Rebuild 1E...

[Treebore]

A lot of people have had a lot to say about the "balance" of 1E. So with those posts in mind, if you decided to go back and make 1E the best game you possibly could by writing house rules for it, what would you do?

I don't want any cheap answers Like "replace it with the 4E rules set", I mean honestly look at the old 1E rules and decide how you would house rule them today to make it the game you would be willing to run and play in.

So what rules would you rewrite, or redo from scratch, to make 1E a game worthy of play today?

I am not asking anyone to give me a 200 page document that rewrites the whole game. Maybe if this discussion takes off we could compile such a thing when all is said and done.

What I would like to see is for people to address however many things you wish to address that bugs you about 1E and tell me/us how you would change them to something you would like in a house rules fashion.

If you happen to have a 200+ page rewrite of the game, I would be interested in seeing it.

 

[ggroy]

Change the d20 attack rolls to a system where rolling lower is better.


For example, a system of rolling a d20 lower than or equal to:

level_fighter + AC_monster

will replicate the 2E AD&D to-hit attack probabilities for a fighter.


For a level 0 normal human, a hit occurs when rolling a d20 less than or equal to a target monster's AC.

 

[Wik]

3e Style Attack System (ie, static defences). 3e Style save mechanics (fewer saves, based off abilities). BECMI style ability scores (how the ratings work). Add in "encounter" powers for martial characters as they improve. Skills are included, maybe in a 3e method. Use Weapon Proficiencies, but make sure the game includes a lot of monsters that are weak towards one specific weapon type. No percentile thief skills. Keep the numbers low (damage values, hit points, and so on). Use only real world measurements (none of this "inches" for distance, or "GP" for weight). Get rid of multi-classing/dual-classing, and put in something better (what, I don't know). Make it so that humans have an actual benefit, beyond "if you play for a very long time, they can get to be the highest level". I like Basic Fantasy's "Humans get more XP" solution.

 

[Votan]

A lot of people have had a lot to say about the "balance" of 1E. So with those posts in mind, if you decided to go back and make 1E the best game you possibly could by writing house rules for it, what would you do?

There are a few complicated elements (like weapons versus armor types) that probably could be removed. And adding THAC0 as an idea would not be bad, either. Maybe a way for non-humans to level past limits at a much slower pace. Maybe less focus on alignmen. Little things that are best done by individual DMs.

But I like the simplicity of the game system (a lot) and I like how not everyone can do everything. These are major advantages and make it a good basis for every DM to do things a little differently.

 

[the Jester]

Higher AC is better. Specialty priests like in 2e. Make charisma count for more. Three saves, like in 3e. Kill exceptional strength. Get rid of everything from Unearthed Arcana except for weapon specialization, most of the spells and magic items and the new weapon and armor types. Remove "+1 or better weapon to hit" and replace it with DR similar to 3.5. Give non-spellcasters more interesting in-combat options. Eliminate some of the unneeded complexity (DMG unarmed fighting rules, complexities of initiative, etc). Institute something like prestige classes, along with a better system for multiclassing/dual classing. Rebalance the races without using level limits.

 

[Zustiur]

I never really played 1E, so I'll just comment on the things I'd do to 2E, which should be more or less the same.
Replace all the subsystems with d20 systems.
Flip AC to work as per 3E/4E
Consider static defenses ala 4E
Consider removing the damage by target creature size variation

 

[Lanefan]

I don't think it's 200 pages; more like 100, but for an idea of how our re-written PH looks try here. It's campaign-specific to my Decast game; one of these days we'll get a more generic version up there.

We don't have any of our DM rules up, not for player consumption.

There's also a chart and list here of what we have changed over time.

Lanefan

 

[Stormonu]

Like many others, making just about every roll where higher is better. This would mean at least reversing saving throw numbers.

AC would go up, instead of down.

Add thief's % chance to roll; you want a total of 100% or greater for success.

Incorporate a skill system (I've run into multiple modules that use their own custom system for handling things like jumping, balancing on beams and the like that a better, unified system needs to be in the rules).

Get rid of exceptional Strength. Untie Strength bonus to hit, but retain Strength bonus to damage.

Remove level limits and replace with slowed advancement.

Simplify or eliminate weapon vs. armor modifiers, but attempt to retain some semblance of weapon individuality besides different damage die codes.

Give spellcasters easier access to less potent low-level magic (I'm talking 0th-1st level spells). I've never played high level games (above 12th) due to the power curve and absurdity at those levels, so something that would "normalize" the higher levels to make them more playable would be nice.

Tone down the barbarian's abilities and make him less of a "doesn't play well with magic" chump.

Normalize surprise chances (probably a d10, no "2 in 6" here, "1 in 8" there, 10% chance somewhere else, etc.).

Simplify grappling/overbearing/wrestling into a simple but usable system (probably 3E's grapple modifier, but without the grappling complexity).

 

[Freakohollik]

Wow, where to begin?

1e Saves: Keep em. The categories could be better, but the save being based on your character is great. It keeps the ridiculous power of spells in check at higher levels. Ditching this was just one of 3e's steps towards caster dominance.

Initiative: Just have each side roll one die to determine who acts first. The core system is actually a boost to casters since weapon speeds are generally higher than spell casting times.

Different Damage vs Large: Keep it. It's a boost to fighter types that allows you to take on tougher guys at higher levels. If you get rid of it, fights drag or become more dependent on spells.

Weapon vs AC table: Get rid of it. It's actually harmful to PCs since swords don't work well against high AC creatures. Although it does give the two handed sword a pretty awesome boost. But it's fairly unclear how it works against monsters. More trouble than it's worth.

Exceptional Strength and Stat Modifiers: It's SUPPOSED to be a boost to fighters. But the implementation is awful. Your only chance is to find a belt of giant strength. Something needs to change. I'd say just use the BECMI modifiers.

Races: Give humans some kind of boost then allow all races to the advance to any level in any class.

Subclasses: Plenty of problems here. They either suck (druid, illusionist), are too powerful (paladin, ranger), or are just confusing (assassin). I'd say remove them and do something like BECMI does where when you reach name level, you get a of a Paragon Path like choice to give your character more class identity.

Remove the 10% xp bonus for prime stats above 15. This is a holdover from OD&D. Since stats didn't do anything else in that edition, this was the method to make higher stat characters better than lower stated characters. It doesn't fit with 1e, where your stats actually do stuff.

Change the poison rules. There are a lot of creatures with poison, and each one is a save or die. That's pretty harsh. Better poison rules would be the easiest solution here. Something like what 2e did.

The following just don't work and need to be fixed or removed. Multi-classing, dual-classing, psionics, and bards.

Just ignore Unearthed Arcana entirely.

That's all on the top of my head.

 

[FireLance]

I do not believe that there is a simple or easy fix because fundamentally, the underlying assumptions of 1e and the RPGs that I tend to enjoy are quite different.

Perhaps the single most critical assumption is the relationship between player and character. 1e seems to assume that each player will have several characters and/or the player would (or could) switch characters frequently because of character death, retirement, or simple player preference. On the other hand, I tend to enjoy games that assume each player will have a single character and will run it over the course of a campaign (which could take months or longer of real time).

Since the player will be associated with his character for a longer period of time, the first slate of house rules ought to result in greater player choice in character generation and, as a consequence, reduced random element in character generation.

Since each player will be running his character for the entire campaign, it also follows that the characters as a whole will be adventuring together over a fairly extended period of time. Hence, the next slate of house rules should be aimed at balancing character effectiveness over the length of the campaign. While it would be ideal if balance could be achieved over campaigns of any length, balancing the characters for a prescribed "default" campaign length would also be acceptable. A side benefit to this is that it equalizes player choice during character creation - there will be no obviously superior or inferior choices.

The final slate of house rules will be to make character longevity mechanically feasible: reducing or eliminating game effects that have a significant chance of causing unexpected character death, except for campaign-ending encounters.

As you can see, changing one (admittedly fairly significant) assumption would require at least three major sets of changes to the rules!