Just wondering if there are any opinions about this. I've been a Dnd player back in tha day (quite a few years ago... hard to find time now, too much reality in the way...)
BUT I was wondering is there any opinions on 2nd edition versus 3rd edition Dnd.

Which do you people prefer, and maybe a quick summary why.

Me, having become familiar with the 2nd edition rules and no real knowledge of the 3rd, I prefer 2nd.

SilentThief

I also prefer 2nd edition rules. I played (still do actually) BG series for a long time and I learned the rules. Then I installed NWN/IWD 2 and just deleted it. 3rd edition rules are way to complicated for me.

3rd ed. They allow the DM a lot more flexibility, and do make slightly more sense than 2nd ed once yo know the ruleset.

The common complaint is that 3rd ed allows players more power, but the DM can control that under Rule Zero if desired.

As for the complexity, I find them more or less the same. 3rd ed notations look more complex, but once you know what they all mean its actualy quite simple.

Well recently I have become allot more familiar with 2nd edition, so I would prefer it, and so far, from what I have seen, 3rd edition looks very good, but it is a big change from 2nd edition in the way that there is much more. But until I finally completely understand 3rd edition, I will have to go with 2nd ;)

First rules I knew where 2nd in BGII but I know 3rd edition better cause I play them in p&p now. I don't think either is hard but you have to know how it works (like I still don't know the full 2nd edition rules). 3rd edition is a bit clearer with higher number means better. But 2nd edition looked at rolls more I think (THAC0 = 10 you only have to roll average to hit isn't it?) and then it makes sense. I don't prefer either, it depends on what I'm playing and how I got used to it. I wouldn't like BGII in 3rd edition probably cause it doesn't make sense, nor would I like NWN in 2nd edition rules.

Well since I never really understood Thac0 and never DM'd in 2nd Edition, just played, and given how simple 3rd edition is to learn and teach I'm going to say I prefer 3e... well actualy 3.5 now... but thats a minor point... [img]smile.gif[/img]

We play 2nd ed every Sunday. Our DM is very flexible on the rules though. I play a Halfling Bard for example.

My forum name is my former Halfling Transmuter!

I like 3rd Edition more because it gives the player much more freedom in classes and skills. i am however working on a system that can permanently eliminate the awfully artificial allignments.

Depends...I like pc wise 3rd edition - allows more flexiblity for the characters and allows you to vary your gameplay from character to character.

PnP, I still like 2nd Edition. It may have been just the two DM were not the most experienced, but they seemed to drag the game out by all the difference rolls and checks and made it not as much fun...

just my opinion...

BK

I prefer 2nd edition rules because it's straight and to the point. I also have a 3rd edition campaign and when your characters get to a certain level, let's say epic like some of mine are, you can't keep track of all the feats they have and use, like damage reduction, immunities, and so forth.

I do prefer 2nd edition, but in my campaign, I guess you'd call it 4th edition, because I use rules from second and third edition.

I prefer 3rd as it's easier to multiclass and I prefer the AC system than that stupid THAC0 which until now I still don't understand it.

I prefer 3rd edition, because it has a whole lot more sense and logic in it. As Kakero said, the THAC0 and negative AC things are really harder to calculate for PnP than BAB and AC. I wouldn't really say it allows for more power, I'd say it's much more balanced, because a Cleric20/Mage20 is not a level 30 character, as that makes no sense at all, the special effect spells are better, and IMHO the whole thing is just simply evolved. What really got me dumbfounded is that in 2nd ed the Ability system was really confusing, like calculating STR bonuses and AC from DEX by class...

1rst/2nd Edition for me. Those are the books I own and the game I've playyed for many years.

I don't mind 3rd ed. but I'd rather spend my dough ebaying to fill the gaps in my early editions collection rather than starting all over.

I go with a mixed 3/3.5 DnD,plus some really sick unearthed arcana rules tosed in. I like 3rd ed better because now I can have that psychotic halfling fighter with twin dagger assaulting the bugbears (my DM had uber-class bugbears) that I always dreamed of.

My only complaint(?) is that I can breeze through the 3e rules real quick, wheras I could spend months rereading the 2e rules and still not be quite sure if I understood them. But then, I'm also the psycho (according to my friend) who likes reading about singularities and weird quantum theories *for fun*.

Unearthed Arcana is fun :D I play a battle sorcerer now. When I make my own campaign I'll put more rules in it. Do you know any rules that are fun or that aren't working?

yeah i can see where you are coming from. those books are way to expencive >_<

I prefer 2nd ed. slightly. I find the rules simpler (probably because I have played it for longer) and it is just really easy to get started with. 3ed. is ok, but I don't know the rules quite so well and there are so many feats etc.

3rd edition definately. This system is more flexible and logical than it's predecessor. There's alot in 2nd ed. that doesn't make sense. If there's a Fireball flying in my direction and I need to dodge it, does it really matter if it comes from a wand or a common spell?

3rd, although 2AD&D in BG2 was really cool with the high level spells TimeStop, ImprovedAlacrity (why are these removed?) and the HLA's, the flexibility of 3rd gives a much larger gaming experience. And 3rd makes more sense to me, with all the postive indicators.

Time stop is still in 3rd. Improved Alacrity would be in the epic level handbook (in which there are high level abilities btw) but the rules changed so it doesn't make any sense. There's no such thing as pause between spells anymore.

Well, I always DM-ed back in tha day and I kinda followed the whole "alignment tracking chart" thingy from the Dragonlance campaign, only I didn't let players know what their alignment score was or how certain actions swayed that. This meant that the players could build quite a nasty reputaion for themselves if they weren't careful... and then wonder why they were hunted by the people

Also, I had like almost 50 different character kit/class choices from different locations in the two geographical continents I had in my campaign, and this was not counting what would have been had I continued to build the world.

SilentThief

[ 01-01-2005, 03:17 PM: Message edited by: SilentThief ]

Still that point system would be based on your own ethics morals and values. you cant objectively call someone evil or good. someone like hitler is seen as evil by 99.9% of the sane population of the world but still he believed himself he did a good thing by his own ethics and morals, and at that time a part of the german population agreed with him. this might be a very extreem case, but it illustrates how subjective "evil" and "good" are. We also come to a point where you'd have to decide whether or not you are still "good" if we went out and killed "evil" people (boondock saints for example, or even the death penalty). how could a spell (because thats my main issue, spells like protection from evil) determine what morals and what ethics are the correct ones? how can something so subjective be objectively measured?

[ 01-01-2005, 03:49 PM: Message edited by: Rikard T'Aranaxz ]

that is a good point, and one I hadn't considered before. I would say then (if I were DM-ing again) that the "prot. from evil" spell then wouldn't affect, say, some thief who steals or a fighter who kills people now and then but instead might protect from stuff like undead, demons, evil artifacts (or someone possessed by one). I'm gonna have to re-think this one if I ever DM again.

You are right on the whole subjective point, that it is something that is open to widely different views and interpretations.

3rd edition seems much simpler to me.

THACO is completely mindboggling to me.
To hit armor class of zero. So if your THACO is 3, and an enemy armor class is -5, you need to roll an 8 or higher to hit the enemy???

... see it aint that hard [img]tongue.gif[/img]

the problem with the allignment system as it stands now is that paladins in a huge part depends on very strong evil/good allignments. decreasing the power of spells that depend on good and evil will greatly decrease the powers of a paladin :/

Allignments should not be told to the players..

You as the DM should keep track of how much the players are shifting towards good or evil, they players should not pick their alignmets at the start of a champaine, but should start with a neutral rating, from their use their actions to work out if they are acting in a good way or an evil way, from your position as the all seeing one..

Prot. from Evil works by the karma, undead have bad karma (violation the natural order of the world will do that to a person).. So rather than think of it as somone deciding to put a shield aganst who they think is evil, but as the caster opening a connection to some spritual plane..

Good and evil are subjective, you the DM are not.

Back to the topic at hand..

I like 2nd edtion, but in the way people like steam engines, Nice to look back but I want to go to work on the newer one please..

I like third ed. I've played both, (CRPG for 2ed, also reading through the sourcebooks). I can honestly say, 3ed kick the crap out of 2ed. I agree with Q'alooaith, alignments shouldn't be told to the players.

<span style="color: lightblue">Exactly. Alignment is metadata: it should be defined by the character rather than defining the character. The emphasis should always be on a good story - even things like strength scores and weapon stats and even levels shouldn't be anything the player needs to know. The description of an item and the actions of the character should be adequate - if the fourth wall needs to be broken, something is wrong.

Thus, which ruleset do I prefer? Neither. In my experience, both focus too heavily on the numbers and the dice. Although this may be different in a PNP game: I have only had the experience of dnd-based computer games, of which I've yet to see a realy good implentation. I think an ideal to strive for is a cross between Quest for Glory, Neverwinter Nights and Planescape: Torment . Your alignment is adjusted automatically depending on your actions; your stats raise automatically depending on how you use them. Party members do their own thing, rather than being directly controllable by the player. But I think that the character record in these games is poorly implemented. It should idealy be a picture and the biography, nothing more. I think that hiding details such as the alignment and class from the player actually opens the way for more advanced implementations, and a more generally fun experience.

We had our second day of the new champaign yesterday. I was a great gaming day, actually. Everyone was really using their characters well.
One funny part was when our Armor totin' halberd weildin' 1st lvl mage, took down an orge with one swing. The ogre had taken a bit of damage, then took a critical from the mage and failed his system shock.

I tend to disagree. By installing a karma based evil/good system or a good/evil system based on the DM-way of thinking, you basically say that were is an objective way of measuring morals. you say that one set of morals is better then every other set of morals and that those people who differ in opinion are to be considered evil. I refuse to implent such a rule in my world. I believe players should be able to chose their own set of morals, and though the ingame world may judge him for that, i dont think spells should. i think in all cases spells should lack any kind of morals and be indifferent to human ideas like good and evil.

Then again this is purely my opinion and any DM is free to set up their own world.

Rikard, the alignment is not what the player think's of themselves.

Now, this is talking about how somone behaves, you don't let the player pick their alignment, but you work it out from their actions..

A lord may see himself as good, for proteching his people from invaders, that he's raised taxes to do this and he's gotten into the habit of evicting people who fail to pay.


I'd rate the above lord as Lawful Neutral, while he might view himself Lawfull Good, he is looking after everyone on his land after all, and look he helped that commoner who got sick once..


Anyway, you back yourself into a corner.

You say you don't force morals on your players, and let them pick, and then go on to state that the gameworld might judge them for their actions..

You have to make a call as to what is a good action and what is an evil action, and instill this into the NPC's of your world. But still you've judged what is right and wrong.


Basicaly all you have to do is note if somones doing "evil" things, killing babies in their crib's would count as evil, big thing's like that..

Summoning a demon, that's evil.

Giving to the poor, that's good (little missguided but good)


I do agree, you should never force your players to stick to whatever alginment they picked, or have ended up, but you should not ignore alignment, which is what you do when you rule out spell's like protechion from evil and smite and so on.

Let them make their choices, hell if your forcing people to do things they don't want to then you should stop being a DM, no realy your just playing with yourself if you force somone down a path they don't want to take.

ok killing babies. You see it as evil. now theres a priest that can save an entire village by sacrificing a baby. I see that as evil. That priest might see it as good, because he saves an entire village. how is a spell to judge whether its good or evil? now what if you must turn in your party because they broke the law? an officer would see that as lawfull. the party sees it as chaotic (since rules were broken) how is a spell to jugde? A Druid joins the evil side because good is taking over the world. I see that as evil because he joins an evil side. The druid sees it as "true neutral" because its balanced. a neutral god might even see it as good because he is bringing balance. you could also judge it as lawfull because he is following druid codes, or you could see it as chaotic because he keeps switching sides.

My complaint about allignments isnt about players trying to follow allignments, or about what the gameworld might think, Its about a moralless essence called magical energy that is suppost to judge the deeds of moral beings. you claim that i talk myself in the corner with the statement:

"You say you don't force morals on your players, and let them pick, and then go on to state that the gameworld might judge them for their actions.."

however you confiniently left out the most important part of my entire post

" i dont think spells should."

in my opinion the gameworld and its morals do not reflect the way a moralless energy would judge. The gameworld is irrelavent for allignments because in the gameworld everybody has different opinions aswell. spells can judge which set of morals is best, and because of that spells cant judge evil/good chaotic/lawfull. spells cant sense the reasons behind the actions of people.

[ 01-03-2005, 08:49 PM: Message edited by: Rikard T'Aranaxz ]

let me elaborate on that btw

I dont think one world can have one set of morals that are always considered best. morals change with time even in a DM's campaign world, and because of that, Morals can NEVER be objective. Something that can NEVER be objective, cannot be objectively be decided by a brainless, moralless substance that knows nothing of the time place or surroundings in which it is contexted. Therefor spells can NEVER stop someone based upon morals.

This is my opinion. and i leave it at that. if you dont understand something then please ask. if you disagree with me, feel free to disagree. if thats the case then we have a different opinion about the basis of spells and DM-ing and thats a discussion that will never be won by either.

I think if there were no alignments things would just be too easy. You do what's right for the moment because it's easier. Our entire party is some type of good. I wouldn't play it any other way. You gotta think more, strategize more play more etc.

i disagree. without allignment based spellds, the gameworld will still jugde your actions, and politics will still have to be quite subtile. Also think about your own life. dont you do what you consider right for the moment? i know i do. I dont think about the possible effects on my own morals when i do something.

Only if the party's full of powergamers. Roleplayers will stick to the character, and a good character is a good character with or without a number saying so.

I like the alignment system I found in the back of the 1st ed. Greyhawk hardback, where it gives a scale of 1-20 for law-chaos and one for good-evil. I'm not omniscient so obviously I'd have to make judgement calls based on my beliefs, but that's about the only way I could pull it off. At least I play with like-minded people so conflicts should be uncommon occurances. This sytem turns 9 alignments into over 400 shades of gray, and unless you're in the 0-5 or 15-20 range you're basically still considered "neutral". The good have to be really good, evil really evil, etc.

I'd only change the scale to 0-20, so 10 would be true neutral, instead of 10.5 being true neutral. ([1+20]/2=10.5; the rules always round to a whole number). I'd use this only because my last DM said that torture is flat out evil and forced automatic alignment change to evil if you engaged in it. At least with this system it might not be automatic, but it would have a heavy influence on the good-evil scale. Same deal for slaughtering innocents/helpless. Adds a new element to a coup de grace attempt, too. "So you're really going to chop off the head of the guy laying helpless at your feet? Okay then...heheheh."

Using this system you should probably *not* tell players their current alignment, but when divine casters lose their spells, barbarians can't rage, bards can't use their special song effects... they should get the hint. If you're a mascicist you could always go with a 0-100 scale. (0-25 and 75-100 being extremes.)

For philip (and everyone else) I find Unearthed Arcana rules for prestige paladins/rangers/bards fun. Makes the classes that much more special, plus they end up with better spell casting, and the PCs have to "prove themselves" if they really want to get into the paladinhood, especially if implementing the 0-20 alignment scale. I'm undecided on the alternate AC based on classes and levels (p136 UA, if you have it), maybe if I used a firearms heavy campaign where armor is socially unacceptable. Anyway, UA and Libris Mortis are my two favorite add-ons to 3e, and Frostburn if you're partial to cold environment campaigns (I am, because I live in cold places and really understand the perils of it).

The post is a bit long, sorry. I'm a DnD super-geek. (Why can I remember reams of charts and stats from the game but not my home phone number?!)

I agree with you, Rikard T'Aranaxz, about the whole issue of what constitues "evil". One idea about this is "faith based" spells (priest spells) would already have its set belief in that the beliefs set down by the power would dictate that. However, since the morality/diety issue wouldn't necessarily affect the Magicuser spell, this could (and for the sake of "realism" in said fantasy world, should) change the way the spell works.

Here's an interesting idea that would come from that: say the characters are in a heated battle with some enemy and they cast said spell and NOTHING HAPPENS!!!
Now they have a new puzzle to mess with (is enemy evil? did I tick off my diety? is there some kind of problem with magic?) and one of my favorite things to do is give new puzzles to deal with. They have an answer, tho, so as not to frustrate my players too much...

SilentThief

The other thing is that it's not "you" it's a character! Now, if you went without alignment you would be the same thing all the time with different equipment; boring!