D&D 5E Optimizing for more grit…

[Warpiglet-7]

So up front: I cut my teeth on 1e. Loved it. Liked and played 3e for a while: at home now with 5e…

I just got (and love!!!) barrowmaze for 5e.

I would like to increase the grit in my 5e game for a this old school dungeon. Suggestions welcome save one: I am not running a retroclone nor switching systems at this time. Might get into dragonslayer one day?

What can I do to make this as old school/harrowing as possible? Use optional rules for healing and spell recovery was one thought…

Suggestions about this or other things welcome…

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If we're tossing out Shadowdark (which is already essentially a stripped down 5E, optimized for grit), I would probably go with an Epic 6 set-up and stop characters from leveling after level 6. Higher level spells are for NPCs or are artifacts of the ancient world when magic was more common.

I'd also say no to magic item crafting and bastions.

And yes to all of the optional rules that up difficulty levels.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Looking at slow natural healing and healers kit dependency. I like the idea of of being out of bandages and such and not being able to heal up without a restock.

One other idea…

When it’s my turn to dm, I have a few places where light is less workable as a cantrip. Evil areas like dark…I would like to maybe say you have to use a 1st level spell slot to run light for x hours as the cantrip is not potent enough.

Just thinking of why we might want more torches in dungeon at least prior to continual light or its current equivalent…

 

[sevenbastard]

When I wanted more grit with 5e I removed Cleric Cantrips. Gave Clerics and extra two 1st level spell slots ( this mirrors 1e with clerics having lots of first level spells). If clerics got a cantrip from a sub class then they could use it normally but other wise casting a cantrip tool a spell slot. I also cut a lot of the sub classes and species to remove the more magical ones. Ran it for 130 sessions and it worked fine.

I've also run a 5e game with just fighters, rouges, barbarians, and wizards, cutting clerics all together.

 

[mellored]

Short rest are overnight.
Long rest requires leaving the dungeon and spending week in town.

Any healing (magic or otherwise) requires spending a hit die*, adding it to your total as normal. If you don't have one to spend, you're stabilized. This limits how many times you can drop to 0, even if you have 10 clerics.
*once per spell/effect. So aura of vitality takes 1 HD per target.

All light sources, darkvision, and other senses are cut in half in the dungeon.

 

[Mistwell]

So up front: I cut my teeth on 1e. Loved it. Liked and played 3e for a while: at home now with 5e…

I just got (and love!!!) barrowmaze for 5e.

I would like to increase the grit in my 5e game for a this old school dungeon. Suggestions welcome save one: I am not running a retroclone nor switching systems at this time. Might get into dragonslayer one day?

What can I do to make this as old school/harrowing as possible? Use optional rules for healing and spell recovery was one thought…

Suggestions about this or other things welcome…

We do this with dungeons and it requires no house rules, just a tough DM:

1) don't let the players rest very often in a dungeon. Fights make noise, spells make noise, other monsters in other areas come to investigate. Monsters wander around and don't stay static in just one area, so players resting results in them being found.

2) Even if the players use spells to rest, those spells leave visible traces, or the PCs left visible traces before they cast the spell, and monsters will gather in large numbers to wait out the PCs when then exit and may even set traps for them. So sure, you can get a rest, and then will be ganked by way more monsters than you expect.

3) traps are not just for when the party is passively moving. Monsters put them there, and they lure PCs there during a fight. There is nothing worse than closing with a foe and finding yourself in a pit trap during a battle.

4) monsters use cover, and gang up on PCs. Particularly the spellcasters. They also use secret doors to their advantage, sending one group to confront the PCs while sneaking a second group behind the PCs to cut off escape and gank the squishy spellcasters hiding in back.

 

[overgeeked]

There are a few threads out there on the topic. Here's one:

D&D 5E - [+] How do you make 5E more challenging?

The long and short of it is: you'll need to heavily, heavily modify 5E to get it anywhere close to the lethality and feel of old-school play.

Using gritty realism or Haven rests is a start. Gritty is in the 2014 DMG. Haven rests is basically you only get to long rest in designated places, usually incredibly safe locales like a village or a town.

You'll want to check that combats are at least 2x deadly as the absolute floor for anything approaching old-school combat. Or the equivalent by doubling the number of monsters, doubling their attacks, and doubling the damage each attack does. Or present such overwhelming forces that the PCs cannot possibly be dumb enough to charge, say 50 orcs at 1st level, and thereby forcing them to think their way around combats instead of simply charging in.

Remove death saves and let PCs die outright at zero HP. Bring back save or suck, i.e. fail one save and you're petrified...no three saves and at worst you'll be okay after an easily accessible spell is cast.

Check out the Monsters Know What They're Doing blog and books. Read up on the monsters included in the module and play them to the hilt. Always go for the kill.

You'll need to either entirely rework the exploration rules, ban several spells feats backgrounds and classes, or just accept that exploration won't be something you can challenge the PCs with. Which utterly wrecks the old-school vibe.

That's just the stuff off the top of my head. There's a lot more in that linked thread. It's an incredibly long list of things you'll need to change to get 5E to feel like a dangerous old-school game.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Check out the Monsters Know What They're Doing blog and books. Read up on the monsters included in the module and play them to the hilt. Always go for the kill.

This makes a huge difference in how 2014 monsters play, IMO. My fervent hope is that the 2024 Monster Manual authors learned a lot from this blog and make the strategies and synergies much more central to how the monsters play, especially with the 2024 focus on new DMs.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Remove Darkvision. Attack their light sources.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Check out the Monsters Know What They're Doing blog and books. Read up on the monsters included in the module and play them to the hilt. Always go for the kill.

I'll second this, as well.