BECMI D&D is overrated

[Sharrow]

Also several of the completes are actually pretty good: the complete fighter, thief and priest in particular are full of imaginative kits and good advice for running games.

They were great, though Clerics made with the priest book are generally a lot weaker than the base Cleric - the book should probably have explained that it was intended as a complete replacement for the core Clerics and Druids. It was a good book, but felt almost out of place, like it was a Runequest 3 book.

The mage book was uninspired - the kits weren't terribly interesting, so it was mostly about the spells, and really Magic-Users had too few slots to be using niche spells and the core rules' spells covered all the general use spells you'd need.

The Bard book was interesting, but some of the kits were a bit excessive - one gave the Bard as good a spell progression as a Magic-Uuser until 10+ level (and who cares about that in most games?), and as a Bard used the 'rogue' XP progression, that was way too good (and the downside wasn't much, as I recall - worse 'Thief' skill progression I think).

After that we get into the splats that went a bit crazy, like the Elf one.

Complete psionics is a classic. I also recall really enjoying the complete dwarves and halfing books. The elf book is often criticized for being unbalanced, which may be true but there's a lot of cool ideas in there as well.

You could build some seriously unreasonable characters using 2e psionics. Their clairvoyance and travel powers allowed them to short-circuit adventures several levels earlier than the equivalent MU spells (though the spells usually had more raw power). With a GM who had a good grasp of all the powers, and players that weren't power-gamey, it was fine, Otherwise not so much - in particular, if the GM didn't know it well a non-power gamer player could, quite by accident make a cool-sounding character that would turn out to blow up the game down the track. Hardly a problem unique to this book - plenty of games have things that do this (early WW games, I'm looking at you).

 

[Sharrow]

But AD&D took itself more seriously, and that's where it tripped up for me. For me, the wonky rules just seemed to become more pronounced, and there was already other rules around that did this kinda serious take on classic fantasy much better, such as ICE (eg: MERP, RM) or BRP (eg RQ, SB, etc), so they were my go-to for any 'serious' fantasy game. Later on I continued to pursue games that did it better in my opinion, such as Talislanta and such.

I find the mention of Rolemaster in the context of 'serious' games amusing, because the critical tables and the examples they used were anything but serious.

Stumble over an unseen imaginary deceased turtle. You lose 2rnds of offensive action but can parry.

Blast annihilates foe's entire skeleton. Foe is reduced to a gelatinous pulp. Try a spatula.

 

[Sharrow]

3E separating most of those latter abilities into feats with their own separate slot-economy was a good idea (at least to start with, before feat proliferation got out of hand).

I remember making a prediction in the 3e mailing list, just after 3e came out, that feat bloat would ruin the game if allowed to. I was assured by the designers that it wouldn't because they'd be careful not to introduce too many and to avoid power inflation. Then the first splats came out, and unlike 3e's core rules, they had clearly not been properly play-tested.

As it turned out, I was only partially right - the real problem was prestige-class bloat, but feat bloat was also a huge problem, even avoiding 3rd party material.

 

[Mankcam]

I find the mention of Rolemaster in the context of 'serious' games amusing, because the critical tables and the examples they used were anything but serious.

I loved some of those tongue-in-cheek crit outcomes, they were pure gold!

 

[Mankcam]

RQ was a revelation to me, and luckily at the time most of the kids I played with were enamored with hit locations, so it was easy to find people to play with. The fact Excalibur came out soon after discovering RQ didn't hurt with its fairly brutal combat scenes adding to the whole mystique of hit locations. RQ's quasi Bronze Age / Greek Mythology feel certainly didn't hurt with kids who grew up on Ray Harryhausen's Jason & the Argonauts and Sinbad flicks.

I couldn't of said this better, heh heh

 

[BedrockBrendan]

Skills & Powers and Combat & Tactics were what I think of as late in AD&D2's run, but probably more mid-life if we count from publication of the core books through to 3e's publication. Most people didn't allow them. I did, but while I used much of C&T, S&P was used by me as GM to modify classes to fit a concept as arrived at by the player and me. So the fighter/magic-user that could cast in armour existed, but the player hadn't got to 'balance' it by ditching all the spell schools they'd never use - I balanced it in other ways (it it worked out pretty well).

I think of it as late as well. I also tend to associate the earlier period of 2E, say before 95-96 with higher quality books (I was not a big fan of the revised PHB for example)

 

[Armchair Gamer]

They were great, though Clerics made with the priest book are generally a lot weaker than the base Cleric - the book should probably have explained that it was intended as a complete replacement for the core Clerics and Druids.

It did, but only obliquely--in the description of the "God of Everything" and a paragraph at the end of the Role-Playing chapter.

 

[Triumvir]

We're really moving in all kinds of directions here, but I like those kind of parties.
I quite enjoyed 3.0 when it came out, and the aforementioned Arcana Unearthed was a very nice spin on that (as was CoC D20, now I said it.)

I like CoC d20, especially the magic system. I would love to run swords and sorcery using that magic system. I think there were problems with the Sanity mechanic not scaling properly to d20, but I don't recall the details.

One problem for me with CoCd20 is that a Level-10 Offensive-class Librarian is going to be a better fighter than a Level-1 or probably Level-5 soldier. (I say probably because I don't have my book to hand to check.) CoC d20 doesn't break away from the d20 paradigm of all PCs getting better at fighting as they level up. That is mostly acceptable in a fantasy game, but a worse fit with a modern-world setting.

I have previously had people try and tell me not to sweat the librarian vs soldier issue, on the basis that the librarian is just getting "lucky shots" and "lucky escapes", rather than necessarily being more skilful. That doesn't really pass my sniff test though.

I would be interested in a d20 game that provided advancement tracks for attack bonus, saves, skill points etc., and each level, let you pick 2 or 3 advances across the tracks. Maximums could apply by level tier to prevent cheeseball builds, or maybe as an option. Up to you where or if you specialise. Call it Buffet-20. It may already exist?

 

[Sosthenes]

I would be interested in a d20 game that provided advancement tracks for attack bonus, saves, skill points etc., and each level, let you pick 2 or 3 advances across the tracks.

I'd personally wouldn't want to push d20 that far, as there are other, better games once you try to go down that level of resolution. But it wouldn't be that hard to remove most advancements out of core classes and just do some things with either feats or skills, or have multiple "track" core classes, where you just multi-class into what type of advancement you want. I still don't think a lot of people would be interested in playing a Lvl. 3 hit-points-haver/lvl. 4 not-getting-fireballed character. If there's a core story, every character should have some kind of progress to go further in that direction.

 

[Voros]

They were great, though Clerics made with the priest book are generally a lot weaker than the base Cleric - the book should probably have explained that it was intended as a complete replacement for the core Clerics and Druids. It was a good book, but felt almost out of place, like it was a Runequest 3 book.

The mage book was uninspired - the kits weren't terribly interesting, so it was mostly about the spells, and really Magic-Users had too few slots to be using niche spells and the core rules' spells covered all the general use spells you'd need.

The Bard book was interesting, but some of the kits were a bit excessive - one gave the Bard as good a spell progression as a Magic-Uuser until 10+ level (and who cares about that in most games?), and as a Bard used the 'rogue' XP progression, that was way too good (and the downside wasn't much, as I recall - worse 'Thief' skill progression I think).

After that we get into the splats that went a bit crazy, like the Elf one.


You could build some seriously unreasonable characters using 2e psionics. Their clairvoyance and travel powers allowed them to short-circuit adventures several levels earlier than the equivalent MU spells (though the spells usually had more raw power). With a GM who had a good grasp of all the powers, and players that weren't power-gamey, it was fine, Otherwise not so much - in particular, if the GM didn't know it well a non-power gamer player could, quite by accident make a cool-sounding character that would turn out to blow up the game down the track. Hardly a problem unique to this book - plenty of games have things that do this (early WW games, I'm looking at you).

Yeah I've read about the unbalanced powers in complete psionics and can see it but in practice no one in my 2e group figured those things out, if anything the mechanics made using psionics a lot harder than casting a spell.

 

[Gabriel]

As for the Complete Handbook series for AD&D2e, I feel that Complete Fighters Handbook and Complete Book of Humanoids are both really good and useful.

The rest? Well, after buying a few others, I decided I wasn't going to buy any more. This was even though I was hunting the rest of them down in the days when people were practically giving them away during the early 00s. The series was of very "mixed" quality to be charitable.

 

[Chris Brady]

Conan only had climbing, he was no pickpocket or lock picking skills. As for his woodcraft, that wasn't really anything class based. So in my opinion, Conan being a multi-class feels more like a lack of knowledge of the system. He was just a Fighter that had great climbing skills and grew up in the northern wilds.

 

[Gabriel]

TSR's Conan Unchained for AD&D1 made Conan a 13th level Fighter and 7th level Thief.

 

[Chris Brady]

TSR's Conan Unchained for AD&D1 made Conan a 13th level Fighter and 7th level Thief.

And I disagreed with it then, too. But again, personal opinion.

 

[Toadmaster]

Conan only had climbing, he was no pickpocket or lock picking skills. As for his woodcraft, that wasn't really anything class based. So in my opinion, Conan being a multi-class feels more like a lack of knowledge of the system. He was just a Fighter that had great climbing skills and grew up in the northern wilds.

A limitation of AD&D, no way to add limited class abilities. This was a frequent issue for me, as in non class based games I lean towards generalists and a reason I was happy when D&D started to include "skills". Of course by the point that happened I had been exposed to games that did it so much better leading to D&D becoming one of my, well if that is my only option, I'll play games.

 

[Chris Brady]

A limitation of AD&D, no way to add limited class abilities. This was a frequent issue for me, as in non class based games I lean towards generalists and a reason I was happy when D&D started to include "skills". Of course by the point that happened I had been exposed to games that did it so much better leading to D&D becoming one of my, well if that is my only option, I'll play games.

I agree, it's why I liked 5's 'skill' system and how it uses the attributes for them. It allows me to make a somewhat accurate Conan in my head.

 

[Toadmaster]

And I disagreed with it then, too. But again, personal opinion.

Conan is a difficult one since he gets the skills he happens to need for a story. He has to my knowledge never been a "thief" in the classic D&D sense, but he certainly has demonstrated "thiefly skills". He is a skilled climber, definitely has stealth as his movement is often described as panther like, so move queitly and hide in shadows I do not think is a stretch. Can't think of a case of actual pickpocket, but he has shown great dexterity, carefully removing items or placing things which seems a fair alternate use for D&Ds pickpocket. Backstab I think would not be a hard sell either, not super common in the stories, but he certainly has the ability to sneak up and attack from surprise.

 

[ffilz]

You couldn't mini-max the same way, because there just weren't as many moving parts making up a character. That also made it a heck of a lot easier for a GM to tell is something was broken. And besides, balance between characters, especially combat balance, just wasn't as important pre-3e. Of all the things that 3e introduced that looked like a good idea, but has become a millstone, that and 'encounter balance' have to be the biggies.

Yep, I thought Challenge Rating was going to be a great thing. The idea that was going to fix the challenge I used to have in Cold Iron about gauging encounter difficulty (I kept over doing it and threatening TPKs and having to fudge). But the idea doesn't actually work out to give the players freedom and instead, yea, it's a millstone strangling a campaign.

So what is keeping me out of that now with Cold Iron? I don't try and provide "a challenge" with an encounter. I offer something up and am conservative about just how powerful I make the encounter. And then I'm OK if a TPK really happens... My grad school Cold Iron campaign actually ran pretty good with that idea, but now I have a better idea of how to keep encounters from being TOO challenging.

 

[T. Foster]

The AD&D/Gygax barbarian gets ability to climb and hide like a thief, track and surprise (and avoid being surprised) like a ranger, jump higher and farther like an acrobat, faster move rate, and an innate ability to instinctively detect magic and illusions that increases with level. On top of that they also get a bunch of inborn bonuses that were supposed to replace the function of magic items that they weren’t allowed to use: extra hp, AC bonus, saving throw bonuses, ability to damage “enchanted” creatures, and faster natural healing. Plus some background color woodcraft stuff and the ability at high levels to summon a “barbarian horde” (ostensibly replacing normal characters’ baronies).

I think it’s distinct enough from the standard fighter (or ranger) to be a worthwhile addition, and only seems overpowered at low level (because they start out with the bonuses other characters will only gradually acquire as they accumulate magic items) which is also balanced by their brutal XP table that pretty much requires them to continue adventuring solo (which they’re really well suited to) while the other PCs are busy training to level up (noting also that barbarians, uniquely among AD&D classes, don’t require training to level up).

I just don’t like the way they’re allowed to use magic items as they gain levels or the “won’t associate with magic users until level X” rule, both of which were added in UA and weren’t in the original Dragon magazine version. The former dilutes the archetype and undermines some of their abilities (like how they gain the ability to harm magical creatures at the same time as they gain the ability to use magic weapons, rendering the ability pointless); the latter creates an annoying extra hassle at the player level - as originally described barbarians distrust and dislike spell casters and won’t willingly allow spells to be cast on them except in extreme circumstances, which is way more practical than what replaced it.

 

[BASHMAN]

This is what got me started

I have also used the Rules Cyclopedia (with a bunch of house rules) but ended up buying a second copy of this boxed set I used it so much.

 

[Dr. Gnome]

At low levels I really don't notice much what OSR/Old school system I'm playing. They all play... fine, and the rule changes from one system to another seem to be minor. When I want to run an old school game now I just use OSE because it's basically everything I loved about the older versions with modern, updates books/PDFs that are easy to read, rule changes that just make sense, and if you want to go "advanced" with it and include race/class options and such, it's all available to do so. What major differences would one notice in a BECMI vs B/X campaign through lower levels, or do the changes mainly start to pop up in epic campaigns at godlike levels? If so that could explain why I don't see much of a difference; D&D has always had a "sweet spot" for me from around levels 3-10 and after that my interest tends to drop off. This kinda holds true for 5E and every version of D&D, though. Unsure why.

 

[Baulderstone]

At low levels I really don't notice much what OSR/Old school system I'm playing. They all play... fine, and the rule changes from one system to another seem to be minor. When I want to run an old school game now I just use OSE because it's basically everything I loved about the older versions with modern, updates books/PDFs that are easy to read, rule changes that just make sense, and if you want to go "advanced" with it and include race/class options and such, it's all available to do so. What major differences would one notice in a BECMI vs B/X campaign through lower levels, or do the changes mainly start to pop up in epic campaigns at godlike levels? If so that could explain why I don't see much of a difference; D&D has always had a "sweet spot" for me from around levels 3-10 and after that my interest tends to drop off. This kinda holds true for 5E and every version of D&D, though. Unsure why.

The biggest low-level difference is that Thieves are weaker in BECMI.

As for the sweet spot in D&D being 3-10, I always point to the fact that OD&D only had 10 levels to start. That's how the game engine was designed, and it starts to break past that point. Whether you are talking AD&D or BECMI, more levels are there to feed consumer demand, not out of thoughtful design.

My favorite version of D&D is Dungeon Crawl Classics. It has 10 levels, and it plays well at all of them.

 

[raindog308]

The Holmes set was my introduction to D&D. I was aware of the old White Box (a friend's brother had it), but never actually played it. My friends and I moved to first edition AD&D straight from the Holmes boxed set, those those two editions are my old D&D nostalgia sets.

Same here. And once my middle school friends and I had moved on to AD&D, we sneered at those stuck on "basic" D&D.

And thus the point that in D&D games character die, and sometimes you can't do a damned thing about it is very effectively made, especially to lonely teen-aged boys.

Once you get the wish spell, ain't no such thing as lonely...

 

[Endless Flight]

This is what got me started

I have also used the Rules Cyclopedia (with a bunch of house rules) but ended up buying a second copy of this boxed set I used it so much.

I had that boxed set. I always liked the DM screen with the reference sheets tucked in.

 

[T. Foster]

One difference that’s definitely noticeable between BX (1981) and BE (1983) is that in the former clerics gain both 3rd & 4th level spells at 6th level and 5th level spells at 7th level, while in the latter they get a 3rd level spell at 6th but don’t get a 4th level spell until 8th and 5th level spells until 10th. The latter is more regular and elegant for sure, but it’s also a big power-cut for mid-level clerics: in BX a 7th level cleric can raise the dead (5th level spell); in BE a 7th level cleric can’t even neutralize poison (4th level spell) yet.

 

[DeadBob]

As for the sweet spot in D&D being 3-10, I always point to the fact that OD&D only had 10 levels to start. That's how the game engine was designed, and it starts to break past that point.

It also means that the demihuman level limits are not nearly such a problem as often made out to be.

 

[Baulderstone]

It also means that the demihuman level limits are not nearly such a problem as often made out to be.

People often forget that classes have different XP requirements in old school D&D. When the Fighter hits 10th level, the Elf in the party will still be 8th level. The Elf won't get to 10th level until the Fighter is 12th level.

Halflings are the opposite. They level very quickly. However, you could see that as.a benefit. They get a stronghold before anyone else.

 

[Silverlion]

People often forget that classes have different XP requirements in old school D&D. When the Fighter hits 10th level, the Elf in the party will still be 8th level. The Elf won't get to 10th level until the Fighter is 12th level.

Halflings are the opposite. They level very quickly. However, you could see that as.a benefit. They get a stronghold before anyone else.

They do! Especially when it comes to M-U. Look I know it doesn't actually work, the MU is charged too much early on and not enough later, but they'll run a few levels behind the Fighter, Thief, Cleric because of that, which helps balance them a bit, but not nearly enough in either direction.

 

[Dumarest]

I couldn't of have said this better, heh heh

Actually...you could have.

 

[Sharrow]

It also means that the demihuman level limits are not nearly such a problem as often made out to be.

The original Player's Handbook limits were quite low for many demi-human class choices, and could well matter, but they also were more generous for characters with better stats, so with good rolls and the right class choices (why you always took Thief as one of the classes [Assassin for a Half-Orc]) they mattered less. The Unearthed Arcana ones were more generous (but still mattered). The 2e ones were 10th and up, and so almost never mattered.

 

[Bunch]

Just curious, for those who played AD&D 1e, did you like Unearthed Arcana? There seems to be those who did and those who hated it. I liked it. Pretty much a fan of everything in it. Especially weapon specialization. But I have friends who absolutely hate it and think it’s an abomination.

Yes. Loved it. I definitely used Weapon Specialization. Played a Cavalier. Had Drow in games.

Same as G Gabriel
We used it. Drow not so much because the sensitivity to light. Weapon Specialization helped fighter keep up with mages & clerics a bit. Cavalier in our Temple of Elemental Evil party. I didn't feel it was horrifically imbalanced. I played a vanilla thief partied with a mage, cavalier, cleric, fighter and a barbarian. The thing is I ended up with all the random magic items because the cav and Barb were so limited.

 

[DeadBob]

The original Player's Handbook limits were quite low for many demi-human class choices, and could well matter, but they also were more generous for characters with better stats, so with good rolls and the right class choices (why you always took Thief as one of the classes [Assassin for a Half-Orc]) they mattered less. The Unearthed Arcana ones were more generous (but still mattered). The 2e ones were 10th and up, and so almost never mattered.

Good point, but I was really thinking of the demihumans in 10 levels, B/X context, not an AD&D one.

 

[AsenRG]

Conan is a difficult one since he gets the skills he happens to need for a story. He has to my knowledge never been a "thief" in the classic D&D sense, but he certainly has demonstrated "thiefly skills". He is a skilled climber, definitely has stealth as his movement is often described as panther like, so move queitly and hide in shadows I do not think is a stretch. Can't think of a case of actual pickpocket, but he has shown great dexterity, carefully removing items or placing things which seems a fair alternate use for D&Ds pickpocket. Backstab I think would not be a hard sell either, not super common in the stories, but he certainly has the ability to sneak up and attack from surprise.

Well, that and ritual magic, arcane languages, the ability to sneak in chainmail, extreme awareness 1due to barbarian senses, danger sense that sometimes works even when normal senses don't, outdoorman skills, including being able to recognize rare poisonous plants, strategic skills, acquires riding "in-game" (and shooting bows as well, for that matter)...oh, and us noted for his leadership!

Yeah, that's exactly the point when you actually want a skill-based system, not a class-based one!

 

[Baulderstone]

The original Player's Handbook limits were quite low for many demi-human class choices, and could well matter, but they also were more generous for characters with better stats, so with good rolls and the right class choices (why you always took Thief as one of the classes [Assassin for a Half-Orc]) they mattered less. The Unearthed Arcana ones were more generous (but still mattered). The 2e ones were 10th and up, and so almost never mattered.

Level limits affect the game differently in AD&D because it has class and race as separate categories. In B/X and BECMI, you always get to complete your class because it's also your race. It's more frustrating in AD&D because the player sees all these additional levels that they can't take.

 

[sharps54]

Level limits affect the game differently in AD&D because it has class and race as separate categories. In B/X and BECMI, you always get to complete your class because it also your race. It's more frustrating in AD&D because the player sees all these additional levels that they can't take.

If they player had played a human they could get those additional levels. It’s a trade off, get the cool extra abilities of the demi- and semi- humans and have level caps or forgo them and have unlimited advancement.

 

[sharps54]

Ultimately it’s a balancing mechanism of a game. If you want less game in your RPG I suggest not picking something with D&D in the title as all editions lean into the gamist aspects of RPGs.

 

[Toadmaster]

Well, that and ritual magic, arcane languages, the ability to sneak in chainmail, extreme awareness 1due to barbarian senses, danger sense that sometimes works even when normal senses don't, outdoorman skills, including being able to recognize rare poisonous plants, strategic skills, acquires riding "in-game" (and shooting bows as well, for that matter)...oh, and us noted for his leadership!

Yeah, that's exactly the point when you actually want a skill-based system, not a class-based one!

There are class / level based games that do manage to make this work, but the best examples I can come up with are Role Master and MERP which has... ummm, skills.

I actually like the concept of proficiencies (ok, this also really is a skill system), and feats. The implementation has not always been the best, but it I thought it was a significant improvement.

 

[Sosthenes]

Ultimately it’s a balancing mechanism of a game. If you want less game in your RPG I suggest not picking something with D&D in the title as all editions lean into the gamist aspects of RPGs.

I don't think this is about gamism per se, more about the lackluster implementation.

 

[sharps54]

I don't think this is about gamism per se, more about the lackluster implementation.

It was the original way of trying to balance player options. Demihumans were originally considered as a consolation prize for people that rolled poor stats. Gygax always wanted a humancentric world. If you don’t have level caps you end up with no one playing humans because you are penalized for not having darkvision and other cool superpowers.

 

[sharps54]

Here it is in Gary’s own words from Europa 6-8 page 20, April of 1975. There may be more elegant solutions today, like not giving demi-humans any special in game abilities, but Gygax was literally writing the book on this stuff. Monday morning quarterbacking should to take that into account.

Even more modern systems, like Pathfinder, typically see all non human parties so the problem of how to encourage a human centric game hasn’t gone away.