D&D 1E Giving an AD&D feel to 5e

[Hussar]

In L1 Secret of Bone Hill lies a Horn of Valhalla. It's probably the single most valuable piece of treasure in the module. How many groups ever found it? (my own tally combined as player and DM is 1 of 4, and it didn't go well for the 1: the wrong class used it and the summoned warriors promptly killed the user...)

But, the Horn is not hidden at all. It's pretty much the first tower anyone sees when entering the Keep. Why did everyone not bother going in there? I'll admit, I've never played this module. Fair enough. But, it's not hidden at all. Did you player routinely leave areas that were very easy to get to unexplored? Because that's a very different kind of player than I've ever had.

Here's a link to the map. The horn is in E. Am I missing something?

https://neogrognard.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/secret-of-bone-hill-map.jpg

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Sorry, but a thought occurred later on that I thought I'd add. I think this bit right here, with Lanefan and myself, illustrates some of the real difficulties in discussing earlier editions in anything but very broad terms. To me, the notion that you'd leave an unexplored area, right near the beginning of the adventure, just wouldn't happen. We were Greyhawking ie. strip mining modules LONG before that term became popular in Living Greyhawk. How could you avoid encounters? You never knew where the really good treasure was, but, dollars to donuts, the presence of some tentacled beasty was a pretty good indicator.

But, in all fairness, I don realize that there are others that didn't play this way. I guess the point I've been trying to make through this though, is that WE DID. Not because we were munchkins or Monty Haul or anything like that, but, because, it made the most sense to us to do so.

 

[Lanefan]

But, the Horn is not hidden at all. It's pretty much the first tower anyone sees when entering the Keep. Why did everyone not bother going in there? I'll admit, I've never played this module. Fair enough. But, it's not hidden at all. Did you player routinely leave areas that were very easy to get to unexplored? Because that's a very different kind of player than I've ever had.

Depends on the module. As player I remember ignoring the tower; we were concentrating on getting into the main structure on arrival and then forgot about the tower after that. As DM, the first group I ran in it also ignored the tower - in fact I'm not even sure they went into the courtyard at all, as their repeatedly-used point of entry to the main structure was the hole in the back wall. The second group, 15 years later in a different campaign, was who found the horn; and that only because a character had run in to the tower to take cover from being fireballed*. The second time as player, which came after this, I knew too much from having DMed it and thus had to keep quiet about some things until I realized the DM had modified most of it.

* - and on finding the horn the character tried it out. End of character, but the Vikings then ran outside and got fireballed - which gave them a fine target for who to attack next, so it wasn't a complete waste.

Sorry, but a thought occurred later on that I thought I'd add. I think this bit right here, with Lanefan and myself, illustrates some of the real difficulties in discussing earlier editions in anything but very broad terms. To me, the notion that you'd leave an unexplored area, right near the beginning of the adventure, just wouldn't happen. We were Greyhawking ie. strip mining modules LONG before that term became popular in Living Greyhawk. How could you avoid encounters? You never knew where the really good treasure was, but, dollars to donuts, the presence of some tentacled beasty was a pretty good indicator.

But, in all fairness, I don realize that there are others that didn't play this way. I guess the point I've been trying to make through this though, is that WE DID. Not because we were munchkins or Monty Haul or anything like that, but, because, it made the most sense to us to do so.

My general experience is that on average (with wide variance) very roughly 1/4 of the potential treasure value in any given module doesn't come out with the party. Sometimes because it's too big or bulky to carry, sometimes because while they find it they don't realize it has any value and thus leave it, and most often because they outright miss it.

Adventures where the party are on any kind of time clock are even worse for this.

 

[S'mon]

My main methods to give 5e an AD&D feel is award 1/10th exp

I definitely think slower-than-assumed advancement is necessary, though I've been able to achieve an AD&D style advancement rate with full monster XP, just by changing assumptions on the typical encounter from 'one CR appropriate monster' to more like '4d10 kobolds' or '3d6 orcs'

 

[tetrasodium]

My general experience is that on average (with wide variance) very roughly 1/4 of the potential treasure value in any given module doesn't come out with the party. Sometimes because it's too big or bulky to carry, sometimes because while they find it they don't realize it has any value and thus leave it, and most often because they outright miss it.

Adventures where the party are on any kind of time clock are even worse for this.

Ime its probably a bit higher but either way it touches on a problem with the 5e hc 5e's design where not finding treasure can be crippling because you want find stuff to make up for it elsewhere since the magic item. Budget doesn't really fit maybe finding too much of it

 

[Hussar]

To be fair, in 1e, you were expected to find magic items. Heck, you absolutely needed magic items to progress. There were monsters that couldn't be hurt unless you had magic items. And they became more common the higher your level. It was built right into the game that you would be absolutely dripping in magic items by the end of a lengthy campaign. Particularly if you played modules. But, even the random tables weren't stingy. Heck, look at how many magic items you would get from The Secret of Bone Hill. There's a buttload of permanent magic items to be had there and that's for a 2nd-4th level party.

5e works perfectly fine without magic items at all. You don't actually need any. It's perfectly fine to miss 100% of the magic items in an adventure. You aren't presumed to have items. A 1e AD&D fighter with no magic items at, say, 5th level, is basically a victim. By this point he should have at least one, if not more than one, magic weapon, magic armor, magic shield and probably a couple of potions and a buffing item or two. Maybe a ring of fire resistance, and something else as well. A 5th level 5e fighter functions perfectly well without any magic items.

I know this because my Thule campaign went from 1st to 10th without any magic items and no full casters. 5e works perfectly fine without them. I ran the Thule modules as is and didn't have to make any adjustments. There is just no assumption of magic items.

 

[S'mon]

Ime its probably a bit higher but either way it touches on a problem with the 5e hc 5e's design where not finding treasure can be crippling because you want find stuff to make up for it elsewhere since the magic item. Budget doesn't really fit maybe finding too much of it

? 5e doesn't have magic item budget or dependency. Are you thinking 3e or 4e?

 

[tetrasodium]

? 5e doesn't have magic item budget or dependency. Are you thinking 3e or 4e?

No I'm not. The designers of 5e inherited a game absolutely swimming in magic items right from the start & tried to change that but only accounted for one of the reasons that the ocean filled with magic items existed. Making it so magic items are not "required" doesn't change the benefits they bring to story/plot, adventure design, & more no matter how many times someone says that they aren't required. I could type a long thing about why finding stuff is fun, or I could quote the 2e ad&d dmg in a thread about giving 5e an ad&d feel

Spoiler: pg115

Players didn't fee like they needed to scour evert room like a particularly aggressive band of merrymaids in past editions because it's not as fun as finding it while adventuring. plus they already found gobs of it & expect to find gobs more when they go do something else. Now with 5e they will often feel like they must & will almost immediately reach the point of oversaturation because there is no magic item budget built into the game.

 

[House_Of_Dexter]

Players didn't fee like they needed to scour evert room like a particularly aggressive band of merrymaids in past editions because it's not as fun as finding it while adventuring. plus they already found gobs of it & expect to find gobs more when they go do something else. Now with 5e they will often feel like they must & will almost immediately reach the point of oversaturation because there is no magic item budget built into the game.

I don't know if I agree...CoS is Magic Item low...and PoTA is turning out to be the same(They are level 9 soon to be 10...They've found the Stone Thrower, Windvane, Platemail, half Plate, and a Wand of Magic Missile and some other minor magic). My group hasn't complained and are doing fine...

 

[overgeeked]

Er...I dunno, the roll-under-stat mechanic came from somewhere and that sure looks like a (better version of an) ability check to me. But it was always driven by the DM, players couldn't just do it proactively as such things simply weren't accepted practice at the time.

If not already mentioned, they came from Moldvay Basic D&D, B60 "There's always a chance". They are repeated in Cook Expert D&D, X51 "Saving vs Abilities". They're both presented as optional rules. But they are there and they work so well most "advanced" groups adopted them.

 

[overgeeked]

Thanks for pointing me at that! Never taken the time to find it but I've long wondered where we all got the +2/-2 since 5e so oddly left it & bonus types out when they did so much to enable both players & GMs. Looks like it was on 3.5 dmg30 with the bonus types & stacking stuff a few pages earlier on pg21

I think it was the "you can add modifiers endlessly" bit that caused people to pull away from that and go towards the 5E advantage/disadvantage system. It's much smoother and cleaner in play. It also avoids endless arguments about exactly how many +s and -s a given action should have. Circumstances good enough for a bonus, advantage. Circumstances bad enough for a penalty, disadvantage. Done. No need for endlessly hunting down every single +/-2. Ugh. Good riddance.

Rereading it after all of these years it's almost inconceivable that wotc has spent so long ignoring it in favor of 5e's theory that an absence of rules for this stuff is what somehow really enables people.

Having fewer, broader rules is more empowering than having infinite, tightly focused rules. With the former, the DM gets to make the call based on loosely presented rules. With the latter, the DM has to memorize hundreds of pages of specific rules and if one of those rules doesn't apply to a given situation, the DM gets to make a call based on loosely presented rules. The former is easier all around and infinitely less of a headache.