Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1st Edition) (1977-1985), often called AD&D1E, is the successor to Original Dungeons & Dragons (1974), being aa more complete rules of Dungeons & Dragons meant to compliment 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
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 problemsnote 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.
Major Releases
- Monster Manual (1977)
- Player's Handbook (1978)
- Dungeon Master's Guide (1979)
- Deities & Demigods (1980)
- Fiend Folio (1981)
- Monster Manual II (1983)
- Legends & Lore (1985)
- Oriental Adventures (1985)
- Unearthed Arcana (1985)
- Dungeoneer's Survival Guide (1986)
- Wilderness Survival Guide (1986)
- Manual of the Planes (1987)
- Dragonlance Adventures (1987)
- Greyhawk Adventures (1988)
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
- 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.
- Auto-Kitchen: Module S3, "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks", takes place inside a crashed starship. Kitchen areas have computer operated food dispensers that provide food to the vegepygmy monsters. If the PCs can learn how to operate the controls, they can get food to eat. Unfortunately, there is a 50% chance that the food is poisonous.
- 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.
- Cool, but Inefficient: Plate mail armor in the 1st Edition. 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 criticals. 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).
- 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:
- One of the more famous departures is the then-new dedicated combat system (discarding the need to own Chainmail, which D&D had eclipsed in popularity even by this point), in which players determine what number they have to roll above by taking their character's THAC0 (To-Hit Armor Class Zero) score and subtracting their target's Armor Class. Thus, the lower your THAC0 and Armor Class, the better. This also introduced many players, younger and older, to the concept of subtracting negative numbers.
- 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 remained in place from OD&D. Likewise, racial class access was a thing, and in a lot of cases was fairly stringent (for example, in the rules-as-written, only humans and half-humans could be clerics, with no elf, dwarf or halfling clerics to be found).note Individual settings could and did modify these restrictions, but in the base rulebooks they were fairly tight.
- Additionally, "demihumans" could "multi-class", which worked a little differently than how you'd expect it to from 21st-century examples - you are two classes at once, and they level in precise sync with one another, each one getting equal experience. 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, with DMs very clearly being given an option to not allow their use at all.
- 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. 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). 17 or 18 charisma allows you to have several additional parties following you around, assuming you can pay them all (and they'll be absurdly loyal in any event).
- 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 people to it, and have "a body of men-at-arms led by an above-average fighter", meaning you generally don't even need to go looking for henchmen, they'll come to you. The general idea, likely inspired by characters like Aragorn, appears to have been that Fighters would make up for a lack of spellcasting with a small army of dudes to make additional attacks against things and establish a full-on battle line, and made Charisma not a Dump Stat for Fighters, because Charisma of 14 or above could allow you to double, triple or more the size of the force on the players' side. In practice, this tended to be a complete nightmare to try and run, especially for very high-Charisma Fighters (who could field upward of fifteen dudes) so even at the time a lot of players would leave this option fallow and under-developed.
- Psionics remained a (generally) optional rule and were not attached to a specific class; they were simply something you could have if you possessed high Intelligence, Wisdom or Charisma (and were thus a potential bonus perk for Fighters who didn't invest purely in beef stats). Whether you had psionics and your precise psionics were determined by the will of the dice; outside of attack and defense modes, the random number god determined your brain sorcery.
- As one may note above, the rules tended to use extremely human-centric language and the rules tended to bias a bit toward human superiority (and with a lot of the humans in the material being caucasian-presenting, well...) This can be argued to be more prevalent in the Gygax-authored material, but it was 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.
- Fast-Killing Radiation: In the adventure S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, while exploring a crashed starship, the Player Character party can encounter russet mold. Exposure to the mold's radiation causes death in 20-50 minutes.
- 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.
- 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 PC 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
- 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.
- High-Voltage Death: 1st Edition module S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. In Level II (Service Deck 5) there are areas that contain electrical equipment such as generators and transformers. If a PC decides to touch these devices with metal objects (e.g. weapons), there's a 10% chance that the character will be electrocuted and killed.
- 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 died in 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.
- 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 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, 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).
- 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.
- 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.
- Medieval Universal Literacy: Advanced Dungeons And Dragons was unusual for Dungeons & Dragons in averting this trope, with literacy being a proficiency skill that player must learn.
- 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.
- 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 Alignment. 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.
- 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 PC 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.
- 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. - 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 Cyclopedia of the Realms, 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.
- 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 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 class and the sap.
- 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.
- 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.
