Sure but sometimes you are surprised ones. Even with the perfect clearing spell Mister ONE-D-Four-HP living a AC TEN Avenue has to live through that abuse. And sometimes when you roll for spells, the offensive spell you get is Light. It's a very cruel system to the first 6 MUs a party cycles through but can be very rewarding for the 7th.
@@ArcturusMinsk Magic goes last, and he has one spell, so the combo would clear one encounter assuming he lived long enough to get there. Now what about the rest of that dungeon?
Ahh, yes, you start to realise very quickly after almost being killed by 3d6 giant bats behind a random door that things like 10 foot poles and rules for hirelings are in these old rules for a reason! Those giant bats might have a crappy attack and only do 1d4 damage. But you’ve got 6 hit points and no death saves.
3d6 giant bats? My wizard and fighter npc got killed by a couple giant rats (they hit like two crits on the fighter tbf iirc) and some normal ones 2nd fight in one of my first Ad&d games. And I wasn't just playing dumb either.
@@boinkmcbingo8890 well the thing that saved us in the end was a door that acted as a choke point so only two or three of the bats could attack us at once, and also morale rules. Once a few of the bats died, they fled. Older D&D has this great asymmetry where numbers matter way, way less than morale & positioning, it’s both very desperate and also very satisfying.
@@Zulk_RS 3d6 is what the wandering monster table said. And you have to remember morale rules, you don’t have to kill all the bats, just enough to make them make a morale check and most will flee, they’re wild animals after all, not trained warriors.
I had this go the opposite way. Our DM had only played AD&D and when we played 5e for the first time he was really confused about how we were steamrolling all of his encounters at level 3.
the power scaling in ad&d and 2e are very different from 5e. Especially starting at level 3. Once you hit that level, your characters start getting very good at their respective roles, and arguably level 20 characters in ad&d are more powerful in their class roles than equivalent 5e characters
1st level adventurers in AD&D have shorter lifespans than commoners who never stray outside of their towns or homesteads. Did you make it to 2nd level? AWESOME!!! Do NOT stop doing what got you to 2nd level. Do NOT take unnecessary chances until you get to 5th level. Did you make it to 5th level? SPECTACULAR!!! You might actually live long enough for someone to remember your name.
Rightfully so--if just anybody could wander down into the barrow and return with a sack of gold, who'd muck out stables for a living? But when you include the high probability of howling away your last moments in the pitch-black dark with a rusty spear through your gut, suddenly shoveling shit all day doesn't sound so bad.
@@EwoktheMoidThis reminds me of an in-browser game called Dungeon Robber, it's like a text based randomly generated dnd game. Your characters die a lot, like even more than in adnd, it's a lot of fun! Soon enough you find yourself just throwing characters at the dungeon hoping one sticks
I lovingly crafted my first AD&D character over the course of several hours on the morning and early afternoon of June 9, 1982. I gave him a cool (to a nine year old) name, drew a picture of him, and dreamed of the adventures we would have together. We were going to slay monsters, rescue the townsfolk, find treasure, and build a castle. First, we had to handle the kobold caves. There were three of us: my fighter, a magic-user, and a thief. TPK in our first combat. I think the thief made it to the second round. AD&D is a cruel mistress.
@@verylittleknowledge I played up to 1991, then my group went different ways after high school. I started playing 5e with my kids a few years ago, and have expanded into DCC and PF2e. I dream of getting an AD&D group together again.
I had a similar solution in AD&D, using goblin corpses instead of live chickens however. Chuck the sucker, if he doesn't land, you got a cube on your hands
Cleric - " How deep is that water?" Wizard - ::casts continual light on the dead goblin's shirt:: FIghter - :: Fills goblin's pockets with heavy stones, and then lugs the body into the water:: Rogue- " we about to find out"
I see two adnd characters here NOT carrying either a crossbow, dart or sling. A melee weapon in low level adnd is often suicide, even during an ambush.
Secretly I really love low-level DND. There's just so much more tension and excitement in a party that doesn't have a nice thick cushion of HP, buffered by multiple healing spells and potions, and buffened by extremely high level magic powers.
You'd love 2e because it's always threatening. you'd think you're safe because lv 8 well most undead level drain that's not bringing up the save or die monsters (tbf just a little lame imo)
Fully agree. Try 2nd Ed, the mechanics are annoyingly clunky, but the game is an actual adventure with real threats. The scaling in modern D&D is broken to hell.
After Unearthed Arcana came out my plan for a magic user was to start as a fighter with weapon specialization in darts then, use the character with two classes rule to switch to magic user after he had a few hit points and the ability to, in emergencies, switch to fighter mode and throw a whole ton of darts (a choice that came with the downside of turning off my xp acquisition for the session - since I was no longer acting as a magic user).
@eriktyrrell424 actually not a terrible idea.... the only problem is wizards level so slowly. Can't really afford to lose any xp. Almost better to stay as a dart chucking fighter.
Ever feel like exploring has become too dangerous, like you are constantly stepping on eggshells? Been called a "chicken"? Feel fowl no longer-we've got literal chickens to take your place! A cheep poultry workforce is available around the cluck to offer a flockin' eggcellent service! Take your peck! Order your wingmen today! *Adventure seeds not included
I love that the "Animated Spellbook" here isn't some spell, class ability, or other game mechanic. It's a chicken. Just a normal chicken, that you buy by the wheelbarrow load, and deploy as needed. Because that's how AD&D works: the answer isn't on your character sheet, it's you using logic, role-playing, and the tools at your disposal to solve problems.
And my 3.5 head ass friend thought I was crazy for buying a couple rabbits before the adventure. Bait, trap detection, decoy, emergency ration those bunny boys had it all
Less hp, no death saves, you hit 0 hp and you die. So at lvl 1 you need to be exceedingly careful.. even as a fighter/barb. That kobold might only hit for 1d6 dmg.. but if he rolls a 6, and you only have 10hp... that's scary as hell.
An important element of that style of game is that character creation is incredibly simple so if a character dies you can roll a new one in a few minutes. Meanwhile in 5e, if your playing a high fatality game and your character dies you'll need to spend half the rest of the session making a new one.
Shout out to the Chicken Infested flaw (available only to the Commoner class) from the April 2005 issue of Dragon Magazine. *Chicken Infested* You’ve got a case of the chickens. *Effect:* Whenever you draw a weapon or reach into a container, such as backpack or even a trapped hole in the wall, you have a 50% chance of drawing a live chicken instead. No, we don’t know where the chickens come from; it’s your character, you figure it out.
@@jabz1582 People came up with all sorts of zany builds abusing the flaw. Under the 3.5 rules, the way spell component pouches worked created an interpretation of the rules where a Chicken Infested character with a spell component pouch could create a theoretically infinite number of chickens per turn, which could combine with other feats and class abilities to create things like an unending horde of exploding zombie chickens or an infinite damage loop built on cleaving through an infinite number of chickens.
AD&D is a lot like a war game. You need to strategize a lot and minimize the risk of getting into normal fights. So far in my low level campaign the two most important things have been 1. Fighter with a bardiche (the bardiche is the most important character of the party) 2. Druid with extra spell slots due to wisdom bonus (cure wounds, entangle, calm animals) My Druid was just sent to the under dark by herself with no light source last session so… it’s not looking too hot
5 lb rock on a 50 foot rope, and you were a dipshit going into a dungeon without a load of chalk and a mirror on a stick. Even numbers was a losing proposition. Running away was a very viable option, and was probably the first thing a party discussed how to do in case things turned South. Henchmen by the dozen, and disposable critters by the donkey-pulled cartload. Tucker's Kobolds are still scary now if done right, but in AD&D they were pure hell.
There's a reason the ten foot pole has been a staple of every basic equipment list in every PHB since the gray book days. The party member assigned the role of "trap checker" needs to be out front tapping every surface with that pole as the party dungeon delves at a snail's pace.
Even for those of us who played AD&D back in the day, it's easy to forget how deadly and quirky it could be. I ran a 2nd Edition AD&D campaign with friends back in 2016, and among our re-discoveries was how _very long_ it takes to level up a Magic-User! Your anecdote about chickens reminds me of an idea my best friend had back in the aforementioned Olden Days. He had the same idea as you, except with piglets, which we found listed at a price of 1 copper piece each. He planned to acquire a large number of piglets and then sharpen their teeth and hooves, so he could unleash his pack of piglets against any foe he encountered.
personally a fan of good old timber rogue. barbarian picks up a big log and chucks it down any open path. traps? LOG enemies? startled by LOG timber rogue is the best scout you could ask for.
The same thing happened when I introduced a bunch of buddies to pathfinder 1e. I started them off with a cr 1 encounter of dire rats, everyone in the room had military experience. 3 rounds latter they set the walls and floor on fire and ran away dragging two of the party members with them.
After watching the DnD movie a while back my typical ttrpg group wanted to do some dnd instead of our ongoing game. I offered to run it. What I did was build a one shot 5e dungeon with 2e energy. They made it two halls in before they were forced to run for their lives. It was beautiful. Since then no one at the table has questioned why I carry "weird stuff" like 10ft pole.
To Hit Armor Class of Zero Player Char Class Base # - (armor rating) - modifiers Fighter Lvl 2 Vs an unarmored NPC 18 - 10 - (no modifiers) = 8 or higher hits Fighter lvl 2 Vs a decked out evil warrior in +5 fullplate 18 - (-5) - (no modifiers) = 23 (or only a 20 will hit) easy really
@@zarthemad8386 yeah THAC0 is just a DC, a target number to hit. AD&D has you subtract the modifier (AC) from the DC. D&D has you add the modifier to the d20. It's just two ways to do the exact thing and itself isn't any more complicated. The strongest argument against THAC0 is that numbers going down as they get better leads to conceptually weird stuff like +1 "bonuses" to hit and armor having to be inverted as subtraction, which is just weird. Your +2 armor is more like -2 armor because you're subtracting 2 from AC, but they don't call it -2 armor because then it sounds like a penalty and not a bonus. But it wasn't important once you got past the learning phase. The strongest argument for THAC0 is because armor class converged on zero the math involved smaller numbers, you're very rarely using double digit numbers whereas 3rd edition/Pathfinder get into double digit numbers of attack bonus quite easily, and 5th edition only avoids it by limiting itself with bounded accuracy.
My Father was infamous for adopting new "pets" in the form of goblins and kobolds (all named Lunch) that he would tie with rope and chuck down dark hallways before reeling them back in really quickly to see what traps got triggered or monsters came out.
Omg, this reminds me of a friend who did something similar, only instead of chickens he used beagles. His character somehow had access to a large kennel and brought along his faithful “Trapbait” on every adventure.
Oh man, I remember buying the 3e books and being so ecstatic that you got MAX HITPOINTS at first level! Just so many times I made a character in AD&D and then rolled badly for HP...
one thing my dad used while DMing the first 2e game I was in was to give every player 2 characters at level 1. The idea being that if one of them died, oh well, you've got another. Once we hit level 3 though, our secondary character would stay back at base and do downtime activities. My dwarven cleric almost never went on missions and instead stayed at the tavern we owned crafting better armor for everyone and providing free heals and curse removals (and later resurrections) to party members in between missions.
honestly would love to see more of your AD&D adventure animated like how you did some of your old adventures. Maybe going into how your experience between 5e and AD&D differed
oh hell yeah, i feel so lucky getting to one of these so soon! your content really makes me consider jumping over that first barrier and getting properly into DND
Do it! If you are on the fence, maybe check out some Actual Plays. Relics&Rarities and Dimension 20's Fantasy High are both great series where some of the players have never played before, so there's some basic rules discussion baked in.
@@tmdiz4579 5e is for people who want to feel very smart by casting spell to overcome every challenge. "there is problem A? I better cast spell A. Yay i did it. Im so clever and good at games!"
I remember in bg2 there's a fight with big demon which can one shot you at the time you get to him (because I don't think you're supposed to fight him), but you also have the summon genie who can "make your wishes come true" spell by that point. So if you ask him for an army he will give you an army... of chickens. But it is a great distraction for any non-aoe enemy. So yeah, I totally killed the demon while he was swamped in chickens and could not get through the sheer girth of cluck.
AD&D was my first system and I love it. It’s awesome you tried it out. Ya wizards and thief’s are so hard to play early game. Wizards with their massive 4 hp, 1 spell a day, and no cantrips
I could never figure out what a character who could only do his main thing once per day (and who can be killed by a light breeze) was supposed to DO the rest of the adventure. Just try to sound mysterious and stay out of the way?
@@HebaruSan For one, magic is more unvommon. So the idea of a caster in a group was more concerning for any opposing who had the eye to catch something like that. But a big part of earlier editions is resolving encounters not just with full blown combat and tactics. There’s a roll the DM would do for every encounter you came across called a “reaction roll”. Depending on what the roll was, a DM would then have to bring out the encounter’s reaction or disposition to you. Not all goblin parties would outright murder you if you stumbled upon them. They may want your stuff or maybe your help.
Love this merciless use of chickens. I have had in a 5e game when we were being really cautious of a trapped door one of our npc companions asked why we didn't just try opening the door. Called the DMs bluff and encouraged the npc to "just try the handle". He got turned to dwarf jelly. Trap sticks are always useful. Will have to find a way to train chickens to open doors, we've run out of npc companions.
This is pretty much the Baldur's Gate 1 experience. You learn pretty quickly to never play fair and to never feel any shame. If it's stupid, but it works, it isn't stupid. The first real encounter you run into is a mage who casts a fully-leveled Magic Missile at you, at 1 cast speed. If you're following the railroad, then you are level 1 and have no party members and this first encounter will instantly kill you unless you get creative.
@@nikogarcia201 Oh right, my bad. You do. But losing the protagonist forces a game over. So you still get gibbed by 5 magic missiles hitting a level 1 character.
@@ved2360 Thanks for bringing back my old memories of how hard that game was in the beginning. I was use to third edition back then so I really was unprepared for second edition mechanics.
I DM a westmarch style game for my friends, its an old school system with a bunch of my own rules. XP for Gold and all that jazz. Its very deadly. So they often nope out from dungeons.
That actually sounds great. I sometimes get annoyed when I'm playing like we're in Dishonored and other PC are playing like we're in GTA with all the cheat codes on.
My AD&D rogue is 3rd level and has 15hp. He’s got the pest controller kit, so he caught a kobold, tied a rope around its waist, and trained it to scout the tunnels ahead. That kobold immediately got chewed up by something in the darkness, and suddenly kobolds were hard to find. It worked once, at least.
As one of those ancient AD&D players, the DM didn't need to be out to kill you, everything was trying to already. Chicken are a nice sub out for the 10 ft pole though.
Stats are 3d6 (averages to 10.5) put in order (though there's other listed methods), then you design your character around them. Wizards have d4 hit dice and thieves have d6s. Constitution doesn't boost either health pool until you have 15 points in it (maxing at +2 for most classes), and you can't pick the average when creating your character. Goblins deal 1-6 damage without a weapon. At level 1, they both get one-shot even if they rolled average stats and the goblins rolled average damage. Down to a two-shot at level 2. At least it can't hit you half the time.
My parents used to play AD&D. The only thing I've ever heard about it is how much they lament thac0 (which, to be fair, would make an excellent name for a villain in my campaign for them. Thaco should 100% haunt them as a little reference to all their little horror stories to me.)
I recommend a batman approach to equipment. Rope, at least 100ft. Iron spikes and a hammer to hold doors shut. Enlarge works on items and is reversible so that means you can potentially open a door or window by making it smaller, make yourself smaller in order to climb somewhere that ordinarily couldn't support your weight, or just make a big tank bigger. Both the bread and butter of early level magic users. Sleep is the undisputed king of low level spells. Sleep would have absolutely ended that goblin encounter and with enough rope to tie them up you'd kill them easily. Sleep is so strong you could walk up to 4hd creatures and put them to bed and dogpile one at a time. Edit: I love AD&D because balance is a thing of future editions and with enough planning and creative spell use you can punch far above your level.
AD&D has so many neat things. Most notably, not caring for whether the party might survive a particular encounter or not and having that be the DM's decision; if you're in a city at night and the DM rolls a 100 on random encounters, whether or not the party gets to meet a Vampire/Lich is up to you. Mostly I rip it for conversions of ancient threats. An ancient stronghold from the time of Vecna's Occluded Empire would absolutely have Wights that can drain levels and put some fear in even the level 17 Wizard. From there it's reversing THAC0 into an attack bonus, AC (roll low) into AC (roll high), coming up with core stats, and rules-ifying AD&D's way of just explaining the effect without being crunchy about it; the creature is incorporeal, so it's assumed to have a fly speed even if it's not listed under its movement. Boom, we now have Giant Catfish stats that steals the Bite-attack-swallows mechanics from the Froghemoth, Gelatinous Cubes that Paralyze on hit/Engulf instead of Restrain, and Sandmen that have an aura of "you sleep now" and an inaccurate melee attack that forces the save again. Most importantly though, no matter how tough I make them, more often than not they'll be rolling some sort of Morale checks. You don't exist this long without a little self-preservation, so the Behemoth that got 80/150 HP lost in one Fighter turn will absolutely back off and start making Intimidation checks instead.
My longtime group didn't play AD&D, but our DM did and he ran his games like it in 3E. A random encounter was usually a death sentence if we went at it with a 5E mindest people have these days.
I'm baffled that you write that sentence and make it look like the "5e mindset" is the issue, and not the fact that you could hit a game over for no good reasons in the old rules. Games where your players are too afraid to attempt anything without using cheesy tactics to avoid combat are only fun for maybe half a session. Then you want to play. There are ways to make players afraid of specific encounters in 5e.
@@Ezullof There were good reasons: to simulate reality, to curb murder-hoboing, to encourage planning, etc. Back then, you were playing fairly normal people that decided to become adventurers with the risks involved, not borderline demi-gods who decided to become adventurers for fun and profit. Think of AD&D as Elden Ring and 5e as Minecraft on casual mode. My step-son says things are unfair in games because he just runs at stuff and doesn't do anything with the mindset that he's not invulnerable.
@@Ezullof Oh, we were never afraid to do anything in games, we just had to view every event with caution and suspicion. Is the band of goblins attacking the caravan really just a bunch of wild beasts or are they the young members of an organized tribe with veteran goblins watching from the distance? Are you going to check the surroundings and let the caravaners die, or are you going to charge in? If you charge in you get sniped by a trio of goblins sharpshooters watching over their young. If you take out the veterans and leave the caravaners to die then their families are going to investigate and learn this from divination of one sort of another and send assassins after you for revenge. Let's say you dispose of the bodies and ward the are from divination, well maybe they complain to the local feudal lords who get involved and suddenly the town you were traveling to says your group looked suspicious and now you're wanted by the county. Setting aside the actual mechanics of combat, the purely narrative consequences from every action reverberates throughout the world and usually comes back to bite you no matter what we do.
@@Ezullof It's absolutely the 5e mindset, from people who've been playing a game where it's very difficult to die unless the DM is outright trying to kill you. Yes, there was a very high chance of getting ganked in the first few levels (and a lot of DMs would "go easy" during this period), but it also created a true sense of accomplishment in surviving to levels where instant party-wipe wasn't a likely scenario. The real key was preparation - bring your ten--foot pole and mirror-on-a-stick and remember to use them - and most players back then had the nerdy OCD mindset necessary to do that in a game that wasn't just about action economy.
@@Ezullof The idea of cheesy tactics here is kind of missing the point. The lethality was part of the appeal. Using tactics to avoid being in a situation where you are in danger because even average enemies are very dangerous encourages a cautious kind of playstyle that is very appealing to people that are more mechanically minded about the game. There is a reason a lot of the older class features were only really useable in combat, the roleplay was there but dnd came from roots in wargaming where lethality is the point. There is a different, but very real appeal to games where if you at recklessly you will die.
I remember playing a 5e campaign out of the Ghosts of Saltmarsh book and our dm played it as if it was a old school DnD game. Our “experienced” 5e mindset resulted in one party member going insane and afraid of combat, and the other two of our party members dying to crossbow fire after they walked down a flight of stairs. My cleric had to pray and offer his sight to get resurrected, the dm should mercy that day! After that experience I personally wanted to play AD&D really bad because it’s a puzzle/improve game hidden in a mathrocks game!
Well, the minimum HP possible is 1; you can't fraction the things. And with the system the way it is, a level 1 fighter - basically a recruit mercenary - might walk out the door with just 3 hit points. So yeah it's a little weird, but it's an artifact of the math. Plus like if you've ever known a chicken... they're small but they're also tougher than you would think. Seen 'em duel a rattlesnake before
I relate to this SO hard. I'm about to run a game of 3.5 & 1of the players doesn't wanna use her 900 starting gold for equipment. "But my character's supposed to be poor." OK but lv2 character has 11 AC & enemies have a +7 to hit.
what you should have said was "a poor person spends all their money on gear, you can't be poor if your character just have $60,000 just sitting in their pocket because they don't want to use it. "
When i played classic dnd the first time, our gm had us roll some of our starting equipment. I got 5 chickens. Naturally, for someone who wasn't used to low power characters I dismissed the power of a chicken down to a funny-wierd-thing my character was all aboug. A mad man that throws chickens at people. Then half of our party walked into a death trap. End of the dungeon? Not really. After all, throwing chickens at suspiciously empty corridors solved like half of our troubles. Never underestimated the power of ten foot polls since then.
Yup... having played the original Baldur's Gate games, this seems about right. At low level, you need to walk on eggshells... and kite when the going gets rough. Early D&D was damn vicious.
AD&D sounds like it incentiveses methodical, cautious play, rather than heroic, reckless play. Which no doubt is a fun way to play, if you're into it! I certainly prefer the brash heroism (and villainy) of 5E, but I am doubtless biased by having never played AD&D before.
@@CrabSpu Funny that you compare it to a show, when that seems to be what D&D is to 5e theater kids. It's really just different themes though. Low-level AD&D is hard-won grit and fun in it's own way. It doesn't baby you and guarantee you progression or a story arc. You need to earn the story.
AD&D where the number of orcs in a random encounter is rolled on percentiles. We had a game in high school where we came over a hill to discover over 400 orcs camped in the next valley.
Ahhh, so that's why Find Familiar has a material cost, so as not to crash the thriving Sacrificial Chicken market that's been built up since the AD&D days. It all makes sense now.
Find familiar was even more punishing in AD&D, losing your familiar meant passing a system shock roll (a percentile roll based around your con) or instantly dying, even if you survived you would lose constitution permanently. Familiars were to be treasured (the bonuses they provided were actually better than 5e familiars to compensate, you would often get the sight of your familiar and a few other minor bonuses)
Actually, back in AD&D and 2e, having your familiar killed was a really big deal. It could kill you, and I'm pretty sure there were major consequences even if it didn't. There was none of this "I always have a flanking bonus because my 2 hp owl gets in the combat, too!" nonsense. You MIGHT have a Familiar try to grab the McGuffin if it was small enough, but that was definitely a desperation move.
This reminds me of a story I heard about a player who used their money to buy an ungodly amount of squirrels. They used them for absolutely everything, to trigger traps, as thrown weapons, even used a dead one to hold a door open. The DM supposedly got so sick of it he had the squirrels attack the player en masse to permanently kill them.
ADnD is where I got my love for Clerics. They can do awesome things with reasonable costs outside of combat and it didn’t feel cheap because combat was so dangerous.
We're running Keep on the Borderlands right now and our new players from 5th edition have had a very rude Awakening to how deadly the game is. Can't just roll for initiative when a kobold can kill you. Shield walls and actual military tactics are being used and the game is much better for them.
Okay, so, not having a fighter is part of the problem, but depending on how you did character creation, the bigger problem might be you sleeping on... Well... Sleep! Sleep lets you end just about any encounter in one action. I'd love to hear more about the rules you were playing under, and how you went about it. As a dedicated AD&D player, I'm always interested to hear about how people approach the game.
ADnD without a heavily armoured and shielded fighter and cleric at the least was always a death trap. I spent quite a few years playing and lost many wizards but my fighters and clerics were always MVP.
We recently started by going back to AD&D and we're working through T1-4 with the intention to do the whole original module run going on to G1-3, D1-3 and Q1. We are probably eight or nine sessions in and we're still fighting our way through the depths of the Temple of Elemental Evil. We forgot how tough AD&D is. Wow. And Gygax was just mean. It has been a total blast!
May I also suggest S1 and H1-4 after you manage to defeat those modules? S1: Tomb of Horrors was written by the man himself specifically to punish kick-down-the-door style gameplay H1-4: The Bloodstone series is the highest level modules ever produced (H4 is lvl 18-100). Happy gaming!
I love running 5e players through mostly-straight AD&D, you see the most amazing things as they start adapting to the new conditions. I usually have them role up more than one character to start with though.
My first experience with TTRPGs was playing a couple sessions of first addition AD&D with my Dad's old books when I was 11 or 12 and dying in literally every combat encounter. I believe that this has permanently altered my standards and expectations for RPGs.
You somehow managed to summarize my misspent youth in under 2 minutes … but all without raising the spectre of thac0… I’m convinced some recess of my mind is still hard at work memorizing that sliding scale… as though holding on to that forever will somehow make up for every bad grade I got in high school - a coincidentally concurrent time…
Let's say you have a THAC0 of 14. You roll your die; if it's a 14 or higher, you hit a foe who has an Armor Class of 0. If they have an Armor class of 1, you only need a 13 If they have an armor class of -1, you need a 15. And just keep going from there.
Let's say you have a THAC0 of 14. You roll your die; if it's a 14 or higher, you hit a foe who has an Armor Class of 0. If they have an Armor class of 1, you only need a 13 If they have an armor class of -1, you need a 15. And just keep going from there.
AD&D sounds much better than 5e tbh, one of the things I hate about it is all the hack and slash, "I'm gonna rush into battle like an idiot and somehow not die"
Dying in literally two actions from a level one goblin sounds really fucking annoying. Like, it sounds to me like the system is designed such that you literally have to cheese every encounter or instantly die
@@ENCHANTMEN_ I'm kinda the opposite. Sharp blades are still dangerous in the hands of novices, and even at level 20 you only have so much blood. I like it better when anyone can be a legitimate threat, because it doesn't strain reality. A random schmuck with a big stick can still kick a trained boxer's tookus if the boxer is careless.
@@ENCHANTMEN_ Exactly. People in the comments are idealizing an era of D&D where you had to cheese constantly because it was players vs DM. Old D&D was just a dungeon crawler. If you play 5e like it is one, of course it's going to be disappointing, because that's not how it's supposed to be played. In 5e the DM is supposed to be a level designer who makes combat encounters interesting. He's not supposed to try to kill you constantly with deadly traps and by throwing a group of goblins at you.
I once suggested to my RPG group that we play some AD&D for a one shot. We looked through the rules and realized we'd probably be dead after one combat lol
@@boinkmcbingo8890they didn't even mention 5e, or talked about wanting to be a Main Character. If you don't like it, don't play it, and for the love of god stop bringing it up in unrelated places. Is it so hard to ignore the thing you hate? Just shut up and pretend it doesn't exist.
@@1Kapuchu100 for the love of God can I not contribute to the conversation or do I just have to be tooth rottingly sweet about everything? The game is deadly because you aren't supposed be the main character you're just someone in the world, you brainlet ,that's why I said that. And unrelated how dude that's literally what the video and comment is about ? How about you untie your panties and let people talk about what they like and don't like about a system. Did I ever say dude can't like 5e or feeling like the MC? I said it's what I (ME) don't like about the game. And basically everyone plays 5e so you can literally assume and be right like 80 percent of the time (lowballing it hard)
@@1Kapuchu100 people like you are probably why nu-d&d has to specifically waste pages in my already way too short very overpriced book with bullshit saying "you actually don't have to follow the rules you don't want to or include things you're not comfortable with in the game"
This sounds like an interesting experience, but it kind of seems like a lot of people are reacting to this video with some "kids these days" kind of energy. People play D&D for different reasons. If someone wants to play a more realistic take on an adventure where they have to buy 20 decoy chickens in advance to avoid dying, then that sounds like they're having the game they want. I don't think we need to pretend like is a better, purer version of D&D though. (Not directed a ZB. Just at some of the comments I'm seeing.)
Yeah, but i also encounter "5e players" that ignore even the reduced rulset of 5e. To the point where they really aren't playing d&d at all because "combat is boring". For those i say; stop calling it d&d and go play a pure role-playing system instead.
I fail to see how cheesy tactics make the game more realistic. If you want to be realistic, most encounters won't even end with combat, and if they do, your characters are likely to die of infections for every bruise they sustain. If you want realism, D&D simply isn't the right game, and certainly not AD&D.
@@Ezullof I think what this person means by "realistic", is simply that you are a very fragile human and can die very easily. Not necessarily that having chicken on ropes is more realistic, but just that you're easy to kill.
I don't want the game to be more realistic though. My point was that both ways of playing the game are valid as long as you're enjoying yourself.@@Ezullof
This reminds me of the AD&D oneshot I ran; the thief died to a pit trap in the first ten minuets, and the remaining party members used his corpse and would throw him down halls to "disarm" traps. They died to a pack of kobolds an hour later. Ah AD&D, how I love the fact that I'm the only one in my friend group willing to play you!
I cut my teeth on AD&D 2nd edition. I went through SOOOOOO many characters before I found something I meshed with. It was so much more complicated and restrained than 5e. When I finally DM'd, I did my best to keep the party alive; but with a bit of risk. You really had to shit in the street to die in my campaign. I put them through the "Night Below" box set with my own homebrew city as the central hub instead of the preset town. The only thing I miss is the Rockseer elves. Great backstory. Great magical abilities. Undermountain was the pinnacle of dungeon delving and putting characters through hell. Gravity traps are quite the nuisance. As much as nostalgia makes me yearn for it, I'll admit that 5e is a much more comprehensive and streamlined edition. Though it was always fun walking around wearing a magical arsenal of magical items in AD&D. Zee speaks truth about being polite. The social reaction tables could take a mundane NPC encounter into an all-out tavern brawl.
why play 2e just to make it like 5e ? not dogging on you I just really don't see the appeal of 2e if you don't like the increased danger and all the extra weird complex shit?
@@boinkmcbingo8890 read deeper bud. I played 2e for years. Probably before you were born. I didn't say I didn't like it. Otherwise I wouldn't have played it for 15 years. I never played 3e or 4e. I said 5e was more comprehensive and streamlined. Have you read through a 2e book? Do you know how many optional rulebooks they had? How many player class handbooks they had? I was going for quality of story over dire consequences. Every player had individual quests and storylines outside of the main quest. Even their followers has potential story arcs. I didn't write an underlying Harper quest to intertwine with an assassination plot intertwined with a Menzoberranzan escapee plot intertwined into Night Below to kill off the cast. They felt the danger, but I wasn't out to kill the characters. Just like I didn't write three paragraphs worth of a comment to be questioned by someone who didn't read it.
@@sandeman1776 no I've never read a 2e book much less a book never even heard of such a thing. Don't see you say how long you played it for and you mentioning nostalgia doesn't mean anything other than you probably aren't in high school playing with your buddies every weekend. And idk why you (and everyone else) get so aggressive about it like one sentence saying "I prefer going more into the narrative aspect and as I said before 5e is more streamlined and "comprehensive" (idk how it is but I really don't want to continue conversation with you anyway so I won't press it)" would've been just fine.
4e is worth a look, I think. Its at-will/encounter/daily system makes for combat where casters and martials both feel at their absolute best. Although non d&d systems are also very great, my group finds iron kingdoms' 2d6 to be just exemplary.
@@boinkmcbingo8890 5e allows for more of a flow to the action. 2e had THAC0 that was modified by either strength or dexterity, any magical bonuses, any weapon specialization bonuses. Armor Class was at worst 10 and at best -10(-12 with an affect like Blur or Displacement). Initiative was rolled on D10, being modified by weapon speed and dexterity and any magical bonuses, Haste or "first strike" affects. Saving throws were based on what kind of affect or attack you were trying to avoid. Paralyzation/Poison/Death Magic, Petrification/Polymorph, Rod/Staff/Wand, Breath Weapon, or Spells. These are based on your class and adjusted for racial bonuses and magical protection. The best change was Armor Class and doing away with THAC0. It takes much longer to get everyone figured out in each round. It got so that everyone was a Rules Lawyer about something. Vague spell descriptions or magical affects. Just enough wording to make you wonder what the spell was even for or why anyone would use it. It was also extremely easy to TPK a party because even the class abilities were kinda vague and pretty useless the way they were implemented. Especially Rogue abilities. Everyone just felt like fighters with different skins. Except Wizards. They got 1 spell slot at first level, unless they were a specialist of some sort and that gave them a second slot. After casting, it took 10 minutes of study and 10 minutes of rest to regain those spell slots. Oh and they had 1d4 hp. As a DM in 2e, you could sneeze and accidentally wipe the party. So we played 2e because it was what was available and we already a billion books for it. If I'd had 5e then, we would've played it and probably had a better time and our characters would've felt like the classes they were meant to be. If you get a chance, compare 2e experience point tables to the 5e experience point table.
Being a proponent of 2nd edition AD&D, I can honestly say that sometimes, you need to have some difference in mind to give you perspective. In AD&D, there are no feats, no special maneuvers, and no death saves. Your character gets one action and cannot split his movement up before and after their action. But at the same time, combat is much simpler. You have a static number on your character sheet that you are always trying to roll equal to or better. You don’t have any options written down on the sheet, unless you’re magic user or cleric, but that gives you freedom. Since nothing is written down, more things are open to DM interpretation, meaning you can try more crazy things to see what works.
I remember is a Ad&d campaign we just threw what we called was a poor man's fireball (a molotov made from oil and a flaming rag in a glass vile) to most of our problems. And if we ran into something that was immune to fire we ran like little children towards an ice cream truck back to town
To be fair, two first level characters would be pretty fragile in 5e as well, but yes AD&D was designed to be more realistic when it came to combat and tactics. You didn't just go out looking for a fight with impunity.
Ah yes, using a bag of chickens to avoid combat or detect traps, so realistic. The truth is rather that AD&D was designed to be players VERSUS dm. The goal of the DM was simply to kill the party. And the players systematically had to plan ahead to avoid that. Which resulted in permanent meta abuse and similar stuff. I would also say that if you're just "looking for a fight with impunity" in 5e, then you're doing something wrong. Just because it's harder to die and your DM's job is no longer to kill the party doesn't mean that you don't have to feel any danger...
This clown really wants attention down in every ones comments. The diference is there is no unconcheusness, which is a nice edition. No mater what you hit zero your caracter is just dead. Slippery combat has always been the D&D staple.
@@EzullofI mean it’s not ‘realistic’ in the sense this is something that happens in our world, but this is a world of magic, with ancient tombs and monsters about. It’s ‘realistic’ in the sense that the situation feels more real, level 1 feels like you are actually just a regular guy who decided to start adventuring, not some sort of minor paragon already despite having done little of note. From your comments on other posts I doubt you have actually played a game of AD&D, give it a try, it does require a very different mindset than 5e but it can be a very rewarding experience and the sense of progression is there, although you start as a random schmuck you can become a true hero.
My AD&D group pulled off a very similar strategy with some health potions a bag of holding and the corpse of a cockatrice we just kept alive barely. If a room full of orks survives it then it makes the fight easier. If they lost then we have a beat up cockatrice to fight instead.
I loved 2nd Edition Ad&D more than any other version I have ever played. But you gotta admit it was very easy to die in that game. So many ways to die to a bad roll, especially if your DM used the standard random encounter tables. Basically you had a 5% chance I believe at any point to encounter just about anything any where. One of which was things like a dragon flying by.... Never mind orcs I believed encountered in parties of 3 to 30 or 3d10. Just random patrols mind you, not the actual lair/camp. Oh and if you win most these fights give you like 15xp or so per Orc, split amongst your party. So near death experiences for a handful of gains.
Кино
No Fighters, no hirelings, no 10 ft pole. You guys got what was coming.
No hirelings? *megamind face*
No wonder why 5e is the best edition
100% bring a goon squad or don't leave town.
@@rommdan2716 not best just different
@@rommdan2716 Most player friendly* All of the editions do certain things well and others worse, can't really say any one is the best.
A level 1 AD&D party composed of 1 Thief and 1 Magic-User dying? I'm shocked, SHOCKED I tell you.
Well I would be if the magic user had sleep. That combo alone would be enough to clear most challenges till you can cast fireball.
Sure but sometimes you are surprised ones. Even with the perfect clearing spell Mister ONE-D-Four-HP living a AC TEN Avenue has to live through that abuse. And sometimes when you roll for spells, the offensive spell you get is Light. It's a very cruel system to the first 6 MUs a party cycles through but can be very rewarding for the 7th.
Ah, yes. The 1 (one) + 1 (one) bonus from Int spells per day you get definitely solve all the challenges in an adventuring day.@@ArcturusMinsk
@@ArcturusMinsk Magic goes last, and he has one spell, so the combo would clear one encounter assuming he lived long enough to get there. Now what about the rest of that dungeon?
Well not that shocked
I tried this once with my DM, didn´t worked out as well. The Necromancer BBEG used those tactics against us and haunted us with a poultrygeist.
oh thats Fowl.
@@Sniperbear13 I see toucan play at that game.
I like it when the BBEG has a good sense of humor like that. Your milage may vary though, as being haunted by ghost chickens is no laughing matter.
@@thornangel16 It's not that much of a birden...
That reminds me of the game ghost master where there is a murderous vengeful spirit that's an amalgamation of dead chickens called Hard Boiled
Ahh, yes, you start to realise very quickly after almost being killed by 3d6 giant bats behind a random door that things like 10 foot poles and rules for hirelings are in these old rules for a reason! Those giant bats might have a crappy attack and only do 1d4 damage.
But you’ve got 6 hit points and no death saves.
3d6 giant bats? My wizard and fighter npc got killed by a couple giant rats (they hit like two crits on the fighter tbf iirc) and some normal ones 2nd fight in one of my first Ad&d games. And I wasn't just playing dumb either.
Even in 5E 3d6 giant bats sound like too much for a 1-2 level party to handle. They're going to get swarmed.
@@boinkmcbingo8890 well the thing that saved us in the end was a door that acted as a choke point so only two or three of the bats could attack us at once, and also morale rules. Once a few of the bats died, they fled. Older D&D has this great asymmetry where numbers matter way, way less than morale & positioning, it’s both very desperate and also very satisfying.
Reminds me of that trip I took ro the moathouse. The hidden 🐸 that wrecked us and the bottlenecked bandits.... goodtimes
@@Zulk_RS 3d6 is what the wandering monster table said. And you have to remember morale rules, you don’t have to kill all the bats, just enough to make them make a morale check and most will flee, they’re wild animals after all, not trained warriors.
I had this go the opposite way. Our DM had only played AD&D and when we played 5e for the first time he was really confused about how we were steamrolling all of his encounters at level 3.
"I don't get it, why are you still alive?!"
"...that was a group of housecats."
"AND THEY SHOULD BE LICKING BLOOD OFF YOUR CORPSES!"
Ah yes, the incredibly deadly housecat. Be sure not to cause trouble at the local bookstore or bodega. X3
@@PeterDivine I love this
the power scaling in ad&d and 2e are very different from 5e. Especially starting at level 3. Once you hit that level, your characters start getting very good at their respective roles, and arguably level 20 characters in ad&d are more powerful in their class roles than equivalent 5e characters
@@Nictator42 Still can't identify an item without smacking yourself for 8 points of CON damage though.
1st level adventurers in AD&D have shorter lifespans than commoners who never stray outside of their towns or homesteads. Did you make it to 2nd level? AWESOME!!! Do NOT stop doing what got you to 2nd level. Do NOT take unnecessary chances until you get to 5th level. Did you make it to 5th level? SPECTACULAR!!! You might actually live long enough for someone to remember your name.
Rightfully so--if just anybody could wander down into the barrow and return with a sack of gold, who'd muck out stables for a living? But when you include the high probability of howling away your last moments in the pitch-black dark with a rusty spear through your gut, suddenly shoveling shit all day doesn't sound so bad.
@@EwoktheMoidThis reminds me of an in-browser game called Dungeon Robber, it's like a text based randomly generated dnd game. Your characters die a lot, like even more than in adnd, it's a lot of fun! Soon enough you find yourself just throwing characters at the dungeon hoping one sticks
@@EwoktheMoidMost people are cowards, and you'd imagine anyone in this line of work should be of notable skill or strength
First level adventurers are the commoners who did stray from their homes.
@@eclipserepeater2466 and, most importantly, made it back.
I lovingly crafted my first AD&D character over the course of several hours on the morning and early afternoon of June 9, 1982. I gave him a cool (to a nine year old) name, drew a picture of him, and dreamed of the adventures we would have together. We were going to slay monsters, rescue the townsfolk, find treasure, and build a castle. First, we had to handle the kobold caves. There were three of us: my fighter, a magic-user, and a thief. TPK in our first combat. I think the thief made it to the second round. AD&D is a cruel mistress.
...and then you were hooked!
A cruel but rewarding mistress! 😁
@@verylittleknowledge I played up to 1991, then my group went different ways after high school. I started playing 5e with my kids a few years ago, and have expanded into DCC and PF2e. I dream of getting an AD&D group together again.
@@michaelcrumlett187Love DCC. 😊
Main system I run atm
@@johnnygreenface4195DCC unite! I wish Zee would play/make videos on it I think it would blow his mind
I had a similar solution in AD&D, using goblin corpses instead of live chickens however. Chuck the sucker, if he doesn't land, you got a cube on your hands
Cleric - " How deep is that water?"
Wizard - ::casts continual light on the dead goblin's shirt::
FIghter - :: Fills goblin's pockets with heavy stones, and then lugs the body into the water::
Rogue- " we about to find out"
@@docdirtymrclean3610 We call that "Captain Gunnysack"!
"See that floating goblin corpse? Yeah, that means we're going around..."
If the goblin don't fit, you must acquit.
Gotta love a good cube tho.
I see two adnd characters here NOT carrying either a crossbow, dart or sling. A melee weapon in low level adnd is often suicide, even during an ambush.
That and it's a low level part without anyone who can cast sleep.
fun fact, the VERY first printing of d&d had all weapons deal 1d6 damage so there was no reason to use a melee weapon ever
This. You better have some starting armor and an 18 in DEX or you're pretty fucked.
i thought you said adhd
@@ymmijx6061: & small weapons like daggers could attack twice iirc.
Secretly I really love low-level DND.
There's just so much more tension and excitement in a party that doesn't have a nice thick cushion of HP, buffered by multiple healing spells and potions, and buffened by extremely high level magic powers.
You'd love 2e because it's always threatening. you'd think you're safe because lv 8 well most undead level drain that's not bringing up the save or die monsters (tbf just a little lame imo)
me too! there's a sense of wonder and fear about everything! So cool! Plus you get to watch your character "grow up"
Fully agree. Try 2nd Ed, the mechanics are annoyingly clunky, but the game is an actual adventure with real threats. The scaling in modern D&D is broken to hell.
I feel like there's a wide gap between being a demigod and "One bad roll and you're gone, even if you were extremely careful"
@@1stCallipostle Fair point!
Level 1 Magic User in AD&D with One 1st Level Spell, dozens of 1D3 damage Darts, and a Dream.
Dozens? He doesn't have the carry capacity for that!
hahaha oh man that hurts too true@@Pistonrager
After Unearthed Arcana came out my plan for a magic user was to start as a fighter with weapon specialization in darts then, use the character with two classes rule to switch to magic user after he had a few hit points and the ability to, in emergencies, switch to fighter mode and throw a whole ton of darts (a choice that came with the downside of turning off my xp acquisition for the session - since I was no longer acting as a magic user).
Not until 8 strength, buster
@eriktyrrell424 actually not a terrible idea.... the only problem is wizards level so slowly. Can't really afford to lose any xp. Almost better to stay as a dart chucking fighter.
Ever feel like exploring has become too dangerous, like you are constantly stepping on eggshells? Been called a "chicken"? Feel fowl no longer-we've got literal chickens to take your place! A cheep poultry workforce is available around the cluck to offer a flockin' eggcellent service!
Take your peck! Order your wingmen today!
*Adventure seeds not included
I love that the "Animated Spellbook" here isn't some spell, class ability, or other game mechanic. It's a chicken. Just a normal chicken, that you buy by the wheelbarrow load, and deploy as needed. Because that's how AD&D works: the answer isn't on your character sheet, it's you using logic, role-playing, and the tools at your disposal to solve problems.
And my 3.5 head ass friend thought I was crazy for buying a couple rabbits before the adventure. Bait, trap detection, decoy, emergency ration those bunny boys had it all
Having never done AD&D combat, I'd love to hear more about the mechanics and differences that drove this higher level of fatality.
Less hp, no death saves, you hit 0 hp and you die.
So at lvl 1 you need to be exceedingly careful.. even as a fighter/barb.
That kobold might only hit for 1d6 dmg.. but if he rolls a 6, and you only have 10hp... that's scary as hell.
Look up “THAC0” and despair!!!
An important element of that style of game is that character creation is incredibly simple so if a character dies you can roll a new one in a few minutes. Meanwhile in 5e, if your playing a high fatality game and your character dies you'll need to spend half the rest of the session making a new one.
Very few hp, no way to recover, lower odds of hitting, no multiattack, and no advantage/disadvantage
@@YourGMJay Didn't they have a multi attack feature? I remember it being weird, like someone might get 5 attacks/4 rounds, then 3/2, etc
This is just "D&D players learn why canaries in mines were used"
Shout out to the Chicken Infested flaw (available only to the Commoner class) from the April 2005 issue of Dragon Magazine.
*Chicken Infested*
You’ve got a case of the chickens.
*Effect:* Whenever you draw a weapon or reach into a container, such as backpack or even a trapped hole in the wall, you have a 50% chance of drawing a live chicken instead. No, we don’t know where the chickens come from; it’s your character, you figure it out.
Lmao that's amazing
@@jabz1582 People came up with all sorts of zany builds abusing the flaw. Under the 3.5 rules, the way spell component pouches worked created an interpretation of the rules where a Chicken Infested character with a spell component pouch could create a theoretically infinite number of chickens per turn, which could combine with other feats and class abilities to create things like an unending horde of exploding zombie chickens or an infinite damage loop built on cleaving through an infinite number of chickens.
You should always be wary about reaching into holes in walls. There's always a chance you'll find a fat co...rooster on the other side.
@@CivilWarManok, this one made me laugh way to much.
@@CivilWarMan I cast, nvm, i cast, nvm, i cast, nvm, [...] , i cast chicken flood!
AD&D is a lot like a war game.
You need to strategize a lot and minimize the risk of getting into normal fights.
So far in my low level campaign the two most important things have been
1. Fighter with a bardiche (the bardiche is the most important character of the party)
2. Druid with extra spell slots due to wisdom bonus (cure wounds, entangle, calm animals)
My Druid was just sent to the under dark by herself with no light source last session so… it’s not looking too hot
Paladin is like doom slayer . he gets 2 classes in unearthed arcana.
As a player who started in AD&D, I really felt this.
First game was a warrior the DM created to try.... Died by wolf.
@@jordanhart9708 I was killed by a Carrion Crawler in my second encounter.
5 lb rock on a 50 foot rope, and you were a dipshit going into a dungeon without a load of chalk and a mirror on a stick. Even numbers was a losing proposition. Running away was a very viable option, and was probably the first thing a party discussed how to do in case things turned South. Henchmen by the dozen, and disposable critters by the donkey-pulled cartload. Tucker's Kobolds are still scary now if done right, but in AD&D they were pure hell.
Like a rusty dagger between the ribs?
There's a reason the ten foot pole has been a staple of every basic equipment list in every PHB since the gray book days. The party member assigned the role of "trap checker" needs to be out front tapping every surface with that pole as the party dungeon delves at a snail's pace.
Even for those of us who played AD&D back in the day, it's easy to forget how deadly and quirky it could be. I ran a 2nd Edition AD&D campaign with friends back in 2016, and among our re-discoveries was how _very long_ it takes to level up a Magic-User!
Your anecdote about chickens reminds me of an idea my best friend had back in the aforementioned Olden Days. He had the same idea as you, except with piglets, which we found listed at a price of 1 copper piece each. He planned to acquire a large number of piglets and then sharpen their teeth and hooves, so he could unleash his pack of piglets against any foe he encountered.
the two things any adventurer needs, a box of chickens, and a bag of rats
personally a fan of good old timber rogue.
barbarian picks up a big log and chucks it down any open path.
traps? LOG
enemies? startled by LOG
timber rogue is the best scout you could ask for.
Question that wasn't answered in the Video.
How do you control the animals?
Does the DM not control their behavior?
@@FantasticMrLP you just throw seeds where you want the chicken to go
@@FantasticMrLP Doesn't take much effort to make a chicken go directly away from you when it gets the chance.
The same thing happened when I introduced a bunch of buddies to pathfinder 1e. I started them off with a cr 1 encounter of dire rats, everyone in the room had military experience. 3 rounds latter they set the walls and floor on fire and ran away dragging two of the party members with them.
PF1 animals have 2-3x times the stats that they should....
the random critters are stronger than base average humans
@@zarthemad8386 and how is that different irl?
After watching the DnD movie a while back my typical ttrpg group wanted to do some dnd instead of our ongoing game. I offered to run it. What I did was build a one shot 5e dungeon with 2e energy. They made it two halls in before they were forced to run for their lives. It was beautiful. Since then no one at the table has questioned why I carry "weird stuff" like 10ft pole.
*[Has AD&D flashbacks and begins muttering to himself about THAC0]*
To Hit Armor Class of Zero
Player Char Class Base # - (armor rating) - modifiers
Fighter Lvl 2 Vs an unarmored NPC
18 - 10 - (no modifiers) = 8 or higher hits
Fighter lvl 2 Vs a decked out evil warrior in +5 fullplate
18 - (-5) - (no modifiers) = 23 (or only a 20 will hit)
easy really
@@zarthemad8386 yeah THAC0 is just a DC, a target number to hit. AD&D has you subtract the modifier (AC) from the DC. D&D has you add the modifier to the d20. It's just two ways to do the exact thing and itself isn't any more complicated. The strongest argument against THAC0 is that numbers going down as they get better leads to conceptually weird stuff like +1 "bonuses" to hit and armor having to be inverted as subtraction, which is just weird. Your +2 armor is more like -2 armor because you're subtracting 2 from AC, but they don't call it -2 armor because then it sounds like a penalty and not a bonus. But it wasn't important once you got past the learning phase. The strongest argument for THAC0 is because armor class converged on zero the math involved smaller numbers, you're very rarely using double digit numbers whereas 3rd edition/Pathfinder get into double digit numbers of attack bonus quite easily, and 5th edition only avoids it by limiting itself with bounded accuracy.
@@zarthemad8386The math itself is easy, it's the extremely obtuse order it's put in that is completely stupid.
My Father was infamous for adopting new "pets" in the form of goblins and kobolds (all named Lunch) that he would tie with rope and chuck down dark hallways before reeling them back in really quickly to see what traps got triggered or monsters came out.
we named ours "redshirt," from Star Trek
Omg, this reminds me of a friend who did something similar, only instead of chickens he used beagles. His character somehow had access to a large kennel and brought along his faithful “Trapbait” on every adventure.
Oh man, I remember buying the 3e books and being so ecstatic that you got MAX HITPOINTS at first level! Just so many times I made a character in AD&D and then rolled badly for HP...
“We were so Polite to Everybody …” 😂😂
one thing my dad used while DMing the first 2e game I was in was to give every player 2 characters at level 1. The idea being that if one of them died, oh well, you've got another. Once we hit level 3 though, our secondary character would stay back at base and do downtime activities. My dwarven cleric almost never went on missions and instead stayed at the tavern we owned crafting better armor for everyone and providing free heals and curse removals (and later resurrections) to party members in between missions.
D&D 5e party: 4 PC's; Wizard, Sorcerer, Bard, Rogue. Essential Equipment; Tea, Incense, Lyric Sheet for Bard's latest composition.
AD&D party; 6-8 PC's including; 3 Fighters, 2 Thieves, Cleric, Magic User. Essential Equipment; 10 foot Pole, 50 foot Rope, Goat tied to a stake (optional).
honestly would love to see more of your AD&D adventure animated like how you did some of your old adventures. Maybe going into how your experience between 5e and AD&D differed
oh hell yeah, i feel so lucky getting to one of these so soon! your content really makes me consider jumping over that first barrier and getting properly into DND
Do it! If you are on the fence, maybe check out some Actual Plays. Relics&Rarities and Dimension 20's Fantasy High are both great series where some of the players have never played before, so there's some basic rules discussion baked in.
AD&D is a great way to humble that 5e mindset. I hope to see more AD&D content
So is Call of Cthulhu. I rather play 5e
@@tmdiz4579 5e is for people who want to feel very smart by casting spell to overcome every challenge.
"there is problem A? I better cast spell A. Yay i did it. Im so clever and good at games!"
@@DontReadMyProfilePicture.104 ok
@@tmdiz4579
Great, but the rest of the table is gonna play savage worlds so you can just go home now.
That mind set is why not many people want to play AD&D. Why play with people that have 80’s movie jock mindsets about what’s “fun”.
DM: time to make a chicken goddess to wreck your shit
haha yes.
Chickens make noise, noise brings wandering monsters
I remember in bg2 there's a fight with big demon which can one shot you at the time you get to him (because I don't think you're supposed to fight him), but you also have the summon genie who can "make your wishes come true" spell by that point. So if you ask him for an army he will give you an army... of chickens. But it is a great distraction for any non-aoe enemy. So yeah, I totally killed the demon while he was swamped in chickens and could not get through the sheer girth of cluck.
AD&D was my first system and I love it. It’s awesome you tried it out. Ya wizards and thief’s are so hard to play early game. Wizards with their massive 4 hp, 1 spell a day, and no cantrips
I could never figure out what a character who could only do his main thing once per day (and who can be killed by a light breeze) was supposed to DO the rest of the adventure. Just try to sound mysterious and stay out of the way?
@@HebaruSan For one, magic is more unvommon. So the idea of a caster in a group was more concerning for any opposing who had the eye to catch something like that. But a big part of earlier editions is resolving encounters not just with full blown combat and tactics. There’s a roll the DM would do for every encounter you came across called a “reaction roll”. Depending on what the roll was, a DM would then have to bring out the encounter’s reaction or disposition to you. Not all goblin parties would outright murder you if you stumbled upon them. They may want your stuff or maybe your help.
This is the first I've heard of the old chicken tricks in a long time, always my favorite, glad to see they're making a comeback 😂
As the AD&D player of a level 11 warrior, death is an old friend, we meet often.
Love this merciless use of chickens. I have had in a 5e game when we were being really cautious of a trapped door one of our npc companions asked why we didn't just try opening the door. Called the DMs bluff and encouraged the npc to "just try the handle". He got turned to dwarf jelly. Trap sticks are always useful. Will have to find a way to train chickens to open doors, we've run out of npc companions.
This is pretty much the Baldur's Gate 1 experience. You learn pretty quickly to never play fair and to never feel any shame. If it's stupid, but it works, it isn't stupid. The first real encounter you run into is a mage who casts a fully-leveled Magic Missile at you, at 1 cast speed. If you're following the railroad, then you are level 1 and have no party members and this first encounter will instantly kill you unless you get creative.
Aren’t you supposed to have Imoen at that point?
@@nikogarcia201
Oh right, my bad. You do. But losing the protagonist forces a game over. So you still get gibbed by 5 magic missiles hitting a level 1 character.
@@ved2360 Thanks for bringing back my old memories of how hard that game was in the beginning. I was use to third edition back then so I really was unprepared for second edition mechanics.
I DM a westmarch style game for my friends, its an old school system with a bunch of my own rules.
XP for Gold and all that jazz.
Its very deadly.
So they often nope out from dungeons.
That actually sounds great. I sometimes get annoyed when I'm playing like we're in Dishonored and other PC are playing like we're in GTA with all the cheat codes on.
My AD&D rogue is 3rd level and has 15hp. He’s got the pest controller kit, so he caught a kobold, tied a rope around its waist, and trained it to scout the tunnels ahead.
That kobold immediately got chewed up by something in the darkness, and suddenly kobolds were hard to find.
It worked once, at least.
As one of those ancient AD&D players, the DM didn't need to be out to kill you, everything was trying to already. Chicken are a nice sub out for the 10 ft pole though.
i started playing AD&D when i was 14 in about 2008-2009. played it multiple times a week for years. great game
I LOVE watching people learn how different 1st edition is from 5e. I got my AD&D books from my dad.
this reminds me of a meme i saw about a soldier with a "Support Chicken" that helped him notice movement out of his own range of sight.
I know exactly where you saw it.
@@ketaminefanatic7755 tell me plz ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Stats are 3d6 (averages to 10.5) put in order (though there's other listed methods), then you design your character around them.
Wizards have d4 hit dice and thieves have d6s. Constitution doesn't boost either health pool until you have 15 points in it (maxing at +2 for most classes), and you can't pick the average when creating your character. Goblins deal 1-6 damage without a weapon.
At level 1, they both get one-shot even if they rolled average stats and the goblins rolled average damage. Down to a two-shot at level 2. At least it can't hit you half the time.
My parents used to play AD&D. The only thing I've ever heard about it is how much they lament thac0 (which, to be fair, would make an excellent name for a villain in my campaign for them. Thaco should 100% haunt them as a little reference to all their little horror stories to me.)
I recommend a batman approach to equipment. Rope, at least 100ft. Iron spikes and a hammer to hold doors shut.
Enlarge works on items and is reversible so that means you can potentially open a door or window by making it smaller, make yourself smaller in order to climb somewhere that ordinarily couldn't support your weight, or just make a big tank bigger. Both the bread and butter of early level magic users.
Sleep is the undisputed king of low level spells. Sleep would have absolutely ended that goblin encounter and with enough rope to tie them up you'd kill them easily. Sleep is so strong you could walk up to 4hd creatures and put them to bed and dogpile one at a time.
Edit: I love AD&D because balance is a thing of future editions and with enough planning and creative spell use you can punch far above your level.
That kobold looking forward to his tendies is amazing.
AD&D has so many neat things. Most notably, not caring for whether the party might survive a particular encounter or not and having that be the DM's decision; if you're in a city at night and the DM rolls a 100 on random encounters, whether or not the party gets to meet a Vampire/Lich is up to you.
Mostly I rip it for conversions of ancient threats. An ancient stronghold from the time of Vecna's Occluded Empire would absolutely have Wights that can drain levels and put some fear in even the level 17 Wizard. From there it's reversing THAC0 into an attack bonus, AC (roll low) into AC (roll high), coming up with core stats, and rules-ifying AD&D's way of just explaining the effect without being crunchy about it; the creature is incorporeal, so it's assumed to have a fly speed even if it's not listed under its movement. Boom, we now have Giant Catfish stats that steals the Bite-attack-swallows mechanics from the Froghemoth, Gelatinous Cubes that Paralyze on hit/Engulf instead of Restrain, and Sandmen that have an aura of "you sleep now" and an inaccurate melee attack that forces the save again.
Most importantly though, no matter how tough I make them, more often than not they'll be rolling some sort of Morale checks. You don't exist this long without a little self-preservation, so the Behemoth that got 80/150 HP lost in one Fighter turn will absolutely back off and start making Intimidation checks instead.
My longtime group didn't play AD&D, but our DM did and he ran his games like it in 3E. A random encounter was usually a death sentence if we went at it with a 5E mindest people have these days.
I'm baffled that you write that sentence and make it look like the "5e mindset" is the issue, and not the fact that you could hit a game over for no good reasons in the old rules.
Games where your players are too afraid to attempt anything without using cheesy tactics to avoid combat are only fun for maybe half a session. Then you want to play. There are ways to make players afraid of specific encounters in 5e.
@@Ezullof There were good reasons: to simulate reality, to curb murder-hoboing, to encourage planning, etc. Back then, you were playing fairly normal people that decided to become adventurers with the risks involved, not borderline demi-gods who decided to become adventurers for fun and profit. Think of AD&D as Elden Ring and 5e as Minecraft on casual mode. My step-son says things are unfair in games because he just runs at stuff and doesn't do anything with the mindset that he's not invulnerable.
@@Ezullof Oh, we were never afraid to do anything in games, we just had to view every event with caution and suspicion. Is the band of goblins attacking the caravan really just a bunch of wild beasts or are they the young members of an organized tribe with veteran goblins watching from the distance?
Are you going to check the surroundings and let the caravaners die, or are you going to charge in? If you charge in you get sniped by a trio of goblins sharpshooters watching over their young. If you take out the veterans and leave the caravaners to die then their families are going to investigate and learn this from divination of one sort of another and send assassins after you for revenge.
Let's say you dispose of the bodies and ward the are from divination, well maybe they complain to the local feudal lords who get involved and suddenly the town you were traveling to says your group looked suspicious and now you're wanted by the county.
Setting aside the actual mechanics of combat, the purely narrative consequences from every action reverberates throughout the world and usually comes back to bite you no matter what we do.
@@Ezullof It's absolutely the 5e mindset, from people who've been playing a game where it's very difficult to die unless the DM is outright trying to kill you. Yes, there was a very high chance of getting ganked in the first few levels (and a lot of DMs would "go easy" during this period), but it also created a true sense of accomplishment in surviving to levels where instant party-wipe wasn't a likely scenario. The real key was preparation - bring your ten--foot pole and mirror-on-a-stick and remember to use them - and most players back then had the nerdy OCD mindset necessary to do that in a game that wasn't just about action economy.
@@Ezullof The idea of cheesy tactics here is kind of missing the point. The lethality was part of the appeal. Using tactics to avoid being in a situation where you are in danger because even average enemies are very dangerous encourages a cautious kind of playstyle that is very appealing to people that are more mechanically minded about the game. There is a reason a lot of the older class features were only really useable in combat, the roleplay was there but dnd came from roots in wargaming where lethality is the point. There is a different, but very real appeal to games where if you at recklessly you will die.
I remember playing a 5e campaign out of the Ghosts of Saltmarsh book and our dm played it as if it was a old school DnD game. Our “experienced” 5e mindset resulted in one party member going insane and afraid of combat, and the other two of our party members dying to crossbow fire after they walked down a flight of stairs. My cleric had to pray and offer his sight to get resurrected, the dm should mercy that day!
After that experience I personally wanted to play AD&D really bad because it’s a puzzle/improve game hidden in a mathrocks game!
lmao, I always think it's weird how much HP and stats a typical small animal had compared to a farmer back in the day
Well, the minimum HP possible is 1; you can't fraction the things. And with the system the way it is, a level 1 fighter - basically a recruit mercenary - might walk out the door with just 3 hit points.
So yeah it's a little weird, but it's an artifact of the math.
Plus like if you've ever known a chicken... they're small but they're also tougher than you would think. Seen 'em duel a rattlesnake before
I love how you always manage to make relatable and funny content that you don't get anywhere else
I relate to this SO hard. I'm about to run a game of 3.5 & 1of the players doesn't wanna use her 900 starting gold for equipment. "But my character's supposed to be poor." OK but lv2 character has 11 AC & enemies have a +7 to hit.
what you should have said was "a poor person spends all their money on gear, you can't be poor if your character just have $60,000 just sitting in their pocket because they don't want to use it. "
When i played classic dnd the first time, our gm had us roll some of our starting equipment. I got 5 chickens. Naturally, for someone who wasn't used to low power characters I dismissed the power of a chicken down to a funny-wierd-thing my character was all aboug. A mad man that throws chickens at people. Then half of our party walked into a death trap. End of the dungeon? Not really. After all, throwing chickens at suspiciously empty corridors solved like half of our troubles. Never underestimated the power of ten foot polls since then.
Nice, Zee. I'd love more ad&d stories as a 5e only guy
Lest we forget the mighty Ten Foot Pole™!
Shouldn't that be 11 foot?
@@derschwartzadder Only if you're a munchkin.
Yup... having played the original Baldur's Gate games, this seems about right. At low level, you need to walk on eggshells... and kite when the going gets rough. Early D&D was damn vicious.
AD&D sounds like it incentiveses methodical, cautious play, rather than heroic, reckless play. Which no doubt is a fun way to play, if you're into it! I certainly prefer the brash heroism (and villainy) of 5E, but I am doubtless biased by having never played AD&D before.
You can have brash heroism in AD&D but it comes at higher levels. The game makes you earn your place in the world.
@@Eirkyr "the show gets really good at season 8 bro"
@@CrabSpu Funny that you compare it to a show, when that seems to be what D&D is to 5e theater kids. It's really just different themes though. Low-level AD&D is hard-won grit and fun in it's own way. It doesn't baby you and guarantee you progression or a story arc. You need to earn the story.
AD&D where the number of orcs in a random encounter is rolled on percentiles. We had a game in high school where we came over a hill to discover over 400 orcs camped in the next valley.
The chicken poison-death nearly sent my sides to orbit and I’m not sure why
I love that they bartered with the kobolds. I love kobolds! They are the best and so cute!
AD&D kobolds (especially 1e) were a very different beast to their modern namesakes.
Reminds me of bg1. You could get a TPK so quickly.
it's cuz bg1 and 2 are based on the 2e system
BG1 was build on those rules, so there's your answer.
There's a reason for the 10 ft pole being so popular.
Thank you for the sponsored segment, i would have missed that kickstarter
It is interesting seeing such a contrast from 5e to this. It’s like going from Baldur’s Gate 3 to Darkest Dungeon lol.
If you wanna get technical, it literally is just going from Baldur's Gate III to Baldur's Gate I.
@@DoctorLazers I haven’t seen a gosh darn thing about bg1 or 2 so I believe it
@@RanOutOfSpac They were D&D games from the 90s, that used the then current AD&D rules in the same way BG3 uses 5e's rules.
Best thing about BG1 and 2 is that alongside the low health pool... they were real-time games, amd yes, that was as annoying as it sounds.
@@colbyboucher6391 Real-time pause combat right? I remember hearing it be compared with Pillars of Eternity back when that came out.
Ahhh, so that's why Find Familiar has a material cost, so as not to crash the thriving Sacrificial Chicken market that's been built up since the AD&D days. It all makes sense now.
Find familiar was even more punishing in AD&D, losing your familiar meant passing a system shock roll (a percentile roll based around your con) or instantly dying, even if you survived you would lose constitution permanently. Familiars were to be treasured (the bonuses they provided were actually better than 5e familiars to compensate, you would often get the sight of your familiar and a few other minor bonuses)
Actually, back in AD&D and 2e, having your familiar killed was a really big deal. It could kill you, and I'm pretty sure there were major consequences even if it didn't. There was none of this "I always have a flanking bonus because my 2 hp owl gets in the combat, too!" nonsense. You MIGHT have a Familiar try to grab the McGuffin if it was small enough, but that was definitely a desperation move.
This reminds me of a story I heard about a player who used their money to buy an ungodly amount of squirrels. They used them for absolutely everything, to trigger traps, as thrown weapons, even used a dead one to hold a door open. The DM supposedly got so sick of it he had the squirrels attack the player en masse to permanently kill them.
ADnD is where I got my love for Clerics. They can do awesome things with reasonable costs outside of combat and it didn’t feel cheap because combat was so dangerous.
We're running Keep on the Borderlands right now and our new players from 5th edition have had a very rude Awakening to how deadly the game is. Can't just roll for initiative when a kobold can kill you. Shield walls and actual military tactics are being used and the game is much better for them.
Keep reminding them that running away is not only a real option, but in many cases, the right one.
@@nukewaste good advice!
Okay, so, not having a fighter is part of the problem, but depending on how you did character creation, the bigger problem might be you sleeping on... Well... Sleep! Sleep lets you end just about any encounter in one action.
I'd love to hear more about the rules you were playing under, and how you went about it. As a dedicated AD&D player, I'm always interested to hear about how people approach the game.
ADnD without a heavily armoured and shielded fighter and cleric at the least was always a death trap.
I spent quite a few years playing and lost many wizards but my fighters and clerics were always MVP.
0:07 that goblin has 2 eyepatches! haha
We recently started by going back to AD&D and we're working through T1-4 with the intention to do the whole original module run going on to G1-3, D1-3 and Q1. We are probably eight or nine sessions in and we're still fighting our way through the depths of the Temple of Elemental Evil. We forgot how tough AD&D is. Wow. And Gygax was just mean. It has been a total blast!
May I also suggest S1 and H1-4 after you manage to defeat those modules?
S1: Tomb of Horrors was written by the man himself specifically to punish kick-down-the-door style gameplay
H1-4: The Bloodstone series is the highest level modules ever produced (H4 is lvl 18-100).
Happy gaming!
We used dogs in ours. They doubled as weapons in our games. It was awesome.
Wardogs can take down an orc. Love the doggos!
Ah yes. My ranger had fang, biter, and growler. Those were the days when they even had rules for training your pets.
I love running 5e players through mostly-straight AD&D, you see the most amazing things as they start adapting to the new conditions. I usually have them role up more than one character to start with though.
My first experience with TTRPGs was playing a couple sessions of first addition AD&D with my Dad's old books when I was 11 or 12 and dying in literally every combat encounter. I believe that this has permanently altered my standards and expectations for RPGs.
You somehow managed to summarize my misspent youth in under 2 minutes … but all without raising the spectre of thac0…
I’m convinced some recess of my mind is still hard at work memorizing that sliding scale… as though holding on to that forever will somehow make up for every bad grade I got in high school - a coincidentally concurrent time…
Let's say you have a THAC0 of 14.
You roll your die; if it's a 14 or higher, you hit a foe who has an Armor Class of 0.
If they have an Armor class of 1, you only need a 13
If they have an armor class of -1, you need a 15.
And just keep going from there.
Let's say you have a THAC0 of 14.
You roll your die; if it's a 14 or higher, you hit a foe who has an Armor Class of 0.
If they have an Armor class of 1, you only need a 13
If they have an armor class of -1, you need a 15.
And just keep going from there.
AD&D sounds much better than 5e tbh, one of the things I hate about it is all the hack and slash, "I'm gonna rush into battle like an idiot and somehow not die"
Dying in literally two actions from a level one goblin sounds really fucking annoying. Like, it sounds to me like the system is designed such that you literally have to cheese every encounter or instantly die
You are not supposed to die in 5e. It's designed for luring new people to the hobby and make them feel special during they le epic adventures.
@@ENCHANTMEN_ I'm kinda the opposite. Sharp blades are still dangerous in the hands of novices, and even at level 20 you only have so much blood.
I like it better when anyone can be a legitimate threat, because it doesn't strain reality. A random schmuck with a big stick can still kick a trained boxer's tookus if the boxer is careless.
You wanna play Dark Souls or you wanna play Mario Kart? AD&D or 5e.
@@ENCHANTMEN_ Exactly. People in the comments are idealizing an era of D&D where you had to cheese constantly because it was players vs DM. Old D&D was just a dungeon crawler.
If you play 5e like it is one, of course it's going to be disappointing, because that's not how it's supposed to be played. In 5e the DM is supposed to be a level designer who makes combat encounters interesting. He's not supposed to try to kill you constantly with deadly traps and by throwing a group of goblins at you.
I once suggested to my RPG group that we play some AD&D for a one shot.
We looked through the rules and realized we'd probably be dead after one combat lol
because it's not meant to make you feel like the main character.I hate that by 2nd level a 5e pc is already basically super human.
@@boinkmcbingo8890they didn't even mention 5e, or talked about wanting to be a Main Character. If you don't like it, don't play it, and for the love of god stop bringing it up in unrelated places. Is it so hard to ignore the thing you hate? Just shut up and pretend it doesn't exist.
@@1Kapuchu100 for the love of God can I not contribute to the conversation or do I just have to be tooth rottingly sweet about everything? The game is deadly because you aren't supposed be the main character you're just someone in the world, you brainlet ,that's why I said that. And unrelated how dude that's literally what the video and comment is about ? How about you untie your panties and let people talk about what they like and don't like about a system. Did I ever say dude can't like 5e or feeling like the MC? I said it's what I (ME) don't like about the game. And basically everyone plays 5e so you can literally assume and be right like 80 percent of the time (lowballing it hard)
@@1Kapuchu100 people like you are probably why nu-d&d has to specifically waste pages in my already way too short very overpriced book with bullshit saying "you actually don't have to follow the rules you don't want to or include things you're not comfortable with in the game"
that chicken scream was GHASTLY lmao
This sounds like an interesting experience, but it kind of seems like a lot of people are reacting to this video with some "kids these days" kind of energy. People play D&D for different reasons. If someone wants to play a more realistic take on an adventure where they have to buy 20 decoy chickens in advance to avoid dying, then that sounds like they're having the game they want. I don't think we need to pretend like is a better, purer version of D&D though. (Not directed a ZB. Just at some of the comments I'm seeing.)
Yeah, but i also encounter "5e players" that ignore even the reduced rulset of 5e. To the point where they really aren't playing d&d at all because "combat is boring". For those i say; stop calling it d&d and go play a pure role-playing system instead.
I fail to see how cheesy tactics make the game more realistic. If you want to be realistic, most encounters won't even end with combat, and if they do, your characters are likely to die of infections for every bruise they sustain.
If you want realism, D&D simply isn't the right game, and certainly not AD&D.
@@Ezullof I think what this person means by "realistic", is simply that you are a very fragile human and can die very easily. Not necessarily that having chicken on ropes is more realistic, but just that you're easy to kill.
I don't want the game to be more realistic though. My point was that both ways of playing the game are valid as long as you're enjoying yourself.@@Ezullof
Yeah it's a very different style of game. It can be a nice change of pace.
Of all the DnDs i still enjoy 4th the most personally
Small play group I take it?
Ah, AdnD, where my wizard got impaled on a turned over chair leg, in a bar brawl, that wasnt even a combat situation.
This reminds me of the AD&D oneshot I ran; the thief died to a pit trap in the first ten minuets, and the remaining party members used his corpse and would throw him down halls to "disarm" traps. They died to a pack of kobolds an hour later. Ah AD&D, how I love the fact that I'm the only one in my friend group willing to play you!
I cut my teeth on AD&D 2nd edition. I went through SOOOOOO many characters before I found something I meshed with. It was so much more complicated and restrained than 5e. When I finally DM'd, I did my best to keep the party alive; but with a bit of risk. You really had to shit in the street to die in my campaign. I put them through the "Night Below" box set with my own homebrew city as the central hub instead of the preset town. The only thing I miss is the Rockseer elves. Great backstory. Great magical abilities. Undermountain was the pinnacle of dungeon delving and putting characters through hell. Gravity traps are quite the nuisance. As much as nostalgia makes me yearn for it, I'll admit that 5e is a much more comprehensive and streamlined edition. Though it was always fun walking around wearing a magical arsenal of magical items in AD&D. Zee speaks truth about being polite. The social reaction tables could take a mundane NPC encounter into an all-out tavern brawl.
why play 2e just to make it like 5e ? not dogging on you I just really don't see the appeal of 2e if you don't like the increased danger and all the extra weird complex shit?
@@boinkmcbingo8890 read deeper bud. I played 2e for years. Probably before you were born. I didn't say I didn't like it. Otherwise I wouldn't have played it for 15 years. I never played 3e or 4e. I said 5e was more comprehensive and streamlined. Have you read through a 2e book? Do you know how many optional rulebooks they had? How many player class handbooks they had? I was going for quality of story over dire consequences. Every player had individual quests and storylines outside of the main quest. Even their followers has potential story arcs. I didn't write an underlying Harper quest to intertwine with an assassination plot intertwined with a Menzoberranzan escapee plot intertwined into Night Below to kill off the cast. They felt the danger, but I wasn't out to kill the characters. Just like I didn't write three paragraphs worth of a comment to be questioned by someone who didn't read it.
@@sandeman1776 no I've never read a 2e book much less a book never even heard of such a thing. Don't see you say how long you played it for and you mentioning nostalgia doesn't mean anything other than you probably aren't in high school playing with your buddies every weekend. And idk why you (and everyone else) get so aggressive about it like one sentence saying "I prefer going more into the narrative aspect and as I said before 5e is more streamlined and "comprehensive" (idk how it is but I really don't want to continue conversation with you anyway so I won't press it)" would've been just fine.
4e is worth a look, I think. Its at-will/encounter/daily system makes for combat where casters and martials both feel at their absolute best. Although non d&d systems are also very great, my group finds iron kingdoms' 2d6 to be just exemplary.
@@boinkmcbingo8890 5e allows for more of a flow to the action. 2e had THAC0 that was modified by either strength or dexterity, any magical bonuses, any weapon specialization bonuses. Armor Class was at worst 10 and at best -10(-12 with an affect like Blur or Displacement). Initiative was rolled on D10, being modified by weapon speed and dexterity and any magical bonuses, Haste or "first strike" affects.
Saving throws were based on what kind of affect or attack you were trying to avoid. Paralyzation/Poison/Death Magic, Petrification/Polymorph, Rod/Staff/Wand, Breath Weapon, or Spells. These are based on your class and adjusted for racial bonuses and magical protection.
The best change was Armor Class and doing away with THAC0. It takes much longer to get everyone figured out in each round. It got so that everyone was a Rules Lawyer about something. Vague spell descriptions or magical affects. Just enough wording to make you wonder what the spell was even for or why anyone would use it. It was also extremely easy to TPK a party because even the class abilities were kinda vague and pretty useless the way they were implemented. Especially Rogue abilities. Everyone just felt like fighters with different skins. Except Wizards. They got 1 spell slot at first level, unless they were a specialist of some sort and that gave them a second slot. After casting, it took 10 minutes of study and 10 minutes of rest to regain those spell slots. Oh and they had 1d4 hp. As a DM in 2e, you could sneeze and accidentally wipe the party. So we played 2e because it was what was available and we already a billion books for it. If I'd had 5e then, we would've played it and probably had a better time and our characters would've felt like the classes they were meant to be. If you get a chance, compare 2e experience point tables to the 5e experience point table.
Being a proponent of 2nd edition AD&D, I can honestly say that sometimes, you need to have some difference in mind to give you perspective. In AD&D, there are no feats, no special maneuvers, and no death saves. Your character gets one action and cannot split his movement up before and after their action.
But at the same time, combat is much simpler. You have a static number on your character sheet that you are always trying to roll equal to or better. You don’t have any options written down on the sheet, unless you’re magic user or cleric, but that gives you freedom. Since nothing is written down, more things are open to DM interpretation, meaning you can try more crazy things to see what works.
someone doesnt have Skills and Powers
@@paulkerr7320 I do. I just don't like it that much.
My first D&D character was a Magic User that has 2 hit points at level one. He eventually got all the way up to 23 hitpoints at level 14.
I remember is a Ad&d campaign we just threw what we called was a poor man's fireball (a molotov made from oil and a flaming rag in a glass vile) to most of our problems. And if we ran into something that was immune to fire we ran like little children towards an ice cream truck back to town
To be fair, two first level characters would be pretty fragile in 5e as well, but yes AD&D was designed to be more realistic when it came to combat and tactics. You didn't just go out looking for a fight with impunity.
Ah yes, using a bag of chickens to avoid combat or detect traps, so realistic.
The truth is rather that AD&D was designed to be players VERSUS dm. The goal of the DM was simply to kill the party. And the players systematically had to plan ahead to avoid that. Which resulted in permanent meta abuse and similar stuff.
I would also say that if you're just "looking for a fight with impunity" in 5e, then you're doing something wrong. Just because it's harder to die and your DM's job is no longer to kill the party doesn't mean that you don't have to feel any danger...
This clown really wants attention down in every ones comments.
The diference is there is no unconcheusness, which is a nice edition. No mater what you hit zero your caracter is just dead. Slippery combat has always been the D&D staple.
@@EzullofI mean it’s not ‘realistic’ in the sense this is something that happens in our world, but this is a world of magic, with ancient tombs and monsters about. It’s ‘realistic’ in the sense that the situation feels more real, level 1 feels like you are actually just a regular guy who decided to start adventuring, not some sort of minor paragon already despite having done little of note.
From your comments on other posts I doubt you have actually played a game of AD&D, give it a try, it does require a very different mindset than 5e but it can be a very rewarding experience and the sense of progression is there, although you start as a random schmuck you can become a true hero.
There is a reason the game began like AD&D and turned into 5e and not the other way around.
**throws hood back** AMATURES!
My AD&D group pulled off a very similar strategy with some health potions a bag of holding and the corpse of a cockatrice we just kept alive barely. If a room full of orks survives it then it makes the fight easier. If they lost then we have a beat up cockatrice to fight instead.
Rolling a wizard in adnd?
Enjoy your 4 hit points scrub.
"5E is so boring, I want an old school dungeons crawl all over again!"
Davy Jones confused look. "No, you don't."
Instructions unclear, my wizard got bodied by a chicken
I loved 2nd Edition Ad&D more than any other version I have ever played. But you gotta admit it was very easy to die in that game. So many ways to die to a bad roll, especially if your DM used the standard random encounter tables. Basically you had a 5% chance I believe at any point to encounter just about anything any where. One of which was things like a dragon flying by....
Never mind orcs I believed encountered in parties of 3 to 30 or 3d10. Just random patrols mind you, not the actual lair/camp. Oh and if you win most these fights give you like 15xp or so per Orc, split amongst your party. So near death experiences for a handful of gains.