Tweaking OSRIC: Levels 1-3
Before heading once more unto the OSRIC, let’s detour a bit through 5E D&D. I’ve been DMing a 5E D&D game every other Sunday for several sessions. We started out with AD&D’s Slave Pits of the Undercity. I tweaked things a bit to fit our shared-DM world and to inject the horrid followers of Wastri the Hopping Prophet into the mix. I converted the AD&D module more or less on-the-fly. It proved to be a challenging scenario made lethal by a single foolish decision by one of the players.
As is my way, I turned the total-party-kill into a choice: your character can survive (but with consequences) or you can make up a new character (but with consequences). Three players kept their characters; the other two brought in new ones. The consequences? Starting out naked and equipmentless on a small lake island that served as the sacrificial place for a froghemoth. The heroes escaped the froghemoth after discovering a hidden stairwell leading deep into the island and the lake bed itself.
At this point, the heroes found themselves in Descent into the Depths of the Earth. Out of the frying pan, and all that. They faced drows, bugbears, gargoyles, a purple worm, a giant slug, and trolls. They befriended a group of flumphs. The heroes explored carefully, finding their way into what turned out to be the prison of a demon, which one of the heroes freed in exchange for its “blessing”. From the demon prison, the heroes discovered a path back to the surface.
Thus ended the most recent arc in a 5E D&D campaign that started with Against the Cult of the Reptile God run by Terry, our other DM. In short, we’ve been using AD&D material with 5E D&D for many months, and it’s worked like a charm. We’re probably switching DMs again for the next session, which will likely see us reverting to the the first group of heroes, those who saved Orlane and defeated the Reptile God’s cult.
And now a clumsy segue from 5E D&D into OSRIC territory.
Character advancement in 5E D&D moves quickly from 1st to 2nd to 3rd level. All 5E D&D classes use the same XP chart, and it takes 300 XP to reach 2nd level, 900 XP to reach 3rd level, and 2700 XP to reach 4th level. Put another way, a 5E D&D character reaches 2nd level after earning 1/9 of 4th-level XP and reaches 3rd level after earning 1/3 of 4th-level XP.
As both a player and DM, I prefer lower to mid levels, but I’m not a huge fan of 1st and 2nd levels. For me, the sweet spot in the game kicks in around 3rd level and lasts until about 9th, although I have enjoyed greatly both lower and higher level play. I like the way 5E D&D treats 1st-3rd levels as a sort of apprenticeship of sorts, moving the PCs along quickly before slowing the march toward 4th level.
So, what might this look like for OSRIC? Let’s compare the four main classes via the table below.
Using these modified numbers, PCs progress to 3rd level more quickly than normal, but the distinction between classes stays in place. The magic-user still needs more XP to gain a level than the thief does. After 3rd level, the old-school differentiation between each class’s level advancement would kick back in.
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