Gelatinous Icosahedron

 Real-world creatures statted up for D&D are almost always illuminating and confounding examples, and the elephant, from the Expert Rules, is no exception. Elephants are given an Armor Class of 5, equivalent to mail armor. That seems pretty stout, but the term "pachyderm," a common synonym for these largest of land animals, literally means "thick skin." I have never actually touched an elephant, much less tried to pierce its hide, (or mail armor, for that matter) but that AC 5 at least has the air of plausibility. Hit Dice-wise, the elephant has 9, which makes it equal to a blue dragon in its capacity to absorb physical punishment. It also makes it equal to a Name-level human fighter with no Constitution adjustments, and even a bit inferior to one with high CON, the realization of which has always made my brain itch; it just doesn't seem right for a 175-ish-pound human to be as tough as a giant beast weighing at least several tons. That's the abstraction...

It's come to my attention that legendary game designer Jennell Jaquays has recently passed away. I am sorry to say I am not, in general, terribly familiar with Ms. Jaquays's contributions to the hobby, but I am aware of one: a particular dungeon design ethos which has come to be known as jaquaying, or more properly, jaquaysing, in recognition of her role in pioneering and popularizing it. As I understand it, this in a nutshell is the art of creating non-linear dungeons with multiple and often unexpected points of connection between different locations. I had always tended to apply this philosophy to my dungeon maps, albeit in a dilute form, sporadically, and without conscious intent, (and I may well have been influenced in that subconscious attitude by either the actual, unrecognized-at-the-time work of Jaquays, or indirectly by that of others inspired by it), so of course I was delighted to learn of Jaquays's technique as an intentional design philosophy, and thus enabled ...

 Is the B/X ability adjustment scale broken? Are adjustments of +/-3 too hefty? Sometimes I do feel that they are. What to do about it, though? We could go the OD&D route of reducing to a -1/0/+1 scale, but that means that being in the top quartile (a score of 13) is just as good as being among the best of the best in the top 0.5% (a score of 18). Another way I've seen is to use a similar scale, but bump to +2 at a score of 18, but that leaves everything in between undistinguished, and may even make that 18 even more coveted, fueling ability score inflation and min/maxing.  There might be another way, though. I've been poring over the AD&D rulebooks recently, and one thing that intrigues me is how that game handles ability adjustments. To be clear, I am not a fan of how everything meaningful is packed into the extremes, with high scores generally garnering no bonus until at least a 15. What is interesting is how they split adjustments into distinct categories and then...

 From the Expert Rules, it's the malevolent counterpart of the djinni , the efreeti. Just like the djinni, this efreeti is listed as the "lesser" sort, though the "greater" version never made its appearance in this edition of the game. You've got your good genies, and you've got your evil genies, and the efreet are the evil ones. Efreet are a type of free-willed fire elementals, appearing as giant, demonic-faced humanoids wreathed in flames and smoke.  An efreeti is a daunting opponent for all but the most capable parties. They have a robust Armor Class of 3 and a full 10 Hit Dice, a punishing physical attack for 2-16 points of damage, and a flying movement rate of 240'(80'). With a never-give-up Morale score of 12, the efreeti is not a monster to pick a fight with unless you're really sure you can beat it, because there's not much chance of escape if things go pear-shaped.  Efreet have magical powers similar to those of their djinni cous...

 Every PC class in B/X has an NPC/monster equivalent, and dwarves are no exception.  Dwarves have already been described in the character creation part of the book, and the Basic Rules very sensibly avoid recapitulating the description in the monster section. There's no need to do so here either. We all know what dwarves are. Per the monster listing, these NPC dwarves have an Armor Class of 4, indicating mail and shield as standard kit, and 1 Hit Die as befits 1st level. Their movement rate is a rather sluggish 60'(20'). Given their AC, I would have expected 90'(30'); the given rate is more suggestive of plate armor. Perhaps they just carry a lot of miscellaneous gear? Their damage is listed as "1-8 or by weapon" which is also a bit hard to fathom; 1-8 suggests battle axes or swords. Swords are not weapons commonly associated with dwarves, and battle axes in B/X are two-handed weapons, impossible to wield simultaneously with a shield. Oh well. Consistency ...

 I have a soft spot for non-violent "monsters" and for sylvan creatures, and the dryad, from the Expert Rules, is both of these. Dryads are described as beautiful female tree spirits. Presumably this means beautiful in the human-like sense, though we don't get any more in the way of description, so, as with many B/X creatures, the specifics are up to the DM. Sometimes they're depicted as very human-like, perhaps with a greenish cast to their skin or hair; other times they've more elven, or have brown, bark-like skin. In any case, forest hues do seem appropriate. Dryads dwell in dense forests and woodlands, and each one lives in its own tree, to which its spirit is bound, such that if she is taken more than 240' from her tree, or the tree dies, the dryad dies. She may also merge with her tree, becoming physically part of it and completely unobservable. It's not stated whether she can observe what goes on around her in this state, but the time-honored trope ...

 With my B/X Monsters A to Z series ongoing, I've been focusing a lot on B/X D&D. Also, having mostly recovered from my heart attack and triple bypass surgery, we're hopefully going to reconvene our game group for the new year, and at some point I'll be taking my turn at DMing again, and I'm hankering for a good old fashioned sandbox campaign. So, I'm looking at sorting out my likes and dislikes (yes, there are a few) in good ol' B/X, in preparation for codifying some house rules and clarifications. I should make clear that I like far more than I dislike about the game, but as I ponder what changes I might wish to make, the dislikes are going to come to the fore. Like : Character generation. It's quick, easy, and there aren't an overwhelming amount of choices to be made. The most time-consuming part is buying equipment. Some players enjoy that part; for the rest, a small selection of pre-built equipment packages would be an easy fix. Like: The lack ...

 Giant bugs are a staple of most editions of D&D, and B/X ix certainly no exception. Driver ants are, in my experience, an underutilized variety. I think my players encountered a few once in a random encounter very early in my DMing career, and then they never appeared again. The name "driver ant" itself seems to have appeared only in the Moldvay Basic set, with no similar creature appearing in Holmes, and reverting to the generic and less evocative "Ant, Giant" in Mentzer Basic (BECMI). I have to say I strongly prefer the Driver Ant label, as it evokes the relentlessness of the ants. Driver ants are described as 6-foot-long black ants. At six feet in length, they'd stand about waist to shoulder-high on an average human, I'd imagine -- not quite sci-fi B movie scale, but still pretty terrifying. They're omnivorous, and when hungry, will devour anything edible in their path. I guess when the reaction roll indicates hostility, they're probably hung...