Tag Archives: od&d

How I Run OD&D Combat

06 Sunday Jul 2025

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Over the years I’ve settled on a way to run 0e/OD&D/White Box combat that keeps the action moving and is pretty simple, while covering many cases that come up. I use this basic system for other games also, maybe with some of the details changed (like weapon damage or rate of fire in B/X-style games), but the core system remains the same.

Surprise

If surprise is in question, I use the standard d6 roll per side, with 1-2 meaning that side is surprised. Opponents get a free attack in that case.

Initiative

I use side-based initiative, with a tied roll meaning simultaneous action, but with the caveat that the initiative roll is modified by DEX in the event of a tie. So a PC with a low DEX (8 or less) would go last on a tied roll, while PCs with an above-average DEX (13 or more) will go first in that case. I re-roll initiative each round.

Missiles

I allow two bow shots per round for stationary archers, one if they choose to move and then fire (or vice versa). Elves can always fire two shots, however, even if moving.

Shooting into melee is at -4 to the attack roll, with no range bonuses allowed. On a natural 1, an ally is hit, determined randomly.

Other missile weapons can be fired once per round, except for crossbows, which can be fired every other round.

Melee

Combatants can choose whom they want to attack. Attacks from behind are at +2, except for thieves, who get +4 when unnoticed.

Moving in combat is at 1/3 of the base movement rate times 10, so a leather-armored PC with a base move of 12 can move 40 feet per combat round. Leaving combat can be done slowly with a fighting retreat without penalty – but the opponent can always follow. Fleeing combat outright gives opponents a free attack at +2.

Charging into combat with initiative will give the attacker +2 to their attack roll, but if they miss, their opponent gains +2 on the return attack.

Spears and pole arms can attack from the second rank as thrusting weapons, and spears do an extra point of damage when used two-handed.

Position can be important, for example if three PCs are attacking an Orc, and the Orc is using a shield, one of the PCs will be attacking the shieldless flank.

Sometimes PCs want to switch weapons in the same round, like from bow to sword at the start of combat. I allow this, as long as the weapon in hand is dropped. Otherwise, it takes a full round to stow the first weapon and ready the second.

Crits & Fumbles

I don’t like detailed critical hit/fumble tables. I keep it simple – a natural 20 always hits (barring magic or silver required) and does maximum damage, while a roll of 1 is an automatic miss (but see above for shooting missiles into melee).

Death and Wounds

Binding wounds can be done after any combat and will heal 1d3 hp.

PCs die at 0hp or less, however they do get a save versus death in that case, adding any CON bonus/penalty to the roll. If they succeed, they are left with 1hp and cannot regain any hit points that day without the use of magic, nor do they get a second chance if they fall to 0hp again.

Spells

Spells can be prepared and held in that state until cast. Prepared spells go off before any melee or movement actions for that PC’s side. Otherwise, any spell takes one combat round to prepare (scroll spells go off first the round after the scroll is dug out of a pack or pouch and opened). If it is important to know if one spell goes off before another on the side that wins initiative, I compare DEX scores of the spellcasters.

I assume that keeping a spell prepared does take some small level of concentration, so if a spellcaster is hit by an attack, any prepared spells are lost (but can be re-prepared starting the next round in that case, they are not lost from memory). It is not possible to prepare or cast a spell from memory while in combat, but spells cast from magic items can be used in combat.

Gaze Attacks, Magic Items and Breath Weapons

Gaze attacks always take effect first, followed by spells cast from magic items (like wands, rings or staves) and breath weapons, which will both take effect before melee or movement, but simultaneous with prepared spells. So all told, this is the order of actions per side:

  • Gaze attacks
  • Prepared spells, spells cast from magic items, breath weapons
  • Missile fire, melee & movement

I don’t care whether movement takes place before or after an attack, or when missiles are fired. For a given side, I’ll just go around the table (or VTT) and combatants will act in order. Depending on circumstances, I let players hold their PC’s action, so for example they can charge in to attack just after their companion fires a bow.

Musings on the Original Thief Class

26 Monday May 2025

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The story of the Thief class is well-known by now, with the idea being given to Gary Gygax by a D&D fan named Gary Switzer by phone, then appearing in the Great Plains Newsletter around May of 1974 (although the original idea came from Daniel Wagner).

This original version of the Thief class, with d6 hit dice and meant for use with the 3LBB, is only available as poor quality scans of typewritten pages. Allan Grohe (Grodog) did an amazing job of transcribing the copies, but his transcription is no longer available online.

Zenopus Archives did an overview of this class back in 2016, and made a one-page reference sheet of the original Thief available (re-worded and without the example of the Thief in action).

However, since I had downloaded a copy of the original transcription before it was taken down, I wanted to at least go through that document and comment on the various sections with relevant quotes, adding my own views.

Thieves are always _neutral_. Their prime requisite is _dexterity_. Men, Dwarves, Elves, or Hobbits may become thieves.

In subsequent editions, Thieves can be evil or chaotic as well. Restricting them to neutral paints the thief as more of an opportunist. There are no skill bonuses for the demi-human thief in this version, but also no stated level limits.

Thieves are generally not meant to fight, although they are able to employ magic swords and daggers (but none of the other magical weaponry), and the only armor they can wear is leathern [sic].

This is interesting, letting Thieves use magic swords, which can be very powerful in OD&D and were normally the sole province of the Fighting Man. There is no mention of shields being prohibited.

original thief advancement table

Looking at the advancement table, we see the XP was originally the lowest of the original classes (1200xp to 2nd level and a lot lower at higher levels), and closely matches that of Greyhawk and B/X up to 8th level or so. So advancement is very fast, assuming the Thief survives (see below on disarming small traps). The use of percentage skill checks is new, and of course hit dice are d6-based.

Open locks (by picking or even foiling magical closures)… however he cannot open the lock… so it must be forced open — a very time-consuming process.

Remember that if you have to force a lock, wandering monster checks occur every turn in OD&D. Also we see the language that lets thieves pick magically closed locks. Does this include countering the wizard lock spell? This is quite powerful if so, and paints more of a picture of the thief abilities as preternatural.

Removal of small trap devices (such as poisoned needles)… Assume that a fifth level thief (Cutpurse) is a member of an expedition… the thief goes into the area and examines several chests in the room.  He notes that two have traps – which he has a 35% chance of successfully removing. He succeeds on the first, and a vial of poisonous gas is removed… Failure to remove a trap, incidentally, activates it with regard to the thief and any others within its range.

So detecting small traps is presumably automatic (the same as in Greyhawk and Holmes, but not in Moldvay), and one only has to roll to attempt to disarm the trap. The note about failure is interesting, and would make higher level thieves rare, given the 10% chance of success at 1st level.

Listen for noise behind a closed door

Note this is 1-2 in 6 at 1st and 2nd level, giving human Thieves the same chance to hear noise as Elves, Dwarves and Halflings at low levels.

Move with stealth… moving with absolute silence.

Steal items by stealth and/or sleight-of-hand… removing the object, be it from the person of the owner or from his immediate vicinity… the same likelihood as he has of moving with absolute silence.

So moving silently and stealing are lumped together, and note the detailed wording that was dropped in subsequent editions and has confused players of those editions for decades: “the same likelihood as he has of moving with absolute silence” (emphasis added). The thief abilities are extraordinary. This explains the low chance of success, and allows the referee to allow a second, non-extraordinary roll as a non-thief would get to succeed in some lesser fashion.

Stealing items is not limited to picking pockets, or even from the target himself, but within the target’s immediate vicinity. This is a much more compelling view of the Thief class than the one presented in future incarnations.

Strike silently from behind… If the thief strikes silently from behind he will do two dice of damage for every four levels he as attained, minimum damage of two dice, and hit probabilities from behind should be increased by 20% (+4 on numbers shown to hit).

Note there is no weapon restriction with this ability – it’s not a backstab, but an attack from behind. Also note the word “silently”, which implies a “move with stealth” roll, but not a hide in shadows roll.

Hide in shadows… chance to remain undetected when hiding or moving through shadows… hide without being seen provided he wasn’t observed prior to hiding, and there were shadows, of course.

Again with the emphasis on a preternatural skill, the “chance to remain undetected”. This explicitly allows moving through shadows as well, the thief does not have to stay in one place (again, unlike in Moldvay).

Climb almost sheer surfaces rapidly, up or down.

No chance of success or failure is noted here, so we have to assume the climbing skill is automatic. In the Greyhawk supplement, Thieves had a 13% of failure while climbing at 1st level, reduced by 1% per level. In Moldvay, this is “Climb Steep Surfaces”, which has a totally different connotation.

Third level thieves (Robber and above) are able to read languages, so treasure maps can be understood by them without recourse to a spell.

Ninth level thieves (Thief and above) are able to understand magical writings, so if they discover a scroll they are able to employ any spells thereon, excluding clerical spells.

Again, no chance of success is mentioned, so we have to assume these are automatic. Greyhawk added some limitations for these skills.

Overall, I’d say this is a fairly playable class for your 3LBB games. This version of the Thief is similar to Moldvay’s version, at least on the surface (XP requirements, percentage skills). However, the wording used to describe the skills makes it a very different class when played. I much prefer this original version – I like the emphasis on the Thief as having preternatural skills to open magical locks, move with absolute silence, move undetected in shadows, or climb (almost) sheer surfaces – things non-thieves could not even attempt. It would be easy to pull in little house rules from Greyhawk like the chance of failure for climbing, if you thought the class was too powerful. But I don’t see it, especially given the note about how a failure to disarm a trap sets it off. Congratulate any player that gets a Thief to higher levels using this rule.

Musings on Sleep in OD&D – Is it Over-Powered?

25 Saturday May 2024

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Let’s look at the sleep spell in Men & Magic:

Sleep: A Sleep spell affects from 2–16 1st-level types (hit dice of up to 1 + 1), from 2–12 2nd-level types (hit dice of up to 2 + 1), from 1–6 3rd-level types, and but 1 4th-level type (up to 4 + 1 hit dice). The spell always affects up to the number of creatures determined by the dice. If more than the number rolled could be affected, determine which “sleep” by random selection. Range: 24".

My own opinion is that this is not over-powered, especially given the limited number of spells that low-level Magic-Users (MUs) have available per day, even assuming no save is allowed. I would concede that it is too powerful if you allow the spell to affect all of the hit dice (HD) groups at once.

Note that Holmes Basic D&D has the same mechanics, apart from specifically stating that no save is allowed. Holmes also allows MUs to create spell scrolls for minimal cost and time outlay (at least for 1st level spells), so after the first few adventures, MU PCs are likely to have lots of sleep scrolls. I like this scroll-making rule, and I know other OD&D referees also incorporate it into their games. So you might think the sleep spell itself is not over-powered, but that the availability of spell scrolls makes it too powerful in this case.

Whatever the circumstance, if you do think the sleep spell is over-powered or too plentiful, you can try any of the following changes or interpretations to the mechanics to help address the situation.

  • Allow a saving throw.
  • Have the spell affect anyone within range, not just enemies.
  • Randomly roll to see which hit dice (HD) group is affected in multi-HD groups.
  • Keep in mind that in OD&D, the range of the sleep spell is specified (240’), but not the area of effect (AoE). You can take the 10’ diameter AoE from Swords & Spells, which will limit its effect quite a bit (to perhaps no more than six man-sized creatures). With this method, you may wish to allow the MU to target a specific HD group within the AoE, or even specific foes.
  • Adopt the sleep spell mechanics from B/X – so have the spell affect the lowest HD creatures first, to some total number of HD.
  • Exclude the highest HD (up to 4+1) class from being affected by the spell. No sleeping Ogres!
  • Avoid the issue altogether, and be creative with encounters. It’s certainly ok to throw undead, fae, constructs, enchanted or as many other sleep-immune creatures as you can imagine at the party.
  • Once creatures are asleep, you can make them easy to wake up if they are in a chaotic environment like melee. Perhaps give an increasing chance per round of a sleeping creature being accidentally jostled awake by an errant kick. Also don’t forget that intelligent opponents will try to wake up sleeping allies if they can.

While you can opt to exclude the spell entirely from your games, with the above options, I don’t think it’s necessary.

The option I like to play with when I am running OD&D games is to roll randomly for the affected HD group, and allow the spell to affect any and all creatures within that group (within range), to include party members and allies. This will make a mixed group of, say 10 Orcs (1HD each), all of whom are in melee with the party, and two Ogres (4+1HD each) watching from afar (but still within the 240’ spell range) still dangerous. In this example, I have two HD groups – 1 and 4+. I roll a d6 and get a 1-3, so the spell will affect 2-16 1HD creatures, possibly including 1st level party members. If I had rolled a 4-6, the spell would affect just one of the Ogres, but no one else. If I had some 2nd level fighters in the party, I would now have three HD groups – 1, 2 and 4+, leaving a 1 in 3 chance that only the 2nd level fighters would be affected (or 2-12 of them anyway)!

In the end, the imprecise nature of OD&D helps you here as a referee – just decide on the sleep spell mechanics and effects ahead of time and make it work for you and your gaming group.

Musings on OD&D’s 50th Anniversary

22 Monday Jan 2024

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Late January of 1974 marked the first printing of Dungeons & Dragons. I’ve seen various dates, but the last week in January seems to be commonly cited. I was six at the time – a bit too early for me to have been aware of it – but it was still widely available in hobby shops when I started playing AD&D in 1979.

odnd-mm-og-cover

I had an Original Collector’s Edition (OCE) “white box” set at one point back then, along with Greyhawk and the other supplements, but I didn’t really get into 1974 OD&D (3LBBs) until the OSR and retro-clone movement gained steam and brought me back into the hobby. It was Swords & Wizardry White Box that really made me take a closer look at OD&D when the former was published in 2009. Since then, I’ve played or run more hours of OD&D or OD&D clones than any other RPG – it’s far and away my favorite iteration of the game.

Wayne Rossi called OD&D “lightning in a bottle”, and I think this is the most accurate phrase I’ve seen to describe the 3LBBs. It brings to mind the open-ended nature of the game, the ability the 3LBBs give you to create something unique and fun from the framework presented in the booklets. Not that other RPGs are or were not fun to play, but many have been forgotten, while just reading the little OD&D booklets to this day, 50 years later, still inspires me to play it (by the way, Wayne’s compiled “OD&D Setting” posts are a neat look at the implied world as presented in the 3LBBs).

odnd-uwwa-og-cover

What I love most about OD&D is the simplicity of the “alternative” combat system, the detailed exploration rules, as well as the relative unimportance of ability scores to PC class choice. Everything is simple and play is fast – game prep can be minimal. Role play and exploration trumps the character sheet, and in my experience, when the referee and players embrace that play style, great things can happen.

The OD&D PDFs are available on DTRPG or via creative searching, and if you haven’t at least read them, I encourage you to do so, if nothing else for the creative inspiration.

Thank You to the OSR – 10 Years Later

22 Friday Sep 2023

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The first post to my blog was on Sept. 22, 2013. That was four years after I had gotten back into the same old-school gaming I had enjoyed as a kid, thanks to one of a handful of the first retro-clones Swords & Wizardry White Box (link is to a PDF of the first printing, no longer available in print).

That first post had an image of my gaming collection – just one bookshelf! Now that has increased to four shelves. Of course this is just what I wanted to collect in print over the years – like many in this hobby, I have a large digital collection of games as well. But I still prefer print copies of the classic games.

books

Much has changed with the OSR in the past 10 years, and much is the same. Mainly I think there is more fragmentation as people joined groups on various social media platforms when some of the original forums, along with G+ went away. But I’m happy that there seems to be a resurgence in OSR blogs, and forums are definitely not dead, with some of the largest from 10 years ago (or longer) still online. In my opinion the blogs and forums are where the old-school gaming community should congregate, discuss and share ideas, as they are indexed by search engines and the Internet Archive. Facebook, MeWe, Discord and the like are not public in that sense, and anything posted to those platforms is lost when they go away. I created my own public forum in 2016 in reaction to the Swords & Wizardry forums being taken offline, and in 2017 I created a static snapshot of the Goblinoid Games forums, just before they too were taken offline.

2013 was also the year our current gaming group was formed, and it’s still going strong today. It’s not a overstatement to say that these games, gaming friends and the OSR in general have been a major part of my life for the past decade. So thanks again to the OSR and the many people that make it fun, and here’s hoping to another 10 years!

Random OD&D Dungeon Solo Play Report #5 – The Continuing Adventures of Shal the Medium

01 Friday Sep 2023

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In our last session, Graf the Warrior’s luck ran out and he succumbed to Crab Spider poison. Shal the Magic-User made it out of the dungeon alive, however, and set about recruiting a party of adventurers. She was joined by a Cleric Pontifus; Lana, a Hobbit Fighter; Sig, also a Fighter, and Rolwin an Elf Fighter/Magic-User. They followed some rumors to an ancient stone stair in the depths of a nearby forest, lit some torches and descended 20 feet to a darkened, empty room.

They could see two doors, one east and one west, and chose the west door. This led to a smaller room, also empty, and from there they decided to open a door to the north. Lana could hear nothing beyond it, and the door was stuck, so it took a bit of effort for Sig to open it. This was a noisy endeavor and by the time the door was opened to another room, the eight Orcs inside the room were ready and seemed unhappy that their dice game had been interrupted. The Orcs rushed the door and two attacked Lana and Sig, who were in the front ranks of the party. The first blows of the Orcish swords were deflected by shields and armor, but the two Orcs then teamed up to attack Lana together and one thrust his sword through a crack in Lana’s plate armor, into the Hobbit’s chest. Lana was slain!

Shal cast a sleep spell, which was more effective than she expected – all eight Orcs fell asleep, along with Sig, Rolwin and Pontifus. Shal quickly woke up her companions and they set about searching the room. There were half a dozen chairs and a table, atop which were some dice and a few small piles of silver coins. In a clay jar in one corner, Rolwin found 200ep. The party gathered the loot and the body of the fallen Hobbit, and headed back to town. Sig killed the sleeping Orcs on the way out, waiting only for Lawful Pontifus to exit the room before he did so.

Referee notes

For this adventuring party I just generated some new PCs using the 1974 OD&D rules (3LBBs) – none of them were hirelings or retainers. The last four solo OD&D sessions with just one or two PCs were quite deadly, so I wanted to beef up the ranks a bit. The dungeon map I had pre-generated, using The Strategic Review #1 random generator, only noting traps and other special features like one-way or secret doors, leaving the monsters and treasures to be determined during play. In addition to the 3LBBs, I also used some tables from Delving Deeper, along with the original Monster and Treasure Assortment book.

solo-odnd-map-scaled

Dungeon Doors

The way I usually handle opening stuck dungeon doors is that I allow a single roll. If it succeeds, the door is opened quickly enough that anyone or anything on the other side of the door might be surprised. If the open door roll fails, however, I still assume the door was opened, just with difficulty and a lot of noise, preventing any surprise by the party. That is what happened with the door into the room with the Orcs. The Orcs won both surprise and the first round of initiative, and poor Lana had three attacks against her before she could react, or before Shal could cast her sleep spell.

Reaction Rolls

I talked a bit about the importance of these rolls in my first solo OD&D session post. Here the Orcs rolled a 5 for their reaction, which I interpreted as hostile. A 7 or higher is either uncertain or friendly, so this really was a worst-case scenario for the party, being surprised by eight angry Orcs.

Sleep

Sleep is, for good reason, considered the nuke of the low-level MU. It has a stated range of 240′, but Men & Magic does not specify an area of effect, so you have to do what seems reasonable given the situation. Since everyone near or in melee had one hit die (HD), I reasoned that the 2d8=11 roll would get all eight Orcs, along with three party members from the front ranks. In mixed HD groups, I like to roll randomly to see which HD group is affected, which I think makes the spell a bit more dangerous to cast (possibly only affecting party members), but that was not the case here.

My Approach to the OD&D Elf

03 Wednesday May 2023

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There is lots of ambiguity as far as how the Elf works in the original incarnation of D&D from 1974. Elves were a blend between fighter and magic-user (MU), although you had to choose a class to play each adventure, and it was anyone’s guess how saves, hit dice and level advancement worked.

Elves: Elves can begin as either Fighting-Men or Magic-Users and freely switch class whenever they choose, from adventure to adventure, but not during the course of a single game. Thus, they gain the benefits of both classes and may use both weaponry and spells. They may use magic armor and still act as Magic-Users. However, they may not progress beyond 4th level Fighting-Man (Hero) nor 8th level Magic-User (Warlock). Elves are more able to note secret and hidden doors. They also gain the advantages noted in the CHAINMAIL rules when fighting certain fantastic creatures. Finally, Elves are able to speak the languages of Orcs, Hobgoblins, and Gnolls in addition to their own (Elvish) and the other usual tongues.

Men & Magic, p. 8

That’s pretty much it, other than a paragraph about Elves in Monsters & Treasure which you may want to pick and choose bits from to apply to PC Elves:

ELVES: … Roll a four-sided die for level of fighting and a six-sided die for level of magical ability, treating any 1’s rolled as 2’s and 6’s(magical level), as 5’s… Elves have the ability of moving silently and are nearly invisible in their gray-green cloaks. Elves armed with magical weapons will add one pip to dice rolled to determine damage, i.e. when a hit is scored the possible number of damage points will be 2–7 per die. Elves on foot may split-move and fire…

Monsters & Treasure, p. 16

This lets you know that the Fighter and MU levels don’t progress in sync, at least as far as NPC Elves. Anyway there have been tons of variations on Elves and how they work over the years, many being based on splitting XP and averaging hit points as levels are gained. I have settled on something simpler, so here in a nutshell are my OD&D Elf house rules, including my take on the Chainmail abilities mentioned above.

Elves: Elves start as a combined Fighter/M-U, both at 1st level. They can allocate earned experience to either class, or to both as desired. Hit points are calculated normally  when a level is gained in one class, rolling all hit dice for that class (e.g. roll 4d6 for a 4th level Fighter) and keeping the previous total if it is higher (at first level, take the better of the two rolls). They have the benefits of the stronger class for saves, weapons and armor use, but can only cast spells in magical armor or Elven chain.

  • Elves of 9 or higher INT can speak the languages of Orcs, Hobgoblins, and Gnolls
  • Elves are immune to ghoul paralysis
  • Elves impart +1 damage with magical weapons
  • Elves on foot armed with bows may half-move and fire without penalty
  • Elves spot ‘something is amiss’ on a 1-2/d6 when passing near a secret or concealed door, and detect secret doors 1-4/d6 when actively searching

So there is no dividing hit points by two, which is how Gary Gygax famously said he handled Elves (a variation of that is what I used in my first OD&D campaign). I also don’t allow anything like the Moldvay B/X Elf, which tracks a single hit dice and XP total and allows all weapons, armor and spells to be used together. I now find the former is too fiddly, and the latter misses the feel of the original rules, despite being a bit simpler. I also don’t allow infravision for Elves, the original rules don’t mention this until the Greyhawk supplement.

And what about the ‘split-move and fire’ ability? In my OD&D games, stationary archers can fire twice per round, or half-move and fire once. Elves can do a half-move and still fire twice.

This is all subjective of course, but after having an Elf character in my Nolenor campaign use these rules for a few dozen sessions and ending at level 4/4, I felt these rules definitely played better in practice than my prior approaches.

White Box FMAG Character Generator

23 Friday Dec 2022

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I’ve created a character generator for White Box FMAG. It generates a random, level one character and is similar to my other generators. The main difference between this and my Swords & Wizardry White Box generator is that this includes the thief, as per the White Box FMAG rules.

wb-fmag-chargen

Musings on Experience Awards in 0e and White Box Games

21 Saturday May 2022

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In Greyhawk, the first OD&D supplement, there is this famous text (p. 12):

The awarding of experience points is often a matter of discussion, for the referee must make subjective judgments. Rather than the (ridiculous) 100 points per level of slain monsters, use the table below, dividing experience equally [emphasis theirs] among all characters in the party involved…

The emphasis on “dividing experience equally” is interesting. I used to think that Gygax was railing against 10 slain Orcs being worth 1000xp, divided among an entire party. Which is strange to me, as I still like to play this way in all my OD&D/White Box games, regardless of the system. I find it helps PCs gain levels more quickly in today’s gaming environment, which is typically shorter games with smaller groups that are played not as often. Maybe it results in rapid advancement if you are playing 1974-style 12-hour sessions, but still not overly so, given the typically larger parties back then.

But now, looking back carefully at Men & Magic on the section about awarding experience, p. 18:

Experience points are awarded to players by the referee with appropriate bonuses or penalties for prime requisite scores. As characters meet monsters in mortal combat and defeat them, and when they obtain various forms of treasure (money, gems, jewelry, magical items, etc.), they gain “experience.” This adds to their experience point total, gradually moving them upwards through the levels…

Let us assume he gains 7,000 Gold Pieces by defeating a troll (which is a 7th-level monster, as it has over 6 hit dice)…thus; 7,000 GP + 700 for killing the troll…

It is also recommended that no more experience points be awarded for any single adventure than will suffice to move the character upwards one level. Thus a “veteran” (1st level) gains what would ordinarily be 5,000 experience points; however, as this would move him upwards two levels, the referee should award only sufficient points to bring him to “warrior” (2nd level), say 3,999 if the character began with 0 experience points.

Notice that nowhere in there does it say to divide experience equally among each party member leaving the reader to deduce from the example how to handle larger parties. I suspect that what some referees were doing back then was awarding the total XP for slain monsters to the entire party, without dividing it up equally (this seems even more likely with the example about the veteran earning 5000xp in one session). So a party of six first-level PCs that battled and killed 10 orcs would each get 1000xp. And that does indeed seem “ridiculous”, especially when you include treasure-based XP awards in the total.

I can imagine Gygax receiving letters about this, or hearing of games played where referees were seeing every PC gain a level per game, which prompted that paragraph and emphasis in the Greyhawk supplement. This is all just conjecture on my part of course, but I’d love to hear from anyone who played back then and knew of referees who awarded XP this way.

Random OD&D Dungeon Solo Play Report #4 – The Adventures of Graf the Warrior

16 Saturday Oct 2021

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In our last session, Graf the Veteran got lucky and left the dungeon with a 6,000gp jewel, more than enough to level up. Back in town, he upgraded his armor to plate, purchased a short bow, a lantern and some oil, and set about trying to hire some help.

In OD&D, retainers are classed and leveled help that a PC can hire to accompany them on adventures, for a share of the loot. The rules stipulate some expenses, but “the referee must determine expenditures”. However, in the section on hiring specialists and mercenaries, a guide of 100-600gp is given for advertising expenses, so I used that to make it easy.

Graf spent 100gp and had two potential hires present themselves – a Cleric and a Magic-User. Graf offered 200gp up-front to each and a 1/3-share of any treasure. The Cleric was insulted by Graf’s offer, but the MU reacted favorably, and agreed to accompany him back to the dungeon. Total expenses for Graf: 417gp.

I perused my stash of index card characters, and pulled out Shal the Medium, with a 15 INT, giving her an extra 1st-level spell under my house rules. She memorized sleep and hold portal, and headed out to the dungeon with Graf. For this I was using the Monster & Treasure assortment and the AD&D 1e DMG random dungeon generation tables.

Shal lit a lantern and the duo descended the entry stairs, which went down 20′ to an empty chamber with several exits. They chose to go down an eastern tunnel, which after a short while opened into a dusty, 40’x40′ room. It was also empty, save for a leather sack on the floor against the south wall, next to an exit. Graf approached the sack and cautiously prodded it with his spear. Satisfied it was safe, he picked up the sack and peered inside – gems! But at that moment a wave of nausea overtook him and he stumbled back, dropping the sack and spilling the gems. Shal helped Graf move away from the sack, and he examined his hands. There was a slimy, greenish substance on his fingertips (ref note: contact poison on the sack, but Graf easily made his saving throw). He quickly wiped his hands on the floor, and after a minute he felt better. Shal gathered up the gems, being careful not to touch the sack, and the duo proceeded south.

Spiders!

Graf and Shal were in a longer tunnel, with a side tunnel to the west half way down and an open archway directly ahead, at the limit of Shal’s lantern light. As they started down the tunnel, a trio of giant spiders emerged from the west and skittered towards them!

Graf was able to bring his spear to bear on one of the spiders and wound it. That spider and one other attacked Graf, one of them biting him. He backed away as Shal cast a sleep spell which put all three spiders to sleep. They quickly killed the spiders, but poor Graf started to feel the effects of the poison bite, so they decided to head out of the dungeon. Shal helped Graf back to the entrance and up the stairs, but he never made it back to town. RIP Graf the Warrior. Shal buried him under a nearby tree and headed back with the gems, 620gp worth.

Referee notes

Hiring Retainers

Even giving a +2 bonus for the 200gp up-front offer, I rolled first “uncertain” and then “hostile” for the Cleric’s hiring reaction. The MU roll was much better.

Contact Poison

Unattended treasure should always be trapped or hidden in some way. I used the M&T Assortment tables for this and came up with the sack and contact poison.

Spiders

The spiders were crab spiders, rolled as a wandering encounter in the M&T Assortment. Crab spiders first appear in Moldvay Basic, and according to those rules, crab spider poison is deadly in 1d4 turns – Graf failed his save (even with +2 for the weak poison) and I rolled a 4, meaning he died four turns later, on the way back to town.

For the combat with the spiders, initial reaction was hostile. Neither party was surprised, and the crab spiders won initiative. However, Graf had a spear ready and I ruled he would be able to stab at the spiders before they could move close enough to attack. So he went first, followed by the spiders (I allowed two to attack him at once in the 10′ wide tunnel), then Shal’s sleep spell went off.