Gelatinous Icosahedron

 As so often happens, just as I zero in on The Way that I think will solve some glaring issue in the game, along comes a fresh insight or three to send me back to the ol' drawing board. I don't even recall precisely how this insight came to be in my head or whence it originated (it's drawn from more than one source, most likely), but here it is: Fighters in D&D get better at fighting as they level up. They can hit better ACs more often, thus dealing more damage, and they gain hit points in good amounts (dice willing, of course!). This enables them to take on stronger and stronger challenges in combat, as is their job. A 1st-level fighter struggles against orcs and goblins, but eventually becomes mighty enough to make these nothing but light exercise, and to feel confident going up against trolls and dragons. Magic-users in D&D get better at casting spells as they level up. They can cast more spells, they can cast better spells, and they can cast the same old spells...

 Going through a box of stuff in a spare bedroom that mostly serves as a clutter repository, I came across a folder of old D&D stuff. This particular stuff dates back to the early 90s, when I had dreams of writing and submitting an adventure module for publication. I would have been somewhere in the 18-20 age range at the time.  Anyway, the folder included some drawings I'd done for said module, and while I don't think anyone would ever mistake me for a great artist, I'm kind of surprised that they don't look nearly as bad as I would have expected. To the best of my recollection, I haven't done any drawing at all since these ones (which, as we've established, was a LONG damn time ago.) Anyway, I thought, what the hell, let's share these with my small handful of blog readers! Bear in mind, they've been sitting around in a folder for a few decades, getting all faded and yellow and smudgy-looking. I've run them through my photo editing program to da...

 And for its next trick, B/X Dungeons & Dragons will split one monster into two! In Greek mythology, Medusa was the name of a specific, unique being, one of the three Gorgon sisters (the others being Stheno and Euryale). In D&D, though, medusa and gorgon are separate and very different creature types, united by the common theme of petrification attacks. The D&D medusa is based on the mythical Gorgon, Medusa, while the D&D gorgon is based on... livestock. The gorgon is described as a magical, bull-like monster covered in iron scales. (Random digression: What happens when a gorgon and a rust monster fight? Inquiring minds want to know!) It has large horns, with which it gores opponents, and has the ability to charge for double damage. Gorgons are usually found in small numbers (1-4 appearing) in foothills and grasslands. Befitting its hide of iron scales, the gorgon has a very solid AC of 2, and 8 Hit Dice, making it nearly as robust as an elephant but even harder to ...

 The word "golem" in D&D seems to be almost a catch-all for any sort of enchanted automaton. (Though there are exceptions, such as gargoyles and living statues, though why they are exceptions there is not even the barest attempt to explain... but I digress.) Monsters and Manuals had an excellent post arguing that the catch-all concept of golems is overly broad, if not straight-up incorrect, and I concur: it dilutes what it really means for something to be a golem, and destroys a lot of the flavor of the thing. A golem, according to noisms, must be humanoid in form, it must be made of "raw material" (no finished or worked material such as stained glass or steel, nor anything that's ever been alive such as wood), and it must be unfinished, implying a degree of roughness or crudeness in form, e.g. it hasn't been completed as a statue or other work of art or technology before being animated as an automaton. I like these criteria tremendously, and they defi...

 Just a quick post about another idea I had for the fighter class, to give it a little more, well, "fight." This would probably be best used to replace the so-called "mook rule" (one attack per level vs. opponents less than one full HD) or "cleave"/"sweep" (make an extra attack when an attack kills the target.) In a nutshell, a fighter may make a single attack vs. a single target, per the rules as written, OR may make attacks against multiple targets, reducing the damage die used by one step for each additional target, to a minimum of d4. So, if a fighter using a d6 weapon is beset by a mob of kobolds, he could either make his usual single attack, dealing 1d6 points of damage if successful, or he could attack two different kobolds, making a separate attack roll for each and dealing 1d4 points of damage on each successful attack. If the fighter is using a d10 weapon, he could make attack a single target for 1d10 damage, two targets for 1d8 each, t...

 A while back I wrote about how the B/X fighter was underpowered relative to other classes, and offered some ideas to help bring it up to par. Perhaps even more underwhelming, though, is the thief class.  The thief, as an archetype and concept, has a lot going for it. Tricksters, opportunists, sneaks, knaves, and rogues of all stripes fit neatly under the thief banner. There's a lot of potential for players who relish the idea of succeeding by wit, cunning, and deceit rather than magic or combat prowess. The time-honored rule of awarding experience points primarily for treasure recovered rather than monsters slain or any other metric seems practically tailor-made for thieves. Unfortunately, the thief class as written in Classic D&D has some really glaring problems that make it a difficult and frustrating one to play. Many have complained about the class's d4 Hit Dice, a gripe which wholly misses the mark in my opinion. Thieves are not meant to be durable stand-up fighters....

 When I think back to my earliest days playing D&D, the monster I think of most isn't the dragon. It isn't the orc, the gelatinous cube, or the ogre. It's the goblin, from the Basic Set, naturally. Goblins are stated to be small, incredibly ugly human-like creatures. How small, exactly, isn't specified; they could be dwarf-size, halfling-size, or smaller, depending on how you like your goblins. The entry does tell us that they have red eyes that glow in low light, and pale earth-colored skin, "chalky tan" and "livid gray" being given as examples. They're identified as avowed underground-dwellers, with infravision to a 90' range. Full daylight hurts their eyes, and they fight at a -1 penalty. They hate dwarves so fiercely that they will always attack them on sight, so no negotiating with goblins if there's a dwarf in the party! There's also a 20% chance that one in four goblins encountered will be riding dire wolves, which substant...