability. Never saw that in 5E.    The Cleric/Wiz is just praying for the day he gains a few levels under each class..



Keep the updates coming! I miss playing 2E and wish my group would give it a try. Most of the group started with 3.5E, with 1 person having 5E being their first so there isn't really the nostalgic curiosity to want to see if it holds up. 

What type of campaign are you playing? Dungeon crawl, mostly outdoor, etc? Is this the DL group you mentioned in another thread? As someone mentioned, my fuzzy memory of 2E druids were they had some pretty key stuff that made them fun to play in the outdoor wilderness but limited them in a dungeon crawl to basically being healers. 

How have you been doing initiative? Wasn't RAW something like everyone declares their action then everyone rolls initiative, so for instance if a caster gets a bad roll they risk getting interrupted on their spell by a quick attack? I think my group back when I played used to just simplify it and keep the same roll each round and still having people declare actions before resolving them according to the rolled order. Maybe less risky if you already knew your base roll, but sped things up a little bit.


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## DarkCrisis (Oct 24, 2022)

Velderan said:


> Keep the updates coming! I miss playing 2E and wish my group would give it a try. Most of the group started with 3.5E, with 1 person having 5E being their first so there isn't really the nostalgic curiosity to want to see if it holds up.
> 
> What type of campaign are you playing? Dungeon crawl, mostly outdoor, etc? Is this the DL group you mentioned in another thread? As someone mentioned, my fuzzy memory of 2E druids were they had some pretty key stuff that made them fun to play in the outdoor wilderness but limited them in a dungeon crawl to basically being healers.
> 
> How have you been doing initiative? Wasn't RAW something like everyone declares their action then everyone rolls initiative, so for instance if a caster gets a bad roll they risk getting interrupted on their spell by a quick attack? I think my group back when I played used to just simplify it and keep the same roll each round and still having people declare actions before resolving them according to the rolled order. Maybe less risky if you already knew your base roll, but sped things up a little bit.




2 of the 5 have died and made new characters.  The Ranger and Barbarian.  Now they are a Fighter and Illusionist.  The Kender got turned into a statue and rolled up a Gnome Bard who died, but that was okay because they de-statued the Kender.  The Barbarian was my first Gelatinous Cube kill ever, I think.  He tried to run past it... he chose... poorly.

Initative is declare actions and one person rolls a D10 add  everyone adds their your weapon speed or spell speed etc to that D10 roll. It's still a lot of "one side goes before the other".

The levels range from 2 to 4. New Illusionist on the low end and Thief on the high end.

I'm using old modules and linking them together as a story.  They just finished up the Rashasia module.  Doing some Lairs Books stuff before heading out for the Flints Axe module.

I have to say its wild that a boss fight can be ended by one roll of the save die.  Though a character can die just as quickly.  As opposed to how 5th ed drags things out with multiple easy saves and tons of HP.  Last session they were getting manhandled by a giant land octopus... looked grim.  One potion of animal control later and a failed save....  Problem solved.

I don't think I'll ever go back to modern D&D, unless I have no choice.


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