Crafting the Perfect 5E Replacement, Part 5

I think our rules and options are laid out nicely for our 5E replacement, and we have a rock-solid base game with Old School Essentials: Classic Fantasy. We use Classic to start so the book sees some use, and this is identical rules-wise with Advanced, so it can be used as our "table copy" for players. We are purposefully keeping the base options simple for a number of reasons:

• It speeds play.
• It makes expansion races and classes feel special.
• Our party composition is predictable and the strongest for dungeon crawling.

Remember, we are doing a game where we use another book to expand player options for gold as they level and train, so these classes are just starting points and they will morph and change as players get treasure, find trainers, and work on that "out of class" progression. Progression will not be the same for similar classes! If an archer wanted an "arrow cleave" feat, they could train that and nobody else would have it.

If we wanted heavy classes and to de-emphasize training, like we just wanted adventure content and not "sitting characters out" I would use Into the Wild and OSR Advanced Player Options and replace all the base OSE classes with these heavyweight designs. There is some excellent design going on here and it is a shame to let it go to waste. Why would I pick this over OSE? It is less work when designing and customizing class abilities later, and you get a lot of "feel good" abilities that are a bit OP, but they fill a niche power fantasy within the game.

The fighter here is excellent. They cleave a number of times maximum per round equal to their level, so if they slay a target, they can attack another, if they slay that, then another, and so on until their maximum cleaves are reached. They get a once per day negation of a physical attack. They get "damage advantage" with two-handed weapons. They also get a fighting style to choose at first level, and another at 7th and 14th. They have a minimum damage die with all weapons. There is also a knack and skill system.

Is that OP? It is no more OP than a DCC fighter, to be sure. The fighter still has normal AC and hit points, and two lucky goblins with short-bows can make quick work of a first-level fighter. You get a few special abilities to start, and the rules seem like "fun enhanced" house rules for a heavily tweaked OSE fighter, developed and balanced over years of play.

With Into the Wild, you start to need On Downtime and Demesnes less, and training is far less important. In fact, skills and trainings are given every few levels, so allowing extra training may be even more OP for this mod, unless it is for skills and abilities outside the system, and that is also offset by the time and gold cost. I would be careful not to allow "doubling up" and replication, but if someone wanted a special ability not covered in these rules, I may allow it to be trained. Be more selective here, and if they are something interesting and specialized, like "Elven cooking" then allow the skill or training and have fun. Anything related to combat and raw character power should be situational and limited in focus, where role-playing skills and abilities will be more permissive.

More next time as we sort through the things we have and keep crafting our perfect game.