Paralysis Analysis

We all know how paralysis works in early Dungeons & Dragons, right?  You get hit with an attack that causes paralysis, you make a saving throw, and if you fail that save you're frozen, immobile, and helpless.  But let's take a look at the five saving throw categories as they appear in original D&D:

• Death Ray or Poison
• All Wands -- including Polymorph or Paralization (sic)
• Stone
• Dragon Breath
• Staves & Spells

I've always considered that the second category was intended to cover attacks from wands, as well as being a saving throw against being polymorphed or paralysed.  On a closer reading, I'm not so sure; the more natural reading would be that it's a saving throw vs. wands, which includes the Wand of Polymorph and the Wand of Paralization.  I'm not entirely sure why those two would be called out specifically, but it's hard to argue with what's on the page.  And what I'm seeing is this: original D&D does not have a saving throw vs. paralysis.

Looking at some later editions backs up this assertion.  The D&D Basic Set by Eric Holmes has the same categories as above, except that "All Wands -- including Polymorph or Paralization" has been shortened to "Magic Wands".  As far as I can tell, the Basic Set doesn't have a saving throw vs. paralysis in any form, even though there are multiple places in the rules that call for one.  The later Basic Set by Tom Moldvay fixes this by combining it with the save against being turned to stone.

Advanced D&D does things a little differently, changing the saving throw categories slightly as shown below:

• Paralyzation, Poison or Death Magic
• Petrification or Polymorph
• Rod, Staff or Wand
• Breath Weapon
• Spell

There are a few things rearranged there, but what's relevant is that paralysis has been combined with the save vs. poison and death magic.  It's a different solution than the Moldvay Basic Set went with, but neither of them combine it with the saving throw against wands.  I feel like this backs up my belief that the two were never meant to be the same save, even in original D&D.

Except... it gets more muddled when you look back at D&D's pre-publication draft. Because that did have a saving throw vs. paralysis, in place of the save vs. wands.  There are quite a few cases where rules are clearer in the draft then they were in the published version, and this is one of them.

But let's assume that we go with original D&D as written.  There are a number of ways a character could find themselves paralysed: being targeted with a hold person spell; being the victim of a wand of paralization (or the same power from a staff of wizardry); being hit by a special purpose magic sword; touching an artifact of the opposite alignment; and (of course) being hit by a ghoul.

Most of these can be covered by a saving throw vs. wands, a save vs. staves, or a save vs. spells.  The outlier here is ghoul paralysis, that killer of low-level characters extraordinaire. The thing is, in original D&D ghouls will "paralize any normal figure they touch, excluding Elves".  A "normal figure" in original D&D terms is a creature of 1 Hit Die or less, which means that - by the rules - any player character of 2nd level or above should be immune to ghoul paralysis.  Hell, you could argue that any 1st level fighting-man should also be immune, as they have 1+1 HD.  With characters becoming immune to this attack so quickly, maybe the creators felt that there was no need to give it a separate saving throw category.

There is, however, a rules mechanism for resisting paraysis in the game, one that's not connected to saving throws: the "chance to withstand adversity".  This is a percentage chance to survive certain attacks based on the character's Constitution score, and it's analogous to what will eventually be the "system shock" rule in AD&D.  It's specifically linked to paralysis in the rules, so it could definitely be used to determine if a character can resist the touch of a ghoul.  Just note that by this rule, any character with a Constitution score of 13 or more will be 100% resistant to ghoul paralysis.  It kinda takes the sting out of that monster, especially when combined with the paralysis only affecting "normal men".

The alternative, however, gives it a little too much sting, because usually the "system shock" rule is used to see if a character dies immediately from some kind of trauma.  With this rule being explicitly connected to paralysis in original D&D, you could see ghoul paralysis resulting in some instant deaths... as if ghouls weren't deadly enough to begin with!

To summarise, there are three things that are absolutely by-the-book rules in original D&D:

1. Ghoul paralysis only applies to "normal figures".
2. There is no explicit, unambiguous saving throw vs. paralysis.
3. The "chance to withstand adversity" applies to being paralysed.

There are multiple ways to interpret these rules, because that's just how it is when you're interpreting the language of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.  I'm going with ghouls only affecting 1 HD creatures, and the save vs. paralysis being based on the percent chance to "withstand adversity".  It's very different to AD&D, and much less deadly, but as with all of these rules I'm testing out I expect things to change through playtesting.

Original D&D's Appendix N

I feel as though most people reading this blog will be familiar with "Appendix N", the list of inspirational works that Gary Gygax wrote up for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide.  It's become a bit of a touchstone for the old-school D&D community over the years, a sort of guiding light that points towards the style of play that the game's originators favoured.  It's significant enough to have its own Wikipedia entry, for those who want to refresh themselves as to what books and authors made the cut.

 

Original D&D never included such a list, but Gygax and Dave Arneson weren't shy in peppering references to its literary sources throughout the text.  I got curious a little while ago, and made a list of the authors and books that are specifically mentioned in original D&D and the Chainmail wargame.  In a way it's the original, albeit unofficial, version of "Appendix N", and I wanted to see what would - and would not be -included if I listed it all together.

Here's the list below.  I was thorough, but it's always possible that I missed something.

 

• The Martian/Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs
• These 11 novels, published from 1912 to 1943, are the first literary source mentioned in D&D.  It's one of four exemplary works mentioned in the "Forward" of Volume 1: Men & Magic, a list that's as interesting for what it doesn't include as for what it does.  Various creatures from this series are given in the wilderness encounter tables as well.  It doesn't rate a mention in Chainmail though.
• The Conan stories by Robert E. Howard
• 19 short stories and a novel were written by Howard about Conan of Cimmeria, and it's also one of the four works mentioned in the "Forward". Surprisingly, there are few specific game elements drawn from these stories, not even stats for giant snakes or semi-human apes.  Conan does get referenced in Chainmail.
• The fantasy stories of L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt
• The third set of works mentioned in the "Forward" is probably the most obscure.  Presumably it's referring to the Harold Shea stories, five of which had been published before the creation of D&D.  I've never read them (aside from The Green Magician, which would be later reprinted in Dragon Magazine).
• The Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories by Fritz Leiber
• The final series mentioned in the "Forward", comprised of (I believe) 36 short stories and a novel.  Nine of these were published after D&D, but the best stuff definitely predated the game.
• The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
• It's surprising that Tolkien's novels aren't listed in the "Forward", but in terms of sheer volume it's Tolkien who gets the lion's share of attention, with specific references to his work scattered throughout D&D and Chainmail.  A decent number of D&D's monsters, as well as its player character races, come directly from Tolkien.
• Lord Dunsany
• Dunsany is mentioned once in D&D, as part of the monster entry for Gnolls.  The specific reference here would be the short story "How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles".
• Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson
• Trolls in D&D are drawn directly from this book, but neither Anderson nor his work get name-checked there.  They do in Chainmail, however. 
• The Elric stories by Michael Moorcock
• Moorcock is the sole author here who is mentioned in Chainmail but not in D&D.  His character Elric (somewhat humorously misspelled as Eric of Melnibone) is given as an example of a combination warrior/wizard.  Moorcock wrote loads of Elric stories before and after D&D's publication, but - as with Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser - the best ones were published before.

That's a decent summary of the most prominent works from "Appendix N", although there are some notable omissions.  Jack Vance's Dying Earth is the most surprising, given its huge influence on D&D magic.  Lovecraft is another author that Gygax directly cited as being hugely influential, but he's not here either.  Of course, this wasn't a deliberate list, simply a bunch of authors and works that Gygax and Arneson thought to mention while writing D&D, so of course not every influence would be there.  I find it interesting nonetheless to see what did get included, especially the four works singled out in the "Forward".  Tolkien not being part of that list, in spite of his books being raided for D&D's bestiary, is particularly telling I think.

I'll probably post some more about the works above over the coming months.  I've been working my way through them, at the glacial pace that I now finish books as an adult.  I've read Tolkien and Howard, of course (and re-read them recently), and the Elric stories about 25 years ago.  I've read the first five Barsoom books, and I'm currently reading the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories.  It's a slow process, but I'm planning to do a post on each one and how I think they influenced D&D.  Not the most original content, as just about every old-school D&D blog has covered "Appendix N" at some point, but perhaps I'll have some of my own insights to add to the conversation.  Expect posts on Tolkien and Howard soon, with the rest to come once I've read the relevant works.

Poison in Original D&D: Can This Be Right?

It's fair to say that original Dungeons & Dragons can be a bit hard to parse sometimes, and there are aspects of the rules as written that are ambiguous.  Most of those have been hashed out online over the last couple of decades (boy, have they...), but there's a passage in the rules regarding poison that I don't think I've ever seen discussed.  It's the paragraph right after the saving throw tables (spanning page 20-21 of Volume 1: Men & Magic).  I'll reproduce it below:

"Failure to make the total indicated above results in the weapon having full effect, i.e. you are turned to stone, take full damage from dragon's breath, etc. Scoring the total indicated above (or scoring higher) means the weapon has no effect (death ray, polymorph, paralization, stone, or spell) or one-half effect (poison scoring one-half of the total possible hit damage and dragon's breath scoring one-half of its full damage)."

At first glance, this is just describing the standard saving throw procedure we all know and love: your character gets hit with an attack, you roll 1d20 against a target number, and if you roll high enough the effect is either negated or lessened depending on its nature.  As someone very familiar with later versions of these rules, it's easy to skim over this material without taking in what it actually says.  I know I read this passage many times before the bit about poison jumped out at me as unusual.  Let's circle back to it, because I think it works a little differently to poison saving throws in later D&D editions.

The relevant passage is this: "poison scoring one-half of the total possible hit damage".  Later editions (particularly Advanced D&D) usually treat poison as an all-or-nothing affair; either your character makes their saving throw and lives, or fails it and dies.  This line in original D&D suggests something different.  "Total possible hit damage" has to refer to the victim's total hit points, yes?  That's how I read it.  So in original D&D it appears to me that, on a failed saving throw, poison deals damage equal to the victim's total hit points, killing them in the familiar manner.  But on a successful save, rather than the poison being avoided or negated, it deals damage equal to half of the victim's total hit points.

It seems to me that this is the correct interpretation, and it makes poison quite a bit more dangerous.  The main thing that's up for interpretation is whether a failed save deals damage equal to half of a character's total hit points, or their current hit points.  I'm inclined to go with the latter interpretation, just because it favours the players.  A strict reading favours using the "total hit point" interpretation, but I'd rather not have player characters dying on successful saving throws if I can help it.  Yes, I know it can happen with fire balls and the like, but I'd rather not add yet another way for the PCs to die horribly.

I'd be interested in what my readers think. Have any of you noticed or used this interpretation of the rules before?  Any thoughts or war stories are appreciated.