[RPG] What effect does the size of a shield have in AD&D 2nd Edition

It looks like Steve Winter has weighed in here that what happens is that the values stack, meaning :

• With no rest (fighting, casting) : 0HP/day
• With rest (traveling allowed) but no help from a healer : 1HP/day
• With rest (traveling allowed) and help from a healer : 2HP/day
• With bed rest (no traveling) but no help from a healer : 3HP/day
• With bed rest (no traveling) and help from a healer : 5HP/day
• With bed rest (no traveling) and help from someone that is both a healer and an herbalist : 6HP/day

A More Gradual Power Curve

In 2e (and 1e and Basic), though it's still a thing (by design) that fighter types are more powerful early in the game and wizards more powerful late in the game, it's less of a dramatic gap between the two because the power curves are more gradual in general. Similarly, the difference between levels isn't as extreme (a level 7 character in 2e isn't as much way-better than a level 5 as in later editions, which is why level-mixing was accepted practice then and decried as "unfair fun-killing" in 3e+).

XP Tables

The different XP progression tables mean that those other classes progress a little more quickly but the conclusion is a little more surprising. At wizard level 15, which requires 1.875M XP, the fighter is level 15 at 1.75M, but he's still a ways away from the 2M required for next - a priest is level 16 and a rogue is level 18 though! So those XP tables are used to normalize power, but the assumption is that the fighter is a lot closer to the wizard in power than those coming from later editions might assume.

Class Disparity

The same dynamic holds between classes - at early levels, a fighter has a lot more hit points and can hit things decently hard. The wizards are a LOT weaker - d4 HD, none of this "4 at first level" softball stuff. None of these additional powers to "make the wizard not feel bad when his spells are gone." And no crossbows for you. If you're a first level wizard, you cast your one magic missile and then you hide your 2 hp butt with your knife behind everyone else. They have proportionately a lot less power.

Even at higher levels, when they can do earthshaking things, they have fewer spells (and hit points, and powers, and magic items) than they do in later editions so the "my sword works all day" feature of the martials is more valuable; also they are more dependent on other party members due to the lack of Concentration and other special abilities that make them more able to independently kill. So it's still linear/geometric growth (the commonly-quoted "linear vs quadratic" premise is really a misuse of the term quadratic, which implies a parabola), but a much more restrained slope on those curves, with a lot less effective difference and a lot longer wait to be "way better than a fighter".

Being a Wizard is Hard

Fighters can just cut you. In all that lovely 1e/2e magical lore, there's a lot more restrictions on wizards. Spell components were definitely a thing. You had fewer spells and had to find more, you couldn't just make them up when you leveled. Magic item creation was pretty much totally infeasible. Things were a little more Gandalf (the article Gandalf Was A Fifth Level Magic User might as well be rewritten in 4e as "Gandalf Was A First Level Anything, Or Maybe a Commoner In The Forgotten Realms"). Many of these restrictions were removed either by rule (free spells on level) or by convention (spell components, how un-fun!) in later editions. If a wizard doesn't have to spend a lot of their time and effort scraping together magical power to get by, and can just do whatever whenever, then sure they get more powerful.

With no feats or Concentration checks or abilities to pump up saves or magic resistance, the wizard's spells just plain failed a lot more of the time. This played into the general "made do with what we have" exploratory nature of the game then; mundane equipment, player tactics, and other personal cleverness were a much larger part of play than "PRESS MY KILL POWER BUTTON".

Conclusion

3e tried to power up everyone by multiplying each class' power by 2, but that causes a much sharper gap between the class' power curves because of MATH. A wizard in 1e/2e might be able to bend the laws of space, time, and nature, but he's pretty vulnerble otherwise and really needs a team with him (until he gets to be like Mordenkainen level).