I haven't posted an essay in a while, but while I'm slowly working on two (yes yes, one of them is that Tolkien thing, and the other is about Paranoia), I thought I'd do a quick dive into a somewhat obscure area of AD&D rules as sort of a nice ... cantaloupe sorbet. A mental palate cleanser to try and get rid of the detritus and bard references that otherwise clog my creative process.
On occasion, I like to discuss obscure 1e rules. Or sometimes do a really deep dive into the history of a specific rule, like how system shock evolved to nerf haste. And once, I even talked about overpowered magic items in AD&D.
In that last thread, about overpowered magic items, I referenced the "Holy Trinity" in AD&D, which I thought was at least somewhat well-known. Well, I thought wrong! Here's the thing- the rules of AD&D were a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma buried underneath layers of High Gygaxian verbiage, so sometimes the most insane and overpowered items that would make a 3e PunPun lover drop their min-maxed build and say, "Bruh, that's a bit too much ...." were hidden in plain sight...
Or, as Gygax might write, "Verily, the true splendor of the unique properties of the zenith of the antithesis of decrepitude can only be discerned by a thorough comprehension of the librams and compendiums to which any a learned sage must apply themselves.'
So what was the Holy Trinity in AD&D, why was it the ultimate in Monty Haul Gaming, and why did make the heart of every powergamer go pitter-pat faster than a Lawful Stupid Paladin stumbling on a Holy Avenger?
A. So, do you like Thor?
In order to understand the Holy Trinity, it helps remember the Norse myth about Thor. Now, most of us know him from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Gygax don't play that game. Gygax was thinking of the Thor as related in the Eddas (Eddur) - a collection of poems and another work (the prose edda). Now, there's a lot of disparate information about Thor in it, but for purposes of ... AD&D (ahem, don't get people started on Deities & Demigods, please), the three things to take from this sourcing are as follows:
1. Thor had a hammer. Mjolnir.
2. Thor had iron gloves. Jarngreipr.
3. Thor had a belt. Megingjoro.
There are various stories of Thor, but among them there are some common themes. Thor was a prolific giant-slayer. He governed (was the "god of") thunder and lightning. And he was strong. So very strong.
And that hammer? It was wicked awesome. Here, you can think of the MCU. He could toss it - and it would come back to him. So now, with that information in your head, it's time to look at the text of three specific items in the 1e DMG.
B. The Text of the Holy Trinity.
The Holy Trinity Consists of Three Items- A girdle of giant strength (storm giant, if you're going full Monty Haul), gauntlets of ogre strength, and a hammer of thunderbolts (a magic hammer). In other words, a hammer, gloves, and a belt. Here's the descriptions (I am bolding, underlining, and italicizing the relevant parts):
Gauntlets of Ogre Power: A pair of ogre power gauntlets appear the same as typical handwear for armor. The wearer of these gloves, however, is imbued with 18/00 strength in his or her hands, arms, and shoulders. When striking with the hand or with a weapon hurled or held, the gauntlets add +3 to hit probability and +6 to damage inflicted when a hit is made. These gauntlets are particularly desirable when combined with a girdle of giant strength and a hurled weapon. They enlarge or shrink to fit human to halfling-sized hands.
Girdle of Giant Strength: This belt looks similar to those normal to adventuring. It is imbued with very powerful magic, of course, and when worn it increases the physical prowess of its wearer as follows:
*The number in parentheses is the number of chances out of 6 (8 for storm giant strength) for the character to be able to force open a locked, barred, magically held, or wizard locked door, but only one attempt ever (per door) may be made, and if it fails, no further attempts can succeed.
The wearer of the girdle is able to otherwise hurl rocks and bend bars as if he or she had imbibed a potion of giant strength. {Rock hurling and bar bending abilities omitted for space}
The strength gained is not cumulative with normal or magical strength bonuses except with regard to use in combination with gauntlets of ogre power and magic war hammers (q.v.).
Hammer of Thunderbolts appears to be a regular hammer of largish size and extra weight. It will be too imbalanced, somehow, to wield properly in combat, unless the character has 18/01 or better strength and a height of over 6'. The hammer then functions as +3 and gains double damage dice an any hit. If the wielder wears any girdle of giant strength and gauntlets of ogre power in addition, he or she may properly wield the weapon if the hammer's true name is known. When swung or hurled it gains a +5, double damage dice, all girdle and gauntlets bonuses, and strikes dead any giant* upon which it scores a hit. When hurled and successfully hitting, a great noise as if a clap of thunder broke overhead will resound, stunning all creatures within 3” for 1 round. Throwing range is 1” + %”/point of strength bonus for the gauntlets and girdle, i.e. 6 + 7 to 12 = 13 to 18 X %” = 6%”, 7”, 7%”, 8‘, 8%”, 9”. (Thor would throw the hammer about double the above ranges . . . ). The hammer of thunderbolts is very difficult to hurl, so only 1 throw every other round can be mode, and after 5 throws within the space of any 2 turn period, the wielder must rest for 1 turn.
*Depending on your campaign, you might wish to limit the effect to exclude storm giants and include ogres, ogre magi, trolls, ettins, and clay, flesh, and stone golems.
Hammers can be hurled just as hand axes are.
C. Why is the Holy Trinity So Powerful?
The thing to understand about 1e is that it wasn't written with some kind of basic "rules grammar" in place. It was written in mostly natural language (to the extent that High Gygaxian is natural) and the rules evolved over time to deal with different cases. But for that reason ... the way that the rules interacted with new use cases resulted in certain weird aspects. For example, there was another item (the scarab of protection) that would allow you to get saving throws against anything that would not allow you to have a saving throw. It set the save at 20, but it also let you apply other bonuses to it ... which meant that you could have rules for effects that were specifically set up to not allow saves, and yet there was another item that specifically violated this rule.
In 1e (especially before UA and weapon specialization), damage from weapons was hard to come by because hit points were more limited. And for the most part, you didn't get to stack different bonuses. And because 1e didn't have "crits," you didn't get to double your damage dice. Now I'm not saying there weren't other "cool" and "overpowered" items- every Paladin was looking for a Holy Avenger. Y'all wanted the vorpal blade to go snicker-snack. If the Sword of Kas didn't kill you first, it would probably kill yourVecna enemy. And so on. But the sheer absurdity of the Holy Trinity in operation was the Mountain Dew that fueled many a Monty Haul campaign- it was what could lead the daydreaming players to pick up a copy of Deities & Demigods and then say to themselves, "Self, if you stat it, you can kill it." Why?
Let's ignore all the other cool features- the big boom that stuns all creatures (no save) for one round. The fact that it KILLS GIANTS (no save) when it hits. Let's just look at what it does on an average round of melee combat.
Your fighter has just turned level 13, which means he finally gets 2 attacks per round. He has a girdle of storm giant strength, gauntlets of ogre power, and the hammer of thunderbolts.
Gauntlets are +3/+6
Girdle is +6/+12
That stacks. So now you're at +9 to hit, +18 to damage. Cool cool! But the hammer is +5/+5, so you're at +14 to hit, +23 to damage. The hammer itself is 2-5/1-4, but you get double damage dice.
So each attack is +14 to hit, 4-10+23.
Now, since you're 13th level, remember that in AD&D (1e), a natural one on an attack roll is not a guaranteed miss. So this Fighter with the Holy Trinity is guaranteed to hit anything with -7AC (basically, anything in the game with a few small exceptions), and only needs a 4 to hit -10. In effect, they are guaranteed two hits per round, with average damage of ...
(2.5*4+4+46)= 60 points of damage, per round. Even better, their lowest possible damage output is 54 points. (Note- it will be slightly lower against L critters)
In addition, when the fighter reaches 15th level, he autohits everything except -10 AC (he misses that on a 1) and at 17th level, he autohits everything.
D. Okay, but is it that powerful? Comparing the Holy Trinity's Damage to the Other Insane Damage Output.
With all of that in mind, I think it's helpful to compare the Holy Trinity (which I saw employed in friends' Monty Haul campaigns at the time) with another insane ability in 1e that I never actually saw used. The 1e Monk Class was infamous, because it sucked so hard for so long, but if you looked at the upper levels, it had some truly insane abilities. It's hard to compare apples to oranges, but everyone loves to talk about the pinnacle of Monkdom- the damage output you would get at 17th Level (the highest level you can achieve as a monk).
At 17th level, you can get 4 open hand attacks, each of which could do 8-32 hit points of damage. So your damage output, per round, on average, would be (8*2.5*4)= 80 points! Not too shabby, and beats the so-called Holy Trinity, amirite? Except .... here's the thing. Monks were prohibited from ... getting any strength bonuses ... which mean no "to hit" or "to damage" bonuses. At 17th level, a Monk needed a 10 to hit AC 0, and an 11 to hit AC -1. That meant that unlike the fighter that was auto-hitting everything, the Monk would be missing a lot of those shots. The Monk's damage was incredibly variable- unlike the Holy Trinity, which had a floor (with two hits per round on a large critter) of 50 hit points, the Monk could be missing, and each hit could do as little as 8 points.
E. What's the Real Point of All of This?
Honestly, just to clear out some cobwebs so I can write something else. But ... maybe to keep reminding people that the past isn't a monolith. "Ye olde days of D&D" wasn't just some time when evil DMs killed off scores of hapless PCs in mega dungeons (Here comes Bjorn XVII) by monsters, traps, and dysentery. "Monty Haul" campaigns (the type where players was powergaming and getting all the loots and the treasures and the stuff and weren't challenged) was already such a thing that it was warned about in Gods, Demigods & Heroes in 1976 ... when people were told that the purpose was to show how ridiculous these campaigns and players were by showing them how "Gods" would be stated .... and the reaction?
Cool. Now we have more powerful things to kill!
Because it's a rule as old as it is eternal ... no, not just "if you stat it, it can bleed." If you put cool items in the rules, players will want to use them. If Gygax thought it would be cool to put a reference to Thor in the DMG, and then make it super duper powerful because, um, Thor ... you can't really blame tables for wanting to try it out? And ... is it that much worse that a Vorpal Sword, which will decapitate most opponents when you roll a 17, 18, 19, or 20 (aka, 20% of the time).
I am reminded of this- in my area, back in the day, a DM made the mistake of allowing PCs at middle level (before they went on G1-G3) to buy magic items in the DM's Guide at sale price. And since they had accumulated a lot of gold, what do you think they bought? That's right. A hammer of thunderbolts (25k). Gauntlets of ogre power (15k). And a girdle of giant strength (2.5k, really ... never understood that one). And let's just say that given that they could now strike giants dead, the damage was the least of the problems.
Anyway, talk about the Holy Trinity. Or weird overpowered things AD&D. Or not!
On occasion, I like to discuss obscure 1e rules. Or sometimes do a really deep dive into the history of a specific rule, like how system shock evolved to nerf haste. And once, I even talked about overpowered magic items in AD&D.
In that last thread, about overpowered magic items, I referenced the "Holy Trinity" in AD&D, which I thought was at least somewhat well-known. Well, I thought wrong! Here's the thing- the rules of AD&D were a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma buried underneath layers of High Gygaxian verbiage, so sometimes the most insane and overpowered items that would make a 3e PunPun lover drop their min-maxed build and say, "Bruh, that's a bit too much ...." were hidden in plain sight...
Or, as Gygax might write, "Verily, the true splendor of the unique properties of the zenith of the antithesis of decrepitude can only be discerned by a thorough comprehension of the librams and compendiums to which any a learned sage must apply themselves.'
So what was the Holy Trinity in AD&D, why was it the ultimate in Monty Haul Gaming, and why did make the heart of every powergamer go pitter-pat faster than a Lawful Stupid Paladin stumbling on a Holy Avenger?
A. So, do you like Thor?
In order to understand the Holy Trinity, it helps remember the Norse myth about Thor. Now, most of us know him from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Gygax don't play that game. Gygax was thinking of the Thor as related in the Eddas (Eddur) - a collection of poems and another work (the prose edda). Now, there's a lot of disparate information about Thor in it, but for purposes of ... AD&D (ahem, don't get people started on Deities & Demigods, please), the three things to take from this sourcing are as follows:
1. Thor had a hammer. Mjolnir.
2. Thor had iron gloves. Jarngreipr.
3. Thor had a belt. Megingjoro.
There are various stories of Thor, but among them there are some common themes. Thor was a prolific giant-slayer. He governed (was the "god of") thunder and lightning. And he was strong. So very strong.
And that hammer? It was wicked awesome. Here, you can think of the MCU. He could toss it - and it would come back to him. So now, with that information in your head, it's time to look at the text of three specific items in the 1e DMG.
B. The Text of the Holy Trinity.
The Holy Trinity Consists of Three Items- A girdle of giant strength (storm giant, if you're going full Monty Haul), gauntlets of ogre strength, and a hammer of thunderbolts (a magic hammer). In other words, a hammer, gloves, and a belt. Here's the descriptions (I am bolding, underlining, and italicizing the relevant parts):
Gauntlets of Ogre Power: A pair of ogre power gauntlets appear the same as typical handwear for armor. The wearer of these gloves, however, is imbued with 18/00 strength in his or her hands, arms, and shoulders. When striking with the hand or with a weapon hurled or held, the gauntlets add +3 to hit probability and +6 to damage inflicted when a hit is made. These gauntlets are particularly desirable when combined with a girdle of giant strength and a hurled weapon. They enlarge or shrink to fit human to halfling-sized hands.
Girdle of Giant Strength: This belt looks similar to those normal to adventuring. It is imbued with very powerful magic, of course, and when worn it increases the physical prowess of its wearer as follows:
| Dice Roll | Type of Giant | Strength | To Hit | Damage | Open Doors* |
| 01 -30 | Hill | 19 | +3 | +7 | 7 in 8 (3) |
| 31 -50 | Stone | 20 | +3 | +8 | 7 in 8 (3) |
| 51 -70 | Frost | 21 | +4 | +9 | 9 in 10 (4) |
| 71 -85 | Fire | 22 | +4 | +10 | 11 in12 (4) |
| 86-95 | Cloud | 23 | +5 | +11 | 11 in 12 (5) |
| 96-00 | Storm | 24 | +6 | +12 | 19 in 20 (7 in 8) |
The wearer of the girdle is able to otherwise hurl rocks and bend bars as if he or she had imbibed a potion of giant strength. {Rock hurling and bar bending abilities omitted for space}
The strength gained is not cumulative with normal or magical strength bonuses except with regard to use in combination with gauntlets of ogre power and magic war hammers (q.v.).
Hammer of Thunderbolts appears to be a regular hammer of largish size and extra weight. It will be too imbalanced, somehow, to wield properly in combat, unless the character has 18/01 or better strength and a height of over 6'. The hammer then functions as +3 and gains double damage dice an any hit. If the wielder wears any girdle of giant strength and gauntlets of ogre power in addition, he or she may properly wield the weapon if the hammer's true name is known. When swung or hurled it gains a +5, double damage dice, all girdle and gauntlets bonuses, and strikes dead any giant* upon which it scores a hit. When hurled and successfully hitting, a great noise as if a clap of thunder broke overhead will resound, stunning all creatures within 3” for 1 round. Throwing range is 1” + %”/point of strength bonus for the gauntlets and girdle, i.e. 6 + 7 to 12 = 13 to 18 X %” = 6%”, 7”, 7%”, 8‘, 8%”, 9”. (Thor would throw the hammer about double the above ranges . . . ). The hammer of thunderbolts is very difficult to hurl, so only 1 throw every other round can be mode, and after 5 throws within the space of any 2 turn period, the wielder must rest for 1 turn.
*Depending on your campaign, you might wish to limit the effect to exclude storm giants and include ogres, ogre magi, trolls, ettins, and clay, flesh, and stone golems.
Hammers can be hurled just as hand axes are.
C. Why is the Holy Trinity So Powerful?
The thing to understand about 1e is that it wasn't written with some kind of basic "rules grammar" in place. It was written in mostly natural language (to the extent that High Gygaxian is natural) and the rules evolved over time to deal with different cases. But for that reason ... the way that the rules interacted with new use cases resulted in certain weird aspects. For example, there was another item (the scarab of protection) that would allow you to get saving throws against anything that would not allow you to have a saving throw. It set the save at 20, but it also let you apply other bonuses to it ... which meant that you could have rules for effects that were specifically set up to not allow saves, and yet there was another item that specifically violated this rule.
In 1e (especially before UA and weapon specialization), damage from weapons was hard to come by because hit points were more limited. And for the most part, you didn't get to stack different bonuses. And because 1e didn't have "crits," you didn't get to double your damage dice. Now I'm not saying there weren't other "cool" and "overpowered" items- every Paladin was looking for a Holy Avenger. Y'all wanted the vorpal blade to go snicker-snack. If the Sword of Kas didn't kill you first, it would probably kill your
Let's ignore all the other cool features- the big boom that stuns all creatures (no save) for one round. The fact that it KILLS GIANTS (no save) when it hits. Let's just look at what it does on an average round of melee combat.
Your fighter has just turned level 13, which means he finally gets 2 attacks per round. He has a girdle of storm giant strength, gauntlets of ogre power, and the hammer of thunderbolts.
Gauntlets are +3/+6
Girdle is +6/+12
That stacks. So now you're at +9 to hit, +18 to damage. Cool cool! But the hammer is +5/+5, so you're at +14 to hit, +23 to damage. The hammer itself is 2-5/1-4, but you get double damage dice.
So each attack is +14 to hit, 4-10+23.
Now, since you're 13th level, remember that in AD&D (1e), a natural one on an attack roll is not a guaranteed miss. So this Fighter with the Holy Trinity is guaranteed to hit anything with -7AC (basically, anything in the game with a few small exceptions), and only needs a 4 to hit -10. In effect, they are guaranteed two hits per round, with average damage of ...
(2.5*4+4+46)= 60 points of damage, per round. Even better, their lowest possible damage output is 54 points. (Note- it will be slightly lower against L critters)
In addition, when the fighter reaches 15th level, he autohits everything except -10 AC (he misses that on a 1) and at 17th level, he autohits everything.
D. Okay, but is it that powerful? Comparing the Holy Trinity's Damage to the Other Insane Damage Output.
With all of that in mind, I think it's helpful to compare the Holy Trinity (which I saw employed in friends' Monty Haul campaigns at the time) with another insane ability in 1e that I never actually saw used. The 1e Monk Class was infamous, because it sucked so hard for so long, but if you looked at the upper levels, it had some truly insane abilities. It's hard to compare apples to oranges, but everyone loves to talk about the pinnacle of Monkdom- the damage output you would get at 17th Level (the highest level you can achieve as a monk).
At 17th level, you can get 4 open hand attacks, each of which could do 8-32 hit points of damage. So your damage output, per round, on average, would be (8*2.5*4)= 80 points! Not too shabby, and beats the so-called Holy Trinity, amirite? Except .... here's the thing. Monks were prohibited from ... getting any strength bonuses ... which mean no "to hit" or "to damage" bonuses. At 17th level, a Monk needed a 10 to hit AC 0, and an 11 to hit AC -1. That meant that unlike the fighter that was auto-hitting everything, the Monk would be missing a lot of those shots. The Monk's damage was incredibly variable- unlike the Holy Trinity, which had a floor (with two hits per round on a large critter) of 50 hit points, the Monk could be missing, and each hit could do as little as 8 points.
E. What's the Real Point of All of This?
Honestly, just to clear out some cobwebs so I can write something else. But ... maybe to keep reminding people that the past isn't a monolith. "Ye olde days of D&D" wasn't just some time when evil DMs killed off scores of hapless PCs in mega dungeons (Here comes Bjorn XVII) by monsters, traps, and dysentery. "Monty Haul" campaigns (the type where players was powergaming and getting all the loots and the treasures and the stuff and weren't challenged) was already such a thing that it was warned about in Gods, Demigods & Heroes in 1976 ... when people were told that the purpose was to show how ridiculous these campaigns and players were by showing them how "Gods" would be stated .... and the reaction?
Cool. Now we have more powerful things to kill!
Because it's a rule as old as it is eternal ... no, not just "if you stat it, it can bleed." If you put cool items in the rules, players will want to use them. If Gygax thought it would be cool to put a reference to Thor in the DMG, and then make it super duper powerful because, um, Thor ... you can't really blame tables for wanting to try it out? And ... is it that much worse that a Vorpal Sword, which will decapitate most opponents when you roll a 17, 18, 19, or 20 (aka, 20% of the time).
I am reminded of this- in my area, back in the day, a DM made the mistake of allowing PCs at middle level (before they went on G1-G3) to buy magic items in the DM's Guide at sale price. And since they had accumulated a lot of gold, what do you think they bought? That's right. A hammer of thunderbolts (25k). Gauntlets of ogre power (15k). And a girdle of giant strength (2.5k, really ... never understood that one). And let's just say that given that they could now strike giants dead, the damage was the least of the problems.
Anyway, talk about the Holy Trinity. Or weird overpowered things AD&D. Or not!
