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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 9501406" data-attributes="member: 7026594">I did it for my last (three year) old school game.  As folks have noted, it works in part because the advancement tables are geometric, so with even division of XP, by the time the survivors have gained ONE more level (and assuming they haven't died or run into level drain), the newbie is only one level behind.Level drain and item destruction are great, as is save or die poison, but I like to signpost energy drain and poison, and to make mitigating effects relatively common.  And finding new items. Losing stuff, levels, and dying like this are easier to take and more fun if gaining levels, new stuff, and finding anti-venom or resurrection magic are also easy. I introduced minor scatter rules for AoEs in my last 5E game.  Fireball was getting a little monotonous with the precision placement in melee.I like 3E's innovation of negative energy levels. Each level drained = -1 to hit, save, and skill checks, -5 off max HP, and lose your top level currently available spell slot.  After 24 hours you get a save for each NEL for it to either wear off or become an actual lost level.  That way the mid-combat math is simple.In 1E instead you have Gygax specifically inveighing against critical hits:We used to track our own HP but use those categories (well, similar, Scratched, Wounded, Badly Wounded, Near Death) for communicating to other PCs.  We didn't allow telling other players your exact HP.This is one plus side of the plentiful retro-clones and variants nowadays.  You can almost always find one that's a good fit.Agreed.  I do like to re-skin monsters so I rarely have to worry about or police inappropriate character use of player knowledge.</blockquote>

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