1E at Heart 3rd Edition Mind Set

terrya · Sep 16, 2011

Hi Guys,

I'm having a bit of a problem with my current adventuring group. We are all quite big role players and prefer the feel that 1E gave that it was your skill as an indvidual and not that of your charecter that mattered but have grown so use to the superior rule set of V3.5 could never imagine reverting to the 1E rule set, what do we do?

The idea I've been playing with is using 1/2E Modules (keep on the borderlands, Temple of Elemental evil) but using 3rd Edtion Rules with some House Rule modifications as per below.

1. Removing all Social skills such as Diplomacy, Bluff, Sense Motive and making it somthing that would need to be role played and then let the DM determine how the npc acts apropriatly.

2. Removing Disable Trap as a skill from the game. I feel the group should figure out how the trap works and disable it apropriatly e.g 10ft poles vs Pit Falls. I am unsure if i would need to give the rogue class some kind of benefit to account for this but I dont think i do.

3. You are only allowed to attempt a skill a maxium of 3 times e.g picking a lock, searching e.t.c before it becomes imposible for you to do it. I may raise the dc by 2 each attempt. It anoys me that skill chalenges are irrelvant as they can just keep rolling till infinity.

4. Replacing most save vs poison or die effects with more apropriate diseases / poisons e.g heavy (and im talking d6+1) stat minus that can accumulate to death. E.g get poisioned by 3 different plants and you could end up losing 21 con and dieing! (more of a 1E to 3E one here!)

5. Keeping Marching orders and making sure they map dungeons or ensuring they keep watch whilst sleeping. Really just trying to put the role play elemenats that came easy with 1E back into a much easier to use 3E class and balance concept

Do you think this could work guys? Has anyone tryed somthing similar / Has any advice?

Thanks in Advance!

Celebrim · Sep 16, 2011

terrya:

I run 3e in what I believe is a 1st edition style. I won't go into my various tweaks and house rules, because that would take to long and would probably cause you to miss the point. The point is that you can play 3e in a way that is simply an interpretation of RAW and still be in a 1st edition style.

Let me address some specific points:

1) Social Skills: 1st edition had social rolls as well for determining henchmen loyalty, reaction results in random encounters and elsewhere, and so forth. So it is a mistake to think that you can't have social skills inform 1e style play. The trick, in my opinion, is to require a roleplaying proposition before the character is eligible to make a social skill check (at least in every case but determining the initial reaction, as in 1e). Just as you'd never allow someone to climb a wall without proposing something like, "I go over to the north wall where the handholds are and climb it.", you shouldn't allow someone to roll diplomacy without first providing enough proposition for you to adjudicate the outcome. Propositions like, "I persuade the king to send troops to Dunwater." should be rejected on the grounds that they contain no content. The character must say something like, "Your majesty, permit me to take a regiment of troops to Dunwater, for if we do nothing then we shall surely loose the town and the enemy will be able to cross the Sarn river there in strength and thus bypass our other defenses." After that, it doesn't matter if the player stuttered, stumbled, and squeeked as he said it, his character has now earned a skill check commiserate with his ability as a diplomat. The player isn't punished for lack of charisma provided he makes an effort to play. The character is still punished if charisma was treated like a dump stat. It's win/win.

2) Circumstance Modifiers: I believe that the key to using skill challenges successfully is to generously use circumstance modifiers that reward the player for creative and intelligent play. In the case of our previous example, if the player's RP proposition contains a very logical argument, or an argument that appeals strongly to the character of the king, or if the player has previously ingratiated himself to the king, then the diplomacy check should be made with an appropiate circumstance bonus: maybe +3, +5 or even higher. Conversely, if the argument contains very poor logic, is offensive to the king, and the player has previously offended the king, then a strong penalty should apply. The charisma of the character still obviously heavily influences the outcome (as may luck), but the player is still motivated to act intelligently. Similarly, a rusted lock may have a DC which makes even taking 20 on the lock unsuccessful for all but the most specialized character, but if the character has the foresight and resources to oil the rusty lock the DC may be adjusted downward allowing taking 20 to work. Another approach would be to rule that the lock is jammed, and that a pick improperly used (failure by more than 5) may break in the lock, which effectively prevents taking 20 since you may not take 20 whenever there is a risk associated with failure.

3) Disabling Traps: Likewise, I don't see how removing find/remove traps plays in a more 1e style. If anything, that's more OD&D in nature. Nonetheless, if you've played 1e you ought to know that find/remove traps skill checks are a back up plan, to be undertaken only after physical investigation fails to discover a trap or find a solution. This is because the chance of failure is so high and the risk so great. If a player proposes something which has the consequence of evading or disabling the trap, he doesn't need to make a skill check to do it. A player probing ahead by leaning his weight onto a 10' pole automatically evades an effect that he triggers that has less than a 6-7' radius. A player that triggers a scything blade trap evades it if he triggers it by crawling over the ground if the blade is designed to sweep 4' above the ground. If a player stands to the side of a chest while opening it, he evades darts that are designed to fire forward. And so forth; none of these things require a roll. The ability to detect traps represent in effect a saving throw, whereby the rogue/thief character can detect things which would be otherwise undetectable. And of course, some traps have always resisted disarming them with mere dice rolls. A thief may force a pit trap's cover to remain open with a successful roll, but he can't actually fill the pit and render it harmless by rolling a dice. Conversely, if a thief finds a pressure plate, he can effectively evade the trap simply by taking out a peice of chalk, drawing a circle around the plate and saying, "I don't know what this does, but don't step here." Rolling to disable the device is thus not always necessary.

4) Poison and Disease: If you want more lethal poison, I would suggest adopting the following convention - neither poison nor disease is recovered from until the player makes two successful saving throws in a row. Until that time, they continue to effect the character. Thus, even a mere 1d3 CON poison damage can accumulate to death on a series of bad rolls (or if the DC of the poison is high enough). Likewise, in my game STR or DEX losses can go to negative numbers, and if they go low enough they can effectively mean death because the character loses the ability to breathe and eventually suffers cardiac failure.

Whizbang Dustyboots · Sep 16, 2011

I would peek at Castles & Crusades as well, since it's a D20 game (and fully compatible with 3E material) that's designed to evoke a 1E feel. It's solved many of the problems I had with a similar desire for a 1E game running with a more modern engine under the hood.

Keith Robinson · Sep 16, 2011

terrya said:
1. Removing all Social skills such as Diplomacy, Bluff, Sense Motive and making it somthing that would need to be role played and then let the DM determine how the npc acts apropriatly.

Not much I can say about this as I completely disagree with the premise. It may be a noble idea, but the reality (in my experience at any rate) is that your low wisdom/ low intelligent fighter ends up debating like a post-grad and your 22 Int Wizard like a complete idiot. It's why skills were invented IMO. Characters can be good (or poor) at those Skills even if the player is the complete opposite. YMMV, of course, and clearly does on this occasion.

terrya said:
2. Removing Disable Trap as a skill from the game. I feel the group should figure out how the trap works and disable it apropriatly e.g 10ft poles vs Pit Falls. I am unsure if i would need to give the rogue class some kind of benefit to account for this but I dont think i do.

This is doable and a great idea if you're willing to put the work in. You'll obviously need to extrapolate the mechanics of each trap in order to offer a meaningful challenge, but totally doable IMO.

terrya said:
3. You are only allowed to attempt a skill a maxium of 3 times e.g picking a lock, searching e.t.c before it becomes imposible for you to do it. I may raise the dc by 2 each attempt. It anoys me that skill chalenges are irrelvant as they can just keep rolling till infinity.

Again, workable, though there are a number of things to consider. What are you going to do with Skills like Climb and Jump, etc, which obviously require multiple checks. And I assume you'll drop Take 10 and 20 completely? You might just consider uping the penalty instead of limiting the number of attempts, though clearly you'll get a lot more failed checks and weaken the value of Skills IMO.

terrya said:
4. Replacing most save vs poison or die effects with more apropriate diseases / poisons e.g heavy (and im talking d6+1) stat minus that can accumulate to death. E.g get poisioned by 3 different plants and you could end up losing 21 con and dieing! (more of a 1E to 3E one here!)

I think you'll just end up with a lot of dead chatacters

terrya said:
5. Keeping Marching orders and making sure they map dungeons or ensuring they keep watch whilst sleeping. Really just trying to put the role play elemenats that came easy with 1E back into a much easier to use 3E class and balance concept

This is clearly doable. it's just a matter of preference. We have always had watches, though the DM maps the dungeons (as it's less time consuming IMO).

Anyway, just my thoughts. Good luck on your game

S'mon · Sep 16, 2011

terrya said:
Hi Guys,

I'm having a bit of a problem with my current adventuring group. We are all quite big role players and prefer the feel that 1E gave that it was your skill as an indvidual and not that of your charecter that mattered but have grown so use to the superior rule set of V3.5 could never imagine reverting to the 1E rule set, what do we do?

The idea I've been playing with is using 1/2E Modules (keep on the borderlands, Temple of Elemental evil) but using 3rd Edtion Rules with some House Rule modifications as per below.

1. Removing all Social skills such as Diplomacy, Bluff, Sense Motive and making it somthing that would need to be role played and then let the DM determine how the npc acts apropriatly.

2. Removing Disable Trap as a skill from the game. I feel the group should figure out how the trap works and disable it apropriatly e.g 10ft poles vs Pit Falls. I am unsure if i would need to give the rogue class some kind of benefit to account for this but I dont think i do.

3. You are only allowed to attempt a skill a maxium of 3 times e.g picking a lock, searching e.t.c before it becomes imposible for you to do it. I may raise the dc by 2 each attempt. It anoys me that skill chalenges are irrelvant as they can just keep rolling till infinity.

4. Replacing most save vs poison or die effects with more apropriate diseases / poisons e.g heavy (and im talking d6+1) stat minus that can accumulate to death. E.g get poisioned by 3 different plants and you could end up losing 21 con and dieing! (more of a 1E to 3E one here!)

5. Keeping Marching orders and making sure they map dungeons or ensuring they keep watch whilst sleeping. Really just trying to put the role play elemenats that came easy with 1E back into a much easier to use 3E class and balance concept

Do you think this could work guys? Has anyone tryed somthing similar / Has any advice?

Thanks in Advance!

Yeah, that'll work - long as you remove all spellcaster classes from the game.

Seriously, it's the spellcasting that makes 3e "3e" - try running a game with no caster PCs (balanced accordingly) and you'll get the effect you want.

S'mon · Sep 16, 2011

I use your #3 in my 4e games, BTW - 3 attempts only, then YOU FAIL.

haakon1 · Sep 16, 2011

I run 3.5 "RAW", but I think I run it in an AD&D style. Some notes on what I do.

terrya said:
1. Removing all Social skills such as Diplomacy, Bluff, Sense Motive and making it somthing that would need to be role played and then let the DM determine how the npc acts apropriatly.

I use the social skills. I never allow a player to just say "I diplomacize them". I make them tell me what they say in character, then I roll with a modifier (typically +2) if they made a good point that hits a key issue for the NPC. The NPC reaction is a combination of what they said, what the DC I set was if they want someone to do something specific (which they usually do), and how the roll went. So it's a combination of role playing and roll playing. We enjoy this, because it lends social interactions some of the same feel as combat -- and social interactions can be critical success or failure points in our game.

terrya said:
2. Removing Disable Trap as a skill from the game. I feel the group should figure out how the trap works and disable it apropriatly e.g 10ft poles vs Pit Falls. I am unsure if i would need to give the rogue class some kind of benefit to account for this but I dont think i do.

Again, I combine the "tell me how you are checking for traps" or "tell me the basic plan for defusing it" with the roll. If you are searching in the wrong place, I will roll dice (behind the curtain for these checks) but of course ignore them. If you search in the right place, and your roll is good, it's good.

AD&D Thieves had trap detecting and defusing abilities too, didn't they?

terrya said:
3. You are only allowed to attempt a skill a maxium of 3 times e.g picking a lock, searching e.t.c before it becomes imposible for you to do it. I may raise the dc by 2 each attempt. It anoys me that skill chalenges are irrelvant as they can just keep rolling till infinity.

Rerolling only works in my campaign if there's no danger to the check, in the 3.5 RAW. Taking 20 on something unimportant doesn't fuss me.

terrya said:
4. Replacing most save vs poison or die effects with more apropriate diseases / poisons e.g heavy (and im talking d6+1) stat minus that can accumulate to death. E.g get poisioned by 3 different plants and you could end up losing 21 con and dieing! (more of a 1E to 3E one here!)

Sure. I would update monsters, NPC's, and dungeon features to the 3.5e rule set. Or just play a 3.5e or Pathfinder module instead.

terrya said:
5. Keeping Marching orders and making sure they map dungeons or ensuring they keep watch whilst sleeping.

Oh, you better believe I do this. I want to always know marching order, for when an ambush or trap is sprung.

And my players always keep watch without any prompting -- usually even when in town. That doesn't strike me as an AD&D issue, but as a D&D issue. If you don't keep watches while in the wilderness or the dungeon, you're just asking for trouble. If that's not true in whatever edition you're playing, it seems nerfed to me.

amerigoV · Sep 16, 2011

As a rogue or bard, I would LOVE this. More skill points to put in other places. Make the Barbarian screw with the traps because he has +2 Trap Sense AND a high Fort Save ("you are better equiped than I").

Just sit back and let the XP and gold roll in.

Pentius · Sep 17, 2011

terrya said:
3. You are only allowed to attempt a skill a maxium of 3 times e.g picking a lock, searching e.t.c before it becomes imposible for you to do it. I may raise the dc by 2 each attempt. It anoys me that skill chalenges are irrelvant as they can just keep rolling till infinity.

I'd recommend a slightly different approach. Let them have maybe 2 tries, then no more tries, unless the player describes how their next attempt is different. Then they get another shot. For the lock picking example, the first two tries can be done with the Thief saying, "I pick the lock." and rolling. He's a Thief, he has lockpicks, it isn't a mystery what's going on. If the to attempts fail, he has to describe doing something more to get another roll. Maybe he pushes the doorknob up and to the side, to try and jigger it. Maybe he has a second set of picks(not just a second identical pair, but something conceivably different). Each inventive approach yields another roll.

Also, this sounds obvious, but if you don't want pointless skill checks, don't include them. If the chest isn't trapped, and they aren't on a time limit for getting it open, just make it unlocked, or even narrate, "The Thief picks the lock easily" without rolling for it. Basically, any time where they could roll to infinity without negative consequences, don't bother. Either don't bother including it, or don't bother rolling it.

5. Keeping Marching orders and making sure they map dungeons or ensuring they keep watch whilst sleeping. Really just trying to put the role play elemenats that came easy with 1E back into a much easier to use 3E class and balance concept

Y-you guys don't do this anymore? Man, I've been in a lot of groups, from 1e to 3e, and now into 4e, and this almost always gets done. Marching orders and keeping watch at night especially. Sometimes we've even kept watch while in an inn.