It was pretty much impossible to do back in 1-2e, since you couldn't buy custom items, couldn't pick your own spells, or depend on learning them at any specific rate, and generally took what you found and built on that. It felt more organic.
2e was in no way difficult to make broken characters in, hell there was pretty much a book that was nothing but broken shit (Complete book of elves). There were a bunch of broken classes, specialties, kits, etc. It really wasn't much better then later editions despite in how the folks who play it insist otherwise.
Wait. You couldn't pick spells in 2e? How did that work for Druids or Clerics ( or whatever th e equivalent 2e classes were called). Or prestige classes like Bard?
Bard learned spells like the wizard did. By finding scrolls, stealing spellbooks, or begging off other casters. They cast from the wizard list, but only up to 6th. Bards were supposed to be thief/fighter/wizard hybrids. Wizards only got to pick their original level 1s. Everything else was found or stolen.
Was there no mechanic for researching spells in 2e? How did mortals make spells in the first place?
You could research spells. If you had a lab, a library, money, and downtime where the plot allowed you the leisure.
Oh, I had thought the bard/druid thing was introduced in 2e, my bad.
If you have a bad DM, you have a bad DM. If the plot doesn't give you time to research, a good DM will up the drop rate for scrolls. You also get to loot enemy mages for their spellbooks, and that's a great place to pick up useful spells, since they did the research for you. A one-shot adventure may not have time for research, but a longterm campaign definitely should.
Oh, yeah, I understand that last part. Me, and other people I play with, are generally consistent in not taking spells as we level that don't match our characters history. Like my current conjuratiom/transmutation wizard in Skull and Shackles didn't take Weird, Shades, Wish, Limited Wish, etc. Because none of those spells were in his field of research.
Bard in 2E was basically a subclass or kit (like an archetype in Pathfinder) of Rogue.
Is there any reason why a PC wizard in 2E, given time, couldn't research all the obscure spells to get an infinite combo of doom in that system, just like a wizard in other editions could?
The DM says something randomly explodes and destroys their research.
The GM can do that in later editions, too. Or just tell the player that they think a combo is too broken and they don't want it in their game.
I'm not a fan of that. It seems arbitrary and cruel to players. Especially since it worked in setting already once before, at least that if not more times.
But I'm 100% fine with a DM telling players that they don't want a spell in their setting/game. One of my friends, and I as well, has banned Create Mindscape from Pathfinder games, due to it being exceedingly broken as a spell. We are all fine with that, and it didn't require him dicking with our characters in universe.
Yes, but later additions didn't say "Yeah, screwing over this player is a great thing to do and will improve your game
.", at least not in reference to this specific issue.
I'm more concerned with the fact that when a hit lands at all, it tends to be an instant kill of a horse - and as renowned appreciator of all things horse @100thlurker will tell us, horses are very big and sturdy and actually deal well with injury.
The average human in D&D has an average of what, about 4 HP? It's a running gag that they would lose a fight to a house cat about 50% of the time.
Neither did 2e. It just spelled out that it was the DM's responsibility to prevent gamebreaking. Your job as DM is to keep the story in motion, and if one player obtaining a specific spell or item will wreck that, then you don't let them do so. You are not competing with them, so you don't have to play fair.Yes, but later additions didn't say "Yeah, screwing over this player is a great thing to do and will improve your game
But you can also just, y'know, talk to them about it, instead of dicking around with them.
Gonna say, I've been playing for 24 years, and a DM for 17, and only twice have I had to step in beyond having a simple talk with players at the start of a campaign asking in advance for them not to minmax or powergame.
You are very lucky to have had so few bad players.
I know. Several of them came to me with horror stories of previous groups, and one of my former players who lives up in Connecticut now has sent me some too.
I liked how 4e handled it; where familiars were an extension of the character rather then tracked separately; IMO mounts at least if you have a PC thats focused on mounted combat should also work similarly.
