Lurkers: Am I doing it wrong?

So in a game of Hordes of the Things a couple of weeks ago, a question by my opponent got me thinking about Lurkers and how they're used in the game.

The rules state you can only deploy a Lurker element against an enemy element that was deployed or has just entered a bad going terrain feature on the previous bound.  I did so in the game pictured above, and the Spears element chased my Lurker skeleton from the board.  On my next bound, I was going to bring it back against that same element it fought previously, but the other player wondered whether I could do this, since his element had not just entered the terrain feature--it was still there from the previous bound.

I realized that all along, I've been bringing back Lurkers against some of the same units that drove the Lurkers off the table.  According to my new interpretation of the rules, I shouldn't have done that; instead I  should have redeployed them against new elements that entered some bad going.

So how do you deploy Lurkers in HotT?  In your games, can they pop back up to plague the same element that forced them to flee the battlefield in the previous round?  Or should they only be deployed against elements that have just then entered a patch of bad going?  I can't believe I've been doing this incorrectly for so long!

Wands and staves in Holmes D&D

Looking at the rules for wands and staves under EXPLANATION OF MAGICAL ITEMS in the basic Dungeons & Dragons rulebook, I found something interesting: some of those devices have unlimited uses.  From the overview of this class of items:

Wands that have projectiles or rays are considered to do six 6-sided dice of damage and to have 100 charges or projectiles. (emphasis added)

Inverting this sentence, we can conclude that under the Holmes rules, staves don't operate on charges, since the description just mentions wands.  And it makes sense given the nature of those items.  The Staff of Healing heals "any number" of people (but the same individual just once per day).  The Snake Staff is a melee weapon with a special power, similar to other magic weapons; so is the Staff of Striking.  And the Rod of Cancellation is a one-shot device.

That leaves the six wands in blue box basic D&D.  Two of these magic items, the Wand of Magic Detection and the Wand of Secret Doors and Trap Detection, don't emit any kind of ray or projectile.  The former causes magic items in range to glow, while the latter just gives warning or points to hidden portals or snares.  So pursuant to their descriptions from Holmes, neither of these wands use charges to operate.

Of the remaining four devices, the Wand of Fire Balls shoots a projectile and the Wand of Paralyzation emits a ray, so these two wands definitely use charges to function.  The rules for the final two wands, however, aren't so definite.  The Wand of Fear "can effect all creatures in a cone shaped area emanating from it."  The Wand of Cold "creates a cone shaped area of cold the same dimensions as the fear wand."  No mention of ray or projectile in either description. However, Holmes describes the Wand of Paralyzation's ray as having the same dimensions as the effect of the Wand of Fear.  While the Wand of Cold doesn't mention a ray, its area of effect is also the same dimensions as the fear wand.  Therefore, it's safe to conclude that the cold and fear wands also use charges to operate.

This makes sense, as the offensive wands and staves work similarly to mundane weapons--the wands or bows that affect foes at a distance require charges or ammunition, while the items meant for close-in combat don't get used up.

That leaves the two detection wands, which don't use charges.  Some dungeon masters might balk at the idea of letting the player characters have limitless means to avoid traps and spot magic, but with a range of 20 feet they're both pretty limited.  If you still think it's too powerful, rule that it takes a full turn to conduct a search using a detection wand--a party taking one turn to cover 20 feet of dungeon corridor will attract a lot of wandering monsters.  And if that device is still too unbalancing for your game, just think about what the Thieves Guild or the local wizard might do once they learn such an item is in the hands of the adventurers ...

Identifying potions with Detect Magic.

I'm having fun examining the wording of the Holmes basic D&D rules under a microscope.  As a lawyer, I can't help reading things very carefully and weighing each word.  I try not to do it when I'm playing a game, but I do like performing these little thought experiments on this blog.

This is from Moldvay, not Holmes. But you get the idea.

So today we're looking at the rules for magical potions under Explanation of Magic Items in the blue book.  What caught my eye was the introductory paragraph detailing potions:

Some method of detecting the effects of the potion must be found.  If the characters lack a detect magic spell, they may dare a tiny sip to see what the result may be.

Emphasis mine.  Did Holmes mean for players to use the spell of Detect Magic to find out the effect of a potion?  I think so.  Look at the description for this spell:

A spell to determine if there has been some enchantment laid on a person, place or thing.  It has a limited range and short duration.  It is useful, for example, to discover if some item is magical, a door has been "held" or "wizard-locked," etc.

Let's read this carefully.  The spell can be used to find out whether a door has been held or wizard locked.  You could stretch that phrase to mean the caster can determine not just if a door's been enchanted, but how it was bespelled--i.e., Detect Magic can tell you whether that door you can't open is under the effect of a Hold Portal or a Wizard Lock.  There's also the "etc."--meaning the spell could determine what kind of magic as well as just the presence of magic.

That's how I see it: A character can use Detect Magic to figure out exactly what a potion will do.  Would you allow this in the campaign you run?  Would you let players use this spell to identify other magic items as well?  I think I might.

Energy draining in Holmes D&D

This post on energy draining over at Untimately got me thinking about how to apply the process in a pure blue-book D&D game.  Setting aside the question of whether you should even give foes level-draining ability, I want to explore how it works in the Holmes basic rules.  From the monsters descriptions:

• Spectres "drain two life energy levels each time they score a hit."
• Vampires "drain two life energy levels, as do spectres, when they hit an opponent in combat."
• Wights "drain away life energy levels when they score a hit in melee, one level per it."
• Wraiths "drain life energy, 1 level per hit."

The only elaboration on the process is in the description of the wight: "An opponent totally drained of life energy by a wight becomes a wight under the control of the draining creature."  Likewise, the rules say "men-types" killed by spectres and vampires become lesser versions of those creatures under the control of their killers.  Since wraiths "are like wights, but have more hit dice and are harder to hit," I'd say this applies to wraiths as well.

Now conventional wisdom has it that, like with hit points, once your character's level falls to zero, he's dead. However, what about "normal men"--also known as zero-level characters?  Obviously one hit from a level-draining undead is going to take out your man-at-arms.  But should that apply to a first-level character who is drained of a single life energy level?  Or is he not quite "totally" drained of vitality?

I say no, and there's precedent in the rules to support me: the "normal man" that appears in the combat and saving throw tables.  A first-level character who has one level drained away, or a second-level character who loses two levels, becomes a 0-level "normal man" (whatever the PC's original race and class) for game purposes.  Any hit that takes a character below zero-level, of course, slays that individual and turns him or her into the same type of undead that slew the character.

This means using the appropriate line on the to-hit and save charts, and not being able to use class-specific abilities like spells or thief skills.  Why do this?  First of all, it keeps your brand-new first-level character alive after a hit from a wight, even if at very reduced capability, and therefore gives the entire party a greater chance of surviving the encounter.  Second, it provides new opportunities for adventure in search of a cure, as you can let the players know that there's a certain temple which can restore the lost vitality (for a price, or in return for a quest), or have them meet a ranger who knows how to make a potion which can heal their affliction.  You could even be merciful and allow that several weeks of rest, plus a certain amount of experience points (say, one-fourth of what it takes to reach second level), gets them back up to first level.

Whatever method you choose, these ideas allow low-level characters to survive encounters with level-draining undead.  When they recover, they'll be ready to hit the dungeon again, and hopefully be a little more careful this time.

More Holmes D&D rules-lawyering

Time for another nitpick of the Dungeons & Dragons basic set from 1978.  Did you know that this ruleset allows magic-users to cast cleric spells?  OK, it lets M-Us cast the equivalent of certain cleric spells from scrolls, but that got your attention, didn't it?

How does this work?  The Scrolls subsection of the TREASURE section of the book lists, in addition to the selections for a cursed scroll and various protection spells, entries to pick "Any potion spell" with a couple of exceptions, "Any ring spell" (likewise), and "Any wand spell."  So there's a chance your magic-user could find--and use--a scroll with a spell of Healing based on the potion or staff, the magical equivalent of the clerical Cure Light Wounds spell.

Of course, a good rules lawyer could argue that the Holmes scroll rules encompass all cleric spells as well.  Here's how: some of the other entries for the type of scroll are "Any one spell," "Any two spells," or "Any three spells."  And here's where it gets interesting.  In the EXPLANATION OF MAGIC ITEMS regarding scrolls, Holmes instructs the dungeon master, "Select the spells from the appropriate list by some random method."  Therefore, I would roll a to see which book of spells the scroll contains, M-U levels 1-3 or clerical spells levels 1-2, and then roll to see which spell.  You might argue that since Holmes allows only magic-users to read scrolls (other than protection scrolls), the "appropriate list" means only magic-user spells, I read "appropriate" as the lists mentioned in the table: character spells, potion spells, ring spells, and wand spells.

What about elves?  I'd argue that since "Elves progress in levels as both fighting men and magic-users," they can use magic scrolls.

Which reminds me--according to Holmes, "The spells written on the scrolls can be read only by magic-users, except for the protection spells."  If we interpret that strictly, that means that only M-Us (and elves, who progress as M-Us) are affected by cursed scrolls.

Your thoughts?  Would you run a game this way, with cursed scrolls only affecting magic-users?  What about scrolls with clerical spells?  Allow them at all?  And if you do, allow clerics to use them, or only magic-users? 

Or am I the only one who thinks about these things?

Rules-lawyering Holmes D&D

I'm a lawyer in my day job, and one of the things I do when I read legal documents is look for what they say--not for what the author might have meant.  It's hard to stop thinking like a lawyer, and I often find myself in that mental state when I'm reading game rules.

Looking at the Holmes version of the Dungeons & Dragons basic rulebook through the eyes of an attorney, I noticed something interesting--reading the rules as written, there are no express upper limits to ability scores! 

Under CHARACTER CREATION, the book tells players to roll three 6-sided dice for each characteristic.  Dr. Holmes then states, "18 is as high as one can get with three dice, so a character with a strength of 18 would be super-powerful, one with a strength of 3 (lowest possible dice roll) would barely be able to lift his sword off the ground."

No big deal, you think--the Good Doctor doesn't have to expressly limit your character's abilities, the dice and mathematics do it for him.  However, take a look at the next section, ADJUSTING ABILITY SCORES. 

Characters can raise their prime requisites by lowering their scores in other characteristics (for example, a fighting man can trade 2 points of intelligence (or 3 points of wisdom) to raise his strength by 1 point.  And while the rules say you can't lower any ability below 9, the book does not impose an upper limit of any sort.  So say you roll a character with an 18 for a prime requisite and some good scores in other abilities.  Drop 2 or 3 points in some non-vital characteristics, and you can push that prime up to 19, 20, or even more depending on how high your other scores originally were.

You say that was an oversight; there's a hard maximum.  But if Holmes meant ability scores to have an upper limit, he didn't share that with us.  For example, the second-level magic-user spell Strength increases a fighter's by 2-8, a thief's by 1-6, or a cleric's by 1-4.  Nothing in that description about up to 18.

The only mention of 18 as an upper limit for ability scores can be found, oddly enough, in the description for the Ring of Weakness.  Describing the effects of how this magic item sometimes works in reverse, the text states a ring occasionally will increase the wearer's strength, "up to the maximum of 18, naturally."  However, I could argue that this maximum only applies to the Ring of Weakness--otherwise the limit would have been mentioned elsewhere.

Of course, this is all pretty much a moot point, since most ability scores don't make that much difference mechanically in this set of rules.  But still, by the book, Holmes basic D&D allows ability scores higher than 18.

DMs, what do you think?  Would you allow 18+ ability scores it in your Holmes basic game?