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

[Voadam]

In AD&D (see DMG page 37), M-Us start with a book containing Read Magic, and 3 random spells, one each generated on short tables of Offensive, Defensive, and Misc. spells. They're d10 tables and if you roll a 10 you get to choose! When gaining a level you automatically add one new spell of your choice to your book

Page 39

Where does it say that it is of your choice? That would have changed my campaigns as a player and as a DM significantly.

Spells Beyond Those At Start:
Naturally, magic-user player characters will do their utmost to acquire books of spells and scrolls in order to complete their own spell books. To those acquired, the magic-user will add 1 (and ONLY 1) spell when he or she actually gains an experience level (q.v.).

 

[Voadam]

In OD&D charm person was essentially enslave until dispelled.

"If the spell is successful it will cause the charmed entity to come completely under the influence of the Magic-User until such time as the “charm” is dispelled (Dispel Magic)."

 

[Voadam]

How the heck do you guys remember all these rules? It's been more than 35 years since I've played 1st edition. If I'm honest with you, 1st and 2nd edition blend so well in my memories that I can't really tell them apart and I certainly can't remember all these obscure rules though I remember a few. I'll certainly never forget that random harlot table. That table made a man out of me.

I spent a lot of time going over the 1e rules to try to make sense of them so that I would get them right as a DM and I DM'd a lot for a long time in the 1e era and continued to use my 1e DMG through the 2e era with the new PHB.

Also the 1e rules are so specific and idiosyncratic that a lot of the weirdness can stand out in memory.

Having the PDFs with a search function is also super useful for looking up things I half remember.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I spent a lot of time going over the 1e rules to try to make sense of them so that I would get them right as a DM and I DM'd a lot for a long time in the 1e era and continued to use my 1e DMG through the 2e era with the new PHB.

Also the 1e rules are so specific and idiosyncratic that a lot of the weirdness can stand out in memory.

Having the PDFs with a search function is also super useful for looking up things I half remember.

I also have noticed that a lot of people remember the 2e rules and read those back into the 1e rules. Memory is a tricky thing!

Personally, I enjoy trying to make sense of the weird and conflicting rules in 1e. Because I'm a masochist, I guess?

D&D General - How to Read a Rule: Dueling Canons in D&D

A recent thread on first level Magic Users in AD&D (1e) ended up meandering, as threads are wont to do, into discussing various opaque rules from the Gygaxian era and the "officialness" of Sage Advice from that time. Oh, we also discussed how to best serve Bards ... my suggestion? Medium Rarye...

www.enworld.org

 

[Willie the Duck]

not sure how obscure it was, but I recall a rule about fighters getting one attack per level when facing critters with less than 1HD. I remember it being useful when you were level 4-5, but after that, the DM generally stopped throwing hordes of kobolds at you....

In oD&D, it was 1HD or less, but HD was defined as D6 (with fighters having 1d6+1 HD at level one instead of the 1d8 and later 1d10 it would eventually become).

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

not sure how obscure it was, but I recall a rule about fighters getting one attack per level when facing critters with less than 1HD. I remember it being useful when you were level 4-5, but after that, the DM generally stopped throwing hordes of kobolds at you....

Yep. It's in the PHB.

It was a footnote under the table for number of attacks per round, so it was often missed by people.

This excludes melee combat with monsters (q.v.) of less than one hit die (d8) and non-exceptional (0 level) humans and semi-humans, i.e. all creatures with less than one eight-sided hit die. All of these creatures entitle a fighter to attack once for each of his or her experience levels.

 

[Mannahnin]

Page 39

Typo fixed, thanks.

Where does it say that it is of your choice? That would have changed my campaigns as a player and as a DM significantly.

Spells Beyond Those At Start:
Naturally, magic-user player characters will do their utmost to acquire books of spells and scrolls in order to complete their own spell books. To those acquired, the magic-user will add 1 (and ONLY 1) spell when he or she actually gains an experience level (q.v.).

Fair question! It does not explicitly say so here. I infer it from a few things.

1. The phrasing- the magic-user adds the spell. This implies to me that it is a product of their research and study to gain the level.
2. They are not described as being granted one by their master. And in fact there may be no master, as the training rules specify that if you have a performance rating of 1 or 2, or if you've reached name level, you don't need one. Contrast this to 1st level, where the DMG explicitly outlines how to determine which spells their master gave them. And also to B/X, for example, where an MU or Elf is described as always being trained by a higher level master (though B/X specifies that either the player or DM may choose the new spell). If they're not being given one by a master, then I infer that it must be the product of their research.
3. It's also implied by the PH section on % chance to know spells under Intelligence, which tells us under the Chance to Know Each Listed Spell entry (PH 10) that the player selects spells in any desired order to check their ability to learn them.

It's a weird meta-procedure, but I've heard of some folks going through a process that whenever an MU gains a new spell level (including at character creation) they go through the list of all spells for that level (in any order they wish, per the above reference) and determine all the ones their character can know. And that they don't actually add the spells to their book until they find them or acquire them on gaining a level, but once they either find it or gain a level, they can add a spell they've passed that check on to their book.

 

[James Gasik]

Huh, they also nerfed torches from 40' radius down to 15' and from an hour to only half an hour?
View attachment 364701

Continual light stones at 3rd level it is.

It's very interesting that this aspect of exploration actually got harder in 2e than 1e (despite what many of my grog friends claim), however, at the same time, my memories of 2e (rose-colored and dim as they may be) seem to indicate that was the time when slowly tapping every square inch of dungeon with an 11 foot pole that has continual light cast on it stopped being the norm, and people wanted to get to the action/story faster, so a lot of these rules were overlooked. Maybe on purpose, maybe not, YMMV.

 

[overgeeked]

Typo fixed, thanks.


Fair question! It does not explicitly say so here. I infer it from a few things.

1. The phrasing- the magic-user adds the spell. This implies to me that it is a product of their research and study to gain the level.
2. They are not described as being granted one by their master. And in fact there may be no master, as the training rules specify that if you have a performance rating of 1 or 2, or if you've reached name level, you don't need one. Contrast this to 1st level, where the DMG explicitly outlines how to determine which spells their master gave them. And also to B/X, for example, where an MU or Elf is described as always being trained by a higher level master (though B/X specifies that either the player or DM may choose the new spell). If they're not being given one by a master, then I infer that it must be the product of their research.
3. It's also implied by the PH section on % chance to know spells under Intelligence, which tells us under the Chance to Know Each Listed Spell entry (PH 10) that the player selects spells in any desired order to check their ability to learn them.

It's a weird meta-procedure, but I've heard of some folks going through a process that whenever an MU gains a new spell level (including at character creation) they go through the list of all spells for that level (in any order they wish, per the above reference) and determine all the ones their character can know. And that they don't actually add the spells to their book until they find them or acquire them on gaining a level, but once they either find it or gain a level, they can add a spell they've passed that check on to their book.

For me, this is where checking 2E comes in handy. The notion of one new spell on gaining levels is removed and all spells are taught by your mentor or found through adventuring. Revised PHB, p108.

 

[James Gasik]

That's the 2nd ed version, but it's just carrying forward an existing rule from 1E. DMG page 81:

That's even better! I'll have to remember that the next time I ask my AD&D DM if I can add the bonus from my +3 armor to a saving throw and he gets all "well in 1st edition, things were harder and you didn't have the rule books giving you all these bonuses..."