Bringing the OSR to D&D 5e
A few weeks ago, someone asked a question in a generally public space. They were working on an adventure for D&D 5e/5.5e to use for an event and wanted to know what people's ideas were on getting the game as close to a "retro" vibe as possible using only the options and rules available in the game; options could be trimmed or cut, but no houserules or homebrew. They defined "retro" as meaning the kind of play you'd have seen in the original D&D, the Basic/Expert and BECMI line, as well as AD&D 1e and 2e.
This is something that I think a lot of people have thought about in the past, especially considering those early days of the D&D Next playtest where WotC was designing the game around those old TSR-era adventures. They were trying to move as far away from 4e as they could--in a way, at least, as many 4e mechanics survived to 5e under a different name--to try and entice the old guard of 1e through 3e to give the game another try, on top of wanting to attract more people to the hobby.
I provided a fairly comprehensive answer, and then the seeds of a nagging thought were planted. An ephemeral "What if tho?" that was begging me to renege on my promise to myself that I'd stop running 5e after having done so for eight years and finding games that actually did what I wanted in a TTRPG these days.
Alas, the voices were stronger, so I've managed to recruit a handful of local people to give this a shot in an in-person game. I'm writing up an adventure for this to have an impact on my home setting of Jovian, to give me some motivation on giving it an honest go instead of just running a simple one-shot. An army of orcs rose out of the western sea and took one of three cities within a nation, and are now trying to set up an old castle as a forward operating base to push further south. Players will make either one or two characters at 7th level and will be sent out from the second city to push north about a hundred miles and do what they can to stall or halt the advance; ideally they will clear out the castle, but there's hundreds of orcs present.
Now, Jovian is my home setting in use for AD&D 1e, which I discovered and starting running a few years ago. This presented some challenges in trying to adjust 5e to better fit those expectations and vibes brought about by 1e, but I think I managed to toe that line fairly well with the variants chosen and the houserules I'll list below. While I did run 5e as a dungeon crawler when I was running the game, I'd never attempted something of this scope.
In any case, here is the prospective Dev Edition of bringing the OSR to D&D 5e:
- Ability scores are determined either via Point Buy or with the Standard Array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8)
- Available Classes are
- Barbarian (Berserker)
- Cleric (Death, Life)
- Druid (Land)
- Fighter (Champion, Eldritch Knight)
- Paladin (Devotion)
- Divine Smite can be used twice per Short Rest as though it were cast with the highest level spell level available to the Paladin. This replaces the normal method of using it with spell slots.
- Ranger (Hunter)
- Hunter's mark is automatically known, does not count against your spells known, and can be used a number of times per Long Rest equal to your Spells Known without using a spell slot. It cannot be prepared as a spell.
- Rogue (Arcane Trickster, Thief)
- Wizard (Evocation, Illusion)
- Begin with four randomized 1st level spells. Gain one per level of your chosen school. Additional spells can be learned via scrolls.
- Available Races & Classes Allowed
- Dwarf (hill or mountain)
- Barbarian, Cleric, Fighter (Champion), Rogue (Thief)
- Elf (high)
- Cleric, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Wizard
- Goliath (aka Half-Ogre)
- Barbarian, Cleric, Fighter (Champion)
- Halfling (Stout)
- Druid, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard (Illusion)
- Horkos (Half-Orc)
- Barbarian, Cleric, Fighter, Rogue (Thief), Wizard (Evocation)
- Human (Standard)
- All Classes
- Skuld (Half-Elf)
- Barbarian, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Wizard
- Dwarf (hill or mountain)
- Variants & Other Info
- No feats.
- No multiclassing.
- Utilize This Is Your Life from XGE to generate a backstory.
- Ability Check Proficiency & Background Proficiency are in play.
- Short Rests require eight hours of rest instead of one hour. Long Rests require a week of rest & relaxation in a safe location instead of eight hours.
- Healing Surge will be utilized.
- Side Initiative will be utilized.
- Cleaving Through Creatures will be utilized.
- Morale will be utilized.
- Wands That Don't Recharge will be utilized and applies to other charge-based items such as staves and rods.
- The 5.5e version of exhaustion will be utilized.
- Spells may be sourced from the original PHB, XGE, and TCE.
- Further Houserule Changes
- All spellcasters must prepare each cast of a spell they intend to use, e.g. if a cleric wants to cast cure light wounds as a 3rd level spell, they must choose to prepare it in one of their 3rd level spell slots.
- Spells granted by a subclass may be cast once per Long Rest without needing to be prepared or expending a spell slot.
- Clerics, Druids, and Paladins may prepare their spells from their entire list.
- Healing spells will be raised in potency to match system expectations (e.g. cure wounds goes from 1d8+mod to 4d4, plus another 2d4 per slot level above 1st)
- Spells dealing more damage than they should for their level will be reigned in to system expectations (e.g. fireball reduces to 6d6 damage and retains its scaling)
- Critical Hits result in the maximum damage being dealt, but no additional dice are rolled.
- Creatures will have an adjusted hit point formula to reduce instances of enemies being buckets of HP.
- All spellcasters must prepare each cast of a spell they intend to use, e.g. if a cleric wants to cast cure light wounds as a 3rd level spell, they must choose to prepare it in one of their 3rd level spell slots.