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Author Topic: Running OSR Modules/Campaigns with 5th Edition?  (Read 5810 times)

Samsquantch

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Re: Running OSR Modules/Campaigns with 5th Edition?
« Reply #30 on: March 16, 2021, 02:21:36 PM »


My favorite style was Mike Schley's -- I wish they used his kind of mapping for all the adventures. (the kind in LMOP)

Mike Schley's maps are excellent!

Samsquantch

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Re: Running OSR Modules/Campaigns with 5th Edition?
« Reply #31 on: March 16, 2021, 02:23:00 PM »
I use AD&D, and B/X material all the time for my 5e games.  I almost never run anything as-written but instead use pieces of adventures, maps from one, a plot from another, NPC’s/Villans from a third source.  All these I mix with later 5e published adventures. 

For example: I am running a Ghosts of Saltmarsh game, but I have set the town in The Moonsheas in Forgotten Realms.  The fat Iuz-worshipping tierfling is now a preistess of Umberlee, who harvests gear from shipwrecks. 

I ran Sinister Secret and ditched the whole Lizard-Man vs. Sahuagin thing, and instead made the baddies the Slave Lords, now the PC’s have a ship and are contending with the    Pirate Lord Feetla and his crew.  I stick in other adventures from “Ghosts”, but sprinkle in  the Naga from N1.

The ship from U1, the “Sea Ghost, actually had a ghost on her who was the former captain, murdered by his crew.  He was predisposed to like the PC’s since they killedthe muntineers, and told them where to find a map to the Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan.

Excellent! I have been doing this as well for a long time.

Brigman

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Re: Running OSR Modules/Campaigns with 5th Edition?
« Reply #32 on: March 16, 2021, 02:25:21 PM »
When I started my (then) teens on D&D, they of course wanted to learn 5e so they could play with their friends.  But the first adventure I ran was literally the Haunted Keep from the back of Moldvay's Basic D&D...
PEACE!
- Brigs

Samsquantch

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Re: Running OSR Modules/Campaigns with 5th Edition?
« Reply #33 on: March 16, 2021, 02:29:31 PM »
When I started my (then) teens on D&D, they of course wanted to learn 5e so they could play with their friends.  But the first adventure I ran was literally the Haunted Keep from the back of Moldvay's Basic D&D...

That Keep, and KotB have existed in my world through every edition of D&D to this day, save 4th.

Eirikrautha

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Re: Running OSR Modules/Campaigns with 5th Edition?
« Reply #34 on: March 16, 2021, 05:43:34 PM »
When I started my (then) teens on D&D, they of course wanted to learn 5e so they could play with their friends.  But the first adventure I ran was literally the Haunted Keep from the back of Moldvay's Basic D&D...

That Keep, and KotB have existed in my world through every edition of D&D to this day, save 4th.

So... every edition of D&D...

Samsquantch

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Re: Running OSR Modules/Campaigns with 5th Edition?
« Reply #35 on: March 16, 2021, 11:09:38 PM »
When I started my (then) teens on D&D, they of course wanted to learn 5e so they could play with their friends.  But the first adventure I ran was literally the Haunted Keep from the back of Moldvay's Basic D&D...

That Keep, and KotB have existed in my world through every edition of D&D to this day, save 4th.

So... every edition of D&D...

Save for OD&D and 4th I have utilized them and carried them forward in my campaign world.

Naburimannu

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Re: Running OSR Modules/Campaigns with 5th Edition?
« Reply #36 on: April 13, 2021, 05:12:34 AM »
Running OSR modules with 5E: my 6 players are 60 hours / 5-6 levels into the Dwimmermount megadungeon using mostly-by-the-book 5e. Since we started with first level characters entering the first level of the mountain I weakened the kobolds & orcs and reduced the gold piles, but kept all the silver/copper horde sizes intact, *on that level*; I've generally and reduced magic weapon + by one; everything else has been a straight replacement with the 5E monster manual & treasure tables equivalent, or a rough hack from some old-edition stats, not changing monster quantities at all. It's been working very well for us - nobody's died, but plenty of characters have been knocked out, and the party has a *lot* of healing capability and generally cautious play - except for the elf evocation wizard.

Tonight we return to a situation that risks character death, although the players don't know that yet. I'm looking forward to seeing whether how much peril they end up in and how they handle it.

S'mon

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Re: Running OSR Modules/Campaigns with 5th Edition?
« Reply #37 on: April 13, 2021, 05:57:08 AM »
Running OSR modules with 5E: my 6 players are 60 hours / 5-6 levels into the Dwimmermount megadungeon using mostly-by-the-book 5e. Since we started with first level characters entering the first level of the mountain I weakened the kobolds & orcs and reduced the gold piles, but kept all the silver/copper horde sizes intact, *on that level*; I've generally and reduced magic weapon + by one; everything else has been a straight replacement with the 5E monster manual & treasure tables equivalent, or a rough hack from some old-edition stats, not changing monster quantities at all. It's been working very well for us - nobody's died, but plenty of characters have been knocked out, and the party has a *lot* of healing capability and generally cautious play - except for the elf evocation wizard.

Tonight we return to a situation that risks character death, although the players don't know that yet. I'm looking forward to seeing whether how much peril they end up in and how they handle it.

+1 weapons are Uncommon in 5e so pretty cheap & cheerful. For conversion BX > 5e I generally keep weapon pluses as-is. For conversion of BECMI, AD&D and 3e I use:

+1> +1
+2, +3 > +2
+4, +5 > +3

In a system like 4e or 1e-with-UA where +6 weapons appear, I'd consider converting them as +4 since that's 'legal' for a Legendary per the 5e DMG.

S'mon

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Re: Running OSR Modules/Campaigns with 5th Edition?
« Reply #38 on: April 13, 2021, 06:03:15 AM »
Running OSR modules with 5E: my 6 players are 60 hours / 5-6 levels into the Dwimmermount megadungeon using mostly-by-the-book 5e. Since we started with first level characters entering the first level of the mountain I weakened the kobolds & orcs and reduced the gold piles, but kept all the silver/copper horde sizes intact, *on that level*; I've generally and reduced magic weapon + by one; everything else has been a straight replacement with the 5E monster manual & treasure tables equivalent, or a rough hack from some old-edition stats, not changing monster quantities at all. It's been working very well for us - nobody's died, but plenty of characters have been knocked out, and the party has a *lot* of healing capability and generally cautious play - except for the elf evocation wizard.

Tonight we return to a situation that risks character death, although the players don't know that yet. I'm looking forward to seeing whether how much peril they end up in and how they handle it.

Do you use standard 5e XP? I find it seems to work fine in old school adventure conversions; I give a bunch of XP per treasure and other discoveries too. Eg in last night's session the PC group of 10 characters, mostly level 3-4, pretty much cleared out the top level of my Underhall dungeon, they each got 160 monster XP and 150 treasure XP - 50 for the obvious goblin hoard in the locked chest, 100 for the hidden Chimes of Opening (sacred to an evil NPC faction that has been looking for them) which the Elf Druid PC found by searching through the mucky filth at the bottom of a water trough despite my attempts to discourage "But you'll get all muddy!"  ;D So far though they've missed another similarly hidden cache beneath a filthy slime pool that was the lair of some grey oozes; I would have given +50 XP for that.

S'mon

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Re: Running OSR Modules/Campaigns with 5th Edition?
« Reply #39 on: April 13, 2021, 06:08:26 AM »
Running OSR modules with 5E: my 6 players are 60 hours / 5-6 levels into the Dwimmermount megadungeon using mostly-by-the-book 5e. Since we started with first level characters entering the first level of the mountain I weakened the kobolds & orcs

I use a lot of CR 1/4 Pig Orcs IMC:

Pig Orc Guard
CR 1/4 (50 XP) PB +2
AC 14/16 (ringmail or scale, shield) HP 13 (2d8+4)
ST +2 DE +0 CO +2 IN -1 WI +0 CH -1
Battle Axe or Longsword ATT: +4  Damage: 1d8+2
Lance (long spear) (2h) ATT+4 Damage 1d12+2, reach 10', disadvantage within 5'
Javelin (4) ATT +4 Damage 1d6+2 range 30'/120'
Aggressive: As a Bonus Action, the orc can move up to its speed toward a Hostile creature that it can see.

I did do some CR 0 kobold mook stats but have not used them, I kinda like the very deadly 5e kobold.

Kobold Mook
CR 0 (10 XP) PB +2
AC  10/12 w shield HP 3 (1d6-1)
ST -3 DE +0 CO -1 IN -1 WI -2 CH -2
Dagger (1h) or kobold spear (1h): Melee Weapon Attack: +2, Hit: 2 (1d4) piercing damage. Spear does 1d6 2-handed.
Sling (2h loading): Ranged Weapon Attack: +2, range 30/120 ft., one target. Hit: 2 (1d4) bludgeoning damage.
Sunlight Sensitivity: While in sunlight, the kobold has disadvantage on Attack rolls, as well as on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight.
Pack Tactics: The kobold has advantage on an Attack roll against a creature if at least one of the kobold's allies is within 5 ft. of the creature and the ally isn't Incapacitated.

Naburimannu

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Re: Running OSR Modules/Campaigns with 5th Edition?
« Reply #40 on: April 14, 2021, 04:35:46 AM »
S'mon, I think it was your pig-orcs I used - thank you! - as well as similarly simplified Kobolds. (The players started off befrending the kobolds, then got into a bit of a scuffle when they were in a three-way standoff with the Five Delvers and a band of kobolds, then went genocidal when they added a dwarf and a gnome to the party.)

For XP, I give stock combat XP divided by player count for fighting, reduced amounts for negotiations, but also XP for finding caches, discovering and going through connections between levels, rescuing prisoners, and discovering and understanding secrets in the dungeon. I think long term it's working out to about 50/50 for interaction vs exploration. (XP for treasure is proportional to depth / hazard, not treasure size, which is probably blunting things.)

Last night's notes:
 - Lawful Good characters lying to and then surprising and slaughtering a bunch of bullywugs makes me wonder, although they did know that these bullywugs were demon-worshippers.
 - 5e Minotaurs seem to be a lot stronger than expected by that adventure; twice as many hp as they had in third edition means a six-minotaur patrol is a serious TPK threat. The party met them at a bottleneck and negotiated a retreat before anyone got hurt. This is the first time since first level we've had a difficulty mismatch. (The players who showed up that night brought a well-armoured paladin + fighter frontline and a cleric + artificer behind them, and minotaurs aren't very accurate, so they might have managed a violent standoff in the doorway, but the cleric was low on spells.)
 - I really am not comfortable running rules-as-written the 5e Detect Magic & Identify spells when the world is full of non-standard magic that doesn't necessarily fit into a defined spell from a defined school.
 - Some of my players like inventory management / dungeon logistics, others really, really don't; it's lucky for us that it was during the last bit of the night that they realised they'd found more loot than their bag of holding can contain.

On magic items: I tuned down a couple of bare +1 weapons or armour found on the first level into adamantium, but it's more a practice of turning +1/+3 or +2/+3 weapons (e.g. the sentient sword Dwimmersmite) into +1/+2.

S'mon

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Re: Running OSR Modules/Campaigns with 5th Edition?
« Reply #41 on: April 14, 2021, 06:29:21 AM »
5e Minotaurs seem to be a lot stronger than expected by that adventure; twice as many hp as they had in third edition means a six-minotaur patrol is a serious TPK threat.

I think that would have been equally true in BX/LL though. I remember the Stonehell minotaur battles, yes it really came down to if they could hit or not, especially on a charge. Barbarians (with shield) & Eldritch Knights (with Shield!) are good for PC front rank in 5e. :)

mightybrain

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Re: Running OSR Modules/Campaigns with 5th Edition?
« Reply #42 on: May 08, 2021, 05:38:48 PM »
- I really am not comfortable running rules-as-written the 5e Detect Magic & Identify spells when the world is full of non-standard magic that doesn't necessarily fit into a defined spell from a defined school.

That's come up a couple of times in my games. I have a player that loves using Detect Magic as much as possible. But what, for example, would be the school of magic on a bag of holding?

I've been mostly hand-waving it.

Vidgrip

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Re: Running OSR Modules/Campaigns with 5th Edition?
« Reply #43 on: May 08, 2021, 08:37:33 PM »


Have you seen any other "Genre shift" 5th edition content around that is worth using? Most of what I've seen is pure fantasy, or else not just not very good.

Hellscapes uses the 5e mechanics to do post-apocalypse gaming. It's a great toolkit. I'm prepping a game for that right now. You have to create your own setting and adventures, but I prefer to do that anyway.
Playing: John Carter of Mars, Hyperborea
Running: Swords & Wizardry Complete

FingerRod

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Re: Running OSR Modules/Campaigns with 5th Edition?
« Reply #44 on: May 08, 2021, 08:58:35 PM »
- I really am not comfortable running rules-as-written the 5e Detect Magic & Identify spells when the world is full of non-standard magic that doesn't necessarily fit into a defined spell from a defined school.

That's come up a couple of times in my games. I have a player that loves using Detect Magic as much as possible. But what, for example, would be the school of magic on a bag of holding?

I've been mostly hand-waving it.

Conjuration for sure. Floating Disk and the ridiculous Mansion are as well.

As is the Bag of Devouring...one of my all time favorites.