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

RhaezDaevan said:

Personally, I feel Magic-User and Thief should have swapped Breath Weapon saves. An agile thief should be better at leaping out of the way of danger than the fragile mage.

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Well, yes, but as there is one thing we keep circling back to in this thread, Gygax never passed up an opportunity to smack the thief around.

Seriously, Gygax felt about thieves the way I feel about bards.


....in fairness, Gygax did put the Bards in an appendix. And as we all know, the appendix is useless, and can be removed.

Snarf Zagyg said:

I'll just do lowest and highest levels.

	Para, Poison, Death	Petrification/Poly	Rod, Staff, Wand	Breath Weapon	Spell
Cleric 1-3	10	13	14	16	15
Cleric 19+	2	5	6	8	7
Fighter 1-2	14	15	16	17	17
Fighter 17+	3	4	5	4	4
Magic User 1-5	14	13	11	15	12
Magic User 21+	8	5	3	7	4
Thief 1-4	13	12	14	16	15
Thief 21+	8	7	4	11	5

I have bolded the best saves for low and high levels.

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My first thought was no you didn't, just looking at the high level fighter you have three bolded and none are the high level fighter's best save. But then I realized you were bolding the best for the save category, not the best for the various classes at low and high level.

Here is how it looks if you want to examine the best for the classes instead.



Thieves are the only ones who shift, with starting out as them weirdly being best against Petrification and Polymorph then shifting to being their best against RSW (and worst comparatively against other classes for petrification and polymorph at top end levels).

Quickleaf said:

I agree with you!

I've been writing personal RPG stuff again, taking my old setting (which I'd been trying to cram into modern D&D like a round peg into a square hole for a while) and just free-flowing with it. Sort of a fusion of B/X foundation with other things added. I was distilling saves down to just two: Body Save and Magic Save.

What are your thoughts on the number of saves in the game? Does tracking 5 saving throws (or 6 saving throws) feel like it makes more sense to you than having fewer saves (3 like 3e or even just 2 like I'm playing with)?

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First question: why is anyone tracking the saves? Just have them on a level-class-type chart on the back of your DM screen and reference as necessary.

Save matrices are a mechanic far easier handled by the DM than by the players.

One exception for thieves being smacked at every turn is that the 1e DMG gives them a bonus ability, the chance to set traps in addition to the PH ability to detect and remove them.

Also it generally assumes everybody has normal access to the material to create spring propelled missiles.

So if you want a defensive perimeter when camping at night, thieves can go nuts with trip wires set up to bells, snares, or arrow or other projectile missile traps.

1e DMG page 20:

THIEVES AND ASSASSINS SETTING TRAPS

Simple mechanical traps can be set by thieves or assassins. The chance to do so
successfully is equal to that of the chance shown for detecting such traps, but in
this case the assassin operates at an ability level equal to two levels above his
or her own and exactly as if he or she were a thief, e.g. a 5th level assassin
has the same chance of setting a trap as a 7th level thief does.

Simple traps are those which involve mechanical components which the
character setting them has normal access to, such as arrow traps, trip wires,
and spring-propelled missiles. Special devices such as poisoned needles,
scything blades, and any similar traps with special mechanical components will
also require the efforts of one or more specialists — those required to
manufacture the component parts.

Whenever a thief or assassin character desires to set a trap, require him or her to
furnish you a simple drawing to illustrate how the trap will function. If the chance
to successfully set the trap results in failure, there is a chance of causing injury to
the trap setter, just as if he or she had set such a trap off. This chance is rolled for
separately and is the obverse of the chance for successful setting of a trap. The
drawing of the trap will modify the chances for injury in cases where failure
results. Modification can be upwards or downwards according to the complexity
and danger of the trap. Note that even with a prepared mechanism for a poison
needle, for example, the trap must be set, and failure can result. Gloves or
protective handwear cannot be worn when setting such traps.

Finally, failure on the first attempt to set a trap does not mean that the thief or
assassin can never set the trap. Unlike other similar thief functions, repeated
attempts are permissible.

Snarf Zagyg said:

I thought it might be interesting to look at the class and saving throw matrix in AD&D (1e).

I'll just do lowest and highest levels.

	Para, Poison, Death	Petrification/Poly	Rod, Staff, Wand	Breath Weapon	Spell
Cleric 1-3	10	13	14	16	15
Cleric 19+	2	5	6	8	7
Fighter 1-2	14	15	16	17	17
Fighter 17+	3	4	5	4	4
Magic User 1-5	14	13	11	15	12
Magic User 21+	8	5	3	7	4
Thief 1-4	13	12	14	16	15
Thief 21+	8	7	4	11	5

I have bolded the best saves for low and high levels.

Observations!

1. Overall, I'd argue that the fighter is best. Not great to start, but rapidly gets better (advances every two levels). And good at all saves.

2. Clerics are good at the poison and death magic save, which makes sense, and is also why paralyzation is a weird fit there.

3. Magic users suffer from slow advancement, but they are good at RSW and spells, which makes sense, and ... breath weapons? Okay?

4. Thieves? Slow to advance, and they never are that great. Seriously, a TWENTY-FIRST level thief has an 8 ... against poison. C'mon. I only have one thing to say when it comes to the Thief.


GYGAX!!!!!!!!!

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I smoothed those tables out so long ago to go level by level I'd forgotten they used to go in multi-level jumps.

Lanefan said:

First question: why is anyone tracking the saves? Just have them on a level-class-type chart on the back of your DM screen and reference as necessary.

Save matrices are a mechanic far easier handled by the DM than by the players.

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I disagree.

I find it easier as a DM to say everbody make a save versus spell for the fireball and have them roll and look at their sheet and tell me whether they made it or not instead of me asking individually for their result, then their class and level (or plural for multiclasses) figure in their relevant possible stat and item and racial bonuses, and look up the modified result for each one.

I thought the 1e character sheets with saves on them was a good innovation for speeding up play in combat.

Voadam said:

I disagree.

I find it easier as a DM to say everbody make a save versus spell for the fireball and have them roll and look at their sheet and tell me whether they made it or not instead of me asking individually for their result, then their class and level (or plural for multiclasses) figure in their relevant possible stat and item and racial bonuses, and look up the modified result for each one.

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Given how often saves are modified for some reason or other unknown to the players, it's faster for me to just get them to roll the die, tell me their bonuses (I'd bloody-well hope I know what class and species they are by now!), and let me figure it from there.

Voadam said:

I thought the 1e character sheets with saves on them was a good innovation for speeding up play in combat.

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I'm not sure it speeds things up much, and I don't like the idea of moving what IMO should be DM-side mechanics to the player side. Same rationale as why I didn't like BAB in 3e; it moves the combat matrix - which should be DM-side stuff - over to the players.

Lanefan said:

I don't like the idea of moving what IMO should be DM-side mechanics to the player side. Same rationale as why I didn't like BAB in 3e; it moves the combat matrix - which should be DM-side stuff - over to the players.

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I am the complete opposite here - the more of the admin burden I can hand over to the players, the better. My players sometimes agree with you and want more hidden mechanics, but I just can't be bothered. I see the DM job as primarily a storyteller, less of a referee. And now I have an example of the opposite view on this! Cool!

To each their own!

Lanefan said:

Given how often saves are modified for some reason or other unknown to the players, it's faster for me to just get them to roll the die, tell me their bonuses (I'd bloody-well hope I know what class and species they are by now!), and let me figure it from there.

I'm not sure it speeds things up much, and I don't like the idea of moving what IMO should be DM-side mechanics to the player side. Same rationale as why I didn't like BAB in 3e; it moves the combat matrix - which should be DM-side stuff - over to the players.

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I've heard a lot of DM's who ran games in the pre-Thac0 area mirror this exact sentiment, that knowing things like "how likely am I to hit an enemy" shouldn't be in player-side information. When I started playing, the DM's never really felt the need to hide that information, in fact, a friend of mine owned a "Player's Screen" that had attack matrix information on it for each class, so I never really understood why anyone felt that this wasn't meant to be player information. There's an argument for keeping the game simple by not having players track all kinds of information, but, just looking at my old character sheet, it has spaces for every possible adjustment to your "to hit" chance listed on it. While it doesn't actually reference the base number, that's still a lot of information!

Weapon bonuses, bonuses for various conditions, weapon speed, adjustments vs. AC, it's all here, so it certainly can't be an attempt to speed up play.

So what's the actual advantage to concealing this mechanic? Obscuring AC? Wouldn't you learn that just by asking which "weapon vs. AC" adjustment applies to an enemy in most cases?

And for that matter, how does someone report the results of their attack in this scenario? "I rolled a 15 on the die, and my total bonuses are +5 and I'm a level 6 Fighter?".

Re: save modifiers for attack strength, they were included in the entry for the attacker rather than a generally applicable rule. The way that early editions scaled attacker power was through increased damage output rather than save modifiers. Once that is established, you can't reasonably add general save modifiers for attacker power because it has an exponential effect on average damage output.