D&D 5E [Let's Read] Five Torches Deep

[Fenris-77]

I'm curious about Five Torches Deep, but two things have held me back so far. One, the spell caster checks. I tend not to like those in my D&D-ish games. The other is that they skipped monsters, essentially telling DMs to build their own or just convert from elsewhere.

You can use most 5E monsters without actually 'converting' them beyond halving hit points. Like I said, I'm still inn the messing about phase, so I'm stating that as gospel truth, just what it seems like to me so far.

On the converse, I really like how they've reconfigured the classes and the Supply rules.

Yes, those are two of my favorite features as well. Especially the supply rules. Also, in case it hasn't come up, there is no Darkvision for PC races at all, so torches and lanterns are key.

 

[Retreater]

I bought it in print and PDF. There are some interesting ideas to spice up your 5e, but not enough to run a game with IMO.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I dig it as a more gritty version of 5e. The characters are less capable compared to 5e characters, but compared to each other feel well balanced. It takes away a lot of the options available to 5e characters, which some will see as a negative, but which I think can be quite refreshing.

I think as far as dungeon delving, "can we survive" type mechanics, it works well. I don't know if it's simple enough compared to some other games that go for that, like Torchbearer or similar games, as I'm not that familiar with them. But as a toned down 5e I dig it.

It's also pretty easy to take pieces of it and move them over to 5e if you like. Such as supply.

 

[Lem23]

I bought it to mine for ideas. I like some parts, but not others. I'm likely to run an OSR-style 5e game sometime soon-ish, so will bring a couple of things over from 5TD, and use other parts to inculcate thought on other things that I could do (differently to 5TD and 5e) that would add flavour.

 

[Bawylie]

It actually sounds pretty appealing; I like that style of play.

It also sounds like they maybe changed more rules that they really needed to, and each change just raises the barrier to entry by that much more.

I'm all for adjusting the rules to get a specific style of play, but I think as a designer it takes a lot of discipline to distinguish between features that contribute to the theme, and your own private wish-list of how it ought to be. I see a lot of the latter (or that's what I suspect) in 5e variants.

Tweaking things to how I think they ought to be explains all of my 2nd edition DM-ing. In 3rd and 4th I played very much by the book (with some hacking and experimenting in late 4E), but now in 5th I’m back to hacking.

The principle difference, I suppose, is that we can all post our work and maybe sell it for a few bucks. Instead of just accumulating in spiral notebooks at home.

 

[Fenris-77]

I dig it as a more gritty version of 5e. The characters are less capable compared to 5e characters, but compared to each other feel well balanced. It takes away a lot of the options available to 5e characters, which some will see as a negative, but which I think can be quite refreshing.

I think as far as dungeon delving, "can we survive" type mechanics, it works well. I don't know if it's simple enough compared to some other games that go for that, like Torchbearer or similar games, as I'm not that familiar with them. But as a toned down 5e I dig it.

It's also pretty easy to take pieces of it and move them over to 5e if you like. Such as supply.

Oh it's pretty simple and I also find the lack of options somewhat refreshing. The supply rules are genius IMO. Even if I never play much 5TD I'l be stealing that for my 5E games.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I like the rule that you can attune to as many magic items as your Cha modifier, at least as a solution to the problem in prior editions that Cha was a dump stat. Not very compatible with 5e.

 

[jaelis]

I like the rule that you can attune to as many magic items as your Cha modifier, at least as a solution to the problem in prior editions that Cha was a dump stat. Not very compatible with 5e.

Why do you say it is incompatible with 5e?

 

[Fenris-77]

Let me expand a little on why I like 5TD so much. It is by no means a complete system, not really. It's stripped down 5e with all the basic rules in place to play and enough compatibility to use 5e materials and it's supposed to be used with those other materials (as well as OSR stuff). There are no ribbons and fripperies in its 49 elegant pages though. As some one mentioned, for example, there are no monsters.

I look at this as a toolbox rather than just as a stand alone game. You can actually play it as is, using 5e materials on the fly, but I liked it because it seemed really quick and intuitive to bolt on whatever else I felt like using, and also to quickly redo monsters instead of using them as-is (or magic, or whatever). The rules are very easy to hack. I'm looking at using it to run a Midgard campaign, and it took me maybe 5 minutes to stat out the rest of the races I might want, and porting over some themed magic also won't be hard. Anyway, that's where I'm at with 5TD.

 

[Libertad]

So, just to be sure :

"Melee and Ranged weapons are separated into Simple and Martial categories, which have larger damage entries depending on how they’re gripped. The base die type for simple weapons are d6, martial d10. Two-handed weapons deal one die type higher for damage, but wielding a one-handed weapon in 2 hands allows you to roll the base damage die twice and keep the best result."

By using a greatsword or greataxe you're rolling a d12 (6.5 damage) and by using a longsword or battleaxe two handed you're rolling 2d10 and keep the best result (7.15 damage) ?

Yeah, it does seem that dual-wielding one-handed weapons will give you better results on average even if it has a lower maximum potential. Oddly enough I still think that sword and board fighting is the best way to fight, as being able to auto-negate damaging blows is worth more than dealing +1 or +2 damage every swing.

Fireball = Furyfire.

Also, in basic D&D, there were races as classes, so you never got any dwarven clerics, halfling mages, or whatever. That all came with AD&D.

The specification that the spell harms allies and the lack of a mention of range (like with Arcane Arrow) made it sound like an aura effect centered on the caster.

I do think that 5TD is hewing close to race as class by making it so that most dwarves will be Fighters, elves Mages, etc due to how hard it is to get a 13 stat for said scores. But the supposed 'balancing' factor was getting nifty abilities like stonecunning, which the races in this game don't get at all.