Mahalo,
Been lurking and reading the threads. Brief primer on me- I was a long-time gamer from 3rd grade (friend's older brother) to the end of college, and very sporadically after that for a little while. Almost all 1st Ed. Player and DM. But, of course, I also played other RPGs (early GURPS, Marvel, Gamma World, Paranoia-that was fun, Warhammer fantasy and so on).
Been lurking and reading websites for a little while. My youngest kid has just started asking questions and getting into it. Been reading up and looks like the 5e might be a place to get him involved. Anyway, I thought I'd log on and talk a little 1e.
Checking In
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Brightmantle
- Town Crier
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- Favorite D&D Edition: 1st Edition
- Location: Sunny California
Re: Checking In
Hi, and Welcome to PAD&D, Loki13 ! I hope you enjoy yourself here. 
A king without a sword, the land without a king!
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RPG Dinosaur
- Merchant
- Posts: 492
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Re: Checking In
Always great to get another old schooler on board 
and another good user name at that. 
and another good user name at that. _Matt_
Re: Checking In
So I'd thought I'd recount my recent experience (this weekend). Having tried to bone up on the rules of 5e, I was, well, ready enough to run a pre-canned Phandelver. I had wanted to do a conversion of B2 (Keep) or U1 (Sinister Secret), but while there were decent resources, I just wasn't mapping the whole 1e -> 5e thing very well yet in my head yet. It has been a while!
So the adventure was run under less tan ideal circumstances, with only two adventurers (half-orc barbarian, high elf bard), but everyone made it through the caves encounter and the ruffians in the town and to second level, and they were clamoring to go and get the Redbrands in the manor. Overall, a success.
Thoughts on the differences going straight to 5e after a long retirement? Well, we didn't go with the pre-made characters. So, IMO, the character creation seemed both familiar and,well, different (last time I player, AC went from -10 to 10). The beginning how-to create Bruennor in the PHB is a good start. I've been reading a lot about the other editions, and everyone says that this is a huge step forward in simplification, and it wasn't hard, but, well, it was harder than 1e. Sure, 1e has tons of table and rules, but the whole abilities/race/class stuff is pretty simple at early levels. I assume this was a good compromise between the customizers by rule and the customizers by role play.
Combat went fast. I am unused to the whole "monster stat blocks" and, to be honest, I feel more comfortable just looking things quickly up in a table on a screen. It was also satisfyingly vicious, and I had to dial down a few of the goblin counts due to the undersized party.
The pre-made adventure has a nice combo of dungeon-crawl/monster kill, intrigue, and role-playing opportunities. To be honest, I don't like that almost everything is a proficiency/rolled. Sure, it's great to have a persuasion ability, but I prefer role playing that to roll playing. I default to the DMG that the rules are just guidelines.
Overall- I have a lot of things that I'd probably homebrew, but I'd say 5e was a big success. I loved 1e for a lot of reasons, but mainly because I played it for so long that I knew all the rules, and was able to change, alter, and ignore the ones that didn't work... and it had ones that definitely didn't work. And I think the classes here are a lot more balanced from what I've seen. Until 5th level, magic users in 1e were pretty useless unless you homebrew a little (especially the first two!). Assassins and illusionists were good class concepts hobbled by terrible rules. And so on. I was relatively pleased with most of the mechanics, although I forbid anyone from playing a tiefling, a dragonborne, or a drow. I have some standards.
So the adventure was run under less tan ideal circumstances, with only two adventurers (half-orc barbarian, high elf bard), but everyone made it through the caves encounter and the ruffians in the town and to second level, and they were clamoring to go and get the Redbrands in the manor. Overall, a success.
Thoughts on the differences going straight to 5e after a long retirement? Well, we didn't go with the pre-made characters. So, IMO, the character creation seemed both familiar and,well, different (last time I player, AC went from -10 to 10). The beginning how-to create Bruennor in the PHB is a good start. I've been reading a lot about the other editions, and everyone says that this is a huge step forward in simplification, and it wasn't hard, but, well, it was harder than 1e. Sure, 1e has tons of table and rules, but the whole abilities/race/class stuff is pretty simple at early levels. I assume this was a good compromise between the customizers by rule and the customizers by role play.
Combat went fast. I am unused to the whole "monster stat blocks" and, to be honest, I feel more comfortable just looking things quickly up in a table on a screen. It was also satisfyingly vicious, and I had to dial down a few of the goblin counts due to the undersized party.
The pre-made adventure has a nice combo of dungeon-crawl/monster kill, intrigue, and role-playing opportunities. To be honest, I don't like that almost everything is a proficiency/rolled. Sure, it's great to have a persuasion ability, but I prefer role playing that to roll playing. I default to the DMG that the rules are just guidelines.
Overall- I have a lot of things that I'd probably homebrew, but I'd say 5e was a big success. I loved 1e for a lot of reasons, but mainly because I played it for so long that I knew all the rules, and was able to change, alter, and ignore the ones that didn't work... and it had ones that definitely didn't work. And I think the classes here are a lot more balanced from what I've seen. Until 5th level, magic users in 1e were pretty useless unless you homebrew a little (especially the first two!). Assassins and illusionists were good class concepts hobbled by terrible rules. And so on. I was relatively pleased with most of the mechanics, although I forbid anyone from playing a tiefling, a dragonborne, or a drow. I have some standards.