Anatomy of Failed Design: D&D 2nd edition.
Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2009 5:13 pm
Ok, since you wanted more detail...
Let's start with the basics.
Character generation is incredibly simple. This is a very good thing, for reasons that will be detailed later. However it is also a very bad thing, as most characters of the same race and class will have nothing differentiating them except the luck of 3d6 in order, and maybe choice of weapon. Not that there are many actual choices, as there are more traps here than in 3.5 by far. Or any other system I've seen. I say most characters because mage types get random spells. Yes, random spells. You haven't even started playing the game yet, and it's already fucking with you.
Since the game repeatedly insists that it's not for roleplaying and you should just Magic Tea Party that while claiming it is a roleplaying game, let's move on to the basic mechanics of combat.
First, and foremost you can move and still be relevant. This is a good thing. However the fail starts in hard from here.
Movement is supposed to be arbitrarily handwaved, leading to lots of bullshit and Fail. Doing stuff delays your initiative, depending on how long the stuff takes, so you act later in the round. There was something else I was going to say here, but I forgot what it was.
Now, stats. THAC0 is... actually not that bad a system. You have your To Hit AC 0 number, and if the AC is better than that you need that much higher of a number and if worse, lower. So if the enemy has AC 5, and you have THAC0 10, you hit on a 5 or better. Simple enough. All you have to do is remember lower AC is better, and the range is 10 to -10. Enemies generally stay on the RNG, so AC actually fucking means something. And so do you. There are no crits, barring an optional rule that basically gives every weapon 20/x2 crits that auto confirm.
Next up is saves. Here the Fail really begins in earnest. Somehow there is a fundamental difference between getting hit with a Fireball from a wand and getting hit with a Fireball from a Mage. Even if it's the fucking Mage casting the fucking Fireball. There are other examples too, but basically the point is they overdivided saves.
Then there's stats. Stats... don't do a whole lot. Which is good, because if you're using their defaults all your characters are going to have peon stats, as if they were Commoners or something. But of course it's also fucking horrible if you want players to care about such things. Generally you need a 15 or 16 to do... well anything with a bonus really. And you need 10 Wishes to boost a stat by 1 once it gets to... what was it? 14? Anyways, stats apparently cap at 25. And tomes have their full effect on stats... but are temporary.
Now, here's where the Cataclysmic Fail kicks in.
Just about all of the rest of the PHB is devoted to ways the player will be screwed and should like it, all in the name of ROLEplay.
There's an entire section devoted to screwing PCs who want a horse. For emphasis: They spend several pages, going in detail on how horse traders can rip off the PCs. They went over making the horse seem to be a higher quality, to having undesirable traits like throwing you off at random times for the lulz, to having the horses stolen back.
Nearly every time some sort of misfortune is mentioned in regards to the PCs, it's strongly implied the DM should be enjoying it. This comes up in its most notable form when discussing falling damage. Which uses the same rules, but everyone has less HP so you actually care about those D6s.
Speaking of which, HP. You get 1 HD per level, until... 9 or 10 or so. Then you just get some small flat HP boost. There is no max HD at any level, and you die at 0. There is an optional rule that's basically 3.5 disabled and dying rules, except that you have to take a few days off after because you can't do anything. So you can seriously begin with a single HP, even if you're a Fighter or something. And since you have to roll really high on 3d6 to get a Con bonus... This is also why blasting was pretty good back then.
Blasting was actually better in the absolute sense as well. Some of them did 1d6+1 a level, or 1d8, or whatever. I think there was one spell that did 3d8 + 1d8 per level. So you're getting better than a D6, and you have less HP to plow through.
But back to the main Fail.
The biggest offenders though are the Death, No Saves. These will henceforth be referred to as DNS.
Even in the PHB, they're all over the place. The DM is actively encouraged to make up some arbitrary bullshit, then expect the PCs to be psychic. There's even a line in there to the effect of DM: You touched the fountain? Oh no... (DNS fucker!)
They are most prevalent in the DMG and MM though. In particular, the magic item section. For every 1 or 2 items you might actually want, there is one that is DNS. Or if you're lucky, it does give a save, or just screws you so badly you might as well be dead, or might perhaps even be better off dead. There is absolutely no way to tell them apart without actually trying the items on. Identify and shit won't work.
The DM is also strongly encouraged to make regular use of DNS traps.
The MM is the biggest offender though. There are so many enemies, even at low levels with a DNS, or if you're lucky a save with a penalty, or a lose effect that may or may not allow a save it's fucking ridiculous.
This seems like a good time to mention the death rules. You drop to 0 HP, you instantly die. You need Raise Dead or Resurrection to come back to life. Note that many effects, particularly the DNS effects prevent either of these from working. Apparently those spells won't work if the body is mangled, or if you've been eaten by a Grue. Go figure. Some of them won't even work with a Wish, you're just forever dead because you got eaten by a Giant Frog. Fail. I could see it if it was something like Finger of Death or Destruction or something. Also if you do get raised, System Shock check or you are forever dead. This is Con based, and being revived permanently lowers your Con by 1. There's also an absolute max of your starting Con. Which means combined with the above, it's a fucking wonder anyone lives to see level 2, even if such a character could somehow be returned to life.
It doesn't help you have even less in the way of defenses, aside from the AC that actually kinda sorta works than in say... 3.5. Enemy throws a javelin at you. You instantly die. Imagine your worst 3.5 level 1 horror story. Magnify it by a power of 3.
Then there's the save or lose users. Many of these are things like long duration paralysis, meaning the enemy can take their sweet time eating you. Sometimes it's stat drain or even level drain, and these don't allow saves for the most part. You just instantly lose 2 levels because it hit you once, and levels were hard to get. You needed really high level magic in a short time to get them back too. Suffice it to say there was no reason to ever willingly fight the undead.
My favorite one though is that they put the fucking Kitsune in the fucking Monster Manual. What's that? You're male, and have a Wisdom of 13 or less? Charmed, no save. And charm was more like Dominate back then. So have fun fucking, or more likely being used as cannon fodder by the fox woman. Lol. For the most part though, the DNS spam isn't funny.
Then there's dragons. Apparently breath weapons only delay init by 1 (and thus are very fast). They also do some shit like 24d10+fucking 72. Remember, even as a beatstick you only have 10d10+30 + your Con bonus * 10... which even if you had say... 20 Con would not amount to much, meanwhile the breath is doing 96-312 damage. So in other words, dragon breathes and everyone dies instantly. That's what you get for not sucking dragon cock.
Oh, and have I mentioned poison yet? Those are the biggest sources of DNS. Especially since they refuse to put up complete rules like onset times, and encourage the DM, again to fuck with players regarding them. Even many of the ones that don't explicitly kill you still do it, because they do 20 damage when you're low level, or they paralyze you for hours, or they cut your stats in half for a while. Some of them do allow saves though. Just those saves are often at a penalty. And sometimes they fuck you over even if you pass the save, so it seriously doesn't fucking matter.
Long rant is long. Let me know if you want more elaboration on the Fail that is 2.0.
Let's start with the basics.
Character generation is incredibly simple. This is a very good thing, for reasons that will be detailed later. However it is also a very bad thing, as most characters of the same race and class will have nothing differentiating them except the luck of 3d6 in order, and maybe choice of weapon. Not that there are many actual choices, as there are more traps here than in 3.5 by far. Or any other system I've seen. I say most characters because mage types get random spells. Yes, random spells. You haven't even started playing the game yet, and it's already fucking with you.
Since the game repeatedly insists that it's not for roleplaying and you should just Magic Tea Party that while claiming it is a roleplaying game, let's move on to the basic mechanics of combat.
First, and foremost you can move and still be relevant. This is a good thing. However the fail starts in hard from here.
Movement is supposed to be arbitrarily handwaved, leading to lots of bullshit and Fail. Doing stuff delays your initiative, depending on how long the stuff takes, so you act later in the round. There was something else I was going to say here, but I forgot what it was.
Now, stats. THAC0 is... actually not that bad a system. You have your To Hit AC 0 number, and if the AC is better than that you need that much higher of a number and if worse, lower. So if the enemy has AC 5, and you have THAC0 10, you hit on a 5 or better. Simple enough. All you have to do is remember lower AC is better, and the range is 10 to -10. Enemies generally stay on the RNG, so AC actually fucking means something. And so do you. There are no crits, barring an optional rule that basically gives every weapon 20/x2 crits that auto confirm.
Next up is saves. Here the Fail really begins in earnest. Somehow there is a fundamental difference between getting hit with a Fireball from a wand and getting hit with a Fireball from a Mage. Even if it's the fucking Mage casting the fucking Fireball. There are other examples too, but basically the point is they overdivided saves.
Then there's stats. Stats... don't do a whole lot. Which is good, because if you're using their defaults all your characters are going to have peon stats, as if they were Commoners or something. But of course it's also fucking horrible if you want players to care about such things. Generally you need a 15 or 16 to do... well anything with a bonus really. And you need 10 Wishes to boost a stat by 1 once it gets to... what was it? 14? Anyways, stats apparently cap at 25. And tomes have their full effect on stats... but are temporary.
Now, here's where the Cataclysmic Fail kicks in.
Just about all of the rest of the PHB is devoted to ways the player will be screwed and should like it, all in the name of ROLEplay.
There's an entire section devoted to screwing PCs who want a horse. For emphasis: They spend several pages, going in detail on how horse traders can rip off the PCs. They went over making the horse seem to be a higher quality, to having undesirable traits like throwing you off at random times for the lulz, to having the horses stolen back.
Nearly every time some sort of misfortune is mentioned in regards to the PCs, it's strongly implied the DM should be enjoying it. This comes up in its most notable form when discussing falling damage. Which uses the same rules, but everyone has less HP so you actually care about those D6s.
Speaking of which, HP. You get 1 HD per level, until... 9 or 10 or so. Then you just get some small flat HP boost. There is no max HD at any level, and you die at 0. There is an optional rule that's basically 3.5 disabled and dying rules, except that you have to take a few days off after because you can't do anything. So you can seriously begin with a single HP, even if you're a Fighter or something. And since you have to roll really high on 3d6 to get a Con bonus... This is also why blasting was pretty good back then.
Blasting was actually better in the absolute sense as well. Some of them did 1d6+1 a level, or 1d8, or whatever. I think there was one spell that did 3d8 + 1d8 per level. So you're getting better than a D6, and you have less HP to plow through.
But back to the main Fail.
The biggest offenders though are the Death, No Saves. These will henceforth be referred to as DNS.
Even in the PHB, they're all over the place. The DM is actively encouraged to make up some arbitrary bullshit, then expect the PCs to be psychic. There's even a line in there to the effect of DM: You touched the fountain? Oh no... (DNS fucker!)
They are most prevalent in the DMG and MM though. In particular, the magic item section. For every 1 or 2 items you might actually want, there is one that is DNS. Or if you're lucky, it does give a save, or just screws you so badly you might as well be dead, or might perhaps even be better off dead. There is absolutely no way to tell them apart without actually trying the items on. Identify and shit won't work.
The DM is also strongly encouraged to make regular use of DNS traps.
The MM is the biggest offender though. There are so many enemies, even at low levels with a DNS, or if you're lucky a save with a penalty, or a lose effect that may or may not allow a save it's fucking ridiculous.
This seems like a good time to mention the death rules. You drop to 0 HP, you instantly die. You need Raise Dead or Resurrection to come back to life. Note that many effects, particularly the DNS effects prevent either of these from working. Apparently those spells won't work if the body is mangled, or if you've been eaten by a Grue. Go figure. Some of them won't even work with a Wish, you're just forever dead because you got eaten by a Giant Frog. Fail. I could see it if it was something like Finger of Death or Destruction or something. Also if you do get raised, System Shock check or you are forever dead. This is Con based, and being revived permanently lowers your Con by 1. There's also an absolute max of your starting Con. Which means combined with the above, it's a fucking wonder anyone lives to see level 2, even if such a character could somehow be returned to life.
It doesn't help you have even less in the way of defenses, aside from the AC that actually kinda sorta works than in say... 3.5. Enemy throws a javelin at you. You instantly die. Imagine your worst 3.5 level 1 horror story. Magnify it by a power of 3.
Then there's the save or lose users. Many of these are things like long duration paralysis, meaning the enemy can take their sweet time eating you. Sometimes it's stat drain or even level drain, and these don't allow saves for the most part. You just instantly lose 2 levels because it hit you once, and levels were hard to get. You needed really high level magic in a short time to get them back too. Suffice it to say there was no reason to ever willingly fight the undead.
My favorite one though is that they put the fucking Kitsune in the fucking Monster Manual. What's that? You're male, and have a Wisdom of 13 or less? Charmed, no save. And charm was more like Dominate back then. So have fun fucking, or more likely being used as cannon fodder by the fox woman. Lol. For the most part though, the DNS spam isn't funny.
Then there's dragons. Apparently breath weapons only delay init by 1 (and thus are very fast). They also do some shit like 24d10+fucking 72. Remember, even as a beatstick you only have 10d10+30 + your Con bonus * 10... which even if you had say... 20 Con would not amount to much, meanwhile the breath is doing 96-312 damage. So in other words, dragon breathes and everyone dies instantly. That's what you get for not sucking dragon cock.
Oh, and have I mentioned poison yet? Those are the biggest sources of DNS. Especially since they refuse to put up complete rules like onset times, and encourage the DM, again to fuck with players regarding them. Even many of the ones that don't explicitly kill you still do it, because they do 20 damage when you're low level, or they paralyze you for hours, or they cut your stats in half for a while. Some of them do allow saves though. Just those saves are often at a penalty. And sometimes they fuck you over even if you pass the save, so it seriously doesn't fucking matter.
Long rant is long. Let me know if you want more elaboration on the Fail that is 2.0.
Real Easy