Ability Score Improvements

ASI with no balance issues whatsoever

It is my uncontroversial opinion that as a character gains levels, that character should improve. This is already the case in AD&D for saving throws, attack rolls, proficiencies, and spells, but it excludes Ability Scores and the values derived from them. PCs can become better combatants mechanically, but they never become stronger or more agile. They can improve in the mysteries of their religion or the finer points of etiquette, but never become wiser or more charismatic.

But, do they need to? In modern D&D, the ability score is the number from which you derive all other modifiers, so of course it must improve. This is not the case for early D&D, wherein the scores were descriptive markers, something that let you know what kind of class you should play based on the gated prime requisites. Any bonuses for high scores provided only moderate benefits, if any at all. Do characters really need to improve their base stats when increasing Dexterity from 13 to 14 does absolutely nothing?

Ability Scores and Checks – Part 2

I3-5: Desert of Desolation, 1987

In Part 1, I did my best to explain why the ‘push-button’ argument is crap, but it’s not the only concern people have with the Ability Check mechanic. Three other objections were mentioned.

1. Characters with very high scores reap all the benefits, while mid-tier scores see increased failures.

Yes, that’s the design. A higher ability score means a higher chance for success. If the PC has a 10 in any ability score, then they fall in the middle of the range, equivalent to a normal person. They should only have a 50/50 shot at difficult tasks that require that ability. If the task isn’t something a normal person could fail at half the time, then the check needs modifiers, the ability score target needs adjustment, or the roll doesn’t need to occur.

Ability Scores and Checks - Part 1

AD&D 2e Glossary

The ability scores of D&D have remained consistent from ’74 onward, albeit the final reordering only occurred in 2e. How one uses these scores for adjudication has evolved with every iteration, and I won’t waste time relating a history that has already been well researched by others.

Ability Checks, wherein you attempt to roll under your ability score with a d20, were still considered nonstandard by 1989. 2e shoved them into the glossary and begrudgingly noted that you can use them as saves. Yet, the Nonweapon Proficiency system of 2e uses ability checks as the base for that mechanic; when you’re rolling a Navigation check, you’re just rolling an Intelligence ability check with a -2 penalty to the ability score. It’s as messy as its ludicrous name suggests.

To Hit Descending AC

In the last entry, I discussed why I like descending AC and some of its advantages. I left the disadvantages for later, and so we have arrived.

My argument is simple: the bad parts of descending AC are the complicated ways used to determine how one beats the numbers, and ascending AC is therefore identified as the superior method only because it resolves the annoying math. However, I do not believe that one necessarily follows from the other; you can have descending AC without the complications. Before we get to that, let’s run through some of these methods and see where they cause friction, starting with the two methods that were used during AD&D’s run: To-Hit tables and THAC0. 

Descending Armor Class

I hail from the era of the post-3e consensus, where it is a given that descending armor class is unintuitive and dumb, while ascending armor class is simple and pristine. The orthodoxy on this is rather ubiquitous. I’ve been hard pressed to find any modern TTRPG that embraces the concept, and even the OSR gang tends to toss the idea overboard when designing their fantasy heartbreakers.

Planescape: Setting and System

Planescape is, by far, the most interesting fantasy world I’ve ever stumbled across. The later editions of D&D offered only the barest glimpse of this setting, with descriptions of Sigil, the City of Doors, the otherworldly Outer Planes, and the city’s enigmatic ruler The Lady of Pain.

When I finally dug deep enough into the historical strata to hit the rich vein of the mid-90s, I found a treasure trove of lore within the Planescape campaign books and accessories. TSR had invested much into their creation, detailing everything from apothecaries to crime kingpins, all wrapped in a bizarre shell of an impossible dystopian magicpunk setting. It had a feel and tone that I had only seen in novels like Perdido Street Station and Neverwhere, with a clash of cockney slang, philosophical war, and easy death. To sweeten the pot, a great deal of that lore and tone was injected into the only video game based on the setting: Planescape: Torment.

Why AD&D 2e?

Is that a zero in the word "OPP0NENT?" 

In short, I wanted to run Planescape. That’s a stupid reason to learn and run a 35 year old TTRPG from a defunct publisher, but it was the inciting incident. That initial interest in 2e was spurred on by growing dissatisfaction with WotC over the past few years, the underwhelming 5e version of Planescape, and seeing what the OSR community had to offer. The road toward cracking open the 2nd Edition AD&D core books had been laid.

Some context: I missed all of AD&D and 3rd Edition. TTRPGs weren’t in my wheelhouse during those years, and aside from having used those systems in the CRPGs from the era, they were opaque to me. I started in 2008 with 4th Edition, mostly due to the excellent podcasts WotC was putting out with the Penny-Arcade crew (they’re still online and worth a listen). Saying that you started out in this hobby with 4e is a bit like telling someone that you got into Star Wars by watching the Holiday Special, but it is what it is. We ran that edition happily for four years until going all in on the D&D Next playtest material, then lived in 5e for a solid decade. That’s all to say, I don’t have the old-school chops of the venerable grognards; I came to AD&D with a very different mindset.

The 2e Primer

If you’re here to just grab the file, it’s here.

If you’d like to understand why I made the thing, keep reading.

While this edition is better organized than the earlier games, it’s still a mess. Sometimes rules get tables, sometimes rules are buried in paragraphs, and some rules were forgotten completely, only to surface years later in an accessory book, or else are spread over multiple chapters and never reference one another.

Learning this system can be exhausting, as you can never be sure what you missed or if you’re even playing correctly. That’s not unique to this edition, even 5e has its moments of ‘oh look at this rule they tucked away,’ but in 2e it’s ever present. I was learning the system in order to teach it to a group of players whose experience with D&D goes back no further than 3.5, and I knew I would be their only lifeline to understanding its mercurial nature.

I searched the internet for a good quick guide, an overview, a cheat sheet, anything that could give me a roadmap, but there really wasn’t much out there. So I did what I usually do when learning any overly complicated and occasionally contradictory collection of information: I took notes.

Those notes eventually coalesced into a guide, and within a couple months of writing and play, I had something I found useful. I thought others might, too. I downloaded Scribus edited the thing into something readable, and now it’s The 2e Primer. If you see errors or places where improvement can be made, please share them. I’d like for this document to be the tool I couldn’t find when I was searching for help; anything you can offer toward that end would be appreciated.