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

[Alzrius]

Here's an obscure AD&D 1E rule in a single word:

Ultravision.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I don't favor obscure rules at all. Rules, if they are going to be relevant in the first place, should be known by everyone, as readily apparent as possible, and easily found in any case. If they are going to be overlooked or ignored they have no purpose in existing and should actually be removed. I know lots of AD&D rules that I still can't readily remember where they were so that I can look them up, even after almost 50 years. That means they don't get used, and that means they may as well not have ever existed to begin with.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Here's an obscure AD&D 1E rule in a single word:

Ultravision.

I loved that rule, primarily because I loved the illustration on that page of the DMG. So weirdly evocative!

 

[rgard]

Not sure how obscure this was or not for folks, but your character could get blown up and die from using the 'Write' spell to transcribe as spell into his or her spell book. From the magic users' 1st level write spell:

So...it's late 1979 and I'm playing an illusionist in a campaign. My illusionist 'Geb' kicks 3rd level and wants to add the 'Invisibility' spell to his spell book. The DM then says 'you need to roll a saving throw vs. magic.' I replied I didn't as illusionists don't use the 'Write' spell and that there was nothing about getting blown up trying to add an illusionist spell to one's book. Even cited the DM's guide and that I didn't have to do that before. Well, I get rule zeroed. Geb fails his saving throw. DM roles 2d4 an the result is 7: Geb only had 6 hit points. Yep, Geb got blown up.

I didn't participate much in that campaign after that.

 

[James Gasik]

It's enough to make one wonder if Wizards were really powerful in AD&D at all with all the built-in "safeguards". Ok, here's an idea for a sub-thread: every way the AD&D rules hamstrung Wizards.

Thanks to rgard, we have "die for scribing spells into spell book".

Adding to that:

*NPC's hate sharing spells.
*Cost to scribe spells.
*Chance to fail to learn spells.
*Players should have little agency over what spells they can learn.
*No armor, feeble attacks.
*Low hit points (can be killed by a thrown dagger/housecat!).
*Slow low level progression.
*Spellcasting makes you vulnerable to attacks.
*Spellcasting can be interrupted by just about anything.
Spell scrolls are magic items (could count as your "share" of loot, you have to give up a consumable resource to add a spell to your book, cannot be bought on open market, etc.).
*Need to have read magic ready to go at a moment's notice because scrolls can disintegrate if you so much as sneeze on them (as was stated upthread).
*possible competition for spell scrolls with Illusionists (more of a penalty to Illusionists, really...).
*Spell components.
*Saving throws of enemies improve, bonuses to saves common, penalties to saves less so.
*Many spells are "save negates".
*Area spells are hard to work with (33,000 cubic feet, you say?).
*Very limited spell memorizations at low level.
*Magic Resistance kills and only starts to get better at levels 12+.
*Apparently expected to use Wands at low levels, but once a DM makes the mistake of giving a Wizard a wand of fire, they never do so again (boy I remember learning this lesson. Suddenly every remotely dangerous situation was answered with "I cast FIREBALL!" -there's a reason why it's a meme spell to this day).
*Monsters designed to be anti-caster (kind of a wash, there's a monster designed to murder every class, lol).
*Even monsters designed to be fought by casters are pretty obnoxious (golems. Oh sure, it's vulnerable to these precise specific spells I just so happen to have ready to go...).

I'm sure I forgot something, but that's a lot of hurdles to overcome!

EDIT: losing your spellbook turns you into a jumped-up 0-level character; and the loss can be nearly impossible to recover from!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It's enough to make one wonder if Wizards were really powerful in AD&D at all with all the built-in "safeguards". Ok, here's an idea for a sub-thread: every way the AD&D rules hamstrung Wizards.

On the one hand, by the rules ... Magic Users were incredibly restricted and the multiple safeguards and issues (including the issues with time and combat for spells) meant that they weren't all that.

On the other hand, a lot of rules were ignored, and we all know that Gary himself played a Magic User (Mordenkainen) ... so take that as you will.

 

[Alzrius]

I don't believe this has been mentioned yet, so I'll throw out the notations from the AD&D 1E PHB about how, if you had an ability score of 5 or less, that locked you into choosing a specific character class:

• Strength of 5 or less: Must be a magic-user.
• Intelligence of 5 or less: Must be a fighter.
• Wisdom of 5 or less: Must be a thief.
• Dexterity of 5 or less: Must be a cleric.
• Constitution of 5 or less: Must be an illusionist.
• Charisma of 5 or less: Must be an assassin.

Of course, I doubt this came into play very much, since even taking into account that it was hard to have a score of 5 or below when the standard die roll was 4d6 and drop the lowest, arrange to taste, anyone who gets a result that low strikes me as just scrapping the character and re-rolling all six stats from scratch. Presumably having two scores of 5 or below (and so not being able to take any classes at all!) meant that you'd just rolled up a 0-level NPC!

 

[James Gasik]

On the one hand, by the rules ... Magic Users were incredibly restricted and the multiple safeguards and issues (including the issues with time and combat for spells) meant that they weren't all that.

On the other hand, a lot of rules were ignored, and we all know that Gary himself played a Magic User (Mordenkainen) ... so take that as you will.

This is a fair point, because I have a level 9 Wizard in an AD&D game that I've played off and on since (I think) 1994, and the more I learn about how really hard it is to be a Wizard in AD&D (and I got off light because it's a 2e character!), the more I realize how nice my DM was to me!

And on the contrary, if I'd known all these rules beforehand, I would have either not been a Wizard, or multiclassed so I'd have things other than Wizardry to do (the only other Wizard I have is an Elf Ftr/Mage who mostly shoots things with his composite longbow).

 

[James Gasik]

I don't believe this has been mentioned yet, so I'll throw out the notations from the AD&D 1E PHB about how, if you had an ability score of 5 or less, that locked you into choosing a specific character class:

• Strength of 5 or less: Must be a magic-user.
• Intelligence of 5 or less: Must be a fighter.
• Wisdom of 5 or less: Must be a thief.
• Dexterity of 5 or less: Must be a cleric.
• Constitution of 5 or less: Must be an illusionist.
• Charisma of 5 or less: Must be an assassin.

Of course, I doubt this came into play very much, since even taking into account that it was hard to have a score of 5 or below when the standard die roll was 4d6 and drop the lowest, arrange to taste, anyone who gets a result that low strikes me as just scrapping the character and re-rolling all six stats from scratch. Presumably having two scores of 5 or below (and so not being able to take any classes at all!) meant that you'd just rolled up a 0-level NPC!

Yeah I can only say I've never had a 5 and I've rolled up many characters. I had a friend with a Goblin Thief with a Str of 6, and that's the lowest stat I think I've ever seen on a character

I mostly recall that because I brought him to join my Sunday AD&D game in Calumet Park one time, where a big battle was planned and so we had like eight players, and one guy conned the DM into letting him play a Half-Giant, leading to this exchange at the table:

"Wait a minute. How strong is he?! 22?! I've got a 6 and he has a 22?!!!"

 

[Lanefan]

I don't believe this has been mentioned yet, so I'll throw out the notations from the AD&D 1E PHB about how, if you had an ability score of 5 or less, that locked you into choosing a specific character class:

• Constitution of 5 or less: Must be an illusionist.

And how does that work if you don't have the 15 and 16 in Int and Dex respectively? Say, for example, your in-order S-I-W-D-C-Ch rolls are 11-17-10-9-4-12, what class can you possibly be?

• Charisma of 5 or less: Must be an assassin.

Of course, I doubt this came into play very much, since even taking into account that it was hard to have a score of 5 or below when the standard die roll was 4d6 and drop the lowest, arrange to taste, anyone who gets a result that low strikes me as just scrapping the character and re-rolling all six stats from scratch. Presumably having two scores of 5 or below (and so not being able to take any classes at all!) meant that you'd just rolled up a 0-level NPC!

Being forced into a class by a really low roll has come up a few times in my games. I don't think I've ever seen anyone roll 5-or-lower twice for the same proto-character; that's a bridge I'll leave to be blown up if and when I/we ever get to it.