D&D 1E Common House Rules for AD&D?

[Voadam]

Glyphs of Warding from that one cool Cerilon article back in the day

What is Cerilon?

 

[Mark Hope]

What is Cerilon?

It is/was the home campaign of Larry DiTillio - he detailed his approach to glyphs of warding and poisons in a couple of Dragon magazine articles. Great articles. I use his glyph stuff (Dragon #50) pretty much as-is and took inspiration from some of the poisons material (Dragon #59) as well. He wrote a bunch of cool stuff actually

 

[Mannahnin]

• Custom Bard/Skald class that starts from level 1

I like the original Strategic Review class and the AD&D one from Dragon Magazine #56.

To recap…
I replied to a bunch of stuff and included a terminology aside about AD&D (1e), you replied disagreeing and pointing to a cover as proof of your point about AD&D 2e, and I replied to you commenting on what editions call themselves on their covers.

1E and 2E are both AD&D. That's simply observable, material reality.

The shorthand nomenclature most D&D fans and history nerds use routinely isn't specifically ENworld dialect.

It only matters to the extent that clear and easy communication about our nerd hobbies matters.

OD&D, Holmes, B/X, or BECMI are “real”. AD&D was never really a separate entity, and likely would have never forked had Gary not tried to create a legally implied distinction.

AD&D was effectively going over Uncle Gary’s D&D house rules in a very long winded session zero.

I can definitely see that argument.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Agree completely!
That's why I call 1e "Real D&D" and the other versions "FALSE IDOLS!"
That's what you were getting at, right?

Joking aside, I remember bitd* buying into the notion that 'AD&D' should stand for the original game and not AD&D 2nd edition as well*. Nowadays that comes off to me like someone who insists on calling penny-farthing/high-wheeler old-timey bicycles 'ordinaries,' no matter how much conversational confusion it causes.
*and to say something about both of them needing to specify it somehow, like 'the two AD&D editions' or the like.

Fun trivia: In 1974 OD&D Clerics had spell books just like M-Us. They weren't done away with until the Holmes Basic set in 1977 (unless there's a Strategic Review article I'm overlooking).

It does not look like the cleric spellbooks were mentioned in Supplement I, where it is clarified that Magic Users don't know all the spells of appropriate level. I think it would have changed the ongoing developing game significantly if clerics had to keep spell (/prayer) books and go around learning spells as magic users did.

I've never liked the gradations of spell-granting deities that 1e presented.
The way I see it, if a deity can grant spells at all and a Cleric to that deity somehow gets powerful enough to cast high-level spells then the deity can grant those high-level spells. If nothing else this allows me-as-DM to throw in high-level Clerics to minor deities the PCs have never heard of, while also giving PC Clerics to minor deities something to aspire to.

Some of the incentivization structures in the game seem strange. I had thought that high-level spells were initially intended mostly for NPC use against the PCs (whom rarely were played to those levels), in which case I would think an evil cultist cleric of the quasi-demigod TharglsnrrelgX ought to be the ones throwing around the highest-level spells.

Ironically, while at the time we thought it was dumb that there were no healing spells at 2nd or 3rd level, between Cure Light at 1st and Cure Serious at 4th, and implemented a Cure Moderate Wounds at 2nd as one of our house rules, in practice that made the issue worse. When healing spells were only available at 1st and 4th you at least got to prep interesting utility stuff with your 2nd and 3rd level slots.

We were already doing our own house-ruled class stuff by the time those books came out, but in retrospect I'm not a fan of the additional Cure spells turning the Cleric into even more of a heal-bot.

I tend to agree, however the base system didn't give great alternatives. I don't think a specific solution ever materialized after it became clear that many groups weren't playing west march games*. The cleric could get the team up and ready** so much faster than natural healing, it would feel bad not to use such an option. I get why they did things like 5e making natural healing so*** good or 3e making clerics still the healbots, but also really powerful***. I almost wish clerics had their healing as a separate pool, or there was more guidance on alternates (clear concise rules on using in-city healers, for instance).
*where your PC could sit out 18 days to heal up the 18 hp they were down because you had 3 other PCs to play.
**to go up against that which much of the game was designed: PCs would to enter the dungeons at full health.
***I said I got it, not that I didn't see problems with these solutions

 

[Mannahnin]

It does not look like the cleric spellbooks were mentioned in Supplement I, where it is clarified that Magic Users don't know all the spells of appropriate level. I think it would have changed the ongoing developing game significantly if clerics had to keep spell (/prayer) books and go around learning spells as magic users did.

Yeah, I checked the text of supplements I-III before posting, to make sure. Greyhawk adds the stuff under the Intelligence table for Magic-Users (specifically) to need to check % to know a given spell, and lays out minimum and maximum numbers of spells known, but there is no language modifying OD&D's about both classes using spell books (that I've found so far) until Holmes Basic.

Some of the incentivization structures in the game seem strange. I had thought that high-level spells were initially intended mostly for NPC use against the PCs (whom rarely were played to those levels), in which case I would think an evil cultist cleric of the quasi-demigod TharglsnrrelgX ought to be the ones throwing around the highest-level spells.

Bear in mind the relatively quick cleric spell advancement tables from OD&D and B/X, though. Clerics get 5th level spells at only 7th level!* AD&D pushed that back to 9th as we are familiar with from later editions.

I tend to agree, however the base system didn't give great alternatives. I don't think a specific solution ever materialized after it became clear that many groups weren't playing west march games*. The cleric could get the team up and ready** so much faster than natural healing, it would feel bad not to use such an option. I get why they did things like 5e making natural healing so*** good or 3e making clerics still the healbots, but also really powerful***. I almost wish clerics had their healing as a separate pool, or there was more guidance on alternates (clear concise rules on using in-city healers, for instance).
*where your PC could sit out 18 days to heal up the 18 hp they were down because you had 3 other PCs to play.
**to go up against that which much of the game was designed: PCs would to enter the dungeons at full health.
***I said I got it, not that I didn't see problems with these solutions

I think there was always a tension with D&D healing between the dungeon-focused game and wanting games to play more like fantasy novels or action movies, where you need to be able to keep chasing villains and engaging in combat at the speed the plot demands. If you're just raiding a dungeon and pressing your luck and there's no plot with a ticking clock, slow natural healing is fine. The more fast-paced you want the action to be, though, the faster healing needs to be.

And over time as D&D transitioned from Classic to Trad being the dominant play style and moved on to the WotC editions wanting to be able to accommodate the novel/movie feel more and more, healing just kept accelerating, as Delta detailed at some length back in 2018.


*Though in OD&D with Greyhawk they had to wait until 12th and 17th to get 6th and 7th level spells, so yeah, your theory feels more applicable to those.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Yeah, I checked the text of supplements I-III before posting, to make sure. Greyhawk adds the stuff under the Intelligence table for Magic-Users (specifically) to need to check % to know a given spell, and lays out minimum and maximum numbers of spells known, but there is no language modifying OD&D's about both classes using spell books (that I've found so far) until Holmes Basic.

Oh yes, I'm not disputing that. I'm theorizing what would have happened if the Supplement 1 had included the spells known mechanic it implemented for magic users for clerics as well. Plenty of digital ink has been spilled about how clerics can cast from the entire cleric spell library; if they had to wander around collecting spells like the magic user/mage/wizard did, it would have had some interesting consequences (massively so if the cure/raise spells weren't automatic).

Bear in mind the relatively quick cleric spell advancement tables from OD&D and B/X, though. Clerics get 5th level spells at only 7th level!* AD&D pushed that back to 9th as we are familiar with from later editions.
*Though in OD&D with Greyhawk they had to wait until 12th and 17th to get 6th and 7th level spells, so yeah, your theory feels more applicable to those.

Good point. That means PC clerics would run into these limits in more campaigns. It wouldn't change that the epic acolyte of evil demigod/aspiring god would have a somewhat limited repertoire, which is the part I found most strange (not that the game was ever really afraid of breaking the rules for the adversaries).

I think there was always a tension with D&D healing between the dungeon-focused game and wanting games to play more like fantasy novels or action movies, where you need to be able to keep chasing villains and engaging in combat at the speed the plot demands. If you're just raiding a dungeon and pressing your luck and there's no plot with a ticking clock, slow natural healing is fine. The more fast-paced you want the action to be, though, the faster healing needs to be.

And over time as D&D transitioned from Classic to Trad being the dominant play style and moved on to the WotC editions wanting to be able to accommodate the novel/movie feel more and more, healing just kept accelerating, as Delta detailed at some length back in 2018.

Certainly for the whole TSR era (or at least up until 2E), I think there was a real feeling of 'you absolutely don't need to stay in the dungeons, but you're on your own/left to your own devices on making it work right if you do.'

 

[Mannahnin]

Oh yes, I'm not disputing that. I'm theorizing what would have happened if the Supplement 1 had included the spells known mechanic it implemented for magic users for clerics as well. Plenty of digital ink has been spilled about how clerics can cast from the entire cleric spell library; if they had to wander around collecting spells like the magic user/mage/wizard did, it would have had some interesting consequences (massively so if the cure/raise spells weren't automatic).

Oh yeah, definitely. I think I read a discussion on Reddit where someone was talking about doing this.

The Nightmares Underneath functionally does this, although it has almost all-new classes and has so many other variants built in that having all casters have a limited repertoire of random spells doesn't jump out like it would in an otherwise-straight retroclone.

Good point. That means PC clerics would run into these limits in more campaigns. It wouldn't change that the epic acolyte of evil demigod/aspiring god would have a somewhat limited repertoire, which is the part I found most strange (not that the game was ever really afraid of breaking the rules for the adversaries).

Yeah, as a general rule the DM gives the NPCs whatever they need.

Certainly for the whole TSR era (or at least up until 2E), I think there was a real feeling of 'you absolutely don't need to stay in the dungeons, but you're on your own/left to your own devices on making it work right if you do.'

Yuuuup. Death at zero being the default and so forth were feeling pretty awkward and incompatible with the mainstream of play by the time 2E came out.

 

[Voadam]

Oh yes, I'm not disputing that. I'm theorizing what would have happened if the Supplement 1 had included the spells known mechanic it implemented for magic users for clerics as well. Plenty of digital ink has been spilled about how clerics can cast from the entire cleric spell library; if they had to wander around collecting spells like the magic user/mage/wizard did, it would have had some interesting consequences (massively so if the cure/raise spells weren't automatic).

3.5 Heroes of Horror had the archivist that was a studious cleric who gained divine spells the way wizards did including divine spellbooks.

I went the opposite direction in my 3.5 house rules and made all clerics and druids sorcerer style spontaneous casters with limited known spells instead of access to preparing the whole class list everyday. This allowed clerics who were more specifically healers or more specialized oracle types or combat buffers, while still allowing one offs using scrolls as non-daily resources. It also meant you could not count on NPC or PC clerics to necessarily have easy routine access to any particular cleric spell unless they specifically specced out for that option. I felt it made divine casters more individually particularized.

 

[Lanefan]

• Glyphs of Warding from that one cool Cerilon article back in the day

Any chance you can expand on this one a bit? Curious to know what different glyph effects they might have added, and whether any of them match what I've/we've done.

EDIT: Reading further, I notice it's the Dragon article I'm already familiar with; we used that a base to build on a long time ago.

 

[Mannahnin]

I went the opposite direction in my 3.5 house rules and made all clerics and druids sorcerer style spontaneous casters with limited known spells instead of access to preparing the whole class list everyday. This allowed clerics who were more specifically healers or more specialized oracle types or combat buffers, while still allowing one offs using scrolls as non-daily resources. It also meant you could not count on NPC or PC clerics to necessarily have easy routine access to any particular cleric spell unless they specifically specced out for that option. I felt it made divine casters more individually particularized.

Skerples has a really cool article on his blog detailing clerics of Dunsany's Pegana, and talking about the themed miraculous powers they could have based on the deities. He doesn't go into mechanics, but it's a beautiful concept.