Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
1E at Heart 3rd Edition Mind Set
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5685498" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>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.</p><p></p><p>Some specific things though:</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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).</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 5685498, 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. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
1E at Heart 3rd Edition Mind Set
Top