D&D 5E Old Ways of Playing

[Redthistle]

It does AFAIK.

KarinsDad, I'm a semi-Luddite. What's the meaning of the abbreviation "AFAIK"? I can think of all kinds of things (not all of them suitable for Prime Time) but the reality would be nice for my aging little gray cells.

 

[Iosue]

KarinsDad, I'm a semi-Luddite. What's the meaning of the abbreviation "AFAIK"? I can think of all kinds of things (not all of them suitable for Prime Time) but the reality would be nice for my aging little gray cells.

As Far As I Know.

Thieves' sneak attack damage working on everything is awesomely old school. That's how Classic D&D did it. Attacking from behind? Does the target not notice you? Enjoy your extra damage!

 

[Redthistle]

As Far As I Know.

Thank you, Iosue. These acronyms always seem to turn out as far simpler and more innocent than my devious and paranoid imagination pre-supposes.

 

[Meliath1742]

Yup...we did the skeletons are raised with negative energy and have a sense of direction towards any positive energy nearby (DM discretion). I essentially played with that theory on all undead...so invisibility didn't help much around them. I suspect my mind has not changed on that topic very much. The opposite argument could also be made that any undead around creates a sense of unease for the characters...just nothing specific.

 

[Raith5]

One discussion that has come up in 5e that I have not seen for awhile, is the power of a burning flask of oil. I think the traditional view of oil (at first level) is that it has the combustibility just short of a themonuclear detonation or a fireball. I am sure this was the case when I played 1e as a kid when multiple flasks of oil were thrown around, and recently in a 5e session, there was a sense of deflation and disbelief when someone said it just does 5hp damage guys.

 

[KarinsDad]

One discussion that has come up in 5e that I have not seen for awhile, is the power of a burning flask of oil. I think the traditional view of oil (at first level) is that it has the combustibility just short of a themonuclear detonation or a fireball. I am sure this was the case when I played 1e as a kid when multiple flasks of oil were thrown around, and recently in a 5e session, there was a sense of deflation and disbelief when someone said it just does 5hp damage guys.

Yeah, I have always felt this way about flasks of oil and vials of holy water. They should just kick butt, but they don't (burning oil could cause as much as 3d6 in 1E).

In the case of Holy Water and 5E, it does 2D6 radiant damage against fiends and undead. The only problem is that it doesn't do 2D6 radiant damage against everything. Fiends and undead are not especially vulnerable to radiant damage like in 4E. There are no negative energy rules in 5E (at least not yet). So if radiant damage does not especially bother these creatures more than any other creature, why does holy water affect them more? It just seems a little odd. "Because it does." "Well, ok."

At least in 5E for a relatively inexpensive price, one can put oil in multiple squares and set them all on fire as part of an ambush (maybe sprinkling some dirt on top so that foes do not detect the oil). But I suspect that the opportunities of using such a tactic would be few and far between. It might be more useful to force combat into other squares (i.e. as temporary mini-walls of fire).


And whatever happened to belladona and wolvesbane?

 

[Zhaleskra]

I never did "detect life force" for undead. Before it was separated into Dark and Nightvision, I played Infravision tightly. You stopped seeing normally and started seeing heat patterns, immediately when the conditions that would allow you to use it came about.

I have been guilty of the "people who don't make it all the way through the combat don't get XP" thing. Then I realized that was stupid.

 

[halfling rogue]

I never played old school D&D but I play with guys who did. One thing that has happened in our first 5e game is not necessarily an in-game style but more of a meta-game style. Our normal gameplay was centered on minis and tablesized game mats. 5e rules had us looking to our resident Old-School gamer to see how they used to play. Graph paper, good-enough sketches, ballparking distances, X's and O's football style markings to indicate any movement, etc. The whole night was like a blast from the past for him and a whole new world for the rest of us.

The other "old way" that 5e brought us was a greater emphasis on the DM's call. In games past we didn't look to the DM to make the ruling, instead we all (DM included) turned in our books til someone found it. Maybe this will change as more of us grow familiar with the 5e rules, but the DM had the final say and everyone accepted it as if it were written in stone.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

How do undead see anything except life forms then? Like walls, spells, their own weapons...

 

[Viking Bastard]

Haven't caught myself in any old-school-igans so far in 5e, but in 4e I made healing spells do damage to undead, as I'd always done.

A few levels in I realized that a) it wasn't a feature of 4e, and b) it really ruined any undead big bad fights—the players quickly figured out that they could take out any undead creatures with 2-4 healing words.

Had to backtrack on that one.