D&D 2E Tips? Haven't DMed D&D since 2E

[dave2008]

Since you're coming from those games, you may also want to re-consider how you describe the effects of a successful hit. In GURPS, taking damage means you've been seriously injured. In 5E, no amount of HP damage can persist through a long rest, so no amount of injury is ever very serious (unless you're dead).

[MENTION=6679486]Mookus[/MENTION], if this is a concern for you, there are alternate rules for rest and healing in the DMG (pg 266-267) that allow you to tailor the game to something you may be more familiar with.

Also, you could make HD a limited resource (that is what we do when we want a "grittier" game). For us, once you spend a HD you lose it (you regain 1 HD per long rest in our game) and we use the healers kit and slow natural healing options in the DMG. So simply providing more encounters (combats or traps) will reduce this resource and that safety net will disappear. Very quickly at low levels. Just be aware that this makes the game much more difficult, but I feel it is more similar to 1e (and I assume 2e) this way. When we do this, my PCs play the game much more carefully like they did in our 1e days 30 years ago.

 

[5ekyu]

The specific things to watch out for, especially compared to GURPS 3E/4E, are super helpful! I figure the roleplaying part is the same regardless of system, that I'm comfortable with heh.

Thanks for the forecasts on 6E being well in the future - it sure seems like 5E is going gangbusters (oh, a TSR pun! Nice!), I imagine that has a lot to do with why this group wants D&D. The books are, of course, gorgeous.

Kind of scattershotting, but curious if expanding 5E to cover modern or even ultra-tech settings is feasible (or worth doing)?

One of the best things about running D&D again... I get to drag out those beautiful dice. I still have my first d20. It's closer to a marble than a polyhedral at this point (but I still roll it at conventions whenever I'm allowed to).

Reference - rarely played GURPS but I got years and years of HERO systems under my GM belt so kinda in the ballpark (bought lotsa GURPS product too.

At Drive-thru rpg you can find free basic rules for Edper Genesis which is a well done scyfy 5e system.

One fairly important diff between the GURPS/HERO model is the advancement. The level create significant jumps that cover a general advancement vs the small pieces of xp more common on point buy.

Another is the "heroic" gear accounting, where gear us "off the books" and so as GM you need to be wary of how fast you introduce powerful items.

Also, most levels are big but some are intentionally bigger. At level 5 you see a major uptick in power and the arrival of more than a few "bypass terrain and hazard" spells like (fly, water breathing) and the arrival of the more "quick kill mundane threats" like fireball. So at 5th level and beyond you will really need to step up the store of the adversaries to be more than just brutes in many cases.

At the lower levels, until you get handle on balance vs your party a good sort of encounter design is with waves of foes, not everything at once, staggered arrival with quick pauses sometimes for PCs to assess and maybe flee. Packs of goblins and wolves in the woods, alarms going off, hitting in small bands but getting more intense - sounds of more horns signaling etc - can really ratchet up tension and drama while not risking a single encounter tpk over a few bad rolls.

Finally, dont get hung up on hunting the right DC for tasks. One of the good references in the DMG suggests just using 10, 15, 20 with higher being no chance and easier being no roll. Use 15 for training **or** exceptional aptitude expected, 10 for neither, 20 for both. I often imagine "who set this up" and how did they fit on the training+aptitude+resources. Helps with quick and consistent rulings. Then let advantage and disadvantage play into more circumstantial modifiers.

 

[dave2008]

.., bonus actions are a bit confusing (you only get 1 per turn on your turn, and usually need to meet a prerequisite).

@Mookus, a little clarification here because bonus actions are confusing and Oofta didn't really help to much IMO (sorry @Oofta). You do not get 1 bonus action per turn. It is not a standard action you have. The standard actions are: Move, Action, Reaction. You can only use a bonus action if you have some feature or ability (certain spells or class features) that allows you to use them as a bonus action. So there are always conditions to a bonus action and not everyone will have access to one and not every turn:

1) you must first have a feature or ability that allows you to use a bonus action
2) the feature or ability that allows a bonus action often has prerequisites or conditions on when and how to use the bonus action.
3) A bonus action is specific to the feature / ability that allows it.

The simple thing to remember is: it is a bonus, you don't have one to use unless it is given to you.

 

[200orcs]

I find the hardest thing to handle with 5e compared to other RP games is the short/long rest mechanic and the supposed 6-8 combat encounters a day.

If you have classes that regain benefits on short rest, example fighter, warlock and classes that gain benefits during long tests, example wizard you have a weird power curve imbalance to deal with.

It's not uncommon for a lot of groups to want to take a long rest every 2 fights, and to be fair fitting 6-8 combat encounters in a single day a lot of times feels unrealistic for the game.

This leads to a weird conundrum for me. Realistic world versus needing classes that rely on short rests. Either way I feel like I am doing something wrong.

 

[5ekyu]

I find the hardest thing to handle with 5e compared to other RP games is the short/long rest mechanic and the supposed 6-8 combat encounters a day.

If you have classes that regain benefits on short rest, example fighter, warlock and classes that gain benefits during long tests, example wizard you have a weird power curve imbalance to deal with.

It's not uncommon for a lot of groups to want to take a long rest every 2 fights, and to be fair fitting 6-8 combat encounters in a single day a lot of times feels unrealistic for the game.

This leads to a weird conundrum for me. Realistic world versus needing classes that rely on short rests. Either way I feel like I am doing something wrong.

I find the myth of 6-8 being "needed" to be mostly not needed. It's there not as a recommendation but as a measuring stick, after all.

My games tend to run a mix, sometimes its 1-2 encounters between long rests, sometimes its 3-5, sometimes it's more. Tends to work fine but gives each time to shine.

The tired vs fresh balancing act is not new for 5e, not unknown for GURPS or HERO or most any RPG where uses per xxx or recovery was a thing.

 

[jayoungr]

Kind of scattershotting, but curious if expanding 5E to cover modern or even ultra-tech settings is feasible (or worth doing)?

It can be done, but you'll probably need to dip into some third-party material. I'm currently running a world-hopping campaign where I've allowed any character concept as long as it still counts as fantasy. I've got a Jedi and a Sith, both with different builds (the Jedi is a monk/mystic, and the Sith is a barbarian/mystic), as well as an anime-style magical girl (built on a warlock chassis). I've also built an investigative rogue (see Xanathar's Guide to Everything) from a 1930s real-world setting, just with some tweaking and reskinning of combat abilities (crossbow for pistol, for instance).

There's also a science fantasy book from Monte Cook coming up on Kickstarter sometime this month, supposedly.

D&D is combat-heavy. GURPS treats combat as one element of the game among many; it's not unusual that some PCs will be built for combat and others will focus elsewhere. In D&D, combat is the beating heart of the game. All D&D characters are combat-capable unless players go out of their way to cripple themselves, and the rules are built for adventures in hostile territory where enemies are everywhere and frequent battles are inevitable. You don't have to run it that way, but the game strongly encourages it.

While I agree that basically all D&D characters are combat-capable, I run lots of investigative and diplomatic adventures, and they work just fine. So I wouldn't want a new/returning GM to feel limited by this prescription. Remember that you can award XP for anything you like (you might also want to check out the "In Defense of Milestone Leveling" thread too).

 

[Mookus]

The excellent advice continues! Thanks all. Doesn't look like I'll get into the rules this weekend, but all these pointers are giving me a great base and things to note as I read through (and I'm sure will be even more helpful when I reread it with a more concrete understanding of the rules).

Atm, the main issue seems to be that I need to update my eyeglass prescription lol -- I'm finding the font size of the hardcover trio pretty challenging.

Apparently, I'll eventually be running 5E online as well; one of my current GURPS players really wants to try it, so he went nuts and gifted me the 5E core books for Fantasy Grounds! But I definitely want to run it face-to-face a few times first, at least.

 

[5ekyu]

The excellent advice continues! Thanks all. Doesn't look like I'll get into the rules this weekend, but all these pointers are giving me a great base and things to note as I read through (and I'm sure will be even more helpful when I reread it with a more concrete understanding of the rules).

Atm, the main issue seems to be that I need to update my eyeglass prescription lol -- I'm finding the font size of the hardcover trio pretty challenging.

Apparently, I'll eventually be running 5E online as well; one of my current GURPS players really wants to try it, so he went nuts and gifted me the 5E core books for Fantasy Grounds! But I definitely want to run it face-to-face a few times first, at least.

I absolutely could not read them. Had to hold off until got DDBeyond.

 

[jayoungr]

Atm, the main issue seems to be that I need to update my eyeglass prescription lol -- I'm finding the font size of the hardcover trio pretty challenging.

If you start with the free Basic Rules, you can read them onscreen and blow them up to whatever size works best for you.

 

[200orcs]

I find the myth of 6-8 being "needed" to be mostly not needed. It's there not as a recommendation but as a measuring stick, after all.

My games tend to run a mix, sometimes its 1-2 encounters between long rests, sometimes its 3-5, sometimes it's more. Tends to work fine but gives each time to shine..

If the measuring stick is 6-8 and you measure 1-2 do you feel that it purposely devalues certain classes? Are you creating an inbalance?

What's interesting to me is that it totally depends in the game your players want to play. I DM for two different groups and I have an open table game I have done this on purpose as a tool to improve by experiencing different players.

Players that love RAW, play by the rules will feel it. They will instinctually know they can go Nova every time. It also leads to 5 minute days. Go into a room, fight, long rest.

Players that focus on the story will instinctually hate 6-8 fights. The thing is though they do not care about class balance between themselves. They might enjoy combat but will make suboptimal choices for the sake of their character concept, even during combat.

So if your table leans heavily on either side you are fine. If it's split in the middle then it becomes super challlenging to balance.