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Post by smubee on Oct 31, 2017 15:59:31 GMT -6
Anyone ever heard of "Dungeonesque"? It's a 5e clone meant to look and feel like OD&D.. m.imgur.com/7bqpCrt?rComes in 4 little booklets : Characters & Combat (creating characters) Elrdritch Wizardry (Spell lists) Worlds & Adventure (DM Book) Concise Bestiary (monster manual) For a measly $52 (Canadian) the entirety of the 5e rules are available in an OD&D package. The picture does not do it justice.. The box TRULY looks and (literally) FEELS like a white box. Even has a little bit of those brown "stains" and the fadedness of the red title. The company also put out this set in a RED BOX style if that suits your fancy. Honestly when I bought this, I thought it was an OD&D clone until I got home and realized it was for 5e.. Regardless, super fun to flip through.. Could be a cool way to get some ol' grognards into the newer edition. |
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Post by Finarvyn on Oct 31, 2017 16:41:55 GMT -6
I was interested in this, but the price scared me off a little. When you get a chance, maybe you can give a more complete review. (I saw a copy of the OD&D-style version and the Red Box style version at a local game store. I'm more interested in the OD&D-like one, but a review of either would be nice.)
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Post by smubee on Oct 31, 2017 19:43:18 GMT -6
I was interested in this, but the price scared me off a little. When you get a chance, maybe you can give a more complete review. (I saw a copy of the OD&D-style version and the Red Box style version at a local game store. I'm more interested in the OD&D-like one, but a review of either would be nice.) 100% I can. Maybe I'll do a video review.. Always wanted to do one of those. |
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Post by hamurai on Nov 1, 2017 2:17:01 GMT -6
It's basic rules you can get for free with a different layout. I had a look at it at a friend's and apart from some CC artwork, new font and layout, it's nothing new. That's why I felt the price was way too high. Maybe it was because I had already done something similar myself for me and my group  |
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Post by scottenkainen on Nov 1, 2017 10:07:08 GMT -6
I'd seen copies of this at Games Plus in Mount Prospect, Illinois when I was last there, but forgot to ask this forum about it. My thought was that it must be an unknown retroclone too. I'm glad now I didn't buy it, if it's just 5E repackaged.
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Post by swordofkas on Nov 1, 2017 10:14:03 GMT -6
I remember seeing it when it was on kickstarter. It looks super cool but the price is just too steep for me.
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Post by Fearghus on Nov 2, 2017 18:04:40 GMT -6
How does it differ from the standard 5e?
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Post by smubee on Nov 2, 2017 19:56:50 GMT -6
How does it differ from the standard 5e? It's essentially a re-packaged version of the Basic Rules PDF, but the layout and overall flavour is very old-school, while also giving some House Rules to make it feel more like a 1e game. Considering that 5e books in Canada are $65+ it makes sense for someone to pay $52 for the only necessary information to run endless campaigns whilst still being compatible with other 5e material (modules, etc.) |
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Post by geoffrey on Nov 2, 2017 20:57:31 GMT -6
How does it differ from the standard 5e? It's essentially a re-packaged version of the Basic Rules PDF, but the layout and overall flavour is very old-school, while also giving some House Rules to make it feel more like a 1e game. Considering that 5e books in Canada are $65+ it makes sense for someone to pay $52 for the only necessary information to run endless campaigns whilst still being compatible with other 5e material (modules, etc.) Yeah, given that choice, I'd definitely go with Dungeonesque.  |
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Post by ritt on Nov 3, 2017 16:35:42 GMT -6
A bit too expensive for me at present, but "Re-skinning" the free Basic rules is a clever and cool idea. Kinda like the RPG version of those craftsmen that hand-make hardwood casings for laptops.
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Post by Vile Traveller on Nov 3, 2017 20:03:35 GMT -6
It's not so much the cost that puts me off but the feeling that I'd prefer my own house rules to his that made me hold off on the KS. On-and-off I play with the 5E SRD to make it more Holmesian.
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Post by Finarvyn on Nov 4, 2017 16:17:47 GMT -6
I like the concept of 5E lite, enough that I tried to take the Basic 5E free download PDF and copy it into Word so that I could tinker with it, but I had no real luck with the copy-paste. Even starting from one of the SRD formats I find online, none seem tinker-ready.  |
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Post by hamurai on Nov 5, 2017 1:36:17 GMT -6
I wasn't able to convert it perfectly, but enough to tinker with it, I think. Shoot me a PM if you'd like me to send the file so you can check it out |
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Post by Vile Traveller on Nov 5, 2017 1:58:33 GMT -6
Yeah, I converted the whole thing to text in the end, which loses all the formatting - quite a bit of work still to do to knock back into shape. What I'm working on is a kind of 5E Holmes - goes up to Level 20, but I'll probably restrict monsters to what's actually in the Blue Book (well, all editions thereof, anyway). This is for the benefit of my face-to-face group who are addicted to 5E - hey, it's a step in the right direction, they used to only play Pathfinder ...  |
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Post by strangebrew on Nov 5, 2017 12:14:20 GMT -6
the layout and overall flavour is very old-school, while also giving some House Rules to make it feel more like a 1e game. I'd be interested in hearing more about this if you could expand. It looked pretty cool on their website, but I noticed the text for the wizard class included at-will cantrips and 2 spells at first level. The latter I could deal with, but the unlimited cantrips thing is the antithesis of old school for me. Reminds me of a Pathfinder game I played in where, upon finding a dark pit in a dungeon, I started to discuss the safest ways to get a character down there with a torch. Then another player said "I have dancing lights as a cantrip, I can cast it unlimited times per day. I'll just cast it down here like five times and light everything up." If that was him sacrificing a spell slot for Light, sure, but it just became cheap, uncreative, not fun. Ahem, anyways, my only real issues with 5e are the cantrips and the rest/healing rules. They're deal breakers, especially since they really represent new-school gaming for me - an abandonment of resource management and player skill. Which is depressing, since I'd otherwise really like 5th ed. |
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Post by Finarvyn on Nov 5, 2017 14:35:55 GMT -6
Actually, I like the unlimited cantrip concept from 5E. It makes wizards relevant. In true old school games wizards get a minimum number of spells and after that have to throw daggers or use a bow or something else non-magical, but with the cantrips they get to have a magical attack. (I've had a similar house rule like that for decades, but my "zap spell" was a d4. These cantrips are d8 or d10 damage, so one could trim that down a little to make the balance better.)
As to the resting rules, it all comes down to what a "hit point" is supposed to represent. If it's actual damage (healing 1 hp per day) then no one should be able to take so many points of damage and survive. If it's just getting winded or near-misses, then these should heal up faster than 1 hp per day. Rests "fix" hit points a little if you think of them more like the winded example, but the DM has to anticipate how to keep players from getting too many rests. (I guess that's where the exhaustion rules are supposed to kick in. We haven't used them much but the few times the characters got exhaustion it really sucked for them, so perhaps it's a well designed mechanic.)
My biggest issue with 5E is the power creep that is starting to appear. If you use just the Basic PDF, or just the Player's Handbook, you have a decent number of options but not too many. Then some of the newer builds from the supplemental books become legal and the original classes become worthless. (For example, all rogues become swashbucklers and all monks become Sun monks. Nobody wants to play the older classes any more.) And as there are more racial options (bird folk, cat folk, etc.) playing a human is hardly ever seen in my local game store, and elves/dwarves are almost as uncommon. Ugh.
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Post by scottenkainen on Nov 5, 2017 15:36:27 GMT -6
The latter I could deal with, but the unlimited cantrips thing is the antithesis of old school for me. Reminds me of a Pathfinder game I played in where, upon finding a dark pit in a dungeon, I started to discuss the safest ways to get a character down there with a torch. Then another player said "I have dancing lights as a cantrip, I can cast it unlimited times per day. I'll just cast it down here like five times and light everything up." If that was him sacrificing a spell slot for Light, sure, but it just became cheap, uncreative, not fun. Yes. A thousand times, yes. |
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Post by strangebrew on Nov 5, 2017 22:43:43 GMT -6
Actually, I like the unlimited cantrip concept from 5E. It makes wizards relevant. Yeah, I see the logic, but I don't think they need to be equals to the other classes at 1st level. Magic-users are a gamble - weak and ineffective at first level, but then they start to steal the show if they make it to the mid-levels. I like it that way...when the classes are designed to be equally relevant then you risk ending up with something like 4th edition, where (by many accounts) all classes play very much the same, but with a re-skinning* of effects. I also don't have much problem with magic-users not being a combat class, at least not for the first few levels. I do use the Holmes scroll creation rule with all my D&D games, which increases magic-user effectiveness at a cost in gold. As to the resting rules, it all comes down to what a "hit point" is supposed to represent. Yeah, I get this too, and it actually makes a bit of sense with the abstraction of hit points and so on. I just don't like it  I think maybe it just makes things too easy. One could make the argument that resting and using hit dice for healing is a kind of resource management, sure, but it's also a much much more generous way to do it. My biggest issue with 5E is the power creep that is starting to appear. If you use just the Basic PDF, or just the Player's Handbook, you have a decent number of options but not too many. Then some of the newer builds from the supplemental books become legal and the original classes become worthless. (For example, all rogues become swashbucklers and all monks become Sun monks. Nobody wants to play the older classes any more.) And as there are more racial options (bird folk, cat folk, etc.) playing a human is hardly ever seen in my local game store, and elves/dwarves are almost as uncommon. Ugh. I thought this kind of bloat was something they were trying to avoid, basically by not publishing as much stuff. I can't say I'm surprised. If I ever play 5e I'll do the same as 1st or 2nd ed and just use the basic 3 core books. *: Related rant...I hate how this computer gaming terminology has seeped into tabletop gaming. Reskin, tank, heal-bot, loot, raid, lore, etc. I think there has been a cognitive shift in the way people internalize/imagine D&D which also (probably coincidentally) matches the transition from TSR to WOTC. It used to be players drew from novels and films for their conceptualization of things, but now I think it is computer/console games and animation. In other words, Appendix N would be a list of computer game titles today. Not an original thought, I know, but I really see it when I talk to players who got into the hobby post ~2000. Also I swear I'm not a grumpy old man, I'm only in my mid-thirties. No offense to our grumpy old men. |
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Post by hamurai on Nov 5, 2017 23:29:39 GMT -6
I think the Cantrips were a good addition, although the damage of the attack cantrips seems a little high for spammable attacks. (We also used a houserule in some games which allowed wizards a spell attack for free, for d6 damage - I introduced it because the group was rather low on damage overall and the encounter balancing wasn't too much fun.). Then again, most cantrips that allow a save are often enough useless, so only a handful ever gets used. I do enjoy the other, non-combat cantrips a lot, apart from (as has been mentioned already) Dancing Lights, which is often just too much. As a DM I have the monsters see the lights, though, and prepare ambushes. That keeps the players from lighting the entire dungeon up per default.
Cantrips and the resting rules all play their part in the balancing, but as far as we've played (most campaigns stopped at 4th level) the resting rules didn't get used a lot because of the cleric's mighty healing abilities (Cure Wounds for 1d8+5 is a lot of healing at lower levels) and because we played shorter adventures. I guess they'd get used a lot more in nice, long dungeon crawls and megadungeons.
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Post by Vile Traveller on Nov 6, 2017 4:36:01 GMT -6
There are alternative resting rules in the DMG, which our referee uses, and let me tell you they can make an adventurer's life hard ... |
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I think maybe it just makes things too easy. One could make the argument that resting and using hit dice for healing is a kind of resource management, sure, but it's also a much much more generous way to do it.