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

[Kannik]

Ask your DM, I guess!

Hmmm... that kinda feels like 1e summed up in 5 words, doesn't it?

 

[Kannik]

Speaking of Clerics... the 2e Player's Option version of the Cleric, where you could purchase the invocation/evocation school of magic as one of your usable domains. Run around in plate armour, a shield, a mace, and cast fireball!

(Did make for a way to make an 'elemental priest', though...)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Speaking of Clerics... the 2e Player's Option version of the Cleric, where you could purchase the invocation/evocation school of magic as one of your usable domains. Run around in plate armour, a shield, a mace, and cast fireball!

(Did make for a way to make an 'elemental priest', though...)

I liked the PO rules. Lots of flexibility in character design.

 

[Staffan]

I liked the PO rules. Lots of flexibility in character design.

I thought the cleric/priest rules in particular were too open to abuse for letting players run wild with them, but they made a fairly good tool for balancing different priesthoods.

I do remember that I thought the cost of spell-like abilities was way overpriced however, and contributed to making the Faith & Avatar priesthoods look ridiculously overpowered (they were OP, but not that OP) because most of them had a lot of spell-like abilities (a precursor of 3e-style domains, really).

 

[Milieu]

The 1e PHB ties in the spells that the Cleric receives to the worship of the deity. On page 40, it states that while 1st - 4th level spells are granted by the lesser servants of the cleric's deity, 5th level spells and higher are granted by the deity itself. It goes so far as to state that the cleric must supplicate the deity for the granting of these high level spells and can be judged accordingly.

I was a little surprised by this, because I know the DMG (p. 38) has rules similar to Deities and Demigods, minus the parts about serving demigods and lesser gods.

While verifying this, I noticed this obscure little rule hiding in the same section (emphasis added):

A cleric who, at this juncture, changes deities is going to have a difficult time. His or her former deity will mark the cleric. The new deity (and associated minions) will be suspicious. Once a cleric changes deities, he or she must thereafter be absolutely true to the new calling, or he or she will be snuffed out by some godlike means. It is 90% unlikely that the cleric's first deity will accept him or her back into the fold after falling away, unless some special redemptive agency is involved. There is no salvation for a thrice-changed cleric; he or she is instantly killed. Any change of alignment which causes a deity change is applicable, unless the change is involuntary.

Also, the distinction about 1st and 2nd level spells becomes important in Spelljammer, because while in the Phlogiston, you can't connect other planes in any way, so you can't recharge higher level spells at all. And in other crystal spheres you need to cast a 2nd level spell every week to regain the ability to pray to your deity.

 

[Lanefan]

I remember getting it, and it led to a few fun weekends of massed battles!

But then getting back to the regular sessions. The lesson, I think, is that while it was an enjoyable diversion, people preferred the individualistic nature of D&D. It was kind of like the whole evolution from wargaming to D&D sped up.

During an old campaign I played in, at one point we did a mass battle and kinda made up the rules for it as we went along. Ended up being among the best two or three sessions ever.

A few years later, I made up my own system. That was 25+ years ago. Still waiting for a chance to use it in play.

This is also why I am always skeptical of the need for mass combat rules. It's not that you never need them, it's more that D&D as a game evolved because people wanted the D&D experience instead of mass combat. It's interesting to me that D&D evolved because people didn't want to use mass combat rules, but then people are always looking to put them back in?

Mass combat rules are one of those things that as a DM you might never need, but if-when you ever do need them you need them right now.

 

[Lanefan]

Also, the distinction about 1st and 2nd level spells becomes important in Spelljammer, because while in the Phlogiston, you can't connect other planes in any way, so you can't recharge higher level spells at all.

This has come up in my non-Spelljammer games now and then, when Clerics are so far removed from their deity's plane (e.g. they're on an opposing deity's plane) as to be inaccessible by the minions trying to bring them their higher-level spells.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I thought the cleric/priest rules in particular were too open to abuse for letting players run wild with them, but they made a fairly good tool for balancing different priesthoods..

They definitely had abuse potential, but in practice, it really depended on who you were playing with.

In one group, I was one of two players running PO clerics. The other player made a powerful unarmored arcane & divine caster who also used martial arts in melee.

Mine had a better weapon, but armor topped at chain mail, and a broad but not deep arsenal of arcane & divine spells- most of his access to spheres & domains was Minor. And nearly all of his spells were buffs for allies.

 

[amethal]

It's like the occasionally allowed (even by Gary Gygax himself!) but technically illegal Ranger/Druid- Half-Elves can be Ranger/Clerics or Fighter/Druids, but not Ranger/Druids- but then the CPH is like "But any time it says Cleric it means Priest, and of course Druids are Priests!".

Thus you could be a Ranger Druid...right? Who knows!

Ask your DM, I guess!

That was the great thing about AD&D.

You'd have a long write-up about how druids are nature priests, and believe really strongly in balance in all things, everything has a season etc. so must be true Neutral. And they lose all their powers if they ever stray from that alignment.

Then someone wants to be a multi-classed Ranger (must be Good) / Druid (must be true Neutral) and it's all "Hey, cool idea! Stick Neutral Good on your character sheet and have fun with it!"

 

[Alzrius]

That was the great thing about AD&D.

You'd have a long write-up about how druids are nature priests, and believe really strongly in balance in all things, everything has a season etc. so must be true Neutral. And they lose all their powers if they ever stray from that alignment.

Then someone wants to be a multi-classed Ranger (must be Good) / Druid (must be true Neutral) and it's all "Hey, cool idea! Stick Neutral Good on your character sheet and have fun with it!"

To be fair, a large part of this is that AD&D saw a lot of different designers over the years (particularly in the 2E era) who disagreed with earlier strictures and worked to break them down, introducing exceptions where previously there had been none. Which isn't to say that they were deliberately trying to break from convention, or had any sort of bone to pick with established prohibitions (or even understood why they were there), but the end result was the same: more and more exceptions could be found if you knew where to look.

The "leatherette" books were particularly notable for this, as they had a lot of exceptions to the demihuman class restrictions that up until that point had been (fairly) inviolable.