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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Quixote" data-source="post: 3463864" data-attributes="member: 694">Well, basic D&D is a lot simpler than AD&D.  Some of the biggest differences include:- You can't mix race and class.  All fighters, clerics, mages, etc. are humans, while elves, dwarves, and all the other races are their own classes.- Alignment is a simple matter of deciding whether you are Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic.- Ability scores use a very simple adjusment scheme, as follows:3: -34-5: -26-8: -19-12: 013-15: +116-17: +218: +3Demi-humans have no racial ability adjustments, and there is no way to raise a score above 18 or drop one below 3.- There is no multi-classing or dual-classing.- Combatants get only one action per round, rather than a "move action" and an "attack action", or a "full round action".- The way spells and magic items work is usually greatly simplified.==========My spell-casting system is actually one of my more radical house-rules.  I've used it for basic D&D, AD&D 2nd edition, and 3e, and it seems to work fairly well.  The concept is this:All casters (including clerics) keep spell books.  They have to scribe the spells they want to learn from scrolls or other spell books, like normal, but the difference is, they don't have to memorize or prepare the spells they know in order to cast them.  Instead, they simply have to have their spell book out and open to the right spell.The hang-up is, turning to any given spell in your spell book takes an action, meaning that switching the one spell that you have available to you takes up one round.  Say, for example, you are a 2nd level mage with 2 MP to cast 1st level spells with, and you know both sleep and magic missile.  When a fight breaks out, if you didn't have your spell-book open, you have to take one round to open your spell-book to the spell you want.  Let's say you try casting sleep on round 2, but it doesn't work.  With 1 MP left, you take round 3 to turn in your spell book to magic missile, and cast it off on round 4.Now, you can't always cast spells from your spell-book, because you need light to read by, you need two free hands (one to hold the book and one for somatic gestures), and it's dangerous to have your spell-book out in the open.  Enemies will pick you out and try to bash or burn up your book (or worse, bash or burn you).  So, to make casting your favorite spells easier, you are able to memorize a small number of spells each day.  A 1st level mage can memorize one of his spells, for example, while a 3rd level mage can memorize any two of his spells, a 5th level mage can memorize any three of his spells, and so on.  Memorized spells can be cast on the fly, without ever opening your spell-book; and you can change which spells you have memorized each day, by studying your book after resting.So let's say that 2nd level mage in our example had memorized magic missile as his daily spell.  In combat, he could either cast it right away on round 1.  Or, if he had spent round 1 opening his spell book to the sleep spell, and round 2 casting sleep, he could cast magic missile right away on round 3 without taking any extra actions.</blockquote>

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