Recapturing 1st Edition Feelings

[BlueBlackRed]

If you want to speed things up to get the original feel of AD&D:

- No figures. Just wing it where everyone is.
- Weaken the monsters and give less XP. Trolls in AD&D are not match for trolls in 3.5D&D.
- Dump all of the extra combat rules. Ya swing yer weppon and ya doos yer damage.
- Same for spellcasting. No metajunk and no item creation. Most spells take the same time to cast and you can't move while casting.
- Give fighters a generic list of feats. Nothing special. In AD&D fighter types ruled and wizards just drained XP up until level 5. Then the roles kind of switched.
- No magic items on anyone under level 5. No permanent magic items on anyone under level 7.
- Remove the math of damage resistance. If you don't have a silver weapon, that werewolf is immune to your melee.

3rd edition fixed a lot of what was broken in previous editions, but at the cost of time caused by miniatures, more information, and math.

 

[WizarDru]

You may want to consider what classes your players will have. Fighters were excellent at low levels, and outshadowed by wizards later on. Wizards were exceedingly fragile until that point. Removing feats is fine, but you need to make sure to consider how the compensation works....fighters live by their feats, and removing them in favor of skills reduces their competency. I would restrict other classes BAB, perhaps, to reflect the lack of combat options. Remember that you'll be enforcing homogeniety of classes on your players, which is something that many may consider a step back. A fighter who gets 30 more skill points instead of the being able to customize may feel cheated, for example.

I agree with BlueBlackRed's suggestions, in general, but I tend to think you'll get tired of the bland nature of things, after a while. I also think you'll have a higher mortality rate, but that's just me.

 

[Grayhawk]

Lord Vangarel, we seem to be in agreement on a lot of things. I too liked the simplicity of 1e rules and the flow of 1e combat, but I also am not just looking to go back, as 3e and d20 have brought many improvements.

Naturally we may disagree on what should be kept from 3e and what should be made more like 1e. E.g. feats are to me one of the best new additions, whereas am not so fond of the skill system the more I think about it.

fuindordm, thanks for pointing to my skills thread. Lately, though, I've been contemplating removing the skill system altogether and instead give classes like the Ranger things like Track, Animal Empathy, Sneak (Move Silently & Hide), Alertness (Listen, Search & Spot), etc as class abilities that improve with level increases. A check would be d20 + class level + ability modifier (maybe with a +3 to account for existing DC's).

Obviously, this makes for much more rigid character building, but since D&D is a class based system in the first place, I'm not sure this is so bad.

Also, I'd remove a lot of skills like Climb (a Rogue would get Scale Walls instead), Jump and Swim. These are things that all chracters should be able to do with some chance of success (unless you specifically state that your character can't swim, which would be fine and which I know some would do for the sake of roleplaying without even expecting a benefit in return). Making a Jump check then just becomes a Str check, with appropriately lower DC's, etc.

And here comes what I expect to be the most controversial change: No Bluff, Diplomacy, etc skills. Several times have I seen the argument that these skills are necessary for the low charisma player to adequately play a high charisma character, and while I understand the argument (a Fighter played by a very skilled and charismatic roleplayer may steal the spotlight from the Bard in both combat and in social interactions), I don't exactly see it that way.

For one thing, the low Cha Fighter would be badly played by it's high Cha player if he doesn't play his character to match his attributes. Second, when I started out, roleplaying was a skill you as a player got better at. Improvising, BS'ing, fast-talking, etc was all things you had to try as a player to talk your way out of sticky situations and merely relegating this aspect of roleplaying to a dice roll seem to take away some of the game's greatest strenghts. Third, a good DM will reward the less capable roleplayer for his effort, which will hopefully spur him on to keep trying and in the process getting better at playing out social encounters.

So for the kind of 'skill system without skill points' I'm kicking around, you would have class abilities that improves with class levels, and you'd resolve the other things by making an attribute check. I'd propably include some kind of feats to improve areas you would like to boost. Like an Athletic feat that gives you a +2 or +3 bonus on Str checks when Swimming, Climbing or Jumping.

Spells that require 1 action would complete at the beginning of the spellcasters next action or at the end of the round whenever that was giving opponents a chance to disrupt spellcasting without having to have a Ready Action.

My thoughts exactly.

Here are some other threads I fielded in House Rules on Streamlining advanced combat actions and How to remove AoO's?.

For more on the removing of AoO's, there's also this one.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

BlueBlackRed, I don't want to weaken monsters but getting rid of the Ready and Delay actions would be a bonus. My thoughts on spellcasting keep Metamagic but any caster could do them if they wanted to. Item creation would kick in at various levels but automatically be available. Fighters would get abilities as they increased in levels such as Weapon Specialization at 4th. Magic Items would be campaign preference and I personally like Damage Resistance and would keep it.

WizardDru, having played 1E and seeing wizards suck at lower levels and dominate at higher levels I wouldn't want to go back to that. Removing feats hurts fighters the most but couldn't they just get class abilities I wouldn't replace lost feats with skills. Less customisation for the class but alot of feats don't get picked anyways in 3E IME.

 

[Henry]

...players can take an age to decide their actions calculating the effects of this ability or that feat. I seem to remember combat as cinematic but nowadays, even without a battlemat, combat seems an exercise in character abilities and thinking of maximum advantages. Maybe it's just the group I play with :\

Our group occasionally has players who do this; my solution is to give them up to 15 seconds to decide what they are doing. If they do not decide by roughly that amount of time, then I put up my outstretched hand, and start retracting fingers, counting off "five... four... three... two... one." If they do not make START speaking their intended action by that time, they've lost their action that round due to indecision. All it takes is ONE time for a player to lose his action due to indecision to change that event. If one player takes too darned long counting and recounting squares, then peer pressure generally convinces him or her to "lob the fireball" and get on with it, because no one would in a real combat be counting the distance their lobbing the grenade; if they miscalculate, they miscalculate.

As for your other changes - they have merit, but it's worth playtesting them a while before committing all your games running that way. My group enjoys the mats and the minis, and considering we only use it once to twice per game, it really doesn't detract from the game; in fact, it's kind of an attraction in and of itself, because the DM usually has something special in mind (terrain situations, etc.) when the minis get used. Last game, we had a combat in and on an Eberron lightning rail; more than one enemy got swept or shot off of the roof of a speeding rail car, through lighting , and down a steep valley, never to be seen again, and there's no end of fun when two PCs fail their balance checks BADLY and almost get lost themselves.

 

[Henry]

BlueBlackRed, I don't want to weaken monsters but getting rid of the Ready and Delay actions would be a bonus. My thoughts on spellcasting keep Metamagic but any caster could do them if they wanted to. Item creation would kick in at various levels but automatically be available. Fighters would get abilities as they increased in levels such as Weapon Specialization at 4th. Magic Items would be campaign preference and I personally like Damage Resistance and would keep it.

WizardDru, having played 1E and seeing wizards suck at lower levels and dominate at higher levels I wouldn't want to go back to that. Removing feats hurts fighters the most but couldn't they just get class abilities I wouldn't replace lost feats with skills. Less customisation for the class but alot of feats don't get picked anyways in 3E IME.

I would do away with feats BUT give them to Fighters. After all, this was the original plan in 3E playtesting (back when they were called Heroic Feats) but the feat concept was expanded to all classes. Just pare down the feats to the simpler ones, put a solid level requirement on each instead of the prerequisites, and go with it. Give fighters one feat per two or three levels, starting with first, and that way, they have something that the wizards do not.

Another suggestion is to drop sorcerers, but still keep both the ability to prepare lower spells in higher slots, AND work the metamagics in as a class ability. Perhaps at 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th, they can choose a metamagic to prepare; roll still/silent/eschewed in as one choice, and make empowered, extended, quickened, maximized each separate choices. Or, take quickened out, since you want to restrict the number of actions each person gets in a round.

 

[Lord Vangarel]

Grayhawk, I've read your thread and it was one of those that really got me thinking and made me dig out my 1st Edition books. While we do disagree on the implementation we seem to agree on the goal.

Henry, thanks for your input. If a battlemat comes out the players love taking the time to ponder and count squares which drives me nuts. I've tried counting down and limiting time but the situation isn't helped with our playing location where we sit in a room on different chairs not around a table. A battlemat means players constantly standing up to look what's happening then another player stands up to join in the discussion then a third and so on. This drives me up the wall as I inevitably have to get up to get close enough to the mat to explain something and we all end up stood around a battlemat. Once would be fine but for every action!

I thought about having a very limited set of feats with strict level restrictions available only to fighters but think the same could be accomplished with a character tree for fighters listing the available abilities.

As for playtesting I agree it would be essential. We also have a 3.5 game going where we are 19th level with a different DM and will soon be starting a Warhammer game both of which go by the default rules so I feel a degree of freedom to experiment and test when I'm DMing.

For anyone interested I've started a thread over on House Rules as suggested by fuindordm which can be found here:

www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1791485

 

[Particle_Man]

Particle_Man, I was under the impression that Castles and Crusades introduces elements from the 1st Edition such as 5 Saving Throws etc. I'm really in favour of keeping d20 mechanics but wonder whether tweaking things will do the job. I'm still planning on picking up a copy of Castles and Crusades to see if it recaptures the 'magic'.

Saves are tied to the six ability scores, as opposed to tying them to three ability scores. And it does use a lot of d20 stuff, but adds a new thing that basically means: you pick two or three ability scores that you are "good" at - then all saves, etc., are ability rolls (sometimes adding level as a modifier) that have a Target Number of 12 for those ability scores you are good at, and 18 for the other ability scores. (There can be modifiers to the TN, and to the ability roll, but that is about it).

 

[evildmguy]

Sorry for the rant

but DND, whatever incarnation, is not simple or easy by the rules. I know that some groups made it that way, and power to them. I know that my group was a bunch o' rules lawyers, so we played by the rules, for 1E and 2E and it wasn't an easy game. And I have introduced a dozen or so people to DND. 3E is by far the easiest.

If people want an "easy" game, then I suggest throwing out the DND rules, or at least the wargaming (miniature) rules, and minimizing the rules used while playing.

Or try playing Storyteller, old or new version. It is rules lite, compared to DND, and emphasizes the action and story.

Or try Buffy, Angel or the Unisystem, all of which really emphasize the drama and storytelling and are very good, simple rule systems.

Or play Alternity and only use the Broad skills, with ranks and rank benefits.

Any of these options would be easier than DND. Might even be easier than either trying to recapture 1Es feel or change the rules of 3E to fit.

And here was my first reaction, although you will have to substitute in the needed wording in panel four for DND:

/rant off and apologies, although within this rant, I do think there are some good points.

edg
Alternity Pimp

 

[WizarDru]

WizardDru, having played 1E and seeing wizards suck at lower levels and dominate at higher levels I wouldn't want to go back to that. Removing feats hurts fighters the most but couldn't they just get class abilities I wouldn't replace lost feats with skills. Less customisation for the class but alot of feats don't get picked anyways in 3E IME.

Lose that extra 'd', son.

I think Henry has the right of it, here. If you want to trim options, granting 'fixed' feats for classes like Wizards is a good idea, while giving fighters an abbreviated list. For example, Combat Expertise is a great feat, but it also requires calculation on-the-fly for AC, which is just one more calculation. By itself, no big deal, but when you being factoring power-attack and other feats, it becomes multiple layers. Perhaps converting it, Power Attack and similar feats into fixed numbers, a'la Neverwinter Nights.

Personally, having run a campaign up to 23rd level (and counting), my opinion of the biggest game slow-down is stacking of abilities and effects. In other words, when you have a character with multiple variable numeric effects running, things can bog down when things need to be calculated and recalculated. For example, flanking a mirror-imaged kyton with a +2 sword while power attacking while the Kyton is on all out defense, with a 20% miss chance from blur and a shield spell. The fighter destroys 2 of the 4 mirror images. Now the wizard casts a dispel magic, which knocks out the shield spell but not the blur, while the kyton uses combat expertise while counter-attacking. And so on.

Big one: Remove AoOs. Combat moves MUCH faster when these aren't present, because there is much less manuevering to avoid them, fewer attacks overall and more options with less consequence. Plus there is no 'does this incur an AoO?' questions in the heat of battle.