OSR A Pathfinder Group Tries Old-School Essentials

[Matrix Sorcica]

I am a fan of The B/X Rogue, also by Necrotic Gnome (the OSE publisher) for a conceptually different way to do rogue skills.

Is this fully compatible with OSE?

And this is a great thread

 

[Voadam]

Is this fully compatible with OSE?

And this is a great thread

Yes. It is designed to replace the B/X thief and be compatible with Labyrinth Lord. It was designed before OSE but since OSE is redoing B/X it should be just as compatible.

From its introduction:

"Instead of a fixed list of skills with percentage chance of success improving as the character advances, rogues have talents with which they are fully proficient but whose number increases as the character advances. This change is intended to address a very common complaint about the thief class: namely that very poor skill percentages at low levels cripple the class' ability to do the very things at which it should excel. Once a rogue learns a talent, he or she is able to perform it at full efficacy."

This does have an issue of picking your best concept ones first, then at higher level you just get your lesser choices as add ons and generally not higher level/better/more powerful powers. I think it could benefit a lot from having some tiered powers. I still like it a lot better than the standard getting a couple low percentage things as your special abilities.

 

[Democratus]

Sounds like it is working well and you are having a good time with it so great.

I would expect some issues with the system that 3e-PF-4e-5e started to address regarding older D&D. Magic-users having one spell. Save or Die. Energy Drain. Healing. Low Level Thief skills. Death at 0 HP.

I have not looked into OSE's specific advanced options but alignment rules for a lot of AD&D classes (paladin, ranger, monk, druid) can be issues.

Just be aware these are common issues with older editions and might come up as they and you get into it.

Well, I'm almost a year in and dozens of sessions, so I feel we have gotten into it.

All of those issues you list are features for us. The wilderness is not meant for civilized people and it hates you. Dungeons are the mythic underworld and it hates you.

The parties (I'm running about 20 players in a West Marches campaign) usually go out with a large entourage of hirelings, mercenaries, and followers. They spend gold building homes and fortifications. And each character is hoping to be able to retire as the lord of a small fiefdom (about 7 hexes) of their own.

Characters have to survive on wits and ingenuity. Often times we will complete a dungeon run with almost no expenditure of spells and only a few fights.

If things get out of hand there are rules for running away: dropping food/treasure to distract the creature chasing you. Rules for winning fiends and influencing monsters. Rules for exploration and delving.

In short, we are hooked.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm waiting for Worlds without Number to come out (by OSR god Kevin Crawford), but I'm excited to run an actual dungeon crawl/hexcrawl for the first time.

 

[Inchoroi]

I keep threatening my players to switch to one of this retroclones, but they don't believe that I'd do it.

 

[kenada]

Good to hear, AD&D had some alignment issues that could be problematic particularly with paladins and true Neutral druids.

Well, there are alignment restrictions: assassins can’t be lawful; knights must be the same alignment as their liege; rangers can’t be chaotic; and druids and paladins must be neutral and lawful respectively. The closest thing that comes to a code that could cause party strife is the knight’s chivalric code, but that only governs the knight’s behavior. I feel like if you can manage a party with mixed alignments, then a party with a druid, a paladin, and a neutral assassin should work (albeit very interestingly).

I started with B/X which OSE is based on and felt it was a fantastic intro to D&D and a well designed D&D in many ways. I have a lot of experience playing and DMing long AD&D campaigns and I like a lot of the OSR stuff, but there are still some issues that jump out to me as potentially problematic.

Yup, and I’m looking at it coming from the other direction. Given the kind of game I run, which tends to be more exploration-focused than story-driven, there’s some friction with newer systems. That’s not to say they can’t be made to do what I want, but they either don’t offer much support (5e) or have things I just don’t feel like dealing with anymore (PF2).

Some of those things you listed are features, but some I am aware could be problems. That’s why I had people start at max HP. I’m sticking with the death-at-0 rule for now because I want to see how it plays in practice. I do like that the PCs are afraid of the dungeon, and I’d hate to undermine that.

As for the skills and spells stuff, I’m fine with the thief class being better than its peers but still not very good at 1st level. If it turns out a problem in practice, I can look for remedies, but I want to see how things go before making changes. The same goes for spells. If the party is mostly engaging with the game outside of combat, then having a limited number of spells should be less of an issue.

Anyway, I appreciate the warning. Since we (as a group) have little to no experience with B/X, and I don’t want people’s experiences with AD&D to color that, I’m trying to be conservative in what I change. However, if we do go forward with OSE, then I definite know we won’t be doing 3d6 in order again. We gave it a try, and it felt bleh. We’ll be doing a variant of the card method (as described in the OP).

 

[Voadam]

All of those issues you list are features for us. The wilderness is not meant for civilized people and it hates you. Dungeons are the mythic underworld and it hates you.

Sure, features for some instead of bugs. Since they are not universally considered features it is worth considering and being aware of though.

Characters have to survive on wits and ingenuity.

And luck. Which is also a feature for some and a bug for others.

Save or die comes down to a die roll, not wits or ingenuity. The literal example of play on page B59 of Moldvay Basic has the thief die from save or die after having done everything right.

Morgan: "Fred examines the block."
Fredrik: "For traps."
Morgan: "Sorry, Fred; for traps."
Dougal: "I'm looking for traps on the box, too."
DM (rolling for Fred, even though the block is not trapped; the DM also rolls for Dougal's "find traps" ability. The roll indicates that Dougal has failed to find the poisoned needle in the latch.) "Neither of you finds a trap."
Fredrik: "I'm pushing, pulling, and trying to twist the block."
DM: "When you push it, a secret door opens in the west section of the southwest wall. You see a 5' wide corridor that goes south for 30' and ends at a door."
Morgan: "Fred and Silverleaf will guard the secret door, and Black Dougal will open the box. I'll search through the rags. Anything that looks like a cloak or boots?"
DM: "Black Dougal, you find out that you missed a tiny discolored needle in the latch. Roll a saving throw vs. Poison, please!"
Dougal (rolling): "Missed it!"
DM: "Black Dougal gasps 'Poison!' and falls to the floor. He looks dead."

 

[Voadam]

I think we’ll use the card method (334455677899) in order instead of rolling.

Is this method draw two random cards? For a range of 6-18 but averages between 11 and 12?

 

[kenada]

Is this method draw two random cards? For a range of 6-18 but averages between 11 and 12?

Yep. We’ve used it in the past (with other distributions in PF1 and 5e). As far as random ability scores goes, my players really like drawing cards compared to rolling dice. Everyone has the same total amount of points (valued within a small spread of point buy equivalents), so it feels fair.

 

[Mannahnin]

The other easy tweak to 3d6 in order I like is to give the players the option of flipping the set. Subtract every score from 21 to get an exactly "upside-down" mirror of their numbers. This allows just a little bit of customization and turns a bad set of mostly below-average numbers into a good set! But, for example, if you happened to roll a 15 Wisdom and some bad numbers in your first set and really wanted to be a Cleric, maybe you choose to keep that set.

The way I've been running my existing game I've just told my players to re-roll if their total modifiers are negative, but this does occasionally result in someone having to re-roll multiple times. The "flip" option ensures that no one has to be stuck with a bad set, but doesn't need any re-rolling.

I can definitely see the virtue of the card method though, in terms of giving the players a uniform/even set of total values. Definitely a selling point for players accustomed to point buy.