Category Archives: Musings

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.

Image

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.

Musings on Dexterity-based Initiative

02 Saturday Dec 2023

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I’ve been running a Swords & Wizardry play-by-post game for the past year or so and have been using dexterity (DEX)-based initiative. In the S&W Core and Complete rules, this is the “Blue Book” combat method, so-called as it is based on the blue covered Holmes Basic D&D, which described using DEX to order combat actions (while the 1977 Holmes Basic book is not freely available, the BLUEHOLME Prentice rules are both free and a decent clone of the original).

When combat begins, I’ll roll DEX on the spot for the monsters, and proceed from there. So rolling DEX and ordering the combatants is done just once – then, during each combat round, actions proceed in DEX order. In the event of tied dexterities, I consider the attacks to be simultaneous. The only exception to the DEX order is that prepared spells are always cast first in the round (this is part of the S&W rules-as-written). Because the DEX rolls and ordering are done up-front, after the first round, combat tends to be fast. I’ve noticed, however, some problems.

  1. Luck tends to have a longer lasting impact on combat, when compared to side-based initiative that is rolled every round. If the referee rolls high for monster DEX, and you have even average DEX rolls in the party, you will get stuck going last each round.
  2. Conversely, if the players got lucky and have PCs with a lot of high DEX scores, most of the combats will be unbalanced in favor of the party. This isn’t normally bad by itself, but you want the players to survive combats by using good tactics, not solely through one lucky roll at character creation.
  3. OD&D, upon which S&W is based, describes abstract combat. DEX-based initiative is at odds with that unless you treat all the monsters of the same type as having the same DEX (this is a suggested rule in S&W). It feels a little too precise to have an explicit order for every combatant in each round.
  4. OD&D also minimized the impact of both high and low ability scores, but using DEX-based initiative inflates the importance of DEX.

Compare this to the standard side-based or individual initiative, where the players and monsters roll every round and the order can change from round-to-round. This allows luck (good or bad) effects to happen at any time, and as a player feels more meaningful (or surprising), in my opinion.

A method I’ve settled on when I’m running games for my gaming group is to use side-based, d6 initiative, but allow players with a high DEX (13 or more) to act first, or to make players with a low DEX (8 or less) act last, but only in the event of tied d6 rolls. This gives some players a slight advantage (or disadvantage), but doesn’t amplify the affects of a high or low DEX score either way.

If you wanted to keep DEX-based initiative, but fix some of the issues I listed above, you could use the method described in the Holmes rules – forego simultaneous attacks for matching DEX scores, and roll a d6 for scores within 1-2 points of each other, each round. This results in a lot more rolling (the average 3d6 roll is 9-12, so a good portion of the total initiative rolls will end up being be d6 opposed rolls with this method, and not all strictly DEX-based).

Musings on Weapon Damage in Old-School D&D

23 Monday May 2022

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It’s fairly standard now that weapons in D&D do variable damage, but of course the original 1974 D&D (3LBBs) had all attacks doing d6 damage. The spear was the notable exception, able to do 2 or even 3 times normal damage when set against a charge. The Greyhawk supplement ushered in what we now take for granted, variable weapon damage. This was meant to complement the fact that monsters now had “attack routines” and did varying amounts of damage themselves.

The Greyhawk weapons table also added varying damage by size of the opponent, and there was a separate weapon vs. armor table, similar to the one in Chainmail but broken. In any case, the Greyhawk modifications were a pretty large jump in complexity and a move towards more of a simulationist combat model.

Holmes Basic kept the simplicity of d6 damage for all weapons, but tied this together with advanced hit dice and monster variable damage – something Greyhawk explicitly warned against. At least in Holmes’ pre-publication manuscript, monsters kept the d6 hit die from the 3LBBs – it was only later, during editing, that the monster hit die was increased to a d8.

Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert (B/X) kept the variable monster hit dice and damage, and presented variable weapon damage as an option, but without Greyhawk’s varying damage by opponent size and without the weapon vs. armor table. Moldvay’s simpler variation made it into the B/X clones like Labyrinth Lord and Basic Fantasy RPG (BFRPG). AD&D took the Greyhawk track, including both options.

Now, where does this leave us? In my mind, meaningful player choice is more important than simulating combat. As a player I’d rather have my weapon choice mean something in itself, without resorting to extra tables. Is the weapon two-handed, meaning it might do more damage but prevents the use of a shield? Does the weapon have some other sort of utility outside of combat? Can I use it as both a missile and melee weapon? Cost is rarely a factor outside of character creation, since after the first adventure or two, most characters will be able to afford any of the standard weapons.

For the 3LBBs, if you’re a fighter, the spear is a clear winner. It can be thrown, used as a one-handed stabbing weapon with a shield, set against a charge, and it allows you to attack from the second rank.

For Holmes, as written, the dagger is king – but if you ignore the broken “small weapons get two attacks per round rule”, the spear still wins.

For Moldvay, the sword is the clear winner – it’s one-handed and does d8 damage, whereas two-handed weapons always attack last. Labyrinth Lord (LL) adds a lot of weapon options from AD&D, but quite frankly has a broken weapons table. Many of the choices make no sense (e.g. the two-handed war hammer that does d6 damage, or the two-handed battle axe that Dwarves cannot use).

BFRPG gets points for the most consistent weapons table, having variable damage but also fixing the B/X and especially LL issues with two-handed weapons, the battle axe and the hammer.

Swords & Wizardry Core and Complete also have a nicely consistent weapons table, however, in my opinion, the best compromise between simplicity and consistency is Swords & Wizardry White Box. It keeps the weapon damage variation small (d6 plus or minus 1), while still allowing some meaningful choice. It is my favorite of the bunch.

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.

Musings on Retro B/X House Rules

06 Saturday Mar 2021

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Both D&D basic sets in the late 70s and early 80s tried to simplify D&D but of course at the time, what we now think of as “Original D&D” (OD&D) meant the original three Little Brown Books (3LBBs) plus all of the supplements. Chief among those was the first supplement Greyhawk, which changed the game fundamentally into what we recognize today as “core D&D” – four base classes including the thief, variable hit dice and weapon damage, higher level spells, attack routines (claw, claw, bite) and d8 hit dice for monsters.

moldvay-basic-front-page

Moldvay Basic D&D (B/X) in 1981 was an attempt to clarify even further what Holmes Basic had done in 1977, but still used OD&D at its core (both authors were clear at the time on their intent to clarify OD&D). Now, most OD&D clones start with either the 3LBBs as a base (Swords & Wizardry White Box, Delving Deeper, Full Metal Plate Mail), or the 3LBBs plus Greyhawk (Swords & Wizardry Core, Iron Falcon), and work forward, adding some rules and changing others. I think it would be interesting to start with B/X and work backwards to the 3LBBs. To 3LBB aficionados, this gives them the best of both worlds – an essentially complete and coherent base rule system, walked backwards in time to revert some of the ‘Greyhawk-isms’. Or, to put it another way, what if Greyhawk had never been published? How would B/X have been different?

Here is what I envision a “no-Greyhawk B/X” would look like:

  • No variable hit dice – standardize hit dice for all player classes and monsters to d6.
  • Remove the thief class.
  • All weapons do d6 damage (which is already an option in B/X).
  • Monsters no longer gain attack routines. Multiple attacks are fine where sensible (e.g. a five-headed hydra still gets five attacks per round, but a ghoul would do just 1d6 damage as an abstraction for clawing or biting multiple times).
  • Reduce ability score bonuses/penalties to mostly +1 or -1.

Everything else can stay the same, including race-as-class, which is not all that different from forcing demi-humans into one class option. I should mention that Labyrinth Lord Original Edition Characters (LL OEC) does something like this in that it starts with LL as a base and changes the player options to be more like OD&D – but as I noted in my review of LL OEC, it has an identity crisis and keeps much of the trappings of Greyhawk.

So what are the advantages to doing this? You may ask, “Sure Doug, that’s great and all, but why not just play 3LBB D&D”? It’s a valid question. I see B/X as a solid and complete base that fills in the gaps and clarifies many of the rules from OD&D. So why not use it as-is and just tone it down a bit to get to a place I and other 3LBB fans are comfortable with?