Compleat Character Creation Catalog: Unearthed Arcana

This is Part 3 of our exploration of different ability-generation methods in O/AD&D, and the chances for creating characters of different desired classes. The last installment was all about 1E AD&D according to the core books (PHB 1978 and DMG 1979). Today we'll be inspecting the Unearthed Arcana supplement that came out six years later (1985), the last year of Gary Gyax's tenure at TSR, as the initial D&D boom faded and the company was in dire need of a boost to income. As many AD&D players agree, that book overturned a bunch of apple carts. 

Boilerplate reminder on ground rules: We're looking only at entry possibilities for single-classed humans, not considering demi-humans with racial adjustments, multi-class combinations, etc. Statistics were generated from Monte Carlo-type simulations from my C++ program (and spot-hand-checked in a few cases and against other resources). You know the drill.

Ability Generation Methods

As an expansion on 1E AD&D, the Unearthed Arcana enhanced game obviously relies on the same stat-generation methods presented in the core rules. Recall the notable oddities there: (a) stat generation is not given in PHB, being locked away in the DM's book, (b) 3d6-in-order was disavowed as a generation method, and (c) the four methods that did appear were explicitly intended to make it easier for PCs to qualify for various classes of interest. You can see specifics on those 4 methods in the last post.

Even though Unearthed Arcana is just one volume, it's still split into separate sections for the player vs. the DM, with separate tables of contents, indexes for tables and charts, and everything. Presumably the player should not read the DM's section.

But if you do read that DM's section, you'll see that it starts with a proposal for a new Method 5 for ability score generation. They key point of this method is this: It guarantees access to any class that the player desires. ("subject to DM's approval", of course).

Specifically: The player chooses a class for their human character -- the rule explicitly says it can only be used for humans, thereby, I think, dodging the complications from multi-classing for the same reason we do in these articles. The DM gives consent, then turns to a table that specifies how many dice to roll for each ability score. For example, a Paladin will roll 3d6 for Dexterity, 7d6 for Strength, and 9d6 for Charisma (the maximum in the table). In each case you keep the best 3 dice for your ability -- and if you still don't have the minimum for the class, then it's automatically mulliganed up to that minimum. Pretty neat.

Two things about this new method occur to me. One is that Gygax here, precisely at the moment his official leadership of the game ends, completes a journey from OD&D being extremely strict about player entry to subclasses (e.g., less than a 2% chance to qualify for a Paladin initially), to making more-generous-allowances with the methods in AD&D (e.g., 24% to get a Paladin with Method 1), to completely expunging the randomness of that choice, and letting players take any class by fiat. That's obviously been the idiom of the game in later years, and was likely inevitable -- but there's at least a little tension in that generosity, which at the same time makes formerly-exotic options somewhat less special, and less worthy of the frenzied celebrations we once enjoyed.

The second thing is that, of course, Method 5 short-circuits the whole point of this series -- to analyze the chances of qualifying for various classes in O/AD&D with the different methods available. Using Method 5 the answer to that is, of course, 100% in every case ("subject to DM's approval"), and it basically time-stamps the moment when the whole topic became merely an academic issue. So I actually won't consider it further, and assume you're still only using one of Methods 1 to 4 for your AD&D character generation.

Classes and Requirements

What we do need to analyze are the additions and changes to the various character classes in Unearthed Arcana. While Method 5 is pretty clearly an optional variant (it's in the DM's section, it's one more in an array of method possibilities), the character class changes are all in the front-facing Player's section, and are presented in a way that they look like core changes for the play of AD&D (assuming you use Unearthed Arcana at all, obviously). Some of these are frankly hard to look at. Here's how the list of AD&D classes is now presented in Unearthed Arcana:

So the first thing that jumps out is that whereas since 1975 we've had 4 primary classes (fighter, magic-user, cleric, thief) with their various subclasses, here Gygax brazenly sets forth the "Cavalier" as a new 5th primary class, and moves the Paladin subclass from the Fighter branch to Cavalier, with several class modifications flowing downstream as a result. Ugh. Gygax writes (p. 16):

The paladin is no longer considered to be a sub-class of the fighter, but is a sub-class of the cavalier. A paladin must have all the requisite ability scores of the cavalier, plus a wisdom score of at least 13 and a charisma of 17 or higher...

Now, the Cavalier's own stiff ability requirements are: Strength 15, Dexterity 15, Constitution 15, Intelligence 10, Wisdom 10 (resembling the Monk requirements quite a bit, actually; the only thing they don't have an explicit requirement for is Charisma). And then you combine this with the other Paladin requirements (Charisma foremost of all), and you see the Paladin now needs: Str 15, Int 10, Wis 13, Dex 15, Con 15, Cha 17. Yikes!

In addition to that, of course, Gygax has also added the new classes of Barbarian and Acrobat. Being held out as super-special options to spice up the AD&D game (and book sales), they too have very high ability requirements. The Barbarian (largely based on Gygax's earlier writeup of Conan for AD&D in Dragon #36) needs Str 15, Con 15, and Dex 14. They also uniquely have a maximum on Wisdom, in that it can't be over 16 -- which I've ignored here, as it wont make any visible different in the acceptance statistics. The Acrobat needs Str 15 and Dex 16. Note they're presented as a "split-class" (another early iteration on the "prestige-class" idea, like the Bard), in that you have to start as a normal Thief and then switch into the class after reaching 5th level. All of these new classes will be very hard to qualify for via standard dice-rolling methods.

Here are the combined requirements for all of the AD&D classes as given in Unearthed Arcana:

Qualification Chances

Presented below are the results of our simulator program to find qualification probabilities for the various methods and classes in Unearthed Arcana. Recall the "No Class" row at the bottom is for the case of a PC have more than one ability in the 3-5 range, and thereby barred from picking any class due to a fluke in the AD&D fine-print rules (although that's basically negligible for any of the official Methods 1 to 4). Classes are presented in the same order as the book:

Recall that the instances of 0's and 100's in the table are the result of rounding -- e.g., the 4 original primary classes are 99.8% to be available to any Method 1 character.

Note that the Cavalier doesn't look at all like those other primary classes, does it? The chances to qualify for a Cavalier are, as expected, very close to those of the Monk -- at one time the hardest-to-qualify-for class in the game. Both are about 12% likely by Method 1, about 9% by Methods 2 or 3, and about a third of a percent chance by Method 4.

The new Barbarians and Acrobats are at about the same tier as the earlier Rangers and Illusionists -- about one-chance-in-three to qualify with Method 1, and less for other methods. 

But the standout result from Unearthed Arcana is that the Paladin (remember, it was the first-ever subclass introduced to D&D), with its sky-high stacking of various ability requirements, has once again returned to being the most extremely rare class in the game -- even harder to qualify for than the Appendix-quarantined Bard! It's approximately 0.9%, 1.0%, 0.8% likely by Methods 1, 2, and 3 (respectively), and less than 0.01% by Method 4. Rounding off, we can say it's pretty close to impossible to make a Paladin in 1E Unearthed Arcana -- unless you use the new Method 5, at which point you're guaranteed of your preference.

And that's where we'll end this series. It runs exactly parallel to the decade of Gary Gygax's direct involvement with the D&D game design, from 1974 to 1985. We've seen a progression from high rarity for subclasses from random ability generation, to open-access by player fiat, if you use the possibility of Method 5 generation mechanics. On the other hand, if you don't use that, we've seen the Paladin cycle from high-rarity to more-accepted, and back to maximal-rarity at the end.

What's you overall take on our compleat catalog? What bits and pieces would you actually want to use from Unearthed Arcana, if any? And what further topics should we discuss live at Wandering DMs?

Compleat Character Creation Catalog: AD&D

This is Part 2 of looking at statistics for how likely various start-generation methods are to qualify you for desired classes in early D&D (partly inspired by our recent chat on Wandering DMs). Last time we looked at stat-generation in OD&D (3d6-in-order, maybe with a few point-swaps allowed) and the various sub-classes presented in supplemental material (ultimately resulting in the same list of classes that appear in AD&D). Here we'll look at the AD&D game and its very different matrix of possibilities for generating ability scores, and the ways it overhauled those classes and requirements.

A few reminders of ground rules: We're just looking at entry possibilities for single-classed humans, not considering demi-humans with racial adjustments, multi-class combinations, etc. Statistics were generated by Monte Carlo-type simulations from a C++ program (and spot-hand-checked in a few cases and against other resources). Today's entry is only dealing with rules as presented in the 1E AD&D PHB/DMG -- rules changes from 1E Unearthed Arcana (6 years later), will be considered in a follow-up post.

Ability Generation Methods

A wrinkle in the publication history of AD&D is that PHB came out in 1978, and it gave no rule for how players should generate ability scores -- it's one of several things locked away in the DMG ("The referee has several methods of how this random number generation should be accomplished to him or her in the DUNGEON MASTERS GUIDE"; PHB p. 9). And the DMG didn't come out until a year later, in 1979. So I'm assuming in the intervening year players were still using the OD&D 3d6-in-order method by default?

When the AD&D DMG did finally appear, Gygax specifically calls out using straight-3d6 as a bad idea in these rules (p. 11):

While it is possible to generate some fairly playable characters by rolling 3d6, there is often an extended period of attempts at finding a suitable one due to quirks of the dice. Furthermore, these rather marginal characters tend to have short life expectancy -- which tends to discourage new players, as does having to make do with some character of a race and/or class which he or she really can't or won't identify with.

He then offers four alternative methods that can be used for the AD&D game, as shown below:

I'll rephrase those slightly. For comparison sake, I'll also include the OD&D method as "Method 0" to see how it stacks up against the AD&D methods. And note that while the book identifies them with Roman numerals, I'll use Arabic identifiers here, to more easily synch with my C++ code and its customary output:

• Method 0: Roll 3d6 in order for the six abilities. (The OD&D rule, of course, not actually in AD&D for player characters.)
• Method 1: Roll 4d6 and drop the lowest die, six times, and order to taste. (This is the default rule from 1E all the way to 5E -- and most likely 6E as well, which won't be changing that element, according to a draft Character Origins document released by WOTC the other week.)
• Method 2: Roll 3d6 twelve times, take the best six, and order to taste.
• Method 3: Roll 3d6 six times for each ability, and take the best of the six in each case. 
• Method 4: Roll up twelve separate characters using 3d6 in order (i.e., as per the OD&D Method 0). Pick your favorite of the twelve characters.
  

(Yes, Virginia, there is a "Method 5" variant from the later Unearthed Arcana, but we'll address that next time.)

One thing to note is that the AD&D methods require exponentially more dice-rolling as one proceeds to the later methods:

And, here are the base-level descriptive statistics differentiating the various methods:

We see that Method 3 produces notably higher scores than the other methods -- it has an average of 14, while the other AD&D methods all hover around 12 to 13. Method 3 is also the most reliable in that it has the lowest standard deviation (e.g., the gold-standard for modern portfolio theory). Yet, we'll see later that, due to its lack of re-ordering to taste, Method 3 is not necessarily the best method in regards to the question of qualifying for certain classes.

I'll also note that for Method 4, I assumed that from the dozen characters generated, you pick the one with the highest sum (or average) of abilities -- although that too may not be the way it actually gets played, depending on the which character class one most desires. Again, we'll see the results of that further below.

Classes and Requirements

Recall that OD&D had no ability score requirements for the core classes in the LBBs, but did start using that as a mechanic to gatekeep the various sub-classes added in supplemental works. AD&D generally raised all of the requirements, in particular, instituting that any class had to have a score of at least 9 in their prime requisite (explicitly counter to the OD&D table of ability modifiers). Higher scores were required for sub-classes and even nonhuman racial choices.

And there's a further wrinkle in the fine print of the ability score rules that's easy to overlook: each of the character ability tables has a note for the 3-5 score range that restricts a character to only one particular class. For example, in the Strength table (PHB p. 9), it says, "Here or lower the character can only be a magic-user". Low Intelligence restricts you to Fighter; low Wisdom to Thief; and low Dexterity to Cleric -- while low Constitution mandates the Illusionist subclass, and terminally low Charisma restricts the character to being an Assassin.

So this results in an implicit "hopeless character" rule that requires re-rolling an AD&D character in some cases -- if you get more than one ability score in the 3-5 range, then the conflicting class mandates are not mutually satisfiable, and the character cannot pick any class at all. This gets echoed years later in the rules for D&D Basic; for example, Mentzer writes (Basic D&D Players Manual, p. 48), "If two or more Ability Scores are less than 6, the character may have problems later on. This type of character should also be discarded, unless the DM says otherwise." This is just a rephrasing of the same implied criteria in the AD&D PHB. (Also, I'm guessing that the 5E "no hidden rules!" dogma was motivated precisely in response to Gygaxian mechanics like this.)

This is a place where the otherwise excellent analysis of AD&D class access at Athenopolis.net made a misstep, I think -- they show the default ability minima to be 3 unless otherwise stated, when it's actually 6 by the AD&D ability tables (excepting precisely one 3 allowed for any given class). Fortunately, we'll see that in most practical cases this makes for only a small difference in our results.

A further interpretive assumption I'll make is that these very-low-score restrictions permit entry into an associated sub-class, unless otherwise stated. For example, if you have a 3 in Strength, such that the table explicitly says you can only be a Magic-User, then I'll assume you could alternatively be an Illusionist (if your other scores qualify). But that won't make a detectable difference either way you read this corner-case issue.

In summary, here are the requirements for the various classes in the 1E AD&D PHB as I see them:

Qualification Chances

So here's what our simulator reports for qualification probabilities across the various AD&D stat-generation methods. Numbers are all percentages, rounded to the nearest whole number. At the bottom there's an extra row denoted "No Class" for those unfortunates trapped by having more than one very low ability score, as described above. Classes are presented here in the same order as tables in the AD&D PHB:

Note that the 0's and 100's in this table are all the result of rounding; nothing is guaranteed, but you get very close in many cases. In light of the inflated AD&D requirements, we see that we really had to progress to something other than the OD&D Method 0; many of the classes would be effectively impossible by that method (less than a half-percent chance to be accepted), our primary four classes now only have about 60% pass rate, and 13% of all characters are "hopeless" and can't enter any class.

Note that those primary classes, rolled under the OD&D method but with AD&D requirements, are really the only places where our numbers notably differ from those of Athenopolis.net (they show acceptance values about 10% higher than what we have here). These are the classes where the 6-not-3 default requirement affects the most abilities. Of course, this whole column is purely theoretical, because Method 0 is nowhere officially supported by AD&D -- unless we consider the one-year window between PHB and DMG when that may have been still practiced? All the other entries are usually less than a 1% difference in our mutual results.

By using any of the official AD&D methods, we see that the primary classes return back to near certainties (for example, you're 99.8% likely to qualify for a cleric, fighter, magic-user, or thief, using Method 1). It's actually Method 1 that generally has the best chances to qualify for a given subclass, with Method 2 generally a close runner-up -- these are the two methods that allow re-ordering abilities to the player's taste. If you're stuck with abilities in a predetermined order, as in Methods 3 and 4, regardless of how much they otherwise boost the numbers -- remember, it's Method 3 that generates the highest scores on average -- it's fairly unlikely you'll have the exact profile you need, and qualification rates are a lot lower as a result. Method 4 in particular, using a stack of a dozen Method 0-OD&D characters, is very bad in this regard (showing 0, 1, or 2 percent for a number of classes).

Let's focus mostly on that prominent Method 1 (there's a reason it was carried forward as the starting point for all later editions, while the other methods were mostly abandoned). It boosts previously very rare subclasses to more common occurrences: for example, about one-quarter of all characters qualify to be a Paladin or Ranger (compare to less than 2% in OD&D). Druids go from 6% to 78%. Illusionist was 9%, now it's 36%. Assassins scaled up from 5% to 94% (and, again, are even required in the case of very low Charisma).

One thing that jumps out at many of us when we first see this is that the Monk is actually even harder to qualify for than the much-treasured Paladin class -- it's about half the rate of Paladin success in both Methods 1 and 2. But the truth is that getting 3 scores of 15+ is harder than getting a single score of 17+, which are the critical requirements in both OD&D and AD&D. It's probability, kids!

Then you have the totally overhauled Bard class (also removed to PHB Appendix II), which is the only class in the book with explicit minimum requirements for all 6 ability scores (needing at least four 15's, one 12, and a 10). This is an overwhelmingly challenging prospect, with success rates of only 2% for Methods 1 and 2 (but oddly 4% with Method 3, making Bards the only class that Method 3 is better for). Contrast this with the gentle requirements in the OD&D version which gave it the highest acceptance rates for any subclass there.

Forgive me for a rabbit-hole on further weirdness with the Bard regarding the topic at hand: As any AD&D player knows, you can't start as a Bard (unlike the OD&D version); you have to starts as a Fighter, get to at least 5th level, switch to a Thief, progress to at least 6th level, and then switch to the actual Bard super-class (in the direction of what 3E would later identify as "prestige classes" in immense profusion). Note that among the several 15's the text says a Bard needs for their abilities, one of those is Dexterity. But: the core rule for humans switching classes ("The Character With Two Classes", PHB p. 33) dictates that one needs a 17 or 18 in the prime requisite of the class you're switching into -- in this case, Dexterity, when you make your first switch to Thief. So how do those rules interact? I can see arguments for (1) the core switch-class mechanic still apples, so you have a "hidden rule" that a Bard really needs Dexterity of 17+, or (2) the specific description of the Bard class overrides that, and Bards-to-be have a special allowance in their class switching. With that latter rule I can imagine a case where some rules-lawyer says they're aiming for Bard, double-classes as Fighter and Thief with only Dex 15, but then later reneges (a very niche case, to be sure). Nonetheless, for this analysis I've gone with option (2) and assumed the Bard truly needs only Dex 15. (If you instead rule that they really require Dex 17, then the chance to create one drops to approximately 1% for Methods 1 to 3, and less than 0.01% for Method 4.)

Finally, as we see in the last row, the "hopeless" no-class possibility that we outlined above is really a nonissue using any of the AD&D generation methods. With Method I the chance of this happening is only 0.06% (6 times in every 10,000 characters rolled), and with other methods it's even lower (less than 0.01% each).

What surprising things do you see in those results? Would this analysis make you re-think what method(s) you'd want to use in a new AD&D game? Next time: in what ways Unearthed Arcana stirred stuff up a few years later.

Cleaving Through the Ages

One of the things that I love the most about our Wandering DMs project is that we've had the happy accident of assembling a crack D&D research team from among our patrons and followers. Maybe the best? When we gather together for any Sunday afternoon show, we can usually get questions about the history of the D&D game, for any edition, answered live in a couple seconds flat with a citation down to the page and paragraph. It's pretty amazing.

In this vein, when we were prepping for our show a few weeks back on Sweep Attacks, my initial impression was that they'd basically died out after 1E AD&D. To be clear: I'm talking about the ability of classed fighters to get a large number of attacks against very weak opponents -- traditionally 1 hit die or less. (Since 1E didn't have a label for it, many different names have proliferated: Sweep, Cleave, Heroic Fray, Combat Dominance, Fighting the Unskilled, etc.... see the video for more.) In conversations in that show and afterward, it's turned out -- to my great surprise -- that some form of the rule has been in the core books of every single numbered edition.

Amazing. And I'd have never known that without the generous help of our viewers. Because of that community spirit, I think I can say this is first "Through the Ages" post that covers every edition from 0E to 5E. Thanks, everyone!

Chainmail Fantasy

HEROES (and Anti-heroes): Included in this class are certain well-known knights, leaders of army contingents, and similar men. They have the fighting ability of four figures... 

SUPER HEROES: Few and far between, these fellows are one-man armies! (Particularly when armed with magical weaponry.) They act as Hero-types in all cases, except they are about twice as powerful...

In the transition from normal Chainmail mass-combat, to the individual scale Fantasy combat, the basic implementation of high-powered fighters is simple: they just roll more attack dice. Noting that the Chainmail system is entirely d6-based, in a fight of equal-class normal units, each figure rolls a d6 and any "6" kills a figure. In this same situation, a Hero rolls 4 dice, and a Superhero rolls 8 dice. Elegant, yes? Of course, when D&D evolved from this system, 4th-level fighters were called Heroes and 8th-level fighters titled Superheroes. 

Now, there's a totally separate system added on for when Heroes fight fantastic monsters, in which only a single dice-roll was thrown against some target number on 2d6. Thus began the legacy of a distinctly different attack mode against basic-level types vs. higher-level opponents. 

It bears noting that in the introduction to the Fantasy rules, Gygax writes that:

Man-sized figures include: ghouls, heroes (including anti-heroes and super-heroes of the "Conan" type)... (p. 25)

And then near the end of these rules, under "Combination Figures", he observes:

There are certain natural, although rare, combinations. A good example of this is Moorcock's anti-heroish "Eric of Melnibone," who combines the attributes of the Hero-type with wizardry, and wields a magic sword in the balance! (p. 35)

Which gives some helpful literary references for exactly what Gygax had in mind for these mechanics.

Original D&D

Finding the rule in OD&D is unexpectedly tricky, to the extent that it eluded me for several years. There's this in the Monsters & Treasures book:

Attack/Defense capabilities versus normal men are simply a matter of allowing one roll as a man-type for every hit die, with any bonuses being given to only one of the attacks, i.e. a Troll would attack six times, once with a +3 added to the die roll. (Combat is detailed in Vol. III.) (Vol-2, p. 5)

That's basically the same as the mechanic in Chainmail Fantasy -- but arguably only given for monsters. (Some but not all monsters in Chainmail worked that way: ogres, trolls, giants, etc.) Plus I've definitely never seen anyone run classic D&D that way for monsters. But, here we find it more explicitly in the D&D FAQ from the Strategic Review #2 (by Gygax in Summer 1975, one year after D&D's debut), in a combat example where a Hero fights ten Orcs:

Assume the following dice score by the Hero. Note that he is allowed one attack for each of his combat levels as the ratio of one Orc vs. the Hero is 1:4, so this is treated as normal (non-fantastic) melee, as is any combat where the score of one side is a base 1 hit die or less. Hero: 19; 01; 16; 09. Two out of four blows struck... (TSR #2, p. 3)

And in addition, it's somewhat cryptically given as an essential basis for the system in Gygax's Swords & Spells 1:10 scale mass combat rules for D&D another year after that -- given on page 1, in the second paragraph of the Introduction:

At the scale of these rules a single man can be represented by a single figure on the table. So if one opponent has a lone hero (4th level fighting man) facing several figures of men-at-arms (or orcs or similar 1 hit die creatures), an actual melee can take place. The hero will inflict .40 of the damage shown for a 4th level creature on the combat tables and sustain damage until sufficient hits are scored upon the figure to kill the hero. Similarly, if a 12th level fighter is involved he will score 1.2 times the damage shown and so on. (S&S, p. 1)

Again, it's not entirely clear here, but I have marked in the margin of my copy there so I don't forget any more -- Why would a 4th level fighter get 0.40 damage multiplier in this situation? If the tables are designed for 1:10 scale play (they are; you can check the math), and it's a "lone hero", then shouldn't they only get 0.10 of the listed damage? Ah, but the solution is: they're getting a multiplier to attacks equal to their level (4), exactly as in the FAQ example. And likewise the 12th-level fighter is getting 0.10 × 12 = 1.2 damage multiplier for the same reason. Puzzle solved. 

Note that in both the FAQ and the Swords & Spells text, the attack mode is applicable to "1 hit die creatures", with an explicit example of it being used against Orcs. This sometimes unsettles players of later editions, where the benefit threshold was reduced to a lower value (see below). 

Another thing we might observe, from the 12th-level example above, is the assumption of something like theater-of-the-mind combat happening here. If we required immediate adjacency of man-to-man scale figures for attacks (something required in later editions; see further below), then there's no way that a 12th-level fighter could be adjacent to 12 enemies all at once, and thus get a multiplier of 12 attacks every round. It's more likely there's an implied walk-and-chop-and-walk-and-chop going on here.

In conclusion (although I resisted it for quite some time), given that the rule is clearly in Chainmail, in the OD&D FAQ and supplementary materials, as well as in the later 1E AD&D, I'm now convinced that Gygax's intent was to have this rule consistently present throughout all those versions of the game.

1E AD&D

Note: This [the standard fighter attacks-per-melee-round table] excludes melee combat with monsters (q.v.) of less than one hit die (d8) and non-exceptional (0 level) humans and semi-humans, i.e. all creatures with less than one eight-sided hit die. All of these creatures entitle a fighter to attack once for each of his or her experience levels (See COMBAT). (PHB p. 25)

In 1E, the rule is explicitly given as a core mechanic (although still easy to miss, buried as a footnote to a table at the bottom of the page after Rangers). It's applicable to any member of the Fighter class, including all of its sub-classes (so: Fighters, Paladins, Rangers; and later, Barbarians from Unearthed Arcana). And as alluded to earlier, a critical lowering of the threshold has occurred: no longer "1 hit die creatures", but here, strictly "less than one hit die". So the ability is usable against, say, Goblins, but not the Orcs used as the canonical example in OD&D material. 

Occasionally there's some interpretation made here that, in terms of battling man-types, this represents fighters gaining an advantage over completely untrained combatants (hapless peasants), as opposed to trained soldiers. But, by the rules in the 1E DMG, mercenary soldiers also fall into this category -- including, for example, archers, pikes, and heavy horsemen:

Note that regular soldiers are 0 level men-at-arms with 4-7 hit points each. (DMG p. 30).

It should also be pointed out that near the end of this era (and overlapping with the next), TSR licensed the Advanced D&D brand to SSI to make their well-regarded Gold Box video games, and throughout those games this ability of the Fighter classes was referenced onscreen by the shorthand label, "Sweep Attacks". Players of those popular games are thus likely to remember the ability by that name.

2E AD&D 

As an option, a warrior fighting creatures with less than one Hit Die (1-1 or lower) can make a number of attacks equal to his level (i.e., a 7th-level fighter can make seven attacks). These attacks are handled in order of initiative. (DMG, p. 57)

Here's the same mechanic in 2E AD&D, now given as an optional rule, appearing only in the DMG. Again, it's distressingly easy to miss it, because it's tucked in at the end of a section titled, "Multiple Attacks and Initiative", and still not given any memorable label. Otherwise, it's identical to the mechanic seen in 1E (a fairly common situation for this ruleset). 

It also bears noting that in the 2E Combat & Tactics supplement, among the extra optional rules given, there's one called "Heroic Fray" which gives a modified mechanic: when outnumbered by 1-hit-die types, fighters get double attacks, plus one more if holding a shield. I mention this because (a) it's given an official label here for the first time, which some players used thereafter, and (b) possibly because of that nifty label it sticks in people's mind, and some folks think that's the only place it appeared in 2E. (The OSR Hyperborea game calls the attack mode "Heroic Fighting", probably as an homage.)

3E D&D

CLEAVE  [General] You can follow through with powerful blows. Prerequisites: Str 13+, Power Attack. Benefit: If you deal a creature enough damage to make it drop (typically by dropping it to below 0 hit points, killing it, etc.), you get an immediate, extra melee attack against another creature in the immediate vicinity... (PHB p. 80)

GREAT CLEAVE  [General]
You can wield a melee weapon with such power that you can strike multiple times when you fell your foes. Prerequisites: Str 13+, Power Attack, Cleave, base attack bonus +4 or higher. Benefit: As Cleave, except that you have no limit to the number of times you can use it per round. (PHB p. 82)

3E D&D introduced the concept of "Feats": special powers that may be chosen as characters advance in level. Fighters get additional, bonus Feats (more than any other class), and the two listed above are on their Bonus Feat applicable list. That said, not every Fighter gets the power; they must make a deliberate choice to pick up the ability. At the earliest, a Fighter might have Cleave at 1st level, and Great Cleave by (you guessed it) 4th level.

Most of us interpret this as a reworking of the rule from earlier editions; if a Fighter (with the Feat) battles very weak creatures, then they're likely to get a chain of attacks that puts many of them down. And many of us prefer the continuity of this mechanic -- unlike in 1E, where there's a huge quantum collapse between fighting "up-to-7-hp" creatures vs. "up-to-8-hp" creatures, the benefit here will more smoothly be usable against 2 HD or 3 HD creatures, just less frequently.

In addition, there's another high-level Feat in these rules called Whirlwind Attack which gives one melee attack against each adjacent opponent in a round, which I think would be equally eligible for the "heir to sweep attacks" title. But in hindsight it's the Cleave terminology which got the most mind-share (e.g., note the title of this blog, and see more below). 

4E D&D

Cleave | Fighter Attack 1
You hit one enemy, then cleave into another.
At-Will | Martial, Weapon
Standard Action | Melee weapon
Target: One creature | Attack: Strength vs. AC
Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage, and an enemy adjacent to you takes damage equal to your Strength modifier. Increase damage to 2[W] + Strength modifier at 21st level. (PHB p. 77)

Sweeping Blow | Fighter Attack 3
You put all your strength into a single mighty swing that strikes many enemies at once.
Encounter | Martial, Weapon
Standard Action | Close burst 1
Target: Each enemy in burst you can see | Attack: Strength vs. AC
Weapon: If you’re wielding an axe, a flail, a heavy blade, or a pick, you gain a bonus to the attack roll equal to one-half your Strength modifier.
Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier damage. (PHB p. 79)

Surprised to see me covering 4E (I think for the very first time)? Yeah, me too. Again, thanks to the wonderful WDMs helpers to lead me here. 

In the 4E rules, if you don't know, every character class gets a menagerie of powers to pick from, about as deep as the wizard's spell list. In the Fighter's case they're called "Exploits". Note that the very first Fighter Exploit listed in the book is that "Cleave" ability. If chosen, this can be used every round at will; it provides the ability to make a normal hit against one target, and then get some more damage, equal to the Strength bonus, against a second adjacent enemy. At first blush, that may not seem like much, but recall: 4E has a rule for "Minions" where low-level types are all assumed to have 1 hit point by default. So in this use-case that Cleave ability is basically always a 2nd free kill. (Thanks, Ash!)

And the next thing that strikes my eye is the 3rd-level power "Sweeping Blow". Of course, the name of this exploit hearkens back to those AD&D Gold Box games. Note the attack type is given as "Close burst 1", which means that the attack effect is applied to every target immediately adjacent to the Fighter in question. To me, that seems like the closest analog to the original ability. (And the ability in the AD&D Gold Box games also required adjacency, as characters were portrayed miniature-style on a grid.)

There are other powers at higher levels which expand on this ability: "Come and Get It" (7th level), "Shift the Battlefield" (9th), "Thicket of Blades" (same), "Vorpal Tornado" (17th), "Devastation's Wake" (19th), "Warrior's Urging" (23rd), "Cruel Reaper" (27th), etc. -- these work in a similar "burst" fashion, and add on effects like allowing the Fighter to move between attacks, to pull more enemies into their burst, to add conditions like more damage or paralysis, and so forth. But I feel like "Sweeping Blow" is the basis for this system (the first available "burst" attack).

(Now, it's possible that I may be misinterpreting those listings! Please leave a comment with a correction if you have any.)

5E D&D

Cleaving through Creatures

If your player characters regularly fight hordes of lower-level monsters, consider using this optional rule to help speed up such fights.

When a melee attack reduces an undamaged creature to 0 hit points, any excess damage from that attack might carry over to another creature nearby. The attacker targets another creature within reach and, if the original attack roll can hit it, applies any remaining damage to it. If that creature was undamaged and is likewise reduced to 0 hit points, repeat this process, carrying over the remaining damage until there are no valid targets, or until the damage carried over fails to reduce an undamaged creature to 0 hit points. (DMG p. 272)

In 5E, the status of this rule somewhat reverts back to that of 2E; it's only an optional rule, but if utilized, then every Fighter in the game has it by default -- well actually, every character has it by default here, even non-Fighter-types; but my point is that PCs don't pick it from a list of options as in 3E or 4E. 

Other than that, the mechanic is quite different from early editions. 5E tends to be amenable to giving PCs two attacks per round, maybe three at most; but tries really hard to otherwise limit the number of attacks or rolls made in a turn. In that light, the possible multiple-hits are all adjudicated off a single d20 attack roll, and spreads out a damage roll only to creatures that are all insta-kills. There's an echo of the 4E version of the Cleave Exploit here (as well as other higher-level powers). 

Note that the option seems to be reserved only for "player characters". That's not generally a clause you'd find in a rule from classic editions, and Gygax (at least in his writings, e.g., around saving throws or critical hits) would frequently emphasize giving monsters a fair-shake, i.e., grant any general benefit that PCs get to monsters as well. In any case, this flips one possible reading of OD&D Vol-2, where monsters get the benefit and PCs don't.

Basic D&D Line

Let's not forgot that through the 1980's and into the 1990's there was a parallel ruleset, the "Basic D&D" line, being published alongside the flagship Advanced D&D line. This includes the Holmes Basic, Moldvay/Cook B/X sets, and Mentzer's BECMI line. All of those were boxed sets that could be sold in mainline department and toy stores, whereas the AD&D rulebook line was all hardcover gaming books, generally for specialty stores (broadly speaking). The Basic line, I think, is concurrent with the biggest "spike" of incoming players in the D&D boom-fad circa 1980-1981. There are a few Dragon articles by Gygax around the time where you get a whiff of surprise/grief that the Basic line is far outselling his magnum opus AD&D line. 

Anyway, my point is that lots of classic D&D players started with the Basic set and are most familiar with those rules (assuming they didn't mix-and-match to the point where they can't tell the difference). Where is the cleave/sweep rule in that line?

Well, in this one case there isn't any, no matter where you look (and I've looked in all those dozen or so revised rulebooks trying to find it). Why is that? I'm not totally sure. You could say as a principle that while other editions were usually fairly generous about giving Fighters some way to get multiple attacks per round, the Basic line simply wasn't (outside of magic like haste). Maybe that's because the initial Basic set only covered levels 1-3, and such a benefit wouldn't really show up at those levels. Or maybe because Holmes was mostly just copying text directly from OD&D and its supplements -- not looking very much at Chainmail or AD&D, even for things that might be implied in Gary's mind by reference (also e.g.: dragon fear & detection abilities) -- and the one and only place the cleave/sweep rule is not given explicitly to PCs is in the OD&D LBBs. 

I asked Frank Mentzer about the status of the "sweep attack" type mechanic in his games on Facebook, and he kindly replied:

So Frank is (1) quite intentional about the rule status, (2) faithfully applies it in an AD&D game, (3) doesn't like it, and (4) tends to be sensitive about monsters getting equitable rule benefits compared to players (likewise as noted for Gygax above). Although this author might counter-argue that the balancing factor in O/AD&D is the monsters appearing in huge numbers (hundreds) if they're susceptible to sweep attacks.

As an aside, you really have to hunt in Basic/BECMI to find any way for PCs to get multiple attacks without magic. There's a loosely suggested rule in Cook Expert (p. X8), pending release of a future Companion rule set, that Fighters might get a 2nd attack starting at 20th level (and more at 25th and 30th; maximum 4 attacks per round). But that rule is not part of the Companion rules when Mentzer finally publishes it.

What Mentzer's Companion Rules set (for PC levels 15-25) does have is the following. Fighters who have sworn fealty to another ruler (either to serve as a wandering Paladin/Knight/Avenger, or as a ruler in a feudal network) get this combat option:

Multiple Attacks: The character gains this ability at 12th level. Demi-humans gain this ability at certain XP levels, as given in the class descriptions. If the character can hit an opponent with a Hit roll of 2 (calculated including all adjustments), he may make 2 attacks each combat round. At level 24 and higher, he may make 3 attacks; at level 36, he may make 4 attacks each round. This applies to ideal circumstances, and the character may use movement or some other action instead of an extra swing. (Player's Companion, p. 18)

I suppose if you squint really hard, this ability -- only usable if the PC basically auto-hits the target -- kind of has whispers of a more-attacks-against-very-weak-enemies concept? But of course it's based on armor, not hit dice or hit points, and the number of attacks given is still really very small. (Compare: In Swords & Spells a 12th-level fighter can get a multiplier of 12 to attacks; here it's just 2.) It does echo Cook's earlier proposal in that it has a top-level limit of 4 attacks per round. 

Up in the Master's Rules (for levels 26-36), there's an option where the DM might just let a character get one extra attack by wielding a second weapon in the off-hand, at a -4 penalty and loss of one mastery/specialization level there. And there's also an added piece of specialty equipment: a shield with one of various attached weapons (horn/knife/sword), which permits one extra attack per round with it. (Frank is really stingy with the extra attacks.)

Conclusions

I've been focusing on this lately because (1) honestly I overlooked this rule in my OD&D games for a long time, and (b) I now think it's the single most essential mechanical difference between the Basic and Advanced D&D lines from the 80's. 

In Original and Advanced D&D, the standard monster numbers appearing (by default for wilderness encounters per the texts there) zoomed up into the hundreds for humanoids like men, kobolds, goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, dwarves, gnomes, and elves -- all types that were originally 1 base hit die. Anything else only had numbers up to 20 or 30 at most. There's fairly good statistical evidence that was done as a balancing factor in light of high-level fighters putting down many such targets per round. In fact, we're told that Arneson specifically used the listed numbers appearing as the trigger for fighter cleave/sweep attacks -- if the numbers were in the hundreds, then fighters got their turbo-attacks. 

On the other hand, in the BX/BECMI line, where the cleave/sweep rule is absent, then the designers (starting with Moldvay/Cook) were compelled to radically reduce the humanoid numbers appearing. This averaged by a cut of roughly 1/10th from the O/AD&D wilderness numbers (a division factor of from 3 to 13 depending on type). The most numerous monsters are goblins and orcs, who may appear in an outdoor band of up to 60. (Note that Holmes dodged this by not listing any standard numbers in his stock monster list; and the Expert rules have some text notes that camps of men, et. al., may be in larger OD&D-scale numbers.)

Anyway, players who switch between the Basic and Advanced games (and it was very common to mishmash the rulebooks together in play) are likely to be the most surprised by the sudden appearance or disappearance of the critical cleave/sweep rule. In our video discussion (at top), this was true for me & Paul, with me coming from more Advanced play, and Paul having more Basic line experience.

But it's a core part of how combat and encounters were structured in the root of the game back in O/AD&D, and that legacy is so strong and deep, that indeed it has appeared in some form in every edition since, up to the current day (Basic offshoot excepted). 

For my games going forward, I do need to make a decision for my brand of OD&D games: Incorporate the sweep/cleave rule for fighters, or some variant, or do some radical surgery on balancing encounter numbers (like the cuts done in B/X)? Which form do you like best? 

(And phew, thanks for reading all that. There's been a lot of editions at this point!)

Dungeons & Demographics, Pt. 3

In the last installment, we noted that OD&D text descriptions for leader distributions (read: NPC levels) are totally different than what emerges from a simulation of actually playing out games against the dungeon encounter tables (read: PC levels). But: We did see that if we alter rolls on the OD&D encounter tables in the simulation to the reduced level of 1d6-4, then we do get a population that is passingly similar to the described NPC distribution. Here I'd like to use those simulations to come up with an evidence-based system for generating high-level character ability scores and hit points.

One important thing I noticed in an earlier, partial analysis of ability scores and hit points (link) is that these improved high-level distributions are still bell-shaped. That is: You would not want to use a method like "roll d6's, minimum 3", because that causes a pileup of scores on the low end (e.g.: 3), which is to say, generates a right-skewed distribution. (For example, the "minimum score" method that Gygax uses for hit points in AD&D Unearthed Arcana, p. 74, is contra-indicated.) 

What I came up for a simple dice-rolling method for such heightened, generally bell-shaped scores is to roll two dice of some type and add a fixed bonus, such that the maximum result is still 18. Consider these dice to be our toolset for this purpose: 3d6 (Expected value 10.5), 2d6+6 (E = 13), 2d4+10 (E = 15), and 2d3+12 (E = 16). Now we look at the average scores for our population generated by the Arena program (with an encounter roll modifier of -4), and try to find the best fit at each level:

I've batched up the levels into groups of about 3 at a time for convenience. At higher levels, the picture is pretty clear; scores in each of Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution trend upward as only the fittest characters survive to higher levels, as we would expect. In the 2nd-4th level tier, characters have an average of 13 across each of these abilities, arguing for a roll of 2d6+6 in three abilities of the player's choice. For levels 5th-7th, it looks like one ability is about 15 (2d4+10), and the two others 13 (2d6+6). For levels of 8th and above you have at least two scores at 15; in this case I'll take a bit of artistic license and use one 2d3+12, one 2d4+10, and two 2d6+6 scores. Not too bad.

But now let's focus on the slightly troublesome 1st level. Whereas the 0-level clearly depicts the straight 3d6-roll for newly generated normal men (average about 10.5), characters surviving to 1st level do evidence about a 1-point advantage across each of Strength, Dexterity and Constitution (average about 11.5). The problem is, using the dice "tools" above, none of the abilities quite reach halfway to the 2d6+6 roll method (mean of 10.5 and 13 = 11.75). But if we pool the overall improvement in all three scores, then we get a value a bit over 3 (3.2). So to reflect that basic trend, I'm going to give 1st-level characters in my games a boost of about 3 points by selecting one single ability -- likely their prime requisite -- and rolling 2d6+6. (This replaces my old house rule of rolling all 3d6 and then swapping two of the player's choice.)

In summary, here's my new evidence-based house rule for rolling ability scores:

• Level 0: Roll all abilities 3d6 in order. 
• Level 1: Roll one selected ability 2d6+6, others 3d6.
• Levels 2-4: Roll three selected abilities 2d6+6, others 3d6.
• Levels 5-7: Roll one ability 2d4+10, two 2d6+6, others 3d6.
• Levels 8+: Roll one 2d3+12, one 2d4+10, two 2d6+6, and two 3d6.

Hit Points: Note that in the table above, average hit points at each level are truncated, not rounded (average hit points at 0-level are really 3.5, at 1st level about 6.5, etc.) The best method to generate higher-level hit points is to simply re-roll any dice that come up 1 or 2. (Or equivalently: roll a die of one size less and add 2.) From a purely technically standpoint you wouldn't want to do this for the very last level (the character has not proven survivability through that level yet), but for practical purposes I don't want to split that hair in my house rules, nor have to remember about it.

Final Thoughts: While we've developed this system looking at the "NPC" population at the -4 encounter die level, the truth is, any other close modifier generates about the same ability scores and hit points upon surviving to higher levels. So I'm comfortable using this system for generating scores for both high-level PCs and NPCs. It's conceivable that future refinements of the Arena simulator program might change things here, but my expectation is that the method will remain pretty stable going into the future.

The Case for Level Zero

What evidence is there in classic version of D&D for the status level-0 characters? This could be important for a few reasons: (1) It would make a difference in the statistics for mass-combat armies, whether the basic troop type was level-0 or level-1 or something else; and (2) It could provide justification for common 1st-level boosts (as in ability scores or hit points), under the statistical survivability analysis that we've done via the Arena simulation program (link).

Original D&D

In Original D&D, 1st-level characters are distinguished from Normal Men in at least three ways.

1. Starting-level fighters are given the level title "Veteran", implying that some significant action had to take place prior to reaching the 0-XP level (Vol-1, p. 16).
2. Veterans are given Hit Dice of "1+1" (that is: 1d6+1; Vol-1, p. 17), whereas normal men such as Bandits, et. al., are given "Hit Dice: 1 die/man" (that is: 1d6 with no addition; Vol-2, p. 6). 
3. Veterans are also given fighting capability in the Chainmail-based system of "Man + 1", while normal men would presumably be simply "Man" (with no bonus; Vol-1, p. 17). 

That said, in the d20-based "Alternative Combat System" combat and saving throw tables, there is no distinction in abilities; a footnote reads, "Normal men equal 1st level fighters" (Vol-1, p. 19). But other than that, we see that even in the earliest work there was a clear distinction drawn between 1st-level fighters and other Normal Men (even those who appear in large armed groups, making a living via combat and raiding, with high-level leadership, as per the Vol-2 listing for Men such as bandits, brigands, pirates, etc.).

D&D Sup-I: Greyhawk

Here's a puzzle: what hit dice do Normal Men have under D&D Supplement-I, Greyhawk, using the alternate hit dice rule (p. 10: e.g, d8's for fighter levels)? The text says, "Use of this system is highly recommended, but if it is used all monsters should be based on the 8-sided die system." Does this include Normal Men, or merely every other being in the monster listing? If the former, then they are here equal to 1st-level fighters and unique compared to any other ruleset (see below); but if the latter then they have just become less strong than Orcs, for example.

Personally, I think this switch to d8-dice for monster hits was one of the major, early missteps in the evolution of D&D. So much simpler to roll batches of d6's for this purpose, and I see no compelling need for expert fighter dice to match monster dice. 

Swords & Spells

Gygax's Swords & Spells supplement for mass warfare in Original D&D appears to have the first actual use of the phrase "0 level". The combat tables for average damage per figure, unlike the OD&D core books, have a separate row for level "0", with the footnote: "0 Level is normal man-type (i.e., 1 die or less, and not able to progress upwards in levels.)" (p. 25). The two-page spread of weapon-based combat tables in Appendix A are in fact entirely based on Level 0 combatants (p. 31-32), with modifiers for other levels applied from a prior page (p. 27).

These rules include different "Troop Classifications" in six tiers: Peasants, Levies, Regulars, Elite, Guards, and the combination Elite Guards. The latter are quite rare: "As a rule, guards should be limited to 10% of an army, and elite guards would surround the personage of the commander only, for example" (p. 5). But the following all-italic paragraph establishes that any 1st-level fighters qualify for this special category: "NOTE: Scale figures representing human/humanoid (and highly intelligent) creatures of 1st level or above or with 1+1 hit dice are always considered as having elite guard status. For example, the following types of troops are classified as elite guard status: Veterans (1st level fighters), Elves, Hobgoblins..." (p. 6). This status gives bonuses to formation, movement, morale, and melee. So in summary: 1st level is shown to be something very special indeed.

Advanced D&D

In Gygax's AD&D, there are even more copious distinctions made between 1st-level characters and those less than that. The Player's Handbook states, "It is important to keep in mind that most humans and demi-humans are '0 level'." (p. 106). The Dungeon Master's Guide notes in the section on hiring mercenary soldiers, "Note that regular soldiers are 0 level men-at-arms with 4-7 hit points each" (p. 30: again highlighting that even trained career combatants are 0-level by default; see also class followers on p. 16). The combat and saving throw tables here give a separate, reduced column for level 0 fighters (p. 74, 79). A footnote reads, "Dwarves, elves and gnomes are never lower than 1st  level (unlike halflings and humans, which may be of 0 level)" (p. 74: possibly correcting PHB p. 106 above). A table on the campaign's "Typical Inhabitants" specifies combat ability of "0 level", or even as low as -1 to -3 from that mark for sedentary types, with hit points ranging from 1-3 to 2-7 (p. 88). Of peasant revolts it is noted, "Troops will be 0 level" (p. 94). For energy draining by undead, the stated rule is: "If this brings the character below 1st level of experience, then the individual is a 0 level person never capable of gaining experience again. If a 0 level individual is drained an energy level, he or she is dead (possibly to become an undead monster)" (p. 119). City and merchant guards are also 0 level (p. 191-192).

In the Monster Manual section on Men, the first thing stated is, "Normal men have from 1-6 hit points each." (p. 66), and this is reiterated in the following entries "Hit Dice: 1-6 hit points" for Bandits (Brigands), Buccaneers (Pirates), Dervishes (Nomads), Merchants, and Pilgrims. So in this regard the hit points are identical to those for Men in OD&D Vol-2 (actually downgraded for Dervishes), and it argues that the likely intent in OD&D Sup-I was also to maintain them at the level of 1d6 hits, less than 1st-level fighters or 1-hit-die monsters.

The DMG also has the following statement in the section on henchmen (p. 35):

Number of Prospective Henchmen: Human and half-orc characters suitable for level advancement are found at a ratio of 1 in 100. Other races have an incidence of 1 in 50. However, as most of these characters will be other than low level adventurers and already in a situation they are satisfied with  -  and humans more so than other races, unless the development of the area is primarily other than human - about 1 in 1,000 population will be interested in offers of employment as a henchman. NOTE: This figure must be adjusted by the DM according to the locale, for if  it  is an active adventuring area, the incidence of prospective henchmen might be as great as 1 in 200, while if it  is  a settled and staid area, incidence might be as low as 1 in 5,000.

Note the opening line, "Human and half-orc characters suitable for level advancement are found at a ratio of 1 in 100." If taken at face value, then this could have interesting demographic implications; however, it seems to broadly contradict the fact elsewhere that for about every 100 normal men, there is at least one leader of 8th-10th level, along with a host of other lower-level fighters (see Men: Bandits in the Monster Manual p. 66 and other places). And surely the claim that "Other races have an incidence of 1 in 50 [for level advancement]" is in even starker contrast with the footnote on DMG p. 74 that "Dwarves, elves and gnomes are never lower than 1st  level". So coming up with some synthesized interpretation for these different statements seems very challenging; they seem as though if coming from completely different campaign systems. And yet -- there is no doubt that level 0 men are the norm; the only question is what their relative frequency is (high or extremely high).

Unearthed Arcana

In the AD&D Unearthed Arcana work, Gygax implements a mechanic for gaining XP and advancing through 0-levels in two places: for the Cavalier and the Magic-User. For the former (p. 14):

A cavalier character must be of proper social class, and is usually of noble or aristocratic origin. Only those characters of Upper Class  social status may immediately enter into the cavalier class. Those of lower social standing are generally excluded from becoming cavaliers, but certain members of lower social classes may be so honored. Such a character must be sponsored by a higher authority  of  greater status, and begins first as a 0-level Horseman (a retainer for a Knight), then a 0-level Lancer, and finally becomes a 1st-level Armiger of the cavalier class. The 0-level Horseman starts at -1500  experience points and has 1d4 + 1 initial hit points. The Horseman becomes a Lancer at  -500 experience points and gains another d4 roll for cumulative hit points. The Lancer becomes a 1st-level cavalier at 0 experience points, and gains another d4 in hit points. In contrast, a character whose social standing qualifies him or her for immediate entrance into the cavalier class begins as a 1st-level Armiger with 1d10 + 3 hit points. The character’s hit-point bonus for high constitution (if applicable) is first received at either Horseman or Armiger level, and is then applied to each additional hit die from second level on as normal. The special abilities of the cavalier class are only gained when the character attains Armiger status.

These statistics appear likewise in the class table for cavaliers (p. 15). For the Magic-User, 0-levels are the mechanic by which one can use Cantrips even before the character can cast a 1st-level spell (p. 45):

Cantrips are the magic spells learned and used by apprentice magic-users and illusionists during their long, rigorous, and tedious training for the craft of magic-use. An aspiring magic-user or illusionist may use 1 cantrip per day as a 0-level neophyte (-2000 x.p. to -1001 x.p.), 2 cantrips per day as a 0-level initiate  (-1000  to -501), and 3 cantrips per day as a 0-level apprentice (-500 to -1). Cantrips must be memorized just as higher-level spells are.

So these below-zero-XP rules are broadly consistent in their application. In each case there are actually more than one 0-level in question (two for the cavalier; three for the magic-user). Somewhat oddly in my view, the increasing XP-per level is reversed for the 0-levels; the earliest levels actually require more XP, and the level closest to 0 the least (in both cases, just 500 XP to get to 1st level from the immediate predecessor).

(Side note: Post-Gygax, there was an AD&D-branded Greyhawk hardcover book with an appendix on running 0-level characters. However, those rules do not use standard XP, instead using a totally different AP point-buy system instead -- e.g., get an AP point and use it to boost an ability or buy a skill by one point -- and so we need not consider it further here.)

Holmes D&D

While the status of "0-level/normal men" is fairly consistent throughout all the Gygaxian works, the Basic D&D line veers off in another direction -- one which has caused a few mistakes and incorrect recollections on my part in the past. First, J. Eric Holmes started to dispose of them. Under "Non-Play Characters", he writes: "Generally, only the lowest level of character types can be hired, i.e. first level" (p. 8); that is, he seemed to collapse the distinction between 0-level hirelings and 1st-level henchmen in mainline D&D. Secondly, at the start of the monster list, he writes "Monsters' hit dice are 8-sided", and then three lines later in the lead-off Bandit entry, they get "Hit Dice: 1" (p. 22). So it's hard to read that in any way other than giving Bandits a full 1d8 hit points; a conceivable reading of Supplement-I Greyhawk (see above), but definitely at odds with the listing in the AD&D Monster Manual. On the other hand, the combat tables do include a row for "Normal Man" (p. 18) which didn't exist pre-Swords & Spells, but other than that I can't find reference or use of the term.

Edit: Zenopus Archives has pointed out on his site that in Holmes' original manuscript submitted to TSR, his combat and saving throw tables did not include any separate row for "Normal Man". Rather, they were inserted in an editorial pass by Gygax himself before publication of the final product. But apparently Gygax did not pick up on those more subtle areas where the concept was submerged (hirelings and hit dice). Thanks to Zenopus for that analysis (links: one, two).

Moldvay/Cook D&D

The Moldvay Basic and Cook Expert D&D rules take this a step further, by attempting to make almost every man in an adventure a member of some class. Now, Moldvay does state that, "A retainer may be of any level (0, 1, 2, 3, or higher) and of any class (normal man or a character class)" (p. B21), and he does include rows for "Normal Man" in the combat and save tables (p. B26-27). But that level is used mostly for minor non-human monsters (e.g., bats, rats, centipedes, insect swarms, goblins, kobolds, and mules). The Bandits which previously represented the canonical normal men are here declared to be "NPC thieves" who save as "Thief: 1" (p. B30); but while 1st-level thieves get 1d4 hit points, once again the monster entry simply says "Hit Dice: 1" -- which means 1d8 by the rules of the monster section -- so these seem out-of-joint. Also, a new monster type of "Noble" is given, and for these, "In the D&D BASIC rules, a noble will always be a 3rd level fighter. However, the DM may choose to make a noble any class and level... A noble will always be accompanied by a squire (a 2nd level fighter). A noble might also be accompanied by as many as 10 retainers or hirelings (usually 1st level fighters)" (p. B39-40).

Edit: Thanks to JB in the comments for noticing that I'd overlooked a dedicated monster entry for the unclassed "Normal Human" (p. B40); I missed this because it's the only place in this or any other ruleset where the descriptor is other than "Normal Man". The stat block gives them 1d4 hit points. The description says this: "Most humans are 'normal' humans, though people with certain professions (such as merchant, soldier, lord, scout, and so forth) help in some adventures"; my reading is that those "certain professions" are all classed by default (c.f., "Noble" above and all the soldiers in any B/X adventure). Finally, Moldvay gives a unique rule for advancement, far more generous than Gygax: "As soon as a human gets experience points through an adventure, that person must choose a character class."

In the Cook Expert rules, the only place the phrase "0 level" or "normal man" appears is in the matching combat/save tables, the rules for the legacy potions of heroism and control human, and the stats for seamen and the normal hawk. Mercenaries are not explicated one way or another (p. X22). However, in the catch-all monster entry for Men, they are all given a full 1 Hit Die and saves as "Fighter: 1"; including all of the types of Brigands, Buccaneers, Pirates, Dervishes, Merchants, and Nomads (p. X35) -- very much at variance with the OD&D and AD&D game lines. Likewise, all of the adventures in the X-series of modules specified base soldiers in any army as being universally at least 1st-level fighters: see modules X4, X5, the comprehensive army rosters for all of the Known World in module X10, and so forth.

Conclusions

While there is some attraction to the simplicity of the Cook/Moldvay method (all soldiers are at least 1st-level fighters), I do think that the core D&D system makes the most sense if we interpret things in the sense of OD&D/AD&D with a "0-level/normal man" class prior to 1st-level characters. This justifies 1st-level fighters having the title "Veteran", their improved attack/defense capability, the status that trainee wizards might have prior to casting their first spell, etc.

As usual, I frown upon special-case discontinuities such as that "0 Level is... not able to progress upwards in levels" (per Swords & Spells). In this sense, I look favorably upon Gygax's addition in Unearthed Arcana of some kind of rules for pre-1st-level experience progression. Even if we never expect to use that during gameplay for PC's, it gives us something to hang our hat on for the purpose of campaign-wide NPC demographics, and how the matriculation from 0-level to 1st-level might occur. (And even for active play, I've had at least one player in the last year take over an NPC lantern boy who started racking up a surprising number of kills and a developed persona -- moreso than his original dead PC -- and surely that should be rewarded.)

Here's what I think I would do for the unwashed masses in my "Original Edition Delta" games: Start at 0-level. Roll 3d6 in order for abilities. Roll 1d6 for hit points. Earn 1,000 XP to get to first level. On achieving 1st level, add 1 hp if becoming a fighter, or subtract 1 hp if a becoming wizard (minimum 1 hp before Constitution bonus). A slight wrinkle here is that 1st-level fighter graduates in this way could only have 2-7 hit points, but that actually matches the Original D&D Vol-1 text, and is on average the same as a 1d8 roll.

Note that I veer off from Gygax a bit here in the exact XP needed to graduate from 0-level. For both the cavalier and magic-user, he set the level immediately before 1st at 500 XP; although in both cases, there were other "negative" levels that one needed to progress through initially.  Looking at the standard geometric XP tables, with fighters starting at a 2,000 XP step for 1st level, the clear extrapolation is that the level before that should be 1,000 XP (i.e., half). In addition: under certain other demographic assumptions, having a 500 XP step may actually produce a greater number of 1st-level types than normal men, a result that we should certainly avoid.

A few notes for Book of War: statistically, these distinctions are all below the level of granularity recognized in that game. For example, say a target is wearing chain & shield (AC 4 in any edition above). If the attacker is 0-level, with d6 damage, against a d8 hit die, then the chance to score a kill with one hit is 11%; but if the attacker is 1st-level, with d8 damage, against a d6 hit die, then the chance is 21%. Any other permutation is somewhere within these bounds; but using the BOW d6-mechanic, all of these round off to the same 1-in-6 chance to score a kill (16.6...%). So that's why it's really nice that BOW is a statistically accurate representation of whichever edition of the game you normally play with, regardless of these small details; and at all times I can thus assume that common 1 HD human soldiers are, for simplicity, effectively the same as common 1 HD orcs (at least in reasonable lighting).

So we do like giving the 0-levels a chance to be heroes someday. But what implications does this have for campaign demographics or 1st-level abilities and hit points, having survived the 0-level to get there? More on that next time.

HelgaCon VI – Descent Into the Depths

Preparations and Commencement of the Journey; Violence of the Initial Encounter Area; How the Subsequent Passages were Navigated; Entry into the Great Cavern; On the Dilemma of Drow Reactions

Continuing my multi-year program of running one of the classic AD&D GDQ modules at sequential HelgaCon gatherings, this year I was pleased to roll out module D1: Descent Into the Depths of the Earth, which has all kinds of great flavor and atmosphere. Recall that this series is really the "killer app" for D&D: it was the first official series of modules ever published, it's surely the most-played and well-regarded set of modules, it's Gygax at his most creative, and this particular series is what hooked a generation on Drow Elves and the Underdark (although they certainly got overexposed in later years).

For my HelgaCon session I had a full 8 players at the table, ranging from nearly brand-new to very experienced indeed (including my fellow HelgaCon bloggers Paul and BJ). Last year we were low on players, which probably contributed to the TPK pasting they took in the Hall of the Fire Giant King. I started by passing around the same premade OED characters we've been using in prior years, and explained that they'd been resurrected through miraculous means, spending the prior year hunting for a secret entrance beneath the Hall which connected to a series of deeper tunnels.

Having selected their individual characters, I read a modified version of the module's introductory text ("Knowing that the giants seemed to be guided by some unearthly intelligence, you reason that perhaps you can cut this line of support and direction at the source, without confronting Snurre and his titans directly again..."), handed them the fortuitously-discovered Player's Map from the module, and explained the victory conditions for the session.This would be a simplified grading system from prior years, assessing 4 goals: (1) securing passage beyond the first major area shown on the map, (2) discovering some means to allow infiltration into later areas, (3) collecting at least 30,000 silver value, and (4) having all characters survive to the end.

Given this, they picked a party leader/caller (thankfully without prompting on my part), and took some time planning on supplies and equipment. As expected in the module, they did opt to buy a pair of donkeys and load them up with about two month's supply of food and water. I was highly entertained when my friend Paul guessed, "We'll do this to be safe, but surely this adventure can't take more than a single day," when it does in fact extend to a multi-day wilderness-style exploration of miles and miles of tunnels in the Underdark (as we now call it). Having settled on supplies and a tactical marching order for the yawning 30' wide tunnels -- including several continual light items, and an invisible dwarven thief about 100' in front of the party -- they departed into the ever-descending northwest passage. (Regarding the provisioning stage, I must again recommend my simplified stone encumbrance system, which makes calculations for that kind of stuff trivially doable in one's head.)

One thing I did was to make a short custom table to communicate environmental flavor in little bits at a time. I was rolling on this once per mile in the main thoroughfare until the basic table was exhausted. (There's at least one Dragon article by Vic Broquard that has more sophisticated tables for this purpose; as written they're overwhelmingly complicated, but you might cut down parts of them for this purpose; see Dragon #131, p. 22):

1. Spur (short side cave)
2. Small stream or pool, drinkable.
3. Carved side chamber (door 50%).
4. Cave bats (huge, ugly) fly overhead.
5. Gust of dank, musty air blows downward.
6. Stone bridge over crevasse.

The first main encounter area with the Drow checkpoint (hex D3) really hammered the players hard. The dark elves surprised the party with their nigh-undetectability (as might be expected), and as the scout Bellinus Blueye ran into them organizing and tried to return to tell the party, the elves used their magic to extinguish the party lights and simultaneously launch a barrage of poisoned crossbow bolts. This immediately took down the dwarf scout and the party's most experienced wizard (and player). Party response was a bit slow, as they tried to use a healing potion on the poisoned PCs (no effect), cast a light spell (to be extinguished next round by the drow), and having the elven thief/wizard fire a longbow into the darkness ahead (instead of using any magic). On Round 2, the dark elves reloaded and used their darkness magic again; the party responded likewise. On Round 3, the enemy fired another crossbow barrage, taking out the other primary wizard. At this point I was thinking, "Holy crap -- this module claims that it's easier than G3, but by god we're going to have another TPK in the very first encounter!". Well, might as well finish it off and start some other game if that must be the case...

But this was the point where the party managed to start fighting back quite heroically. Someone thought to finally try the precious jug of mithridate (neutralize poison) they'd been given, which did serve to resuscitate the first wizard (and then wisely cast protection from missiles as he got up). The lordly lead fighters charged into the weakly lichen-illuminated tunnel and started hacking down several of the front row of Drow warriors. This then triggered an escalating response from the Drow; the noble magic-user, hanging back in the rear, cast an ice storm spell down on the party; this did 24 points of damage before a save, killing the dwarf scout and one of the donkeys. The party then replied with more concentrated melee, as well as blasts from a fireball wand (at the rear area), a lightning bolt spell, as well as conjuring a 16-HD earth elemental to start pounding Drow and a phantasmal-force duplicate of the same to add to the terror. (Drow special saves versus these effects went in the party's favor, fortunately for them.)

So the players did in fact manage to rally and kill most of the dark elves at the checkpoint, driving off the rest off them. The commanding EHP fled the area with just 5 hp left, having never actually faced the PC's. The party thereafter regrouped, healed whom they could, and successfully used their one reincarnation scroll on their fallen member, bringing the group back to full strength. One of the party fighters, Boris of Briansk had unfortunately shattered his intelligent magic sword in the combat, destroying it (sadly his player Mike inevitably has the worst luck with my critical fumble tables), so he picked up one the fine Drow short swords to use as a replacement. The group cursorily scanned the encampment caves to the side of the tunnel, but didn't want to waste much time investigating them in detail. Several took black cloaks from the fallen dark elves and opted to wear them. (One oversight on my part: If I'd adjudicated crossbow-fire against the donkeys, then both would surely have been killed, and the party would have had to face a significant disruption in their supply plans at this point -- as it was, the one donkey with 2 hp left could carry most of their gear uninterrupted.)

Following this, the group showed much greater proficiency dealing with the underworld environment. Correctly reading their partial map, they chose to take the circuit of side-tunnels and wisely avoid the, shall-we-say, "mind-blowing" second encounter point (in hex M12). Although these side tunnels become more rougher and more rugged, claustrophobically narrowing in on the travelers, they avoided the occasional bottomless crevasses and major wandering monsters. At one point, a group of pulsing, glowing fire beetles were allowed to rush by without incident. The group successfully figured out that camping in a side-spur would be safer than flopping down in the middle of a tunnel (I had the party leader roll the overnight encounter check). Shortly after re-connecting with the main tunnel, the advance scout managed to sneak up on a huge purple worm coiled in the center of the passage, and tiptoed back to the party to hold a whispered (in real life at the table) conversation on what to do -- they wisely retreated down the passage for an hour to let it pass, after which they found a new and smaller tunnel chewed laterally across the main thoroughfare. (This brought up some interesting conversation about Lovecraftian influences, and the possibility of following purple-worm tunnels into new areas or possibly back to the surface.)

After about 3 days of travel in the underearth, the party reached the area of the enormous mega-cavern (hex Q18/19). Time in the session was drawing short, and they made some excellent choices about scouting their way ahead: a combination of infravision and wizard eye spells from two wizards allowed them to scout out much of the main cavern ahead, avoid the mazy side-tunnels, and note what seemed to be the main path of travel back out the northern side. Then they had the insight to thickly wrap their refreshed continual light items in red cloth (courtesy the pregenerated "Jurdan the Red Wizard") so as to mimic fire-beetle light. Thus they advanced stealthily through the stalagmites of the main cavern, and got within striking distance of the Drow watchers before they knew that the party were enemies.

At this point, the final major fight broke out. As usual, the dark elves extinguished the party's bright lights and tried to light them in turn with dim, signalling faerie fire. This time, the party took an aggressive posture, immediately unleashing fireballs (burning up the advance elven watchers) and similar magic. While the drow reinforcements tried to arrive, the party first sealed them in their cave with an illusory wall of fire (which was dispelled), then a real one, followed by more fireballs, and a mighty air elemental summoned from the upper regions of the grand cavern; meanwhile fighters cleaved and thieves backstabbed any of the few fighters who managed to emerge. With time running out, the party leader, Hedron the Valorous Amazing (as I currently read the PC sheet), chose to sprint away from the party northwards, diving across the goal line to earn the "secure passage out of the cavern" victory point literally at the last minute (a bit of a judgement call, but how could you deny that?). As this occurred, the drow commander and her nightmarish steed were ejected from their cave, forcibly by the party's air elemental, burnt by the wall of fire, in a screeching meteor off into the depths of the underworld.

So, an excellent adventure! The party successfully battled back from what looked like a sure TPK on Round 3 of the first encounter (ouch!). I gave them an overall "C" grade, having met half of their victory goals (passage beyond the huge cavern, and still having all the PCs alive, post-reincarnation), but not the other half (no treasure to speak of, and no method of infiltrating later areas). Yes, I grade pretty hard, but nonetheless I was very impressed by the level of play. Congratulations to my players, and enormous thanks for letting me run them through this.

Now, let me make a few comments about Drow responses in this module, which I think stand out as a real dilemma for the DM running this module, as I now see it. On the one hand, the tournament-style checkpoints are clearly set up as combat encounters. But on the other hand, the module does include the possibility of certain passes which the party might use to "enable them to go through Drow areas without undue questioning or molestation!" (p. 3). But my problem with this is, for that to be the case, then how do Drow initially interact with any explorers? Do they all go dwarf-tax-collector by default, stand and deliver themselves to any humans in the underworld, and ask, "Pardon me sir, can we check your papers please?". Because frankly that's definitely not the impression I want to give to my new players on their first interaction with the Drow -- I want them to be mysterious, shadowy, powerful, alien menaces (not department store rent-a-cops). And let's say the party meets one of the possible Drow merchant trains wending their way through tunnel -- how will these figures react: attack, parley, demand passage, or make a pitch for trade? The module gives absolutely no guidance whatsoever, which you might consider a nice opening for DM creativity, but I think is a great oversight. I suppose you could just go pure random reaction rolls, but that seems unsatisfying, especially for the earliest encounters (i.e., first impressions). Especially with justifying how the possible passes could be checked, it seems like a real problem. I made some notes on how how I'd handle it for this session, but I'll keep them to myself for the time being. For those experienced DMs in this regard, how would you deal with this aspect?