Saturday Survey: Dragon Breath

I've taken the opportunity to ask a few polls on the AD&D 1st Edition Facebook group. Today: Does the damage from dragon breath get reduced after the dragon takes damage?

The AD&D Monster Manual is certainly ambiguous in its statement that "The breath weapon causes damage equal to the dragon's hit points (half that amount if a saving throw is made) on each and every creature hit by the breath weapon." (p. 30, 1977). This is somewhat frustrating, because the ambiguity could be cleared up with the addition of a single word, either "current" or "maximum". Of course, the D&D Basic line (Moldvay/Mentzer/Allston) does specify "remaining number of hit points" (in boldface in Moldvay p. B34). Somewhat less well-known is the fact that the AD&D Fiend Folio dragons also specify damage by "current hit points" (entries on p. 28-29, 1981). On the other hand, the OD&D language gives a damage amount "per [hit] die", which in the most literal reading leans in the direction of being disconnected from the dragon's actual hit points.

One interesting thing is that a close reading of the texts up to 1978 seems to indicate that Gygax (et. al.) simply had no language available to distinguish between current hit points and maximal hit points for a given character. For example, here is an excerpt from the AD&D PHB section on Character Hit Points (p. 34, 1978):

Hit points can be magically restored by healing potions, cure wounds spells, rings of regeneration, or even by wish spells. However, a character's hit points can never exceed the total initially scored by hit dice, constitution bonus (or penalty) and magical devices. For example, if a character has 26 hit points at the beginning of an adventure, he or she cannot drink  a potion or be enchanted to above that number, 26 in this case.

Note the convoluted formulation "total initially scored by hit dice, constitution bonus (or penalty) and magical devices" in lieu of the shorter, modern, phrase "maximum hit points". You can search all through the MM and PHB and never find either the phrase "current hit points" or "maximum hit points". In the DMG, the phrase "maximum hit points" does appear twice, but in this context it means something totally different than the modern usage -- namely, the maximum possibly rolled, i.e., getting all of 8 pips per die (e.g., paladin's warhorse p. 18; reincarnated badger p. 44). Another example of the ambiguity of not having this linguistic distinction can be found in the discussion of Energy Draining (DMG p. 119).

Back to the topic of Dragon breath. I find that what makes this topic unusually contentious is that whatever convention one is accustomed to playing with, most players will argue that it is "obvious", perhaps mis-remembering some explicit statement in the Monster Manual making it so, and in many cases taking offense at any suggestion otherwise. (Hey, Internet, y'all.) At any rate, asking this question on the Facebook AD&D form prompted an unusually large, boisterous, and lopsided response.

So with N = 142, 84% of the respondents said "No", with only 16% saying "Yes", on the issue of whether dragon breath effect is reduced by damage on the dragon.