I want AD&D 2nd Edition with cleaned up math

[Yora]

Is there something like that? Basically the 2nd Edition rules, but with everything converted to be "roll equal or higher". Same classes, same chances, but an easier time to calculate if an attack or save is a success or not.

[MeeposFire]

Well saves are easy it is "did your roll+mods be higher or equal your saving throw number?". So you save vs spells on a 10. You roll an 11 and have a bonus of +1 (due to a ring of protection) you succeed. It already is roll higher otherwise saves would get harder as you level (since the number goes down).

For AC you can just invert the number. For instance an AC of 0 becomes an AC of 20 (plate+3). You then take your THAC0 and change it from a number to a bonus. A Thac0 of 18 becomes an attack bonus of +2. So if said attacker attacked that defender you would need to roll an 18 to hit since 18+2 (your bonus)=20 which is the number you need to hit the AC. This is the same as using the traditional system except the math is put in a more intuitive way form most people. When using magic weapons and the like just add that number to it just like in 3e.

Many of the numbers are already done for you in 3e. It is not a coincidence that leather armor is AC 8 in 2e and a +2 bonus in 3e.

[Zombimode]

But... thats not a function of math. Mathematicly saves and attack rolls work exactly the same in pre-3e and in 3.x.

All that has changed is the way its written down.

If you want 3e presentation of number, you can easily do it yourself.

THAC0 - 20 = attack bonus

10 - 2e AC = 3e AC

20 - 2e save = 3e save


And thats about it (skills actually use different systems in the editions).

[Yora]

I think doing the conversion myself would be pretty easy, but I was wondering if there's already a retroclone that does just that.

[JadedDM]

Castles and Crusades, I think?

I mean, I've never played it or even looked at it myself; but that's what I always heard, that it was basically 2E but with more streamlined mechanics.

[Yora]

I just tried my hand at this.

And ARGH! this makes my brain hurt! Who made these tables?! They are completely random with no system behind them whatsoever!
At up to 10,000 XP, a cleric is of a higher level than a druid. From 10,000 to 1,000,000 XP, the druid is of a much higher level than a cleric. And then the druid suddenly gets stuck at 14th level and stays there for well after the cleric made 20th. What the hell?!

[Particle_Man]

Maybe Myth and Magic?

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/100492...-Starter-Guide

[erikun]

And ARGH! this makes my brain hurt! Who made these tables?! They are completely random with no system behind them whatsoever!
At up to 10,000 XP, a cleric is of a higher level than a druid. From 10,000 to 1,000,000 XP, the druid is of a much higher level than a cleric. And then the druid suddenly gets stuck at 14th level and stays there for well after the cleric made 20th. What the hell?!

Clerics have access to the All, Astra, Charm, Combat, Creation, Divination, Guardian, Healing, Necromatic, Protection, Summoning, and Sun spheres (with minor access to Elemental). Druids have access to All, Animal, Elemental, Healing, Plant, and Weather spheres (minor access to Divination). The much better access to spells means the Cleric requires more experience to level up, the logic goes.

The high XP for 15th level Druids are likely RP reasonings.

[Yora]

Just like minimum ability scores for classes and max class levels.

It has been over 10 years since I took a closer look at the rules, but now I can safely say that they are horribly awful! Why have modifiers to thieves skills when the character is wearing no armor? Why not include these modifiers in the base score? Arg!
It's easy to criticize in retroperspective, but I think it would be a really hard task to screw things up this much even if starting with no baseline at all.

[Elyssian]

Clerics have access to the All, Astra, Charm, Combat, Creation, Divination, Guardian, Healing, Necromatic, Protection, Summoning, and Sun spheres (with minor access to Elemental). Druids have access to All, Animal, Elemental, Healing, Plant, and Weather spheres (minor access to Divination). The much better access to spells means the Cleric requires more experience to level up, the logic goes.

The high XP for 15th level Druids are likely RP reasonings.

Yup if you check out the Druid book there can be only one 15th level druid at a time and all levels after that are more abstract The complete book of Druids would be helpful on why they did the leveling that way. Plus i think with druids there are ranks to work through leading up to the Arch-druid at 15th level.

[Zombimode]

Just like minimum ability scores for classes and max class levels.

It has been over 10 years since I took a closer look at the rules, but now I can safely say that they are horribly awful! Why have modifiers to thieves skills when the character is wearing no armor? Why not include these modifiers in the base score? Arg!
It's easy to criticize in retroperspective, but I think it would be a really hard task to screw things up this much even if starting with no baseline at all.

Yeah, there is stuff that will raise eyebrows. But honestly I dont think they warrant the term "horribly awful", at least not applied to the system as a whole. Not all of the culprits affect the gameplay all that much. And on the plus side, several parts are actually better desinged than 3e: the ratio of to-hit to AC is MUCH better then in 3e, for example.

[hamlet]

So go play a game you do enjoy and stop raggin on one that some of the rest of us do like, maybe?

[Lord Torath]

Be nice. Yora wants to like it. (S)He's not insulting you for liking the game, just venting frustration.

Why have modifiers to thieves skills when the character is wearing no armor? Why not include these modifiers in the base score? Arg!
It's easy to criticize in retroperspective, but I think it would be a really hard task to screw things up this much even if starting with no baseline at all.

I noticed this myself. I guess they just assume that all thieves will want to wear as much armor as they can (ie leather). I thought it would be easier to have a "Leather Armor" column instead, however.

[Kurald Galain]

And then the druid suddenly gets stuck at 14th level and stays there for well after the cleric made 20th. What the hell?!

Sure, but you're supposed to start a campaign at level 1 or maybe 3, so this is unlikely to come up in actual gameplay.

[hamlet]

Wasn't being mean. Just asking the honest question of why, if it's so god aweful, that Yora's fiddling with it.

Playing with the numbers won't really "improve" it, just make it more complicated and less easy to understand.

It's apparant that it doesn't work the way Yora wants, so my solution is simple: go play the game that you do like rather than suffering through one you don't.

It's the biggest reason I don't play 4th edition. I don't like it.

I play AD&D because I do like the way it works.

[Kish]

I just tried my hand at this.

And ARGH! this makes my brain hurt! Who made these tables?! They are completely random with no system behind them whatsoever!
At up to 10,000 XP, a cleric is of a higher level than a druid. From 10,000 to 1,000,000 XP, the druid is of a much higher level than a cleric. And then the druid suddenly gets stuck at 14th level and stays there for well after the cleric made 20th. What the hell?!

Are you certain you want 2ed?

Part of 2ed is that being a 14th-level druid means you're "The Great Druid." It's a political position, and to get it, you had to win a duel with the sitting Great Druid--who, as a result of losing the duel, got knocked down to 13th level. You stay at 14th-level because, originally, that was supposed to be the highest you could ever get as a druid, with the Great Druid being as powerful and important as the world's highest-level clerics.

Being 15th-level or higher means you're a retired former Great Druid. At that point, thematically, you're supposed to be what 3ed calls "epic." What, you thought epic meant "Level 21 and up for all classes" in 2ed?

[ngilop]

Is there something like that? Basically the 2nd Edition rules, but with everything converted to be "roll equal or higher". Same classes, same chances, but an easier time to calculate if an attack or save is a success or not.

I am so completely lost on this, Yora wants soemthing that already exists in 2nd ed but yet she don't?

or what am i missing here?


Or does Yora think that teh whoel THAC0 thing is hard math? ive never really thought of subtratcion as hard but I guess for some its a bit confusing which is why 3rd ed just wnet with the +X BaB, becuase everybody knows that bigger numbers are big.

(when secretly its almots teh same exacl thing as THAC0 was...)

an easy way for me to explain to people coming orm a 3rd ed bakground or somebody completely new to RPGs is this

IN COMBAT : roll high

OUT OF COMBAT : roll low

of course there are some exceptions to the rule like trying to dive between somebody's legs as an attack ect, but when something like that comes up we will cross that bridge.

Yora i think should be more head-ached about how much deadlier things were in 2nd ed myself.

not the 'maths hard ' part.

[Kaervaslol]

The multiple dice thing is a feature, not a bug. Rolling different type of dice is fun and not that complicated, since most of the subsystem are class only (like thiefs skills) so only the guy playing thief must read those.

[GreyMantle]

Maybe Myth and Magic?

http://www.rpgnow.com/product/100492...-Starter-Guide

I was following M&M for a while. It's not a bad game, really. It has its quirks and some tragically bad design decisions (or at least it did a few months ago), but, overall, it's a fairly decent D&D clone. And most of the bad features can be explained by saying that it's trying to emulate 2E.

In general: It's interesting how much more prominent AD&D retroclones are than 2E retroclones. Honestly, it's kind of weird, since 2E is basically just a cleaned up and rather more playable version of 1E. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that it's because AD&D was out for a (comparatively) short time, and the published rules did not change all that much during its lifespan. You had to houserule the hell out of it to put it into a playable state, but that's beside the point. 2E, though, lasted a bit longer. 2E started out as 1E but "better," but it had enough splatbooks (to say nothing of 2.5), that there's no single rules element that's especially iconic to the 2E error. Much more emblematic were the myriad of campaign settings and such, which are noticeably more rules-neutral.

[Gametime]

I haven't played it myself, but I've heard good things about Adventurer, Conqueror, King, and the major mechanical changes seem to be pointing in the direction of what you want.

[hamlet]

And most of the bad features can be explained by saying that it's trying to emulate 2e.

Eh? What does that mean?

[MeeposFire]

Clerics have access to the All, Astra, Charm, Combat, Creation, Divination, Guardian, Healing, Necromatic, Protection, Summoning, and Sun spheres (with minor access to Elemental). Druids have access to All, Animal, Elemental, Healing, Plant, and Weather spheres (minor access to Divination). The much better access to spells means the Cleric requires more experience to level up, the logic goes.

The high XP for 15th level Druids are likely RP reasonings.

and yet clerics have the second fastest progression at late levels (They level faster than warriors but slower than thieves). Yes this makes no sense but it is what it is.

[hamlet]

and yet clerics have the second fastest progression at late levels (They level faster than warriors but slower than thieves). Yes this makes no sense but it is what it is.

EDIT: I re-read your post and realized I'd misinterpreted.

Actually, I think it makes quite a bit of sense, in some ways, since the cleric by reaching later levels has just come off of a good stretch of being slower than many of the other classes.

I guess it really is easy to get the fundamentals, but then the advanced learning goes slowly until you reach . . . I don't know . . . a moment of personal apotheosis when things start to become clearer and real power presents itself.

[ken-do-nim]

One thing you have to understand about AD&D is that it was heavily playtested. As such, they tinkered with the xp charts until they got balance the way it felt right in actual play.

So you need to have a little trust playing AD&D that the numbers are wonky for a reason. Perfect mathematical progressions don't mean better balanced play.

[hamlet]

One thing you have to understand about AD&D is that it was heavily playtested. As such, they tinkered with the xp charts until they got balance the way it felt right in actual play.

So you need to have a little trust playing AD&D that the numbers are wonky for a reason. Perfect mathematical progressions don't mean better balanced play.

Simply put, "balance" meant something completely different 30 years ago than it does today. The quicker you accept that, the happier you'll be.

[Matthew]

I was following M&M for a while. It's not a bad game, really. It has its quirks and some tragically bad design decisions (or at least it did a few months ago), but, overall, it's a fairly decent D&D clone. And most of the bad features can be explained by saying that it's trying to emulate 2E.

I am still following it. There are some oddities to be sure, more or less along the lines of Path Finder, which is to say I might not want X, but it is what the community wants.

In general: It's interesting how much more prominent AD&D retroclones are than 2E retroclones. Honestly, it's kind of weird, since 2E is basically just a cleaned up and rather more playable version of 1E. If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that it's because AD&D was out for a (comparatively) short time, and the published rules did not change all that much during its lifespan. You had to houserule the hell out of it to put it into a playable state, but that's beside the point. 2E, though, lasted a bit longer. 2E started out as 1E but "better," but it had enough splatbooks (to say nothing of 2.5), that there's no single rules element that's especially iconic to the 2E error. Much more emblematic were the myriad of campaign settings and such, which are noticeably more rules-neutral.

AD&D/1E was 1977-1989 and AD&D/2E was 1989-2000. More likely it is because the two are so indistinguishable that there is little need to basically rehash OSRIC. Instead, what is happening is that people are building up off AD&D (or D&D) in various ways.

[nedz]

Is there something like that? Basically the 2nd Edition rules, but with everything converted to be "roll equal or higher". Same classes, same chances, but an easier time to calculate if an attack or save is a success or not.

2E were the cleaned up rules; you should take a look at 1E sometime.

I could be wrong, but, I think that the idea behind sometimes roll high, sometimes roll low was to iron out any flaws in the dice being used; whether the flaws were deliberate or otherwise. This makes perfect sense from a statistical point of view.

[olthar]

and yet clerics have the second fastest progression at late levels (They level faster than warriors but slower than thieves). Yes this makes no sense but it is what it is.

Two reasons this sort of made sense.

1: The assumption was that clerics were mostly healbots in much the same way that wizards were evocationists. Even in 3.5 a healbot cleric is weaker than many of the "lower tiered" classes by virtue of how it works.

2: Spell saves were figured very differently in 2nd edition than in 3rd. Simply, by high levels the majority of equal or higher level enemies were saving against spells 70%+ of the time. That isn't the case in 3rd at all. This weakend casters in many ways compared to their insane power in 3.5.

(though don't jump on this statement because they are still way stronger than fighters and point 1).

As for the rest of it, I never had a problem with THACO. It is a really easy system to use not in the least because your DM screen always had the chart right there. So you could easily know which number each character needed to roll to hit the guys unlike in 3.5 where there are so many modifiers depending on how you are attacking at any given moment.

[hamlet]

1: The assumption was that clerics were mostly healbots in much the same way that wizards were evocationists. Even in 3.5 a healbot cleric is weaker than many of the "lower tiered" classes by virtue of how it works.

I never made that assumption.

IN fact, clerics, IME, were vastly more powerful when they weren't run as "healbots." At 1-3 levels, a simple bless spell could do a world of difference. Or a Sanctuary spell to hold off some attackers while you did what you could to salvage a bad situation.

By fifth level, you were slinging Prayer around, about the best spell going at that level.

Many of the most powerful spells a cleric could use were specifically not healing spells. It was only uninventive players and whiney fighters who turned them into healbots.

[MeeposFire]

Two reasons this sort of made sense.

1: The assumption was that clerics were mostly healbots in much the same way that wizards were evocationists. Even in 3.5 a healbot cleric is weaker than many of the "lower tiered" classes by virtue of how it works.

2: Spell saves were figured very differently in 2nd edition than in 3rd. Simply, by high levels the majority of equal or higher level enemies were saving against spells 70%+ of the time. That isn't the case in 3rd at all. This weakend casters in many ways compared to their insane power in 3.5.

(though don't jump on this statement because they are still way stronger than fighters and point 1).

As for the rest of it, I never had a problem with THACO. It is a really easy system to use not in the least because your DM screen always had the chart right there. So you could easily know which number each character needed to roll to hit the guys unlike in 3.5 where there are so many modifiers depending on how you are attacking at any given moment.

If we are discussing using the XP tables as a balance factor

1. That would be a terrible assumption considering that is the weakest way to play and the cleric can do almost anything with its huge list of spells.

2. Why are you using spells that involve saves as clerics have large numbers of self and party buffs that are so much better? Or use spells with no saves.

The reality is that balance was haphazard back then and the rumor is that the cleric was made so powerful to convince players to play it. Clerics are more powerful than warriors at the very high levels in general at the same level so allowing them to be higher in level just seems wonky.