D&D 5E Greyhawk Module

[Zardnaar]

I'm thinking of running a tribute to Greyhawk game of 5E in the future. I have recently picked up a new player who is keen as custard on Greyhawk and Darksun and wants to play on these worlds. I will be basing this off the 1983 boxed set and the 1E PHB.

Greyhawk is a bit lower powered than say FR, and rather than converting 5E stuff to GH I am thinking it might just be better to exclude modern stuff from the game than force it in so no warlocks. This would mean you would want more options than say the the Basic D&D but less than the PHB.

Hell we could call it Advanced D&D even.
Races
Allowed

Elf (high)
Human (default)
Dwarf (Mountain)
Halfling (stout)
Half Orc
Half Elf
Gnome (forest)


Permitted Classes
Bard (Valor)
Cleric (healing)
Druid (land)
Fighter (champion)
Monk (Way of Fists)
Paladin (Oath of Devotion)
Ranger (Hunter)
Rogue (thief+assassin)
Wizard (Invoker+Illusionist)

11 classes

UA
The other subraces+Drow maybe Tieflings, + Barbarian.

Feats- not used
Alignment Restrictions. Alignment restrictions are back. As 1E PHB (Paladins LG, Rangers any good etc)
Class restrictions- as 1E PHB
Racial Restrictions as 1E PHB
Level limits not used (we have a better human)

So why bring back restrictions? Well as I said this is based off the 1983 boxed set and the 1E PHB. it makes GH different than FR for example. Paladins are still LG, Rangers are still any good, Dwarves can't be wizards, warlocks and Dragonborn do not exist. Also if you are using material you don't have to worry about things like Dwarf Wizards turning up.

Greyhawk also has Ranger and Paladin deities (Ehlonna, Hieroneous)which explains why they have to be good aligned.

You have more options than Basic D&D, but less than the PHB. Throw in some rules for domain use for level 9 PCs

 

[hastur_nz]

Was there a question in here?

I'll give some comments...

Tieflings are not a distinct race in Greyhawk but rather the descendents of demons (usually cambions) or humans transformed by some kind of curse or pact. As such, it's hard to justify a PC Tiefling IMO, but YMMV.

Drow are CE, there is no Drizzt types, Good Drow Goddesses who dance in moonlight, or other crap like that in GH. Again, hard to justify a PC Drow IMO.

Same goes for Monks - typically, the only Monks in Greyhawk were members of the Scarlet Brotherhood, who are LE with plans for world domination. Or at least in my games, that was the case; we had a PC monk once, and he was a turncoat who had escaped the Brotherhood.

For Wizards, rather than ban most sub-classes, why not just make the Illusionist more appealing e.g. make it so the classic Illusionist spells are only available to Illusionists, or are level+1 for others, or suchlike?

Lastly, I'm not sure why you'd want to remove Feats, they were introduced in 3.0 but 2e had somewhat similar stuff and Greyhawk didn't specifically not have that stuff. But whatever - they are an optional rule anyways.

Is your adventure going to be complete home-brew?

To me, it's not so much the restriction or races, classes, etc that make something "Greyhawk"... it's the actual setting - the cities, towns, the history of the places and races, the crumbling ruins left over from the (higher-magic) ages gone by, and the struggle between the forces of Good and Evil that rage across the lands. The adventure(s) you run in Greyhawk are, far more than the PC's stat-blocks, what defines the Setting.

 

[Zardnaar]

Was there a question in here?

I'll give some comments...

Tieflings are not a distinct race in Greyhawk but rather the descendents of demons (usually cambions) or humans transformed by some kind of curse or pact. As such, it's hard to justify a PC Tiefling IMO, but YMMV.

Drow are CE, there is no Drizzt types, Good Drow Goddesses who dance in moonlight, or other crap like that in GH. Again, hard to justify a PC Drow IMO.

Same goes for Monks - typically, the only Monks in Greyhawk were members of the Scarlet Brotherhood, who are LE with plans for world domination. Or at least in my games, that was the case; we had a PC monk once, and he was a turncoat who had escaped the Brotherhood.

For Wizards, rather than ban most sub-classes, why not just make the Illusionist more appealing e.g. make it so the classic Illusionist spells are only available to Illusionists, or are level+1 for others, or suchlike?

Lastly, I'm not sure why you'd want to remove Feats, they were introduced in 3.0 but 2e had somewhat similar stuff and Greyhawk didn't specifically not have that stuff. But whatever - they are an optional rule anyways.

Is your adventure going to be complete home-brew?

To me, it's not so much the restriction or races, classes, etc that make something "Greyhawk"... it's the actual setting - the cities, towns, the history of the places and races, the crumbling ruins left over from the (higher-magic) ages gone by, and the struggle between the forces of Good and Evil that rage across the lands. The adventure(s) you run in Greyhawk are, far more than the PC's stat-blocks, what defines the Setting.

Its also to make the worlds more distinct. If every world like Greyhawk, Realms, Mystara and Nentir Vale has the same races whats the point?

Half Orcs and Elves may not exist on Mystara Krynn doesn't have halflings, Greyhawk could have restrictions.

 

[hastur_nz]

Greyhawk comes from a day when *everything* that was in D&D, was in Greyhawk. It was the implied setting in PHB and DMG, then the only published setting.

Heck, I still remember buying the original Forgotten Realms box set (AD&D days), having loved and DM'd Greyhawk for years; FR was different but not because of anything to do with the options available for PC's, it was a different world with a different style of play implied therein. Over time, 2E screwed a lot of stuff up, Greyhawk fell out of favour, Gygax was disposed of, the Realms got really popular; new campaign settings were introduced which tried to make themselves different from the Default; D&D & Greyhawk diverged. 3.0 brought Greyhawk back as the "default setting", whatever that really means. 4e and 5e totally ignored Greyhawk, adding stuff like Dragonborn etc.

So Greyhawk is what you want it to be. It can be like it was back in the early 1980's, or it can be like it might be if it had actually continued to keep itself 'up to date' (it's not like Greyhawk ever stayed still - as new stuff was added to D&D, people found a place for it in the World of Greyhawk).

End of history lesson...

 

[Vaesil]

I have made a few conversions. 5E to Birthright (which others have also done) was one of them. All comments here are great! I personally was not a fan of class restrictions. Bottom line make it your game and have fun.

 

[Azzy]

I've run a campaign, and am now playing in a campaign (while another is in the works after this) set in Greyhawk. We haven't put any of these sort of restrictions on players, and it still runs like Greyhawk.

 

[Shiroiken]

Awww... I thought we were going to discuss a classic Greyhawk adventure

I'm currently running a Greyhawk campaign and am about to start up another one. I removed Dragonborn and most Volo's races, because they just don't fit the setting at all, as well as limited some sub-races. Races were visually changed to fit the AD&D appearances (all dwarves have beards, elves are only 5' tall, halflings look like human children, PC half-orcs can pass for ugly humans, etc.). Classes were left alone for the most part, making a few changes as needed (Shadow Monk must be Suel Human Scarlet Brotherhood, for example). I felt no need to place race/class restrictions, but made note that certain combinations would cause social problems (the Dwarf Wizard, for example, would be distrusted even by his kin). Even though several classes were not part of the game at the time, nor were feats, I feel those don't impact the story aspect of the setting (and in some cases, they enhance it).

Alignment Restrictions were part of the game for the same reason level limits were: as a balancing mechanic. Since I run Greyhawk as more neutral focused, alignment becomes much less important (it's not "good vs. evil", it's "them vs. us") anyway. Besides Hextor (Heironious's evil brother) was the patron of the anti-paladins, so it makes sense for evil paladins to be a thing. Of course, in my deity descriptions I list which deities are more or less likely to have paladins.

 

[Stormdale]

I still run my Greyhawk as heavily influenced by 20+ years of 1E (&2E) and having had run games in Greyhawk (at various times) since 1983. I allow all classes and subclasses in the PHB but not all races (only the 1E core races are allowed) and do have class restrictions (eg no dwarf wizards) but may ban warlocks in future as I don'tl;ike the class as it tends (in our group) be simply used as a dip.

I 'm not strict on alignment restrictions in rangers/paladins but rename all un-LG paladins as knights and non-good rangers as hunters. Only a small thematic change but helps keep the original flavour and still allow for non-good versions to coexist.

I allow various non traditional race/class combos on a case by case basis (we've currently a dwarf druid pc for instance). As for races, the original rogues gallery had a lizard man pc in Greyhawk.

Wind the clock/restrictions back too far Zaardnar and you might as well play 1E.

Stormdale

 

[76512390ag12]

I think this is a very valid proposition, it's not just a return to GH at a specific iteration, but also a return to the structure of D&D at that time, short of just running AD&D 1e.
It's therefore a dual homage.

Sent from my SM-G901F using Tapatalk

 

[ExploderWizard]

Why are rock gnomes and hill dwarves excluded? The hill dwarf was THE default dwarf in Greyhawk. Wood elves would be appropriate also.

The one official GH race that I wouldn't allow would be valley elves because they are like, sooooo annoying, right?