Depends on which your players would find more interesting: an increased risk of falling (rope bridge) or a logistics challenge (no bridge). *I* find no bridge more entertaining, but most of my current players would prefer to deal with threats rather than problems.

Skyrealms of Jorune (3e) has a skill system, so you can make starting PCs who are:
- barely competent in MANY things
- pretty competent in several things
- expert in a couple of things
So it’s definitely an option.
Also:
Wounds in SoJ are terrifying.
You improve skills by use.

Is there a version of Savage Worlds that you do like? To me, Savage is only slightly better than FUDGE (and its derivatives like Fate), which is not enough to make me want to play. But if you have a recommendation, I’d reconsider…

Like a lot of 2024 material, this feels to me like WotC relied too heavily on the Unearthed Arcana system for feedback rather than actual playtesting. This seems unaltered from the UA Bastion material. “We didn’t get feedback, so it’s fine” is not a great way to write TTRPG rules.

“Freedom Five” is a cooperative board game set in the “Sentinels of the Multiverse” world, featuring different takes on many of the same characters. Like all good cooperative tabletop games, it seems impossible at first but eking out a victory is possible and feels glorious.

“Marvel Zombies” is an interesting (and so far, NOT impossible like “Green Death”) variation on “Zombicide,” in which you play superhero undead. There’s a fun mechanic in which you get more powerful but also have fewer action options if you don’t devour the living.

An expectation of caution is built into every AD&D module. At this point, I’ve run N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God more times in 5e than I have in AD&D (it’s a classic module for good reasons). It has resulted in more TPKs in 5e than any other adventure, entirely due to that lack of caution.

A big part of the difficulty is player expectation, of course. People play 5e *very* differently than they do AD&D: far less caution, and with an expectation that combat is the main avenue for solving problems. Everyone wants to cut the Gordian knot rather than circumventing it like AD&D players do.

I’ve run several classic low-level AD&D modules that I convert to 5e, and it’s a tricky conversion every time. I *have* to reward XP for non-combat achievements (and usually treasure) because the AD&D combat encounters are so deadly (and XP-light) that the PCs need ways to level up to survive them.

But how do you separate the treasure-as-XP from the overall experience, since that’s so foundational for AD&D? AD&D games lean toward heists, because the reward for combat is so much less than that for treasure, but in 5e it’s mostly combat because that’s what’s mostly rewarded.

Yes. Just making a character requires a preposterous amount of jumping around from chapter to chapter to appendix. It’s a problem with the 2014 books I’d hoped they’d improve in these, but it’s so much worse here.

The third obvious regression is requiring that every PC has Feats. Everyone I know and have played with was delighted that we didn’t have to deal with Feats in 5e. Requiring them is a terrible throwback to 3e.
My whole family is making AL PCs now and groaning at having to choose Feats again.
4/4

Second is the removal of personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws - the single best innovation of 5e!
I still can’t believe it, but I’ve looked, and all the information about the actual CHARACTER of the PC you play? All of that is *gone.*

This is a colossal step backwards.
3/4

First is the moving of class choices to third level *for every class.*
Studying religious texts and worshipping a god as a cleric? You won’t know *which god* until you get to L3.
Make a dark pact with an Eldritch being to become a warlock? You don’t know *which being* until L3!
2/4