An OD&D-style 4E game?

[Dykstrav]

One of the things that I'm enjoying more and more about 4E is sharing the history of the game with my current group. I've only got one other old-timer, so our tales of THAC0, the attack matrix, and initiatives rolled on 2d6's or d10's are always fun. Some of my group have expressed an interest in trying out older versions as a one-shot and I've considered running something like Keep on the Borderlands or the Village of Hommlet for them.

So I got to thinking this morning... Would it perhaps be more interesting or easier on my 4E-familiar players to run a OD&D-style game under 4E rules? I'd mostly do this by modding the character creation options and modifying the way certain procedures work. Here's what I'm thinking:

• The basic classes are fighter, wizard, cleric, and rogue (all humans, of course). I'll make a basic writeup for elves, dwarves, and halflings as classes.
• Paladins, avengers, druids, and certain other character classes would be presented as paragon paths. Maybe I'll do it to where paladins, druids and the like are simply using the multiclass feats and require them to use the paragon multiclassing rules or something. I'll pore over my PHBs and think about it.
• Once characters hit the paragon tier, they have the option to clear a tract of land and build a stronghold, tower, temple or whatever. They may or may not attract followers. This is something else I'll think about.
• Alignments are lawful, neutral, and chaotic.
• Magic items are identified by the identify ritual.
• You gain experience for treasure that you find.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

 

[ggroy]

Remove marking, hunter's quarry, etc ... at the heroic level for fighting type classes.

In my experience so far, players not familiar with 4E will tend to forget these things easily anyways.

 

[Mircoles]

Running them through an old style dungeon I can understand.

Altering 4e so it's more old style in rules I can't.

Just run them through OD&D.

Also, what do you mean by OD&D, just the first 3 books or the first 3 and the 4 suppliments?

 

[Vartan]

I like the idea of trying to run an OD&D-style 4E game: you gain the benefits of the modern game but you can tailor a nostalgic experience for your old players (and give the new players a glimpse of the hobby's history).

Your group doesn't have a lot of OD&D players, so adopting 4E rules to an old-school style might be a better idea than just playing OD&D. The game materials are in print and the current rules are more "polished" than the OD&D rules. Plus, your players won't have to worry about learning a new system if they want to get into RPGA play or sit down at another table somewhere down the road.

I think that you could have a big problem if you were to divorce the classes from the races: this makes a lot of work for you and leaves a lot of room for error in terms of adjusting game balance because the concepts of race and class are so seriously baked into the current rules. It's not just changing up options for your players (like the Paragon Paths which I discuss below), it's almost like saying "We're going to roll 1d10 for all attacks and skill rolls now, and I need to adjust the game accordingly." This could also be the sort of thing that your new players don't care about at first, but that might make them grumpy down the road.

I think that converting the "non-basic" classes to Paragon Paths is a very cool idea but, again, it's more work. The class powers in 4E are very balanced: you'll need to make sure that your power levels are adjusted accordingly, because regular-old Druid powers just aren't going to cut it as the basis for a Paragon Path. You'll also want to pick a few PPs for standard Clerics, Fighters, etc. to choose so they can advance without having to adopt a radically different PP.

I love the idea bringing back followers and building strongholds at Paragon level. I like the idea of giving out XP for treasure, but this is a choice you guys will have to make based on your own gaming preferences. Basically, it means really fast advancement. If ya'll don't mind the exponential acceleration of level advancement--which will ultimately shorten the life of your campaign--then go for it. It's a great way to motivate PCs to go the extra mile.

I'm all about older editions of D&D. My favorite is 2E, and I'm working on a similar "4E adaptation" for that edition. I love 4E and think it has a lot of potential for creative play. Props for thinking outside of the box, and good luck!

 

[UngainlyTitan]

In my opinion there are two way to do this; one run an old style game with old style rules (OD&D if that's your preference) or run it with 4e rules.
In the latter case i would make no real changes to the 4e rules except for posions and insta kill traps.
Going from memory old school posions were insta kill, make a save or die or make a save and suffer ability damage.
I would translate these as drop to 0hp and start rolling death saves, attack fortitude and if it succeeds drop to 0 and start making death saves and the last one cause healing surge loss and uses the disease rules for recovery.

Give the xp for treasure and make liberal use of wandering monsters and you would have a game that would feel pretty old school.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I'd just run the system with the feel I'm after. (That is, for OD&D feel, I'd run OD&D; for 1e feel, I'd run 1e; et cetera). I'm not saying that you can't run a given system with a different feel, I just question whether it's worth the trouble. For me, the answer to that question is definitely "nope." YMMV, of course.

That said, you might want to check out the discussion of "4e Classic" on the Necromancer Games forums, which was an attempt (now apparently defunct and abandoned) to do what you're talking about.

 

[Thasmodious]

Greywulf, the blogger, ran a 4e as OD&D game for his group some time ago and wrote about on his blog. Here's a link to part 1:

Like it’s 1981 all over again, part one | Greywulf's Lair

 

[Oni]

If they want to try out one of the older versions, why not just use that or one of the slightly cleaned up retro-clones.

 

[Dykstrav]

Yeah... Making a 4E version of the OD&D style game seemed like a plausible, interesting idea this morning, but reviewing the Rules Cyclopedia and the like makes me realize that I could spend my time better than trying to backwards-engineer 4E.

I think I'm just going to straight-up run an OD&D game as a break, probably running the party through either Keep on the Borderlands or that one adventure that features Bargle. That should satisfy the rules-curious. If they're interested, I might consider using the Known World as the setting for the next campaign.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

Well, to go with an BECMI OD&D feel, that'd be one route.

I'd say go with multiclassing for the advanced class variants like paladin/avenger, druid, thug (for NPCs), & so on.

Dwarves, elves, and halflings could begin in a set character class (perhaps another character class not available to humans), and they'd need to progress in a racial paragon path (ala PHB2). I'd encourage players of the "demihuman" classes to include feats only available to their race, as well.

(Dwarves should be a defender class; elves should be a controller or striker class; and halflings should be a striker class. Perhaps dwarf-fighters, elf-sorcerers [or elf-bards], and halfling-rangers.)

The Mystic class of BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia D&D could be covered by the Monk class.

I'd rerstrict the use of superior weapons, esp. ones like the double-bladed weapons & so on.

Then again, you wouldn't need to do ANY of this, since the BECMI D&D really started to expand its style and options with the old Dragon "Voyage of the Princess Ark" articles. Included a druidic knight class (which the PHB2's Warden could cover), half-elves, bards, & so on. But, they should be rare, at the very least. Even the Gazetteers opened doors: the elf-like human Forester class; the demihuman clerics; orcs, goblins, & other monsters as PCs; etc.

I think the feel & style of it all would be best achieved NOT by restrictions made on the players & how the game works, but on how the DM runs the game & uses the setting to recapture that feeling. Don't award XP for treasure, but keep the treasure simple (simple magic arms & armor, and not awarding a lot with special abilities beyond that, for example). Use monsters & NPCs in the OD&D style (only all of the chromatic dragons, plus the gold dragon, are the types of dragon in the setting. White and blue dragons would be Unaligned, and Gold dragons would be Lawful Good). Epic characters would be having Immortal/gold box adventures (demons, gods, epic monsters, etc.). Little things like that.

(The stronghold element is a nice touch, though. Think things in relation to that could be answered in 5th ed. rules with DMG 2.)