D&D General AD&D 3E To AD&D 5E Hypothetical Incremental Edition

[DEFCON 1]

In BX and AD&D it took 10 minutes to explore a portion of the dungeon. Movement is per turn not per round. If you follow that pace the 5-minute adventuring day does not exist.

"Exploring the unknown: When exploring unknown areas of a dungeon, characters can move their base movement rate in feet per turn. This (very slow!) rate of movement takes account for the fact that PCs are exploring, watching their footing, mapping, and trying to be quiet and avoid obstacles."

I've always had this in the back on my mind even in later editions, which is why in my game most things run on a 10-minute timer. Searching rooms/areas for things and then picking the locks / disarming the traps found takes 10 minutes, casting rituals takes 10 minutes, Short Rests are 10 minutes. So now most PCs have something to do whenever the party stops for any of those things. The Rogue needs to work on a trap they found? The Fighter and Monk can now take a Short Rest to get back some HP and class features, while the casters can prep a ritual or two.

 

[kigmatzomat]

In BX and AD&D it took 10 minutes to explore a portion of the dungeon. Movement is per turn not per round. If you follow that pace the 5-minute adventuring day does not exist.

"Exploring the unknown: When exploring unknown areas of a dungeon, characters can move their base movement rate in feet per turn. This (very slow!) rate of movement takes account for the fact that PCs are exploring, watching their footing, mapping, and trying to be quiet and avoid obstacles."

That's only applies in some situations, which makes it campaign dependent. Do you search for traps in a city? In the main halls of a castle? A battlefield? The deck of a ship?

Plus it induces its own gaming behavior.

"Jeff, we can't rest, we've only made it in like a quarter mile and its a seven mile journey to the Tomb of MacGuffin."
"Well actually, that took us 7 hours."
"Seriously? Screw it, I'm heading back to town to buy a herd of sheep and we send them down the tunnel tomorrow."

 

[Voadam]

I've always had this in the back on my mind even in later editions, which is why in my game most things run on a 10-minute timer. Searching rooms/areas for things and then picking the locks / disarming the traps found takes 10 minutes, casting rituals takes 10 minutes, Short Rests are 10 minutes. So now most PCs have something to do whenever the party stops for any of those things. The Rogue needs to work on a trap they found? The Fighter and Monk can now take a Short Rest to get back some HP and class features, while the casters can prep a ritual or two.

I really dislike the 5e default short rest is at least an hour model.

I can see John McClaine taking a breather after finishing a life and death fight with bad guys in Die Hard to pull himself together before pressing on. I really don't see taking at least an hour to do so.

The B/X ten minute turn and basing a lot of action timing off of it feels workable even if the movement rates stretches that when peered at too closely.

 

[The Soloist]

That's only applies in some situations, which makes it campaign dependent. Do you search for traps in a city? In the main halls of a castle? A battlefield? The deck of a ship?

Plus it induces its own gaming behavior.

"Jeff, we can't rest, we've only made it in like a quarter mile and its a seven mile journey to the Tomb of MacGuffin."
"Well actually, that took us 7 hours."
"Seriously? Screw it, I'm heading back to town to buy a herd of sheep and we send them down the tunnel tomorrow."

If you are in adventuring mode, you should search for traps in a city's back alley, during the infiltration of a castle, scouting a battlefield or boarding a ship at night to jump the pirates.

Otherwise, the rules stipulate you use normal movement.

Wilderness travel operates under a different set of rules. It's the old-school D&D non-unified system.

(Good luck getting those sheep to the dungeon. Many things can go wrong with these meta-gaming player plans.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So how about this for an idea. 3.0 in 2000 took a different direction and it was more like AD&D 3E vs the 3.0. Could also be renamed to D&D sold on unifying B/X and AD&D.

It survives until now but went through incremental changes.

What changes did you think happened an when?

Things that still happen in 2000.

Ascending AC
Skills replacing WP/NWP
Unified Ability scores (BECMI range?)

Things I'm not sure about.

Feats (probably added 2000 still)

Thoughts?

So, if I'm understanding correctly, we need a minimal set of changes from 2e to 3e in order for it to go 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, ..., 3.9, 3.10 etc. with current 5e being some point along that smooth curve?

Feats definitely still need to happen. Without them, or something essentially equivalent to them, you can't get a bunch of what 5e offers.

Let's see...

Magic items are going to be dicey. You can't put the genie back in the bottle here. If you put out rules for how magic items can be created, with prices and such, you...really can't iteratively declare those things null and void. Without the grognard allergic reaction to "Christmas Trees" or "Magic Item Marts" from our world's 3e and 4e, there doesn't seem to be any motive for this "AD&D3" to work so hard to exclude magic items--especially because players are so magic-item-positive in general. Not really sure how you could address this one.

You'll need to standardize races. 3e tried to have its cake and eat it too with "level adjustment" and the like, which failed miserably. I think players would rightly cry "power creep" if you start from a 3e-like LA+N regime and then later transition to what we now see in 5e (all races designed to be, effectively, LA+0; no ability score penalties; no templates; etc.) So you'd have to have some reason for why all races are starting out intending to be on more or less an even keel with a lot of modern sensibilities either already baked in or at least not baked out, as it were.

Subclasses are in a weird position. IIRC, 2e had this whole idea of class "groups" where for example Cleric and Druid were both part of the "priest" group, or something like that. Potentially, your AD&D3 concept could thus smuggle in the foundations of subclasses with its reset-changes. Then, later on, things like 2e "kits" can be re-integrated through the ACF concept, but as package deals rather than piecemeal.

I'm sure a number of people will cry foul on this, but dragonborn would need to be added prominently and (relatively) early, same with tieflings and a few other "exotic" races that are now quite popular. Part of the effect (whether benefit or detriment depends on who you ask) of an edition "reset" is that it puts new options in the limelight in a serious way.

I suspect during the 2000 to (roughly) 2009ish "no subclasses yet" phase, you'd need to make a lot of classes, but then give them little to no support thereafter, so that the subclass variation becomes the "this is the iterative update version of that thing." It'll still be a bit weird and hard to explain in a purely iterative way, but I can see a finagling of it.

Overall I just don't think this works conceptually. A bunch of the ways D&D developed were specifically because of long-term reactions to major, discrete changes in the rules from one "reset" to another.

 

[Blue]

Okay, instead of feats I think they double down on the Skills and Powers type options, so you have more fundamental level building blocks for your character.

What 5e thinks of subclasses is provided via Kits. Which are less transformative than subclasses, but that's okay because we have a lot mroe control with the Skills & Powers options anyhow.

Still a move to a unified mechanic (d20+mod >= DC), so looking at other unified things.

Multiclassing would have continued in the "pick 2-3 classes and split your XP between them", but allowed humans to do it as well, and removed demi-human level limits. That's part of moving to unified mechanics.

Also unified they MIGHT move to a single XP chart, but that would mean buffing/debuffing some classes. I'm going to say each class still has it's own XP chart. That makes AD&D-style multiclassing more interesting anyway.

Though now I'm second guessing that - if classes go up in level at the same time, it might enable some other things in multiclassing instead of the "half HP blah blah" workaround they used. Would need to reread and ponder.

Divine Magic only go up to spell level 7.

No spell slots, you prep specific spells unless you are a sorcerer. Which has a very different progression of spells. (So no unified spell progression.)

On the other hand, saves will still be based on just the person making them, so will get easier and easier as you level up, which becomes part of how they try to handle the LFQW issue.

Cantrips are implemented as spells (which take up slots, not that slots are separate from spells prepared anymore) that once you cast them you can do X special effect for 1 hr/caster level. They are effectively utility spells, like Unseen Servant, that can continue to do things for a while.

Initiative becomes roll + mods to start, and then going off Weapon Speed or Segments to Cast phases later in the initiative, with AD&D 3E having new rolls every round and AD&D 5E having cyclic for the base. You can interrupt spells by doing damage between the time casting starts and when they go off. Extra Attack and TWF allows a second attack 10 segments after the first finishes.

If they have unified ability scores, probably also removed the limits by class (for example IIRC non-fighters capped at 16 CON for HP bonus per level).

 

[Remathilis]

My guesses

Ability score modifiers smooth out. Maybe not like the 3e onward math, but I think you see some level of standardization. Exceptional Strength is gone and replaced with a smoother strength mod curve.
Humans would get a racial feature and level limits go. I think race class restrictions would be lessened if not removed.
The assassin, monk, and barbarian return to the PHB, as does half-orc. Sorcerer might also, as they are remarkably easy to backport (cf Baldur's Gate 2).
Many of the Player's Options abilities for combat which took weapon proficiencies become "feats". Classes can buy proficiency in a group of weapons or in these "feat" maneuvers.
Fighters get a little more combat ability in the ability to pick up free combat maneuvers. Thieves pick up some of their later class features (evasion, sneak attack) as well.
Clerics get something closer to the domain system: a core list of spells plus a few spheres that grant them extra spell choices.
The wizard opposition schools would be relaxed slightly, and spells move schools.
AC is flipped upwards, but still capped at around 30 (-10).
Monsters get full ability score suites.
Saves are more clearly defined while keeping the 5 classic groups.
Skills would probably be redone, though I'm not sure how.

I imagine it would look a lot like how 2e made some larger changes and clarified a lot of things but kept the core mechanics the same. The ones I picked were a lot of the sore-spots that were often times houseruled by the end of 2e or had a few takes at them via the Player's Options system. I think the goal would have been to streamline and clarify, but not necessarily re-invent.

 

[Minigiant]

Classwise

The Assassin returns.
The Thief and Assassin are separate classes. The Thief has better skills. The Assassin better backstab. The Ninja would be an Assassin kit.

The Bard gets Backstab and never becomes a full caster.

The Barbarian returns.
The Barbarian becomes like the Monk with more HP and better weapons. Unarmored AC bonus. And weapon attacks strike as if magic.
The Barbarian can be around spellcasters and can use magic weapons and armor.

The Thief-Arcobat becomes the Arcobat
The Acrobat gets a different suite of skills.

The Cavalier stays
The Cavalier becomes a nonspellcasting but magical version of the Paladin.

The Sorcerer would still return as a nonbook mage. Likely built like Harry Potter.

TheWarlock/Witch would be a class by AD&D 4e but I don't know how it would look.

 

[Staffan]

Though now I'm second guessing that - if classes go up in level at the same time, it might enable some other things in multiclassing instead of the "half HP blah blah" workaround they used. Would need to reread and ponder.

You could reverse things and go with the solution sort of used for BECMI elves. Instead of splitting XP across 2-3 classes, add the XP requirements together. So if you're a fighter/mage, you need 4,500 XP to hit level 2.

That said, I prefer balancing classes across levels so a 5th level fighter is equal to a 5th level thief is equal to a 5th level mage.

 

[Shardstone]

I've always had this in the back on my mind even in later editions, which is why in my game most things run on a 10-minute timer. Searching rooms/areas for things and then picking the locks / disarming the traps found takes 10 minutes, casting rituals takes 10 minutes, Short Rests are 10 minutes. So now most PCs have something to do whenever the party stops for any of those things. The Rogue needs to work on a trap they found? The Fighter and Monk can now take a Short Rest to get back some HP and class features, while the casters can prep a ritual or two.

Great post.