01 May 2018

The Classes, pp. 6-7 (OD&D Vol 1), Annotated

There are three (3) main classes of characters: 

Why did EGG type three and then parenthetically highlight it? It's the only place in the 3 booklets he did this. An oddity.

Fighting-Men, Magic-Users, Clerics


Where are the thieves, one may wonder? While this class was reportedly added to EGG's campaign early on, they did not appear in OD&D's rules until Greyhawk was published.

Men is used in the archaic grammatical sense, indicating humanity in general.

Halfling appears on this page. In early printings, these were referred to as Hobbits but the reference was changed after a cease-and-desist letter from the Tolkien estate.

Human, Demi-human, Humanoid: the latter 2 terms do not appear in OD&D, though newer additions use the terms widely. "Human" is used, but they are more often are labelled Men. The other races are called man-types (which also include humans) or non-humans.

Fighting-Men: we are introduced to the concept of Hit Dice and hit points (though these are referred to only as points in this mention).

Magic-Users: the description opens with an impressive run-on sentence. This class, interestingly in our point of view, may only arm itself with a dagger and not the equally traditional staff. Wizards (implying here the 11th rank of Magic-User and not a generic term) can manufacture magic items for their own use, then parenthetically adding or for sale. At a first reading, it would seem the ability to sell manufactured items would be implied. Brief pricing guidelines follow this statement on the next page.

Clerics: does not mention turning of undead ability anywhere in the description. This will appear later in the document. A strict reading of the description (something we typically avoid) might give the impression Clerics could wear only magic armor and use mundane edged weapons but not magical ones. Cleric must choose the alignment of Law or Chaos upon reaching 7th level (no Neutrals), though in the early printings this restriction was on any Cleric of any level.

The non-human classes will be covered in the next post.

1 comment:

  1. I know this post is a year old, but... the sentence "Magic-Users may arm themselves with daggers only." follows the sentence prohibiting them from the magical arms and armor of the fighters. In volume 2, Monsters & Treasure, magical dagges are listed in miscellaneous weapons (i.e. arms of the fighter.) Wands/Staves is a separate category, that whole plethora of enchanted items at the magic-user's beck and call.

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