Mining 5E For Personal D&D

Years ago I briefly playtested my own D&D right before 5E landed. It was kind of a 3E clone using 4E engine with OSR ideas. 4 or 5 classes, a small bestiary, used the 3.5 spells removing broken ones.

My latest idea was adding modern elements to a 2E& B/X and 3E hybrid. Trying to many things though. One could use 5E engine to clone/update any previous editing. Same with the 4E engine.

So atm if one wanted to use the 5E engine to make your own D&D where would you start? The why would be to tap into the relative large amounts of D&D 5E players using rules they know.

Here's my current thoughts on what I would personally do with it. Two directions.

B/X&2E inspired hybrid. In effect this would be making advanced Basic with tbe 5E skill system. I miss things from 2E like the priest spheres system. I don't miss the AD&D mechanics. B/X can be a bit sparse compared with AD&D at low level though.

Or

Modern system. I quite liked the 3.5/4E hybrid Star Wars Saga Edition. The number porn however is still a bit to 3.5/4E based so lower 5E numbers would be nice. And I think I would like a 5E variant with microfeats for example and modernized prestige classes.

If I were to tinker with any of the d20 systems to make my own off-shoot it would either be:

a) streamline d20 Modern or
b) generalize 4e to make a universal toolkit

But I’m actually working on a 2d6 based game and combing those games for inspiration instead.

I'm not much into ground-up game design. I mostly start with 5e raw and add subsystems and a rule change here or there. I was really into making my own games and heavily modding D&D when I was young. Now, I'm more interested in trying completely new systems than tweaking or kit bashing D&D.

If I were to make my own D&D, I'd probably start with feats and feat trees and trying something like Mearles's initiative dice variant. I'd also be more inclined to look to take ideas from Warhammer Fantasy to put into D&D ((how it handles downtime, making magic risk but potentially more powerful with channelling and minor and major miscasts, critical hit damage with permanent and lingering injuries, rules to make disease more meaningful in the game)), rather than looking to older versions of D&D. One thing, however, I have used from 4e is skill challeges, but I used Matt Coleville's take on that.

I think we're overdue for a modern d20 Modern, and reimagine the six "smart, strong, etc." classes without any spellcasting.

Zardnaar said:

So atm if one wanted to use the 5E engine to make your own D&D where would you start?

Click to expand...

5eisms I would add to an OSR base for my preferences would include:

1 Concentration for spells so one at a time for most to avoid 3e stacking.

2 Cantrips, give MUs an at will attack spell that is equivalent to dagger throwing (attack roll limited range, d4 or less damage) so that they are not throwing knife bandolier people (or crossbowmen) but do magical stuff instead that is lesser than bows.

3 5e death saves instead of dead at 0.

4 HD healing and the quick 5 minute short rest so there is less cleric and potion dependency.

5 Easy to implement 5e sneak attack conditions instead of 1e DMG's super easy to negate backstab.

6 Thief skills that are decently likely to succeed.

7 An alternative to level drain. The 5e hp loss until full rest would be fine for me.

8 Poison for disadvantage/damage instead of dead.

9 No level limits.

10 Equal xp requirements to enable milestone levelling.

11 Probably bump thieves to be alt fighters with limited armor instead of alt wizards to make them decently combat equivalent per the post AD&D design goals.

12 No alignment restrictions.

Voadam said:

5eisms I would add to an OSR base for my preferences would include:

1 Concentration for spells so one at a time for most to avoid 3e stacking.

2 Cantrips, give MUs an at will attack spell that is equivalent to dagger throwing (attack roll limited range, d4 or less damage) so that they are not throwing knife bandolier people (or crossbowmen) but do magical stuff instead that is lesser than bows.

3 5e death saves instead of dead at 0.

4 HD healing and the quick 5 minute short rest so there is less cleric and potion dependency.

5 Easy to implement 5e sneak attack conditions instead of 1e DMG's super easy to negate backstab.

6 Thief skills that are decently likely to succeed.

7 An alternative to level drain. The 5e hp loss until full rest would be fine for me.

8 Poison for disadvantage/damage instead of dead.

9 No level limits.

10 Equal xp requirements to enable milestone levelling.

11 Probably bump thieves to be alt fighters with limited armor instead of alt wizards to make them decently combat equivalent per the post AD&D design goals.

12 No alignment restrictions.

Click to expand...

I dumped level limits over a decade ago.

Zardnaar said:

So atm if one wanted to use the 5E engine to make your own D&D where would you start? The why would be to tap into the relative large amounts of D&D 5E players using rules they know.

Click to expand...

I'd start with Shadowdark or Knave, and build from there.

Before SD dropped, I was using Knave as the basis of some hacks and it was incredibly powerful and streamlined, making it really easy to do so. The compatibility with B/X-era D&D means you open up so much content for direct use that it's mind-boggling, and with a few guides on back-porting 5E rules, you get all the modern stuff, too. It's great.

That said, I think SD specifically nails the dungeon crawl aspect a bit better than even Knave does, so if that's an important piece, I'd use that instead. I much prefer SD these days, but that's because I'm running some really old school dungeon crawls. If I was running a more "above world" game, I'd probably start with Knave instead, but only maybe.

Zardnaar said:

Here's my current thoughts on what I would personally do with it. Two directions.

B/X&2E inspired hybrid. In effect this would be making advanced Basic with tbe 5E skill system. I miss things from 2E like the priest spheres system. I don't miss the AD&D mechanics. B/X can be a bit sparse compared with AD&D at low level though.

Or

Modern system. I quite liked the 3.5/4E hybrid Star Wars Saga Edition. The number porn however is still a bit to 3.5/4E based so lower 5E numbers would be nice. And I think I would like a 5E variant with microfeats for example and modernized prestige classes.

Click to expand...

I think 2E had a lot going for it that is the inspiration for 5E, and therefore back-porting 5E skills to take over for NWPs would be a great way to "fix" some of 2E's problems. I often think about a way to do that, effectively finding a middle-ground between the two systems that has less number bloat than 5E (mainly in HP), more consistency across features than 2E (mainly player-facing stuff), and strips the super-high-fantasy stuff from 5E in favor of 2E's (often) not-quite-as-super high-fantasy stuff. Like, a game where kits from the various 2E Complete books and its setting guides like Celts and Vikings are all balanced, as just one (major) part of what the system could do. (As it stands, kits in 2E are all over the place in terms of balance, to a ridiculous degree. Yet most of them are nowhere near the superhero fantasy shenanigans of mid- to late-level 5E subclasses.)

I don't really know which path that is based on your descriptions. Maybe it's all about splitting hairs a specific way, right?