Trying to make 5e more oldish and want some people's opinions

[Fatdoomguy]

Hey so recently my players wanted to shift from 2e to 5e, they have played 5e and prefer it, I just want to change some things. I have played a lot of 5e as a player but not a DM besides a couple one shots so I have an idea of what I want to change. I don't like how you can be able to use all weapons and armour at 1st level by choosing the right class or being completely healed from one nights rest. I know it's trying to make things a lot more streamlined to use but I feel it takes away from the experience of the game, such as finding a powerful magic weapon that your not proficient with and spending the time and effort to get proficient with it but that's just me.
I was thinking of adding/changing the following rules and want to know what everyone thinks and what other ideas could be used.
1. Short rest 8 hours of rest – Long rest 1 week of normal rest or 3 days with a dedicated healer and basically full bed rest
- Must have someone with medicine proficiency or healing pollutes/healer's pack or similar (based on gritty realism DMG)
2. Being proficient with martial weapons lets you choose 3 weapons from the martial weapon list to be proficient with and have +1 to attacks in all other weapons
-being proficient with simple weapons lets you choose 6 weapons from the simple weapon list to be proficient in and +1 to all others
3. At short rests you can use the abilities from rest of the weary (homebrew found on google)
4. Critical hits and failures in combat cause a roll on a table for extra effects, a critical can cause injuries that take longer to heal or high level healing spell
5. You don’t have to speak your races language if it doesn’t suit your backstory. It can be changed for any other language that makes sense for your backstory
6. Reading and writing will be an intelligence skill and can be chosen by any class or race instead of one being given
I will also be changing the magic system to be more like 2e with the spheres as to me it doesn't make sense that a cleric of life would be able to raise any undead as their deity is against undead.
I will probably also do something to other spellcasters as being able to pick any spell and just know it without any training or even know of the spells existence seems broken and doesn't make sense to me. I would like to try incorporate a system that still gives them some spells when they level up from a list that might have one or two spells taken out but allow them to gain these spells at some point in game. this could be finding and doing a quest for a wizard to gain access to his spell book, a druid being contacted by nature to stop a village from destroying some sacred forest, a paladin having a dream of a great evil beginning and must find a way to stop it before it spreads. I know these seem like normal quest you could give them but I feel that having the option to reward a player with a spell that wouldn't have access to otherwise would be fun especially if you don't say it allowed so everyone can hear but instead pass the note and allow them to try convince the party while in the middle of another quest.

Please tell me what you think of the rules above and if you can think of any more to make it more old school. Thank you for everyone's comments already, I have made some edits

[nickl_2000]

Honest question here. If you want to make 5e more like AD&D, why bother switching? Why not just continue with AD&D?

[EggKookoo]

Hey so recently my players wanted to shift from 2e to 5e and I don't like how different they are...

Before we continue, have you talked with your players about why they want to shift to 5e? Are you undermining them by appearing to switch but then reverting things back to 2e under the hood?

Anyway...


Short rest 8 hours of rest – Long rest 1 week of normal rest or 3 days with healer

You probably want to have spell slots that refresh on a long rest change to refresh on a short rest or you'll have grumpy wizards.

How would you handle features that refresh on a short rest?


Being proficient with martial weapons lets you choose 5 weapons from the martial weapon list to be proficient with and have +1 to attacks in all other weapons
-being proficient with simple weapons lets you choose 8 weapons from the simple weapon list to be proficient in and +1 to all others

Curious why being not proficient would still give you a +1.


Weapon speeds will effect initiative, I’ll be making a table

I like the idea of weapon speeds but I'm wary of anything that slows down combat.


Reading and writing will be an intelligence skill and can be chosen by any class or race instead of one being given

It would be nice to see Int factor into things more.


I will also be changing the magic system to be more like 2e with the spheres as to me it doesn't make sense that a cleric of life would be able to raise any undead.

Why not? You don't think a life cleric would have some understanding of that?


I will probably also do something to wizards as being able to pick any spell and just know it without any training or even know of the spells existence seems OP and doesn't make sense to me.

I think the assumption is the wizard is constantly researching things during downtime.

[Unoriginal]

A wizard cannot "pick up any spell", especially without training. Either they are re-inventing it from scratch by training as a wizard between level, or they have to copy it from someone else's work, which on top of being expensive and time consumming still also demand the wizard re-write the spell so it work for them and them only.

For Clerics: gods have a lot of power. I'm not sure if you're objecting to the Life Cleric being able to resurrect people or to create undead, but in both cases it's the deity's power which allows it. Not the Cleric's.

As for the rest, I'll echo what others have said: if you don't want to DM 5e, then don't. Politely tell your players to find a different DMs for that, because you want to keep the AD&D way of things.


If you want to DM with those changes, check the Gritty Realism section in the DMG and Google "Greyhawk Initiative UA".

[Fatdoomguy]

Before we continue, have you talked with your players about why they want to shift to 5e? Are you undermining them by appearing to switch but then reverting things back to 2e under the hood?


Yeah, most of them have played 5e and said that they prefer it, so I am willing to give DMing 5e a shot. I told them I would be changing the rules a bit and they understand that, as long as I tell them everything I am doing and still following the core of 5e like the skills and not changing spells, I don't think they will mind




You probably want to have spell slots that refresh on a long rest change to refresh on a short rest or you'll have grumpy wizards.

I don't have a wizard now so it's not a big but might so I'll give them something like making their arcane recovery better in some way



How would you handle features that refresh on a short rest?

I found some home broke stuff called 'rest of the weary' and I think it will be useful. It gives different options to different classes like regaining spells, expanding a hit die and getting one back.



Curious why being not proficient would still give you a +1.

Not to sure, just thinking that it would make having the proficiency mean something over just being proficient in certain weapons like the sorcerer and wizard classes but I think I will change it, It doesn't make much sense



I like the idea of weapon speeds but I'm wary of anything that slows down combat.

We do one initiative roll a battle and so I would just have to adjust the order if someone changes weapon, so I don't think it will be to much of a haste.



Why not? You don't think a life cleric would have some understanding of that?

I think they would but most like domain gods seem to hate undead and so it doesn't make much sense that they would allow their power to be used in that way



I think the assumption is the wizard is constantly researching things during downtime.

I assume the same so I would give them some spells when they level up but if they wanted a really good spells like fly or invisibility or fireball, then it would need either some researching in game or finding a wizard to teach it to them

[Fatdoomguy]

A wizard cannot "pick up any spell", especially without training. Either they are re-inventing it from scratch by training as a wizard between level, or they have to copy it from someone else's work, which on top of being expensive and time consumming still also demand the wizard re-write the spell so it work for them and them only.


That's the system I was going to introduce, I was planning on letting them have some spells immediately after they level up but not fill in all their spell slots and let them get them off a wizard in game not just assuming that they know a wizard and got it off them.


For Clerics: gods have a lot of power. I'm not sure if you're objecting to the Life Cleric being able to resurrect people or to create undead, but in both cases it's the deity's power which allows it. Not the Cleric's.


I meant create undead, I just mean that it seems that the life domain gods don't seem to like undead and so allowing someone to sue their power to create one doesn't seem to make sense to me. It wouldn't be a big cut on their spell options, just the ones that are oppose to their deity


As for the rest, I'll echo what others have said: if you don't want to DM 5e, then don't. Politely tell your players to find a different DMs for that, because you want to keep the AD&D way of things.


I have no problem doing 5e, I just want to change it a bit and make the rules a little more old school and make more sense in my head

[Fatdoomguy]

Honest question here. If you want to make 5e more like AD&D, why bother switching? Why not just continue with AD&D?

My players have all mostly played 5e and prefer it, so I have no problem switching. I just want to make some changed and make the system seem a little more old school

[EggKookoo]

I don't have a wizard now so it's not a big but might so I'll give them something like making their arcane recovery better in some way

Of course not just wizards. Almost all spellcasters rely on the long rest.

One of the biggest differences between 5e and old school is the concept of spell slots. Third edition and earlier (not sure how 4e worked) didn't have spell slots. You had prepared spells per day. It's a very different mechanic even if it seems superficially similar. You don't burn through prepared spells, you have prepped/known spells and then you get a number of casting-levels per day, and you burn through those.

[Finney]

My players have all mostly played 5e and prefer it, so I have no problem switching. I just want to make some changed and make the system seem a little more old school

You seem to have a problem switching. Otherwise, why are you making substantial modifications to the rules before you even DM a single session with the rules as written?

My recommendation? Instead of trying to force a square peg into a round hole, run the beginner-level module for this edition, Lost Mines of Phandelver, with the rules as written.

Based upon your experiences with LMoP, you and your players can collaborate to make modifications to the rules. For purposes of balance and fun, I think it would be useful to have at least a little experience and a frame of reference before you start making changes to the rules.

Good luck with 5e!

[Sception]

First off, if you really want to give 5e a shot, I'd recommend that you actually give it a shot as is, try to see from play experience why it does the things it does, before you tinker with it.

Per your rest rule: that's already a suggested variant rule, and it works just fine provided your campaign still runs more-or-less the expected 1 to 2 encounters between rests with 2 to 3 short rests between long rests. If you only let them have one short rest per day, but still push 4 to 6 level appropriate encounters into each day, or if you stick to one to 2 encounters per day but make them run many days of adventuring between week long 'long rests', then the system *will* fall apart.

Per the wizard spellbook stuff: just run it as is, it already seems to work the way you want - wizards get a couple spells added to their book per level because it's assumed that they're tinkering with stuff and researching as they go, and that's fine. Spells are class features for spellcasters, you're expected to gain new class features as you level, that's not "OP". You might implement an extra down time training requirement for leveling up, but if you do then that should apply to all classes, not just wizards. Any spells a Wizard wants to add to their spellbook beyond those they gain from leveling already require money, downtime, and a written example of the same spell from either a scroll or another wizard's spellbook to learn from. This is really why I recommend running the game as is BEFORE making changes to it, because otherwise you end up making redundant changes that complicate the rules unnecessarily.

Per cleric spells: a cleric asks for their spells each morning from their deity. General practice is to just let them have what they want - deities are busy people and don't really have time to micromanage all of their followers - but if you feel a cleric is asking for a spell that is diametrically opposed to their deity's ethos then it is already within your purview as the DM to say the deity rejects that request and offers something else instead. In terms of thematic spell selection, though, domains already do that, and further restraints on cleric spell selection aren't really a good idea, as their class spell list is already pretty narrow. In particular, if you plan on preventing *any* domain from memorizing class staples (eg: healing word, cure wounds, spiritual weapon, spirit guardians, revivify, restoration, heal, etc) then you probably should just ban that domain in your games altogether, because you're choosing to cripple that subclass in the same way you'd be crippling a fighter or barbarian if you banned them from using martial weapons. And speaking of...

Per weapon proficiencies: this is more or less fine provided you also add a method of training in a weapon proficiency, in the same way that the rules already offer a method of training in a language or tool proficiency. Don't do this for armor proficiencies, though. They don't scale in effect like weapons, an armored character is expected to transition to better armors as they become available/affordable. Forcing a higher level character to play in scale because their starting proficiencies didn't translate to other armors in the same class is going to cause problems.

Per reading/writing: shouldn't really be a skill. I mean, are you going to make your players roll "read checks" or "write checks" every time they want to read or write something? Probably not, right? So yeah, probably shouldn't be a skill. I get that you might want to convey a medieval world where literacy isn't the norm, but this tends to be pretty awkward in play. Still, if you do want to do this, make it like an armor or weapon proficiency, you either have it or you don't, and give that proficiency for free to any academic or aristocratic class and background, plus let it be trained for cash and downtime a la languages and tool proficiencies. but don't make it stand in for a skill choice, those are important and can't just be trained later to make up the deficit.

weapon speeds: I like the idea, but don't do this. Changing weapons would change initiative mid combat, and that's not something 5e does, with pretty good reason.

[Willie the Duck]

My players have all mostly played 5e and prefer it, so I have no problem switching. I just want to make some changed and make the system seem a little more old school

Okay, well, of the things you have mentioned, only getting rid of healing overnight is really all that old school (and by that, I am simply going to use the metric of: 'was used in multiple editions of TSR-era A/D&D'). Weapon speeds (as used in 2e) was a one-off that does not resemble other TSR editions. Individual weapon proficiencies was a late 1e development that 2e had (and BECMI could have if you used the optional weapon mastery system, a pretty different rule system). Only place I think there was a critical hit/fail-type chart in official D&D was in oD&D's supplement II (which was roundly ignored most of the time).

Anyways, of the things you have listed-
#1 is entirely reasonable, but won't make it very 2e-like. 2e Wizards get their spells back after a night's rest. Why not just make healing slower (ex. 'you get hit dice back, so you can spend those to heal during short rests, but you don't automatically heal anything overnight') and maybe make what qualifies as a long rest more rigorous (no interruptions, spellcasters need 8 hours uninterrupted, so if they need to pull a guard duty shift, it will need to be at beginning or end of night, and total time will have to be longer), or the like?
#2 sure, if you want. The 2e proficiency system was not a high point of the game, in my mind (especially with the complete lack of balance between weapons in that edition, plus how somehow a broadsword and sabre used different proficiency slots, etc. etc.), but if you and your group like it, go right ahead. It isn't like there aren't already systems in place to both punish and reward specializing in one weapon (/weapon and shield) concept over all others.
#3 no idea what that is, but if it works, go right ahead.
#4 I think we all tried to write a chart like this at some point in our teens. Just remember that the PCs get attacked a lot more than any individual opponent, so the more lethal the chart is, the more your players will be making disposable characters.
#5 I see nothing specific about this that will do anything except slightly lower the relative value of Dexterity (the primary initiative-helper in the game-as-written). AD&D made a mistake however, in not rolling reach into the concept. People with big, heavy polearms usually get to strike first, not last.
#6 I think 'my half-elf was raised among humans, why would they know elvish?' and the like is a great starting point. Give people the languages that make sense. The background system and how modular it is suggests that overall trend.
#7 Sure. No reason why reading/writing should be assumed. Of course, I think only 2e made it the assumption that you couldn't, but it does make sense (depending on how much medieval realism you want in your game).

Honestly, only the crit chart sounds like a bad idea (and I've been saying it's a bad idea since long before 5e). The only thing that makes me wary is the general concept of a DM picking up 5e and wanting to make changes before they've really explored the system and what it is like. How much time have you spent reading the system? Playing it? Are you going to be making judgments on things based on how well they would work or something based on how it would go in 2e?

[Fatdoomguy]

Okay, well, of the things you have mentioned, only getting rid of healing overnight is really all that old school (and by that, I am simply going to use the metric of: 'was used in multiple editions of TSR-era A/D&D'). Weapon speeds (as used in 2e) was a one-off that does not resemble other TSR editions. Individual weapon proficiencies was a late 1e development that 2e had (and BECMI could have if you used the optional weapon mastery system, a pretty different rule system). Only place I think there was a critical hit/fail-type chart in official D&D was in oD&D's supplement II (which was roundly ignored most of the time).

Thanks, not sure what else to add to make it more old school without completely changing 5e, probably won't add the weapon speed thing as it was only a 2e thing.



#1 is entirely reasonable, but won't make it very 2e-like. 2e Wizards get their spells back after a night's rest. Why not just make healing slower (ex. 'you get hit dice back, so you can spend those to heal during short rests, but you don't automatically heal anything overnight') and maybe make what qualifies as a long rest more rigorous (no interruptions, spellcasters need 8 hours uninterrupted, so if they need to pull a guard duty shift, it will need to be at beginning or end of night, and total time will have to be longer), or the like?

Don't have a wizard in the party now but would make the arcane recovery ability a bit better if I do


#4 I think we all tried to write a chart like this at some point in our teens. Just remember that the PCs get attacked a lot more than any individual opponent, so the more lethal the chart is, the more your players will be making disposable characters.

thanks didn't realise that, will make it less lethal, probably good if a player can't die from full health by a random crit.


#5 I see nothing specific about this that will do anything except slightly lower the relative value of Dexterity (the primary initiative-helper in the game-as-written). AD&D made a mistake however, in not rolling reach into the concept. People with big, heavy polearms usually get to strike first, not last.

Thanks, that makes sense, I'll incorporate rules like that into the game



Honestly, only the crit chart sounds like a bad idea (and I've been saying it's a bad idea since long before 5e). The only thing that makes me wary is the general concept of a DM picking up 5e and wanting to make changes before they've really explored the system and what it is like. How much time have you spent reading the system? Playing it? Are you going to be making judgments on things based on how well they would work or something based on how it would go in 2e?

I play in 3 campaigns and have dome a couple one shots but never done a full campaign before. I will be going by 5e rules with a few adjustments based on 2e, I am not going to make them play a completely 2e game

[Grod_The_Giant]

1. Short rest 8 hours of rest – Long rest 1 week of normal rest or 3 days with healer
- Must have someone with healing proficiency or healing pollutes or similar.
Have you checked out the Gritty Realism variant in the DMG? It works pretty much like you describe, and is designed for a slower pace of encounters. It has its own problems (such as spells like Mage Armor that originally lasted from rest to rest becoming less useful) but a lot of people enjoy it. You might also consider something like "you can only take a long rest in a safe city/base," or mess around with handing out levels of Exhaustion--those already take a while to heal. Just be careful if you're messing with rests; 5e is carefully balanced around "6-8 encounters and two short rests/long rests," and you can easily mess up classes like the Warlock if you go too far from that.


2. Being proficient with martial weapons lets you choose 5 weapons from the martial weapon list to be proficient with and have +1 to attacks in all other weapons
-being proficient with simple weapons lets you choose 8 weapons from the simple weapon list to be proficient in and +1 to all others
Shouldn't have much impact one way of the other, I think; most characters will stick to one or two weapons anyway.


3. At short rests you can use the abilities from rest of the weary
I don't know what that is?


4. Critical hits and failures in combat cause a roll on a table for extra effects, a critical can instra kill anyone if the roll is right
No. Just... no. There are a thousand threads about why this is a bad idea, but in a nutshell:

Skilled warriors make more attacks than unskilled ones. That means they're more likely to hurt themselves.
The players get in a lot more fights than any individual monster. They'll suffer a lot more from crit fails and successes.
Remember the old straw dummy test: 10 fighters spend ten minutes attacking training dummies. If anyone is badly injured or dead at the end, something has gone horribly wrong with your crit rules.



5. Weapon speeds will effect initiative, I’ll be making a table
If you want; I don't see much point, generally, but it shouldn't be too hard to manage.


6. You don’t have to speak your races language if it doesn’t suit your backstory. It can be changed for any other language that makes sense for your backstory
Makes good sense. You should feel free to throw out pre-written backgrounds altogether; give everyone two skills, two langauges/tools, and one minor fluffy benefit and call it a day.


7. Reading and writing will be an intelligence skill and can be chosen by any class or race instead of one being given
Sure. That'll give a nicely primitive feeling to the setting.


I will also be changing the magic system to be more like 2e with the spheres as to me it doesn't make sense that a cleric of life would be able to raise any undead.
Rather than dividing up the cleric spell list, maybe just pick out spells like Animate Dead that make sense to be domain-specific? It's a pretty tight thematic list already.


I will probably also do something to wizards as being able to pick any spell and just know it without any training or even know of the spells existence seems OP and doesn't make sense to me.
Well, it's not OP. That's how the game was balanced, and 5e does a better job of that than most editions. And as others have mentioned, the assumption is that the Wizard is spending their downtime researching and experimenting to figure out their new spells; they're not just magically getting them out of no-where. If you want to make it a setting thing, that's another question, but I'd generally not bother. Maybe instead have the wizard declare what spells they're researching at the start of the level, and ask the players to mention the experimentation now and again? That way it'll feel more organic.

[Willie the Duck]

Thanks, not sure what else to add to make it more old school without completely changing 5e, probably won't add the weapon speed thing as it was only a 2e thing.


Oh, it was not my intent to suggest you shouldn't do something because it wasn't 'old school' enough, I was kinda chiding the concept of attempting that goal in the first place. If what you really want to do is keep some 2e AD&D-isms in your 5e game, go right ahead and do so. The person inside me who has been playing since before 2e was written just kind of looked at some of this and said, "he does realize that the game started with everyone being able to read, no such thing as weapon proficiencies, and each edition* having a different initiative system, right?"
*/ however you distinguish the various versions in the basic/classic line, which aren't called editions but are kinda the same thing.

If you want to do this, do it! I'm just glad you've actually played 5e and know the system before you started changing it to suit your expectations.

[MoiMagnus]

Hey so recently my players wanted to shift from 2e to 5e, they have played 5e and prefer it, I just want to change some things. I have played a lot of 5e as a player but not a DM so I have an idea of what I want to change. I don't like how different they are especially with being able to use all weapons and armour at 1st level choosing the right class or being completely healed from one nights rest. I know it's trying to make things a lot easier to use but I feel it takes away from the experience of the game such as finding a powerful magic weapon that your not proficient with and spending the time and effort to get proficient with it but that's just me.
I was thinking of adding/changing the following rules and want to know what everyone thinks and what other ideas could be used.
1. Short rest 8 hours of rest – Long rest 1 week of normal rest or 3 days with healer
- Must have someone with healing proficiency or healing pollutes or similar
2. Being proficient with martial weapons lets you choose 5 weapons from the martial weapon list to be proficient with and have +1 to attacks in all other weapons
-being proficient with simple weapons lets you choose 8 weapons from the simple weapon list to be proficient in and +1 to all others
3. At short rests you can use the abilities from rest of the weary
4. Critical hits and failures in combat cause a roll on a table for extra effects, a critical can instra kill anyone if the roll is right
5. Weapon speeds will effect initiative, I’ll be making a table
6. You don’t have to speak your races language if it doesn’t suit your backstory. It can be changed for any other language that makes sense for your backstory
7. Reading and writing will be an intelligence skill and can be chosen by any class or race instead of one being given
I will also be changing the magic system to be more like 2e with the spheres as to me it doesn't make sense that a cleric of life would be able to raise any undead.
I will probably also do something to wizards as being able to pick any spell and just know it without any training or even know of the spells existence seems OP and doesn't make sense to me.

Please tell me what you think of the rules above and if you can think of any more. Thnaks

1 -> Already tested, works pretty well if you dilute the encounters to take this in account, but if you put too much fight encounter between rests, then it will unbalance some classes.

2 -> "Half proficiency" or "proficiency-1" is probably better than "+1". While I agree for martial weapons, I don't thing that's a good idea for simple weapons (too much book-keeping). I would at least add "Proficiency in martial weapons gives you proficiency in ALL simple weapons".

3 -> No opinion

4 -> Don't forget that d&d5 does not have confirmation roll, so there will be a LOT of critical hit / fumble during sessions. You may want to not roll in the table every time.

5 -> Changes to initiative tend to leads to some abuse / unbalances between the PCs, but nothing that cannot be ruled out / compensated by the DM on-the-fly, so why not. But you will need to rework the weapon balance, which is a lot of work for not a lot of gameplay improvement.
(That's not even the most radical change I've seen: I had a DM that was making "You reroll initiative each turn, but everyone chose what they do before knowing their position in the initiative order". It worked surprisingly well)

6 -> I usually play without languages, so no opinions

7 -> No problem, though that's a "skill tax", so you may want to give additional skills to your PCs at some point during the campaign to compensate.

Magic System -> The way I see it, the wizard did prepare and worked pretty hard to understand/learn the spell, and the cleric of life did need some intense bargain with its deity. It's just that most player don't want to take care of that (like eating/clothing/...), so the rules don't cover it. Adding some RP restrictions isn't really a problem as long as your players are ok with them. Just make sure you don't unintentionally prevent the use of an "implicit class feature", because some spells are class-exclusive and quite central to the balance of their class (for example, the cantrip eldritch blast)

[2D8HP]

I never played 2e, but I have dim memories of playing some 0e D&D, 1e AD&D, and a little B/X long ago, and a little 5e these past couple of years, and FWLIW the differences that most strike me are:


1) Healing is much faster and more accessible to PC's (healing potions are on the equipment price list). And more classes have healing abilities.

2) Leveling up happens at a much faster rate.

3) All classes have a lot more abilities at every level than their AD&D equivalents.

Lost Mines of Phandelver is almost an exception (it's really good!) as is Tomb of Annihilation, as was the best 5e DM who's game I was privileged briefly be a player of, but for most 5e games playing a 1st level 5e Fighter felt like playing a 3rd level AD&D Fighter in a 1st level Dungeon, and the "cakewalk" feeling usually never quite leaves.

I think I enjoy playing a 5e first level PC more than an AD&D first level PC (except maybe for the Ranger class, old Rangers were AWESOME!).

As has been suggested upthread the DMG's "gritty realism" option goes some of the way towards what your trying for (and I approve!).

Otherwise the rest of your proposed changes look like they'd just add complexity which from this players perspective I'm fine with if its just bookeeping the DM handles but would annoy me if I have to keep track of it.

I'd advise running the game "stock" the first three levels and if it looks like the PC's aren't being challenged delay them leveling up but level up the challenges a bit, I know that's DM'ing 101 but it seems lacking in many of the 5e games that I've played (plus for me the pace of new abilities that come with new levels comes too fast for me to get uses to).

So basically slow down healings, and maybe slow down additional levels first to feel more "old-school", otherwise try out 5e "as is".

If you want to further make it more like TD&D subtraction is more your friend than addition, but presumably among the reasons your players want to switch is so they may play a Dragonborn Warlock or whatever (I know when I offered to DM again, but with only the classes and races that are in the Starter Set and free on-line "Basic rules" and using the "Gritty Realism" option I was met with a firm "No").