D&D 5E making 5E more "old school" (updated)

[Frankie1969]

Over in the "What adventure are you playing?" poll thread, I started thinking about simulating older editions within 5E.

1st draft: focused mainly on making the mechanics match more.
2nd draft: I think it's more important to make good changes.
beta release: further simplification of classes.

Advanced D&D, 5th Edition

Ability Scores: roll 4d6k3.

Races: it can't be AD&D without a few minuses. Dwarf: -1 Dex. Elf: -1 Con. Gnome: -1 Wis. Halfling: -1 Str. Half-Orc: -1 Cha. The penalty reduces initial score AND maximum limit.
Half-Elf: replace Skill Versatility with Keen Senses (go detect secret doors like you're supposed to, quit asking about other skill check rolls).
Human: standard (vanilla becomes more palatable when the other options are all nerfed).

Follow the old complicated race/class limits if you want to.

Classes: there were just plain fewer choices in ye olden days. You picked your class and that was what you got.

• "Cleric": Life Cleric, but replace Preserve Life with +1 use of Channel Divinity (aka Turn Undead only).
• "Fighter": Champion Fighter, and 1st level Fighting Style is Defense.
• "Magic-User": Evocation Wizard, but eliminate Sculpt Spells (in my day, you blew up your friends and you liked it).
• "Thief": Thief Rogue (note: skill checks are devalued).
• "Druid": Land Druid, but cannot use direct-damage cantrips (weapon-changing cantrips are allowed).
• "Paladin": Devotion Paladin, and 2nd level Fighting Style is Defense.
• "Ranger": Hunter Ranger, and 2nd level Fighting Style is Defense.
• "Illusionist": Illusion Wizard, but cannot use direct-damage cantrips.
• "Assassin": Assassin Rogue (note: skill checks are devalued).
• "Monk": Open Hand Monk, but replace Tranquility with "spend 3 ki points: cast Feign Death on self".
• "Bard": Valor Bard, but Magical Secrets are only from Druid (and skill checks are devalued).

Character options:

• Feats: of course not.
• Multiclassing: follow the old complicated rules if you want to. Definitely no multi involving Paladin or Monk.

Equipment: see silly, excessive weapon list in followup post below.

Loot: use the DMG random item tables.

Skills: skills didn't exist at all in 1E, and were a very limited option in 2E. The DM should require fewer checks and just ad-lib it. Also, exercise veto authority over Background+Class combinations that don't fit the feel of the campaign. No, your ranger is not proficient in Thieves Tools.

Non-weapon proficiencies: 5E has those.

Healing: after a long rest, characters only regain hit dice. Recuperation requires time, potions, or a cleric.

Monsters: (at some point I'll go through my 1E Monster Manual and make 5E conversions of any that haven't been brought back yet.)

Wandering Monsters: 5E DMG has a few environment tables, and rules for making your own. Xanathar has a bunch more.

Followers & Loyalty: Thanks much to @extralead for pointing out that 5E DMG already has rules for this.

Hirelings: already in 5E PHB.

Strongholds: already in 5E DMG.

Psionics: no. We all know you faked that percentile roll.

Things I'm leaving out: weapon modifiers vs armor. weapon damage vs size. weapon & casting speed factors. changes to monsters, saving throws, etc.

 

[Shiroiken]

I think you have the ability modifier for Half-Elf and Half-Orc reversed. Otherwise you're taking away the bonus of being a half elf.

I'd drop the hard cap of ability scores from 20 to 18. You still have the ASI, but the way 5E is setup you have to have it or feats (unless you want to kill fighter).

 

[hejtmane]

Over in the "What adventure are you playing?" poll thread, I started thinking about simulating older editions within 5E, so here's a first draft:

Restrictions for 1E/2E:

• roll for stats.
• use XP.
• race/class options:

	Dwarf -1 Dex	Elf -1 Con	Gnome -1 Wis	Halfling -1 Str	Half-Elf -1 Cha	standard Human	Half-Orc -1 Wis
Life Cleric	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Trickery Cleric (C/T)			Y		Y		Y
War Cleric (C/F)	Y		Y		Y		Y
Arcana Cleric (C/M)			limited		Y
Land Druid					Y	Y
Champion Fighter	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Eldritch Knight (F/M)		Y			Y
Devotion Paladin						Y
Hunter Ranger		Y			Y	Y
Thief Rogue	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Assassin Rogue						Y	Y
Arcane Trickster (M/T)		Y	Y		Y
Wizard (school)		Y	Illusion		Y	Y
Valor Bard					Y	Y
Open Hand Monk						Y
Berserker Barbarian						Y
Battlerager Barbarian	Y

• Thieves Tools are only for Rogue.
• Sleight of Hand is only for Rogue or Bard.
• Ranger must take Animal Handling.
• no Feats.
• Multiclassing: non-humans may alternate equally between Fighter & Rogue; everything else is replaced by archetypes.
• humans may switch to a new class, but cannot take more levels of the previous one.
• less skill check rolls, more ad-libbing.
• Long Rest: characters only regain hit dice, not hit points.

What else?

Look I grew up on d&d &1e and parts of it I loved and parts of it are inferior to 5e sorry I prefer the flexibility, sub class multiclassing and no race level restrictions of 5e. 5e captures the 1e feel without some of the orneriness of 1e

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

 

[Ganymede81]

Make it so Fighters cannot take an archetype. Also, make it so fighters get no features at all. That's hella old school.

 

[Storyteller Hero]

If you really want to make it feel old school, you could always re-implement Thac0.

 

[jaelis]

What else?

Level caps?

Way more weapon variations, and limited weapon proficiencies?

 

[Alexemplar]

Make it so Fighters cannot take an archetype. Also, make it so fighters get no features at all. That's hella old school.

They'd start getting followers starting at levels 9+.

 

[LordEntrails]

If you want to play old school, just play one of the old editions or one of the dozen OSR systems.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Get rid of the wimpy keeping saving until you succeed mechanic. If you fail a save, you’re stuck the whole duration. And only one attempt for Medusa and gorgon type abilities. Also, give powerful undead level draining abilities.

No death saves
Make poison deadly
Spell interruptions

 

[epithet]

A significant amount of that "old school" stuff is garbage that we all used to ignore in AD&D anyway. Racial level caps is a great example--I don't know anyone who actually took that seriously.

Back in the "old school" days of D&D, almost no two games were run the same, because just about every DM understood the need to take the basic framework, use what you liked and worked for your group and style, and make up what you needed to fill in the gaps. Perhaps the biggest difference between "old school" D&D and the current game is the idea that the "Rules as Written" have some kind of cosmic importance. We never used to get hung up on figuring out the technical nuances of exactly what Gary wrote, we just worried about figuring out the way we thought it ought to work, which became The Rule. We could always go back and change it if it caused problems.