OD&D PDFs at RPGNow

[bento]

By the way, the ODD box set scans (Vols. 1 - 3) were clear and unblemished from RPGNow.

 

[T. Foster]

Question - ODD mentions you need a copy of Chainmail to play (Vol. 1 pg 5 under Recommended Equipment). Is this really true?

Sort of. Chainmail has a lot of details about combat that aren't in the D&D rules -- stuff like rates of fire and ranges for missile weapons, how far you can move and still attack in the same round, how long you can fight/move without becoming fatigued, the initiative rules, the morale rules, parrying and weapon breakage rules, and a whole alternate combat system based on a weapon vs. armor table (which later became the infamous 1E weapon vs AC table) and 2d6 instead of 1d20 rolls. You can play D&D without Chainmail if you use the "alternative" combat charts in vol. I (i.e. the familiar level/HD vs. AC system from all later editions) and fudge all the rest of it (which, since you have to fudge so much other stuff already to play OD&D, isn't all that big of a deal).

 

[Glyfair]

er.. call me simple, but why would they need to destroy the original? sure they would have trouble with hardbacks and flatbed scanners.. but surely you can still get hand-held scanners?

I don't know. Presumably they either didn't have access to them, or didn't feel they did a proper job. I just know that back when Jim Butler was doing so he said it the destruction was an issue.

I'm not sure about the timing either. It might have been before WotC pressed them to do it as cheaply as possible and the overall quality took a dive.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

(1) I have no problem with the OD&D or Greyhawk scans. Yes, Greyhawk has handwritten notes (actually the official errata) pencilled in margins -- I'm okay with that. It's Eldritch Wizardry you need to watch out for, because 2 pages are entirely missing (pages 4 & 53 accidentally replaced by duplicates of other pages).

I just checked and the copy I bought yesterday is fine. In fact the file name is called Eldritch_Wizardry_repaired.

(2) Swords & Spells is *so* not an update of Chainmail. Chainmail is a working game unto itself, while Swords & Spells is an attempt to backtrack from the D&D rules back to a mass battle ruleset. I hate to say it, but to me it's the weakest thing Gygax ever did, and as a teenager I naively suffered with this almost totally unplayable ruleset, assuming that's what miniatures wargaming was like. Instead of dice-rolling, you're sitting there with a hand calculator crunching average hit points for thousands of soldiers, subtracting expected hit percentages times average damage values, dividing to see if figures are lost, tracking percentage of unit lost for morale checks, etc., etc., for every attack. Very unlike Chainmail or any other miniatures ruleset.

Wow! I had no idea. I owned a copy back in the day but never actually played it. Good thing. And you've given me another reason not to buy the PDF.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

For what it's worth, you can find this stuff at Paizo.com too.

--Erik

And cheaper too! Thanks Erik. Wish I had known earlier. I would've bought Greyhawk and Eldritch Wizardy. Would've at least saved a couple of bucks. But the original boxed set is not there but then again I'm quite happy with that download.

So are the scans the same as the ones at RPGNow? For example, does the Greyhawk PDF at Paizo have the same comments (or errata) written throughout the file?

 

[Delta]

I just checked and the copy I bought yesterday is fine. In fact the file name is called Eldritch_Wizardry_repaired.

Wow, really? That's good to hear. I bought mine just a few months ago (Spring 2007)... comments on the RPGNow page show the problem was there as far back as '03 or '04. They must have updated it alongside the new OD&D release.

 

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

While I have hard copies of these, I am definitely picking these up. The funnest D&D games I played were a mix of this and Moldvay-Cook.

 

[Voadam]

For what it's worth, you can find this stuff at Paizo.com too.

--Erik

I looked and couldn't find it on paizo either. The other OD&D stuff including the supplements for Greyhawk, Blackmoor, etc. are in the Downloads/Wizards of the Coast/Classic D&D/Rulebooks section http://paizo.com/store/downloads/wizardsOfTheCoast/classicDAndD/rulebooks . Is the new one somewhere else on the site?

 

[Ranes]

One thing to remember is that they had to destroy the books to get these scans (Jim Butler discussed this when the first scans were done). Finding a pristine copy of the originals that the owner is willing to have destroyed can be difficult.

The scanning process isn't going to do the hardcopy any favours but getting a near-mint OCE isn't that hard, assuming you've got in the region of $140 (for $350 you can get one still shrinkwrapped). I realise that may not be within a fan's budget but, if you're looking at it from even a small business perspective, it shouldn't take that much effort.

Anyway, I'm glad to see digital OD&D available. It might lower the prices of the printed copies that still circulate on ebay.

 

[diaglo]

Question - ODD mentions you need a copy of Chainmail to play (Vol. 1 pg 5 under Recommended Equipment). Is this really true?

only if you want to play true D&D.