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  1. #1

    2E (AD&D) Ruleset Questions/Issues/Requests

    As if it hasn’t been said enough, thanks to Celestian for doing this project all these years and in helping making it an official product. AD&D/2E is the game many of us grew up with, and having a chance to play it again on FG is so very cool.

    Niceties out of the way, I need a few clarifications/issues/fixes in need of addressing prior to running my first game. Like many of us that lived so very long in the roots of D&D there are many rules, variants, and other “home” rules I’ve been rattling around in my brain in a desperate effort to remember how we did things back in the day. To help with this prior to kicking off a new 1E/2E campaign I ran a test “Session Zero” to see what questions still needed answering regarding the use of this ruleset and how to run the game I want to run.
    Below is a list of some of my questions/issues. My apologies if these issues have been brought up before, I just don’t have the time to pour through the thousands of FG forum posts and the SEARCH tool is not the greatest. Also sorry if I’m just not seeing the answer on someone these.

    (I’m guessing one or more of them might be related to my first point, which is more of a technical issue that I’m missing somewhere in the code.)

    AD&D vs 2E Ruleset Problem

    Prior to Celestin getting 2E official, I began building my campaign in the old open AD&D ruleset. When 2E was announced and pushed to everyone I didn’t want to lose all my work so I changed the campaign.xml file to see the 2E ruleset over the AD&D one. However, something is still wrong. I cannot see certain modules and extensions and I can’t figure out why. I cannot see the EXT to turn off the Single Window, or the new NPC 2E Stat module.

    Question: Can someone please post the “official” steps to convert your old AD&D rules to 2E? I want to be able to see anything created in both rulesets, include the OSRIC stuff.
    1E/2E

    Initiative

    Initiative in 1E/2E is one of the things I really struggled with in coming back to classic D&D. There were SO many variations of initiative over the years between official and home rules, and for the life of me I could not remember how we did it most of the time (effects of growing old I’m sure). What I decided on was d6 + weapon speed, with creatures using natural weapons to have a weapon attack speed based on size (Size: T+0, S or M +3, L+6, H+9, G+12). I also wanted to have them roll said initiative every round instead of one for the entire combat.

    Question: Is there a way to have the combat tracker auto-roll for initiative using weapon speed w/o having to manually key it into the initiative modifier window? Else if you’re having the party roll a new initiative every round you must stop at the top of the round and have everyone do it manually. Or, am I missing something?

    Single Window View
    I know some people like this feature. Unfortunately, I do not. Playing FG for over a decade w/o it makes you hate everything else, sorry. Can we make it an option in Settings rather than force it as the default?

    Critical Hits

    Using crits back in 1E/2E land was always a hot-button issue. The biggest complaint was that if a creature needed a natural 20 to hit you, and you could only crit on a natural 20, then every time said creature hit it would be a crit. In other words, a 1-1 hit die kobold going up against a knight in full plate needs a 20 all day to hit.

    The quick-n-dirty rule we had was if you needed a nat 20 to hit you would immediately roll another d20, with only a subsequent nat 20 means there was in fact a critical hit. From what I can tell the “crit” system for the 2E ruleset is the same as 5E, with a nat 20 being an auto-crit.

    Question: How is everyone dealing with this, if at all? And would it be possible to code up my above conditions for determining a critical hit.

    Map/Movement Scale

    Since 3E combat scale has skewed towards the 5’ square. Original 1E/2E was geared more towards the traditional 10’ square, especially when it comes to character movement and map scaling.

    Question: It looks like the 2E ruleset grid is perm-set to 10’/square. Is that correct? Is there a way to change this to 5’/square? Again, how are other DMs running this?

    Experience

    1E/2E versions of D&D gave XP awards based on how much wealth you found/accumulated, with the most common ratio being 1EXP = 1 gold piece.

    Question: Is this mechanic present/an option with the 2E ruleset? Or is wealth something you need to track outside of the PARTY SHEET/XP function? Or is this built into the Parcel function? (Apologies, I have not had a chance to test this, only just thought of it when posting this).

    That is all I have for now. Thanks again to Celestian for his hard work on this product!
    Cheers,

    WR

  2. #2
    I can't help with all of those questions, however, two of the items I can.

    Single Window View: Hold control when doing any action, Opening NPC, Item, Story, Etc... and it will allow you to open more than one window.

    Map Scale: Click on the Toggle Grid Toolbar at the top of the map, next to the mask, pencil, eraser icons. There you can set the grid squares to anything you want.
    "My campaigns are multi layered tapestries upon which I texture themes and subject matter which quite frankly would be to strong for your hobbiest gamer."
    -Doug Dougalson

    Fantasy Grounds License: Ultimate
    Games I Run: AD&D 2nd Ed
    Currently Running: AD&D 2E (Forgotten Realms)
    Games I play: Any~
    Converted Modules: Faiths & Avatars (2e), Demihuman Deities (2e), Tome of Magic (2e), Dragon Mountain (2e)
    Current Projects: None
    Created Content: AD&D 2E NPC generator Module

  3. #3
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    AD&D vs 2E Ruleset Problem
    There are multiple earlier versions...
    What content are you trying to move?
    You could open the original campaign and copy the story (encounters) content out and into a new 2E campaign db.xml

    Initiative
    You are supposed to declare your intention for the round at the beginning of the round.
    Prepare spell, use bow etc so your init is based off dice + the action you are using so you need to stop at the top of the round and declare your intentions

    Single Window View
    Use the extension?

    Critical Hits
    If you roll a crit in this case roll another attack. then roll damage after the second attack.

    Map/Movement Scale
    I thought there was a 5' option in 2E

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by WilliamRiddle View Post
    Prior to Celestin getting 2E official, I began building my campaign in the old open AD&D ruleset. When 2E was announced and pushed to everyone I didn’t want to lose all my work so I changed the campaign.xml file to see the 2E ruleset over the AD&D one. However, something is still wrong. I cannot see certain modules and extensions and I can’t figure out why. I cannot see the EXT to turn off the Single Window, or the new NPC 2E Stat module.

    Question: Can someone please post the “official” steps to convert your old AD&D rules to 2E? I want to be able to see anything created in both rulesets, include the OSRIC stuff.
    1E/2E
    Extensions and modules are sometimes tied to a ruleset. You would need to contact the person that wrote them and asking it support the 2E ruleset.

    Quote Originally Posted by WilliamRiddle View Post
    Initiative in 1E/2E is one of the things I really struggled with in coming back to classic D&D. There were SO many variations of initiative over the years between official and home rules, and for the life of me I could not remember how we did it most of the time (effects of growing old I’m sure). What I decided on was d6 + weapon speed, with creatures using natural weapons to have a weapon attack speed based on size (Size: T+0, S or M +3, L+6, H+9, G+12). I also wanted to have them roll said initiative every round instead of one for the entire combat.
    2E uses a d10 with optional rules for group, individual and adding speedfactors. The ruleset defaults to d10 and if you roll your initiative with weapon or a spell it will use those modifiers.

    Quote Originally Posted by WilliamRiddle View Post
    Question: Is there a way to have the combat tracker auto-roll for initiative using weapon speed w/o having to manually key it into the initiative modifier window? Else if you’re having the party roll a new initiative every round you must stop at the top of the round and have everyone do it manually. Or, am I missing something?
    No. Currently it will use a generic d10 roll for everyone other than NPCs who will have their initiative modified by their size. If you want a specific weapon speed they will need to roll an initiative with that weap

    Quote Originally Posted by WilliamRiddle View Post
    Single Window View
    I know some people like this feature. Unfortunately, I do not. Playing FG for over a decade w/o it makes you hate everything else, sorry. Can we make it an option in Settings rather than force it as the default?
    Hold control down while clicking whatever you want opened and it will allow multiple windows to be opened.

    Quote Originally Posted by WilliamRiddle View Post
    Critical Hits

    Using crits back in 1E/2E land was always a hot-button issue. The biggest complaint was that if a creature needed a natural 20 to hit you, and you could only crit on a natural 20, then every time said creature hit it would be a crit. In other words, a 1-1 hit die kobold going up against a knight in full plate needs a 20 all day to hit.

    The quick-n-dirty rule we had was if you needed a nat 20 to hit you would immediately roll another d20, with only a subsequent nat 20 means there was in fact a critical hit. From what I can tell the “crit” system for the 2E ruleset is the same as 5E, with a nat 20 being an auto-crit.

    Question: How is everyone dealing with this, if at all? And would it be possible to code up my above conditions for determining a critical hit.
    AD&D 2E has some optional rules for criticals. You can set the option enabled in the campaign settings. I've added a few variant damage options (double damage, double damage dice or max) as well.

    Quote Originally Posted by WilliamRiddle View Post
    Map/Movement Scale

    Since 3E combat scale has skewed towards the 5’ square. Original 1E/2E was geared more towards the traditional 10’ square, especially when it comes to character movement and map scaling.

    Question: It looks like the 2E ruleset grid is perm-set to 10’/square. Is that correct? Is there a way to change this to 5’/square? Again, how are other DMs running this?
    Once you have a grid placed on the map click the "hash" icon on the top, change the size from 10ft to 5ft or whatever you like. I tend to use 5ft grids with the old maps for my own games... just makes it easier for getting around in combat w/o having to eyeball everything and figure it out.


    Quote Originally Posted by WilliamRiddle View Post
    Experience

    1E/2E versions of D&D gave XP awards based on how much wealth you found/accumulated, with the most common ratio being 1EXP = 1 gold piece.

    Question: Is this mechanic present/an option with the 2E ruleset? Or is wealth something you need to track outside of the PARTY SHEET/XP function? Or is this built into the Parcel function? (Apologies, I have not had a chance to test this, only just thought of it when posting this).
    2E does not award experience for wealth accumilated or magic items. Thieves are the only exception to that, where they get 1-2xp per GP of gold they steal?
    ---
    Fantasy Grounds AD&D Reference Bundle, AD&D Adventure Bundle 1, AD&D Adventure Bundle 2
    Documentation for AD&D 2E ruleset.
    Custom Maps (I2, S4, T1-4, Barrowmaze,Lost City of Barakus)
    Note: Please do not message me directly on this site, post in the forums or ping me in FG's discord.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by celestian View Post
    2E does not award experience for wealth accumilated or magic items. Thieves are the only exception to that, where they get 1-2xp per GP of gold they steal?
    Page 47 of the 2e DMG indicates that:

    As an option, the DM can award XP
    for the cash value of non-magical treasures.
    So it just became an "optional" rule in 2e like so many rules in the 2e DMG... so I'm not surprised that many still use it. They warned that it could be abused to advance the campaign... but that's kind of a silly worry as there are tons of ways to shower your players with XP if you want. Like any XP mechanic, most GM's ultimately learn to use it to modulate the advancement speed of their games.

    I always ran slow advancement games and used a house rule that players would only get (10xLevel)% of gold in XP. And only from gold that they "earned" by from conquest or significant risk (i.e. you couldn't just level something/someone by giving it gold or finding a diamond ring in the street.)

    Oddly enough, now that I look at the XP rules in 2e, I can say that I never played in a 2e game that gave out Individual XP as was indicated on table 34/page 48 of the DMG.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Full Bleed View Post
    Page 47 of the 2e DMG indicates that:



    So it just became an "optional" rule in 2e like so many rules in the 2e DMG... so I'm not surprised that many still use it. They warned that it could be abused to advance the campaign... but that's kind of a silly worry as there are tons of ways to shower your players with XP if you want. Like any XP mechanic, most GM's ultimately learn to use it to modulate the advancement speed of their games.
    I do my best to support all optional rules but there is no real simple way to add "gold as exp" automation without breaking the ability to have varying coin types like steel pieces for dragonlance and that odd stuff Darksun uses (bits?)

    Here is how it can be done.



    (and I just realized CR there needs to be removed
    ---
    Fantasy Grounds AD&D Reference Bundle, AD&D Adventure Bundle 1, AD&D Adventure Bundle 2
    Documentation for AD&D 2E ruleset.
    Custom Maps (I2, S4, T1-4, Barrowmaze,Lost City of Barakus)
    Note: Please do not message me directly on this site, post in the forums or ping me in FG's discord.

  7. #7
    Thanks to everyone that responded. Additional comments below.

    >>>Map Scale: Click on the Toggle Grid Toolbar at the top of the map, next to the mask, pencil, eraser icons. There you can set the grid squares to anything you want.
    What I was hoping for was a DEFAULT setting for the ruleset. If the campaign was defaulted one way or another, I think it would be great to have a master setting for that rather than having to tediously change every single map.

    >>>>There are multiple earlier versions. What content are you trying to move? You could open the original campaign and copy the story (encounters) content out and into a new 2E campaign db.xml
    Before the world was utterly shocked by the unexpected release of the 2E ruleset I had built an entire campaign under the last/latest version of the AD&D ruleset. Easily 100+ hours of work. Honestly, I’m not very comfortable with playing around with the db.xml file. I was hoping all I had to do was change the campaign.xml file but that doesn’t seem to be working. I was REALLY hoping for an easy fix for this. Again … is/was an official FIX for this posted? I can’t be the only one with this issue.

    >>>Initiative You are supposed to declare your intention for the round at the beginning of the round. Prepare spell, use bow etc so your init is based off dice + the action you are using so you need to stop at the top of the round and declare your intentions
    Ah. You are correct. Thanks, that one slipped by me.

    >>>Single Window View: Use the extension?
    Can’t, for reason above with moving my ruleset from AD&D to 2E. And honestly, since this is a HUGE difference from the Core FG ruleset I would humbly suggest this be moved to SETTING rather than being pushed as a default. Sorry, but I really do not like this feature.


    >>>Critical Hits If you roll a crit in this case roll another attack. then roll damage after the second attack.
    >>>AD&D 2E has some optional rules for criticals. You can set the option enabled in the campaign settings. I've added a few variant damage options (double damage, double damage dice or max) as well.
    I was looking for a more automated option rather than having to manually roll a second time.
    I saw the optional damages listed under settings, this is more of a “is the hit a crit” issue.

    >>>2E does not award experience for wealth accumilated or magic items. Thieves are the only exception to that, where they get 1-2xp per GP of gold they steal?
    >>>So it just became an "optional" rule in 2e like so many rules in the 2e DMG... so I'm not surprised that many still use it. They warned that it could be abused to advance the campaign... but that's kind of a silly worry as there are tons of ways to shower your players with XP if you want. Like any XP mechanic, most GM's ultimately learn to use it to modulate the advancement speed of their games.
    If there is a technical reason for this I completely understand. Since encumbrance vs movement was built into the system (which I LOVE BTW) I was hoping something like this would be possible to add under the Party Sheet – XP.

    I would really like to bring up another comment/issue that hopefully explains some of my questions and responses.

    I’m not sure how many can say they’ve been playing D&D since the original RED basic box, but I am one of those people. Over three decades of progression from red box to blue box to 1E and 2E we (i.e. my old gaming group, and many others I’m sure) had a ton of different rules and variants that were either kept or tossed out over the years. Things like d6 for initiative, gold for XP, or what constitutes a critical hit are some of the rules we preferred to use over the years.

    My game is going to be a cross between 1E and 2E, and for that reason my questions are angled in that direction. If the AD&D ruleset was still going to be supported I would have probably stuck with that and using the OSRIC and similar mods. Being retro and running 1E/2E games is hot now, and while I’m not looking for specific support from the 2E ruleset I wanted to bring up the point that I do not think I’m in the minority when it comes to which rules are used. I realize the FG license for 2E is probably VERY specific; however, many of the adventure they’re publishing are/were 1E adventures. FG customers who are attracted to G2 The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl (1E) might expect it to be run as a 1E event. Just saying.

    Thanks again,
    WR

  8. #8
    I'm surprised there isn't a default initiative figure that could be used when rolling such as the Ini bonus on the Main character tab (from my tests, the value is added to individual rolls but not if rolled in bulk). Oversight? In any case, can anyone give me some direction on how I could reverse this. I prefer to play without the Optional Modifiers to Initiative in effect. I've been able to remove the size modifiers (L)arge (H)uge etc but the weapon speed component escapes me so far. Perhaps direct me to which scripts, variables are responsible.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Roughouse View Post
    I'm surprised there isn't a default initiative figure that could be used when rolling such as the Ini bonus on the Main character tab (from my tests, the value is added to individual rolls but not if rolled in bulk). Oversight? In any case, can anyone give me some direction on how I could reverse this. I prefer to play without the Optional Modifiers to Initiative in effect. I've been able to remove the size modifiers (L)arge (H)uge etc but the weapon speed component escapes me so far. Perhaps direct me to which scripts, variables are responsible.
    Whatever you set in the combat details as the initiative modifier will be used. For NPCs that can't be 0. That value will be used for both npc and pcs when bulk initiative is run.
    ---
    Fantasy Grounds AD&D Reference Bundle, AD&D Adventure Bundle 1, AD&D Adventure Bundle 2
    Documentation for AD&D 2E ruleset.
    Custom Maps (I2, S4, T1-4, Barrowmaze,Lost City of Barakus)
    Note: Please do not message me directly on this site, post in the forums or ping me in FG's discord.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Roughouse View Post
    I'm surprised there isn't a default initiative figure that could be used when rolling such as the Ini bonus on the Main character tab (from my tests, the value is added to individual rolls but not if rolled in bulk). Oversight? In any case, can anyone give me some direction on how I could reverse this. I prefer to play without the Optional Modifiers to Initiative in effect. I've been able to remove the size modifiers (L)arge (H)uge etc but the weapon speed component escapes me so far. Perhaps direct me to which scripts, variables are responsible.
    In the game I'm currently running, we've switched to auto-initiative to speed things along a little (the players were very slow to make their initiative rolls) - as Celestian mentioned, NPCs roll a d10 modified by their size, I've added initiative modifiers to the PCs (modified by their reaction adjustment) and that's working well enough for us. I prefer to use weapon modifiers, but I've found it pays to streamline online games since players can get a little lost in the UI.

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