Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Baron Opal" data-source="post: 5035032" data-attributes="member: 10433">Retooling 1e...I did a fair bit of tinkering back in the day. After experiencing 3rd and 4th edition I have had some changes in attitude about what I would want. That said, however, I would happily play by the book 1e if the opportunity arose.Part of my attitude is that class is the primary definition of what you can do, adjusted by race and flavored by attributes. A character's attributes should have significant impact at low levels but be equivocal by 5th level and mostly irrelevant by 12th. Race or culture should be significant through out the character's life but shouldn't define the character more than the class. Patron deity should be a factor in all characters; enough so that a dwarven fighter dedicated to Moradin would be somewhat different than one dedicated to Bahamut. I guess I am using a character's faith as a stand in for culture. They both tend to get lost as aspects of race (assumed) or faith (irrelevant for non-clerics).That said...Remove exceptional strength. Change bonuses to BECMI / RC levels. 18 is the highest an attribute can start.Ascending armor class.Codify and minimize skill use. I made two types of skills back in the day, natural talent and learned skills. If it was natural talent you rolled 1d6 and added an apporpriate bonus. 6+ on the die is a success. Examples: Open Doors (1d6 + Str bonus), Find Secret Doors (+1 for being an Elf). For trained skills we rolled 4d6 under the appropriate attribute. If the situation was deemed appropriate to the character's class you rolled 3d6. Examples: Investigating a summoning circle (Magic-user, sometimes Cleric), Being able to fight without penalty after running a league to the castle (Fighter). Today, I would better codify the difference between talent and skill and factor in a bonus for level, +1 / 3 levels perhaps.Seriously consider F/R/W saving throw scheme. Cleaner, more elegant and intuitive system for me. However, the 5 save system does allow for more differentiation between classes.Thief skills would become d20 rolls.Surprise would be d10 to better accomodate benefits or penalties.Rip out overbear, grapple, &c. charts and subsystems. Replace with something that looks more like combat and ideally consists of 2 rolls like combat.Streamline weapon damage and bonuses. No bonus damage for large creatures or bonus vs. specific armors. (I might consider that as specialized training, however. See feats below.)I would really, really want a uniform experience point table for 3e style multiclassing. I tried to hammer out a similar version in my 1e days trying to keep the unequal charts. While 3e certainly has its issues, I found that I had to adjust that ruleset less than 1e to get the results I wanted.An optional ruleset that allowed a thematic guild add-on. You could run the classes as is, or tack on a few extra rules and spells to make guilds, temples and fellowships so that a fighter of the Black Sands Guild was different from one of the Gorgon-Blooded.I like the concept of feats, but when you have more than 20 choices per class your eyes begin to cross. In addition, I am intrigued by Celebrim's notion above that classes could enhance appropriate attributes as they increase in level. Giving the player a choice between fighting better and being stronger, with appropriate give and take, is interesting. This could facilitate the guild concept above.I often though about making clerics based on powers rather than spells. A cleric always had their powers, although they could only use some 3/day or something similar. For example a cleric could turn undead all day if he wanted. It was very speciallized but always available. I would seriously look at pact magic from 3e's Tome of Magic for inspiration.</blockquote>

Verification