D&D 5E How Old-School is 5th Edition? Can it even do Old-School?

[Yora]

With games like Basic Fantasy and Old School Essentials available, there's no need to try to change 5E to be more old school. These games are cheap/free, easily accessible for anyone with experience with 5E, easy to teach for completely new players, well supported with tons of adventures and supplements and are just fantastic games.

There is a huge space of possible games to play between those two ends. B/X out of the box and 5th edition out of the box are not our only options. There are vast numbers of things that you can like about either game and want to have in your campaign, without loving everything about either.

When you add more and more elements of one to the other, then at some point it might become reasonable to consider switching to the other one as the baseline and modifying that to your taste. But even between that hypothetical halfway point and 5th edition out of the box there's still a vast range of possibilities to run your campaign.

How would you port over warlocks, bards, and druids with all the land circles ,and exhaustion over to OSE? I think at that point it does become sensible to consider 5th edition as the baseline and tweaking that.
And that doesn't even go into the subject of player interest.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Ideas:

halve PC ability bonuses, then cap at 18. First +1 at 14, +2 at 18. Don’t cap monster bonuses though.

casters taking damage in the round before they cast disrupts the spell. You can decide if they lose the spell slot.

feats are optional, don’t allow them.

make a non-rest act of healing expend a hit die. Maybe add some harsh to it by saying such healing also adds 1 level of exhaustion per attempt.

 

[Mannahnin]

casters taking damage in the round before they cast disrupts the spell. You can decide if they lose the spell slot.

Maybe combine this with spellcasting needing to be declared at the top of the round. If you also introduce a mechanic for coordinated party retreats from combat, you could also require this to be declared at the start of a round. (Both of these as in B/X).

 

[Monayuris]

There is a huge space of possible games to play between those two ends. B/X out of the box and 5th edition out of the box are not our only options. There are vast numbers of things that you can like about either game and want to have in your campaign, without loving everything about either.

When you add more and more elements of one to the other, then at some point it might become reasonable to consider switching to the other one as the baseline and modifying that to your taste. But even between that hypothetical halfway point and 5th edition out of the box there's still a vast range of possibilities to run your campaign.

How would you port over warlocks, bards, and druids with all the land circles ,and exhaustion over to OSE? I think at that point it does become sensible to consider 5th edition as the baseline and tweaking that.
And that doesn't even go into the subject of player interest.

A lot of elements that are codified with rules in modern games can simply be handled by a discussion with the DM to work something out. OSE and Basic Fantasy have a Druid class (as well as Bards), if you want your Druid to be specific to a certain Land, you can discuss with the DM to have a bonus spell or some special ability.

If you want a Warlock, that's just a Magic User. You can just roleplay that you get spells from a patron being instead (and you can hash it out with your DM if you patron has any strings attached).

You don't need laundry lists of options, you can just work out something that works for the both of you. That is more in line with old school... it is more of a DIY approach.

It depends on where you want to start. If you want an old school D&D experience, start with something that is as close as possible to that experience and build up from there. If you want 5E with a nod to old school do likewise starting with 5E.

You can get some old school feel out of 5E. I'd recommend doing the following..

1. Use only the classes from Basic PDF - Wizards cover any type of magic user, Fighters can cover Ranger/Barbarian/etc. Cleric also covers Paladin. Backgrounds can help with this. A ranger is just a Fighter with the Outlander or some Wilderness Background (if you want a ranger that casts spells, go Fighter with Outlander background and multi-class to Wizard)

2. Remove skills from the game. You just use ability checks. If you are doing something that your race, class, or background suggests you should be good at you get your Proficiency bonus. You no longer have a list of skills, instead you have a dialog that builds your character as you go.

3. Remove cantrips. Cantrips like Light, Spare the Dying, Mage Hand really damage the old school feel. Light should be a carefully managed resource, there should always be a real risk of death, and you generally should be getting up and close and taking risk when interacting with the environment.

4. Roll Hit points instead of taking the above average static values.

5. Use 1 week long rests and 8 hour short rests (gritty realism in DMG, I believe)

6. Get rid of death saves or reduce them to a single save.

7. Go through monsters and identify the ones that are nerfed with regards to special abilities. Many monsters have had the bite of their special abilities taken out of them making them less dangerous (ghouls are a great example).

My point is after doing this, you end up with something that isn't really 5E anymore.

I could go the other direction and start with Old School Essentials, add advantage/disadvantage ( making it based on player fictional positioning ONLY) and then handle any special abilities or elements not present in OSE by working with the player on a case by case basis.

 

[Krachek]

without touching core mechanics

Lethality
Remove healing word and revivify.
Allow monster to lay attack on down PC more often.

Resting
Remove Leomund tiny hut.

Class
Remove any subclass that look too flashy for old school.

Reduce ability scores
Ex.:
Roll 6x3d6, arrange at will.
Point buy : 18 points.

Skills
There is variant for allowing Ability check proficiencies by class. P 263.
That may fit better.

 

[Malmuria]

That seems like a weird and twisted bit of logic. If the 5E warlock is supposed to be "average population", then by that standard the B/X magic-user should be too.

Even the 1E DMG points out the fact that player characters are not average individuals and atypical from the "common man", right in the section on bell curves, stats and the like.

A 1st level 5e warlock has a spell slot that recharges on a short rest, 2 cantrips they can cast infinitely, and a special ability from their patron like the ability to communicate telepathically. After one or two sessions they will level up and 2 spell slots per short rest and two invocations.

A 1st level b/x magic user has one spell slot, a dagger, and d4 hit points. They need 2500 gold pieces to make it to level two, where they get a second spell slot and another d4 hit points.

My claim is that the former is going to feel, both as a game piece and as a character in fiction, as much more powerful and "high magic" than the latter. In terms of being old school, the 5e player will have more answers to solve challenges on their character sheet than the b/x player.

 

[Yora]

However, how essential to an oldschool play style are first to third level? Unless the campaign ends early, most players will have a 4th level character eventually. And I think at that point, a new 5th edition character doesn't necessarily look that impressive.
Some people really love playing first and second level with a hit point total where basically anything in the game could one-hit kill you. That's a thing. And one that doesn't translate to 5th edition. But it's only one of many elements that are found in the oldest editions. And not necessarily an essential one that the rest of the play style relies on.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

However, how essential to an oldschool play style are first to third level? Unless the campaign ends early, most players will have a 4th level character eventually. And I think at that point, a new 5th edition character doesn't necessarily look that impressive.
Some people really love playing first and second level with a hit point total where basically anything in the game could one-hit kill you. That's a thing. And one that doesn't translate to 5th edition. But it's only one of many elements that are found in the oldest editions. And not necessarily an essential one that the rest of the play style relies on.

I don’t think 1st-3rd play is essential. In my opinion, I think many want to play through those levels because they are opportunities to find magic items that are one of the essential ways older edition characters gained abilities and wealth than newer edition characters.

 

[Malmuria]

However, how essential to an oldschool play style are first to third level? Unless the campaign ends early, most players will have a 4th level character eventually. And I think at that point, a new 5th edition character doesn't necessarily look that impressive.
Some people really love playing first and second level with a hit point total where basically anything in the game could one-hit kill you. That's a thing. And one that doesn't translate to 5th edition. But it's only one of many elements that are found in the oldest editions. And not necessarily an essential one that the rest of the play style relies on.

That's an interesting question. There is definitely a strand in OSR game design that really prefers those levels, and especially the mudane problems that come with them (tracking resources, slow healing, need to creatively use mundane equipment, problem of how to get treasure out of the dungeon, etc). There's also the preference that levels don't give you that many more abilities and hit points, and that they take longer to acquire. That preference is maybe more an OSR-specific thing, as BECMI obviously went up to 36.

 

[GreyLord]

Well, I played BECMI D&D with some 5e players this christmas vacation. I sent several of them off crying and really upset.

The old school style of play that went with pre-WotC TSR didn't really work with their expectations. Combats were NOT balanced, and other expectations from 5e didn't actually work for them. Had several party wipes.

You can play 5e with the type of style (free wheeling, loose, adaptable) as old school D&D, but it became very apparant with the New School players I had that old school gaming where the old school harshness comes in is NOT something many of the newer players deal with easily or well.

If you never were a harsh campaign driver though, it probably could run similarly.

However, how essential to an oldschool play style are first to third level? Unless the campaign ends early, most players will have a 4th level character eventually. And I think at that point, a new 5th edition character doesn't necessarily look that impressive.
Some people really love playing first and second level with a hit point total where basically anything in the game could one-hit kill you. That's a thing. And one that doesn't translate to 5th edition. But it's only one of many elements that are found in the oldest editions. And not necessarily an essential one that the rest of the play style relies on.

While one party wipe was with a low level party, the other was with a group around 7th and 8th level. Old School D&D can be a pretty harsh taskmaster if you run a brutal campaign.

Not everyone ran campaigns like that though (and though I ran one like that this weekend, I don't always run one like that either).

Story campaigns that didn't have harsh combat possibilities (if they engaged in combat) or troublesome situations during it, but instead focused on character growth and storylines were something that's been around since people started playing RPGs. That type of play I think could go very well with Old School and 5e, but as I found this weekend, players who started with 5e, or at least many of them, don't seem to take very well to the Old School, you can die at any time if you aren't careful, type gameplay.