Five Torches Deep review

I used to play a lot of roleplaying games, however the games I like to run are a lot simpler than the games my friends like. Stuff like Fate Accelerated, Wushu or Laser and Feelings. Is not that I dislike D&D5e or World of Darkness, but I dislike reading big books, having a session just to make characters (sometimes several sessions) and having "homework" to do. When I played D&D5e some months ago, I hated when my DM texted me so I read the book to choose features. He even criticize my character because it wasnt opimized enough. I dont like that kind of D&D.

The problem with disliking popular things is no one want to play with me. Where I live all the gamers want to play D&D or Shadowrun. Even if I say that we can play Fate in a D&D-esque setting, people would still prefer to play D&D5e.

So I needed a middle ground between rules lite and similitud with D&D. And here is when Five Torches Deep enter the ring.

Five Torches Deep (FTD) is a D&D clone that take fifth edition and removes a lot of fiddling rules that are responsable of slow sessions and endless character creation. It follows the philosophy of OSR games, a school of roleplaying that prioritize simplified rules, challenges to the players instead to the characters and deadly combat. Most OSR systems use the rules old editions of D&D, like B/X. However FTD decide to use fifth edition as its skeleton, in order to appeal to new gamers.

In order to simplify 5e, FTD do the next changes:

• No skill list, instead every class has a small list of proficient checks (Coordination, tactics and will for warriors). 
• No Saving Throws, you use the attribute that fits the situation the most.
• Four races and four classes, less choices at character creation.
• Five spells per level; Now, this is something that even OSR games dont do. I hate long lists of spells, because they slow character creation of caster classes, so warriors and rogues have to wait while wizards and clerics read every spell. FTD is one of a few games that have a reduced spell list.

However, in order to appeal to 5e gamers, FTD has some rules that make it a bit more complex than usual retroclones:

• Archetypes: Every class has three archetypes to choose when they reach third level. Archetypes give players options similar to feats.
• Spellcasting checks: This is probably the most interesting rule from the game. A wizard can theorically cast an spell infinite times, but every time he cast, he needs to make a roll. The spell is casted no matter the result, however if it was a failure, he cannot cast spells from that level for the rest of the day and he will have to roll a random mishap. Alternatively a wizard can choose to cast a spell as a rite, it will take hours, but it is completely safe. I think this is a similar mechanic to DCC and The Black Hack spellcasting.
• Make every attribute matters, adding a lot of mini-subsystems tied to every attribute, which I will explain now:
• Encumbrance: I think encumbrance rules in FTD are based from Knave rules. Each item has a load number, and the sums of all your items load cant exceed STR score.
• Supply: Intelligence is usually the most dumped stat for martial classes, but FTD rewards high intelligence with the Supply mechanic. Basically every player character has an amount of supplies up to INT score. Supplies are used to replenish any item characters use. So instead of spending arrows, you can spend supplies instead. 
• Resilience: Characters cannot adventure more hours than their Resilience pool, which is equal to CON score. Every hour of adventure, players substract 1 from Resilience. It makes obligatory to come back to home in some moment.
• Magic Items: The second most dumped stat is Charisma. Here, you cant have more Magic items than your CHAR mod.
• DEX is used for most saving rolls, initiative and ranged combat, while Wisdom is used for Divine spellcasting checks, perception checks and morale checks,

So what all this rules mean? It makes a fast game in combat and roleplaying situations (like an OSR game), but with a heavy resource management and thinking with tactics options and features (as a modern RPG). The choices you would do are not on character creation or as homework, but instead you will have to make serious decisions in the course of a game session. This is why FTD ascended to my top 10 roleplaying in the same moment it was released, and will be the game I will use to run D&D modules, both moderns and OSR. 

The best of all is I dont even have to say i will run FTD, iI just have to say "we are gonna play D&D5e with some houserules". Popularity: check.

The thing I really fell in love with is the layout of the book. The book is printed in a landscape format, and each section is entirely contained in one page: Every class is one page, all the spells are in one page, and so on. The book is easy to read, information is easy to find. This book is made to be used at the table and that is something more books should try to do.

I havent even talked about all the gm suggestion, the monster tactics or the awesome dungeon generator based on a rubik cube. This game is full of hidden gems.

If I have to talk about some cons, it would be about some borings archetype like the Ranger (because it get advantages from rules i dont like to use, like weather and terrain), and some others too powerful (Clerics can give another PC a +2 in their next action, I know my players will abuse this). The Supply rule is a bit too abstract.

I like to add random draws to my blog entries

Anyway, I totally recomend this game if you are looking for a D&D clone. If you like fifth edition, you can use it to make your games deadlier and faster. If you like OSR games, you can use it to give your players tactic options in the form of feats and resource management rules.