D&D 1E Favorite Obscure Rules from TSR-era D&D

[Alzrius]

PHBR13 The Complete Druid's Handbook had expanded rules for agriculture, which you could use "if a PC takes up farming." Yes, it actually said that.

I'll reiterate now what I said back when I first made note of this: if your player wants to take up farming, they're running an NPC.

 

[Alzrius]

In the 2E Legends & Lore book, each god's entry ended with a (very abbreviated) entry for what their specialty priests got; what weapons they could use, what alignment they had to be, what armor they were allowed to wear...and what clerical spheres they had access to.

For those who don't know, in AD&D 2E cleric spells were grouped under "spheres," much like how arcane spells were grouped into schools, and clerics, druids, and specialty priests only had access to certain spheres.

But here's the thing...the god Quetzalcoatl (page 49) had a spheres listing of "any." So apparently, you could cast spells from any sphere if he was your god of choice! Contrast this with the entry for specialty priests of Ometeotl, whose sphere entry said "all," which was quite ambiguous since "All" was the name of a particular clerical sphere (which only had a few spells in it; it was so named because it was expected that all divine spellcasters would be granted access to it, regardless of their god's portfolio).

 

[billd91]

Things could get painful for certain kinds of helpless targets in 1e. If magically sleeping or held, not only did attacks always hit and do max damage, you got double your normal number of attacks against them. The Assassination table could even be used by any PC, not just assassins.

 

[Zaukrie]

PHBR13 The Complete Druid's Handbook had expanded rules for agriculture, which you could use "if a PC takes up farming." Yes, it actually said that.

I'll reiterate now what I said back when I first made note of this: if your player wants to take up farming, they're running an NPC.

Must be where the idea for Rebel Moon came from.....

 

[Kannik]

Things could get painful for certain kinds of helpless targets in 1e. If magically sleeping or held, not only did attacks always hit and do max damage, you got double your normal number of attacks against them. The Assassination table could even be used by any PC, not just assassins.

IIRC, in the Gold Box/Silver Box games, they had hitting a held target as an auto-kill. Cue my spellcaster paralyzing a dragon, then throwing a single dart to annihilate them...

 

[Voadam]

It probably doesn't qualify as obscure, but I rather like the weapon vs armor type modifiers and thought they made the fighter's ability to use any weapon actually useful and relevant.

I really wanted to like this rule and have the effects of shields or ring mail versus scale matter when using a tulwar or horseman's mace and tried implementing it when I first started DMing.

But unfortunately in 1e the chart was incoherent in that aspect thanks to the doubling up of armors or armors and shields for every AC marker between 7 and 3 and there being adjustments for every AC between 2 (plate and shield) and 10 (unarmored, no shield). So the adjustments for AC 3 apply to plate mail with no shield and to splint mail with shield and banded mail with shield.

The effect of having a shield is inconsistent in the chart. A battle axe against plate mail (AC 3) is -1 but against plate and shield is -3 so a -2 adjustment for the shield. However the axe gets a +2 against an unarmored person with no shield and a +1 against an unarmored person with a shield, so -1 adjustment for the shield. If you have AC 7 ring mail the axe gets +0 but AC 6 ring mail plus shield is also +0 so no shield adjustment. If you have AC 5 chain mail the axe gets -1 adjustment but against AC 4 chains and shield it gets +1 so a +2 shield adjustment there.

My favorite obscure rule then is that the 1e DMG suggests the whole AC adjustment thing is only a discretionary optional rule.

DMG page 28:
"WEAPON TYPES, “TO HIT” ADJUSTMENT NOTE
If you allow weapon type adjustments in your campaign please be certain to remember that these adjustments are for weapons versus specific types of armor, not necessarily against actual armor class. In most cases, monsters not wearing armor will not have any weapon type adjustment allowed, as monster armor class in such cases pertains to the size, shape, agility, speed, and/or magical nature of the creature. Not excluded from this, for example, would be an iron golem. However, monsters with horny or bony armor might be classed as plate mail if you so decide, but do so on a case-by-case basis. Naturally, monsters wearing armor will be subject to weapon type “to hit” adjustment."

 

[John R Davis]

It probably doesn't qualify as obscure, but I rather like the weapon vs armor type modifiers and thought they made the fighter's ability to use any weapon actually useful and relevant.

Footmans Flail for the win.
We always use these and don't find they slow things at all.

 

[Voadam]

IIRC, in the Gold Box/Silver Box games, they had hitting a held target as an auto-kill. Cue my spellcaster paralyzing a dragon, then throwing a single dart to annihilate them...

1e DMG page 67:

"(Cf. MELEE, Magically Sleeping or Held Opponents.)
Apply bonuses to the chance of the opponent being struck. The opponent will gain no dexterity bonus, of course. In totally immobilized and powerless situations, the opponent can be fully trussed, slain, or whatever in 1 round, so no bonus need be given."

Running a campaign with an evil cleric magic user PC with both sleep and hold person this rule came up a bunch in my game.

 

[John R Davis]

I like that potions are pretty quick to drink so we allowed to do some other fast things as well

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

In the 2E Legends & Lore book, each god's entry ended with a (very abbreviated) entry for what their specialty priests got; what weapons they could use, what alignment they had to be, what armor they were allowed to wear...and what clerical spheres they had access to.

My favorite was priest of Horus. You got to be a Paladin, Clerical spellcasting, and Chaotic Good alignment; all for delaying Turn Undead until 5th level.