Tag: B/X-D&D

I have never been a fan of the chromatic and metallic dragons of Dungeons & Dragons, even when ignoring the Alignment aspect. Great variety but otherwise lacking both depth and need, in my opinion. Red dragons are the closest to traditional European mythology: flying fire breathers. That seems sufficient—with one exception.

Regarding Alignment, something recently reminded me that in Basic D&D, with its single Law-Neutral-Chaos axis, white dragons are Neutral. This makes them usable as mounts by non-evil people. A new idea then occurred to me: white dragons, being cold-based, would be the ideal counter to red dragons. Anti-dragons.

Perhaps not even true dragons, but a species created and/or bred by mortals or gods to protect against the true ones.

As mentioned in Part 2 of this series, my knowledge of the D&D editions I grew up on is not actually complete. This is especially true of Advanced D&D 2nd Edition (2e).

There is a now-old jibe about how no one has read the 5th Edition Dungeon Masters Guide (DMG) because most DMs (at that time) were older players who had played prior editions. The idea of “rereading a book you already know” caused issues because of rule changes. This is old news to me as I never read the 2nd Edition DMG when it came out.

As orisons were introduced in 2e Players Handbook—which I did read at the time—I decided to check the 2e DMG to see if it covered zero-level characters. Indeed, it did: more than half a page! Here is the introduction:

It goes on to cover Ability Scores and Proficiencies (weapon and non-weapon) which I am skipping here. It is worth reviewing the section on Hit Points:

Quite a range depending upon vocation. Basic D&D only had two categories: Normal Man (1d4) and Man-at-arms (1d4+3).

As I commented on Men Who Lived Deeper in the Shadows, in a fantasy roleplay campaign world, most people are rogues. I first got this idea from the blogpost, Hit Me Baby One More Time, and its description of 1st-level Thieves in B/X (e.g., 1981 Basic Edition D&D):

…At 1st level the thief looks almost like any other urban Normal Man…but it’s just an act. Even at 1st level he has abilities that set him apart from the general populace. The thief’s cunning and grace makes him an excellent combatant compared to the Normal Man (better attack matrix), and his wit, luck, and powers of observation make him immune to hazards that the NM would suffer (better saving throws)….

Working from that, a zero-level Rogue basically is a Normal Man; they do not have those abilities that set 1st-level’s apart. We also arrive at this conclusion by process of elimination: a Normal Man has neither the cantrip-only magic of the zero-level caster classes nor the improved combat ability of a zero-level Fighter.

All this leads me to a conclusion: as Rogues dominate the zero-level “tier”, they should likewise at 1st level.

In older editions of Dungeons & Dragons, there was the concept of a zero-level Fighter: not as good as a 1st-level adventurer, but better than Normal Men (also a term from older editions).

I got daydreaming about zero-level equivalents for magic-users, clerics, and rogues. People with perhaps insufficient potential to ever advance to 1st level but potential, nonetheless.

But what could they do that Norman Men could not? Something I want to explore via microblogging, here. So more to come.

My first edition of Dungeons & Dragons was the 1981 Moldvay Basic but I quickly fell victim to Gygax’s marketing of Advanced D&D. It was years before my brother and I found anyone else who had the game, so all I had was the TSR products as-written. The 1983 World of Greyhawk boxed set was the one and only campaign world, then. The encounter tables in the Glossography became unforgettable as they set the bar for NPC experience levels. The entry for “Men, Patrol, Knights” is the best example of this:

Ignore the high-level officers. The average knight is at least a 4th-level Fighter. His squire is 2nd- or 3rd-level. Even the serjeants are 1st-level Fighters, which is meaningful as AD&D has the concept of “zero-level” for commoners a little better at combat (e.g. militiamen) than the rest. Other entries in those tables have similar experience level distributions.

Regardless of rules edition, these are high levels for average warriors. Knights are elite professionals, true, but all of them in (what 5th-edition D&D calls) Tier 2? D&D presumes that all character classes will be present in equivalent distributions, so Tier 2 spell-casters will also be common. Porting these levels as-is into 5e would not change my point at all. One of my many quibbles with 5e is its continued power inflation from 3e. Even more than with character classes, I disagree with Knights being 8d8+16 HD opponents and peasants having 16 Hit Points.

This has a huge impact upon the rest of a campaign world. How many of us have carried these assumptions into our own custom worlds? It has taken me years (decades!) to truly see that knights, for one, can still be feared killing machines at lower experience levels. That even comes with a bonus: they also become mortal, which every non-hero should be. If you are keeping the spell-caster equivalency, this also lowers the magical power level of your world—a very good thing, in my opinion.

In 5e terms, I see a squire as a 1st-level Fighter. An average knight would only be a 2nd-level Fighter. Higher levels are still available for experienced knights, of course. Against peasants and militiamen, a 2nd-level Fighter is a sufficient killer but is also at risk of being slain by a few enemies working together.

For further discussion on this topic, I highly recommend JB’s (B/X BLACKRAZOR) blogposts Hit Me Baby One More Time, 1st Level Magic-Users, and One Man Army.