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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5685498" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think a lot of the 1st edition feel can be successfully conveyed by adopting 1st edition conventions about how monsters are distributed, how treasure is distributed, and how dungeons are to be designed.  Some tweaking is required but I've had good success adopting things like the 1st 'no appearing' form the 1st edition MM, using the 1st edition treasure tables, generating magic items according to the 1st edition table, and even in one case generating a dungeon using mostly the random dungeon generation table in the back of the 1e DMG.  Granted, you may have to tweak things abit to achieve 3rd edition balance, and granted there are some aspects of 1e which you might not want to port wholesale (like the need to pump the PC's with mounds treasure to keep them advancing in level) but on the whole I don't feel that 3e had to signficantly change my game world.  First level became the new 0th level, and second level became what 1st level had been.  Other than that, things didn't change much.Some specific things though:1) The first edition experience was very varied, and you really can't say that 1e feel was any one thing.  For me, it was slower rate of advancement and scarcer magic items than what I saw as the default in 3e.  For others, especially those relying heavily on published modules rather than the MM treasure tables, the rapid advancement and mounds of magic items probably wasn't jarring and might have even been familiar.  Depending on how closely you adhered to the rules and how your DM treated illusions, you might the find the fact that 3e is dominated by spellcasters to be familiar, or you might find the lack of balance to be jarring.2) Rebalancing spellcasters requires some specific and probably contriversial steps to be taken.  For me, the following seems to work fairly well as a start: spells no longer add their spell level to the DC to pass a save, use the weakest of either the 3.0 or 3.5 version of the spell and tweak any remaining spell that wins the action economy, and elimenate 'casting defensively'.  I've found 1e to be a good resource for looking at how spells used to be balanced.  Often there were restrictions in 1e that were dropped, resulting in the spell being broken.  You don't have to go fully with the 1e route (Frex, I use 3.5 haste, rather than 1e haste and its balancing of you age two years every time you cast it.), but it is helpful to think about.  You might still need some small tweaks after that, but provided you have a more 1e like encounter structure instead of one big CR+4 battle per day (allowing spellcasters to go nova) things work relatively well at least through the level of play you'd focus on in 1e.  (I've never attempted to play 3e at near 20th level, and have no intention to.)  The resulting balance is at least as good as 1e, which had serious balance issues of its own just in different places (especially when you add Unearthed Arcana to the mix).3) Did things like keeping watch, marching order, and so forth ever really go away?  If they did, it had nothing to do with the system and everything to do with how you ran the game.  So run the game like you are running classic D&D.</blockquote>

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