EDIT: changed the tile to be more clear; I'm mixing AD&D and B/X: what are you favorite rules to import/export?

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I have written extensively about why I love B/X*. It is my favorite format of D&D, but mostly because it's very easy, simple, manageable, streamlined. The organization is much better, IMO.

However, when comparing specific rules, I often favor using AD&D. For example, I prefer AD&D's:

- Attack progression (+1 per level for fighters).
- Fighter boost (1 attack per level against HD lower than 1, multiple atacks).
- Magic-user nerf (chances of learning spells and I kinda like the idea of components. kinda).
- Turn undead rules (undead leaders make everyone harder to turn IIRC).
- Race separate from class.
- d6 HP for thieves.

OTOH I dislike:

- Messy attribute bonus instead of the neat -3/+3 of B/X.
- Bard and druid strange class progression.
- Weapon versus armor table (that contains arithmetic erros and not even Gygax used, apparently).
- d10 HPs for fighters.

I have been thinking of writing about my favorite AD&D rules, despite not being a big AD&D fan (well, except for the DMG, I love that book).

So, what are your favorite/least favorites when comparing AD&D to Basic (or even 2e, RC, etc.).

*https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2023/01/a-glance-at-basic-d-bx-and-some-clones.html

There's just more to AD&D.  Compare the page count.  There's more things covered, more options,more advice, more details.  Basic plays fine, but AD&D has always felt to me that it has more depth

Quote from: Mishihari on May 14, 2023, 12:19:51 PM
There's just more to AD&D.  Compare the page count.  There's more things covered, more options,more advice, more details.  Basic plays fine, but AD&D has always felt to me that it has more depth

With all due respect to AD&D, which is a cool game system with lots of depth; more rules, does not necessarily equal better.

Well, if we go by page count, it is easy to see B/X is better if you like objectivity, AD&D if you like completeness. So, I was looking for specific examples as mentioned above.

Another thing I dislike in B/X (but not BECMI, RC): the borked cleric progression. Easy to fix, however.

AD&D 2nd is best Waifu.

Let me put it this way. I'm mixing AD&D and B/X: what are you favorite rules to import/export?

Quote from: Eric Diaz on May 14, 2023, 02:27:59 PM
Let me put it this way. I'm mixing AD&D and B/X: what are you favorite rules to import/export?

The last AD&D campaign I ran was essentially creating characters in AD&D then running it like Basic. That is pretty much how I learned to play anyway, because we moved from BECMI straight to AD&D as soon as I could afford the books and I naively assumed it was close enough if we simply used the new charts and spells. Weapon speed and attack vs. armor...all that kind of crap seemed incomprehensible and superfluous, so I never used it. Then we ported over Palladium Fantasy class and Rolemaster stuff for combat so...yeah. I don't know if I've ever actually played strict BtB AD&D in my life, honestly.

Back in the day I always found AD&D (1e) a disorganised mess with text walls and the PHB I have has all sorts of notes, pages turned over, things underlined and highlighted in it.

Moldvay Basic (never got chance to run expert) on the other hand was great for a bunch of 11-12 year olds getting into the game. Less crunch, more play time.

Red Box basic moved the game on even further and every time we'd break off to play something else we'd always go back to the Karameikos campaign in BECMI. That's not to say we didn't have fun with AD&D. Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh stood out as a fun time and a few other modules too but on the whole BECMI did everything we needed from zero to hero (and we dabbled with Immortals but Gold Box rules are kinda clunky, not TSRs finest hour).

AD&D I think we managed to get near enough 10th level and retired the game with everyone rich and happy. Never went back (though the BECMI campaigns ran for years).

I think it's all down to personal choice. AD&D had more of everything if you wanted it. We didn't need more than BECMI gave us hence we stuck with that.

Most gamers mixed and matched pretty freely back in the olden days -before grogtards came along and tried to make the way 99% of players actually played into some kind of taboo. The most common form of cross-pollination was ditching the initiative rules from 1E AD&D in favor of the rules from Moldvay, Mentzer, Holmes or just about anything else -including a coin flip to see who goes first.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on May 14, 2023, 01:14:00 PM
Well, if we go by page count, it is easy to see B/X is better if you like objectivity, AD&D if you like completeness. So, I was looking for specific examples as mentioned above.

Another thing I dislike in B/X (but not BECMI, RC): the borked cleric progression. Easy to fix, however.

But then when you leave B/X, and use the RC; you get the weakened thief.

Quote from: Elfdart on May 14, 2023, 09:53:38 PM
Most gamers mixed and matched pretty freely back in the olden days -before grogtards came along and tried to make the way 99% of players actually played into some kind of taboo.

I think OSRIC (plus Monks) is a pretty good rendition of how we actually played - no psionics, no weapon-vs-armour table, no weapon speed factors. Age 14 I wasn't familiar with B/X or BECMI though ("kiddy D&D"). For init it was 1d6 each side each round, higher roll goes first, probably round the table. No AD&D segments, no BX combat phases. Content was mostly homebrew open world stuff (with lots of loot - AC-6 at 6th level) with modules dropped in. Started at 3rd level, with Unearthed Arcana cavaliers, weapon spec, thief-acrobats - no 'Fantasy Vietnam'.

If some how I was pinned down to running a game that could only use rules from BEMCI/RC or AD&D (and versions of either), then I'd most likely use RC without race as class, and a few more classes adapted from AD&D 1E. 

I agree with you on the -3/+3 range of the B/X attributes.  Not coincidentally, also the typical bounds for magic items.  To me, the wider bounds in AD&D has effects throughout the system, which I'd find it easier to avoid entirely rather than try to "fix" individually.  ("Fix" because I don't like the effects, not because there is something inherently wrong with them.)

Outside those limits, I like what weapon master/specialization is trying to do, but I don't like any of the implementations in D&D.  I like some skills, but I don't like any of their implementations, either.  And I'm not sure anything could be done about that in either B/X or Advanced, without breaking some other things that I'd rather not break.  Those things were tacked on later, and you can see the weld points.  From my perspective, then, it would be roughly "take something that AD&D tried to do but do it in a B/X way".  I get why some people would state that as going back to OD&D and applying a similar pattern. 

I'd even be tempted to go that route, except at that point I'm instead where I did go:   Make my own thing.  There's a point where tinkering and mashups just lose something in the translation, as the side effects of changes are chased down and addressed. 

Old school D&D rules are like a huge buffet. Take what you like and leave the rest. I prefer the core mechanics of B/X with other stuff thrown in as desired. Right now I am checking out OSE which is pretty much doing just that. The B/X core system is my favorite because the nuts and bolts of putting together stats for adventures is so much easier. Adding more class & race options is very easy to give players more options too. Back in the day we mixed B/X and AD&D published modules together all the time. Most things converted fairly easily. I love the AD&D books as reference sources for all kinds of things but the system as a whole is just too disjointed for day to day use at the table for my tastes.

To me this is totally a matter of personal preferences so only you know what you and your players really like/want.

I think OSE Advanced probably does the best job of mixing the two games, obviously leaning a bit towards the B/X side.  But it adds a fair number of simplified AD&D options.  Something like Advanced Labyrinth Lord, on the other hand, is probably more like how we played in the 80s, with stuff just kind of mashed together.  We took the extra classes, spells, higher hit dice, and other options we liked and just added them to our game, which originally was B/X.  So there were some discrepancies in power level or whatever, but we didn't care.  Later, I played specifically in AD&D and BECMI games where the distinctions were kept.

Building on what others have said above, I've now settled on Swords & Wizardry as a great middle ground, albeit still with a few house rules, including a couple extra classic classes and races that aren't in the core rules.  It provides the best of both worlds in having a lot of options, but with a super streamlined rules set that includes the awesome single saving throw mechanic.  But you can pretty easily port stuff from either AD&D or B/X into it.  Another feature I wasn't crazy about at first, but like now is that stat bonuses are generally just -1 to +1 so if you're doing 3d6 down the line, it's not as big a deal.  But you could just as easily use B/X stat bonuses and import your custom stat rolling system.  I use 4d6, drop the lowest, in order.

I started out with Basic, then leaped to 2e the moment I got my own books, and never looked back. I wanted skills (proficiencies), multiclassing, and races separate from class. I started out when 2e came out so I never even saw a 1e PHB till like a year after I got my 2e books, and didn't think it offered much that wasn't already in the 2e PHB or supplemented and expanded upon by the Complete X series.

I did hate the way that 2e handled ability score bonuses, though, and often thought of copying the -3 to +3 standardized range used in Basic a bunch of times, but always ended up using the 2e stuff out of force of habit, plus to avoid confusing with established 2e material.