D&D 1E Favorite Obscure Rules from TSR-era D&D

I am taking a break from my breakneck pace of posting law-like substance because I wanted to talk about my all-time favorite subject- obscure rules from ye old TSR-era D&D days.

This subject was recently resurfaced because of the Illusionist thread, and specifically because @James Gasik brought up one my all-time faves (which I will mention below). To start the thread, I will be bringing up some of my own personal favorites that came from the High Gygaxian verbiage of AD&D (1e), but feel free to bring up any TSR-era edition. And while these are often considered obscure, they are usually right there in the plain text of the rules. Go fig, right!

So, without further ado, weird and obscure rules from AD&D!

1. Assassins did not know about one of their primary high-level class abilities.
Assassins could use poison, but tucked in the DMG was a small section explaining that assassins, when they reach 9th level, could study how to make all sorts of different poisons with different effects! Except ... the DM was to never tell the player about this, or even suggest it is a possibility.

2. Elves could not be resurrected or raised.
Elves (and half-orcs) had spirits, not souls, and raise dead and resurrection does not work on them. Sorry! You had to use reincarnation. Except ... a rod of resurrection would work. Why? Why not!

3. Illusionists couldn't use a wand of magic missiles.
Illusionists had real restrictions on the rods, staffs, and wands. Which meant that, yes, even some of those wands that should have been used by any class (like a wand of magic missiles) couldn't be used by an illusionist. So a fighter could use it, but not an actual spellcaster.

4. Watch out for the horse.
If the character loses paladinhood for any reason, there will be an immutable enmity between character and mount{.}
No further comment.

5. Spell Aging!
Some people knew that casting a wish would age them (3 years). But did you know that casting resurrection aged you three years? Or receiving haste (1 year). Or ... GATE????? FIVE YEARS!!!!

ETA- here's an interesting rules question. If you cast wish to gate ... is it three years or five?


I am just tossing these out there, because there are so many, and I am sure that you have some favorites. Let's hear them.

I always informed my players that we were using the suggestion from page 7 of DMGR4 Monster Mythology that, if they had a patron deity and prayed for divine intervention, there was a 1% chance that they'd be heard and that their god would step in and help them (and that such a thing would only ever happen once for any particular character).

Alzrius said:

I always informed my players that we were using the suggestion from page 7 of DMGR4 Monster Mythology that, if they had a patron deity and prayed for divine intervention, there was a 1% chance that they'd be heard and that their god would step in and help them (and that such a thing would only ever happen once for any particular character).

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Deities & Demigods had a chance, with modifiers, for help from the deity (10% chance of sending aid if it was the first time). But if you roll a 00, there would be a chance equal to your level that the deity himself would appear with modifiers.

Snarf Zagyg said:

2. Elves could not be resurrected or raised.
Elves (and half-orcs) had spirits, not souls, and raise dead and resurrection does not work on them. Sorry! You had to use reincarnation. Except ... a rod of resurrection would work. Why? Why not!

Click to expand...

From what I recall, elves and half-orcs couldn't be subject to a raise dead spell, but a resurrection worked on them normally (hence why the rod of resurrection worked).

Snarf Zagyg said:

5. Spell Aging!
Some people knew that casting a wish would age them (3 years). But did you know that casting resurrection aged you three years? Or receiving haste (1 year). Or ... GATE????? FIVE YEARS!!!!

Click to expand...

Fun fact: chapter three of DM's Option: High-Level Campaigns included some notes that increased the aging that (some of) these spells inflicted proportional to the caster's race. So a human casting wish would age five years, but a halfling casting it would age ten years, and an elf casting it would age twenty-five!

It probably doesn't qualify as obscure, but I rather like the weapon vs armor type modifiers and thought they made the fighter's ability to use any weapon actually useful and relevant.

A fun little tidbit that I never got to use but always wanted to: the AD&D 1E Manual of the Planes said (page 70) that when growing a clone (which took 2-8 months) on the Astral Plane via the spell of the same name, it only grew one day for every thousand years that passed. So your clone would be ready anywhere from sixty thousand to two hundred-forty thousand years in the future!

Alzrius said:

From what I recall, elves and half-orcs couldn't be subject to a raise dead spell, but a resurrection worked on them normally (hence why the rod of resurrection worked).

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This was a common issue, because of that rod!

But the text of the resurrection spell said this, buried in the middle of the description-

See raise dead for limitations on what persons can be raised.

GYGAX!!!!!!!!

Reynard said:

It probably doesn't qualify as obscure, but I rather like the weapon vs armor type modifiers and thought they made the fighter's ability to use any weapon actually useful and relevant.

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They were actually really great, except for two things-

1. They slowed down combat a lot.
2. Given most combat was against monsters, it was always unclear how to translate this.

For that reason, it was a great idea that I never saw used because it slowed down the combats.

Despite what everyone thinks, the Comeliness ability score did not die out within a few years of its publication (first in Dragon, and then in Unearthed Arcana). No, it survived into AD&D 2E...because of the RPGA!

While RPGA characters that appeared in Polyhedron had Comeliness scores for quite some time, we'd see the rules for the Comeliness score reprinted in Polyhedron #89 (November, 1993) in an addendum to the adventure "The Ugly Stick." However, this wasn't the Comeliness of 1E's UA, as all it did was provide a reaction adjustment (with the table of what score merited what adjustment being a direct copy of how much Charisma adjusted reaction scores).

While not quite a rule per se, there's a fun little tidbit (one of several, actually) from the TSR trading cards:

The card for "Javair," #176 from the 1992 set, has the only instance I've ever seen of someone having a magical longsword +2, +4 vs. peasants.