Rules

Alternative Method to Increase Prime Requisite for XP Bonus

In “Three Paradigms: Evolution of Ability Score Adjustments and the Prime Requisite Bonus in Old-School D&D,” I stated my preference for the complimentary paradigm from OD&D over the later practice paradigm to determine experience-point bonuses. The Pandemonium Society had another idea. They used both.

This is the 20th in a continuing series of articles, which reedits house rules for Holmes Basic D&D from 40-year-old game club newsletters. Mentions of house rules are in bold text and followed by a [bracketed category designator].

For rules category descriptions and more about the newsletters, see “About the Reedition of Phenster’s.” For an index of articles, see Coming Up in “Pandemonium Society House Rules.”

Phenster’s Pandemonium Society House Rules is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, incidents, and newsletters are either products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is pure coincidence.

Another Way to Adjust Ability Scores for XP

by Phenster

Ivanhoe tells me he doesn't use the rules for bonus XP in his AD&D campaign because it's too much math. In the Pandemonium Society, we use bonus XP for high prime requisites. Cypher helps us with the math. It's really pretty easy the way she explains it. But we didn't much use the rule that says you can change your ability scores when you roll up a character.

Like, if you want to be a fighter, you can subtract 2 from your INT and add 1 to STR, and a cleric or magic-user can subtract 3 from STR and add 1 to WIS or INT (for M-U). The higher your prime requisite the more XP you get.

That system worked for Beowulf because he didn't care about being intelligent. He just wanted to be a burly brute. But Tombs wanted to play the cleric. They have to be wise and be able to fight pretty good, so he didn't want to lower his strength.

I rolled a 13 for INT, a 15 WIS, and 12 STR. I could've been a cleric or an elf, but I really wanted to be a magic-user of the wise-old-wizard kind. A wise old wizard is usually frail so I lowered my STR to raise my INT to 14. Not enough to get 10% extra XP, but I got another language. I could have lowered my WIS 2 to get another INT, but a 13 WIS is barely above average, so I didn't want to do it.

Tombs and I talked it over with Hazard, and we came to a compromise. Hazard let us use the points to raise our prime requisite score, just like in the rulebook, except we didn't really change the scores. For example, I used 6 WIS points to make a 17 in my prime requisite without lowering WIS or raising INT. I’m still wise (15) and not any more intelligent (14), but I get a 10% bonus on XP. Tombs used 3 points of STR, without lowering it, to raise his prime requisite to 15, but his WIS is still 14.

Of course, everyone wanted to do it that way then. Except for Beowulf. He still wanted to be a brute. Hazard said we could do it either way: changing the scores or just using the points toward our prime requisites, or both. But just not using the same points twice.

—from L’avant garde #59 (January 1984)

Alternative Method to Increase Prime Requisite [E]

After generating ability scores, instead of raising and lowering scores (as described in Holmes: Adjusting Ability Scores, 6), the player uses points from certain above average scores to increase the prime requisite score only as it applies to the experience-point bonus. All constraints—used abilities by class, number of points used, minimum scores, etc.—are according to Holmes. The only difference is that no ability scores are raised or lowered.

Using this method, it helps to think of the prime requisite as a separate score, initially equal to the class’s primary ability score.

I put the alternative method in the [E] Extra category because it’s quick and easy: Count points above 9 in one or two abilities and add one or more points to another score. Furthermore, as no sacrifice is made, players have no barrier—only the prospect of earning more XP.

Strength Not Complimentary for Magic-Users [E]

When using the Alternative Method to Increase Prime Requisite [E], magic-users cannot use points of Strength to increase Intelligence.

As in OD&D’s Men & Magic, high Intelligence makes a more clever fighter, but a strong magic-user is no more adept in the profession. The Pandemonium Society seems to ignore this point.

Combined Methods to Increase Prime Requisite [P]

The alternative method may be used together with that described in Holmes, though points may only be used for one method.

In Phenster’s example, he reduced his Strength score to raise Intelligence, but when using Wisdom, he adjusted neither score.

For simplicity during character creation, I suggest using Holmes’s raise-and-lower method first to get the desired ability score bonuses, Then use the alternative method to figure the final prime requisite score for the XP bonus.

Because it effectively adds a second step to character creation while at the same reintroducing the time-consuming min/max decisions, this one goes in [P] Pandemonium.

Simplifying the Exchange Rate

We might simplify both methods by setting the exchange rate at 2 for 1 in all cases. I don’t propose it here for three reasons.

  1. I try—though not always successfully—to avoid B/X-isms in Phenster’s.
  2. While the Holmes spirit is simplicity in one sense, it also embraces a certain complexity, most often where it fails to modify rules from OD&D.
  3. The difference in the exchange rate, 2 or 3 for 1 depending on ability and class, implies a difference in the importance of each ability to each class. Consider that the more intelligent fighter improves faster than the wiser one (exchanging 2 INT or 3 WIS for 1). Likewise, the smarter cleric improves faster than the more brawny (2 INT or 3 STR for 1). And the more successful thief must be not only intelligent but also wise (2 INT and 1 WIS for 1). I appreciate this nuance.

Read more about the article Doom’s Door: Death Trap Design

Doom’s Door: Death Trap Design

“Zap! You’re dead!” J. Eric Holmes warns against these sorts of traps in the 1977 Basic D&D (40). I tend to comply. Sometimes, though… sometimes!

During the daily cartography exercise that is #Dungeon23, I noticed an auspicious alignment. Let us go to Deep Dungeon Doom’s Level 2 (image above). From room 37 in Kubra Kowthar’s domain, a corridor runs northwest to an apparent dead end. Stopping to search for secret doors—as adventurers do—we stand above Level 3’s Laughing Rift.

I am doomed to put a pitfall there. The floor opens beneath our feet. We fall 110 feet to the rocky floor below—Zap!

Holmes lets us get away with such a trap, though, if “a character might avoid or overcome [it] with some quick thinking and a little luck.” With that in mind, we set about to give ourselves a chance.

Warning

Beyond the secret door—for one there is—room 23 lies at the bottom of the Bastion of Law. Carved into the stone block wall that disguises the secret door is the following warning:

YOUR DOOM LIES BEYOND
FOR BEYOND YOU LIE BELOW

On our side of the door, we read a similar inscription:

YOUR DOOM IS UPON YOU
FOR YOU ARE UPON YOUR DOOM

Ignoring the warning—we’re adventurers after all—we find the secret door, whose presence we think obvious. The trap is armed when the opening mechanism is engaged. From room 23, we would walk through, into the space beyond. From this side, the floor opens beneath us.

Chance to Spring the Trap

If the DM is a little soft, we might say the trap is not maintained. It engages when weight is upon it only one-third of the time, to use a B/X-ism (B22).

Saving Throw Conditions

Further, the aperture is 3 feet square. The tight fit allows us a save vs Turn to Stone to catch ourselves with outstretched arms, feet kicking in the void, fingertips gripping a floor stone’s edge. Quick comrades have a chance to snatch us from fate. Otherwise, we might be able to haul ourselves out on our own. DM’s call. This DM would ask how we intend to do it.

Failing that, we have time to feel heart rise to throat, as we plummet into darkness.

Map showing area 78, Sludge Pit (03/19), of the Laughing Rift (Level 3), Deep Dungeon Doom.
Running through the trash heap in the Central Rift Floor (77, below center), the stream turns to a thick sludge of decayed organic waste. It fills a 20-foot-deep pit (78) in front of rough-carved stairs. Runoff flows south and west through a grate to who-knows-where. Endowed with an adventurer’s presence of mind, we make a quick check for treasure at the bottom of the pit while we’re down there.

Unexpected Deliverance

One last chance. Directly below, the Sludge Pit (78) awaits. We save vs Dragon Breath to take half 11d6 damage.

We still have to wrestle off any armor before drowning and swim to the surface through viscous muck. Then we find ourselves all alone and sans armure at the nethermost point of the Laughing Rift—Zap! Welcome to Deep Dungeon Doom!

Read more about the article Ability Score Modifiers in the Great Halls of Pandemonium

Ability Score Modifiers in the Great Halls of Pandemonium

“Saving Throw VS. Death,” the previous article in the series, wrapped up the Pandemonium Society’s house rules for combat, as published in various issues of the newsletters L’avant garde and Paradigm Lost. We jumped around issue numbers to talk about the combat rules in a coherent manner. Now, it makes sense to take the remaining house rules by book-order, that is, in the order as the rules they modify appear in Holmes.

So, we start here with ability scores, and we’ll end with treasure, which seems appropriate for such an adventure. For, an adventure it is. It may be of the there-and-back-again sort, but Phenster’s contributions to the newsletters from 1980 to 87 are numerous. Between here and there, we have some monsters to fight before we can take the treasure.

This is the 19th in a continuing series of articles, which reedits house rules for Holmes Basic D&D from 40-year-old game club newsletters. Mentions of house rules are in bold text and followed by a [bracketed category designator].

For rules category descriptions and more about the newsletters, see “About the Reedition of Phenster’s.” For an index of articles, see Coming Up in “Pandemonium Society House Rules.”

Phenster’s Pandemonium Society House Rules is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, incidents, and newsletters are either products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is pure coincidence.

Additions to Ability Scores

by Phenster

The guys at the Game Hoard talk a lot about the ability adjustments[1] they have from high scores in their A(dvanced) D&D games. They get pluses to lots of stuff, like +3 to saving throws for WIS, −4 on AC for an 18 DEX, and bonuses to hit AND damage for STR. They even get "extra strength" (fighters only) that can give them as high as +6!!

We think it's more fun to have bonuses for more high scores besides CON and DEX like in the rules, but according to Hazard we have to be careful of "power creep," or it makes the game too easy. So, Mandykin and Tombs worked out some extra bonuses that Hazard said was OK for his "Great Halls" campaign.

—from Paradigm Lost: the Newsletter of the Pandemonium Society of Neighborhood Dungeons and Dragons Players, #2 (November 1980)

Following this introduction, Phenster provides a table showing modifiers for Strength, Wisdom, Dexterity, and Charisma. I reproduce the table below, adding Constitution and the full Dexterity entry from Basic D&D (1977, 6) plus a couple rows for Intelligence (9) for completeness. Note that rule-smiths Mandykin and Tombs in some cases add bonuses without corresponding penalties.

Power creep aside, while I don’t agree that they make the game too easy, I do think AD&D’s bonuses—similar to those introduced in OD&D’s Greyhawk supplement (1976)—are over-complicated for Holmes. Conversely, Moldvay’s Basic (1981) bonuses and penalties for ability scores are too elegant. Neither has the Holmes spirit we wish to preserve.

Ability Score Bonuses and Penalties [E]

AbilityScoreBonus/Penalty
Strength18+3 attack, damage, force doors
17+2
15-16+1
7-14None
6 or less−1
Intelligence11-181-8 additional languages
10 or lessNone
Wisdom15 or more+1 magic saves
14 or lessNone
Constitution18+3 hit points per hit dice
17+2
15-16+1
7-14None
6 or less−1
Dexterity15 or more−1 armor class
13 or more+1 missile fire
9-12None
8 or less−1 missile fire
Charisma18Up to 12 hirelings; +3 loyalty2
1710; +2
13-166-9; +1
7-125
6 or less4; −1

1 From the context, I assume Phenster intends “ability score modifiers.”
2 Phenster covers loyalty in an article about henchmen, which we’ll get to. For now, we note that loyalty, for the Pandemonium Society, is not the same as morale.

Saving Throw VS. Death

This is the 18th in a continuing series of articles, which reedits house rules for Holmes Basic D&D from 40-year-old game club newsletters. Mentions of house rules are in bold text and followed by a [bracketed category designator].

For rules category descriptions and more about the newsletters, see “About the Reedition of Phenster’s.” For an index of articles, see Coming Up in “Pandemonium Society House Rules.”

Phenster’s Pandemonium Society House Rules is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, incidents, and newsletters are either products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is pure coincidence.

“If hit points are reduced to zero or below, the combatant is dead” (Holmes, 18).

The following article was printed in L’avant garde #77, dated March 1986. If the Postlethwaite Collection is near complete, this is Phenster’s penultimate contribution to the newsletter. It is the last concerning the Pandemonium Society’s house rules for combat.

Saving Throw VS. Death

by Phenster

The fight with the gnoll-demon's army went bad for us. Phenster Prime only had 3 hit points left when the black dragon raised its head out of the water. I tried to DISINTEGRATE it, but it saved, and I didn't have any other good spells against it, because I already used FIRE BALL on the gnolls and CHARM MONSTER on Charon, who was poling us down the River Styx, taking us to Hell.

We were sitting ducks. The dragon spit acid on us, and it didn't matter if I saved or not, and it didn't matter if the acid was washed away as the boat sank into the current. Phenster Prime was sizzled. Hazard called it an ignominious death.

When we used to play cops and robbers and war or other make-believe games, when we shoot somebody, we just say, "BANG, you're dead! Count to 10!" And you have to fall on the ground and count to 10 really really fast before you can get up and get back in the game again.

But D&D isn't like those make-believe games. The rules say when you lose all your hit points, you're character dies. No bang, no counting--when you're dead your dead. We usually play by the rules. You can be raised or resurrected with magic, but it's expensive and takes time to go back to base town and talk to the bishop or a wizard. Most times at 0 hit points it's faster just to roll up a new character, or take a henchman if you have one, and get back in the game.

Hazard gave me a saving throw versus death, but I didn't make it. You have to roll a 20 minus your level, then add your h.p. bonus. I needed an 8, but I got a 5, so Phenster Prime was dead on the River Styx.

The Bully got sizzled, too, but he made his saving throw against death. (He only needed a 4.) He was still unconscious though with 1 h.p., so Friar Tombs had to haul him to shore so he wouldn't drown. Then the Bully woke up, and Friar Tombs put some healing on him, while I rolled up a new character because I didn't have a henchman.

The dragon disappeared, and so did Charon, and they never found Phenster Prime's body. The party was stranded on the shore of the River Styx, so they had to walk to Hell. Phenster Double Prime joined them on the way.

Save vs Death [P]

A character who reaches 0 or fewer hit points may attempt a saving throw vs Death. The number needed is 20 minus the character’s level. The character’s Constitution bonus to hit points is added to the roll. Failure means death. Success means the character has 1 hit point and is unconscious until the end of the current encounter.

This was a recurring joke among the AD&D crowd when I was a teenager. A game in which one might make a saving throw versus Death couldn’t be serious. For that reason, I throw it in category [P] Pandemonium.

Dirty Fighting

This is the 17th in a continuing series of articles, which reedits house rules for Holmes Basic D&D from 40-year-old game club newsletters. Mentions of house rules are in bold text and followed by a [bracketed category designator].

For rules category descriptions and more about the newsletters, see “About the Reedition of Phenster’s.” For an index of articles, see Coming Up in “Pandemonium Society House Rules.”

Phenster’s Pandemonium Society House Rules is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, incidents, and newsletters are either products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is pure coincidence.

The following excerpts are from Phenster’s contribution to L’avant garde #53 (March 1983). Though out of order, they reproduce the entire article.

Dirty Fighting

by Phenster

Sometimes we want to do something in combat besides attacking with a weapon. Like the time Mandykin had to fight an ogre all by herself after she got separated from the group by a falling portcullis. We couldn't lift the portcullis, so the rest of us went to find another way around. Mandykin found the ogre's lair first. She knew she couldn't beat it in a fair fight, so she had to fight dirty.

She had a bag of salt that we use to throw at zombies, so she threw a handful in the ogre's face, first. She had to make a missile attack with a -4 penalty. She hit, so the ogre was blinded. (Sometimes we throw sand, too, and it's the same.) Then she wanted to trip it. So she rolled her hit dice and added +2 for her high dexterity (17) against the ogre's hit dice. She had 7 4-sided vs. the ogre's 4+1 d8s. It was close but she did it. By the time we found the long way around, Mandykin had the ogre tied up and was sitting on its belly.

Then there was the time we fought a balrog at the edge of the Pit to Hell. Only Beowulf and Jinx had magic weapons, and my spells weren't working on it. Jinx said, "Let's rush it." I said, "What?!" He said, "We'll push it back into the Pit to Hell." I said it was a bad idea, because the balrog could immolate. But Beowulf asked me if I had a better idea and I didn't. Hazard said we should all throw our hit dice (+ damage bonus) against the balrog's hit dice. Only four of us could push, and we got 88 all together. The balrog got 49, so we pushed it into the Pit, but it immolated! We all got burned pretty bad, and Jinx got caught by the balrog's whip and was jerked down into the Pit to Hell.

Shoving, Tripping, and Throwing Sand/Salt

Instead of attacking with a weapon, a combatant may take one of the following actions. A character with multiple attacks with a weapon takes only one of these actions per round.

Hit Dice Roll

Shove [E] and Trip [E], as well as Wrestling [E] farther below, use opposed hit dice rolls. That is, each side rolls dice equal in size and quantity to their hit dice. A 6th-level magic-user rolls 6d4; a 10th-level fighter, 9d8+2.1 Constitution bonuses or penalties to hit points are not counted. The higher roll wins the contest.

Shove [E]

Attackers and defenders make opposed hit dice rolls, adding their Strength bonus or penalty to melee attack.2 A successful shove moves the defender a space in the direction opposite the attacker. Attackers move with the defenders, and the combatants are in close quarters (see Close Quarters). In case of failure, the combatants are in close quarters, but the defenders do not move.

Trip [E]

To trip an opponent, an attacker must step into close quarters with the defender. Attacker and defender then make opposed hit dice rolls, adding their Dexterity bonuses or penalties to AC and missile fire.2 A successful trip indicates the defender is prone. (See Prone [E].) On a failed attempt, the defender may immediately attempt a trip, becoming the attacker. A series of failures takes place in an instant of struggle.

Throw Sand/Salt [P]

The attacker, within 10' of the target, makes a missile attack with a −4 penalty. On a hit, the target must make a saving throw vs. Paralysis or be blinded for 2 to 5 rounds, suffering +2 penalty to AC and −4 to attack rolls.

Note: A penalty to an attack roll to effect a particular result is danger close to allowing PCs to “aim for the eyes” with any attack. When using this [P] Pandemonium rule, be prepared to defend against arguments for such “called shots.”

Source of Opposed Hit Dice Rolls

An opposed hit dice roll is also used in a Shield Wall Push [P] (see “Phalanx Fighting” and “The Phalanx and the Shield Wall.”) I find a similar procedure in the Strategic Review Vol. 1, No. 2 (Summer 1975) under the heading QUESTIONS MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED ABOUT DUNGEONS & DRAGONS RULES (3). In a combat example, a group of orcs grapple with a hero. To be successful, the orcs must roll their combined hit dice and beat the hero’s hit dice roll. Prior to the opposed roll, each orc must make a successful attack roll against the hero before its hit dice can be counted in the grapple. The Pandemonium Society seems to ignore this step.

Nonlethal Attacks

Whenever we have a brawl at the Nine of Pentacles (that's our local Sword & Board), we fight with our fists or wrestle, or we use makeshift weapons, like bottles and chair legs. In a fist fight, you do 1 + STR bonus in NONLETHAL damage, which means, if you go down, you aren't dead, you're just knocked out. Makeshift weapons do 1-3 real damage. We can get in big trouble if we kill someone in base town though, so we have to be careful with that. Wrestling is just another hit dice throw that you add your damage bonus to or your dex bonuses. It doesn't really do any damage, but if you win you can make the other guy do what you want, like pin him to the floor or make him say "Uncle" or just about anything else you can think of.

Fist Fighting [E]

A fist does 1 point of damage. Add the attacker’s Strength bonus2 to damage as normal. All damage is nonlethal.

Knocked Out [E]

When a creature takes nonlethal damage equal to its current hit point total, it falls unconscious for 1 to 6 rounds.

Wrestling [E]

The attacker chooses whether to use Strength or Dexterity and steps into close quarters with the defender. The combatants make opposed hit dice rolls adding the chosen bonus or penalty. If the attacker wins, a desired effect takes place.

Feint

Mandykin wanted a way she could do a feint in melee. Hazard said it was a "subtle action," and it's assumed in a combat round. But Mandykin said a feint is about as subtle as a parry and there's a rule for parry right in the book.

A feint is when you trick your opponent into thinking you're going to do one thing, but then you do something else. You catch him off guard, so you get a bonus (+2) on your attack. It only works against man-type creatures. You do a feint on your go, then you have to wait until your opponent goes to see if he fell for it: Roll a 20-sided die, subtract your level, add your opponent's level or hit dice and his bonus for a high wisdom (if he has one). If you roll under your dexterity score, he's tricked! and takes a -2 to his attack, and you attack at +2. If he isn't tricked, he gets a +2 on his attack (because you left yourself open), and you attack normally.

Feint [P]

To feint, an attacker makes a Dexterity check, subtracting his or her level and adding the opponent’s level (or hit dice), plus the opponent’s Wisdom bonus. If successful, the opponent attacks with a −2 penalty, and the attacker, immediately afterward, makes an attack with a +2 bonus. When the feint fails, the opponent attacks with a +2 bonus, and the attacker with a −2 penalty.

Note: I add the attacker’s −2 penalty in the failure case to discourage overuse, and still I class this one as [P] Pandemonium.

1 We’ll see later that the Pandemonium Society uses hit dice by level progression from Greyhawk (1976, 10-11).
2 Also later, we’ll see ability score bonuses and penalties.

Advanced Combat

This is the 16th in a continuing series of articles, which reedits house rules for Holmes Basic D&D from 40-year-old game club newsletters. Mentions of house rules are in bold text and followed by a [bracketed category designator].

For rules category descriptions and more about the newsletters, see “About the Reedition of Phenster’s.” For an index of articles, see Coming Up in “Pandemonium Society House Rules.”

Phenster’s Pandemonium Society House Rules is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, incidents, and newsletters are either products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is pure coincidence.

Losing Balance

In the excerpt on critical misses from “Combat Complications” (L’avant garde #49, September 1982), Phenster refers to losing one’s balance in melee. In “Advanced Combat,” three months later, he adds:

Sometimes, especially whenever we're fighting on rough terrain, when we lose our balance there's a chance we might fall down. We have to roll our dex score or less on a d20. Rough terrain is like a field of rubble, a steep slope, or a dungeon floor where stone blocks have been upset by an earthquake or tree roots growing under them. We can't fight from the floor (+4 AC), and it usually takes a turn to get up.

—from “Advanced Combat,” L’avant garde #51 (December 1982)

As “off balance” appears twice in Phenster’s list of possible results due to a critical miss, when using the rule Critical Miss: Lose Next Action [E], consider Balance [P] as a supplement. I put it in the [P] Pandemonium category, because it adds a dice roll to the end of what should be a quick resolution of a combat action. Another option is for the DM to adjudicate, including the fall (or not) in the critical miss result.

Balance [P]

A character who loses balance on uneven ground (e.g. rough or sloping terrain, stair steps) must make a Dexterity check or fall prone.

Prone [E]

A prone character cannot attack, and any attacks on the prone character are made at +4 on the dice. A prone character can stand in one round.

Drawing a Weapon in Melee

“It takes one melee round to draw a new weapon, but one hanging free, or in the other hand, can be employed immediately” (Holmes 21).

According to the rules you can draw a weapon in one round. You can usually only do one thing at a time, but we say you can also draw a weapon while you move, like when we're closing to melee.

—“Advanced Combat”

Draw Weapon While Moving [E]

A combatant may draw a weapon while moving.

Charging and Other Movement in Combat

In the following excerpt, end 1982, Phenster refers to “fully armored” characters, which I assume he gets from Holmes’s Movement Table (9). In Charge [E] below, I translate to any armor, because in 1984 Phenster adds move rates for characters wearing leather armor: In L’avant garde #63 (May 1984), he places “half armored” characters between unarmored and fully armored on the movement table. He also halves the move rates given on the Holmes table.

Phenster does not specify whether a half armored character gets the damage bonus for charging. I defer to Chainmail, which gives the impetus bonus to heavy and armored footmen (17).

Besides Charge [E] and Half Armored Move Rates [E], Maneuver [E] allows a step in melee.

If you are not more than THREE TIMES your melee move distance away from your opponent, you can charge. But it has to be over flat/level ground without any obstacles, and the opponent has to be at least 10' away. If you hit and you are fully armored, you get a +2 bonus on damage from the impetus. And if you slay your opponent, your charge continues and you can attack again if you charge into another opponent, until the end of your charge. Your charge has to be in a straight line.

—“Advanced Combat”

Charge [E]

When an opponent is at least 10' and not more than thrice combat move distance away, a combatant may charge the opponent in a straight line over level terrain. If the attacker is wearing armor, a charge grants a +2 bonus to damage. If the opponent is slain, the attacker continues the charge up to three times combat move distance, engaging subsequent opponents.

Whereas contemporary D&D editions apply the charge bonus to the attack roll, Phenster applies it to damage. One interpretation of Chainmail’s “Impetus Bonus” (17) would do likewise.

Half Armored Move Rates [E]

Characters wearing leather armor or equivalent move normally at 180 feet per turn. They move at 90 feet per turn while exploring, and 15 feet in a combat round.

Flank and Rear Attacks

If you can attack from a monster's flank (90 degrees from its front), you get +1 on the attack. If you come up behind it, you get +2. You're supposed to add another bonus if the monster has a shield and can't use it (like if you're on its right side), but Hazard doesn't mess with that. He just says attacks from behind get +2 on the roll.

You DO NOT get the bonus for flanking if you're less than 90 degrees from the front. If the monster's fighting somebody else and you come up beside it, you might only get one attack with a bonus before it turns to put both its enemies at 45 degrees to its front.

—from “Combat Complications,” L’avant garde #49 (September 1982)

Flank and Rear Attacks [E]

An attack from a flank gains a +1 bonus on the dice; from the rear, +2. Whether the defender wields a shield or no is not considered. Assume that a combatant can change facing (left, right, or about face) on its count in the initiative order or any time immediately prior to an attack.

Defend in Place

Jinx had a good attack roll for once, and he hit the grimpshee with his sword but didn't do any damage. That's how we knew it was immune to normal weapons. So Jinx stepped to one side of the door and defended in place (-4 AC), while Friar Tombs came up with his snake staff, and Phenster Prime threw protection/evil 10'.

—from “At the Gates of Pandemonium,” Paradigm Lost #4 (December 1982)

Full Defense [E]

A melee combatant may forego all attacks and other actions to devote the round to defense, thereby gaining a −4 bonus to armor class. When so defending, only a step is allowed in the round (see Maneuver [E]).

Fighters vs Humanoids

. . . Orcs everywhere—we were surrounded! Mandykin fired her crossbow then drew a sword. I didn't have any spells left, so I took out my dagger to defend my skin. Friar Tombs struck one with his mace. Then it was the Bully's turn. He swung his two-handed sword once and two orcs fell. He swung again and another one went down. Five more swings and all the orcs were dead or ran away. He got so many attacks because he's a 7th-level fighter. If it was 2 HD monsters, like gnolls or lizard men, then it would be 3 attacks.

—“Advanced Combat”

Fighter Multiple Attacks vs Humanoids [E]

Fighters get multiple attacks per round against humanoids. Divide the fighter’s level by the humanoid’s hit dice, drop any fraction. Treat less than 1 HD monsters as 1 HD, and ignore any bonuses to base hit dice. The fighter makes all attacks at once in the usual order of attacks.

Fighter Damage Splatter vs Humanoids [P]

When a fighter slays an undamaged humanoid with one attack, any extra damage is taken by another humanoid, if it is within the fighter’s reach and would be hit by the same attack roll. If the second humanoid was also undamaged and is slain, any remaining damage is taken by another humanoid meeting the same conditions, and so on.

Because it implies the fighter swipes through multiple enemies with a single swing, this rule, for me, feels over-the-top, so I throw it in the [P] Pandemonium category. It can, however, speed up those big combats, and it makes the fighter player feel good.

Hireling and Monster Reactions in Melee

It didn't make any sense that the PCs can decide to run away when the monsters are too tough, but the monsters don't run away when it's plain they're going to be slaughtered. Our NPCs might lose their nerve too, and they might run. Hazard mostly just decides for the monsters and NPCs when their going gets tough. But when he isn't sure, he uses the Hostile/Friendly table from the rulebook to see if the monsters will cut their losses and run. He gives the monsters a number depending on how brave they are. Most monsters fall into the 6 to 8 range. Hired NPCs usually get a 7. For example, kobolds have an 8 morale (Normally courageous), ogres have a 5 (Sturdy), and dragons have a 3. And Clare Brighthelm, a Knight of the Celestial Hart, is Stalwart; she never backs down from a fight.

2: Stalwart, never runs away, never surrenders
3-5: Sturdy, fierce, battle-hardened
6-8: Normally courageous
9-11: Weak of will
12: Coward, always runs away

Whenever the monsters could have a second thought about going on with the fight, Hazard rolls two d6s. If he rolls below the number, the monsters run (or give up if they can't escape). But if he rolls the number or higher, they fight on.

—“Advanced Combat”

Morale [E]

The DM assigns a moral score based on his or her judgment and interpretation of the creature crossed with Phenster’s table. Hirelings begin with a morale score of 7. On a 2d6-roll result lower than the moral score, the creatures flee or surrender. When to check morale is also left to the DM’s discretion.

DMs who find Hazard’s system too haphazard may consult B/X (Moldvay, Cook, Marsh, 1981) for a similar system more fully detailed.

Critical Hits and Misses

This is the 15th in a continuing series of articles, which reedits house rules for Holmes Basic D&D from 40-year-old game club newsletters. Mentions of house rules are in bold text and followed by a [bracketed category designator].

For rules category descriptions and more about the newsletters, see “About the Reedition of Phenster’s.” For an index of articles, see Coming Up in “Pandemonium Society House Rules.”

Phenster’s Pandemonium Society House Rules is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, incidents, and newsletters are either products of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is pure coincidence.

Beowulf the Bully charged the last bugbear. He rolled a natural 1 with his two-handed sword, so he missed. Hazard said he stumbled in the charge. He would miss his next attack while he recovered his balance, and the bugbear got to attack him from the flank. The bugbear rolled a 20! That's double-max damage!! The Bully fell dead on the floor with a mace in his face.[1]

—Phenster, from “At the Gates of Pandemonium,” Paradigm Lost #4 (December 1982)

Natural Hits and Misses [E]

A natural 20 always hits; a natural 1 always misses.

Following D&D editions in chronological order, I don’t find this rule in its full form (including both hits and misses) until Molday’s Basic D&D (1981): “…a roll of 20 will always hit, and a roll of 1 will always miss” (B25). We can’t have crits and fumbles without it, so we assume the house rule.

Critical Hits

Critical Hits: Double-Max Damage [P]

On a natural 20, an attack roll automatically hits and does double maximum damage.

Apart from twice maximum damage being a lot, the beauty of this option is that the big moment when the dice comes up 20 is the BIG moment. It happens in an instant. There is no second guessing: “Yeah, well, we’ll see if you confirm…” And no doubling a low damage roll. Because rolled damage, even doubled, is often a let down.

Phenster does not mention whether a Strength or magic bonus is included in the doubling. I would say not: assuming the natural 20 represents an optimal blow, the attacker’s strength is not suddenly doubled, nor does a magic weapon’s power surge.

Critical Hits: Max damage [E]

On a natural 20, an attack roll automatically hits, inflicting maximum damage.

For those who balk at double-max, simple maximum damage also has the benefit of immediacy, while being less likely to end an adventuring career.

Critical Misses

When you roll a 1 for your attack blow, we usually say you drop your weapon and have to draw another one, but it depends on who's the DM. It gets a little boring if it happens more than a couple times in one game. But Hazard has a flair for making stuff up on the spot. Like, you stumble, or your flail gets stuck in the other guy's shield, or something more dramatic. We almost always miss our next turn.

I've tried it before when I'm the DM, but it takes me too long to make something up. So I made a list of all the things Hazard ever did. It turned out that the list wasn't long. It's the details Hazard adds that make the flair. I keep the list handy, and if somebody rolls a 1, I just have to pick something from the list and add some flair.

- Drops weapon
- Weapon stuck
- Breaks weapon
- Over swing (off balance)
- Stumble (off balance, 1 step in random direction)
- Expose flank
- Impaired (penalty on attack OR armor class for 1 round)

—Phenster, from “Combat Complications,” L’avant garde #49 (September 1982)

Critical Miss: Lose Next Action [E]

On a natural 1, an attack roll automatically misses, and the attacker loses the next attack or the next round of action.

I include “next attack” for the case of combatants wielding a lighter weapon and fighters with multiple attacks per round (see Multiple Attacks per Round [E] and “Combat Complications” forthcoming).

Using Phenster’s list, the DM may add details as necessity demands and one’s capability for flair permits.

Critical Miss Immunity [E]

An attacker, who needs a 10 or less on the attack matrix (level/hit dice vs AC), is immune to a critical miss.

My own addition, this rule lowers the chance that a high-level character looks like a bumbling idiot. It takes into account only the attacker’s level versus the defender’s AC. I don’t include bonuses and penalties in the criteria, because often, when the attack roll is high or low, we don’t take the time to add up all bonuses and penalties. By including them in the calculation for critical miss immunity, it forces us to make that calculation, which slows the pace.

Note on Critical Hits and Misses

Statisticians and game designers criticize critical hits and misses for a variety of good reasons. Here I outline the major arguments briefly. The web is mired with more thorough discussion on the topic.2

The base rule is that a 20 always hits and a 1 always misses. Adding additional penalties and bonuses introduces more randomness—therefore more chaos—into combat.

Statisticians warn players that critical hits and misses work against their characters in a number of ways:

  • If we suppose that player characters should have a chance—whether high or low—to win a given fight, then any additional chaos in the system means it’s more difficult to gauge the chance of success.
  • Because there are often more individual monsters than PCs, the latter are more likely to receive critical hits than to deliver them.
  • As fighters advance in level, they get more attacks per round. More attack rolls means a higher-level fighter has more chances to fumble than a lower-level fighter. This works against the game’s basic tenet that characters become more competent as they gain experience.

Game designers agree with the statisticians on the points above. They also balk at additional dice rolls and table lookups. All that takes time, not to mention the dramatic tension is more often broken than held taught.

Most of the statisticians and game designers who make these arguments are adults. In my youth, my friends and I gave little thought to such complicated concerns. The chance to have a dramatic impact on combat far outweighed the chance of bad stuff happening to a beloved player character—if only in our risk-ignorant adolescent minds.

1 To assuage Beowulf’s fans: Phenster tells us later that the party had him raised at the the fortress chapel. Afterward, “Friar Tombs healed his face, but the wound left scars.”

2 In the old school, generally, we talk about critical hits and misses, or casually: crits and fumbles. In later editions, when we start rolling skill checks on a d20, the terms become critical success and critical failure. Adjust search keywords accordingly.

Three Paradigms: Evolution of Ability Score Adjustments and the Prime Requisite Bonus in Old-School D&D

Because the 1981 Basic and Expert were the first D&D rulebooks I read and understood thoroughly, I see earlier editions through B/X-colored reading glasses. For examples, when in the 2000s I got my hands on the original 1974 DUNGEONS & DRAGONS rules, I understood that elves were fighter/magic-users, a magic sword +1 grants a bonus to attack and damage rolls, and ability score adjustments reduce one score to raise another.

The first thing we learn from reading the original D&D rules booklets is that one does not just read the original D&D rules booklets. It’s like casually reading a foreign language. To do so is to comprehend nothing. The OD&D rules must be studied, deciphered, and interpreted.

After struggling with the text, I figured out that, in OD&D, elves are not the fighter/magic-users I was accustomed to1, a sword +1 grants its bonus to the attack roll only2, and—most surprising—ability score adjustments do not, in fact, adjust ability scores.

Within the last example is a paradigm that shifts throughout D&D’s old-school editions.

Complimentary Paradigm

The first instance showing how to adjust the prime requisite makes the point. From the Strength entry under Determination of Abilities:

“Clerics can use strength on a 3 for 1 basis in their prime requisite area (wisdom), for purposes of gaining experience only” (Men & Magic, 10, emphasis mine).

According to the last phrase, the ability scores are not raised or lowered. We must think of the adjusted prime requisite score as a separate entry on the character sheet. If the cleric’s Strength, as rolled, is 14 and Wisdom 12, the player can use 3 points of Strength to raise Wisdom by 1. The adjusted prime requisite score is then 13. The Strength and Wisdom scores remain 14 and 12. The 3 points of Strength are used but not expended; the prime requisite is “increased” but not the Wisdom score.

To explain what’s happening in the game world, we can say that the above-average Strength compliments Wisdom and, therefore, the cleric advances faster, earning a bonus to earned experience points.

Similarly, a fighter can use 2 points of Intelligence or 3 points of Wisdom to raise the prime requisite (Strength) by 1 point. A clever fighter, like the strong cleric, advances more quickly.

If we need to be convinced, the magic-user’s case cinches it. A magic-user may use Wisdom—but not Strength—to augment earned experience. A wise magic-user may employ intellect more effectively, while Strength is of no use in the exercise of the arcane arts.

Language in the first supplement hints that players at the time were also confused about the adjustments. In Greyhawk, under the Strength entry, where the co-creator allows fighters with above-average Strength a bonus to attack and damage rolls, Gygax stipulates:

“This strength must be raw, i.e. not altered by intelligence scores” (7).

Here, we sense that Gygax knew players were ignoring “for purposes of gaining experience only” and adjusting the actual scores.

To add further confusion, Gygax goes on to allow thieves to raise the raw score.3

“[Thieves] may use 2 points of intelligence and 1 point of wisdom to increase their raw dexterity score…” (8).

Note he does not say the raw Intelligence and Wisdom scores are lowered.

The language elided above: “…so long as they do not thereby bring the intelligence and wisdom scores below average” is the same as the note given in Men & Magic (footnote, 11), where the raw scores are not changed.

As Greyhawk maintains the limited benefits of Dexterity, affecting only “the ability of characters to act/react and fire missiles” (8), thieves apply high intelligence and wisdom, not only to their experience point bonus, but also to initiative and careful aim. (As of 1976, only fighters can take advantage of high Dexterity to improve their armor class.)

Practice Paradigm

In Basic D&D (1977), editor Eric Holmes shifts from the complimentary to a practice paradigm. The editor explains in clear language:

“It is possible to raise a character’s scores in a prime requisite by lowering the scores of some of the other abilities. This recognizes that one can practice and learn feats of fighting, intelligence, etc., but must take a penalty in another area by so doing” (6).

In the practice paradigm, a magic-user can sacrifice Strength for Intelligence. Again, the lack of this option in OD&D is a tell for the complimentary paradigm.

Moldvay, with similar language, brings the practice paradigm forward into B/X, only simplifying the exchange rate, always two for one.

Complimentary vs. Practice

Apart from it just makes better sense, I prefer OD&D’s complimentary paradigm over the practice paradigm for two reasons:

  1. The practice paradigm, though it raises the prime requisite scores, tends to draw the two other abilities down toward 9. The 3d6 method already produces scores heavy toward the average.
  2. While the practice paradigm results in a net loss, the complimentary paradigm requires no sacrifice on the player’s part. No tough decision: “Do I lower strength to get one more point of wisdom…?” Therefore, character creation goes faster.

Subsumed Paradigm

Meanwhile, in the Advanced D&D Player’s Handbook (1978), Gygax omits adjustments to prime requisite scores all together. He proposes instead more generous methods to generate ability scores. The rolled scores, we infer, represent the character’s natural talent as well as any improvements and sacrifices made during one’s formative years. Furthermore, only an exceptional score (above 15) in one’s “principal attribute”—the term Gygax favors—grants a bonus to earned experience.

Brian Rogers on Mastodon points out that, according to his calculations, the chance to get an XP bonus at AD&D’s higher threshold and 4d6-drop-lowest is about the same as other old-school editions’ 13 threshold with 3d6. [13:10 02 February 2023 GMT]

But Gygax does something else in 1st Edition. He introduces ability adjustments based on race. Each player character race, except humans, receives a bonus and a penalty to two or three ability scores. For example, an elf benefits from an extra point of Dexterity, while suffering the loss of one point from Constitution. The exchange is always one for one.

Still, the adjustments represent the innate characteristics of the race. They are born in, not acquired later. Scores generated during character creation—no matter the method—represent the character’s abilities at the beginning of his or her career.

Though 3E grants ability score increases at higher levels and gives no XP bonus for high scores, and 4E grants ability score bonuses based on race without penalties, the subsumed paradigm is followed in later editions of the world’s most fascinating role-playing game.

Further Reading

1 Instead of playing the familiar elf, who is at once fighter and magic-user, the OD&D player decides, before each adventure begins, which class abilities the elf will employ for the adventure (Men & Magic, 8). If we assume the game simulates a fantastic world, this makes no sense. The decision point only makes sense when we remind ourselves that D&D is a game after all.

2 See heading “Swords, Damage Bonuses” in Monsters & Treasure, 30.

3 I base the interpretation solely on the fact that Gygax employed “raw” score a few paragraphs before. I assume he would not be so sloppy with terms as to misuse this one on the next page. Or would he…? Here we might rather say, “Gygax seems to allow thieves to raise the raw score.”

Read more about the article A Craft Store Discovery

A Craft Store Discovery

The story continues. This is the next episode following my early experiences playing Holmes Basic D&D, recounted in Blue Flame, Tiny Stars.

Memory fades like a ship on a foggy horizon when there is nothing to anchor it. So, the remainder of the summer passed into obscurity. I started high school in the fall, made new friends, and got a paper route. Of these, the last would stir the fog and give me another glimpse of D&D on the horizon.

After school, I would walk to the downtown law office where my mother worked as a legal secretary. The half-hour commute took me along the town’s main street and by the county library.

I dropped my books at the office and went to the corner convenient store, where the newspaperman left the papers, bailed in a plastic strip. I tore the strip, folded the papers, and loaded a shoulder bag made of heavy cloth, bleached white, “Citizen Tribune” printed on a side.

This wasn’t a bike-riding, paper-throwing, “’Afternoon, Mr. Wilson!” route, like we used to see on the television. It was a walking, newspaper-box route, and I never talked to or even met any of the folks who presumably read the papers I delivered.

I walked the route every day, except Mondays and Saturdays when there was no edition. My older brother drove me to the neighborhood on Sunday mornings. Every other Tuesday, I wrote the amount each subscriber owed for the period on an envelope and put it in the box with the paper. The following Friday, I collected the envelopes filled with coins and dollar bills. The route took just less than an hour. Biweekly earnings came to ten dollars and change.

One day on the after-school commute, as I turned the corner onto Main Street, something in a shop window caught my eye. A sign that stuck out over the sidewalk identified the shop as Witty’s Craft Store. The afternoon sun reflected off the glass. Shielding my eyes with a hand, I squinted through the glare.

The window was divided into two shelves. Balsa wood boxes and knitting books were arranged on the bottom shelf. On the top, above eye level, I made out a box cover and, on it, a bright green dragon. Large capital letters declared the title “DUNGEONS & DRAGONS.”

I whispered aloud, “Isn’t that the game I played with Garth…?”

The box was red violet, not the blue of the book I remembered. But it had a dragon. Facing it from the other side of the shelf, a matching box, this one blue, had a wizard. All that didn’t jive with memory, but tiny stars were flashing in my mind.

A bell dinged overhead as I pushed through the door. The store smelled like cedar and Elmer’s glue. A woman at the counter talked into a telephone.

I turned toward the window. The two boxes, each on a triangular stand, showed me their backs. I would have to reach to get them down.

The counter woman penciled notes into a ledger with one hand, while holding the receiver to her ear with the other. Glancing from the corner of an eye, she smiled and raised the pencil and an index finger at me.

I waited. A glance around the shop told me there were no other boxes with dragons or wizards on them. The shelves were filled with wooden dowels, kraft paper, and paint-by-number kits.

A moment later, the woman hung up the phone and laid the pencil on the ledger. “Hi, can I help you?”

I pointed to the blue box. “Can I look at this?”

My voice was sheepish. Shopping for me was a rare activity. Shopping on my own more so. The etiquette was unfamiliar. Here I was, asking to examine an item from the display case, as if I had money to buy it.

“Sure,” she said and went back to the ledger.

Reaching up, I took the box from its triangular stand. I was careful not to upset the stand or the other box. The contents shifted as I drew it down. Shrink-wrap crackled under my fingers.

The box in both hands, my eyes searched for a dragon atop a mound of treasure, adventurers, a magic wand. They found a wizard wearing a green robe. He gripped a staff at the end of an outstretched arm. The staff’s ornament shed a blue light. The other arm upraised, the hand empty, fingers spread, tensed, as if exerting some unseen force.

The wizard’s angular features gave him an exotic and menacing aspect. He had bony joints and a triangle nose. The robe bent at angles rather than flowing in smooth curves. I found a wand hanging from his belt, secured by two loops. The loops were rigid and angular, as if made from metal. The wooden staff crooked at right angles.

From beneath a pointed cap flowed stark white hair. Also white, a beard framed a small mouth, open in a gasp, and bushy brows raised over wide eyes. The pupils focused on a scene in a cloud of smoke that billowed from a flaming brazier. The scene contained two adventurers confronting a dragon. Still no treasure.

“That’s the second one,” said the woman. “You have to start with the other one.”

A black number “2” in a white circle was printed in the upper left corner above a yellow banner that read “EXPERT SET for use with D&D Basic Set.” In the left corner, a sticker put the price at $10.00.

“Okay.” I nodded, looking up from the box. “Do you know anything about this game?”

Her thick, blond hair was tied back. It had a gray tinge that matched her complexion. “No, I’m sorry. Not really.”

I ran my fingers along the box edge, feeling the shrink-wrap’s seams. “Can I see what’s inside?”

“There’s a picture on the back.”

I turned the box over. A black-and-white photograph showed the box in miniature beside two books. One book shared the image from the box top. Neither looked like the pale blue book Garth had. Also in the photo, I made out a crayon and multi-sided dice.

Garth’s voice sounded in my head: “They’re polyhedrons.”

Above the photo, a block of text in a red rectangle warned that I could not play this game by itself. I needed the basic rulebook.

I replaced the blue box in its stand and took the violet. Other than the crackling shrink-wrap and shifting box contents, the store was quiet. Every sound I made was amplified in my ears. I felt the woman’s gaze.

I looked first at the back. No warning on this one. Below a similar photograph showing the contents, I scanned small text that described a scene: a sword, a fight with a dragon, treasure. I stopped on a line:

“‘What do you want to do now?’ asks the Dungeon Master.”

Garth was always asking Jarrod and I what we wanted to do. And didn’t he call himself the dungeon master?

I turned to the front. The dragon’s green skin stood out against violet cavern walls. Two figures, with the same angled features as the wizard, attacked it. One, an armored man with a spear, the other, a woman with a green flaming ball. The man defended himself with a wooden shield and wore armor and a winged helm. The woman held a torch. She wore a sleeveless robe, one leg exposed from thigh to calf boot. A dagger hung from a waist belt. At her feet, an open chest spilled coins and sparkling gems— treasure!

The number in the upper left was a “1.” The banner text read, “BASIC SET with Introductory Module.” Like the other set, the price was $10.00. In the lower right corner, I read: “The Original Fantasy Role Playing Game For 3 or More Adults, Ages 10 and Up.”

This must be the game. It was Tuesday. Envelopes would go in paper boxes today. I returned the box to its stand and thanked the woman for her time. The bell dinged as I went through the door. I could not bare to look again at the boxes in the shop window as I strode by, head bent, full of anticipation.

DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Basic and Expert Sets, Cover Art by Erol Otus.
Edited by Tom Moldvay and David Cook with Steve Marsh (Lake Geneva, WI: TSR Hobbies, 1981), this edition, known as B/X D&D, and its retro-clones today enjoy a large and growing fan base.

Where is Blue Flame, Tiny Stars?

I should have a print proof any day now. For more info, please see “Considering a Print Edition.”

To get the latest news, follow me on Twitter or Facebook or subscribe to new articles on DONJON LANDS (sidebar).

Read more about the article Hekselannen

Hekselannen

Here I sketch a few details in broad strokes. I’m saving a rumor table for the final article, which pulls previous articles together into a campaign background.

Reading Map

This is the seventh article of a series outlining a B/X D&D campaign inspired by an old map.

G. FILL IN IMPORTANT DETAILS AND POINTS OF INTEREST.

Names

In the May 1999 Dungeoncraft installment (Dragon #259), Ray Winninger addresses the naming of people and places in our imagined settings. He suggests several pointers for coming up with appropriate appellations, one of which is to borrow from existing languages. “Remember this number: 400,” Winninger writes:

“That’s the Dewey Decimal Classification number for language. If you go to your local public library and browse around the 430s through about the 490s, you’ll find plenty of foreign-language dictionaries, each of which can be mined for good names.”

Being of the old school, we remember the number as well as the Dewey Decimal System and public libraries, still proud bastions of knowledge and learning. Today, though, no foray to base town is required. Online dictionaries and interactive translators put entire lexicons at our disposal.

We already covered noble titles in “Thirteen Graves.” In “Monstrous Denizens of the Pale Moor,” I made reference to a few names, which I noted on the map (reproduced above). These are examples of the system’s loose application. As source languages for this region, I lean on Frisian, Dutch, German, and Old High German, though other languages are not excluded.

Emden: Many historical names on the map are serviceable for our purpose. Seems to me that Emden (city) and Emder (county) must be related to the Ems (river). Porting all three saves us some trouble. I don’t find any etymology for the root, which leaves us carte blanche to invent a fantastic meaning for “em.”

Broeckemeer: Embellished from Emmius’s map. Suitably suspicious.

Reidermark: The name for the territory now submerged beneath the bay is also lifted from the historical map. I change it from “land” to “mark” as it was, before the flood, a boundary province. At the time of the campaign, it is most often referred to as Lost Reidermark.

Dragons Watch Mountains: Here I resort to English. We came to know them in Wyrm Dawn as the Western Mountains. Throrgrmir dwarves refer to this range as Fjallaheim (mountain home, Old Norse). Since dragons heard rumors of wyrmlings creeping in the dwarven dungeon, these low peaks make convenient roosts within easy flight of the place the Age of Dragons is prophesied to begin.

Elding Wood and Ellriendi Forest: Both names are from the Valormr Campaign. Last summer’s game flew by in a fog of war, but I believe I pulled them somehow out of Old Norse.

Valhallan (misspelled on map): Settled by a warlike clan of religious zealots, the grave takes its name from the chief god’s great hall.

Hekselannen, “The Hex Lands”: “Hekse lannen” is Frisian for “witch lands.” I concatenate to arrive at the proper appellation of the Forsaken Peninsula. From there, simple word play gets the vulgar name.

Grave Subjects

Most human PCs hail from one of the thirteen graves and, as such, are subject to the landgrave and, if the landgrave swears fealty, to the herzog. We established earlier that the graves compete with each other for the Pale Moor’s resources. Persons of the adventuring class, then, are valued subjects, provided they agree to undertake the occasional quest for the hierarchy. A subject who is known to undertake quests for other landgraves is admonished or punished according to the quest’s importance and impact. Penalties range from a small fine to public execution.

A DM might introduce the idea of adventuring licenses—something akin to letters of marque—issued by the landgraves or the herzog, which grant a limited authority to act in the name of the issuer, usually to claim land and other resources.

Total Protonic Reversal

This might qualify as crossing the streams, but there’s definitely a very slim chance we’ll survive.

I think it fairly obvious that, when naming the Keep on the Pale Moor in the Valormr Campaign last year, I had in mind the most famous keep in D&D. Then, in “About the Reedition of Phenster’s,” I mentioned the resemblance of the fictional society’s “Great Halls of Pandemonium” to the Caves of Chaos.

I want to put the two ideas together. I don’t mean that we drop in the Keep and the Caves and be done with it. I mean that we reuse parts of Dungeon Module B2 that fit the scenario. I’m thinking specifically of the Keep map and the concept of the Caves.

The Keep on the Pale Moor

We reuse the map of the borderlands Keep (B2, 16), but the once great fortress, constructed as a staging area and supply point for the Chaos Armies, is now in ruins. Recently, its walls and gates have been crudely reconstructed by its current hobgoblin inhabitants.

Maybe the hobgoblins are aware of the “secret entrance to a long forgotten dungeon” from the cellar beneath area #16 (B2, 25). Or maybe they have reason to believe it exists but haven’t found it yet.

Either way, the key to lifting the Pale Moor curse lies at the bottom of the dungeon. Therefore, the Keep on the Pale Moor becomes the campaign’s initial focal point. The PCs must, first, defeat the hobgoblins and reclaim the keep before the Wraithwright can raise an undead army. Then, using the surface ruins as a base, they must defend the keep, while they descend into the dungeon to lift the curse before the Wraithwright, with his now-raised army, destroys the keep.

The Dungeon: The Great Halls of Pandemonium

After events play out at the keep, the campaign’s focal point shifts to a ruined city of the Greater Ones, taken over by demons, rebuilt in their chaotic fashion, and named by them Pandemonium, after the capital city on their home plane. The cyclopean ruins are now sunk beneath the mires of the Pale Moor.

Because events at the keep will have an impact, it’s too early to tell what the scenario might be when PCs arrive at the Great Halls. The vision, in general terms, is to apply some of the concepts of the Caves of Chaos:

  • Each “hall” is a small dungeon, most of them connected to adjacent halls.
  • A temple is dedicated to the demons who once lived there. Within the temple complex, evil priests work to call the demons back to the Great Halls.
  • The halls are densely populated with creatures of chaos, as the evil priests gather the chaotic horde to fill the ranks of the demonic legion.

To complicate matters, the Warlock abides in a nearby tower. To further his goals, the Warlock uses devils—or devils use the Warlock to further their own.

Evil Factions

There are two major villains in the campaign. Each leads a faction. The Wraithwright, aligned with demons and chaotic evil creatures, may sometimes work with—and sometimes work against—the Warlock, aligned with devils and lawful evil creatures. Departing from B/X rules as written, the remainder of this series assumes a five-point alignment system as in Holmes Basic. (See Demons and Devils and Alignments in “Monstrous Denizens of the Pale Moor.”)

Secret #10: It was not long after the Rending and events of Song of the World Dragon that demons came to the ruined city of the Greater Ones. They sought a powerful object constructed by the now extinct beings. They found it. I don’t know yet exactly what this object is, but its misuse provoked the destruction of the rebuilt demon city of Pandemonium and sent the demons back to their home plane. It’s possible that devils, jealous of the prize, were involved. It’s probable that recovering this artifact is a primary objective of either or both of our villains. There is no doubt, though, that it may eventually be found deep in the sediment beneath the shallow bay where lies Lost Reidermark.