D&D 1E Getting a 1E/2E feel from 5E

[Lanefan]

There's already been some good suggestions here (and, I have ot say, some rather odd ones), I'll echo a few and throw in some new. And if I ever end up running 5e this is exactly what I'll be going through, to make it play like 1e.

1 - random roll for stats (no point buy), random roll for h.p. (no averaging or best-of or other generosities)
2 - bring back stat requirements for certain classes; intentionally meaning that your stat rolls may ban you from playing what you had in mind
- - - in other words, change the mindset a bit such that a player decides what her character will become based on what the dice give her
3 - bring back system shock and resurrection rolls
4 - slow down the level advance rate. A lot. Gaining a level should be an uncommon achievement, not something that happens every other session.
5 - use training rules
6 - keep multi-classing but go back to splitting the xp, this allows some nice flexibility in how a player defines their character (look at banning some combos that don't make sense)
7 - 7 PC races only: Human, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Hobbit, Part-Elf, Part-Orc.
8 - 11 or 12 or 13 PC classes only: Fighter, Ranger, Paladin-Cavalier*, Cleric, Druid, Magic-User, Illusionist**, Thief, Assassin, Monk, Bard***
- - - * - try to find a way to combine these two
- - - ** - I could very easily be talked into adding a Necromancer class as well
- - - *** - completely redesigned from the ground up, or abandon it entirely; the class has never worked well in any edition IMO.
9 - think about banning some race-class combos for flavour reasons e.g. no Dwarf Wizard-types, no Part-Orc Druids, etc. - this would vary by group and DM.
10 - tweak nearly ALL spells to put both the risk and the reward back in, casting time returns, no "combat casting", time-based durations rather than concentration, etc.
- - - in partcular: make illusions able to hurt, make polymorph work like it should (poly self quite limited, poly other has severe risks if cast on allies), take damage-dice caps off, etc.
11 - simultaneous initiatives allowed
12 - change stat increments such that all classes use a 1e-Cavalier-like %-ile system
13 - die at -10, unconscious at 0, drop the death-save mechanic
14 - drop all non-magical healing except actual resting, overnight rest gives a small fraction (1/10? 1/4?) of total h.p. back
15 - look at slightly reducing damage dealt by some monsters

Yes, to do all this would be a huge amount of work. Best bang for the least buck might be to quickly do 1,2,3,4,7,8,12,13,14 above, then try it from there.

Lanefan

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

One ticket to 1983, coming up:

(1) Restrict classes to ranger, barbarian, magician, thief, cavalier, and acrobat.

(2) Give the party a unicorn animal companion.

(3) Have them get plot hook from a gnome in red robes.

(4) Have their one-horned half-demon nemesis be named "Venger"

(5) Run 1E module of choice

...

Profit!

 

[Barantor]

One ticket to 1983, coming up:

(1) Restrict classes to ranger, barbarian, magician, thief, cavalier, and acrobat.

(2) Give the party a unicorn animal companion.

(3) Have them get plot hook from a gnome in red robes.

(4) Have their one-horned half-demon nemesis be named "Venger"

(5) Run 1E module of choice

...

Profit!

I talked to Venger on Twitter the other day. I believe they made an adventure that went along with the cartoon.....

 

[Tony Vargas]

If you were to attempt making 5E more like 1E or 2E what changes would you make?

I'd run it as written, instead of tweaking it on the fly now and then. Feels a lot like 1e, already, to me, but then I played a lot of 3.x & 4e and got used to 'em...

Slower healing, perhaps 1hp/level per long rest

OK, yes, and that.

No feats

Of course, they're optional, don't opt-in.

Remove automatic stat increases

Hmm.... maybe... or give them only up to a total-stat-point or total-stat-bonus limit. I mean, we are rolling for stats, right? I assume that's a given.

Anything else anyone can think of?

Dust off an old 1e/2e module and run it. I've gotten good results doing so.

Oh! Heal from negative instead of 0. Heal from 0 changes feel if the players catch onto the weird 'efficiency' of waiting for allies to drop before healing them.

This might be too heavy handed or arbitrary, but limit the subclass selection?

A couple of examples: Fighter= champion archetype only, Rogue = Thief, cleric= life domain, wizard =Evoker.

Or Illusionist for the wizard, obviously, or for full-on 1e, allow Assassin for the Rogue.

1 ... 15 Yes, to do all this would be a huge amount of work.

Less work: just talking the players into 1e.

 

[Barantor]

I find that letting the players roll for stats even in a standard "all in" 5E game ends up with some players so disinterested because of their low stats and others making short work of some opponents because of very lucky rolls.

I don't mind the randomness from the old days, but the initial stats can really break a group compared to how they used to be for some reason.

 

[steeldragons]

Steel Dragons' kind of 1-in5-e...

1. No point buy. No "standard array". Roll 4d6, drop the lowest. Six times. Arrange to taste.
2. Since we want a 1e experience in the 5e game, I would keep the Ability Score boosts, but max them at 18.
3. Alignments MATTER! Pay attention to what the players are doing and change them as necessary.
4. No multiclassing (3e-style MCing is the root of all evil and troubles...in the D&D community). No dual classing. No feats.
5. PC Races: Humans, Elves (High or Wood only), Dwarves (Hill or Mountain, why not), Halflings ("Lightfoot" or Stout but both, you know, without the shoes), Gnomes (forest only), Half-Elves, Half-Orcs. No dragonborn. No tieflings. No drow. No "tinkerer" rock gnomes.
6. Classes are a little more involved than races cuz I don't have issues with 5e's "subclass" structure and think several of them offer a nice variety of classic flavor. So, I'd go with this:

• Fighters: Champion, Battlemaster. Allow Eldritch Knight for High elves and Half-elves only (since you're not using MCing, this gives you a decent facsimile of the classic Ftr/Mu's. Let a gnome character take EK and use Illusion/Enchantment spells instead of Evocation/Abjuration spells for the classic Ftr/Ilt)
• "Wizards" [meh. I'll take Mage any day]: Evoker or Illusionist.
• Clerics: Life domain or War domain only. Must be an alignment that matches or suits their deity! (alignments matter, remember)
• "Rogues": Thief (obviously, can not be Lawful alignment), Assassin (must be Evil, if you allow that sort of thing), Arcane Trickster for gnomes only (for the classic Thf/Ilt multiclass, and I'd probably impose the "not Lawful" here too.)

Now...

• Rangers: Hunter only. Must be any Good alignment. I recommend holding off allowing spellcasting until 8th level, but I suspect that 'breaks" the 5e class. So take a look at my "Ranger Rehash"[final draft, page 4 post 37, I think] over at the Homebrew forum, I'd recommend the Guardian subclass for the most 1e-feel. Otherwise, just use the 5e ranger as is, but Hunter only. If you want to get reeeeally 1e, restrict Favored Enemy choices to humanoid options and/or the Giants category only.
• Paladins: Devotion only. Must be Lawful Good.
• Druids: Land only, move Wildshape to be a benefit at 7th level. Must be True Neutral.
• Monks: Open Hand or Shadow (let's face it, everyone wanted to use the monk as a ninja in 1e anyway). Must be any Lawful alignment.
• Bard: Lore or Valor (why not. Gives you some of that "must be Fighter-first" thing...and they were a "Rogue" class in 2e). Must be any Neutral alignment. Take a look at the Bard's spell list and see what you think. I think it's a great spread of what I always thought a bard should have. If you want to go a bit more limited/1e spell-wise, make them choose from the druid list.

annnnd, what the hell, who doesn't like a lil' Unearthed Arcana up in their 1e...

• Barbarian: Berserker only. Must be any Chaotic alignment.
• Permit a Fighter: Battlemaster with the Knight Background to take/have the Mounted Combatant feat for a Cavalier. With the only Feat in the game, he'll be almost as out of whack/broken in relation to the rest as he was in 1e.

No Sorcerers (*sigh* a world with no sorcerer class. Those were the days). No Warlocks (though I don't find their flavor as objectionable).
7. Rests & Healing: Short rest is 1 hour minimum. Long rest is 8 hour minimum. 1HD only used restoring HP after a rest. No full overnight healing. Allow non-magical healing to full with a 7 day long rest. Require Healer's Kit Dependency (DMG, p. 266) for any "in the field" non-magical healing.
8. Lingering Injuries option from the DMG, p. 273.
9. Morale option, DMG, p. 273.

Dang. Was hoping for a nice round 10...There's more I'm sure...but start with that.

 

[Li Shenron]

I think the point would be to try and replicate the 'feel', not the exact rules. If you end up with a list of a lot of changes to work on in order to bring back the older rules, then it is wasted time, and should just play the older edition.

Nonetheless, the following is a good list:

1 - random roll for stats (no point buy), random roll for h.p. (no averaging or best-of or other generosities)
2 - bring back stat requirements for certain classes; intentionally meaning that your stat rolls may ban you from playing what you had in mind
- - - in other words, change the mindset a bit such that a player decides what her character will become based on what the dice give her
3 - bring back system shock and resurrection rolls
4 - slow down the level advance rate. A lot. Gaining a level should be an uncommon achievement, not something that happens every other session.
5 - use training rules
6 - keep multi-classing but go back to splitting the xp, this allows some nice flexibility in how a player defines their character (look at banning some combos that don't make sense)
7 - 7 PC races only: Human, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Hobbit, Part-Elf, Part-Orc.
8 - 11 or 12 or 13 PC classes only: Fighter, Ranger, Paladin-Cavalier*, Cleric, Druid, Magic-User, Illusionist**, Thief, Assassin, Monk, Bard***
- - - * - try to find a way to combine these two
- - - ** - I could very easily be talked into adding a Necromancer class as well
- - - *** - completely redesigned from the ground up, or abandon it entirely; the class has never worked well in any edition IMO.
9 - think about banning some race-class combos for flavour reasons e.g. no Dwarf Wizard-types, no Part-Orc Druids, etc. - this would vary by group and DM.
10 - tweak nearly ALL spells to put both the risk and the reward back in, casting time returns, no "combat casting", time-based durations rather than concentration, etc.
- - - in partcular: make illusions able to hurt, make polymorph work like it should (poly self quite limited, poly other has severe risks if cast on allies), take damage-dice caps off, etc.
11 - simultaneous initiatives allowed
12 - change stat increments such that all classes use a 1e-Cavalier-like %-ile system
13 - die at -10, unconscious at 0, drop the death-save mechanic
14 - drop all non-magical healing except actual resting, overnight rest gives a small fraction (1/10? 1/4?) of total h.p. back
15 - look at slightly reducing damage dealt by some monsters

I like this list because most of the points do not actually require much work, and most importantly they do not affect balance across different characters.

The only points which require heavy work are 8 (where it mentions Cavalier and Bard) and 10, but here perhaps instead of hard tweaks it might be easier to generally allow a more 'open' interpretation of spells, so that the DM allows higher reward but also introduces risks.

All other suggested changes are easy!

I am not sure about point 12 because I don't remember the Cavalier. About stats-increases I just want to say that you cannot get rid of them AND feats at the same time, otherwise you are hurting some classes more than others (because e.g. the Fighter gets 7 and some others get 4), which in turns means you need more work to restore their balance. So I would not bluntly remove both stats increases and feats, but only one of them and keep the other, even if it was not in AD&D. Or possibly, just give none to classes which normally get 4, one to classes which get 5, two to classes which get 6, and three to Fighters (so you haven't completely eliminated them, but at least they are much less common).

One possible additional consideration is that maybe it's not so much a problem with feats but rather with the idea of choosing them, which shifts the 'feel' of the game towards heavy character customization and optimization. So one solution that doesn't break class balance could be to (1) give no stat increases but (2) gain fixed feats per classes, and choose feats which add minimal complexity. So maybe the Rogue gains feats which grant more skills proficiencies and the Fighter feats which grant more HP, or something like that, but the players cannot pick feats a'la carte.

 

[Lanefan]

Nonetheless, the following is a good list:

Thanks!

I am not sure about point 12 because I don't remember the Cavalier.

Hauling out ye olde 1e Unearthed Aracna, on page 15 I find a long-winded description of percentile stat increments, which in short goes like this:

At 1st level, each of Str, Dex and Con gains a % roll. E.g. you have Con 15 and roll 87 on the d%, your Con is now 15.87.
At each new level after 1st you roll 2d10 for each stat with a % on it and add the result to the stat's % amount. E.g. I roll 11 on 2d10 at 2nd level so my Con is now 15.98 - no mechanical change.
However, at 3rd level I roll 13 on my 2d10 which takes my Con to 15.111, otherwise known as 16.11 - my Con's gone up to 16.

What we did with this is give it to every class, with some tweaks: you can have 2 or 3 stats going up but if you have 3 then they go up slower. One of the advancing stats must be the prime stat for your class; if double-class (or if a class has 2 prime stats e.g. Illusionist) both primes must rise. You can choose which non-prime stat rises if you have one, this choice is made at initial roll-up and cannot thereafter be changed. I have the (or a) prime stat advance a little quicker than the other one - the prime rolls 3d8 each level for gain while the other rolls 2d6. (if you've got 3 advancing then it's 2d8 for the prime and 1d10 for each of the others, per level). You have to track the roll at each level because if you lose a level you lose what came with it.

Percentile increments CAN take you into scores your race and-or class and-or gender wouldn't otherwise allow (an excellent feature, I always thought).

Now, who's found where this fell apart back in the day?

Yes, good old 1e exceptional Strength over 18, also expressed as a percent. This interacts horribly with it because as written Fighters (and anyone else with Str 18 for that matter) got way more mechanical advantage way more quickly from putting %ile on Strength than anyone else did by putting it on any other stat. Our solution was to "expand" the Strength tiers into their own prime numbers based on where the bonus changed; so old Str 18.41 became Str 19, 18.71 became 20, and so on up to 18.00 became 24; with Hill Giants becoming 25. Do this, and the percentile increment system works perfectly with all stats.

But this is 5e, so now this glitch isn't an issue at all.

One possible additional consideration is that maybe it's not so much a problem with feats but rather with the idea of choosing them, which shifts the 'feel' of the game towards heavy character customization and optimization. So one solution that doesn't break class balance could be to (1) give no stat increases but (2) gain fixed feats per classes, and choose feats which add minimal complexity. So maybe the Rogue gains feats which grant more skills proficiencies and the Fighter feats which grant more HP, or something like that, but the players cannot pick feats a'la carte.

Good catch, I meant to include something like that on my list but forgot - bake in a lot of class features that have become feats or skills, and lose the rest.

Lanefan

 

[CapnZapp]

Remember, your anecdotal experience doesn't make something universally true.

Remember, setting up straw men wins pointless arguments.

He didn't say it was universally true. He just answered the question "why no multiclass". He even said things like "we seem to have [] different experiences" and "in any campaigns I knew of".

 

[CapnZapp]

Also, wilderness stuff and travel was more brutal than nowadays. In 1e they used Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival. Also, 2e had suitably well written splat books on outdoor and underdark hazards and such. Not just the "make a roll or two" then you are there style of travel that many 3e/4e games do. Keep 20 cards of random encounters for this. 1e/2e LOVED it's tables.

I bet you will love Out of the Abyss