Constructing the OD&D/Chainmail Combat System

You may have noticed that my last post was in December.  You might even remember that in the post before that I made a promise to myself to focus more on playing and running D&D, and blogging more.  You're almost certainly aware that it's now April. Well, I haven't played during that time, and I haven't blogged during that time.  The truth is, I've barely done anything D&D-related at all.  I almost joined a group as a player, with a professional paid DM, until I decided I couldn't really afford it (and had some other life stuff come up as well).  Aside from that, I've been more focused on my fiction writing and some other projects, and D&D has been on the backburner.  My muse is cycling back around to it again though, and the first task I know I need to do before I can start prepping my campaign is to get the ruleset I'm using ready to go.  Unfortunately for me, the ruleset I've decided to use is Original D&D, which requires a bit more assembly than most.  So I figured I'd blog for a while about that process, starting with the combat system.

When figuring out how you're going to run combat in Original D&D, there's one stumbling block that every referee will encounter: there is no combat system contained in those three booklets.  Sure, there's a method for determining whether or not an attack causes damage, and if that damage is sufficient to slay the target.  But there are many other important questions that go unanswered.  Who goes first?  What can an individual character or monster accomplish in one combat round?  When do combatants lose heart and run away?  All of these questions are answered by later editions of the game, but what I'm trying to do is build the game using the answers that would have been available in 1974.  So let's see what the original booklets have to say about things, under the heading Land Combat:

 The basic system is that from CHAINMAIL, with one figure representing one man or creature. Melee can be conducted with the combat table given in Volume I or by the CHAINMAIL system, with scores equalling a drive back or kill equal only to a hit.

There's a little bit more after that about fighting larger battles on a 20:1 scale, but that's not usually relevant in most D&D games.  The key point is that we're referred to the CHAINMAIL miniature wargame rules.  We're also given the choice of using the CHAINMAIL systems or the tables in OD&D for determining whether an attack is successful.  For me, the choice is an easy one.  OD&D gives one single mechanic, and encompasses every monster in the rules within that mechanic.  CHAINMAIL has multiple mechanics depending on whether creatures are man-types or fantastic, and even then there are quite a number of D&D monsters that aren't covered in the CHAINMAIL rules.  It's very easy to default to the OD&D tables here.  But this doesn't answer the questions posed above about the other aspects of combat.

Taking a look at CHAINMAIL shows that there are three separate combat systems.  The first is for mass battles fought between normal men.  The second is for man-to-man skirmishes.  And the third - from the Fantasy Supplement - is for fantastic battles between monsters and powerful characters.  The Fantasy Supplement doesn't do much to answer questions of movement, initiative, morale, etc.; and being a supplement the assumption is that it would be based on the rest of the CHAINMAIL rules.  Since D&D combat is almost invariably at the skirmish scale, it would make sense to default to those rules.  But look what it says:

 When using the Man-to-man combat system all preceding rules apply, except where amended below.

So effectively all of the mass combat rules apply in man-to-man combat, unless the man-to-man rules contradict them.  This is the "fun" part of constructing a workable combat system using OD&D and CHAINMAIL.  What counts, and what doesn't?  Which rules are applicable?  That's what I plan to figure out below, at least in a very broadstrokes fashion.  I will probably break down some of these topics in future posts, but for now I'm just going through CHAINMAIL and giving some quick notes about what is in and what's out.

One general principle I'm going to try to stick to with this is that the CHAINMAIL mass combat rules are superseded by the man-to-man rules, which are superseded by the OD&D rules.

• Melee range is 3" (30 feet when indoors or 30 yards when outdoors)
• This is not a rule I care for.  Even in the very abstract combat round of D&D, I feel like it breaks the immersion for characters that are 30 feet (or yards!) apart to be attacking each other in melee.  Thankfully, there's precedent for a 10 feet/yards melee distance in the OD&D surprise rules, which show an example where a Wyvern can melee because it's within 10 feet.  With a maximum encounter distance of 30 feet when surprised, it wouldn't make much sense to even roll for it if melee distance was 30 feet, so... This is the first rule I'm kicking out.  Melee range is 1".
• First blows
• In melee, who strikes the first blow depends on who is the "attacker", and on the relative "class" of each weapon.  Weapon class subsumes weapon length and speed; higher class weapons are longer and will attack first when initiating melee, and lower class weapons will strike first on subsequent rounds.
• This all seems reasonable, although it may sometimes be unclear who the "attacker" is in any given situation.  And I'm not quite sure what to do in situations where there are more than two weapon types in any given melee.
• Some special case melee rules:
• Men attacked from the rear can't retaliate on that round, and will attack second the round after. Seems reasonable, and applicable to any creature attacked from the rear.
• Those attacking from the rear also get a +1 to hit.  These small bonuses are due to CHAINMAIL's resolution mechanics being rolled on 1d6 or 2d6.  They're significant at that scale, but not so much when rolling a d20. I'll stick with them regardless.
•  Men attacked from the left flank automatically attack last on the initial melee round.  I guess this assumes everyone is right-handed?  It's also not necessarily applicable to non-humanoid monsters and animals.
• Mounted men get a +1 to hit against footmen, and +2 on the first round of melee; footmen are -1 to hit mounted men. On the second melee round, a horse can attack footmen with its hooves in addition to its riders attacks.
• Parrying and multiple attacks:
• To quickly summarise some fairly involved rules, if two weapons used in melee are different enough in weapon class, one attacker may get 2 or even 3 attacks, and there is also the option of parrying.
• As I mentioned above, weapon class can get unwieldy when you have melees involving more than two combatants, especially when each has a different weapon.  I'm inclined to keep this rule, but maybe only apply it for one-on-one battles.
• Morale: 
• The man-to-man rules say that: "Morale is to be checked when 1/3 of an army has been killed. Use the standard morale tables, check type of troop, and allow any bonuses to dice".  There are two morale systems in CHAINMAIL, but the man-to-man system seems to be referring here to the one listed under "Instability Due to Excess Casualties".  The question here is whether to use that exclusively, or to also apply the "Post Melee Morale" rules.  In the interests of simplicity, I will probably just use the former.
• It should also be noted that morale ratings will have to be determined for all of the non-humans in D&D.
• Turn Sequence:
• CHAINMAIL has two turn sequences, one where the sides take turns resolving each phase of the round, and one where the resolution is simultaneous.  The basic system is that each side rolls 1d6, with the winner deciding who moves first, then each phase is resolved: movement, artillery, missile fire, and melee.  My interpretation is that the simultaneous system is used when the d6 rolls are the same, but that's not stated.
• One thing that needs to be figured out is when spellcasting happens in this sequence.
• It should also be noted that OD&D says that Dexterity is a factor in speed of missile fire and spellcasting, so I'll need to factor that in too.
• And then there's the First Strike stuff from above, which I know my players will rebel against when winning initiative doesn't mean they necessarily get to attack first.
• Movement:
• The terrain effects here seem workable, and there's a list of movement rates for various troop types.  OD&D has boiled this down to simply Light Foot, Heavy Foot, and Armored Foot, so these can mostly be ignored.  Interestingly enough, in CHAINMAIL Light and Heavy Foot are both 9", but there's enough precedent in the OD&D booklets for lightly armored humans moving at 12" for me to go with the standard 12"/9"/6" system.
• Different troop types (and monsters in the Fantasy Supplement) have distances listed for movement when Charging. I'll have to figure these out for the D&D monsters not in CHAINMAIL, or figure out if there's a system.
• Formation and Facing: 
• I think I can dispense with these rules outside of mass combat.
• Fatigue:
• Moving and fighting for too long can fatigue a character, making them less effective in combat.  It all seems reasonable enough, although it's not something that was brought forward into later versions of D&D (except for the requirement for characters exploring a dungeon to rest one turn in six, which exactly corresponds to the fatigue movement rules here).
• I'm going to try to use these, although I suspect that keeping track of this for PCs and monsters will quickly prove tiresome.
• Missile Fire
• Bows can be fired twice per round if the archer is stationary.  Light crossbows can be fired once, and heavy crossbows can be fired every second round.  In a system where every weapon deals 1d6 damage, this makes heavy crossbows highly suboptimal.  This is somewhat balanced by them having a +1 bonus on attack rolls.
• Split-Move and Fire (the ability to move, shoot, then move again) is usually reserved for mounted troops, but of course in OD&D it's a core ability of Elves so I have to include it.
• Arc of fire is limited, but I think I'll ignore that for non-mass combat.
• The rules for ranks permitted to fire, indirect fire, and cover should all be included.
• It states outright that missiles can't be fired into a melee
  
• Catapults and Gunpowder Weapons:
• It's likely that these rules will only come into play for rock-throwing giants.
•  Charging:
• Of course these rules will have to be included.  I'm inclined to ignore the stuff about missile troops "refusing" combat.
• Infiltration:
• Troops are said to control the space 1" on either side to stop "infiltration".  This seems like a good way for fighters to be able to control the battlefield a bit and protect spellcasters in the back row, so it stays.
• Getting "Drawn in" to battle
• There's a rules about getting drawn into battle if you're within 3" of a melee that I'm going to ignore.  I've already said that melee range is 1".
• Melee Optionals for Added Realism:
• Most of this stuff is only applicable to mass battles, such as the capturing prisoners, forming pike hedgehogs, and the historical characteristics of various troop types.
• The "Impetus Bonus", which grants an attack bonus to charging Heavy Foot, Armored Foot, and Horsemen, is a good one. It's not actually clear that charging otherwise grants a bonus, unless I'm missing something.
• Man-to-Man Melee and Missile Tables:
• It's clear from the man-to-man melee tables that certain weapon types perform better or worse against different types of armor.  This is the basis for the dreaded "weapon type vs. AC" tables in Supplement I: Greyhawk and AD&D.  I'm tempted to extrapolate a similar table for OD&D using just this table.
• It should be noted that, according to this table, plate-armoured characters that have fallen over are much easier to kill if you're armed with a dagger, sword, or spear.  Go for the eyeslits!
• It should also be noted that, past a certain range, some missile weapons are completely ineffective against heavily armored targets.
• Missile weapon ranges are also given here.
  

D&D Things I've Been Vibing With Lately

Despite a distinct lack of gaming in 2024, I've still been absorbing a lot of D&D-related material.  Books, blogs, podcasts, videos on Youtube... there's a lot of good stuff out there that I can recommend.  I'm sure I'll forget some things, but below is a list of the D&D-related material that's been firing my synapses lately.

The Collected Works of Jon Peterson

• The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970-1977
• Playing at the World Vol. 1
• The Game Wizards

The first two of these I purchased as soon as they were released, and devoured almost immediately.  I discovered The Game Wizards on Spotify, available to anyone who has Spotify Premium.  All three of these are great.  The Making of OD&D is a good overview and collection of documents related to D&D's early days, including the rulebooks and supplements, and of course the draft version of the game was fascinating reading for someone as interested in the progression of the rules as I am.  Playing at the World gives an excellent look at the wargaming scene that gave birth to D&D, and I learned a lot about how that transition came about.  I'm very much looking forward to Volume 2, which will dig more into the rules elements of D&D and their influences and origins.  The Game Wizards was more focused on the creation of D&D by Gygax and Arneson, their ensuing legal battles, and the financial growth and collapse of TSR up through 1985.  It's all interesting stuff, although it can get bogged down a bit in the numbers and figures and incessant talk about stock options.  I'm not sure I'd have appreciated it as much without the context given by the following podcast, which was not by Peterson but makes a great companion to his works:

• When We Were Wizards

This oral history of TSR I found captivating.  Most of it is sourced from actual quotes by ex-TSR staff and other involved parties, or actors quoting their words exactly.  The actor who portrays Gary Gygax did a great job in particular.  Tense boardroom meetings, politics, drama, Gary's wild Hollywood excesses... This podcast has it all, and is highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the history of the hobby.

Blogs

• The Tao of D&D

I've been a fan of Alexis Smolensk's D&D writing for years, and I've always admired his dedication to improving the game and his give-no-fucks attitude towards the game's creators and current custodians.  He's always consistently produced enlightening material, but this year his 39-part RPG 201 series has been a particular highlight.  Reading the whole thing will require a subscription to his Patreon, but it's the sort of high-quality, thoughtful material that will benefit any DM who reads it.  Definitely worth shelling out 3 bucks for - hell, as an Aussie I had to shell out 5 bucks!  Still worth it.

• BXBlackrazor

JB has been blogging for a long time now, and I always pay attention when he has a new post or a rant.  I've found his evangelizing for AD&D in the last few years to be particularly eye-opening, but more than that his blog has been my gateway to a number of other inspiring parts of the D&D online scene: Anthony Huso's blog, the Fantasy Adventure Gaming movement, and the German AD&D scene.  Those last two I'll talk about later (but definitely check out Huso's AD&D blog posts if you haven't yet).

Podcasts

• The Classic Adventure Gaming Podcast

There aren't many episodes of this show (and there hasn't been a new one in quite some time) but what there is is very good.  Each episode covers an aspect of old-school D&D play and features in-depth discussion from a roundtable of folks who know what they're talking about.  The Fantasy Adventure Gaming scene (or Classic Adventure Gaming for those who desire a less objectionable acronym) is heavily focused on a style of play that emphasises the game as a game, and prioritises effective play over theatrics and story-gaming.  This is the playstyle I've come to favour, and there's a lot to learn from this podcast.

• Zock Bock Radio

On a related note, this podcast comes out of the German AD&D scene.  Most of the episodes are in German, but when they have non-German guests they're in English, and those episodes are highly entertaining.  Settembrini and his regulars have an intelligent, refreshing and entertaining take on AD&D that aligns pretty closely with the CAG scene I mentioned above.  In particular I recommend episode 38, in which Settembrini and Prince of Nothing debate the relative merits of AD&D vs. BX.

Also, they have the catchiest theme song and it will get stuck in your head.

Youtube

• Wandering DMs

I've been following this show since its inception in 2018, and I'm always surprised that they're not bigger than they are.  Hosts Dan and Paul have very different approaches to the game, but they always approach their topics with enthusiasm and it's hard not to come away from each show energised about D&D.  I tend to prefer what I call the "Dan" episodes, which are the ones where they do a deep-dive into particular aspects of the rules, but they also have great interviews and occasional looks into the current 5e scene and more social aspects of the hobby.  Just a great show all around with two very engaging hosts who obviously love each other's company and would no doubt be doing what they do even without an audience.  The best way to start my Monday morning every week.

• Daddy Rolled a 1

I've been enjoying this show in the last year or so.  It does deep dives into the history and rules of D&D and other parts of the hobby, and the host delivers it with an unscripted, conversational style that I really like.  It's a great companion-piece to the Jon Peterson books I mentioned above.

• Arbiter of Worlds

Alexander Macris, the creator of Adventurer, Conqueror, King, tackles all sorts of high-level aspects of D&D and RPGs in this series.  There's a level of  rigorous, intellectual thought that's gone into these videos that can't be found in too many other places online, where the majority of the pundits out there are recycling the same DMing advice that's been circulating for years or decades.  It does get a little too systematised in places for my tastes, but this series is full of concrete DMing guidance that's of a calibre head and shoulders above the norm.  I definitely want to do a rewatch of these so I can properly grok the concepts he's talking about (and I definitely need to check out ACKS for its wargaming and domain play aspects).

• Joy of Wargaming: How to Win at RPGs

Ah, the BroSR...  They are an amusing bunch of trolls at times, but I like a lot of their ideas.  Running games by the book, using 1-to-1 time for tracking campaign downtime, exploring Braunstein play in relation to RPG campaigns, handing control of important NPCs or factions to other players to increase the game's unpredictability...  For me, this Youtube series is the best distillation in one place of everything these guys have been doing, and it's mostly free of their self-congratulatory and self-aggrandizing tone that I find funny but many others find intolerable.  There are a lot of great ideas in this series for anyone who wants to run a grand campaign in the old-school style.

17 Years

I was looking back at some of the earliest entries on my blog recently, and it's somewhat sobering to realise that I started this just over 17 years ago.  Not that I've posted with any sort of regularity or consistency, especially in the last couple of years... but 17 years is a long time to stick with anything.  I guess it puts me in some rarefied company as far as longevity goes, and being part of the earliest days of D&D blogging.  It was still edition 3.5 back then, just barely.  I'd just gotten married that year, a marriage that ended in 2021.  My son was born a year later, and he's rapidly approaching adulthood.  I was just starting work at the library where I'm still happily employed.  That job's been about the only stable thing in my life over that period, and given that I wrote a significant number of my early posts while I was on the clock, I might still be lucky to have it.  I was excited about the imminent arrival of D&D's 4th edition... that certainly changed, and quickly.  So yeah, a long time, and a lot of changes, and I'm feeling reflective about it.  Please indulge me while I ruminate about my place in the D&D blog-o-sphere.

If I'm being real here, I don't have much of one.  My readership, I assume, has always been low in comparison to the BXBlackrazors and Taos and Grognardias of the world.  Nothing I've written has ever really blown up, or caught the attention of the D&D community.  (Well, I did get in a fight with Rob Kuntz one time... but we patched it up pretty quickly.) I've had no particular insights to convey, or grand theories to espouse, or manifestos to advance.  I haven't created anything.  No adventures, no rules supplements.  Not even a thinly-veiled retroclone reskinning of an old version of D&D, and everyone who's anyone has peddled one of those!  Nah, I've just been plugging away, tinkering with ideas here and there but not following through.  Making plans, but not enacting them.

Oh, what grand plans I had.  Remember the Ultimate Sandbox?  What a dickhead I was, but when you're young you think you have all the time in the world to tackle every foolishly enormous project you can think of.  And that was a big one: creating a massive multiversal campaign setting incorporating everything ever published relating to D&D.  Of course it was never going to eventuate.  It would take a dedicated lifetime just to do that with the material that existed in 2007, and of course there was always new material on the way.  And something that unwieldy was never going to something I could practically run.  I still love the idea, and I'm still planning something similar... but a campaign on a smaller, more manageable scale.  Something I might actually be able to get started in this lifetime.

Most of my blogging here involved a chronological reading and exploration of D&D's earliest publications, and I think that's probably been my most valuable contribution.  I started it a time when the larger D&D sphere was rediscovering OD&D as a whole, and while I think there were many others who covered the material with more insight, I don't think many covered it as comprehensively.  Reading my blog in order would give a decently in-depth overview of how the rules developed from Chainmail through to the Player's Handbook, with some sidebars for Judge's Guild, the Games Workshop scene, and others.  It's something I think I'd tackle more knowledgeably now, but I also don't think there'd be as much value in it these days.  The territory has been explored long ago, and I'm happy enough if I've been a small part of doing that.

The thing is, my contribution has been small.  Like I said, no insights, no creations... and I think that's a side-effect of my biggest failing.  Which is, no gaming.  Well, very little gaming.  During the course of this blog, I believe I've DMed ten games.  For something that I always list off as one of my primary hobbies, that's not enough.  For something I love, it's not enough.  Oh, I've certainly been immersed in D&D research and note-taking during that time, almost constantly.  Blogs, podcasts, books, rules... I've sunk hours and hours into it.  But I've barely played.  And if there's one thing that all of the insightful and productive D&D luminaries on the internet have in common, it's that they play.  A lot.  It makes sense, doesn't it?  To contribute meaningfully to the game, you have to know the game, and to know the game you have to play it.  And while I think I know it quite well on a historical and theoretical level, I'm very out of practice on the practical level.  There are reasons for that, some of them valid.  But I've always said, you can always make time for the things you genuinely love.

And over the last 17 years, one thing hasn't changed: I still love Dungeons & Dragons.  I love learning about it, I love discussing it, I love prepping for it, and I love playing it.  That love has been out of balance, though.  I've spent a lot of time on the first three, and not enough on the last one. That's going to be my D&D resolution for next year: play more.  Knuckle down, do the bare minimum prep required to get a campaign up and running, and play as much as possible... and blog about it.  And who knows, maybe I'll be back here in 17 years, and I'll be proud of the contributions I've made, and the blog posts I've written, and happy with the amount of gaming I've done.  Things can change, after all.

Building a Library: What to Do When a PC Decides to Pick a Book Off the Shelf

We've all been there as Dungeon Masters.  The player characters are exploring a library, or a wizard's study, or any other sort of place that might have a shelf of books... and one of them tells you he's going to take a book down off the shelf and read it.  What's the book's title?  What does it look like?  What does it say inside?  These are all questions you can answer off the cuff, but there are bound to be dozens if not hundreds of books in a library, so what's a DM to do if the players just keep going?  (I mean, aside from telling them to stop it and get back to the fucking adventure...)

I've started doing something lately that might provide me a solution to this problem.  Whenever I read a D&D article that I feel like could double as an in-game text, I repurpose it as a book that exists in the game world.  Take Gary Gygax's series on 'Grayte Wourmes', from the Diplomacy fanzine "Thangorodrim".  I did a cut and paste job, tweaked a couple of things here and there, and the following book now exists in the game world: "Grayte Wourmes by Professor S.K. Eltolereth".  It has some lore about the nature of dragons, and some false information too because it was written based on Gary's pre-D&D ideas.  But it's okay for books to have mistakes and inconsistencies; they do in the real world as well, due to faulty research or outdated theories or any number of other factors.

I've adapted "The Battle of Brown Hills", a Chainmail battle report by Gygax.  Is it an actual historical battle in the campaign setting, or is it a fiction?  Maybe nobody knows.  "The Giant's Bag" and "Expedition Into the Black Reservoir" as well, the latter of which could provide the players with clues to what awaits them in the depths of Castle Greyhawk's dungeons.  It's a small selection so far, but I plan on gradually adding to it.  I expect Dragon magazine to be a rich source of material, especially, and I'm already thinking about stuff like the descriptions of the Outer Planes from the AD&D core rulebooks.  2e material, being as lore-heavy as it is, will be rife with potentially usable stuff.  I could provide atlases with maps of various dungeons.  There are loads of possibilities.  And if I create authorial analogues for the various writers of those articles and keep them consistent, then the setting will have recognisable named authors, each with their own style and areas of focus.

There's some effort involved, but not much really.  Just cut and paste the article, do a read-through and clean-up, tweak a few things for setting consistency (which might require more time once the setting grows and becomes more concrete).  Once I have enough, I plan to build a random table, so that whenever a player decides they want to pick a book off a bookshelf, I'll have an answer at the roll of a die.  It's a minor problem, but it's one that I've encountered enough times to be irritating.  I'm happy to be building a solution.

OD&D Conundrums: Hit Points

 In most versions of D&D, hit points aren't a conundrum at all.  You have a certain amount (increasing as you gain levels), you lose some when you get hurt, and when you run out you're incapacitated or dead.  Couldn't be much simpler than that.  Certainly there are quibbles over just what hit points represent, but their mechanical function is about as unambiguous and rock solid as it gets for D&D rule systems.

OD&D is a slightly different story, as a look at this snippet of the Fighting-Man table will show:

1st level is easy enough to figure out: a Fighting-Man of that level gets 1d6+1 hit points.  But then at second, the total is 2d6.  Where did that +1 go?  Ignore the plusses and it's a solid 1d6 per level progression.  But they are there, and they're inconsistently applied.  There's a similar problem with the hit point progressions for Magic-Users and Clerics.

Pretty much every edition of D&D follows the system introduced in Supplement I: Greyhawk.  You roll your hit points at 1st level, that's your total, and you add to it with another roll whenever you gain a level.  There aren't any odd fluctuating bonuses to worry about.

But the rules I'm concerned with are from before Supplement I.  This is primordial D&D, and it requires a little more interpretation.  Of course, greater minds than mine have tackled this problem in the dim dark ages of the OSR.  In a lot of ways I'm retreading ground that's been covered by others, but a lot of that was circa 15 years ago, so I figure someone might find it of value.  And I always find it helps solidify my own thoughts on things when I sit and type them out.  I'm well aware that solutions to this conundrum have been proposed, so I'll run through the ones I'm aware of.

• Add all the bonuses: This one is pretty straightforward.  You just add all of the bonuses as you go, so in the above progression it would be 1+1, 2+1, 3+1, up to 4+1 at 4th level.  Then at 5th level, an extra +1 would be added, and the total is actually 5+2.  By the time you get to 10th level, instead of the 10+1 indicated you'd actually have 10+9.  It's simple, but I feel like it's contradictory to the rules on the page.
• Roll every level: Whenever you gain a level, you roll what's indicated and that's your total.  At 1st level, you have 1+1 hp.  When you gain a level, you roll 2d6 and that's your new hp total, regardless of what you had before.  Oh, your hp total went down?  Sucks to be you, go cry about it.  Again, I don't love this one.  It would average out over time, but I don't like the thought of a high-level character getting stuck with a shitty hp total for a lengthy period of time.
• Roll every level, always increase:  This is basically the previous method, but your hp total always increases when you gain a level.  Some DMs let their players keep rolling until they get a higher total, and some will just give you a 1 hp increase if you roll lower.  I definitely don't love the reroll method, and even the heartless DM in my soul doesn't take much joy from enforcing a 1 hp increase.
• Reroll every adventure:  So with this method, the PC rerolls their hp total at the beginning of each game session.  Whatever you roll, that's what you're stuck with for that game, and you have to survive based on that.  Now this I do like, and I'll get into why at further length below.

As you might have gathered, I'm going with the last method listed.  I like the flavour and the uncertainty of it.  If we consider hit points as a measure of skill, well-being, health, divine favour, and other factors, those things can fluctuate.  Some days you feel great, some days you feel terrible.  Maybe you have the flu, maybe you're hung over, or maybe Gragnaxikull the Axe Lord isn't smiling down at you from his mountaintop today...  Whatever the reason, there'll be days where luck and skill are on your side and it seems like nothing can kill you, and there'll be days when the opposite is true.  That'll be up to my players to explain once the rolls have been made, should they care to.

Of course there are drawbacks.  The first is, how does this work with healing?  You regain hp at a rate of 1 per day (or in OD&D, 1 per other day; I'm still not sure if that's what Gary meant, but it's what he wrote).  But how does that work when your total fluctuates between games?  I'll probably have to record how much damage a character has taken on each adventure, calculate the amount healed between games, and apply any damage still left to their new roll.  Sometimes, a player might actually roll a hp total less than their wounds total, and this will mean their character just isn't up to adventuring.  They're sick, or their wound is infected, or something.  Whatever it is, that character's out and the player will have to use another for this game.  I don't think it's going to be a super-likely occurrence, but I'm sure the dice will make it happen at some point. (They always do...)

There will no doubt be players who will say, "What if we rest another day, or a week?  Do I get a reroll?"  To this I'll have to say no.  Sometimes the game is a game, and that's how the rules work.  I'm even considering not letting them roll until the first time they take damage; talk about uncertainty!  I like the thought of that added sense of mortality, but I also feel like it's unfair on the players.  They have to be able to gauge the level of danger they can take on, or the game becomes too based on random chance.

Another thing I'm thinking of is tying this into a character's upkeep payments.  As written in OD&D, a PC must pay gold pieces equal to 1% of their experience points per month.  (It doesn't actually say per month in the published game, but I'm going with that.)  What isn't written is what happens if a PC fails to pay that amount.  Hit point rerolls are my answer to that, in combination with the 5e disadvantage rule.  So if a PC can't or won't pay their upkeep at the start of a game session, they roll their hp total twice and take the worst total.  I know, I know, bringing 5e rules into an OD&D campaign?  Heresy, blasphemy, abhorrent apostasy...  But what can I say, I like the advantage/disadvantage rules.  They might be the best thing to come out of 5e.

Of course, this whole system probably only works in the kind of game I'm planning, where each session would be a single adventure or dungeon delve.  In games where time gets paused between sessions, it makes less sense for a character to suddenly drop in skill or divine favour or whatever.  But in a game with shorter delves, rotating players and PCs, and time passing between sessions?  I feel like it's going to work really well.  At the moment it's all conjecture, but I'll be reporting on it here when it hits the table.

Perusals & Progressions: Alignment Languages

I've been a bit slack in making new posts, but I've been laid up with the flu.  This has left me with a lot of time for non-brain-intensive activities like reading comics and watching pro wrestling, but not a lot of mental energy for things like writing and working on D&D-related activities.  But I'm back, and today I want to figure out how I'm going to deal with one of D&D's more puzzling elements: alignment languages.  For the most part I'm trying to stick to OD&D and Chainmail when building the rules of my campaign, but because alignment languages have pretty strong setting element implications I want to take a look at how they've been tackled through various editions.  So I'm bringing back Perusals & Progressions, which I used a few times in the past to examine how spells changed through the editions.  I figured I can do the same thing with other elements of the game, so here we go with a thorough look at the history of alignment languages.

Original D&D

"Law, Chaos and Neutrality also have common languages spoken by each respectively. One can attempt to communicate through the common tongue, language particular to a creature class, or one of the divisional languages (law, etc.).  While not understanding the language, creatures who speak a divisional tongue will recognize a hostile one and attack."

This is all that the three OD&D booklets have to say on alignment languages, and if we left it here it wouldn't be a problem at all.  If the war between Law and Chaos is as all-encompassing as the books make it seem, it makes perfect sense that each side would have some sort of common language to enable communication between various races and factions.  And of course the other side would react with hostility upon hearing the opposing language (although I'd be inclined to interpret it a bit more widely that just an automatic attack).  The main point of interest here is that Neutrality has a common language as well, indicating that it's not just an indicator that someone's staying out of the struggle, it's a third faction in that struggle, an active participant in the war that's fighting against both of the other sides.

Supplement II: Blackmoor

Supplement II throws an interesting wrinkle into the mix, with assassins being the only class able to learn new alignment languages.  (Law or Chaos, as assassins in OD&D were always neutral.)  Actually, now that I look at it there's nothing in the rules stopping other classes doing the same thing, but giving this ability to assassins implies that it's a special ability unique to them.  Anyway, it makes sense for their roles as deceptive killers and spies.

Basic Set (Holmes)

The Basic Set uses pretty much the same verbiage to describe alignment languages as OD&D, but because Holmes Basic has an expanded alignment system so too are the range of alignment languages expanded.  Instead of Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic we now have Lawful Good, Lawful Evil, Chaotic Good, Chaotic Evil, and Neutrality.  At this point it's starting to get a little unwieldy for me.  Three sides, each with its own language, seemed quite neat and plausible, but five sides is stretching things a bit.

BX, BECMI and the Rules Cyclopedia

I'm lumping these versions of the game together, because they are generally consistent, and I'm also a little less likely to follow their lead than I am the path of AD&D.  And aside from that, they all say pretty much the same thing, so I can knock 'em all out at once.

For the D&D line, we are back to Law, Chaos and Neutrality as the only alignments.  The rules describe each alignment language as a "secret language of passwords, hand signals, and other body motions" that is known by all PCs and intelligent monsters. They are never written down, and the only way to learn a different one is to change to the same alignment.  If someone does this, they forget their old alignment language and start using the new one immediately.

AD&D 1e Players Handbook

Now we're getting into the real meat of it.  The 1e PHB finally introduces the complete 9-point alignment system, with a different language for each: chaotic evil, chaotic good, chaotic neutral, lawful evil, lawful good, lawful neutral, neutral evil, neutral good, and neutral.  If I thought five alignment languages was a stretch, nine is well past my limit...

A character can only know the language of their alignment, and should they change sides they'll forget the old language (just as in BX and its descendants).  The exception to this is the assassin class, which retains its ability from OD&D to learn other alignment languages.

AD&D 1e Dungeon Masters Guide

As you'd expect, this is where Gygax gives his most detailed treatise on alignment languages.  He begins by justifying their existence in terms of the real-world use of secret languages by various organisations, and the use of Latin by the medieval Catholic church.  He then limits their use in a couple of ways.  The first is by stating in ALL CAPS that the languages are never used in public, and not before making certain the person you're talking to is of the same alignment.  The second is by limiting the use of alignment languages to topics about the precepts of the alignment, and rudimentary communication about health, hunger, thirst, etc.  They supposedly only have a vocabulary of a few score words, so while they exist, it seems that Gygax is doing his best to rein them in to a simple "hey, how are ya?" and the occasional basic ethical discussion.

A whole paragraph is spent on what happens when a character speaks in their alignment language in public.  The best reaction you'll get is to be thought "unmannerly, rude, boorish, and stupid", and even people of your own alignment will give you the old "I don't know this guy".  Those of opposed alignments might mark you out as someone to be dealt with later (which is at least more nuanced than the instant hostile attack you'd get in OD&D).

The section ends with a confusing bit about how not all intelligent creatures automatically know their alignment language.  The example given is that of Blink Dogs, who apparently are instinctually lawful good, and don't speak their alignment language because they have not "intellectually embraced the ethos of lawful good".  Note that they have an Average rating in intelligence, so they're about as smart as humans.  Dragons are given as an example of monsters that do know their alignment language.  Which is helpful to know, but it leaves alignment languages for monsters in a very nebulous state.  Which monsters know their alignment languages?  Before the DMG, I would have said any that are smart enough to be able to talk.  Afterwards, I have no idea, and I guess it's up to each individual DM to work it out.  Cheers Gary!

As in the PHB, changing alignment means you instantly lose the ability to use your alignment language.  You can only sign crudely in the new language.  It's not until you gain a new level of experience that you can fully use the new language, so there's a bit of an adjustment period that comes with an alignment change.

AD&D 2nd Edition

Wait.  Hooooold on a second.  Where is it again?  I'm flicking through the PHB, I'm flicking through the DMG...  Do you mean to tell me that there are no alignment languages in AD&D 2nd edition?  That they got "Zebbed" right outta there?  That is a surprise.  I've read the 2e core books a bazillion times, and I've never noticed this.  It was my edition of choice for a solid decade plus, but because I learned from the Mentzer Basic Set I guess I just brought forward a lot of assumptions from that and never questioned their absence in 2e.  Well, moving right along then!

D&D 3rd Edition and beyond

From this point there's not much to say, because alignment languages aren't a factor in modern D&D.  Which makes sense to me, as in my experience they were rarely used and often house-ruled out of the game.  (Well, I suppose it's not a house rule, as they were never in 2e in the first place.)  What we do have in 3rd edition are some languages from the outer planes that could serve as stand-ins: Infernal, the language of devils and Hell; Abyssal, the language of demons and the Abyss; and Celestial, the language of the Upper Planes.  4e does its own thing (because of course it fucking does), with Supernal (the language of angels, devils and gods) and Abyssal (the language of demons).  And 5e plays it safe (because of course it does, bless its bland little heart) by pretty much going back to what 3e did.

Tying It All Together

This is going to be a tricky one...  I was reasonably happy to go with alignment languages as being developed during the earliest wars for ease of communication, and passed down so that everyone knows at least a little bit of the relevant one.  But for me the big sticking point is the way that characters automatically forget their language when they change alignment.  If that's something I'm going with (and I really am going to try to get to a by-the-book AD&D game) then I can't see a way around the languages being somehow supernatural in nature.

If that's the case, the obvious link would be to tie them to the gods, or the outer planes at the very least.  D&D's planar cosmology is intrinsically tied to alignment as a concept, so linking it with alignment languages would also make sense.  If I look forward to 3rd edition and beyond, each alignment language could be a dialect of Abyssal (Chaotic Evil), Infernal (Lawful Evil), or Celestial (Lawful? Good), although I feel like there needs to be a fourth language in that axis for Chaotic Good...

So anyway, one or more gods in ancient times instilled their followers with the "primordial language of the gods/demons/devils".  But why?  To what purpose?  I keep going back to the origin of my campaign world as cobbled together from planets ruined in a cosmic war as the last refuge for its survivors at the end of time. In that situation, with peoples brought together from a multitude of worlds, there are going to be a lot of communication issues, and communication is something that would be key to surviving such an initially harsh environment.  So maybe whatever being brought that world together also wanted to gift its new inhabitants with a way to bridge the language gap.  And maybe it was too difficult to instil a language that would be understood by everyone, but less difficult to instill the ability to communicate with those of a like ethos.  And thus were born the various alignment languages, supernaturally instilled in every sentient being, and shifting to match a person's ethos and personal alignment.

One last question remains, and that is why some sentient creatures know their alignment language, and others (such as blink dogs) do not.  As for that, my first instinct is to say that maybe these creatures were not sentient in the earliest days of the world, when the language of the gods was instilled.  They developed their intellects and ethos gradually in the centuries that followed, and while they developed their own languages, they have no intrinsic ability to speak their alignment language.  I might have to think about this more, but if I'm being honest I feel like this was a bit of a misstep by Gary in the first place.  I do wonder if it's something he might have developed further in his own 2e, but as it stands in 1e it's making something more uncertain than it needs to be.

So those are my thoughts right now.  I don't love what I've come up with on this first pass, but I don't exactly love alignment languages to begin with.  But as I've said, I want to run O/AD&D in as complete a manner as I can, and play with all of the game's elements as written.  And that means I need to include alignment languages, along with their weird idiosyncrasies such as how they are forgotten when a PC changes alignment.  It also means I need some sort of explanation for why this thing exists in the game world.  I may never tell the players; as far as they're concerned, I'm just going to tell them that alignment languages exist, they work this way, and nobody knows why.  They are "the language of the gods", and that's all anyone knows.  But I have an explanation that works for me, and I can give it to them if they really want to know and go digging.  (And as for the entity who pulled the Last Earth together in the first place?  I have some ideas about that too...)

The Changing World: How to Explain Rules Changes in the Game World

I've mentioned before that my plan for my next campaign is to start with OD&D, and gradually introduce and change rules until I'm running AD&D.  AD&D is ultimately the ruleset I most want to explore, but I'm just as intrigued by the idea of running OD&D, and I'd like to examine each rules element individually as it gets brought in, and experience first-hand how it changes up the game.  It would perhaps be simpler to just begin with the fullness of AD&D, and less confusing for my players, but I'm fascinated by tracking the progression of D&D.  So that's how I'm doing it, and hopefully my players will roll with it as well.

Of course, if the rules of the game change over time, this will be reflected in the game world as well.  Some of these changes will be more organic, such as the introduction of new monsters, spells, and classes.  But what exactly is going on when, say, the rules for initiative change?  Or weapon damage, or ability score modifiers, or any number of other things?  How does this work in terms of the game world?

The easy answer would just be to hand-wave it.  Gesture vaguely at it, change the rules, and say that it hasn't really changed what's going on in the game world.  The rules are the rules, the world is the world, and one has little bearing on the other.  It would be the sane thing to do.  So of course, I have a different idea.

My campaign world, which I'm tentatively calling "The Last Earth", was formed at the end of a grand cosmic war that destroyed almost everything, fused together from elements of various worlds and settings.  It's been thousands of years since that happened, but it's still a place where reality is unstable.  And that reality is affected by the war between Law and Chaos.  What happens in the planes affects the material world, and vice versa.  As above, so below.  So there will be occasional upheavals, and at times reality will be rewritten.

Normally such rule changes would be the purview of the DM, but I want to involve my players in the process as well.  Healthy discussion and consensus would be one way to accomplish this, but I have something a bit more flavourful and setting-specific in mind.  If I may be allowed to indulge in some setting lore... Back in ancient times, there was a war between mortals and the gods, in which the gods were driven from the material plane.  (I already talked about this in my post on clerics and blunt weapons.)  But not all the gods were driven out; many were killed, and their dismembered corpses still litter the countryside.  An eyeball here, a hand there, a still-beating heart half-buried in a mountainside, that sort of thing.  (I'd initially thought of them as being fossilised stone, but it's more fun if they still have some semblance of life.)  The forgotten dead gods, worshipped by few because they no longer have power to bestow on their followers.  But it's said that if you kneel before them and pray, the rest of the dead gods will hear.  And if enough hear and answer, maybe some desired change will be wrought in the fabric of reality itself.

So basically what this is is a way for my players to voice their desire for a rules change by having their character pray at one of the dead gods.  This would happen during downtime between sessions and require a single game day (remember that I'm going to be trying out 1 real day = 1 game day).  So there's a bit of a trade-off there, because it's a day they could otherwise use for healing or training or research or whatever.  But if they really want to emphasize how much they want a rules change, they could pray for multiple days...  And maybe the gods (aka the DM) will hear them.

I'll have to stress that praying doesn't necessarily guarantee the player will get what they want.  I'm going to be reluctant to change rules that haven't been properly engaged with.  For example, I'm pretty sure I'll have players who initially rail against demihuman level limits... But I'd rather not relax those limits until I've played with them for a decent length of time.  I'll also have to be clear that it's ultimately up to me how any rule changes.  In most cases, I'm going to follow the progression through the supplements and into AD&D.  And I want to set a hard and fast rule that I'm not changing more than one thing per game session.  I want the changes to be gradual, and only rarely will I be instituting sweeping changes (such as when I introduce the PHB or other such manuals).

I'm not sure if this is going to work, or if my players will dig it or engage with it.  But I know I dig it, and I like the flavour it adds to the game world.  A broken landscape, littered with dismembered gods, clinging to life just enough that a prayer to them might be able to change reality...  I'm deliberately building a generic world that reflects the D&D manuals, but inevitably some unique weirdness will filter in.  This is why I enjoy trying to answer these questions.

Do All Elves Wear Elven Cloaks and Boots?

Having looked over all the evidence in my last post, I concluded that all elves in OD&D can move about silently and with effective invisibility.  Some sources attribute these stealth abilities to their elven cloaks and boots, which seems fair enough until one remembers that these are valuable and rare magic items.  As much as I'd like to incentivize rampant elf-murder, the players probably shouldn't be finding these on the corpses of every elf they gank.  So before I make a decision, I need to look at all of the evidence.

Chainmail

Chainmail is the origin of the elven ability to turn invisible, but at no point does it specify a reason for the ability.

OD&D Vol. 1: Men & Monsters

Nothing is said here about elven PCs being able to hide or move silently.

OD&D Vol. 2: Monsters & Treasure

"Elves have the ability of moving silently and are nearly invisible in their gray-green cloaks."

AD&D 1e Monster Manual

"When in natural surroundings such as a wood or meadow, elves can move silently (surprise on a 1-4) and blend into the vegetation so as to be invisible (requiring the ability to see invisible objects to locate them) as long as they are not attacking."

Their gray-green cloaks are mentioned in the description paragraph, but not linked to their hiding ability.

AD&D 1e Players Handbook

"If alone and not in metal armor (or if well in advance - 90' or more - of a party which does not consist entirely of elves and/or halflings) an elven character moves so silently that he or she will surprise monsters 66-2/3% of the time."

I also had a look in the 1e DMG, but wasn't able to find anything.  There could be relevant information tucked away in that august tome, but if there is it escaped me.  I don't really care to look ahead further than that; I prefer to stick to Gygax when seeking these kinds of clarifications.

There's an obvious trend above.  The ability starts as invisibility, shifting to silent movement and near-invisibility in OD&D.  This is restricted to natural surroundings in the Monster Manual.  By the time we get to the Players Handbook, there's no ability to turn invisible; elven stealth is entirely attributed to silent movement.  What started as something seemingly magical has gradually become more mundane.

Notably, only one source - OD&D Vol. 2 - links elven stealth to their cloaks.

Cloak and Boots of Elvenkind

Let's take a look at how elven cloaks and elven boots work in OD&D and AD&D.

OD&D: "Wearing the Cloak makes a person next to invisible while the Boots allow for totally silent movement."  So it appears these items exactly duplicate the stealth abilities of elves.  It's entirely plausible that every elf is wearing a set of these.

AD&D: These items are separated in this edition.  The cloak of elvenkind has chameleon-like powers, granting the wearer near-invisibility, with different percentages based on the type of terrain.  The boots of elvenkind allow silent movement, with a 95% chance in the worst conditions and 100% in the best.

So in OD&D these items are useless for elves, duplicating their powers exactly.  In AD&D, the stealth abilities of the cloak and boots seem like they should be better than those of an elf, but that really depends on the link between moving silently, being invisible, and surprise.  This link is never explicitly spelled out in AD&D, at least to my knowledge.

The Decision

I wasn't expecting the evidence to weigh so highly against the prevalence of elven cloaks and boots.  But it's hard to deny that, if Gary intended for OD&D elves to be wearing them, he quickly thought better of the idea.  It makes sense; elven encounters would be numerous enough to ensure that every character would gain these items and abilities before too long.  Like Gary, I'd prefer to restrict this kind of thing.

The text is even worded in such a way as to support this: "Elves are nearly invisible in their gray-green cloaks."  See, it says invisible in their gray-green cloaks, not because of them.  I'll split those hairs if I must.

So no, no elven cloaks and boots for every elf.  Which is a shame, because a reading of Tolkien would support the other argument.  I'm also a little unsatisfied that the cloak and boots in OD&D are useless for elven PCs.  But I guess in D&D they're a different thing, with magic intended to grant non-elves the stealth of elvenkind.  That's a cool enough ability in its own right.

OD&D Conundrum 2: Elves

 Ah, Elves.  Since the dawn of the OSR, and no doubt well before that, the less-than-humble elf has been a source of perplexity to anyone tackling the OD&D rules.  Part of that is due to their scattered nature; some of the elf's abilities are only found in Chainmail, some are in Vol. 1: Men & Magic, and still more are hidden away in Vol. 2: Monsters & Treasure.  There's more to it than that, as even once you've found the rules they can be contradictory or difficult to interpret.  But before I get into that, I'll go through these sources one by one and give a brief outline of what each says (with an eye towards elven PCs rather than "monsters").

OD&D Vol. 1: Men & Magic

• Can be fighters or magic-users, and freely switch between each from adventure to adventure.
• More able to note secret and hidden doors
• Gain the advantages noted in Chainmail when fighting certain fantastic creatures
• Speak the following languages: Orc, Hobgoblin, Gnoll, Elvish
• Can be aligned with Law or Neutrality, but not Chaos

OD&D Vol. 2: Monsters & Treasure

• Of two sorts: those who make homes in woodlands, and those who seek remote meadowlands
• Can move silently and are nearly invisible in their grey-green cloaks
• Elves armed with magic weapons add an extra +1 to damage rolls
• Elves on foot may split-move and fire. Those mounted cannot.
• Not paralyzed by ghouls

Chainmail

• Elves are listed along with "Fairies"
• Split-move and fire as footmen
• Can turn invisible; can become visible and attack in the same turn
• Those armed with magic swords add an extra die in normal combat, and allow elves to combat certain other fantastic creatures
• Troops paralyzed by a wraith remain unmoving until touched by a friendly elf (also true of wizards and heroes, but that's not relevant here)
• Can see in normal darkness as if it were light

Like I said, the rules are scattered.  The major ability of the elf in OD&D is that they can be fighting-men and magic-users; this is also the ability that's come under the most scrutiny because of how it differs from later editions. But I'll tackle that last.  Before I get there, I'll quickly run through some of the other abilities that are of interest.

SUB-RACES

OD&D splits elves into those from the woodlands and those from the meadowlands.  This seems to me like a fair approximation of what we see in The Hobbit: the wood elves would be similar to those from Mirkwood, and the meadow elves would be like those from Rivendell.

In Chainmail this distinction isn't made, but the elf entry does have a parenthetical inclusion of "fairies".  Later books (specifically Supplement I: Greyhawk and the AD&D Monster Manual) will equate fairies with meadow elves, also referring to them as grey elves.  So that answers that pretty succinctly.  As far as rules go, there are no distinct differences in Chainmail or OD&D.

ALIGNMENT

It's not something I often see remarked upon, but OD&D characters are sharply limited in their alignment.  Human fighting-men and magic-users are free to choose any alignment, but clerics must be Lawful or Chaotic.  Dwarves can't be Chaotic.  Hobbits must be Lawful.  And elves can only choose between Neutrality and Law.

In Chainmail, elves are Neutral but with a tendency towards Law, so this fits together quite well.

STEALTH

So here's the question: do elven PCs in OD&D move silently and invisibly by default?  Vol. 1 says nothing about it, but Vol. 2 certainly gives these abilities to elven NPCs, attributing the invisibility to their grey-green cloaks.  Chainmail is consistent with Vol. 2, giving elves the ability to turn invisible.

So it's pretty cut and dried that NPC elves are effectively silent and invisible when they want to be, and that the invisibility is a property of their elven cloaks.  Giving this ability to elven PCs could be a bit unbalanced, but I don't necessarily consider that a bad thing.  The classes in old-school D&D are unbalanced in a lot of ways, but most of those ways are consistent with the flavour of the pulp fantasies it's drawing inspiration from.  Tolkien's elves really are better than everyone else, so it's okay by me for D&D to match that.

When it comes to things that are ambiguous in OD&D, it's always a good idea to look forward to AD&D, because Gary used it to clarify a lot of his intentions.  We can also look backwards now that the pre-publication draft is available, but that doesn't have anything relevant in this case.  AD&D does, because elves have an innate stealth bonus in their 4-in-6 chance to gain surprise.  That pretty much seals it for me, and I'll be allowing any elven PCs to move around with silence and effective invisibility.  Not actual invisibility, just a near-supernatural ability to stay hidden.

GHOUL PARALYSIS

It's consistent in older editions of D&D for elves to be immune to the paralysing touch of ghouls.  (In fact, elves are immune or resistant to most of the things likely to incapacitate a low-level character: ghouls, sleep spells, and charm spells.)  But there's a rule in Chainmail that I've somewhat glossed over in the past: "Paralyzed troops remain unmoving until touched by a friendly Elf, Hero-type, or Wizard".  This isn't a rule that's ever been explicitly brought forward into D&D, but I quite like it.  And I'm trying to bring forward every rule in Chainmail, as long as isn't contradicted or superseded by a rule in OD&D.  It will make elven PCs even more valuable and unique, and maybe serve to lessen the severe lethality that ghouls present to low-level characters.

(I've just remembered that this rule only specifically applies to paralysis from being touched by a wraith. It isn't mentioned in the ghoul entry, but I'd be inclined to say that it counts for both.  Besides, the issue of whether I'll have wraiths paralyse in addition to draining levels is still up in the air...)

MAGIC SWORDS

In OD&D, magic weapons are more effective in the hands of elves than anyone else.  Presumably this is because magic weapons in the stories D&D is drawing on, particularly Tolkien, are almost exclusively of elven make.

In OD&D, they get an extra +1 to damage with any magic weapon.  This is listed under the monster entry in Vol. 2: Monsters & Treasure, and is worded in such a way as to say that they get a flat +1, dealing 1d6+1 with a magic weapon.  There are different ways this could be interpreted, but I'm going with it as an overall bonus on top of whatever magic bonus the weapon already has. This ability is gone by the time AD&D rolls around.

Vol. 1: Men & Monsters says that elves "gain the advantages noted in the CHAINMAIL rules when fighting certain fantastic creatures".  Looking at Chainmail, we see that "elves armed with magical weapons add an extra die in normal combat".  I'd say that's superseded by the flat +1 damage bonus in OD&D.  Elves also get 3 extra dice against goblins, and 2 extra dice against orcs; so we can extrapolate that to say that against orcs and goblins they get a +2 and +3 bonus respectively.  (Kobolds are grouped with goblins in Chainmail, so the +3 bonus can encompass them as well.)

The rest of the Chainmail bonuses are a little harder to figure out.  They apply to the Fantasy Combat Table, which probably requires a bit of explanation for the uninitiated.  In Chainmail, there are three kinds of combat: Mass Combat, which is for clashes between large numbers of troops; Man-to-Man Melee, for one-on-one battles between normal men; and Fantastic Combat, for one-on-one battles between monsters and higher-level characters.  The latter two are pretty much replaced by the "roll a d20 to hit vs. AC" system in OD&D, but the distinction between "normal men" and "fantastic creatures" is still relevant in places.  In Chainmail, a magic sword allows a normal elf to fight on the Fantastic Combat table.

Fantastic Combat is pretty simple: you cross-reference the type of creature attacking with the type defending, and there's a number you need to roll above on 2d6 to score a kill.  (You can see why this was replaced in D&D: with an ever-expanding roster of monsters, the table would have become impossibly unwieldy.)  Since this system was replaced in OD&D, it would be easy for me to just ignore these bonuses for elves and assume that the magic weapon's inherent bonus is good enough.  But I still wanted to look at the numbers by comparing the fighting ability of a Hero and an Elf (both armed with magic swords).  I've given the Hero a +1 bonus to all scores required for wielding a magic sword, but assumed that the +1 is already baked into the elf numbers (as they can't even fight on the Fantastic Combat table without one).

	Hero	Super-Hero	Wizard	Wraith	Wight	Lycanthrope	Ogre	Balrog	Giant
Hero	6	9	10	10	5	7	8	10	10
Elf	9	11	10	8	6	9	7	12	10

Most of these numbers are in favor of the Hero as you'd expect: the Hero is a 4 HD fighter, while the Elf is presumably 1 HD.  I'm happy to leave these as is in the OD&D system, as a 1 HD elf will indeed have a harder time killing such monsters than a 4 HD fighter.  Two comparisons come out even: Wizards and Giants.  It's tempting to give elves a bonus here: in general, a Hero in OD&D has an effective +2 to hit over a 1 HD elf.  So I could go with a +2 bonus.  But then we have the cases where the elf is better at fighting certain monsters in the above comparison: Wraiths and Ogres.  If I'm giving a +2 bonus for those comparisons which came out even, should I give +3 against ogres?  And +4 against wraiths?  I would rather not.  Ultimately it's a bit of a mug's game to try to convert this stuff from Chainmail to OD&D, because they are measuring different things.  Chainmail uses one roll to determine the result of a fight, whereas D&D has many more variables: roll to hit, roll for damage, AC, hit points, etc.  Any mathematical conversion, assuming one is even possible, is well beyond me.

That said, I'd still like to preserve some of the flavour of the above results, so I'll go with the following:

• An extra +1 damage when wielding a magic weapon
• An extra +2 damage vs. orcs, ogres and trolls (trolls are grouped with ogres in Chainmail)
• An extra +3 damage vs. kobolds, goblins, wraiths, and spectres (as spectres inherit the qualities of wraiths in OD&D)

MULTI-CLASSING

This was the topic I actually wanted to write about, because it's the one that usually causes the most consternations when people discuss elves in OD&D.  As usual, this post got away with me, and I veered off onto various other tangents.  But as noted above, elves can advance as both fighting-men and magic-users.  They can't do this at the same time; instead, they choose what class they're playing for each adventure.  It seems pretty simple on the face of it, but there are a lot of ambiguities and unanswered questions.

The main thing that trips people up is that this works very differently than in later editions.  Once you get to AD&D, an elven fighter/magic-user operates in both classes simultaneously, having the abilities of both classes (including being fully armoured while casting spells!).  That's not how things work in OD&D.  You're either a fighter or a magic-user for the current adventure, and the only point of cross-over seems to be that you can cast spells while wearing magic armour.

It's interesting to go back and look at the pre-publication draft here.  That version of the elf is even more restrictive: you pick which class you want to play at the beginning, and then you play that class until you hit the maximum level.  Only then can you switch back to 1st level in the other class, and begin advancing.  I can't find anything that indicates an elf can switch back and forth, although it is said that they can use magic items such as wands as a fighter, and that they can utilize magic weapons and spells at the same time.

As for OD&D class-switching, there are many questions.  Can an elf cast spells in regular armour?  Can they use fighter weapons while acting as a magic-user?  What about hit points?  Saving throws?  Fighting ability? How is experience divided between the classes?  None of this is explained, leaving interpretation up to the referee.

Personally, I think the interpretation that sticks closest to the rules is to go with a complete split.  An elf is either playing as a fighter or a magic-user, and that's that.  They use the hit points, saving throws, fighting ability, etc. of the class they are playing as.  (And I'm going with hit points being re-rolled at the start of each game session.)  When playing as a magic-user, they can't wear armour unless it is magical, and they are restricted to daggers for weapons.  When playing as a fighter, they can't cast spells.  I'm tempted to allow them the use of magic items as in the draft, but that's not in OD&D, so I'm a little torn on it.  Experience points will be applied to the class being played for that session.

(It's just occurred to me that fighters using wands and magic-users wearing magic armour can be quite elegantly combined into one rule: the elf can always use the magic items allowable to both classes.  My only misgiving is that this would allow the elf access to spells and magic swords at the same time.  but it's something to think about.)

There are two things that poke holes in my interpretation.  The first is this line in the elf description: "Thus, they gain the benefits of both classes and may use both weaponry and spells".  It's a vague enough line that it can fit with my interpretation, or the AD&D version of multi-classing, or any number of other ideas a referee may have, so I'm okay with ignoring it.

The second thing is that elves, when encountered as monsters, have high-level leaders who seem to be operating simultaneously as fighters and magic-users.  It would be easy enough to just have them pick one class or the other, but that's not how it looks like it's meant to be played.  It would also be easy enough to hand-wave it, and say that monsters and PCs operate by different rules.  I'm not the biggest fan of that either.  It's true to a certain extent, but I prefer to level that playing field wherever possible.  If the players never question it I'm happy enough to ignore it, but if it comes up I'll tell them that elves can indeed operate in both classes simultaneously, but if they do so they earn no XP for that adventure.  This will give a big boost to those elves that have maxed out both classes, for sure, because they will be able to do this without penalty.

CONCLUSIONS

As I wrote above, this post got away from me.  I'd intended to just tackle the multi-classing issue, but ended up digging into a whole lot of ambiguities regarding elves, and reconciling their many abilities from various sources.  To sum up, elves as I'm running them in OD&D will have the following abilities:

• Switching between fighter and magic-user from adventure to adventure
• If it comes up, they can act as both while gaining no XP for that adventure
• Better at finding secret and hidden doors
• An extra +1 bonus to damage when using magic weapons
• Increase to +2 vs. orcs, ogres, and trolls
• Increase to +3 vs. kobolds, goblins, wraiths, and spectres
• Extra languages: elvish, orc, hobgoblin, gnoll
• Must be Lawful or Neutral in alignment; cannot be Chaotic
• Can move silently and with effective invisibility
• This invisibility is lost when they make an attack
• Can split-move and fire when on foot (but not on horseback)
• Immune to ghoul paralysis, and may remove paralysis from others
• This may also apply to characters paralysed by a wraith, but I haven't decided if a wraith's level-drain ability replaces its paralysis, or if they both apply
• Can see in the dark

OD&D Conundrums: Clerics and Edged Weapons

When devising a D&D campaign, one of the things I'm always compelled to rationalise is why clerics are restricted from using bladed weapons.  There are historical precedents in our world, but these may not necessarily apply in the average D&D campaign setting, especially when most of those settings are heavily polytheistic.  Let's take a look at some history, of the real world variety and also the D&D variety.  (You may find that I'm a bit more fluent with one than the other...)

The first thing to explore is whether clerics had that restriction at all in OD&D.  The text says "Clerics gain some of the advantages from both of the other two classes (Fighting-Men and Magic-Users) in that they have the use of magic armor and all non-edged magic weapons (no arrows!)".  If we're to take the text at its literal word, the restriction only applies to magical weapons.  But of course, OD&D is notoriously inexact, and necessitated a lot of clarification in AD&D and other later editions.  The other classes also give their weapon and armor allowances in terms of magic items, with the sole exception of the magic-user being restricted to daggers.  We know from AD&D that all of these were meant to apply to normal weapons as well, but readers in 1974 wouldn't have known that at all.

(There's an issue of The Strategic Review were Gary gives an angry rebuttal to a critical review of D&D. One of his retorts lambasts the reviewer for playing a spear-wielding cleric, but I dunno Gary, maybe you should have written it in the rules. Just putting it out there.)

Looking forward can give us clarification, but so can looking back now that we have access to the pre-publication draft of OD&D.  In that draft, it's explicit: "In any event, clerics may not used edged weapons (at the referee's discretion)."  The referee gets to choose, but the rule was intended from the start.  I do wonder sometimes what was left out on purpose, and what was left out by accident, and whether Gary could always remember what actually made it to print.  It would be easy to mix it all up in memory.  Regardless, clerics were always intended to be restricted to blunt weapons.

As for why this rule exists... It's all so clerics can't use magic swords.  Magic swords in OD&D are powerful.  They're all intelligent, and a good chunk of them have special powers.  They're intended as an equalising factor for fighters.  Magic-users and clerics can both cast spells, but fighters can't... until they find a good magic sword.  Give those swords to the spell-casters, and this intended balance is disrupted.  How effective this balance was is up for debate; I'd say not very effective at all, because a significant sore point in D&D's development has been the power gap between casters and non-casters.  But the intention was there from the start: casters don't get magic swords, so magic-users are restricted to daggers and clerics can't use edged weapons.

But where is this all coming from?  What was the historical or literary source?  Historically, the main influence would probably be the principle of sine effusione sanguinis, meaning "to shed no blood".  I'm having some trouble researching whether Catholic priests followed this principle, and if they did why, because every article that's popping up is related to D&D.  But it appears that the clergy did fight on occasion, especially in the Crusades, and they may have used maces and other blunt weapons to get around this principle.  "But Nathan," I hear you ask, "would not hitting a man upon the head with a flanged mace or morningstar cause them to bleed?"  To which I reply, of course it would. Profusely.  But people love to get around restrictions on a technicality or a flimsy justification, and priests are certainly no different there.

The main historical source that people point to is the Bayeux Tapestry, and it's depiction of Bishop Odo of Bayeux fighting with a mace.  There's also Bishop Turpin, depicted in The Song of Roland as fighting Saracens, also with a mace.  Turpin is a very likely source, as I believe that he's been specifically name-checked by Gary or one of his crew (although I can't find a source to corroborate that belief).

(This blog post does a much better job than me of laying out the historical precedents, if you're interested.)

Historical or not, clerics in D&D are famously restricted to blunt weapons, and in the interests of sticking close to D&D lore I'll be keeping that restriction as well.  Except, it's not a universal restriction, is it?  When you get into 2nd edition, and possibly even some of the specific pantheons of 1e, there are clerics allowed to use certain bladed weapons depending on their religious beliefs.  Which makes perfect sense, but means that whatever explanation I come up with, it has to be flexible enough to allow for some religions to ignore it.

In my 2nd edition campaign, circa 1997-2000, I explained it like this: there was a god of light (Solarin) and a god of darkness (Malak).  (Yeah, I know, the names were a bit on-the-nose, I was 18.)  These gods fought in the cosmos for a few centuries, until finally Malak stabbed Solarin in the side with his spear.  But this didn't kill him; instead, it sent him hurtling in orbit around the planet, with light spilling from the wound, and this was the origin of the sun.  So clerics of both sides avoided bladed weapons, one side in sympathy for their wounded sun god, the other to avoid their dark master's mistake.  Or some shit like that, it was 26 years ago, but it did the job, and stopped my players asking why they couldn't give their cleric a two-handed sword.  I'll need a different explanation now though.

The obvious one would be to go with the real-world inspiration, since I'm already basing the campaign's major religion on the Catholic church.  I could very easily say that the Church of Law forbids its clerics to shed blood, and they've justified their way around it by hefting dirty great flanged maces instead.  Then, when I later introduce some competing churches I could just have those that are offshoots of the Church of Law using that restriction.  The problem here is Anti-Clerics.  If it's a restriction of the Church of Law, why are these devil-worshippers and dark cultists also similarly restricted?  There's no reason they should be.  So that explanation is out.

I've been tossing up the idea of there having been some kind of primordial war between mortals and the gods in the ancient past, which ended with the gods retreating to the Outer Planes, and mortals ruling the Earth.  Maybe during that war, the gods decreed that "mortals may not take up blades against us", and mortals got around that decree by taking up the mace instead.  So the legends say, anyway...  Now it's less of a restriction and more of a tradition, although certain gods may enforce it more rigorously.  And while clerics may not be literally "taking up blades against the gods", they're always fighting for their deity, and against creatures of an opposed alignment.  And would not fighting a god's servants also be taking up blades against the gods?  I like this.  For some clerics it's a hard restriction, for others a tradition, and there are some who would have abandoned it long, long ago.  But for the Church of Law it's very much a going concern, and in the opening campaign area it will be for Chaotic clerics as well.