As I mentioned back in column 85, there is a strong tendency to house rule older editions of D&D, going all the way back to the original “White Box” edition. The game just sort of calls out for it.

As I mentioned last month, that tendency has led people to (often unintentionally) change essential parts of the game, the things that make D&D be D&D. And that's one reason “like D&D but better” games are usually called “D&D Heartbreakers” (the other reason is that they virtually never bring their creators any money or renown as game designers).

For those of you who want a quick reminder of what I (in my infinite wisdom) consider the essential elements of old-school D&D, but who don't want to stop and go reread my last column, here's a short version:

• The first-level meat grinder
• Dungeoneering (including the wilderness treks that often go along with it)
• Importance of player skill
• The necessity of PC's working in groups
• Experience points come from finding treasure more than from killing
• Focus on exploration and heist more than “kill them and take their stuff”
• Not an epic, world-saving adventure, but a grittier, low-fantasy game
• Unfair, unbalanced, unpredictable (luck matters)
• The PC's have to be cautious, even at higher levels.

But take heart! There are plenty of things that can be changed without compromising the essential elements. I'll give three brief examples here. None of these radically re-shapes the game, but they do change things in small and meaningful ways.

These aren't necessarily “needed” changes so much as customizations a group might want in order to make the game suit their temperaments and preferences a little better.

Case One: The “Problem” of characters starting with only 1 Hit Point

Many would argue that this is a feature, not a bug, but when you're playing that 1 HP character, it's harder to see it that way. Struggling to keep a character like that alive until level two (and hoping for a good 2nd level HP roll) can be grueling frustration, exhilarating suspense, or both.

Getting stuck with 1 Hit Point hits the fighters hardest, since they have basically no skills other than combat. Dwarves can at least inspect the stonework, but they really need to stand in combat like fighters. Mages, elves, and clerics have their magic, thieves and halflings have stealth and special skills, but fighters, well, need to be able to fight.

The easiest way to deal with this is to declare that all PC's get their maximum possible roll for 1st level Hit Points. And there's nothing wrong with that, if your group likes it. But it eliminates an area of randomness and eliminates the challenge of playing a group that includes low Hit Point characters.

So let's say we're going to keep 1 HP characters available. We might, however, argue that 1 HP characters should be rarer than they are. In OD&D, 1 out of 6 starting characters will have 1 HP. In Red Box D&D (the one that more people are familiar with as an old school game, and the one that I am more comfortable fiddling with, since I've used it off an on since I was kid), it's 1 in 4 mages and thieves, 1 in 6 halflings, elves, and clerics, and 1 in 8 fighters and dwarves. That's a very common disability, a very frequent fatal flaw.

We could easily reduce the frequency of characters with only 1 Hit Point by having each player roll 2 dice for hit points and take the higher of the two. In this case, both dice would have to come up 1 for the character to end up with only 1 Hit Point. That would change the odds of having only 1 HP to 1 in 16 for mages and thieves, 1 in 36 for halflings, elves, and clerics (and all OD&D characters), and 1 in 64 for fighters and dwarves. That preserves the randomness and the broad range of starting Hit Points, but it makes truly dismal rolls much less common.

If we decided we just don't deal with 1 Hit Point characters, but we do want a range of staring Hit Points, that's also easily fixed. Just reduce the size of the hit die rolled, and add a fixed bonus to raise the maximum total to equal the maximum of the standard hit die. In other words, in original D&D, where every class uses 1d6 for hit dice, you could roll 1d4 for first level Hit Points, then add +2. Characters would have 3-6 Hit Points, instead of 1-6. Future levels' Hit Points would be rolled as usual.

In Red Box D&D, mages and thieves could have their 1d4 hit dice replaced by 1d3+1, or 2-4 Hit Points. Clerics, elves, and halflings could have their 1d6 hit dice replaced by 1d4+2, or 3-6 Hit Points. Dwarves and fighters could have their 1d8 hit dice replaced by 1d5+3, or 4-8 Hit Points. That way, each class can start the game with no fewer hit points than half their first level maximum.

Some groups may find that it's better to use the first method (or no change) for less combative character classes, but use the second method for fighters, dwarves, and maybe even clerics (who can't cast spells at first level). Either way, you're preserving the role of chance and at least some of the breadth of possible starting Hit Point totals.

Case Two: Saving Throws

Every different edition seems to have a different set of Saving Throws. And Red Box D&D's list seems needlessly long and confusing. I honestly like the idea of a single Saving Throw target based on Class and Level. You could break it into two, if you wanted a little more variation, perhaps Save vs. Magic and Save vs. Physical Threat.

That would eliminate the confusion of questions like, “So it's a petrification spell from a wand? Which saving throw target do I use again?” I'm sure those go away if you play the game a lot, but if it's been a while, or you only get together to play once per month, or if you play several editions or different games altogether, you're not likely to instantly know the right answer.

Either way, you could allow players to add their characters' Dexterity Bonus for anything that involve getting out of the way (like dodging a trap or taking half damage from a Fireball spell), Constitution Bonus for anything dealing with toughness or bodily integrity (poison or petrification), and Wisdom Bonus for anything mental (hallucinogens or magical mind control).

Case Three: Wizards Shouldn't Forget Their Spells! That Makes No Sense! Almost every fix for this tries to change the game system, and most end up with something that's more complicated, less flavorful, and no better in practice. But that's the wrong way to address a flavor text problem. A game mechanic problem needs a game mechanic fix. A flavor text problem needs a flavor text fix, one that borrows from Roger Zelazny rather than Jack Vance:

Mages aren't memorizing their spells. That's what they tell the muggles, because non-magicians couldn't begin to understand the process of spell-building. All that time the magic user spends meditating with her spell book? She's casting her spells.

“Do you think I can build a complicated magical structure in the middle of combat? Of course not, no more than you could fletch your arrows while dodging orc blades. I cast them in a peaceful place and state of mind. Then I store them in my mind until I need them. When I 'cast' a spell, I'm just setting it off, like an arrow from your bow.”

There. Now, no more objections about wizards forgetting their spells (which admittedly does sound stupid unless you're already a Jack Vance fan). And best of all, you get to keep a spell system that is surprisingly elegant and effective in practice.

Now, don't ask me why I didn't think of that thirty years ago, when I was torturing D&D into various heartbreaker formats. Maybe it's because I hadn't yet read The Chronicles of Amber.

Well, I've already gone awfully long with this column, so I'll stop here. See you next month.