Cryomancer
Arcane
TL;DR list :
I just don't get the point of low lethality on RPG's. Spending long rounds in a single encounter is not fun or engaging. A high lethality game will force the players to be more careful, think more and see enemies as a much bigger threat. Lets pick two level 16 "mages". On 2e, he would have 9d4 + 7 hit points and the maximum con mod is mere +1. At best, he would have on average 9(d4+1) + 7 or 38,5 hp on AVERAGE. on 5e in other hands, the same mage would have 16*d6+16*con mod. And with 18 CON, he would have 120 average hp(16*3,5+16*4). On 2e, Vecna, the demigod Lich in high epic levels had 150 hp. Enemies also has too much hp on 5e. And spells deal and weapons way less damage.
For eg, a Ogre on 2e would have 30 hp on average. On 5e, 59. Virtually the double. An siege weaponry on 5e like a cannon deal 10d6 damage. Meaning that CR 2 creatures can soak a cannon shot. I can get high level legendary creatures soaking siege weapons, but low level monsters? A player, a lv 6 "magic user" also can soak a cannon shot if he has high CON and rolled high on his hit dice rolls. That is insane.
You see streams about a lich fight on 2e, and the high level party is at fear, preparing escape plans before they even encounter the lich, laying traps and on 5e, a mid level party had no problem defeating a lich.
Is much easier to track low numbers than high numbers. Mainly on P&P. The saves are easy to track. hit points and etc too. Many people complain about THAC0, but THAC0 is a simple variable to track. With the optional rule of different AC's for different types of armor, still easy to track. Is not like on 3.5e where you sum +2, +4, +1, +1(...) and if has 4 attacks per turn, has 4 different attack bonuses. Nor like 5e where the difference between a lv 1 hero and a lv 20 hero is just +4/20% more likely to hit.
Same with saves, at very high levels on 3.5e, you have things like DC 30+ VS a FORT save of +23. With 2e saves, you need to roll at least a number of a d20. Much easy to track. Some spells like finger of death makes the enemy do the save at disadvantage of -2. It also makes specializations for magic users more interesting. Since if you wanna a hard to resist finger of death, you must specialize in necromancy. You can't be a generalist wizard with two feats and get a harder to hit spell.
Manlet races should't be allowed to be magic users. When I mean manlet races, think on classes that can't be over 6 feet tall, like halflings, dwarf and so on. Races that are a bit smaller than humans such as elves but some of then can be over six feet are fine. The exception to that rule is gnomes and 2e did it right. Gnomes must be illusionists. Because they are all about creating illusions to steal money from non gnomes.
It is a central point of certain conflicts and reason which some places in Mystara like Glantri threats this manlet races so bad.
Dark Sun, a High fantasy mad max, Ravenloft for horror settings, in many different places(not only Strahd), high fantasy space adventures on spelljammer, sigil city and planar travels on planescape. Mystara with a lot of unique and interesting locations and Immortals instead of Gods? Everything made for 2e. The unique good setting brought by Wizards of the Coast is Eberron. 5e and late stages of 3.5e are extremely focused on Forgotten realms and even worse. In Sword Coast. Which is IMO one of the most boring places to adventure.
Instead of prestige classes used on 3.5e, 2e had the concept of kits. And of course, the DM has entire power to not allow a player to pick any kit, class or whatever. You can multiclass on 2e, but it makes leveling extremely slower. If Red wizards of Thay existed on 2e, they would be magic user kits. Same with sorcerers. In fact, warlocks and witches appeared firstly as a magic user kit on complete wizard's handbook.
5e bought the concept of tiers, from "local heroes" to heroes of the world. Which is completely BS. A lich can be a threat to a small village and be defeated by high level adventurers, high level adventure doesn't need to be save the world adventures. In fact, levels varies a lot among the different "realms". For example, Lord NAsher is extremely powerful in Neverwinter as a lv 12 fighter. A lv 12 fighter in Dark Sun can't even dream on dealing with the servants of the Sorcerers kings. 2e uses "acomplished" to refer to many lv 13~16 casters. What is high level in one adventure can be low level in another. In Mystara, in order to ascend to a Immortal, the PC needs to be at least lv 36.
The first edition decided to establishes that when a magic user reaches lv 11, he gains a "title" of Wizard. It was dropped in the 2e cuz what is a high level in one setting can be a mid level or even low level in another. And other problem of this tiers brought by 4e into 5e, is that it creates huge power spikes. You get more power from lv 4 to 5 than from lv 1 to 4 on 5e. When I asked about low or mid level in a thread, many people used 5e to say that high level sucks and used the tier system of 5e as argument that high level are godlike adventures. This idea of tiers and high level = larger conflict will hurt RPG's from a long time...
Just compare the same module art on 2e and on 5e.
- High lethality. No "cr 2" monsters capable of soaking cannon balls like on 5e. Nor high level enemies that aren't threatening.
- Low easy to track numbers
- Class diversity with kits
- Class restrictions on races. Eg - Manlets like Dwarves,
Hobbitshalflings can't be glorious magic users - The best settings was written for 2e. Mystara? Dark Sun? Ravenloft/Domains of Dread? Spelljammer? Planescape? A lot of glorious iconic settings comes on 2e. After WoTC bought D&D, the unique memorable setting that we got is Eberron.
- Kits instead of prestige classes
- No BS tier / power spikes
- Multiclass is discouraged.
- High lethality
I just don't get the point of low lethality on RPG's. Spending long rounds in a single encounter is not fun or engaging. A high lethality game will force the players to be more careful, think more and see enemies as a much bigger threat. Lets pick two level 16 "mages". On 2e, he would have 9d4 + 7 hit points and the maximum con mod is mere +1. At best, he would have on average 9(d4+1) + 7 or 38,5 hp on AVERAGE. on 5e in other hands, the same mage would have 16*d6+16*con mod. And with 18 CON, he would have 120 average hp(16*3,5+16*4). On 2e, Vecna, the demigod Lich in high epic levels had 150 hp. Enemies also has too much hp on 5e. And spells deal and weapons way less damage.
For eg, a Ogre on 2e would have 30 hp on average. On 5e, 59. Virtually the double. An siege weaponry on 5e like a cannon deal 10d6 damage. Meaning that CR 2 creatures can soak a cannon shot. I can get high level legendary creatures soaking siege weapons, but low level monsters? A player, a lv 6 "magic user" also can soak a cannon shot if he has high CON and rolled high on his hit dice rolls. That is insane.
You see streams about a lich fight on 2e, and the high level party is at fear, preparing escape plans before they even encounter the lich, laying traps and on 5e, a mid level party had no problem defeating a lich.
- NUMBERS
Is much easier to track low numbers than high numbers. Mainly on P&P. The saves are easy to track. hit points and etc too. Many people complain about THAC0, but THAC0 is a simple variable to track. With the optional rule of different AC's for different types of armor, still easy to track. Is not like on 3.5e where you sum +2, +4, +1, +1(...) and if has 4 attacks per turn, has 4 different attack bonuses. Nor like 5e where the difference between a lv 1 hero and a lv 20 hero is just +4/20% more likely to hit.
Same with saves, at very high levels on 3.5e, you have things like DC 30+ VS a FORT save of +23. With 2e saves, you need to roll at least a number of a d20. Much easy to track. Some spells like finger of death makes the enemy do the save at disadvantage of -2. It also makes specializations for magic users more interesting. Since if you wanna a hard to resist finger of death, you must specialize in necromancy. You can't be a generalist wizard with two feats and get a harder to hit spell.
- CLASS RESTRICTIONS :
Manlet races should't be allowed to be magic users. When I mean manlet races, think on classes that can't be over 6 feet tall, like halflings, dwarf and so on. Races that are a bit smaller than humans such as elves but some of then can be over six feet are fine. The exception to that rule is gnomes and 2e did it right. Gnomes must be illusionists. Because they are all about creating illusions to steal money from non gnomes.
It is a central point of certain conflicts and reason which some places in Mystara like Glantri threats this manlet races so bad.
- 2E BROUGHT THE BEST SETTINGS.
Dark Sun, a High fantasy mad max, Ravenloft for horror settings, in many different places(not only Strahd), high fantasy space adventures on spelljammer, sigil city and planar travels on planescape. Mystara with a lot of unique and interesting locations and Immortals instead of Gods? Everything made for 2e. The unique good setting brought by Wizards of the Coast is Eberron. 5e and late stages of 3.5e are extremely focused on Forgotten realms and even worse. In Sword Coast. Which is IMO one of the most boring places to adventure.
- CLASSES
Instead of prestige classes used on 3.5e, 2e had the concept of kits. And of course, the DM has entire power to not allow a player to pick any kit, class or whatever. You can multiclass on 2e, but it makes leveling extremely slower. If Red wizards of Thay existed on 2e, they would be magic user kits. Same with sorcerers. In fact, warlocks and witches appeared firstly as a magic user kit on complete wizard's handbook.
- NO BS POWER SPIKES / TIERS
5e bought the concept of tiers, from "local heroes" to heroes of the world. Which is completely BS. A lich can be a threat to a small village and be defeated by high level adventurers, high level adventure doesn't need to be save the world adventures. In fact, levels varies a lot among the different "realms". For example, Lord NAsher is extremely powerful in Neverwinter as a lv 12 fighter. A lv 12 fighter in Dark Sun can't even dream on dealing with the servants of the Sorcerers kings. 2e uses "acomplished" to refer to many lv 13~16 casters. What is high level in one adventure can be low level in another. In Mystara, in order to ascend to a Immortal, the PC needs to be at least lv 36.
The first edition decided to establishes that when a magic user reaches lv 11, he gains a "title" of Wizard. It was dropped in the 2e cuz what is a high level in one setting can be a mid level or even low level in another. And other problem of this tiers brought by 4e into 5e, is that it creates huge power spikes. You get more power from lv 4 to 5 than from lv 1 to 4 on 5e. When I asked about low or mid level in a thread, many people used 5e to say that high level sucks and used the tier system of 5e as argument that high level are godlike adventures. This idea of tiers and high level = larger conflict will hurt RPG's from a long time...
- The ART of 2e is much better.
Just compare the same module art on 2e and on 5e.
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