D&D 2E [2e] What made 2e great?

[milo]

volumetric fireball

 

[pawsplay]

It allowed a lot of customization, while offering depth in traditional archetypes. Niche protection was great, in that every class had something other classes just couldn't do. For instance, fighters just had their d10, good attack progression, and weapon spec, but since everyone else had lower hit points, wore progression, and only dealt base damage, they could always feel good about what they did. There was nothing shameful about being a human fighter with Str 13. You had cleric variants, rogue skill customization, some nice race variants and humanoid options, even custom spell lists if you dug deep enough.

There were things about 2e that really sucked, liked the beginnings of the dilution of the bard, the bowdlerized demons and devils, and the sense that dragons had to be continually escalated to be bigger than the most powerful PCs (I always ask, what is wrong with ordinary, non-planar dragons become old news by the teen levels?). But there were good things, too. Coherence, flexibility, modularity. It's very easy to see how 2e became 3e.

 

[RSKennan]

volumetric fireball

This is one of my opinions, too. More generally, the spells, and how they could have non-explicit, but logical effects. Fireballs set things on fire sometimes (but not always since they were over quickly), lightning behaved a lot like electricity would, etc.

This encouraged players to experiment with strange uses of spells. It opened the door to abuse as well, of course, but it didn't seem like a problem with my group. That kind of thing was usually resolved after discussion (or yes, an argument), or it was a deeper issue with a player.

 

[dougmander]

What do you guys think about the philosophy of 2e?

I guess the design philosophy was to fix the most clumsy aspects of 1e play, without creating a completely new game. Whatever quirks remained, like low AC = good, were almost certainly recognized by the designers as quirky, but not worth creating additional backwards-compatibility issues by fixing.

 

[Roman]

I enjoyed 2E AD&D, because that is the version of D&D I started with and, of course, it also had great settings (yes, everyone says that, but it's true).

 

[Kask]

I could actually start to list the improvements over 1E but suffice it to say that it IS those improvements that made it great.

True, the "polishing" 1st Ed got as 2nd is what made it great.

 

[Jhaelen]

The Darksun campaign setting.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

I think some of the new elements like spheres for clerics and kits for all classes were the biggest flavor elements for me. Otherwise, it was a refinement of 1E (and scaling back of some of the issues with Unearthed Arcana) while retaining a lot of the interesting fiddly bits (monsters like bullettes having different armor classes for different parts of their body, targeting individual eyes on beholders, etc).

While I love 3E (and am uncaptivated by 4E) and view 2E as somewhat flawed, the best campaigns I ever ran were in the 2E days.

 

[billd91]

While I love 3E (and am uncaptivated by 4E) and view 2E as somewhat flawed, the best campaigns I ever ran were in the 2E days.

2e was a darn fine game and if my love affair with 3e/Pathfinder were to ever end, I'd be going back to 2e for my games.

 

[Starbuck_II]

It kept us occupied until 3rd edition came out.

That was sorta my experience.

I didn't know about specializtions as a Fighter because my DM didn't allow specializations (yes the class that relys on them).


If it wasn't for Buldar's Gate I didn't know how weak a Fighter I was.
I mean, compared to the DMPC (a party member he played with 20 Str, a Drow, and a a mask that made him look human) I knew I was weak but still. Luck he didn't show often (near the end of DM's career gaming at high school).

I remember the first big dungeon we had where we all begun in a jail cell. It was fun...though I now wish I had the ability to specialize in a weapon like other Fighters.
Granted I found out I was a Kit: I was a Jedi (didn't start with lightsaber, but I had Force points to telekensis stuff if I made Force check).