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