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

[S'mon]

I guess this question is primarily directed at people who consider 5th edition to be a system that works reasonably well enough for a more old-school style campaign. What exactly is it about the mechanics that has a certain old-school ring to it, or makes it suitable to be used for such a purpose?

My Faerun Adventures sandbox campaign feels very old school to me. The thing about 5e is that it really is designed to be modular - feats and multiclassing are optional rules in the PHB. In the DMG, training to level and 1 week long rests are also optional rules. For some reason a lot of GMs seem afraid of picking the options that will give them the game they want. So IMC no feats or multiclassing (the Paths give a lot of that already, eg Eldritch Knight is a F/MU), training to level, 1 week long rests. I use the XP system as-is, which in a sandbox with mostly low level monsters results in slow advancement. I have a lot of magic treasure, especially weapons. While I use the standard Point Buy rules, I could have gone truly old school with 3d6-in-order PCs, and indeed might do that in the future (optionally rerolling if total is under 70, a tip I got from my current Basic Fantasy RPG GM).

 

[S'mon]

Battlemasters with a full page of maneuvers in the PHB, and rogues being assumed to do sneak attack on all attacks. I don't know how to draw a line between what's old-school or not, but all of this really doesn't feel like it to me.

Personally I don't think Sneak Attack is a big deal, but I know one GM who banned sneak attack shooting into melee. I don't recommend nerfing classes though. Better to curate the allowed paths - eg most Fighters are Champions, but Elves may become Eldritch Knights. Maybe Clerics' domain is determined by their race (Human > Life, Dwarf > Forge). You could make all Wizards Invokers if you wanted. All Rogues are Thieves, or maybe some are Assassins for a 1e AD&D feel. Etc etc.

 

[S'mon]

People talking about how every 1st level character is assumed to have at least an 18 in its main stat, but better a 20.

That sounds like 4e. By default 5e Point Buy PCs tend to start with a 16 in their main stat, but the game is fully playable if they start with a 14.

 

[DND_Reborn]

People talking about how every 1st level character is assumed to have at least an 18 in its main stat, but better a 20.

IME, a PC's main ability score has a distribution of:

20 - 5%
19 - 5%
18 - 10%
17 - 20%
16 - 30%
15 - 20%
14 - 10%

I can't recall ever seeing a PC whose main stat was 13 or lower in 5E... I'm sure it has happened, but not IME.

 

[S'mon]

I haven't changed XP awards at all and it has taken my group 21 months (and 29 four-hour sessions) to get to 6th level.

You can definitely have slow advancement in 5e while sticking to RAW. Just use mostly low level monsters and be stingy with bonus XP. My Faerun game has gone 1-7 in 17 months, about 50-60 sessions I think.

 

[S'mon]

To me, the salient features of old-school play are (1) randomly generated and mechanically simple characters; (2) an open world or sandbox, and an XP system that encourages exploring it (preferably something concrete and diegetic, like XP = GP); (3) a campaign structure where enough time passes between active game sessions that real time can roughly keep pace with game time; (4) a need for characters to spend substantial downtime between adventures (because of healing, training, research, or tending to an estate or dominion), so as to intentionally create "gaps" where some characters are unavailable for adventuring during some sessions; (5) the understanding that said gaps are to be filled with newly-created 1st level characters, such that each player will eventually have a "stable" of PCs (of different levels) to choose from; and, perhaps most important of all, (6) that each adventure be player-driven rather than plot-driven (In that it's always the players who decide what their characters are going to do at the beginning of each adventure when they strike out from their home base).

5e is a poor match for the first point; could be made to fit the second, third, fourth, and sixth with a bit of tweaking; but generally doesn't admit to the possibility of point five — because everything about 5e and its attendant play-culture is centered on the concept of players playing their singular OC.

This is largely how I run it, except new PCs are brought in at half the highest PC level. That's currently 7th, so new characters start at 4th.

 

[Yora]

You can definitely have slow advancement in 5e while sticking to RAW. Just use mostly low level monsters and be stingy with bonus XP. My Faerun game has gone 1-7 in 17 months, about 50-60 sessions I think.

I've been putting together a list of monsters that would appear in my homebrew campaign setting, and it's pretty much all CR 5 and lower. Excluding dragons, there are only three creatures between CR 6 and CR 10, and nothing above that.
I'm getting all kinds of great ideas for adventures in which things like lamias or wraiths are the big bad boss monsters terrorizing a whole region. Spending a long campaign entirely on the lowest 5 level does sound really attractive in that context.

 

[S'mon]

I've been putting together a list of monsters that would appear in my homebrew campaign setting, and it's pretty much all CR 5 and lower. Excluding dragons, there are only three creatures between CR 6 and CR 10, and nothing above that.
I'm getting all kinds of great ideas for adventures in which things like lamias or wraiths are the big bad boss monsters terrorizing a whole region. Spending a long campaign entirely on the lowest 5 level does sound really attractive in that context.

It worked really well for me! 5e is great how eg 20 goblins can be a dire threat to 4th level PCs. 'Bounded accuracy' is brilliant for using low-challenge monsters = slow advancement, without needing to alter the XP chart or awards. I generally saw I think about 4-5 sessions to reach 2nd level, 4-5 to 3rd, 5-8 to 4th, and slower after that. Amazingly the initial level 1 PC group did not lose anyone at 1st level, though they lost their two NPC sidekicks to goblins led by an imp. Of that group, the one PC who was lost (captured & turned into an aberrant monster) reached 5th level Monk first.

 

[jmartkdr2]

IME, a PC's main ability score has a distribution of:

20 - 5%
19 - 5%
18 - 10%
17 - 20%
16 - 30%
15 - 20%
14 - 10%

I can't recall ever seeing a PC whose main stat was 13 or lower in 5E... I'm sure it has happened, but not IME.

With point buy, unless you put your biggest number in another stat, I don't think you can start with a main stat below 14. So it would have to come from rolling, not being generous with the rolls, and sticking with the low rolls (rather than just suiciding early for a re-roll).

I'm sure it's happened at least once, but it's obvious why it isn't common.

 

[DND_Reborn]

With point buy, unless you put your biggest number in another stat, I don't think you can start with a main stat below 14. So it would have to come from rolling, not being generous with the rolls, and sticking with the low rolls (rather than just suiciding early for a re-roll).

Sure.

I'm sure it's happened at least once, but it's obvious why it isn't common.

I've thought about it more and I am tempted to say it might have happened once. I seem to recall one player using point-buy and balancing it out (three 13's and three 12's), and then making a human and using both +1's in the 12's, and choosing a feat to gain a +1 in the last 12. So, it was literally all 13's in the end. But IIRC he never played the PC and might have made it just as a build experiment as I seem to think he wanted to take feats to eventually get +1s more for all six and have all 14's...