D&D 1E Giving an AD&D feel to 5e

[Grammarsalad]

Have you checked out castles & crusades? It's closer to 3e that feels like 1e, but it is pretty cool imo

 

[Hussar]

Last time I ran A2 I ran it pretty much stock with a party averaging about 8-9 characters at any given time (there was a fair bit of turnover), of 3rd-4th level.

Five kills, two petrifications; just from the opponents in the module.

Yeah, using characters that are actually lower level than suggested by the module, you made the module deadly. I can see that.

 

[Hussar]

You are also flawed in saying that because a dragon appears in the module, you were meant to fight it. That's the whole point you're ignoring. No you're not. You don't have to. With the way the game is designed, you're encouraged to avoid combat when possible. Or come up with creative ways to handle the combat when it happens.

Have you read DL1 Dragon's of Despair? Because, well, you are pretty much supposed to fight that dragon. You most certainly were not encouraged to avoid it. But, hey, I'm going by my experience with the game. Now, I did agree that the lethality comes from the save or die stuff. Sure. Tons of that. But straight up combat damage? Not likely. The PC's as a group simply dealt far, far more damage than our monsters (which have about 1/4 of the HP of their 3e/4e/5e counterparts) could handle.

See, sure, you might not have that +2/level in bonus HP. But, your baddies had no bonuses at all. An ogre averaged 19 HP. Two longsword hits and our ogre dies. 42 hp hill giants anyone?

 

[Hussar]

For me, one of the biggest things you can add to give a 1e feel is morale rules. Part of the "combat is deadly" conversation that always gets left out is the fact that most monsters don't fight to the death and the morale rules meant that you could cause the baddies to flee generally somewhere around 1/2 to 2/3rds casualties/hp loss. Whack the leader of the group, kill a couple of others, and many groups of baddies would run.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Have you read DL1 Dragon's of Despair? Because, well, you are pretty much supposed to fight that dragon. You most certainly were not encouraged to avoid it. But, hey, I'm going by my experience with the game. Now, I did agree that the lethality comes from the save or die stuff. Sure. Tons of that. But straight up combat damage? Not likely. The PC's as a group simply dealt far, far more damage than our monsters (which have about 1/4 of the HP of their 3e/4e/5e counterparts) could handle.

See, sure, you might not have that +2/level in bonus HP. But, your baddies had no bonuses at all. An ogre averaged 19 HP. Two longsword hits and our ogre dies. 42 hp hill giants anyone?

If two longsword hits in your game do 19 points of damage, then I suspect you're playing monty haul D&D anyway, which explains a lot about your position.

Here is just one room in G1 (one of the modules you listed):

And that's not factoring in the other 25 giants and 14 dire wolves that are also down the hall. That's just the upper level.

Just perhaps you weren't expected to fight them all in standard combat Half of the NPCs in the back had less than 60hp themselves.

No, just because a monster was in a module didn't mean you had to leap in and fight it. Not only is that flawed, it's the antithesis of how 1e was designed. I already provided you a quote from the DMG that advised what to do with players who always go to combat first. And one only has to look at how the rules actually worked to clearly see how taking a combat always approach would result in dead PCs left and right (and many died anyway).

Look at the moathouse in T1. That's a first level adventure. Poisonous snakes, blood draining ticks, paralyzing ghouls, deadly green slimes, and a final boss who ruined your day with one hold person spell. That's not even counting the toughness of the mundane foes in that. So when you look at how many hp PCs had, how much damage they were looking at, and save or die (not save or keep saving like 5e) with chances being you failed a saving throw if you had to make one, it is abundantly clear that the game was never designed to have every encounter fought. Even if you refuse to look at the rules or listen to me, the people who created the game said as much, and frequently. It's also basic human nature to look at the risk of something, the reward of something, and figure out that most of the reward was for things other than putting your PCs at risk by trying to fight everything, so why put your PCs at risk when you only got little reward for great threat?

 

[Ancalagon]

If two longsword hits in your game do 19 points of damage, then I suspect you're playing monty haul D&D anyway, which explains a lot about your position.

Here is just one room in G1 (one of the modules you listed):
View attachment 135153

And that's not factoring in the other 25 giants and 14 dire wolves that are also down the hall. That's just the upper level.

Just perhaps you weren't expected to fight them all in standard combat Half of the NPCs in the back had less than 60hp themselves.

No, just because a monster was in a module didn't mean you had to leap in and fight it. Not only is that flawed, it's the antithesis of how 1e was designed. I already provided you a quote from the DMG that advised what to do with players who always go to combat first. And one only has to look at how the rules actually worked to clearly see how taking a combat always approach would result in dead PCs left and right (and many died anyway).

Look at the moathouse in T1. That's a first level adventure. Poisonous snakes, blood draining ticks, paralyzing ghouls, deadly green slimes, and a final boss who ruined your day with one hold person spell. That's not even counting the toughness of the mundane foes in that. So when you look at how many hp PCs had, how much damage they were looking at, and save or die (not save or keep saving like 5e) with chances being you failed a saving throw if you had to make one, it is abundantly clear that the game was never designed to have every encounter fought. Even if you refuse to look at the rules or listen to me, the people who created the game said as much, and frequently. It's also basic human nature to look at the risk of something, the reward of something, and figure out that most of the reward was for things other than putting your PCs at risk by trying to fight everything, so why put your PCs at risk when you only got little reward for great threat?

I think a lot of this is due to the slide from "combat as war" to "combat as sport". Combat is given a lot of room in D&D - rule wise, time wise, effort wise. So some have started to see it as "the thing". And the encounters become "balanced" so that the PCs can show up, do their thing, and expect to win.

But in combat as war, there is no guarantee of "balanced" encounters. And the way to win is to engineer a situation where you can crush the enemy. In war, the best battle is when the foe doesn't get to fight back. You aren't there to have "manly contest of arms", you are here to win and not die.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think it would be far easier to take a good OSR rules set and just give it a patina of 5E with a couple of tweaks. Going the opposite route seems like a needless amount of work. 5E is, in may ways, designed not to feel too much like AD&D, at least in nothing but the most superficial ways, so why work against the design of the game?

I like 5E by the way.

 

[Lanefan]

If two longsword hits in your game do 19 points of damage, then I suspect you're playing monty haul D&D anyway, which explains a lot about your position.

At the sort of level where you're going into the G series you've probably got at least a +2 weapon if you're a Fighter. Chances are pretty good you're also getting a damage bonus from Strength, even if it's a mere +1. (Str 17 gives this) Against big things like Ogres, longswords do d12 damage in 1e, so 6.5 on average. And hey, look at that - (6.5 + 3) x 2 = 19.

And that's before any sort of weapon specialization.

Here is just one room in G1 (one of the modules you listed):
View attachment 135153

And that's not factoring in the other 25 giants and 14 dire wolves that are also down the hall. That's just the upper level.

Yeah, that's not a room anyone wants to face-charge into. A classic example of a situation where your best tactic is to nibble at the edges - sortie in, pick off a few of 'em as they wander the halls, bail out until the resulting hubbub has died away, then repeat.

No, just because a monster was in a module didn't mean you had to leap in and fight it. Not only is that flawed, it's the antithesis of how 1e was designed. I already provided you a quote from the DMG that advised what to do with players who always go to combat first. And one only has to look at how the rules actually worked to clearly see how taking a combat always approach would result in dead PCs left and right (and many died anyway).

Agreed.

Look at the moathouse in T1. That's a first level adventure.

Though, to be fair, a bloody nasty one; possibly the nastiest 1st-level adventure you'll ever find.

 

[teitan]

That slow level progression was such a big part of earlier gaming. The joy of hitting 2nd level after so many trials and near-death scrapes. You felt forged in fire. Just getting a +1 longsword that glowed in the dark felt like drawing forth Excalibur. In 5e, you can easily get to 2nd level after your first adventure.

The thing I miss the most as a DM! Best way to emulate that is "milestones" but don't make them story based. Just level them up when you feel it is appropriate. I am using XP for my Theros campaign and they are levelling quickly, which is fitting for the setting but were I to run Greyhawk I would have them levelling every two or three adventures with a slow crawl after level 7 of 4 adventures or thereabouts.

 

[Hussar]

Umm, a longsword vs larger target is d12 damage. Two hits, without any bonuses, is still max 24 points of damage. Enough to kill an average ogre. Or, as @Lanefan put it, certainly not unreasonable.

And, yeah, look at that encounter. Two fireballs and poof, encounter over. Like I said, 42 hp giants.

But, hey, keep proving me right by pointing to the extreme examples of encounters in modules as to how lethal the game was. It's funny. Gygax complained about how many players were hitting double digit levels, back in the 70's. I wonder how they did it if @Sacrosanct is right. After all, according to him, no one should have ever advanced past third level in all the years of gaming.

It's like the "slow progression". That's another myth. The DMG actually flat out states you should be hitting name level in a year of gaming. 2e? Oh, ok, fair enough. No xp for gp? Yup, that's going to slow advancement to a crawl. Totally fair. But AD&D? Naw, you yoinked up levels quick as you please.