BY RICK MOSCATELLO
Old school play was much more about melee than today. You really didn’t see archers blowing away dragons with arrows while the sword wielders stood there dumbfounded, or anything of the sort. In fact, firing into melee was a highly risky move—old school games gave a chance you could hit an ally, a pretty good chance, in fact. Firing an arrow hard enough to explode a dragon wasn’t much of an advantage when you had a good chance of hitting a friend!
As the game progressed, shooting in melee became less and less of a problem. First, it was reduced to just a penalty, then feats that anyone could get removed the penalty. Then archery became more and more powerful, to the point that gamers complained if the archer didn’t hit every bit as hard as the melee fighter, to the point of calling it “unbalanced” if the DPR was more than 10% less. This is, of course, silly, the melee character is taking real risks to his life by standing in close combat, while the archer avoids much of the risk…being able to do a little more damage in melee is actually unfair compensation.
In 5e, ranged combat is the way to play. Most every spellcasting class has infinite ranged attack cantrips (although my earlier fix to magic helps with that), there’s even a cantrip to damage heavily-armored targets, and most classes are spellcasters. Added to this “nearly everyone rangestrikes” problem is 5e allows for characters to attack in the middle of a move. So, a character can move around the corner, shoot, then run back around the corner, quite possibly presenting no counter-fire opportunities…allowing the monsters to concentrate fire on the hapless melee fighters.
If the 5E world really worked like this, there wouldn’t be arrow slits or crenellations on castle walls. Instead, there were would a windowless room at the top of the walls. Archers would leave this room, fire, then duck back in, where they’d have perfect cover.
I’ve played several campaigns in 5e now, and the same thing keeps happening: a party has 1 melee fighter, everyone else attacks at range. Combat after combat sees the poor melee guy rush up, while everyone else hangs back and fires away. I don’t blame everyone wanting to stay out of melee, it’s risky and dangerous. Firing into melee in 5e is as gentle as it gets: either no penalty, or, if the DM is feeling mean, a -2 penalty.
Here are some fixes to 5e to give it more of an old school feel (you needn’t use all, just the ones that suit the complexity level and feel of your campaign):
Random Targeting: A shot into melee has an equal chance of striking any combatant involved, based on spaces occupied. So, if you shoot into a combat between a fighter and a goblin, there’s a 50% chance of accidentally targeting one or the other. A fighter versus an ogre (occupying 4 spaces) means only a 20% chance of accidentally targeting the fighter. A fighter versus 3 goblins, leads to a 25% chance of hitting the fighter. This is the old school method, and alone will make archery what it’s supposed to be: a method for attacking at range, and not a “one trick pony” used in all situations. Bottom line, an actual fight doesn’t involve combatants simply standing still and politely hacking at each other…watch any boxing match (or SCA battle) to see how hand to hand combat generally goes. This random targeting includes most magic spells, except for that “useless” magic missile old schoolers were always raving about (even sacred flame should be affected).
Bigger Penalties: Random targeting wasn’t so bad when damage was only a d6, but now that characters can deal a lot of damage with ranged attacks, a penalty instead of a chance of obliterating an ally might make the game somewhat less lethal. Base penalty for shooting into melee should be -8, with a one point reduction in penalty for each square of enemy past the first (eg, only -5 for shooting large enemies). This may seem like an extreme penalty, but consider shooting at even a target with AC 16: your typical first level character right now has a 50% of hitting this target, even if it’s in melee. Toss in a -8 penalty, and now it’s a mere 10% chance (as opposed to 25% with Random Targeting)—that’s pretty fair for removing the whole “kill your friend” possibility.
Disadvantage For Melee: 5e isn’t big on die roll modifiers, but the mechanic of Disadvantage just isn’t big enough to really balance out the penalty of firing into melee. Still, the rule of “all ranged attacks into melee are at Disadvantage” is an elegant, if not completely satisfying, way to tone done all the ranged attacks going on in 5e. Toss in an extra -2 penalty for cover, and we’re fairly close to Bigger Penalties while also being closer to 5e’s design philosophy.
Movement Penalty: The “run, shoot, run” rules of 5e are neat, but really warp the game world. The temptation would normally be to just put Disadvantage to any ranged attacks made to a character that move before shooting, but that doesn’t go well if you’re also using Disadvantage for Melee. So, if you’re using that, put a -4 penalty in for moving before shooting, and if you’re using Bigger Penalties or Random Targetting, put in Disadvantage instead. Either way, shooting and moving at the same time should be much, much, harder to do.
Now, modern game design has a “if there’s a problem, there’s a way to get around it” philosophy, but a DM including any of the above rules should seriously consider NOT creating feats or magic items that make shooting into melee combat any easier. It’s not supposed to be just as easy. Even the incredibly deadly Asian horse archers still carried swords, because as soon as melee was joined, firing bows was simply not an option…it may be more of an option in a fantasy world, but the modern perception of “every bit as good” has changed the game to be very different from its old school origins.
Monsters should, of course, be playing by the same rules as the player characters. For what it’s worth, my monsters are far more inclined to shoot into combat even when there’s a chance of hitting an “ally”…evil things can get away with that.
Fixing First Level
While most changes to make 5e more “old school” make the characters weaker, there is one area where characters need help: at first level. Bottom line, first level in 5e is messed up; WotC did the right thing by just making first level a footnote to a character’s career, and making it “standard” that characters go from first to second level after a single, fairly brief, adventure.
But, old school characters, even after a few levels, were much like first level characters in newer games: powers and abilities didn’t just stack and stack. The real issue isn’t that 5e characters are too weak at first level, it’s that the monsters are too strong.
In old school play, a fighter wearing the best starting armor he could hope for would only get hit by attacking kobolds some 15% of the time. In 5e, even a lone kobold will hit an AC 18 fighter 40% of the time, and “pack tactics” (a legitimate concern with kobolds, especially since the “big adventure” for 5e has many kobolds) makes that a 74% chance of a hit, and nearly a double chance of a critical. That’s a massive increase to monster power. A nearly 500% improvement to kobolds? Yeah, that’s a bit much.
In old school play, if that kobold managed a hit, he’d probably roll a d6 for damage, possibly even a d4. This meant that an old school fighter facing a kobold expects to take about half a hit point of damage a round…he’ll be good for 20 rounds or so. Against a pair of kobolds, he’s good for 10 rounds, a long combat. Meanwhile, the old school magic user with 15 Dexterity will probably go down in 3 rounds, quite possibly less.
On the other hand, the new school kobolds are rolling a d4 for damage, then adding another +3 to it (because “dexterity is as good as strength” in new school play). The poor new school fighter might only last around 3 rounds against this kobold. Against 2 kobolds? He’ll last 2 rounds—if he loses initiative, he might get exactly 1 turn before being overwhelmed. The wizard will also only have 2 rounds (at best) against a pair of kobolds. The big boost to monster accuracy means armor is not nearly so useful in 5e, so there’s hardly any difference between the well armored melee “sucker” and the relatively unarmored characters.
Look what happened between old and new: the heavily armored fighter types suddenly are only slightly more survivable in combat over the unarmored! It’s especially bad at first level.
5e puts a band aid on the big power-bump to low level monsters in two ways. First is the unsatisfying “everyone goes to 2nd level fast”, and the second way is only slightly more satisfying: there’s more healing. Unfortunately, the more healing just has characters being thrown down and getting up much more often, giving new fights more of a Keystone Kops feel than a dangerous battle in a dungeon.
While the “go to second level” band aid is good, if you want a better low level experience, some changes need to be made. Old school D&D had a concept of “less than 1 hit die” monsters. These monsters were blatantly weaker than even inexperienced adventurers, and had a worse chance to hit, as well as additional vulnerability to many spells, skilled fighters, and a few other effects.
So, for “first level adventures”, you can get a better old school feel simply by designating monsters as “less than 1 hit die”. Old D&D put this at “goblin size or smaller”, more or less. This covers goblins (duh!), kobolds, giant rats, and most of the creepy crawlies in your beginner-level adventure. Make the boss monster a normal monste, and you’re set.
Here are some ways to address these especially weak monsters, and there’s nothing wrong with using all three penalties for “less than one hit die” monsters:
Feeble: Subtract a D6 from each damage roll; this means occasionally these monsters will hit for no damage, which is fine.
Clumsy: All attacks are at disadvantage (your choice if this simply cancels pack tactics, but it’s probably best to just remove pack tactics from the weak monsters).
Vulnerable: All saving throws are at disadvantage.
Even with these penalties, a kobold still could slam a character for 10 points of damage in a hit, which leads to the “critical hit” problem. AD&D didn’t have critical hits, which favor monsters far more than players. If you don’t even want a small chance of a new character being snuffed in one hit, consider removing critical hits from monsters with a proficiency bonus of +2 or less, which at least gives characters time to get a few levels before dealing with sudden blows that can kill anyone but a Moon Druid.
Figuring out what to do with Moon Druids is for next time.