Mini-review: Five Torches Deep

Five Torches Deep

After playing a few years of 5th edition, I have to say that I am still feeling like there are too many rules and too much to track about character advancement. Honestly, I would like something more like B/X with some of the elegance of specific 5e mechanics.

Enter Sigil Stone Publishing's game, Five Torches Deep by Ben and Jessica Dutter. I am pleased that the game restructures classes into four familiar classes, with each having 3 subclasses at level 3. I love the recalibrating of rules to have power levels more similar to B/X classes, and simplification of rules -- there are only about 36 actual pages of rules. And those include some things 5e does well (advantage and disadvantage), adds simple but useful rules on fatigue and henchmen, and sets limits on advancement that keep characters from getting to the superhero level of power you see in higher levels of 5e.

Five Torches Deep is a good compromise for people who want to introduce old-school modules and old-school gaming to more contemporary players, for people who would like to see 5e look more like an old school game.

That said, the game is very brief in its presentation, which keeps it from being a good starter game. It seems better suited if the DM is experienced, knows the tropes and styles of old-school gaming, and has the trust of players to make a lot of rules calls. Players need to be less interested in the character-building aspects of later versions of D&D, and more interested in lower-powered games. It presents itself as a bridge between 5e style gaming and OSR gaming, and as such it has promise, even if it is not always as fully developed as other commercial games.

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