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Community
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making 5E more "old school" (updated)
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<blockquote data-quote="Monayuris" data-source="post: 7264493" data-attributes="member: 6859536"><p>I share the feeling of making 5E more 'old school', but I would try to approach this by keeping the rules mostly as is and just run the game with an old school approach. You don't need to rewrite the entire 5E system to get an old school feel. </p><p></p><p>What I would do to make D&D 5E more old school:</p><p></p><p>1. Stick to the Basic Rules PDF only. If you are going for a more old school feel, you don't need special classes and mechanics to express every possible character option. Barbarians are just fighters... it is a role-playing decision to have your fighter character come from 'uncivilized lands'. The Wizard class covers mages, warlocks, sorcerers all the same. (I would maybe open wizard and cleric classes to the other subclass options in the PHB... why have a druid class when you have a nature cleric)</p><p></p><p>2. Throw out skills and tool proficiencies. Make a concerted effort to reduce the number of ability / skill checks that you call for. Player input and choices and description matter more than a roll of the die. Only request an ability check if there is no other clear means of adjudicating an action. Instead of skills, grant proficiency bonus based on class / race / background.</p><p></p><p>3. Gold for XP. Take XP for monsters and trash it (or reduce by 1/4 or so). Grant 1 XP per GP recovered. It should work out fine... this blog did the math: <a href="http://blogofholding.com/?p=6760" target="_blank">http://blogofholding.com/?p=6760</a></p><p></p><p>4. Simplify initiative... just do side initiative (its in the DMG). Go one step further and do side initiative every round.</p><p></p><p>5. Remove damage dealing cantrips.</p><p></p><p>6. Look at the DMG options for healing and resting. Look at healer's kit dependency, slow natural healing, gritty realism options. Honestly though, the short/long rest recovery is a boon in disguise... these options just allow the party to have more exploration stamina and, ultimately, you want your players to be able to experience more of the cool stuff you created for them.</p><p></p><p>7. Design dungeons and encounters holistically, don't fret about maintaining proper CR and XP budgets. Put 20 goblins in a lair and let the players figure out how to deal with it. When designing traps and such, don't think in terms of DC's needed to disarm, instead think in terms of what possible actions the players can take to overcome it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Monayuris, post: 7264493, member: 6859536"] I share the feeling of making 5E more 'old school', but I would try to approach this by keeping the rules mostly as is and just run the game with an old school approach. You don't need to rewrite the entire 5E system to get an old school feel. What I would do to make D&D 5E more old school: 1. Stick to the Basic Rules PDF only. If you are going for a more old school feel, you don't need special classes and mechanics to express every possible character option. Barbarians are just fighters... it is a role-playing decision to have your fighter character come from 'uncivilized lands'. The Wizard class covers mages, warlocks, sorcerers all the same. (I would maybe open wizard and cleric classes to the other subclass options in the PHB... why have a druid class when you have a nature cleric) 2. Throw out skills and tool proficiencies. Make a concerted effort to reduce the number of ability / skill checks that you call for. Player input and choices and description matter more than a roll of the die. Only request an ability check if there is no other clear means of adjudicating an action. Instead of skills, grant proficiency bonus based on class / race / background. 3. Gold for XP. Take XP for monsters and trash it (or reduce by 1/4 or so). Grant 1 XP per GP recovered. It should work out fine... this blog did the math: [url]http://blogofholding.com/?p=6760[/url] 4. Simplify initiative... just do side initiative (its in the DMG). Go one step further and do side initiative every round. 5. Remove damage dealing cantrips. 6. Look at the DMG options for healing and resting. Look at healer's kit dependency, slow natural healing, gritty realism options. Honestly though, the short/long rest recovery is a boon in disguise... these options just allow the party to have more exploration stamina and, ultimately, you want your players to be able to experience more of the cool stuff you created for them. 7. Design dungeons and encounters holistically, don't fret about maintaining proper CR and XP budgets. Put 20 goblins in a lair and let the players figure out how to deal with it. When designing traps and such, don't think in terms of DC's needed to disarm, instead think in terms of what possible actions the players can take to overcome it. [/QUOTE]
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