Moldvay Musings XX: Saving Throws

"Save or die is so stupid! One bad die roll and my PC is dead?! LAME!"

I can't count the number of times I've heard these complaints or some variation of them. It's a hallmark of old-school D&D, like dying during Traveler character generation, that gets repeated as a standard dismissal or condemnation of the older rules sets.

Yes, a saving throw comes down to a single die roll. And yes, a failed one can result in a character dying. But allow me to present some of the rationale behind them and how I interpret them in my games not as a rebuttal necessarily, but at least to show another perspective. I should point out I am far from the first to do this and many of my thoughts are based upon others'.

First of all, what is a saving throw? Well, in Moldvay it's defined as "...the chance that a special attack may be avoided or will have less than the normal effect." (B26). Not to get pedantic, but let's look at the wording of this for just a moment, shall we?

"a special attack may be avoided"

Many special attacks require a successful to-hit before a save is even necessary. Poison attacks are the obvious example of this. The snake must successfully bite you before you need to worry about its venom. So right there you have multiple "buffers" between you and the dreaded Save or Die.

1. You are forced to fight the snake. This isn't a forgone conclusion, what with things like reactions, encounter distances, and running away taken into account.
2. The snake successfully hits you. Depending on things like initiative, marching order, and armor class, the snake might not even get a hit in before being dealt with.
3. Assuming the above two sets of factors go against you, THEN you make your saving throw.

Some attacks have areas of effects (breath weapons) and/or are magical (wands, spells, etc.) and don't roll to-hit. However these are generally from more powerful foes that low-level characters should seriously think twice about facing unprepared. That's not to say sutff doesn't happen, but it should mitigate things somewhat.

Finally, it should be pointed out a couple concepts that have been touched on a bit on this blog before.

1.  "D&D characters die frequently" - Frank Mentzer. In older versions of D&D, it was fully expected to rack up a body count, especially at lower levels. Character creation was simple enough that the loss of your 1st level fighter was a 10 minute interruption at best. Once you got to higher levels and had some investment in the PC, well then point #2 comes into it.
2. Death is a speedbump at mid-to-higher levels. Even if your party doesn't have a cleric capable of casting Raise Dead, you can probably find an NPC that can. Likewise, spells like Resist Fire are going to make that red dragon less scary. Sure, your 10th level Thief might get unlucky with a cockatrice, but Flesh to Stone isn't quite so hard to find as it once was, is it?
3. I wish I could find the original for this, which I believe is attributed to Gary, but to paraphrase, "A saving throw usually means that you've already screwed up and should probably be dead. It's a chance to avoid the worst of the consequences." So when the fireball goes off and you only take half damage, maybe you got luck and were partway behind something. Or maybe you managed to dive out of the way. But it started with you standing there in the line of fire.

Double-take

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Moldvay Musings XIX: Doors

I've blogged before about magically barring and opening doors as well as secret doors, but a recent thread on Dragonsfoot got me looking over the text on just plain old doors in dungeons.

Moldvay (B21) says:

NORMAL DOORS: Doors in a dungeon are usually closed, and are often stuck or locked. A lock must usually be picked by a thief. An unlocked door must be forced open to pass through it. To force open a door, roll Id6; a result of 1 or 2 (on Id6) means that the door is forced open. The roll should be adjusted by a character's Strength score adjustment. The number needed to open a door can never be less than 1 nor greater than 1-5.

Once a door is opened, it will usually swing shut when released unless it is spiked or wedged open. Doors will usually open automatically for monsters, unless the door is held, spiked, or closed with magical spells.

There's a lot to unpack here, given such a short entry, but that's part of BX's beauty, IMO.

First off, nearly everything described about doors is qualified with terms like "usually" or "often," leaving room for the DM to use their discretion and judgement. The language helps paint a picture of what dungeons are usually like. Doors warped and swollen in their frames bu the damp, or latches rusted shut. If it's a more heavily used location, like an active lair, perhaps a stuck door is rarer. Locks are still a thing, though.

This brings us to the next part: opening said doors. Locks are a thief's job, obviously. Of course a failed roll could lead to a brawny PC forcing it open as if it were stuck. This gives a sense of how these obstacles are expected to be handled. The smart party tries stealth first, force second.

The last part of this section seems at first a bit "gamey" in its language. Doors just swinging shut and especially the part about them simply opening automatically for the monsters. My own interpretation of this is that the location's denizens know the place well and are used to the doors' fiddly little ways. I wouldn't have a door just pop open for a creature that couldn't normally operate it, e.g. no hands or unintelligent.

As far as swinging shut, I interpret that as doors that no longer hang true on their hinges and naturally fall back closed. Again, this isn't every door all the time, but it can happen.

So all this begs the question of why? Why have door stick and slam shut? Why make it so the party has to take the time and effort to pick its lock, or force it open? The answer is time. All these efforts cost the party time. As classic D&D is a game of resource management and exploration, the players will have to make choices. Do we waste another turn trying to pick this lock? Do we risk attracting some wandering monster's attention with the noise of forcing open this door? How long until the current torch burns out?

But what if that's the door that leads to the PCs' goal? Or the lower levels? Aren't you just screwing with them by leaving whether the game progresses up to chance like that?

While you certainly can run a "pure" sandbox like that, with zero plot or plan; most experienced DMs follow the guideline of either A) not putting something critical out of reach because of one bad die roll, or B) Always have more than one way for the party to move forward. Maybe the lock is too tough for the thief and the door is too strong to be battered down. However, maybe there's a secret door they could find that will let them through? Or maybe there's a key to be found? I'm not suggesting this be the case with every door, and I admit it's still possible for bad luck to derail things, but used judiciously these wrinkles can add a lot of detail to an adventure.

RSA: Locate Object

Locate Object is one of those utility spells that -at first glance- sounds really handy, but seems fairly limited. Some creative spellcasting can make a big difference, though.

It's important to note that the magic-user/elf version of this spell is slightly different than the clerical one. It's a third level cleric spell and 2nd level for MU/Elves. Clerics have a fixed range (120'), which is better than the arcane types' at first, but their version gets boosted by caster level, eventually outpacing the cleric at 7th. The cleric gets a much longer duration, though. The general effects of the spell is identical for both. Most of the time I've seen the spell it's been clerical. After all, the cleric can just pray for the spell for the day rather than permanently tying up a slot in their spellbook with it. So when used, it's often the 120'/6 turns version.

There's nothing in the BX description about being blocked by materials like lead, as some versions of the game have used. So dungeon walls, etc. aren't going to impede it. The spell will tell only direction, not distance, and only if the object is in range. Outdoors, even converted to yards, that's not terribly far unless you already know you're close.

To locate something specific, you need to know exactly what it looks like. You can't just say "The Crown of Oogabooga!" unless you've seen it or at least a good likeness/detailed description. Common, nonspecific objects (the text uses "stairs" as an example) are searchable based on what the closest example is (again, if in range at all).

I think the "common item" facet is where the spell is most likely to be useful. Once a party has been through a stretch of dungeon and mapped it out, movement back through the area can be made faster than "exploration" speed. If, for example, a cleric casts the spell and moves steadily through the cleared area sweeping for "secret doors," he stands a good chance of finding any the party might have missed. If he "pings" one farther away in the dungeon, they know that there may areas they haven't seen yet.

The spell can't locate creatures, but -as the illustration above shows- it can get a fix on loot. "Gold." or "Coins" or "Gems" could save valuable searching time.

One caveat: The spell only locates one thing (or type) per casting. Meaning you can't start the spell with the crown example, then switch to secret doors, and then to gold coins. The duration's function is not to take inventory of the dungeon. It's to triangulate!

Let's say the caster was looking for secret doors. If they are right in front of one, small movements to either side will cause drastic swings in the "angle" of the ping. If the nearest secret door is nearer to maximum range, the shift in angle is subtler. While I wouldn't allow precision to seconds of arc, I wouldn't punish clever spell use coupled with careful map-making to help the party find something. If multiple castings were used over time, it might be possible to find hidden treasure vaults or the like.

As far as specific objects are concerned, I can imagine scenarios where the spell could be useful, but unless the DM deliberately sets things up for it (e.g. a portrait with a detailed image of the item) or the players plan well ahead on this tactic, I see that use being somewhat uncommon. Still, it could be fun if it happened!