D&D 2E Tell me about your AD&D 2E Houserules

[Shiroiken]

Thanks! It looks like you were running a 1E and 2E hybrid?

I recall all of my groups played what we called 1.5E, which was where we used the parts of 1E and 2E we liked, and dropped the rest. Obviously each group was a little different, and sadly I don't recall really any of the specifics.

The only time I played just 2E was in college, and that group had a ton of issues once the Players Options came out. I also recall an idiotic argument about cure blindness not being able to cure any kind of blindness.

 

[WayneLigon]

At one point, I had a fair number of house rules, then pared it back to a bare handful because otherwise I was basically writing another game.

Now, some of these fell into the 'everyone did them' category, like ditching the male/female strength bonuses, multiclassing limits, and the level limits for nonhumans. I never played with anyone who used these types of rules.

The only two big ones I remember I started doing with AD&D Second Edition.

1. Clerics didn't prepare spells. This was a thematic choice, but also there to keep the cleric from being a healbot and never getting to use any of the huge array of cleric spells available.

2. Divine casters and arcane casters could never multiclass with each other (No Wizard/Cleric, etc) or use each others magic items. In fact, it was actively dangerous for them to try.

 

[David Howery]

during my 2E gaming days, I was the DM nearly all the time, and the only real 'house rule' I can recall at the moment was 'max hp at 1st level', which seemed to be pretty common. I did keep the 1E barbarian and monk around for a few adventures, but as NPCs only...

 

[atanakar]

#1 : No death before -10 HPs.

 

[Reynard]

One thing I kind of want to consider doing is altering the way multiclassing works. Rather than actually rising in 2 classes at different rates, the character is a member of a hybrid or gestalt class (a fighter-mage, not a fighter/mage). Essentially you average hit dice, take the better of saves and THAC0, and have access to all the class features of both classes. XO requirements would be 75% of the combined total (so a fighter-mage would require (8000+10000)x.75=13500 to reach 4th level.

 

[billd91]

I think a lot of people played 1e/2e hybrids. The systems were highly compatible. And a lot depended on whether or not you were playing a class from 1e that you just kept playing when your home game shifted to 2e.
I had a number of house rules that spanned several topics. Most of these were planned but not all necessarily put into practice (I had a lot of time on my hands for writing this stuff up - much of which ended up being short circuited by 3e coming out):

1) Ranger improvements - while on the same XP table as the paladin, most of the ranger's abilities were more limited and contingent. So I broadened the favored enemy (which was poorly conceived of anyway) to be +4 against a particular type of foe (orcs, hill giants, etc) but +2 vs members of a broader group the creature belonged to (medium humanoids, giants, etc). I also restored his surprise bonuses to fit with 2e's d10 version of surprise.

2) I added critical hit/fumble tables.

3) I always thought level drain was terrible so I came up with a concept of negative levels (though I called them life levels to make them distinct from experience levels) before 3e did. They even inflicted -1 on attack rolls (and damage). They were regained by restoration spells or by killing the creature that drained them, after which they'd recover at the rate of 1 life level/month. If you didn't kill the creature that drained them because it got away, restoration was the only option. But the important thing was it didn't cause a character to lose hit points, spell levels, profieciencies, or anything else that they had gained by gaining a level. They were just weaker.

4) I gave out cultural bonuses to humans that amounted to a free proficiency depending on what their culture was known for.

5) Druids didn't have to fight for their higher levels if they didn't want to participate in the leadership hierarchy. They just advanced.

6) Non-weapon proficiency rolls weren't rolling under the stat - PCs had to roll under 10+ a stat modifier that was a lot like 3e's unified proficiencies but +1 started at 13-14, +2 at 15-16, etc. Characters also had a free +1 to give to one proficiency every time they leveled up.

7) Infravision wasn't heat vision, it was just darkvision.

8) I rewrote the saving throw tables so everyone had the same progression but each class grouping had bonuses on certain types of saves.

 

[wingsandsword]

4) I gave out cultural bonuses to humans that amounted to a free proficiency depending on what their culture was known for.

5) Druids didn't have to fight for their higher levels if they didn't want to participate in the leadership hierarchy. They just advanced.

That reminds me that we had rules like that too.

Yeah, we had a rule where every player got one bonus NWP, but that NWP had to go to something off a list of NWP's that was thematic to the race. Elves had things like singing or dancing. Dwarves had mining or various types of smithing. Halflings could choose from cooking, baking or agriculture. Half-Elves could choose from either the human or elf options. With humans, it had to be a trade or profession that they knew from before they were an adventurer or while they were in training/apprenticed. I don't remember all the options, but I remember that Scribe was the one typically taken by Wizards and Clerics. I remember that the Research NWP was explicitly off limits. . .it gave too many bonuses in spell research to be given away for free (or else every Human Wizard in the game would take it).

There was no dueling required for levels for Druids and Monks (1e monks were available in our 2e games, with the table extended up to 20th level. . .it never came up, but at least on paper they did go up to 20th level). You only had to duel if you wanted an official place in the Druidic or Monastic hierarchy. . .and PC's almost never did because pretty much every DM I ever saw would run it as that being too time consuming in a leadership position to be an active PC. I DID see a PC retire from active adventuring (the player was moving and it was a way to retire his character) by having him duel for a Monk leadership position, so he could leave the party and go off to be a Master of whatever at a monastery. However, it wasn't a combat duel, the character said that the mark of enlightenment was knowing when not to fight, so he challenged a master to a duel of insight, wits and enlightenment and it was run as a roleplaying scene between the monks, where the old master agreed to retire from the monastery and hand his office over to the retiring PC.

 

[atanakar]

#2: If you rolled a 1 on an attack roll you would loose the grip on your weapon and it would fall at your feet making you weaponless until your next activation.

#3: Character creation. Roll 5d6 keep best three and arrange as you want. We were sure of getting the two 15s required for «viable» characters.

 

[the Jester]

There were so many. And they varied over time- I would try something out, use it for a while, then change it up after deciding I didn't like it. Initiative definitely got a lot of different variations over the years.

Some favorites from the 2e stretch included never using generic clerics, using critical hit and fumble charts, race variants, new classes (elementalist, diabolist, summoner, etc), tons of new spells, etc.

I fiddled around with different dice for checks, e.g. "make a strength check on 3d8" for something difficult. (Rolling for Str or under, of course.)

I also used a ton of 1e material in my 2e game, including monks, assassins, half-orcs, etc.

 

[Zardnaar]

No level limits
Humans get +1 ability score of their choice.
Bonus wp/nwp

THAC0 replaced by bab.