Yeah, definitely. Though, it has a plus side. As a group of players we've played 5e so much it's basically become boring and vanilla. So all of these rule changes actually make it an exciting new variant!

I've been enforcing encumbrance (it's a great way to make sure Strength isn't a dump stat), but from what I hear, old school D&D wasn't as unforgiving encumbrance wise? Is that true? In 5e if you enforce the full encumbrance system, you're already encumbered when you carry more than 5x your Strength score in weight.

The easiest fix is leaving most attack cantrips alone and just doing something about the cantrips that negate the resource management game. Not sure what to do about spells like "create food and water" or "leomund's tiny hut"." This kind of game is where they shine...

Quote from: BeholderThief;1145478When I run old school games and a PC dies, the player gets to come in as soon as their new PC is ready. I'll come up with some relatively outlandish or unlikely reason for a new PC to show up. Its a game. I don't care about realism. A person at my table gets to play no matter what is happening in-game.

This.

In 1E, once you carry either 35 or 50 pounds (there are two conflicting statements in different sections, so DM choice), or wear more than the lighter armors, you start losing bonuses; reaction adjustment specifically, which is a high-DEX score bonus.  Although "fully encumbered" with baseline penalties (as opposed to simply losing bonuses and going back to baseline) is usually quite a bit more than that if you have decent STR.

For 5e, it goes:

over 5x your Strength = speed drops by 10 feet
over 10x your Strength = disadvantage on physical rolls, speed drops by 20 feet
over 15x your Strength = can't carry more

Disadvantage meaning your d20 rolls get rolled twice, with the lower one counting.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145473If a PC dies in old school games, do you have them make a new one and rejoin right there? Or do you want until the next session?

IME, it wasn't unusual for old school parties to have multiple characters per player, whether multiple full-on PCs or a PC and some henchmen. These were still there to play if a PC died. Beyond that, hirelings and retainers were fairly common too. With that set-up, a dozen or more folks walked into the dungeon and knew that several wouldn't make it back out. 5e doesn't really do that at all; 4-6 characters walk in and are almost guaranteed to all walk back out.

I suspect you could spindle/fold/mutilate 5e into a "old school" D&D game, so I'd say it might be possible. However, I wouldn't bother. I'd just run the older systems, instead. I've been down the "make X more like TSR D&D" road, before, and to me it just isn't worth it. If you want a game that feels and plays like TSR D&D it's a lot simpler to just run TSR D&D.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145470Didn't that spell exist for clerics in the past too?

I would make it take a bit more than a healing kit because they're super cheap and available normally so players will have a mountain of them. Maybe if they required Medicine skill proficiency?

Lesser Restoration in 5E can cure poison and disease from a single source for a level 3 cleric. A level 3 cleric is still a bit of a newb. In 5e, level 3 is just getting the training wheels off. That's putting a stopper on a couple of major sources of damage pretty early on in a campaign.

My frame of reference here is B/X:
A 1st level Cleric can not cast spells at all.
A Cleric can not cast Cure Disease or Poison until they are 6th level. (they are 3rd level spells).
A 6th level Cleric is called a "Elder" on  the Cleric chart.
A cleric that can cast Cure Disease in BX is only 3 levels removed form building a castle and becoming a patriarch.

Its really about the power curve between the two editions and to me the easy access to Lesser Restoration in 5E points to its "easy mode".

I use a rule where a healing kits are needed to recover hp using Hit Dice during short rests (as well as to cure poison, etc). The issue becomes resource management. I like the encumbrance rules in Five Torches Deep lately. But ultimately if you make more damage reliant on having healing kits then the problem becomes "Am I going through this dungeon carrying tons of healing kits or am I carrying treasure?"

Damage is only scary if it is reliant on your ability to fix it. And if you are a few levels in the dungeon, out of healing kits and suffering constant damage from a spider bite; things get scary and interesting (to me at least). YMMV and all .

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1145495I suspect you could spindle/fold/mutilate 5e into a "old school" D&D game, so I'd say it might be possible. However, I wouldn't bother. I'd just run the older systems, instead. I've been down the "make X more like TSR D&D" road, before, and to me it just isn't worth it. If you want a game that feels and plays like TSR D&D it's a lot simpler to just run TSR D&D.

Yeah that is kind of the thing. There are things I do not want to deal with in TSR also so I want 5E to feel more like those games in terms of resource management, power  curve, and a few other areas (characters should die occasionally at least).

But I don't want THAC0 or tracking encumberance to the coin level for sure.

I like morale and reactions but I have lived long enough that I have a good idea how NPCs/Monsters would act in a conflict  so I don
t really need those.

There are things I do not want from either TSR or 5E. TSR editions have a heavy emphasis on rolling initiative every round. 5E still has initiative every combat. In my game your initiative is your DEX score +/- bonus. Thieves and Rangers add their proficiency bonus (I keep proficiency from 5E). NPCs and Monsters use their DEX score +/- bonus. It is easy and I can write down th e PCs score once and be done with it. The combatants you expect to be faster tend to act first for the most part and it is simple.

But I get your point.  I do like these thread where there are many ideas exchanged.

Yeah, the more interesting questions are some variety of, "I want old school things A, B, C but with these other not old school things X, Y, Z.  Which is the best system from which to start as a base and how do I change it?"  

Of course, seeing how far you can twist 5E into old school is one way you can do that will answer some of those questions. You can do the same thing trying to see how far you can push BEMCI/RC into 5E territory.  Or start and/or end with AD&D or any other game.  

When I realized that I wanted something about halfway between BEMCI/RC and 5E, it was not at all obvious from which direction I should start or how much I should push it.  I've tried it with 5E as a base.  I'm happy with the way it plays, but it doesn't do everything I wanted.  Now I'm considering trying it with RC as a base.  I think I'll probably get a similar level of happiness but a different game.

I've been pretty satisfied with 5e after implementing some house rules. I have about 2 pages worth, but these three rules do 90% of the work needed to make it old school enough for me:

===

Alternate Resting Rules
The time required for a short rest is reduced to 1 minute. Unless a character spends at least 1 hit die, he gains no benefit from a short rest.

Long rests do not recover hit dice. A character can recover a single hit die after spending one full day of downtime resting in a civilized area with food, water, and shelter.

When taking a long rest, a character may either a) spend a hit die and gain the full benefit of the long rest (save that hit die are not recovered), or b) do not spend a hit die and gain the only the benefit of a short rest, with one free hit die roll to recover hit points.

Alternate Healing Rule
If a character is unconscious at 0 hit points and then healed, he is stunned for 1 round and is prone (until he spends half his movement to stand up, as normal).

Lingering Injuries
If a creature drops to 0 hit points or suffers a critical hit, they must roll on the Lingering Injuries table. If a PC is rolling on the table as the result of a critical hit, they roll with advantage. The table has been modified slightly from its form in the DMG to reduce the likelihood of horrible scars, and increase the likelihood of broken ribs. If a result is ever rolled that is not consistent with the form of damage suffered, the result is ignored.

===

The effect of these rules is that players have a travel "range" of roughly one day per level in dangerous areas at low levels, which gradually disappears as they reach level 7+ and their magic becomes more powerful.

In addition to these rules we use a player-driven old school gameplay style. This houseruled version of 5e has been my favorite way to play D&D, until very recently when I discovered ACKS.

Awesome! I can use some of these house rules myself. What exactly is the reason they wouldn't go for the full long rest benefit? And if they have no hit die left, they can't do it? When do they get hit die back if they wiped themselves out of them?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145394Why make weaker monsters? Isn't the point to discourage people trying to fight them because they're dangerous?

That post is gold btw

Because of the way the 5e system works, weak monsters in large numbers are much more threatening than strong monsters in small numbers. Large numbers of weak monsters vs low level PCs combines high threat with low XP, discourages combat & encourages sneaking around as in my session yesterday - there was a telling moment when a newbie NPC adventurer said "They're just bandits, right? Not that dangerous?" - only to be soundly corrected by the PCs who'd barely survived a run in with 4 bandits (3 CR 1/8 and a CR 1/2 leader) the previous day.

Lots of weak foes = high threat + low XP = low XP awards, and thus slow (for 5e) advancement.
The high threat is moderated by adding companion NPCs (using the Essentials Kit rules) but they also soak up XP, creating a virtuous circle of low XP awards and slow progression.

My group has been earning 52-53 XP so far for a 3-3.5 hour session, with half of that being non-combat XP awarded at my discretion.  There were two actual fights yesterday, the actual combat XP (by the book) awards were:

- defeat 2 wolf spiders 100/8 = 12
- defeat 3 giant rats 75/8 = 9

:cool:

One downside of running "old school" 5e is that there no way to do xp. You have completely throw all the encounter design and monster xp rules out the window, and there is no way to convert treasure to xp because the values are so drastically different. So I've left to simply level the players whenever I think they should level, and replacement characters start a few levels lower than the rest of the party and catch up rapidly over a few sessions.

I'd rather use xp, I think it provides a much better experience for the players and DM because the leveling is clearly tied to the PC's actions, and doesn't seem arbitrary or milestone based.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145518Awesome! I can use some of these house rules myself. What exactly is the reason they wouldn't go for the full long rest benefit?

Because they have to spend at least one HD to take a long rest. So if a level 3 character is traveling to a dungeon one week away from town, he will try to put off spending his HD as long as possible, so that he has enough to rest before entering the dungeon, as well as resting before the potentially dangerous return trip.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1145518And if they have no hit die left, they can't do it? When do they get hit die back if they wiped themselves out of them?

Right, at that point they can't long rest until they get back to a town or settlement. In town when they are not adventuring they recover 1 HD per day.

Quote from: bleezy;1145520One downside of running "old school" 5e is that there no way to do xp. You have completely throw all the encounter design and monster xp rules out the window, and there is no way to convert treasure to xp because the values are so drastically different. So I've left to simply level the players whenever I think they should level, and replacement characters start a few levels lower than the rest of the party and catch up rapidly over a few sessions.

I'd rather use xp, I think it provides a much better experience for the players and DM because the leveling is clearly tied to the PC's actions, and doesn't seem arbitrary or milestone based.

If you give 1 XP per 1 GP recovered, but cut the treasure awards down by 10% (AKA effectively go on the silver standard by awarding gold from the book as silver, silver as copper, and copper as whatever you want to sub for that), you'll be fairly close to some of the old school progressions.  Of course, that has to mostly or all replace XP for monsters to work.  If you want money to matter in the sense of scrounging for resources, it's also not a bad move.  Of course, then dragon hoards are going to seem puny, but you can't have everything.