Tabletop Game / Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition

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Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1st Edition) (1977-1985), often called AD&D1E, is the successor to Original Dungeons & Dragons (1974), being a more complete rules of Dungeons & Dragons meant to complement Basic Dungeons & Dragons, including more character classes, and the enshrinement of the classic Dungeons & Dragons alignment system. It is more or less completely compatible with Basic Dungeons & Dragons, and during its heyday many gamers mixed and matched at will. As well, Character Class System was unified but some classes are human-only, others forbidden to certain races.^note This is actually the rules from the original set, but the restrictions were a bit looser. Most people didn't understand the distinction early, which is why Moldvay just said "to heck with it" and made race-as-class the standard for the basic game; the B/X rules were actually mechanically identical, just presented differently.

Unearthed Arcana (1985) was a codification of many of the new rules and options introduced in various magazines up to that point. Added 3 classes: Cavalier, Barbarian, and Thief-Acrobat — which were also the same 3 classes that appeared in the Dungeons & Dragons (1983) cartoon show that didn't already exist in the Player's Handbook. While thief-acrobat was just a specialization of thief, and barbarian was another fighter subclass, cavalier was a whole new top-level class category in its own right; paladins were now subclasses of cavaliers instead of subclasses of fighters, which meant that some previously legitimate paladin characters no longer had high enough stats to be paladins any more. Also added a boatload of new spells and magic items. Clarified some rules, but also had several misprints and introduced as many new problems^note Especially when it added to the haystack of non-uniform rules, like plate armor damage absorption! as it solved.

Oriental Adventures (1985) was a supplement designed to play Dungeons & Dragons campaigns set in the Far East rather than Medieval European Fantasy. While it came with a brief setting description (which eventually became Kara-Tur) the rules were very much designed to create a generic oriental setting. The ninja class allowed you to take levels in it without having to "switch away" from your main class, a notion that 3rd Edition would later codify as a Prestige Class.

Tropes in this RPG include:

• Armor and Magic Don't Mix: In 1st and 2nd Edition Advanced D&D, magic users/wizards are simply forbidden to wear armor under the standard rules.^note Unless multi-classed with an armor-wearing class - M-U/Thieves can wear leather, M-U/Fighters & M-U/Clerics can wear any armor (1st Edition only).
• Artificial Insolence: The Cavalier character class, introduced in Unearthed Arcana, is required to charge the enemy full-speed in a specific order of preference (starting with powerful monsters and ending with peasants), ignoring all other considerations.
• Artistic License – Economics: Gygax openly admitted that the economics of a typical campaign made no sense, with all the dragon hoards and piles of treasure being suddenly reintroduced to circulation with no warning, but chalked it up to Rule of Cool.
• Barred from the Afterlife: Module I3 Pharaoh. The pharaoh Amun-re sacrifices the wealth and well being of his people to build himself a magnificent pyramid tomb. When he's threatened by an angry mob, he lays a curse that will cause the land to dry up if he is killed. A member of the mob kills him anyway, and the god Osiris is forced to carry out the curse. However, he punishes Amun-re by condemning his spirit to wander the land until someone steals his treasure from his tomb.
• Beast in the Maze: The modules S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth had a minotaur with its lair inside a maze. Somewhere in the Caverns is a teleportation trap that sends victims to other planes of existence. One possible destination is a giant labyrinth with two minotaurs riding bulls. They will hunt down and kill anyone inside the maze.
• Behemoth Battle: The module WG7 Castle Greyhawk. On Level 5 there's a battle between an Apparatus of Kwalish and an iron golem piloted by an orc. It's a parody of FASA's BattleTech game (the orc is even named "Fahzah").
• Canary in a Coal Mine: The Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, in its chapter about Air Supply, contains the advice that small birds can be used by adventurers traipsing underground to detect gradually increasing amount of poisonous gas; the bird makes its (very low) saving throw against poison a turn before bigger creatures, giving them a warning by dying.
• Cast from Stamina: In early editions of Advanced D&D, casting some spells costs points of Constitution. For example, casting the Identify spell lowered Constitution by eight points. The DM could require a character to make a Constitution check, and failing the check meant the character would become fatigued and have to rest.
• Cheap Gold Coins: Gold coins weighing one tenth of a pound each are a common currency for everyday purchases — even a simple dagger costs two gold pieces. It's Hand-Waved as adventurers creating a gold-rush economy from all the ancient treasure hoards they're bringing into circulation.
• Clone Angst: If a wizard is alive when his Clone wakes up, the clone has a 90% chance of going mad and trying to kill you or itself out of sheer existential confusion. The other 10% of the time, the original wizard goes mad in just the same way.
• Cool, but Inefficient: Plate armor is the most protective non magical armor in the original books (before field plate, full plate and suit armor were added in later supplements) but over four times as expensive as the next most protective armor (banded mail) for only a single extra point of armor class (unless you used the almost always ignored "weapon type vs armor" rules), with the downsides of an extra 100 points of encumbrance and a 33% reduction in movement speed.
• Crafted from Animals:
  • 1st Edition Monster Manual: The large plates behind a bulette's head can be made into shields of up to +3 power by a skilled dwarven craftsman.
  • Dragon Magazine:
    • #62 has "evil dragon armors", an article on making armor out of dragon scales. Each type has specific abilities based on the dragon it's made from.
    • The #98 article "The Magic of Dragon Teeth" has dragon teeth made into magical devices that can summon "dragon men" when planted in the earth.
  • Module WG5 Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure: The whip possessed by the iron golem is made out of cockatrice feathers. It retains the cockatrice's ability to petrify any creature it hits.
• Critical Hit Class: The Thief and Assassin classes specialize in critical hits. The thief can do up to 5 times normal damage with a backstab, and the Assassin can kill an opponent in 1 hit by performing an assassination attack. Neither class is as good as a fighter in normal combat, due to armor restrictions and a lower chance to hit, but with this ability, there might not be normal combat at all.
• Deadly Dust Storm: Modules I3-I5 (Desert of Desolation series). One possible random encounter while in the desert is a dust storm. There's an 80% chance of the PCs getting lost unless they immediately halt, and movement rate is cut in half if they continue. The storm lasts 3-22 turns (30 minutes to 3 hours 40 minutes).
• Delayed Level Benefits: Overlaps with Evil Is Easy in Dragonlance's Orders of High Sorcery. The Evil-aligned Black Robes are those who chase power, and they gain levels fastest, but they also have the lowest level Cap. Conversely, the Good-aligned White Robes who choose to use magic to serve others need to gain substantially more Experience Points per level but can advance much further.
• Discouraging Concealment: In the adventure T1 The Village of Hommlet. In the library of the Church of St. Cuthbert is a valuable scroll of seven clerical spells hidden inside a book labeled "Legal Affairs in Veluna".
• Divine Punishment: The supplement Deities and Demigods Cyclopedia. If a cleric (priest) of a deity doesn't follow their deity's rules, they may be punished by the deity. Possible punishments include being required to atone for the transgression (e.g. by fasting, suffering physical pain or having to make a major sacrifice), being denied the use of clerical spells, being publicly humiliated or forced to go on a dangerous quest, being excommunicated or suffering divine punishment, up to and including death.
• Draw Extra Cards: The Deck of Many Things is a powerful magic item that gives strong benefits or penalties depending on which card(s) a character draws from it. If a character draws the Jester, they can draw two more cards. If a character draws the Fool card, they lose 10,000 Experience Points and have to draw another card.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Things are beginning to take shape toward the D&D people would know in the 21st century, but there's still a lot of weirdness lurking about:
  • While 1st edition AD&D introduce THAC0 (listing it for monsters in the Dungeon Masters' Guide and in some modules), the rules do not explain how you're supposed to use THAC0 until 2nd edition.
  • Weapons can also deal varying damage depending on the size of the target, not just the size of the weapon. In general, blunt weapons do less damage to larger creatures, slashing weapons do more, and piercing weapons get no adjustment, though this was another area where supplements loved to carve out exceptions.
  • Racial stat caps remain in place from OD&D. Likewise, racial class access is prevalent and sometimes quite stringent (for example, in the rules-as-written, only humans and half-humans can be clerics, with all elf, dwarf or halfling clerics being NPCs).^note This, in addition to Basic treating elves and dwarves as their own classes, is what led to some of the "samey" feeling of elves and dwarves in media inspired by D&D in The '80s, such as Record of Lodoss War; going by the world as presented, no, you don't have dwarven wizards or elf priests. Individual settings can and do modify these restrictions, but in the base rulebooks they're fairly tight.
  • Additionally, "demihumans" can "multi-class": unlike in later editions, this means sharing XP across two classes simultaneously. Humans alone can "dual-class", wherein you stop leveling as one class and begin leveling another. Demihuman multiclassing was limited to very precise sets of allowed multiclasses (so elves could be Fighter/Magic-users, Fighter/Thieves, Magic-user/Thieves and Fighter/Magic-user/Thieves, for example, but could not be Fighter/Clerics).
  • Bards were a completely optional class akin to later editions' Prestige Classes, a Master of All restricted to characters who have excelled in a stringent combination of prerequisite classes. Later editions cement bards as a core class with quirky but unexceptional powers.
  • In general, much like in OD&D and as a major legacy of its Chainmail origins, each member of the party is expected to make use of a fair few hirelings and henchmen, in order to give some extra heft and muscle to the party and overcome obstacles and traps. This is the primary use of Charisma outside of the social adjustment, in fact, as "Charisma casting" is still not really a thing (outside of psionics, sort of). With 17 or 18 Charisma a player could have several additional parties following them around, all absurdly loyal.
  • Relatedly, the big benefit Fighters get at higher levels is straight-up lordship; at level 9, the rules explicitly allow a character to establish a "freehold", attract henchmen, and have "a body of men-at-arms led by an above-average fighter". The general idea is that Fighters make up for a lack of spellcasting with a small army to establish a full-on battle line, and makes Charisma not a Dump Stat for Fighters, because Charisma of 14 or above can double, triple or more the size of the force on the players' side.
  • Psionics remain a (generally) optional rule and are not attached to a specific class; they were simply something you can have if you possess high Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma (and are thus a potential bonus perk for Fighters who didn't invest purely in beef stats). Whether you have psionics and your precise psionics are determined by the will of the dice; outside of attack and defense modes, the random number god determines your brain sorcery.
  • The rules tend to use extremely human-centric language and the rules tend to bias a bit toward human superiority. This is somewhat more prevalent in the Gygax-authored material, but it is generally omnipresent.
• Elemental Plane: Module WG7 Castle Greyhawk. The Queen of the Honeybee Hive on level 7 opened a gate to the Demi-Plane of Flowers, a gigantic plain covered with every imaginable type of flower and plant.
• Elves vs. Dwarves: In the 1st Edition the table for racial relations explicitly noted that dwarves and elves had a noted antipathy towards one another. Humans generally tended to be regarded neutrally by all the humanoid races.
• Extra-Dimensional Shortcut:
  • In 1st Edition, the psionic science Dimension Walk was used to move through various dimensions and end up back in the Prime Material Plane a considerable distance from where you started. Using this power allowed travel at a rate of 21 miles per ten minutes (126 miles per hour).
  • In 1st Edition a character could enter the Ethereal Plane, move at tremendous speed to another location corresponding to a particular place on the Prime Material Plane, then leave the Ethereal Plane at that place.
  • 1st Edition Greyhawk Adventures supplement. The deity Istus could use her Spindle of Fate to cast a Web of Stars, which sent the targets to another plane of existence. Once there, a creature that knew the way could travel the Web and arrive at any desired location.
• Fan Flattering: Dungeon Master's Guide. In the Introduction to the DMG, Gary Gygax praises the reader: "Being a true DM requires cleverness and imagination which no set of rules books can bestow. Seeing that you were clever enough to to buy this volume,, and you have enough imagination to desire to become the maker of a fantasy world, you are almost there already! "
• Fatal Forced March: In the 1st Edition Advanced Dungeon Master's Guide, a Player Character party can force march and travel up to 2x normal distance. During the forced march, beasts of burden have a 10% cumulative chance of dying for each extra 10% of movement. All other party members lose 1 Character Level or hit die per extra 10% of movement, and if they reach zero level or zero hit dice, they die of exhaustion.
• Fatigue Mechanic: If a group engages in a forced march, they suffer fatigue sufficient to force them to rest as soon as they exceed double their normal movement distance or they end the forced march, whichever occurs first. The duration of the required rest period depends on how much additional travel occurred.
• Flying Weapon: Multiple examples, starting with the Sword of Dancing, which is an animated weapon capable of floating in the air and acting on the "wielder's" behalf independently, in 1st Edition.
• Fooled by the Sound: The leucrotta can imitate noises such as the voices of human beings or the sound of domestic animals which are in pain. It does this from concealment in order to lure other creatures close enough to be attacked.
• Frivolous Summoning: Possible, but not without consequences.
  • In the Dungeon Master's Guide, one of the possible items on a Necklace of Prayer Beads is the Bead of Summons, which allows the wearer to summon their deity. If the wearer doesn't have a good reason for summoning them, the deity will take the Necklace as the least punishment for doing so.
  • In the Priest's Spell Compendium Volume 1, the Council of Spirits spell allows a shaman to summon an entire group of spirits to debate important issues. If the issues the spirits are asked to resolve are routine, petty or personal in nature, the spirits may punish the shaman for wasting their time.
• Glowing Flora: Glowing fungi and lichens appear in the underground settings of several 1st Edition AD&D adventures, including D1 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth, D2 Shrine of the Kuo-Toa, Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits and A4 In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords. They are included to make it easier for player adventurers to see if they lose their artificial light sources.
• Gold–Silver–Copper Standard: D&D is one of the early trope codifiers. Prices are usually listed in g.p., unless they're small prices, in which case they're listed in s.p. or c.p.. The exchange rates were as follows:
  • 10 c.p. = 1 s.p.
  • 10 s.p. = 1 e.p.^note making this the only edition in which the exchange rate isn't 10 silver pieces to 1 gold piece
  • 2 e.p. = 1 g.p.
  • 5 g.p. = 1 p.p.
• Gorgeous Garment Generation: In 1st Edition, the Rod of Splendor can garb the wielder in magical noble's clothing — the finest fabrics, plus adornments of furs and jewels, worth 7,000-10,000 gold pieces.
• Hamiltonian Path Puzzle: Subverted in UK1 Beyond the Crystal Cave. One of the leprechauns' riddles is asking how the Player Characters could cross each of the five bridges across a river once and return to the leprechauns. There is no way to do so, but the riddle has nothing to do with the adventure, so the PCs aren't punished if they fail.
• Human-Demon Hybrid: Cambions are monsters in the 1st and 2nd edition, described as the progeny of a male demon and a female human (who always have a Death by Childbirth). The 3rd edition replaced them with the "Half-Fiend" template which could be applied to non-humanoid beings like dragons, giants, and magical beasts but stated that cambion is a term that was often used for Half-Fiendish humanoids.
• Illusory Wall: In adventure I12 Egg of the Phoenix. While in the Black Forest, the adventurers will encounter a black stone wall across their path. It is a Permanent Illusion spell created by one of their enemies to trick them into not continuing. If the adventurers close their eyes or disbelieve it, they can walk right through it.
• Iron Maiden:
  • Module G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief. The steading's torture chamber has an iron maiden that is used to punish humanoid slaves as well as disobedient hill giants.
  • Module G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King. The torture chamber of King Snurre's Hall has an iron maiden. The King's Torturer will grab opponents, throw them into the iron maiden and shut the door on them, inflicting 10-100 Hit Points of damage.
  • Module Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits. One room in Lolth's giant spider ship is a torture chamber devoted to tormenting prisoners. It includes iron maidens which are "in good condition and recently used."
  • WG4 The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun. Deep inside the temple can be found a torture chamber full of decayed and rotted equipment for the infliction of pain. The iron maiden is eaten through and covered with rust spots, no longer useful for the torment of prisoners as it was during the temple's heyday.
  • White Dwarf (1977) magazine #40, adventure "The Eagle Hunt". The Assassins' Guild headquarters has a torture chamber with two iron maidens that are used to punish and interrogate victims.
• Isle of Giant Horrors: The module WG6 Isle of the Ape. As a Shout-Out to King Kong (1933), the title island is home to a giant (30 feet tall) ape with gargantuan stats (288 Hit Points, can do up to 104 Hit Points of damage with his attacks).
• Level Gate: Characters reaching level 10 were considered name level, and thus gained features related to strongholds and followers. They could techncially own a stronghold earlier, but weren't considered lords before getting the required level.
• Limited-Use Magical Device: In early editions of AD&D, magic-users/wizards can only cast spells that they have prepared beforehand by expending a spell slot, not by reading them directly from their spellbooks. However, in the AD&D 1st Edition Unearthed Arcana supplement, Gary Gygax changed the official rules to allow magic-users to read spells from their spellbooks as if they were scrolls in an emergency situation. Doing so destroys the spell in the spellbook (essentially "unlearning" the spell), has a 1% chance per spell level of destroying the two adjacent spells in the spellbook, and a 1% chance of destroying the whole spellbook.
• Low-Literacy Setting: Advanced Dungeons And Dragons was unusual for Dungeons & Dragons in averting universal literacy, with literacy being a proficiency skill that player must learn.
• Made of Indestructium: Artifacts and relics could only be destroyed in a very specific manner. Even if you did damage them with conventional weapons, they were recalled to the immortal that created them. (Not sure what happens if the immortal no longer exists...)
• Mass Resurrection: If the deity St. Cuthbert is summoned in Temple of Elemental Evil, he will Raise all slain PCs from the dead with a gesture.
• Matchstick Weapon: A mummy is vulnerable to fire attacks. A blow by a lit torch inflicts 1-3 Hit Points of damage on them.
• Max-Level Bonus: The rewards for completing a class or Prestige Class range from a totally Empty Level to a unique capstone ability. Such abilities run the gamut from ascending to immortal demigodhood (for a Dragon Ascendant) to being forcibly retired to the Heavens (for a Risen Martyr).
• Merchant Money Cap: In module T1 The Village of Hommlet, the moneychanger Nira Melubb will buy gems from a Player Party, but only has 1,200 copper pieces, silver pieces, and electrum pieces, 700 gold pieces, and 250 platinum pieces with which to do so at any given time.
• Mistaken for Quake: The module series "Desert of Desolation". While in the desert, the PCs can experience an earthquake as a random encounter. In fact, it's caused by the passage of a large number of Sand Worm type creatures called "thunderherders".
• Mithril: Spelled "mithral" to avoid potential lawsuits from the Tolkien estate. In 1st Edition, all +4 weapons and armor were supposedly made out of mithral-alloyed steel.
• Monster Menagerie:
  • WG 7 Castle Greyhawk: Level One of the castle dungeon is Zando's Emporium of Exotic and Rare Beasts. It's filled with bizarre mutations of regular monsters, such as horizontal jet-propelled piercers (a flying version of regular piercers). After the players rescue Zando, it will act like a zoo, entertaining visitors in return for a small fee.
  • Adventure S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks: Level IV of the spaceship is a menagerie that held alien creatures taken from various planets the ship visited. They include the dangerous aurumvorax and the gigantic froghemoth as well as the (relatively) normal baboonoids and a variety of lizards.
• Morality-Guided Attack:
  • The game has spells and abilities that affect targets based on their alignment, generally in the form of Evil attacks which hurt Good characters and vice versa. The Paladin class's Smite Evil ability is the most well known.
  • Holy water causes damage to evil creatures from other planes and evil undead it touches. Unholy water does the same to Good otherplanar creatures and paladins.
  • Dragon magazine #229 article "Bazaar of the Bizarre". When the Wheel of Light Rays is spun like a pinwheel, it emits a bright pattern of light up to 30 feet away. Any evil creature in the area of effect must make a saving throw or take 1-4 Hit Points of damage for each point of karma it has.
  • In 1st and 2nd Edition, all intelligent magical swords have a specific Character Alignmentinvoked. A creature with a different alignment can take Hit Points of damage equal to the sword's Ego rating each time it touches the sword.
• Murder Into Malevolence: First Edition AD&D Fiend Folio: the revenant is an undead that can be created when a humanoid creature dies a violent death. It is dedicated to hunting down the creature that killed it, as well as any creatures that helped in the killing. Once it finds them, it will try to strangle its killer(s) to death.
• Negative Ability: The Cavalier class is unique in that it becomes uncontrollable in battle, charging the enemy full-speed in a specific order of preference even if they have to trample their own allies and leave themself surrounded by foes.
• No Campaign for the Wicked: The author of a Dragon article on the "Death Master", a necromancy-themed Non-Player Character class for 1st Edition AD&D, introduced it by stressing, thusly, that it was designed for NPC villains only:

  "If I ever run into a player character Death Master at a gaming convention, I may turn Evil myself."

• Offerings to the Gods:
  • Deities and Demigods Cyclopedia. Appendix 3 (Clerical Quick-Reference Charts) had data on each deity, including when and which items were sacrificed to them. For example, the standard sacrifice to the Celtic deity Arawn was valuable items when a worshipper died.
  • The classic module The Temple of Elemental Evil. In the Fire Elemental temple, visitors can sacrifice valuable treasure in a fire pit.
• Only Flesh Is Safe: Leprechauns from 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons had "polymorph non-living" as one of their most annoying talents.
• Only Good People May Pass: Dragon magazine #50 article "The Glyphs of Cerilon". One of the Symbols (clerical/priest spell) in the article causes damage to anyone of Evil alignment who tries to pass it.
• Painting the Medium: The Leprechauns on page 60 of the 1e Monster Manual play around with the page headings. They also ride the giant leech to their left.
• Paying in Coins: In 1st Edition Advanced D&D, a gold piece is worth 200 copper pieces. Many monster treasures have thousands of almost worthless copper pieces. Since moneychangers often charge a significant fee (e.g. 10%) for changing copper pieces into higher denomination coins, a Player Character might decide to pay for a purchase with bags full of coppers.
• Percent-Based Values:
  • The Ray of Enfeeblement spell reduces the target's Strength by 25% plus 2% per caster level over three. It is not explained in the spell description what happens if a creature loses a percentage of one point of strength (presumably it would be rounded up or down as appropriate).
  • When someone wears a vampiric Ring of Regeneration and harms an opponent in hand-to-hand combat, the ring restores Hit Points of damage taken by the wearer equal to half (50%) of the damage they inflict on the opponent.
  • A Ring of Spell Turning can reflect a percentage of any spell used against the wearer. The greater the percentage reflected, the better the wearer's saving throw against the spell.
  • Deities & Demigods Cyclopedia
    • "Arthurian Heroes" section. King Arthur's sword Excalibur has a scabbard that causes all thrusting and slashing attacks against Arthur to do only 50% of normal damage.
    • The Celtic deity Manannan Mac Lir has a trident that causes damage equal to 25% of the target's maximum Hit Points by touch. The magic item known as the Tathlum does damage equal to 25% of the target's maximum Hit Points normally and 50% if the target is a relative of the person whose head was used to create the Tathlum.
    • Classical Mythology. The touch of the goddess Tyche does damage equal to 50% of the target's maximum Hit Points.
    • Japanese mythology. The deity Daikoku has a mallet that shrinks the target it hits to 50% of its normal size. Anyone attacking the deity Ebisu hits only 50% as often as they should and does only 50% of normal damage when they do hit.
    • Melnibonean mythos. The magical sword Stormbringer drains 50% of the target's Character Levels if the target makes its saving throw.
    • Sumerian mythos. If the deity Ki gives the "luck of the gods" to someone, that person will only take 50% of normal damage from attacks. If Ki is forced into combat herself, she also only takes 50% of normal damage from attacks.
• Physically Younger Clone: The spell "Clone" creates a physical and mental duplicate of the subject as they were when the flesh sample was taken. If the flesh was preserved for a longer time, the clone could have a new lease on life but at the cost of all subsequent memories and character levels.
• Possessing a Dead Body: Module Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits. When a Raise Dead or Resurrection spell is cast on a dead body, the body will be brought back to life and the dead person's soul will re-inhabit it. If this is tried on one of Lolth's planes in the Abyss, there's a chance that the soul of a dead Chaotic Evil person will possess the body instead.
• Power at a Price: First edition had a lot more drawbacks on even simple spells. Identify dropped the caster's Constitution and hit points drastically with each casting, polymorph other had a chance to instantly kill the target, contact other plane could render its caster unplayable for weeks, and Permanency lowered your Constitution for every time you cast it.
• Proactive Boss: Count Strahd von Zarovich from the classic I6 Ravenloft module was one of the first (if not the first) such bosses in D&D, showing up in different corners of his eponymous castle to manipulate the heroes (if not to try killing them outright). The module was highly praised at the time for its intelligent and proactive villain, as most D&D modules until then (1983) had been little more than straightforward Dungeon Crawls where all encounters were either nailed to their rooms or completely random.
• Rapid Hair Growth:
  • First noted appearance is in module EX1 Dungeonland. A fountain's water turns into randomly determined potions. One of them is Hairiness: if drunk, the drinker's hair immediately grows longer and thicker.
  • It also appears in the 1st Edition supplement Unearthed Arcana. The Hairy cantrip caused a creature's hair to immediately grow 2-12 inches.
• Reincarnated as a Non-Humanoid: Rather than being based on alignment, reincarnate has the player reincarnate as a random creature based on the results of a d100 roll, with most of the options being animals (as reincarnate is a druid spell). Unlike in OD&D, you can only be reincarnated as either a playable race or an animal, not a monster.
• Ride the Rainbow: The Rainbow spell from the 1st Edition Advanced D&D supplement Unearthed Arcana could create a bridge made up of the 7 colors of a rainbow. The bridge could carry an amount of weight equal to 100 pounds per Character Level of the cleric casting it.
• Role-Playing Endgame: When PCs reach high level, raise their ability scores to divine levels, and gain a body of worshipers, they can ascend to godhood. They immediately become NPCs under the Dungeon Master's control.
• A Round of Drinks for the House: In the 1st Edition Dungeons Master's Guide, buying a round of drinks for the house was part of the cost for "Frequenting Inns and Taverns", one of the techniques for finding potential henchmen.
• Sacred Bow and Arrows: Deities & Demigods Cyclopedia has game stats for various deities' bow weapons.
  • The Native American deity Heng has a bow that shoots lightning bolts that do 6-60 Hit Points of damage and have a range of 30 miles.
  • Chinese Mythos:
    • The deity Chih-Chiang Fyu-Ya has a magical bow that can hit any target within sight and causes any weapon thrown at him to return and hit its user. If anyone else attempts to use his bow, the arrows from it will hit the user.
    • The deity Tou Mu has a magic bow that never misses a target within 100 yards.
  • Greek Mythology:
    • The god Apollo has a bow with a range up to his line of sight.
    • The goddess Artemis’ bow has a range of 1,000 yards.
    • The bow of the demigod Heracles can only be wielded by him. It can hit targets up to a mile away and cannot miss at a range of 1/2 mile or less.
  • Hindu Mythology:
    • The god Indra has a bow made of rainbows that can fire 2 lightning bolts per minute up to 1,000 yards away that each do 3-30 Hit Points of damage.
    • The deity Rudra has a magical black bow that can fire arrows that inflict a rotting disease in any creature hit.
    • Vishnu's avatar Rama is identified by the bow he wields.
  • Elven deities:
    • Correlon Larethian's bow fires arrows that never miss.
    • Arrows fired from Rillifane Rallathil’s bow always kill their target.
  • Norse Mythology:
    • Odin has a plus three bow that can fire 10 arrows per minute.
    • Uller’s bow is plus five. Arrows from it can hit any target he can see with no penalties for range and he automatically hits at a range of 200 yards or less.
• Self-Guarding Phlebotinum: In Adventure C2, The Ghost Tower of Inverness, the Soul Gem is surrounded by an invisible force sphere which must be broken by the PCs if they want to retrieve it.
• Shapeshifting Heals Wounds:
  • While under the effect of a Polymorph Self spell, a wizard can change his shape. At the end of the spell, when the wizard returns to his normal form he regains 1-12 Hit Points.
  • Each time a druid changes form (including human to animal and animal to human) they heal 10-60% of the Hit Points of damage they have taken.
• Shields Are Useless: Played straight in 1st and 2nd Edition AD&D. A nonmagical shield improves your armor class by only one (1) step, and then only if the attack comes from the front or front-flank and the shield-user isn't stunned or knocked prone. A fighter, paladin, or ranger is always far more effective with a weapon in his off-hand than he is with a shield in it. Since clerics and assassins can use shields, but can't wield two weapons at the same time and don't have many two-handed weapons to choose from, they won't have anything to lose by equipping a shield, but the gain is still minimal.
• Shoot the Mage First: According to the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting boxed set booklet "Cyclopedia of the Realms", section "Pirate Isles of the Inner Sea", on pirate ships it's a standard procedure for archers to make anyone who appears to be casting a spell their first target.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Monster Manual entry for the Rat, Giant adds (Sumatran) to the name. A case involving a Sumatran Giant Rat is one of many Noodle Incidents mentioned by Sherlock Holmes.
  • The module WG6 Isle of the Ape is a Shout-Out to King Kong (1933). The title island is home to a giant (30 feet tall) ape with gargantuan stats (288 Hit Points, can do up to 104 Hit Points of damage with his attacks).
  • Librams, a kind of Limited-Use Magical Device book, such as the "Libram of Gainful Conjuration", is a reference to Jack Vance's Dying Earth series.
• Single-Use Shield: Module C1 The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan. A fighter can receive a scroll that gives him a Death Servant. At any time thereafter, if the fighter is about to be killed, the Death Servant will push the fighter to safety and accept the attack that would have killed the fighter. It will only do this once.
• Solid Clouds:
  • Module WG7 Castle Greyhawk, Level 4 "There's No Place Like Up". If the PCs climb up a magical rope, they can walk on solid clouds floating high in the air.
  • Deities And Demigods Cyclopedia
    • The Chinese mythos deity Chih Sung-Tzu rides a storm cloud that can support up to ten beings of any size.
    • The Japanese mythos deity Susanowo can often be found riding a storm cloud.
    • In the Sumerian mythos, all of the deities have clouds that they can ride on. The clouds can teleport to any place that has clouds in the sky, are immune to all attacks and can carry anything the controlling deity wishes.
• Stamina Burn: Constitution:
  • Several monsters have attacks that can drain an opponent's Constitution, which can cause unconsciousness or death.
  • A night hag can ride a victim in their sleep. Each time a night hag does so, the victim permanently loses 1 point of Constitution.
  • A galltrit drains 1 point of Constitution each four combat rounds that it drains blood from a victim.
  • A mihstu drains 1 point of Constitution each combat round that it envelops its opponent.
  • When the penanggalan feeds on a victim, they drain 1 point of Constitution.
  • After a pernicon bites a victim, it will drain 1 point of Constitution each combat round thereafter until either the pernicon is killed or the victim dies.
• Stealth Pun: The material components of spells can be quite varied. Some are straightforward, some are quite esoteric, some are costly just for the sake of limiting usage... and some have their justification into hidden puns.
  • For example, ESP (detect thoughts in later editions) has for component a copper piece. A penny for your thoughts.
  • The feeblemind spell requires "a handful of clay, crystal, glass, or mineral spheres" which disappears when cast. What does it do? Make you lose your marbles.
• Stock Ninja Weaponry: The 1985 Oriental Adventures stats out a bunch of ninja weapons like shuriken.
• Summon Binding: Several spells exist that can be used to force summoned beings to obey the summoner, including Spiritwrack in the Player's Handbook and Exaction, Dolor and Torment in the Unearthed Arcana supplement.
• Supernatural Language: Each Character Alignment has a corresponding language that can only be spoken or understood by people of that alignment. If someone changes alignment, they spontaneously forget the old one and learn the new one.
• Supernatural Repellent:
  • The 1st Edition Advanced D&D supplement Deities and Demigods mentions that objects covered in dung are reputedly unable to be touched by the undead.
  • 1st Edition Advanced D&D supplement Oriental Adventures. Magic items called "Noisome Spirit Chasers" are firecrackers that, when detonated, cause nearby spirits to leave the area.
• Superstitious Sailors: The adventure OA5 Mad Monkey vs. the Dragon Claw. The sailors of the merchant ship Victorious Morning are very superstitious. If anything that could be considered a foul omen occurs (the sun is hidden behind rainclouds, a seabird drops dead on the deck, an abandoned settlement on an island), they will be frightened and more likely to mutiny.
• Tap on the Head
  • The monk (martial artist) can stun an opponent with an "open hand" unarmed blow.
  • The Unearthed Arcana supplement introduces the sap (a.k.a. blackjack), a weapon that had a 5% chance per point of the wielder's Strength of knocking out an opponent struck on the head.
• Technically Living Vampire: The Monster Manual II introduced "Pseudo-Undead", a rule precursor of what would be called "templates" in later editions. Those were (living) humanoid creatures with the appearance and physical traits of the most common undead, but with none of their supernatural powers. Pseudo-vampires were cited as the most common and most human-looking examples.
• Unholy Ground: The 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide mentions "Evil Areas", places where Evil has created a special power base that reduce the chance for clerics to turn (repel) undead. They can only be destroyed by purifying them in some way, such as pouring holy water or casting a Bless and/or Prayer spell.
• Wall of Text: Utterly infamous for it, especially in the books authored by Gygax himself. Thanks to the printing and typesetting technologies of the time, the costs involved, and well as Gygax's own personal love of tables and rules discussion, AD&D 1e books were utterly infamous for being page after page of pure text, sometimes broken by text-tables, with minimal art insertion, rendered in an absolutely tiny typeface on top of it all. It became a bit of a running joke in the hobby and in the industry, and led to one of the early focuses of competing publishers being presentation and looking & reading better than AD&D did.
• Weak to Magic: In Advanced D&D, when a character wants to be affected by beneficial magic (e.g. a healing spell), they can decide to temporarily fail their saving throw and/or neutralize any magic resistance they have. Unfortunately, if a clever enemy arranges to hit them with a magical attack at that moment, the target has no defense against magic at all, and is automatically affected by the attack.
• Weird Weather: Module I12 Egg of the Phoenix. While the PCs are traveling from the Crypts of Empyrea back to Nimbortan, they will encounter a brief bizarre storm. It starts with a gale force wind, continues with rain that is almost boiling hot, then changes to razor-sharp sleet that slices exposed flesh and clothing to ribbons. Not to mention Hostile Weather while they take the egg back.
• Well Entry: Adventure OA5 Mad Monkey vs. the Dragon Claw: The Player Characters may meet a mysterious being who indicates that they should go down a well. If they do, they will find a piece of an ancient artifact that will help them in the final Boss Battle, but will be attacked by four undead samurai.
• Windbag Politician: In the module Ronin Challenge: During the opening ceremonies of the Kumite tournament, the contestants march onto a field and take martial arts stances. A series of long-winded dignitaries then begin to give lengthy welcoming speeches. This is actually a Secret Test: the authorities are trying to weed out unqualified participants. Any of the contestants who moves even slightly during the speeches is immediately disqualified.
• Your Magic's No Good Here:
  • 1st Edition supplement Manual of the Planes. When creatures from the Prime Material Plane travel to other planes of existence, they find that magic (spellcasting and items) don't work the same way they do on the Prime Material Plane. Some spells/items have different effects, some don't work at all and some backfire. On rare occasions, it's possible to use magic that can't be used on the Prime.
  • Module I12 Egg of the Phoenix. In one of the mini-adventures, the PCs go back in time several hundred million years to the time of the dinosaurs. Magic was much more potent back then, so spells have double normal effect.