"1st Edition Rules, 4th Edition Feel"?

[Nifft]

Dear god, why?

Why can't people just let things be?

Why would anyone ever want to let things be? Tinkering with stuff is fully half the fun of gaming.

Hell, I don't have a whole lot of interest in playing either 1e or 4e these days, yet this subject is of interest to me. So I'd rather appreciate it if this subject was allowed to continue.

Cheers, -- N

 

[diaglo]

i'm in the process (at least 7 years now in the making) of doing something similar.

creating an adventure for OD&D(1974) and including in that adventure guidelines to convert it for use for Holmes, Moldvay/Cook, and Mentzer (well more the Allston Rules Cyclopedia), 1edADnD, 2edADnD, and 4e. i'm probably gonna have to skip d02 versions as i won't be doing the OGL as per se.

i want to get everyone to play it as they prefer.

what you are doing is going to be difficult. each edition is unique. and trying to get 4e only players to grasp 1edADnD concepts like save or die or different saves , but taking them out of the picture isn't going to give the players the same feel of just how 1edADnD played.

 

[Umbran]

Dear god, why?

Why can't people just let things be?

Consider - D&D came into existence by way of folks not letting wargames be. Modifications and house rules and tweaking have been part of the game since its inception.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I think the quintessential 1E dungeon is the home of the mad wizard. He wants adventurers to test his defenses and try to reach his inner sanctum.

Toward that end, have some 1E-isms:

1. Long, long hallways with random traps. The players will want to be tapping every ten feet ahead of them with a ten-foot pole.

2. A statue in the center of a room with four doors. The only door that opens is the one at which the statue is pointing.

3. Empty rooms with rags, mundane skeletons, and/or nothing.

4. A doorway that teleports everyone who goes through it to a random--possibly different for each person--location.

5. A room full of different colored pools of liquid that do weird things to characters that touch/drink from them: heal, harm, change the character's sex, give them a rash, etc.

 

[Lanefan]

4e is all about speed of combat (at least in theory), so you might want to take out some of the more fiddly 1e combat rules such as "weapon vs. armour type", "weapon speed", and so forth if you haven't already. Also for your own sanity re-build and streamline the combat-matrix tables for the various classes.

4e also does terrain, movement, and set-piece battles quite well; perhaps take a look at adding some sort of mechanical advantage to movement - maybe something as simple as movement into combat before attacking gives +1 to hit, movement out of combat after attacking gives 1 point AC bonus, etc., but you can't do both in the same round vs. the same opponent.

4e tends not to bother much with resource management, so to keep that feel you'd want to reduce or eliminate such things. Assume everyone always has a light source, for example, and enough rations to see them through. Throw encumbrance rules out the window unless someone tries something ridiculous like carrying an anchor in his backpack. And so on.

I'm not sure how well a skill challenge mechanic would work - you'd first have to add in all the skills along with a mechanism for gaining them. Probably more of a headache than it's worth.

After that, I can't think of anything that wouldn't need a design-level rebuild of at least part of the 1e system.

Lanefan

 

[Alzrius]

i'm probably gonna have to skip d02 versions as i won't be doing the OGL as per se.

Your hat really knows no limit.

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

You know how Hit Points are Xd8 (or whatever) and then maybe there's some extra HP added on?

Chop 'em down. Use lower hit points or go with "x number of hits" to take down a critter. In other words, use minions.

I was doing minions long before 4e came around. Use 'em, love 'em. They make for quicker fights, they let players feel like their characters aren't total chumps that should flee from an aggressice rat, and when they do run up against a non-minion type? They take it much more seriously.

That Hit Point space is a place to play, seriously. If it has 3d8 HP, just because there's a number (average HP) given, for heaven's sake ignore it. You want a chump version? 3 HP. Bad ass? 24 HP.

Make those monsters your bitch and use 'em so that characters feel like Big Damn Heroes.

 

[S'mon]

Running BX/LL and 1e/OSRIC I definitely take some lessons from 3e and 4e. I tend to use less random insta-kill stuff and replace "save or die" with "save or take damage", unless death is really appropriate (Finger of Death spell). I also tend not to use many permanent-level-drain undead, preferring temporary effects. I don't remove *all* such though, just keep an eye on their frequency. It helps that for 1e/OSRIC I'm using 'Wraith Overlord' with 'City State of the Invincible Overlord'; because Wraith uses variant Judges Guild monsters which tend not to have Gygaxian insta-kill powers.

Another idea I use from 4e is to stat most NPCs as monsters, not as members of PC classes. I refer to eg the Sage and Ruffian NPCs in the 1e DMG. So NPCs are designed ad hoc to fit their role in the world, not built like a PC.

Finally, I like the short Delve type mission, this predates 4e but the 4e Dungeon Delves are a good model of play. My 1e/OSRIC campaign uses lots of short 'delve' type missions chosen by the PCs, though they've recently begun exploring a large dungeon.

 

[Doug McCrae]

What's the intended level range?

 

[Doug McCrae]

Disease is the new level drain. 1e players were scared of tombs, 4e players are scared of the sewers. Use no level-draining undead, but play up that disease table in the 1e DMG.

Use lots of minions. 1HD (or less) monsters like kobolds and goblins. The 1e fighter is the 4e wizard.

Use interesting terrain in fights. Have fights range over a set of several rooms.

Give the PCs a magic item that can heal them to full, can only be used out of combat, and can only be used a limited number of times per day. Say 4 Cure Serious Wounds or Heals per day, with a casting time of 5 minutes.

All the PCs are expected to make a significant contribution to each encounter in 4e. The encounter isn't decided with a single sleep or web. Consider using very large numbers of foes in the big fights, too many to sleep, hordes that attack in waves a la WG4 Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun (so a single fireball won't kill them all), and perhaps some that are 100% immune to magic (to ensure the fighters have something to do.) The feast hall in G1 isn't tough enough, in the tournament the winning party just fireballed and javelin of lightning-ed the lot of em. Think tougher than that.