Alzrius
The EN World kitten
Huh, maybe I was asking about the specifics of what it took to keep a dragon subdued (beyond the general guidelines given there)? It was quite a few years ago now.
D&D 1E Favorite Obscure Rules from TSR-era D&D
- Thread starter Snarf Zagyg
- Start date
fuindordm
Adventurer
I was always confused by the subduing rules because they didn't seem to offer any downside over regular combat but I think I just had a breakthrough.
Was the idea that an attempt to subdue only lasts one round? So if PCs Alice, Bob and Curly manage to position themselves to melee simultaneously, and they all manage to hit doing 20/80 damage, there is a 25% chance that the dragon will submit. But if the roll fails, they wasted the round, did NO damage that counts towards ending the combat, and their next attacks don't cumulatively increase the probability of subdual.
I'm not sure if that interpretation is what GG had in mind, but it makes for a more interesting risk/reward scenario.
Was the idea that an attempt to subdue only lasts one round? So if PCs Alice, Bob and Curly manage to position themselves to melee simultaneously, and they all manage to hit doing 20/80 damage, there is a 25% chance that the dragon will submit. But if the roll fails, they wasted the round, did NO damage that counts towards ending the combat, and their next attacks don't cumulatively increase the probability of subdual.
I'm not sure if that interpretation is what GG had in mind, but it makes for a more interesting risk/reward scenario.
James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
I think the breath weapon was the main reason to deal damage to the dragon, since it's damage was based on the dragon's current hit points (I think, it's been awhile).
Thing is, in 2e a spellbook costs 5,000 gp which buys you either a 100-page traditional tome or a 50-page "traveling" spellbook (the 2e rules, at least, are silent on the actual benefits of a traveling spellbook). You're probably going to need multiple spellbooks – a 10th level wizard with Int 16 who has maxed out his spells known (11) for levels 1-3, half max (6) for level 4, and an additional 3 5th-level spells would have a spellbook taking up 42d6+63 pages, for an average of 210 pages. If you have one set of (5) traveling spellbooks and one backup normal set (of 3) at home, that's 40,000 gp in spellbooks. Should you need to replace your traveling set, that's 25,000 gp, and for every backup set you have that's an additional 15,000 gp. You can probably save 5,000, maybe 10,000 by curating your traveling set, but that's still an awful chunk of money. And that's in general class-based expenses, before you get into the high-level tower/lab/library shenanigans.
It also assumes that there is a safe space where you can store your spellbook. Traditionally, low-level characters tend to be itinerant (so-called murderhobos).
But the main limitation of the spellbook mechanic is on the DM. Because the spellbook is so crucial to the wizard, and because it is so expensive, it limits the possible plotlines. For example, the Dark Sun classic Freedom! starts with the PCs, one way or another, being captured and enslaved, and stripped of all their gear. The adventure mentions that the captors will miss the significance of any spellbook, but you still lose it. So long, entire reason for the class's existence. Might as well roll up a new character.
There is an example in the Monster Manual that makes clear the subdual probability is cumulative.
1e says "The breath weapon causes damage equal to the dragon's hit points (half that amount if a saving throw is made)". It is not explicit whether that means current or maximum hit points. (Moldvay basic does clearly say that it's current hit points.) The DMG (p. 67) makes clear that 25% of subdual damage is real, so if the breath weapon is based on current HP, it ought to be at least partly reduced. However, the example of subdual in the MM shows the breath weapon doing damage equal to the dragon's max HP, even though the dragon has already taken 67 subdual damage (and so the breath damage should be reduced by 17 if based on current HP).
the Jester
Legend
5e's spellbook rules are, IMNSHO, anemic and inadequate. By the RAW, it appears that a wizard could hold literally every spell that exists in a single spellbook.
1e had great spellbook rules, including the potential (and commensurate risk) to use your spellbook like a collection of scrolls in extremis, with a chance (I think 1%) of erasing the whole spellbook when you did so. This was one of the best parts of Unearthed Arcana.
The main difference is, I think, that the cost of AD&D spellbooks is front-loaded. You pay 5000 gp for either a 50-page traveling spellbook or a 100-page regular one, but then there's no cost of scribing spells into it. Starting with 3e, the spellbook itself is cheap (15 gp in 3e, 50 gp in 5e), but actual scribing costs money (100 gp per spell level in 3e, half that for making a backup; 50 gp per spell level in 5e with a 10 gp per spell level backup cost).
They do seem to have missed writing how many pages any one spell takes up though in 5e.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
Pathfinder 1E, I'll note, lowered the cost of writing spells into spellbooks by quite a bit, making it [spell level squared] x 10 gp.
the Jester
Legend
My main complaints are that you can put any number of spells in a spellbook, there's no concept of how long it is or how much a blank one costs (unless a mundane blank book is adequate, which is not to my taste), and you can't prepare spells that you haven't put in your own spellbook. No wizard under these rules should have a library, they should just have a single book.
Nah, I prefer my wizards to have lots of books on shelves in dusty lairs.
My off the cuff system would be 1,000 for a book of 100 pages; 1 page per spell level for a spell formula; and relatively cheap scribing costs (10 gp x spell level seems okay at low levels, but inadequate for high level spells; maybe level squared x 10 gp? Wish costing approx. 1,000 gp to scribe makes sense to me).
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
One of my favorites is not really an obscure rule so much as an obscure origin. Lots of people aren't familiar with Tolkien or not enough to realize that the Aragorn class was in 1e and might be wondering at the oddly specific ability of Rangers to use palant, er, crystal balls.
