Teaching 1e/2e gamers the 3.5 basics in 5 hours or less

[Kalendraf]

A friend of mine is interested in starting up a 3.5 campaign. He and all of the potential gamers have not played for some time, but they all have prior experience under 1e and/or 2e rulesets. I offered to run a one-shot adventure for their group to help teach them the basics of 3.5.

Originally, I figured I might just run an adventure from Dungeon or one of the smaller published adventures I own. However, I was unable to locate one that seems good for this purpose. From what I can gather, the group doesn't need any help in the RP department, so I really need some way to demonstrate/highlight some of the more fundamental changes from 1e/2e to 3.5 in about a 4 to 5 hour span. While I suspect this group will quickly understand skills, feats & basic combat tactics, I don't want to just throw them to the wolves either.

Right now, I'm pursuing the route of making the adventure myself, creating some situations where skills will be useful and also mixing in some varied combat situations. I'm planning to pregen the characters to save time, and probably set the adventure for a party of four 3rd level characters to keep things fairly simple. By then characters have some extra hit points, and a few abilities, but not so many as to overwhelm a new player.

I'm bouncing around several ideas, but I am also quite open to any suggestions. If there's a great training adventure I've overlooked that could be run in 4 to 5 hours, let me know. Or if you have any suggestions for easy encounters that are very demonstrative of the 3.5 rules, I'd be happy to hear those as well.

 

[diaglo]

they shouldn't have problems understanding levels, classes, and alignment.

however, they are in worse shape than a total n00b when it comes to the details.

so they know a fighter needs str... but they are gonna get all confused when the str 20 half-orc does something. this is due to having to forget rules/fundamentals they already think they know.

basics you will have covered. spells will mess them up too. and combat... forget an easy method for combat......

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Start them at 1st level so they have time to grow into the concepts -- taking a little bit at a time.

Give them the pregens, and run some fairly simple dungeon crawls. If they're familiar and current with previous editions, just go for it and explain how the rules work as issues come up.

Heck, you could borrow some encounters from that WOTC website column (Rules of the Game? -- the one that introduced and explained rules using an adventure with Iconics).

 

[TheBadElf]

Use pregen characters, and make sure they're on good character sheets - a good sheet is a huge visual aid to seeing what a character can do. I use the SSA X2 D&D sheet; it's a fill-in .PDF that puts pretty much everything you want to know about a character right in front of you. For someone not used to the current skill system, for instance, it's nice to be able to look at your Spot skill and see that x ranks plus y ability bonus plus z miscellaneous = your total skill bonus.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Use pregen characters, and make sure they're on good character sheets - a good sheet is a huge visual aid to seeing what a character can do. I use the SSA X2 D&D sheet; it's a fill-in .PDF that puts pretty much everything you want to know about a character right in front of you. For someone not used to the current skill system, for instance, it's nice to be able to look at your Spot skill and see that x ranks plus y ability bonus plus z miscellaneous = your total skill bonus.

With all respect, I have to disagree with this. I think learning character creation step-by-step, seeing how it takes form, and understanding what details went into creating specific modifiers is vital for learning how the game works. If a newbie just picks up a premade character, he's not going to understand why things work the way they do, and that's an important piece. The player needs to know why his 1st level fighter with 17 Str and Weapon Focus in the longsword has a total of +5 to hit. Just telling him "You've got +5 to hit" isn't helping him learn the game. D20 is, at it's core, a simple system, but there are so many modifiers that I think it's impossible to learn to play without learning why things work as they do.

I've seen this in practice with more than one newcomer to 3E, incidentally. Not one of them really got to understand the system until they made characters; giving them pregens allowed them to play faster, sure, but they didn't really understand why things were happening as they were, and they kept having to ask what to do next.

 

[Zappo]

5 hours? I've taught the basics of 3E to newbies to RPGs in general in less than that time. One hour should be enough to create 1st level characters, then just start playing and the basics of combat should be clear in two or three encounters. After this, they'll only be foggy on AoOs and the difference between move-equivalent, standard and full-round. Once that is clear, the basics are covered. D20 is pretty simple. Details, of course, are details.

 

[argo]

The Burning Plague (free, download from WotC's website) is IMHO the best adventure for getting a 3e newbie up and on his feet. A prety simple dungeon crawl it covers skill use, combat (severall types: ambush, entrenched foes, undead foes (turning mechanics), and a boss fight) has opporunities for clever spell and item use and even has opportunities for roleplay solutiouns to a couple of encounters!

Defenaetly have them make their own characters. Just figuring out all their modifiers and values will go a long way to learning some of the basics of d20 ruleset. On that same note be sure to bring a good character sheet for each of them as well: filling out everything on it should help them visualize some of the rules changes and remind them of anything they forget.

Good luck.

 

[talien]

Consider playing tournament modules for a living campaign. For example:

• Living Arcanis: http://www.livingarcanis.com
• Living Greyhawk: http://www.living-greyhawk.com

Pick a 1st-level adventure and use it.

I just played in a 3.5 game with a lot of old school players who haven't played since 2.0. Character creation helped immensely. But by far the best part about the "living"-style adventures is that they're brief because they're meant to be played at a convention. We don't have a lot of time these days, so after four hours we were done.

 

[WayneLigon]

5 hours? I've taught the basics of 3E to newbies to RPGs in general in less than that time.

It's easier to them, since they don't have 20 years of ingrained reflexes and house rules to unlearn.

Total Newbie: I'm third level and it's 2 orcs. I'd better be careful or I'll get hurt pretty badly.

1e/2e Trainee: I'm third level and it's 2 orcs. I'll barely break a sweat. Chargeeuuurgh thump.

 

[Voadam]

For learning keep it simple, and start with low level so the options are not overwhelming. They are trying to grasp the basics of the new rules so keeping them simple and straightforward will help a lot. Complicated combat maneuvers like grappling etc. will only distract them as they get a handle on cyclical initiative, movement actions versus attack versus full attack actions, and attacks of opportunity.

First Game I wouldn't even use anything more complicated than straight attacks for the monsters, no reach, no grappling, no disarm, no bullrushing, no sundering, no tumbling.

They will get the hang of the basic rules quickly this way as well as a feel for the different balance points in 3e where monsters have full stats including strength bonuses.