Using AD&D concepts to "improve" my d20 games

[Yora]

I started a thread with a similar question some days ago, but maybe phrasing it differently and directing it at people who already believe AD&D did things right and possibly even better, might get greater positive responses.

I like the basic idea of the d20 system (roll 1d20, add modifiers, reach or surpass target number) and also how it deals with skills and feats (though I personally believe Pathfinder greatly improved assigning Skill Ranks). But as much as I like how you create characters, I am really not a fan of how you run the actual gameplay. There is just so much rolling of dice for minor and trivial things, because the d20 system wants to cover pretty much everything imaginable with clearly defined rules.
Now I started playing only in the very last months before D&D 3rd Edition and have only very limited actual experience with how AD&D plays out in practice, but when I look at the rules, they appear to leave much more things to the GMs descretion without trying to create special rules for situations that barely, if ever, come up (and as a result always need to be looked up). I also love the Dragon Age RPG and Mouse Guard, which also are doing completely fine with relatively lose rules.

So what I am looking for is ideas for replacing complex things in a d20 game with much simpler and easier solutions that were completely servicable in AD&D or work out great in Retro-Clones.
I already got a few ideas of my own, but any other suggestions will be highly welcome.

- No grid and attacks of opportunity from movement. Flanking can be done by simply saying "I flank enemy X together with ally A", and almost everything else the grid is really needed for is figuring out who provokes attacks of opportunity for moving out of a threatened square. With those gone, everything else can be tracked accurately enough in your mind.

- Basic Rulebook classes only: Unless you are playing in a campaign where one or two additional classes would be really suitable as being common. (Like Ninja or Artificer.)

- No Wealth by Level Table: In theory, most d20 games have charts that indicate how much magic items characters of a given level need to have, indicated by a gold piece value. In practice it doesn't work, since you still always have to check if the PCs have the correct items to be able to harm a specific creature, or have the correct items to protect against a super powerful special attack. Since you have to check for this anyway, you can dump the idea that a specific amount of magic items is appropriate for any given level. Just hand out treasure as you see fit and don't force the PCs to fight enemies which they can't harm or defend against.

- No magic item shops: I almost always play low level games and my players are really laid back about optimization issues, but even then I really hate the moments when it comes to buying new stuff, as everyone is going through magic item lists, pondering their hundreds of options what to buy.
Instead, make the main source for magic items the treasure that they find, and maybe occasionally mention that a store where they sell loot, has one or two items on sale. If they are comming to a big city and a player really wants to look around if he can find a magic greatsword, give him two or three offers that are currently available and let him either pick one of them, or have him try again in the next city or at a later visit.

- Consider the maximum level: Now this is not technically a return to AD&D, but I think that the general feel can be much better achieved at lower levels than at higher levels. This is more third-hand knowledge I picked up somewhere, but apparently AD&D did not have bonuses, defenses, and damage scale up to the degree found in d20 games. Large numbers of weak enemies are still a thread to higher level characters in older editions of D&D. Also, major cities do not have to have a handful of 17th level or higher spellcasters. And PC warriors do not have to be 15th level to be among the great warlords and warrior kings. It does not have to be an E# campaign, but simply saying that all the NPCs in the world have only advanced up to 10th, 12th, or 15th level allows you to play at these lower levels and still be at the top of the food chain.

[Scots Dragon]

Another thing to consider is maybe looking at Iron Heroes and borrowing that game's skill groups approach, which when combined with the Pathfinder skill system would make the skills system a lot more versatile and useful. Possibly also consider borrowing the Man-at-Arms class as a useful replacement for the fighter.

[undead hero]

Ok ... Creepy.

Last night I thought "hey what if I took 2e and applied its principles and other rules to a d20 game such as 3.5/Pathfinder/BESM?"

I came here and boom!

Once I get on my computer I'll add to my response.

[Yora]

Well, there is currently a thread where people talked about adding 3rd Ed elements to 2nd Ed. That might have something to do with it.

[Raum]

You might also try simplifying the skills list. Even if you don't simplify down to proficiencies, a smaller list of broader skills may help.



- No Wealth by Level Table: The table is the symptom not the cause. :) Removing the table doesn't really change much.

[Yora]

I think Pathfinder handles the skills very well. Appraise still exist and they came up with that weird Fly skill, but otherwise I don't see much more room for more efficiency.

[undead hero]

I don't think I've read that thread, at least I don't recall. I've been out of state working 60 hours a week so it is quite possible that read it one night and just didn't remember.

I did want to say that the maximum level charts was something that I've always liked. However I don't think it would work to well in say like 3.P because of the way the power levels are in 3.P. However if a DM straight out said "Yo, there is only 6 levels or 10 levels to this game, levels 11 - 20 just don't exist" then it could work.

I would love to see the d20 games I play condensed down to less levels without actually having higher levels to play at. If they don't exist in the first place then there is no promise of ever getting there and you don't have to worry about a world filled with crazy high level NPC that for some reason have not taken over the world already.

[satorian]

I did want to say that the maximum level charts was something that I've always liked. However I don't think it would work to well in say like 3.P because of the way the power levels are in 3.P. However if a DM straight out said "Yo, there is only 6 levels or 10 levels to this game, levels 11 - 20 just don't exist" then it could work.


That's the E* (usually E6, but E10 and others are played too) system. People already do that. It's a pretty elegant way to do what you want, being as you still get feats as you grow, just not levels. Thus there is still an incentive to keep playing when you reach the EMax.

However, what OP is proposing is more the AD&D way, which is to say that there are fewer levelled anythings in the world. Great warriors tend to be around 6th level or so. I thought that worked well in the AD&D era. If you do it, consider embracing a few other of their assumptions. There was no Commoner class, just Level 0 everybodies. Level 0 people, inasmuch as they are not PCs, are the domain of the DM, who can have them be skilled negotiators, brilliant blacksmiths, or whatever. You don't have to explain why they have the skillpoints at level 1 to be a great smith, or why being a lawyer for 20 years gave them more hitpoints, as you do in 3.x. The assumption underlying with this is that NPCs are story, texture, not protagonists.

Another separate issue to consider: 3.x assumes that characters cannot do things unless they have the explicit ability to do things, usually as a feat, skill or class feature. 2e assumes that characters can try anything really, be it tripping, feinting, scaling a dragon's back, or swinging from chandeliers, and that the DM just assigns an ability check with an off-the-cuff modifier. I like the old method, but both have their strengths and weaknesses. 2e's leads to a more cinematic game, and a faster one, and sometimes a more sensible one (e.g. is it really a "feat" to be able to short haft a spear?).

[Tvtyrant]

One thing I like about AD&D is the lower HP on everything and lower damage levels.

[Yora]

Another separate issue to consider: 3.x assumes that characters cannot do things unless they have the explicit ability to do things, usually as a feat, skill or class feature. 2e assumes that characters can try anything really, be it tripping, feinting, scaling a dragon's back, or swinging from chandeliers, and that the DM just assigns an ability check with an off-the-cuff modifier. I like the old method, but both have their strengths and weaknesses. 2e's leads to a more cinematic game, and a faster one, and sometimes a more sensible one (e.g. is it really a "feat" to be able to short haft a spear?).
3rd Edition doesn't actually require special abilities to do lots of things, but the practice of having rules for lots of minor things make it appear so.

As much as some people dislike it for balance reasons, I think Pathfinder did the right thing with CRB, significantly streamlining special attacks. You roll a d20, add your CMB, and compare to the enemies CMD. Normally the enemy gets an Attack of Opportunity, if you have a feat he doesn't, and you also get a +2 to your roll.
That's easy to remember.

[Grod_The_Giant]

- Basic Rulebook classes only: Unless you are playing in a campaign where one or two additional classes would be really suitable as being common. (Like Ninja or Artificer.)
By all means, yes, let's stick to the worst-balanced and least-mechanically-interesting classes in the game. I don't see how this improves things, or makes the game more "old-school," unless by old-school you mean limited choice.


- No Wealth by Level Table: In theory, most d20 games have charts that indicate how much magic items characters of a given level need to have, indicated by a gold piece value. In practice it doesn't work, since you still always have to check if the PCs have the correct items to be able to harm a specific creature, or have the correct items to protect against a super powerful special attack. Since you have to check for this anyway, you can dump the idea that a specific amount of magic items is appropriate for any given level. Just hand out treasure as you see fit and don't force the PCs to fight enemies which they can't harm or defend against.
In theory, this is good. In practice, 3e is balanced around the assumption that they have this money-- not so much to have the right immunities, but for the raw numbers. Monster attack, AC, saves, save DCs, and more are based on the assumption that the players have enchanted armor, weapons, cloaks of resistance, stat-boosting items, and their ilk. You can't just ignore it without addressing the game's math.

EDIT: On the subject of not-requiring-rules-to-do-things, I'd ditch the AoO incurred by trying combat maneuvers without the appropriate feat. That seems like the biggest reason that people don't try that sort of thing without the feat.

[undead hero]

3rd Edition doesn't actually require special abilities to do lots of things, but the practice of having rules for lots of minor things make it appear so.

As much as some people dislike it for balance reasons, I think Pathfinder did the right thing with CRB, significantly streamlining special attacks. You roll a d20, add your CMB, and compare to the enemies CMD. Normally the enemy gets an Attack of Opportunity, if you have a feat he doesn't, and you also get a +2 to your roll.
That's easy to remember.

I love the idea of CMB and such but I like it as a saving throw system. Have CMB not be a d20 roll but let the defender have a fort or reflex save to resist. This simplifies a ton of the problems with pathfinders CMB cmd system.

[BWR]

- No grid and attacks of opportunity from movement except this removes a lot of options and feats and severaly reduces abilities like AoO in general (esp. Combat Reflexes), and movement rates in general.


No Wealth by Level Table as mentioned before, this doesn't really matter. It's just a suggestion for how much gear a person has to possess to be average for his level. That's just an effect of the basic system. No one is saying you cannot have more or less than the amount, it's just a handy amount to use when making characters above 1st level without going really overboard or making them too weak.



No magic item shops: This is a function of economics, and the problem is twofold: supply and demand, and fluff. Once something is possible (magic in physical form) and people want it (which they do, otherwise magic shops wouldn't be a problem) people are going to sell and buy it. The only thing is price. The harder it to get hold of, the fewer people will be able to buy and sell, but it will still happen, even if it's nothing more than hiring some dude to make a specific thing for you. If making magic items is easy (3.x) people are going to make and sell them to the best of their abilities.

Fluff wise, this is easier to fix.
1. price. a lot of magic gets expensive quickly, and people rarely have enough money to have a lot at a time.
You don't need to have a literal magic shop with gallons of potions, racks of magic weapons of all sorts, libraries worth of scrolls and more wands and staffs than you'd need to make a house of sticks. The local temple(s) might have a few members who make and sell minor magic items to support the temple, in addition to casting services. A local wizard might sell a couple of scrolls or maybe a ring to fund his research. An old adventurer might get rid of an old weapon she doesn't need any more, because a comfortable retirement is more important than a +3 sword she'll never use again.

Mechanically, these are handled the same way as the magicmart. Magicfor sale, but they make more sense than having it all in one place. Also, buying magic might not necissarily be finding a finished product but tracking down someone who can make it for you, convincing them to waste their time (and possibly xp) on you, then waiting for them to get the job done. In the end you have gone to town and bought a magic item, but just refluffing it makes it a bit more fun and possibly you can get an adventure out of it. "Want me to make a +4 defending holy rapier? fine. First I'll need the shield of a saint, the blood of a solar aasimon (given as reward for a heroic deed), then I'll need a sword made by a quadripelaeic pacifist."
(actually, I've seriously considered introducing crafting adventures for my game. Makes everything more fun)

The other thing to remember is just because you can buy and sell magic doesn't mean that every type of item is always available everywhere, even if the population center has a high enough gp limit. One DM I play with assigns a percentile chance for each item we want to buy. Things like potions and scrolls (esp- common spells) are almost always available. Things like weapons and armor and rings are rare, staves very rare, and wondrous items are had to find. The pricier the item, the harder it is to find.

[Yora]

By all means, yes, let's stick to the worst-balanced and least-mechanically-interesting classes in the game. I don't see how this improves things, or makes the game more "old-school," unless by old-school you mean limited choice.

except this removes a lot of options and feats and severaly reduces abilities like AoO in general (esp. Combat Reflexes), and movement rates in general.
This is not "except", this is "because".

That's pretty much the goal of this whole discussion.

[Lord Torath]

In AD&D, Attacks of Opportunity were limited to when you moved your normal move away from someone(thing) you were in melee with. He(she/it) would get one free attack on you as you ran. If you moved out at 1/3 your normal speed or slower, you didn't suffer an automatic attack.

I personally like using miniatures (I use Lego castle mini-figs), but only in a general these-guys-are-over-here sense. I show where everyone is, but I don't rely on it for exact ranges. Just direction and grouping. The DM says how far away everyone(thing) is.

[Yogibear41]

I personally have never, played any edition other than 3.X, but my DM has been playing/dming for probably at least 30 years and has often told me of things from his 1st edition days. One of the things that sticks out the most in my mind is about spells known. The thing about clerics, druids, and other classes having acces to entire lists is just a no-no to him. He said at character creation often times the DM would pick out 5 or so spells your character "knew" and learning any new spells was entirely up to that character to find/discover on his own this include no automatic spell learnings for leveling up. And while he has never really sat down and come up with some firm ground rules on what spells you character knows, from time to time when a player decides they want to use a new spell for a specific task that they have never used before, he will often roll a dice to determine whether that player actually knows of that particular spell.
In general the whole spell system we use is rather lax, often times prepared caster don't have to "prepare" their spells and can kind of just go with it. Our wizard also probably knows far to many spells he has gotten for free when leveling up, but eh no one has done anything absurdly out there so far anyway.

But this brings me to the point I was going to make. From time to time when I am bored I dream of the day when I will run a game of my own and as such I come up with homebrew rules/tweaks I like often times inspired by my own DM. One such rule that I have come up with for an e6 campaign setting I have in mind, is to use the sponataneous divine caster variant from UA for clerics, druids etc. but also allow them to learn/discover new spells from their journeys as quest rewards/loot, the same would go for sorcerers.

Another idea that comes to mind, while I don't particularly know if its a 1st edition thing or not involves wizard casting. In my a wizard doesn't need his spell book for every spell he knows, and he doesn't have to sit around every day "preparing" spells hes going to cast, if the spells are in all actuality that complex to remeber that he can't just cast them spontaneously, theres no way hes going to remeber 20 different spells that complex just from studying them for an hour or so in the morning time.

In my mind a wizard could spontaneously cast any low level spell he knows but would require his spellbook in order to cast the big powerful complex spells. Now as far as game mechanics wise I don't know exactly where you would draw this line perhaps he could spontanteously cast spells of 4-5 levels lower than the highest level spell he could cast from his book. So a wizard with access to 9th level spells could spontaneously cast 4th and maybe 5th level spells. But would basically have to have his book on hand open it to the correct page and then cast the spell via reading it to cast anything more powerful.

[tasw]

The single biggest thing I would do is take the saving throw math from AD&D so that high level characters very rarely fail their saves and casters are not able to jack up the DC's of spells saving throws.

I would also take item creation and make it more old school. Not feat dependent, you have to actually quest to gather the necessary items and its very, very, expensive in terms of GP rather then EXP. That by itself would help to address the magic mart problems because buying magic would be financially out of the reach of all but the very wealthiest so there would be no market for them.

I remember in one older edition the permanency spell cost you a point of CON. Permanently. If you really want to make magic rarer bring that back as well.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I would also take item creation and make it more old school. Not feat dependent, you have to actually quest to gather the necessary items and its very, very, expensive in terms of GP rather then EXP. That by itself would help to address the magic mart problems because buying magic would be financially out of the reach of all but the very wealthiest so there would be no market for them.
Bear in mind that the weakest, least versatile classes (monk, fighter, whatever) tend to be the most dependent on magic items.

[tasw]

Bear in mind that the weakest, least versatile classes (monk, fighter, whatever) tend to be the most dependent on magic items.

Completely meaningless. Firstly its dependent on the greatly flawed tier methodology and 2ndly by addressing saving throws you flip that on its head and all the vaunted wizards versatility just boils down to ways he can run away from an enraged fighter.... allowing you to loot all his towers valuables at your leisure.

The monk.... is hopeless as a base class. It should be a prestige class and be totally revamped to reflect that.

[BWR]

Except that saving throws are not the be all and end all of spells. Fighter dude seems immune to your spells, throw spells that don't have saving throws. Like Evard's Black Tentacles, summon spells, various rays. Fighter type is still hosed by full caster.

[Yora]

Also, isn't everything you could make a save against equally difficult? It's the same as making the save DC for everything 20.

[Lapak]

Except that saving throws are not the be all and end all of spells. Fighter dude seems immune to your spells, throw spells that don't have saving throws. Like Evard's Black Tentacles, summon spells, various rays. Fighter type is still hosed by full caster.If you were going to import the saving throw mechanic, you'd want to also import the idea that there is no such thing as a 'no-saving throw' offensive spell - or at least, they are extremely rare and have another limitation on them. (Like the Power Word spells, which don't have a save but do have a hit-point limit, for example.)

The fact that you couldn't toss around no-save effects all the time was a big part of why direct damage was a critical, viable strategy in earlier editions (with another part being that hit point totals were substantially lower while the damage dice on spells hasn't changed much.)

[BWR]

Still leaves summoning and buffing things to hell and back. And are you going to insist on adding saving throws to spells that don't have them now?

[Yogibear41]

Well, putting a lid on summoning things is easy enough. Think for a moment exactly where that celestial or fiendish watcha ma call it is coming from. Mr. Grand ole angel/devil/demon may get sick of someone yanking his pet away over and over. He may decide to come looking one day and said wizard who has been summoning his critters probably doesn't want to be around when he does.

[BWR]

Plenty of things on the summon lists that aren't fiendish/celestial.
What makes you think the same guy is in charge of all the monsteres you summon? (hint: Planescape says it's entirely random, on infinitely large planes)
Why should this restriction suddenly appear?

Basically, the argument seems to be that magic is too powerful, and that was the same in AD&D too. Actually, it was worse because magic items were fewer and less powerful and non-magic user classes had NO mechanical elements to allow them to compete at all. At least in 3.x you can get non-gear/spells mechanics that allow you to be decent. Some classes need more help than others, but the opint still stands. And gear support is way better.

[shadow_archmagi]

I feel like a big part of caster's power in later editions is the restructuring of the round. (I mean, it's obviously not the only thing, but it's there, and it certainly helps) In 3.5, you can only interrupt a caster by hitting him during his turn, which means you have to sit down at the start of the round and say "Screw you, wizard!" and choose how many of your men you want to devote exclusively to maybe countering him.

In ACKS, which is fairly old school, init is rolled every round, and before it is rolled, spellcasters have to declare their intention to cast. They're treated as in the process of casting until their number comes up, meaning that if the Mage rolls a 1 for init, anyone who rolls higher than a 1 can decide to try to attack him and interrupt his spellcasting. (And taking any damage causes the spell to not only not occur, but also the spell slot is used up.)

[Yogibear41]

I'm not saying that every time you summon any creature something like that should happen, but their is always that chance that something may follow it through that wormhole you just tore asunder to get it there.

Basically just more ways to reinforce the whole concept of magic is dangerous so you shouldn't just use it carelessly.

[Thrudd]

I'm not saying that every time you summon any creature something like that should happen, but their is always that chance that something may follow it through that wormhole you just tore asunder to get it there.

Basically just more ways to reinforce the whole concept of magic is dangerous so you shouldn't just use it carelessly.

I like that. Add a % chance, which increases depending on the level of spell being cast, that any summon spell results in something showing up you didn't intend for and doesn't obey your commands. The most powerful scrying spells should come with a similar % chance of attracting unwanted attention. Gates definately should have a chance of opening up to the wrong place, or attract attention from repeated use. The DM marks down every time a player casts Gate, and the chance increases each time that somebody unexpected notices them. There should be a table to determine who and what it is that notices them, too, which also may vary depending on the level of the caster. Tables with % and random occurences are fun. :smallsmile: Muahahaha. Summon monster I : dire rat. 1% chance of unexpected occurence...oops, rolled 00 01, that was the abyssal pet dire rat of a Type 3 demon, Glabrezu. lol

[Slipperychicken]

- No grid

I've actually played a few 3.X games all using a similar rule (i.e. nobody had a battle-grid), and ran into some problems.


How do you deal with area effects and control spells?
How do you deal with ranges?
How long does it take to approach an enemy (5ft step, move, double move, etc)?
How do you know whether you can full attack an enemy?
What's to prevent everyone from just running past the Fighters and ganking the squishies?
How is movement speed still relevant at all?
How do you know if you have cover/concealment or not?
How do you deal with environmental hazards and 5ft wide corridors?
How do you know what distance penalty someone is taking for his Listen check?


The answer my previous groups gave to pretty much all of them was "DM fiat", which was pretty unsatisfying for me since I enjoy tactical positioning. The grid makes the combat feel more cerebral, especially if environmental factors are actually in play. Also, I find that lacking a grid means the DM gets to decide on-the-fly what will or won't work, which is a source of many unpleasant shenanigans.

[Yora]

The answer to all of those is "guestimate". Except for movement speed, which becomes almost irrelevant.

[Thrudd]

I've actually played a few 3.X games all using a similar rule (i.e. nobody had a battle-grid), and ran into some problems.


How do you deal with area effects and control spells?
How do you deal with ranges?
How long does it take to approach an enemy (5ft step, move, double move, etc)?
How do you know whether you can full attack an enemy?
What's to prevent everyone from just running past the Fighters and ganking the squishies?
How is movement speed still relevant at all?
How do you know if you have cover/concealment or not?
How do you deal with environmental hazards and 5ft wide corridors?
How do you know what distance penalty someone is taking for his Listen check?


The answer my previous groups gave to pretty much all of them was "DM fiat", which was pretty unsatisfying for me since I enjoy tactical positioning. The grid makes the combat feel more cerebral, especially if environmental factors are actually in play. Also, I find that lacking a grid means the DM gets to decide on-the-fly what will or won't work, which is a source of many unpleasant shenanigans.

That's true, D&D, especially 3.x, is designed for tactical grid/tabletop combat. It will take more than just removing AoO and changing flanking to adjust the system to a Narrative-only game. AD&D and prior versions were all written with movement speed, spell and missile ranges and areas of effect, implying this is being tracked specifically in some way on the table/map. I have played AD&D without using a grid, but most of the combat rules get ignored, and the "unpleasant shenanigans" are the order of the day, as no one is quite clear on exactly where everything is relative to one another. I may have a perfect picture of it in my head and a dungeon map in front of me to give me reference, but even the best descriptions leave players with different ideas and the details are soon forgotten when there are more than one or two combatants. Admittedly, AD&D is a lot easier to run without tactical combat because there is no such thing as feats and very few special abilities which gain much in terms of tactical advantage beyond the standard weapons and spells. To run 3.x the same way, you will be making a sizeable percentage of the feats and special abilities obsolete. To track all those features in your mind without a grid is harder than it sounds.
Unless you're planning on complete DM fiat for all specific combat issues, it would be better to design a different system that does not rely on specific speeds and distances. This will entail a fairly major overhaul of how combat works in regards to movement speed, weapon and spell ranges and areas of effect, as well as reworking or creating new feats to replace those made obsolete. This isn't so much borrowing a concept from AD&D as it is trying to make better a playstyle that many people are already using and was pretty common (although the rules as written don't really provide a great system for it).

[Grundy]

I'd keep the grid. The best improvement to my gaming experience was adding a grid to 2e. It makes everything easier for both DMs and Players. Knowing for sure where everything is eliminates so much confusion and conflict. There's no need to add spatial relations to the work load.
If you don't like all the AoOs, just eliminate all those rules, feats, etc. When we played 2e, we gave a fleeing attack when a character left battle, unless somebody else "swapped" with them. You could do that, or just get rid of AoOs all together.
Get rid of flanking, strip combat down. Reinstate the backstab (attacker must be undetected before attack to make it effective). Eliminate all the actions except one move, one standard, and one free action, plus 6 seconds of speech.

Of course, that eliminates a lot of the (limited) options that martial classes have. And since they effectively don't have the ability to disrupt spellcasting in 3e, it makes casters even better....

If wealth is a problem, and you don't like the Christmas-tree PC, then get rid of bonus stacking. Have stat, skill levels/Bab, and magic bonuses, and fold all the other bonuses into one of those three categories. Suddenly you don't need all that magic. Add deflection bonus for a 2e feel. And then be done with it.

Also find other ways to spend wealth. Break skills and/or feats from level advancement, and charge the PCs gold and time to pick up skill points/feats. Or let them buy additional, if you prefer.

If you reintroduce the concept that any damage disrupts a spell, henchmen with bows or pikes become useful again "OK, you guys ready actions to shoot anyone casting a spell." Henchmen cost money. Good henchmen cost a lot of money.

And/or enforce the 2e rule that casters must declare spell casting, and which spell, at the beginning of the round, and that spells go off at the end of everybody's actions, so there's no need to ready the action.

Make full attacks (and other full attack actions) standard actions like they were in 2e, but keep or extend spell times, and combat will speed up, and rulings will be a lot simpler and easier.

[BWR]

The most important thing about the battlemap is not the grid and the exact ranges, but positioning. It becomes very hard to keep evey combatant's position in your mind, and the more elements there are in the battle, the harder it is to juggle. The moment you start adding things like range and movement rates to a game, even if it isn't designed to have a battlemap, a battlemap becomes very, very useful. I've played systems that don't include maps in the rules where we had to add a battlemap so we could plan our tactics (or have planned tactics used against us).

Knowing where everyone is in relations to everyone else is vital for knowing how to procede and what tactics to use.

[TheDarkSaint]

For the love of Pete, get rid of 3.5's Turn Undead. What a needlessly complicated way of doing things. 2nd had a much simpler, more elegant way of doing it.

[Yora]

I hadn't been thinking about that since I've pretty much replaced all clerics with oracles some time ago.
But yes, Turn Undead is just horrible. You just have to have an index card with all the steps and charts to be able to do it.

[Scots Dragon]

I hadn't been thinking about that since I've pretty much replaced all clerics with oracles some time ago.
But yes, Turn Undead is just horrible. You just have to have an index card with all the steps and charts to be able to do it.

Isn't that the same with everything in 3.5e, though? You need a flow-chart and a half for grappling rules.

[MtlGuy]

I started a thread with a similar question some days ago, but maybe phrasing it differently and directing it at people who already believe AD&D did things right and possibly even better, might get greater positive responses.

I like the basic idea of the d20 system (roll 1d20, add modifiers, reach or surpass target number) and also how it deals with skills and feats (though I personally believe Pathfinder greatly improved assigning Skill Ranks). But as much as I like how you create characters, I am really not a fan of how you run the actual gameplay. There is just so much rolling of dice for minor and trivial things, because the d20 system wants to cover pretty much everything imaginable with clearly defined rules.
Now I started playing only in the very last months before D&D 3rd Edition and have only very limited actual experience with how AD&D plays out in practice, but when I look at the rules, they appear to leave much more things to the GMs descretion without trying to create special rules for situations that barely, if ever, come up (and as a result always need to be looked up). I also love the Dragon Age RPG and Mouse Guard, which also are doing completely fine with relatively lose rules.

So what I am looking for is ideas for replacing complex things in a d20 game with much simpler and easier solutions that were completely servicable in AD&D or work out great in Retro-Clones.
I already got a few ideas of my own, but any other suggestions will be highly welcome.

- No grid and attacks of opportunity from movement. Flanking can be done by simply saying "I flank enemy X together with ally A", and almost everything else the grid is really needed for is figuring out who provokes attacks of opportunity for moving out of a threatened square. With those gone, everything else can be tracked accurately enough in your mind.

- Basic Rulebook classes only: Unless you are playing in a campaign where one or two additional classes would be really suitable as being common. (Like Ninja or Artificer.)

- No Wealth by Level Table: In theory, most d20 games have charts that indicate how much magic items characters of a given level need to have, indicated by a gold piece value. In practice it doesn't work, since you still always have to check if the PCs have the correct items to be able to harm a specific creature, or have the correct items to protect against a super powerful special attack. Since you have to check for this anyway, you can dump the idea that a specific amount of magic items is appropriate for any given level. Just hand out treasure as you see fit and don't force the PCs to fight enemies which they can't harm or defend against.

- No magic item shops: I almost always play low level games and my players are really laid back about optimization issues, but even then I really hate the moments when it comes to buying new stuff, as everyone is going through magic item lists, pondering their hundreds of options what to buy.
Instead, make the main source for magic items the treasure that they find, and maybe occasionally mention that a store where they sell loot, has one or two items on sale. If they are comming to a big city and a player really wants to look around if he can find a magic greatsword, give him two or three offers that are currently available and let him either pick one of them, or have him try again in the next city or at a later visit.

- Consider the maximum level: Now this is not technically a return to AD&D, but I think that the general feel can be much better achieved at lower levels than at higher levels. This is more third-hand knowledge I picked up somewhere, but apparently AD&D did not have bonuses, defenses, and damage scale up to the degree found in d20 games. Large numbers of weak enemies are still a thread to higher level characters in older editions of D&D. Also, major cities do not have to have a handful of 17th level or higher spellcasters. And PC warriors do not have to be 15th level to be among the great warlords and warrior kings. It does not have to be an E# campaign, but simply saying that all the NPCs in the world have only advanced up to 10th, 12th, or 15th level allows you to play at these lower levels and still be at the top of the food chain.


Allow players to use a grid to keep themselves oriented, but do not be beholden to the grid. AD&D has a more cinematic, or narrated feel as opposed to later versions. 2nd Edition had much simpler rules for what actions could be achieved in a round, stick with simple. My belief is that the wealth by level table is a tool more for tournament play, as what would really be the point of 'standardizing' wealth and equipment in a fanstasy game.

Race/Class restrictions are cannon to me. I don't want to see Halfling paladins and Dwarf mages running around (in general). If you want to get back to basics, there are four classes: Cleric, Fighter, Thief, & Wizard.
Barbarians and Monks are basically fighters with conan or kung-fu 'flavour packs' added in. Level restrictions is something you can do without.

I prefer the 2nd edition multiclassing system of declaring your classes at the start and dividing exp earned between them to the current one where you level up and order from a menu.

One thing I learned from reading "Tucker's Kobolds" and Dragon Mountain is that creatures with less than 1 hit dice, but average intelligence and a home court advantage can challenge high level players.

No magic shops is kind of standard.

[tasw]

Except that saving throws are not the be all and end all of spells. Fighter dude seems immune to your spells, throw spells that don't have saving throws. Like Evard's Black Tentacles, summon spells, various rays. Fighter type is still hosed by full caster.

Dude, tentacles slows him down but if you cant hurt him (and the spell really doesnt do much) it just delays the pain. Since we seem to talking about PF/ 2e fusion all it does is 1d6+4 damage and a grapple check with a check that a fighter shouldnt have too much difficulty defending against.

The summons in older style D&D sucked. Again just delaying the pain. And even the new summons arent all that great. A well optimized fighter can smoke anything you can summon pretty easily. Although I would also use the 2e summon spells since we're talking about what to yank.

And the 2e teleport where it might kill you.

Rays require a touch attack so they will miss sometimes, especially if your fighter has things like rings of protection, dodge feats, halfway decent AC etc. its at best a toss up with those, even with the fighter slowed. Not to mention that they generally are short ranged so your probably only getting off one or 2 before dying.

The caster is still more likely to survive because he has options for escape. But with saving throws adjusted to what they were in a 1 on 1 fight if he decides to duke it out till the end he's probably going down against a fighter. Especially if the fighter is decently optimized.

I'd definitely also add my voice to bringing back old school casting times and spell interruption.

[SiuiS]

The most important thing about the battlemap is not the grid and the exact ranges, but positioning. It becomes very hard to keep evey combatant's position in your mind, and the more elements there are in the battle, the harder it is to juggle. The moment you start adding things like range and movement rates to a game, even if it isn't designed to have a battlemap, a battlemap becomes very, very useful. I've played systems that don't include maps in the rules where we had to add a battlemap so we could plan our tactics (or have planned tactics used against us).

Knowing where everyone is in relations to everyone else is vital for knowing how to procede and what tactics to use.

Never had those problems, myself. It's all about clarity and willingness to compromise.
"I want to attack the wounded knight, and will go around the guards to get there."
"It will take two turns, to go all around them."
"Oh, okay. I'm going to jump/tumble beyond the guards then, and attack the wounded knight."
"Okay, roll."

All any one player has to keep in mind is his own spacing.


Isn't that the same with everything in 3.5e, though? You need a flow-chart and a half for grappling rules.

I never got this.
Grab the dude; y/n
Does dude escape; y/n
Do stuff to dude:
- squeeze
- punch/stab
- move bodily
- control their body

How is that hard?



I'd definitely also add my voice to bringing back old school casting times and spell interruption.

For fizzle. It's basically a initiative penalty equal to spell level; you start on your initiative an deliver X counts later. Just make sure the counter resets at last guy and not 0, so you don't get wizards holding onto their spells until pip 5 so they technically get a fifth level spell this round and you're golden.

[BWR]

Never had those problems, myself. It's all about clarity and willingness to compromise.
"I want to attack the wounded knight, and will go around the guards to get there."
"It will take two turns, to go all around them."
"Oh, okay. I'm going to jump/tumble beyond the guards then, and attack the wounded knight."
"Okay, roll."

All any one player has to keep in mind is his own spacing.


It's not the problem of the player, it's the problem of the DM who has to remember all the enemies as well as the PCs. Far too often I've had problems, on both sides of the screen, with a combat with a bit too many people and the players getting upset that they can't see in a few seconds what it would take me a couple of minutes to explain, then having their plan foiled because they misunderstood what was said, or because the DM misremebered a detail he mentioned 10 minutes earlier.

Quite simply, a battlemap takes very little time to set up and makes everything go a lot smoother once there are more than one or two enemies to consider.

[Yora]

Once you have more than 7 or 8 combatants in a fight, there is no reason not to get out any markers to indicate position. But that doesn't require moving in squares on a grid in any way.

[Lord Torath]

I quite agree! I've never used a grid, but I've almost always used markers of some kind (currently it's customized and painted Lego minifigs - yes, my kids all use acryllic paints on their mini-figs. Simple Green takes it off quite nicely when they decide they're ready for a redo - Battlebeasts usually fill the role of any monsters) to show relative positions.

[SiuiS]

It's not the problem of the player, it's the problem of the DM who has to remember all the enemies as well as the PCs. Far too often I've had problems, on both sides of the screen, with a combat with a bit too many people and the players getting upset that they can't see in a few seconds what it would take me a couple of minutes to explain, then having their plan foiled because they misunderstood what was said, or because the DM misremebered a detail he mentioned 10 minutes earlier.

Quite simply, a battlemap takes very little time to set up and makes everything go a lot smoother once there are more than one or two enemies to consider.

See, I've noticed that once there are so many enemies that things become problematic, the extact position stops mattering. It's no longer "eight separate kobolds" it's "a puddle of kobolds". They clump together. Or maybe three kobolds each attack a PC! Ten you can say "Kane's kobolds" and everyone knows what's what. Or worse comes to worst, slap down a quarter and some pennies, or joy initials and some Xs on scratch paper.

A grid can be helpful, but I think it's not quite superior. The problems of grid less combat are those of inexperience. And one cannot say te grid is better because until you learn the ins and outs, players struggle with grid combat, too.


Once you have more than 7 or 8 combatants in a fight, there is no reason not to get out any markers to indicate position. But that doesn't require moving in squares on a grid in any way.

Yup.

HOly smokes, Yora I didn't recognize you! Hi there!

[Mutazoia]

Except that saving throws are not the be all and end all of spells. Fighter dude seems immune to your spells, throw spells that don't have saving throws. Like Evard's Black Tentacles, summon spells, various rays. Fighter type is still hosed by full caster.

Not so much if you actually use weapon speed's and casting times, rather than have every spell in the game be insta-cast.

Let's say our mage dude has an inish. of 15 our fighter dude has an inish of 14. So if a spell has a cast time of say 4 the mage can start casting said spell on 15 but it doesn't actually go off until 11 which is after fighter dude has an opportunity to hit mage dude with his sword. Another thing to keep in mind about AD&D is that there is no such thing as "defensive casting" (which seriously makes no sense what-so-ever) so mage dude would be forced to roll to see if his spell is interrupted. (or if fighter dude did enough damage it would be interrupted automatically). Now if Fighter dude is of sufficient level to get irritative attacks, mage dude is in serious trouble long before he get's his spell off. Add in 3x feats like Bullrush and Trip attack and Mage dude is pretty hosed.

Now you may cry "Mage dude can use the quicken spell meta-magic feat" ah...but AD&D didn't have meta-magic either (and meta-magic is one HUGE factor in the "casters are OP in 3x +" debate). So if you take those out as well then mr. mage is looking good to be fitted for a pine box. (Or depending on who's he's fighting, a small plastic baggie.)

[Mutazoia]

A grid can be helpful, but I think it's not quite superior. The problems of grid less combat are those of inexperience. And one cannot say te grid is better because until you learn the ins and outs, players struggle with grid combat, too.

Grid combat is quite simple...where it starts getting difficult is when you start adding in 3x fluff like 5 foot steps and double move's not provoking AoO's...

Like this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0176.html)
or this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0216.html)

[Knaight]

There's also a half-step between grids and narrative location, and that is the Zone system. Swipe that from FATE, or Oldschool Hack, or whatever else, and you've got a fairly solid system that is significantly simpler. Convert movement speed to a check of some sort to get between zones (maybe every 5 feet of speed is a +2 run check or something), and you've got that under control as well.

[Ozreth]

All of the people who are worried about keeping track of positioning when going gridless...just use a tape measure, or one of those tiny measuring sticks from warhammer.

It keeps the board gamey feel of the grid down and makes things look more organic but you still get pretty good positioning.

[Thrudd]

All of the people who are worried about keeping track of positioning when going gridless...just use a tape measure, or one of those tiny measuring sticks from warhammer.

It keeps the board gamey feel of the grid down and makes things look more organic but you still get pretty good positioning.

Yes, the point is you need to measure the distances in some way if the D&D combat rules-as-written are to be used. Whether a grid, hexes, measuring tape, whatever. Combat that uses no hard measurements of range and position will necessarily need to ignore many of the feats and rules of 3.5e. Which is fine, it is every DM's prerogative to use and ignore whatever rules they want. Combat without any measurements works fine with a good DM that is consistent in their rulings about player actions, and gives players a chance to ask about their surroundings before they decide what action to take.
Like "There are a group of orcs coming down the hill toward you." "how many orcs does it look like I can catch in a fireball?" "they are fairly spaced out, so you might only hit two of them." "Ok, then I won't use fireball right now, I cast magic missile to hit three enemies".

Rather than what often happens : "There are a group of orcs coming down the hill at you" "I cast fireball in the middle of the group" "Ok, your fireball only hits two of them, they were spread out." "Wait! I wouldn't use fireball if I knew that. I want to use magic missile instead." "Sorry, you already cast fireball." Even if the DM allows you to change your action and not waste your fireball, it's still a confusing situation that comes up all the time. You need to be very precise in your descriptions as a DM, and the players need to know to ask a lot of questions.

[neonchameleon]

So what I am looking for is ideas for replacing complex things in a d20 game with much simpler and easier solutions that were completely servicable in AD&D or work out great in Retro-Clones.
I already got a few ideas of my own, but any other suggestions will be highly welcome.

- No grid and attacks of opportunity from movement.

- Basic Rulebook classes only:

- No Wealth by Level Table:

All those actually come from AD&D. And Wealth by Level is needed because levels are a measure of power - and Iron Man can beat up Tony Stark out of his armour. AD&D didn't just have opportunity attack rules. It had facing rules.


- No magic item shops:

- Consider the maximum level:

No magic item shops cripples fighters, but leaves wizards largely unaffected, further breaking 3.X. Maximum level (E6) might well work.

If looking to AD&D for inspiration I'd try something like the following:

The wizard gets no free spells when levelling up. They must find them all. (Correspondingly give the cleric two domains to use for domain spells, healing, two more domains, and one other spell as their list at each level).

Treasure is skewed towards the fighter (lots of magic swords and armour - and strength boosters are more common than for any other stat)

Higher level spells are no harder to save against than lower level - but higher level characters have better saving throws. Cut the spell level bonus to saving throw DCs entirely. And evocation becomes useful again - half damage on a miss is still half damage. You also don't want to throw spells at high level monsters.

+5 to saves against Save or Die effects, +3 against Save or Suck effects Seriously, that's basically the way the saving throw tables worked. Death saves were always easy to make, and poison paralysis and petrification pretty easy.

Leadership is given to fighters for free at 10th level, rogues get the cohort for free, clerics get the low level minions for free and wizards and druids can never take it.

Only fighters (and Paladins and Rangers) get iterative attacks - and they get them at their full BAB.

AoOs are for walking out of combat or casting/shooting in combat only. If an AoO hits a caster, the spell is lost.

Kill the skill system. Use attribute rolls (and possibly e.g. d4+8 or d10+5 for reliable tasks). (Rogues just get to do things no one else can - or to not roll at all if others can).

[Ozreth]

Also, I'm curious, does anybody have a link to the above mentioned post about inserting 3e elements in a 2e game? Thanks!

[erikun]

Also, I'm curious, does anybody have a link to the above mentioned post about inserting 3e elements in a 2e game? Thanks!
Would this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=240319) be the one you are looking for?