Gelatinous Icosahedron

 For good or ill, giant versions of normal animals are a mainstay of D&D, and here we have another one, the giant ferret from the Basic Set. According to the description, giant ferrets look like three-foot-long weasels. I'm not sure why we need the comparison to weasels -- did the average person not know about ferrets in the early 80s, or did Tom Moldvay just think they didn't, or did he just need an icebreaker statement about ferrets and that's what he came up with? I'll be forked if I know, but at least the information about the animal's length is useful for visualizing it. As their real world counterparts hunt rats, so giant ferrets hunt giant rats, and are sometimes trained for this purpose, though their unpredictable tempers make this a hazardous proposition. (At least one official adventure module, B11: King's Festival, features a giant ferret trained by orcs.)  For relatively small and very slender creatures, giant ferrets have very robust stats, with...

 Another PC class, monster-ified: the elf, from the Basic Rules. Once again, the book doesn't waste any time describing what elves are, which we already know from the character creation section. Instead we jump right in with a reminder that elves will each have one 1st level magic-user spell, chosen at random. The rest of the description notes that if 15 or more elves are encountered (by the book, only in the wilderness or a lair) one will be a leader of level 2-7. Once again we see the formula, introduced in the Dwarf entry of the same book, of multiplying the leader's level by 5 and checking against that percentage on each magic item subtable for possible magic items. Unlike dwarven leaders, an elven leader checks on all subtables, presumably because elves can use items from every subtable. No guidance is given should one roll up a specific item not usable by elves (say, a staff of healing from the Wand/Staff/Rod subtable) but it would be reasonable to interpret it as no item...

 In a recent post about things I like and don't like about B/X D&D, I mentioned in passing that I don't see initiative as a strictly necessary rule in D&D combat. Another blogger has suggested I expand on that thought, and so in this post, I articulate my case for why initiative is not a necessary component of a functional D&D combat sequence. Initiative, as I see it, can be a useful tool to impart some order and structure to combat. Insofar as it models any aspect of real combat in the game, though, it doesn't do it particularly well. Maybe not particularly badly either, but it's a simplistic and formalized rule for a very chaotic and unpredictable situation. Depending on particular circumstances and how one rationalizes it, it can either make sense or defy sense. It implies that whoever has initiative, if his attack roll succeeds, does all his damage before his opponent can attack in return, so the opponent might be killed before he can even attempt his ow...

 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...