Here’s what irritates me most about B/X…

Even greatness comes with flaws

For my catalog of B/X’s top virtues, see Here’s what I love most about B/X…

N.B. I found I didn’t really enjoy writing this article, which is probably why it’s taken me so long to publish it. I was much more enthusiastic describing what I love about B/X than what I find lacking. Like Abed in Community, “I guess I just like liking things.” I’ve done my best to provide fair criticism, however, despite my personal bias in favor of the system.

No game is perfect, and I love B/X too much to overlook its flaws. To do so would be to treat it as something ideal (and therefore unreal) instead of the solid game system it is—one which, like most products, includes oversights, compromises, and weaknesses.

Of course, what I see as a bug, others might consider a feature, so please take the following for what it is—my personal list of the top ten elements I would change about B/X, if I had a magic wand:

(Dis?)honorable Mention

Before we get to the top ten, however, I want to touch on two elements which don’t appear in the list, and which many readers will miss.

Race-As-Class: No one gets to play a halfling thief…

If I had written this article a couple of years ago, race-as-class might have been in the number one slot. I’ve recently had a change of mind about this—if not so much a change of heart—but it deserves it’s own article. I mention it here to acknowledge that race-as-class may be the single most divisive characteristic of B/X (as well as of that system’s successor, BECMI.) For reasons I plan to detail at another time, however, I no longer consider it to be one of the biggest flaws in the system.

Descending Armor Class: Math is hard; Unnecessary math is annoying.

Another contender for “the most annoying element of B/X” is descending armor class. As a 12-year-old in 1982, I didn’t know this was a holdover mechanic from a draft of the original D&D rules, retained in the published version even though changes to those rules had already made it obsolete. I did recognize it was (and is) non-intuitive and cumbersome. These days, however, I do most of my gaming on Roll20, where macros embedded in the B/X-style character sheet make much of the math transparent. As a result, I often forget about the problems of descending AC, and that keeps it off the the top-ten list.

So what irritates me the most right now?

As with my previous article, I went through both the Basic and Expert rules, this time making a list of everything that bothered me about the system. Then I picked the ten items I found to be most significant:

10. Some classes could use a bit of polish.

One of the first “Huh?” moments I had reading Tom Moldvay’s version of the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Rules (back in seventh grade) was thinking “‘Fighter’—that seems like an awkward class name. Why didn’t they just call it the ‘warrior’?” This was followed, a few minutes later, by “Magic-User? That’s just dumb! Why not ‘wizard’? That’s what everyone calls them.”

I came to D&D excited by the opportunity to personally participate in fantastic adventures—like Bilbo, Gandalf, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. As far as I recall, no one in The Hobbit or The Chronicles of Narnia is called anything as…technical…as a “fighter”, or worse yet, a “magic-user”. These are stories about warriors, knights, magicians, and wizards! Bilbo’s odd job description (“burglar”) is the exception that proves the rule.

The titles for character levels don’t help, either. They simply demonstrate the creators of D&D were capable of coming up with flavorful and appropriate class names, but chose not to. Creating titles in a formal hierarchy, like “freshman”, “sophomore”, “junior”, and “senior”, is ridiculous. Gandalf is a “wizard”, but he didn’t have to spend time as a “necromancer” before he became one.

While we’re on the topic of class names, let’s not overlook the cleric. The accepted definition of “cleric” is “a member of the clergy”, and the term “clergy” refers to pastoral, sacerdotal, or official responsibilities in a religion. What does sacerdotal mean? In a word—priestly. I’m sure there were players, back in the ’80’s, who were familiar with the term “cleric” before encountering it in the Basic Rules—but not as many as were familiar with the terms “priest”, or even “holy man” (it would be “holy person” today).

Of course, the term “cleric” (which, remember, is just another way to say “priest”), is too general for the role this class actually plays in the game. In addition to divine magic, clerics are expected to provide significant combat support. They don’t even receive the ability to cast divine spells until second level, when they have proved their loyalty to their god. A better name would be “holy warrior,” or—dare I say—“paladin”. Even “templar” would be a better fit, as long as you’re willing to accept some historical appropriation.

A clear-eyed look at the purpose of the cleric also highlights another poor decision—restricting them from using edged weapons. What’s the reason behind this limitation? If it’s doctrinal, why do all religions in the game have the same doctrine? Certainly a god of war should have no problem with their warrior priests wielding swords and spears. If it’s to balance clerics against fighters, why not simply declare, along the lines of what Jonathan Becker suggests in the BX Companion, that no cleric can do more than 1d6 damage with their weapons? Limiting clerics to maces and war hammers also limits their flavor, and prevents players from emulating the sword-wielding warrior priests of history who, for better or worse, seem to have inspired the class.

No review of the flaws in B/X character classes would be complete without touching on thieves, who seem to start out…poorly trained. Fighters and clerics are competent with their weapons from the very beginning, and while magic users are able to cast only one spell at first level, they are an expert at it. Thieves, however, seem to have left thief school a few semesters early. At first level, they have only a 10% chance to find traps—over a third less than the other character classes, which are untrained in such arts. In five out of their seven abilities, first level thieves’ chances for success are so low, the attempt is often not worth the risk. Low level thieves excel in two areas—“Climb Sheer Surfaces” and striking unnoticed from behind. The latter, however, depends on the thief striking unnoticed from behind, which means success may depend on two other abilities—“Move Silently” and “Hide in Shadows”—at which low level thieves do not excel.

9. Construction rules are a waste of space.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve never had much use for the “Castle, Strongholds, and Hideouts” section of the D&D Expert rules. I understand the attraction, for high-level characters, of constructing a home-base—especially in light of the domain management responsibilities they are envisioned as embracing. In a 64-page rulebook, however, there are better uses of space than itemizing the costs of towers, doors, and corridors. These three-quarters of a page could have been used to develop magical rituals, which get a single paragraph (p. X52), or magical artifacts, which get no space at all.

8. Dungeon doors close on their own.

Doors in Moldvay’s D&D Basic rules are “often stuck or locked”, but “[o]nce a door is opened, it will usually swing shut when released unless it is spiked or wedged open.” On the other hand, they “usually open automatically for monsters” (all references are to p. B21).

Originally, none of this made sense to me. Why would heavy wooden or stone doors in an ancient ruin or a castle dungeon swing shut on their own—is every door outfitted with an hydraulic door closer, like a modern school building?

Then I read “The Dungeon as a Mythic Underworld” section of Philotomy’s Musings, by Jason Cone. Now I understand—in Cone’s words, a dungeon can be “a place where the normal laws of reality may not apply, and may be bent, warped, or broken.” And that makes sense. It’s even cool. But not if you do it all the time. If every door the player characters ever encounter in a dungeon closes on it’s own, like they’re in a haunted house, it’s just going to get old. Or worse, it will become so predictable, it breaks suspension of disbelief—like the characters are trapped in a video game.

Full disclosure—I don’t know for certain most players would feel this way. This rule annoys me so much, I’ve never used it. Maybe I’ll try it some day, just to see what I’ve been missing.

7. Cure Blindness: Psych!

The cure blindness spell irritates me for one reason—it doesn’t exist.

It should exist. The monster description of the spitting cobra in the Basic rules tells us it can be found in the Expert rules—but it isn’t there.

Adding insult to injury, some retroclones and simulacrum games (e.g. Labyrinth Lord, BX RPG, and Old School Essentials) recreate their versions of the Basic and Expert rules so slavishly, they neglect to correct this obvious oversight. Thank you, Basic Fantasy, for being the outlier!

6. Specialists aren’t special enough!

The Expert rules provide guidelines for hiring “specialists and mercenaries”, described as “NPCs with training or special skills in a certain area” (p. X21). While the book suggests experts in a variety of areas, including alchemy, animal training, and spycraft, it offers none reflecting the core abilities of the various character classes. This is bewildering, as player characters are prone to finding themselves in situations where hiring a talented, high-level spellcaster, sword master, or thief could be very useful. Certainly, it won’t take many adventures before the party needs healing or even a raise dead spell. Clearer rules in these situations would be quite helpful to both players and Dungeon Masters.

5. Weight is measured in…coins?!

How many half-dollars does the toolbox in your garage weigh? Don’t know? Neither do I! But, apparently, your B/X character does.

Requiring players to track the weight of armor, weapons, treasure, and “miscellaneous equipment and provisions” already risks pulling them out of the game in the service of administrative trivia. Demanding they use a non-intuitive unit of measure like the the “coin” just compounds the problem. And this doesn’t even address the “fact” that coins made of various precious metals all weigh the same, and apparently have the same volume. Archimedes must be spinning in his grave.

Of all the rules in B/X, encumbrance must be one of the most…cumbersome. Perhaps because of this, it may also be one of the most ignored.

4. Spell ranges triple outdoors

I first ran across this rule in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook (PH), which I borrowed from a friend without fully reading the Expert rules. There’s a version in the Expert rules as well—missile weapon and spell ranges are expressed in terms of feet, but for wilderness encounters, players are instructed to read this as yards (p. X19).

In the PH, ranges are actually expressed in terms of inches (“), but read as feet for indoor encounters, and as yards for outdoor encounters. With regard to missile weapons, PH author Gary Gygax goes to quite a bit of trouble justifying the rule, pointing out a missile can achieve greater range if a it’s able to travel a parabolic path from its point of origin to its target. He acknowledges this is not so true of crossbow bolts, then proceeds to justify the same rule for crossbows on the very different—and circumstantial—basis of low-light conditions in dungeons. Note, Gygax suggests no similar reduction in range for outdoor missile fire conducted in low light. Nor does he justify the 1:3 conversion between indoors and outdoors with anything other than his own authority.

Including spells in this rule increases the confusion. While spell ranges are tripled from indoors to outdoors—spell areas are not. Gygax states tripling spell ranges is necessary “to keep magic spells on par” with mundane weapons, then diverts into a dense discussion of why spell areas must not be tripled, citing terms de art like “figure ratio” and “ground scale”.

The “art” here, of course, is fantasy miniatures wargaming. The terms above—as well as the expression of distances as inches, read as yards—can all be found in Chainmail, the wargaming antecedent of D&D—minutia I’m grateful didn’t make it into the Expert rules.

With the exception of greater ranges when a missile is able to follow a parabolic path (which should also apply indoors, given a sufficiently high ceiling), I find all this ridiculous. It again breaks suspension of disbelief for a wizard to suddenly be able to shoot their fireball three times as far, just because they step outside. In a rules-lite game like B/X, it’s also unnecessarily complex. I see no reason to make sure spells used in wilderness encounters stay “on par” with normal weapons. In fact, greater range outdoors presents an interesting discrepancy in favor of normal weapons, which spells tend to overshadow at higher levels.

This is a non-problem. Spell ranges should remain consistent in the dungeon and in the wilderness. It’s up to the players to understand their various options, and to determine the best form of attack in any particular situation.

3. Magic Items

Inherited from the original version of D&D, many of the magical treasures in B/X are iconic because they mimic supernatural capabilities from myths, fairy tales, or sword & sorcery fiction (e.g. bags of holding, elven cloaks & boots, and belts of giant strength.) A number of conventions regarding how magic items operate, however, persist in B/X just because they were originally part of the game, not necessarily because they do a great job of emulating the source material. Designed to force the wonder of magic into the rules of a game, some of these approaches seriously break…you guessed it!…suspension of disbelief:

• Specialized wands. Also—charges!: In fantasy stories, magic wands are amazing items, aiding their users in mastering the arcane. In B/X, the designers have weakened wands significantly, likely in an effort to preserve game balance. As a result, they tend to be the equivalent of battery-operated, disposable tools, each with a specific application. Due to this approach, B/X wands don’t have the same impact as their fictional counterparts. A magic-user who wants to use wands to wield all the power of Glinda the Good had better carry a quiver of them—including spares, for when their current wand of teleportation or wand of flying runs out of juice.

• Single-use spells on scrolls: Ancient scrolls containing the secrets of powerful spells are a staple of fantasy fiction. Often, these scrolls are ancient artifacts, and legends of their past use inspire characters in such stories to seek them out. Scrolls in B/X, however, suffer from problems similar to wands. In an apparent effort to limit their power, the rules state each scroll can hold a maximum of three spells, and each spell can be used only once, disappearing when cast. As with wands, this makes scrolls in B/X a temporary power bump, rather than an awesome source of magical ability.

• “Magic” items that aren’t magical: On the other end of the scroll continuum are “magic” scrolls that aren’t necessarily magical. While listed in the “Magic Items” sections of the Basic and Expert rules, the only requirement for a “treasure map” is that it show the location of a treasure. A DM could include runes that only appear in the light of a certain moon, pointing to the location of a secret door, which can only be found in the last rays of the setting sun on one day of the year—but none of this is necessary. A treasure map scroll can be…just a map. How disappointing. This isn’t a magic item, and should instead be covered in the “Dungeon Master Information” section of the rules, along with details for creating a dungeon or a wilderness.  :(

• The one..rod?: “Rod” is a particular type of magic item in B/X, different from “wands” and “staves”. Regrettably, there is only one type of rod listed in either the Basic or Expert rules—the rod of cancellation. Depending on how it’s used, the rod can be pretty effective—permanently draining all magic from a single magic item it hits—but it can only be used once. Again, we have a specialized item with limited uses, and this time it’s the only representative of its class. The Runestaff, it is not.

2. Vancian Spell Casting

This is where I’m going to step in it with some other long-time B/X players. :) I don’t care for Vancian spellcasting.

I’ve never cared for Vancian spellcasting—even before I knew it was called “Vancian spellcasting.” Like descending AC, the spell casting method used in B/X is awkward, and like wands, not representative of its analog in any fantasy fiction source material I’ve read (the inspiration for the system—Jack Vance’s Dying Earth series—is on my reading list for the beginning of next year.) It certainly doesn’t emulate the way spell casting works in the books that brought me to D&D—The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Chronicles of Narnia. It mimics an idiosyncratic form magic depicted, for the most part, in a single series by a single author (I’m not counting later works based on D&D itself—those aren’t “source material”.)

A “spell point” system (much maligned by many Vancian partisans), combined with the need to find and learn (or research) the actual spells, would better represent spell casting as depicted in most fiction. This could be more flexible than B/X’s Vancian system—giving casters a wider selection of spells they can cast. It would also better allow recreating conditions found in fantasy stories—the depletion of spell points would reflect casters who have overextended themselves, and spells “beyond” the caster would be those costing more points than the caster has at their maximum. It would also solve the scroll problem mentioned above—scrolls would simply give casters the ability to cast spells they haven’t learned or researched—no need for the spells to vanish from the page when cast.

Regrettably, this is not the approach the designers chose, so B/X is stuck with an esoteric , non-intuitive, and unwieldy system of spell slots, filled with spells the magic-user memorizes and immediately forgets when cast.

1. No Companion Rules!

Leaving out a spell is one thing, but depriving us of an entire rules supplement, after mentioning it multiple times in both the Basic and Expert rules, is quite another.

The D&D Companion Supplement, mentioned four times in the Basic rules, and three in the Expert rules, is described as an upcoming set of rules providing the following:

• “…further details for player character classes from the 15th to the 36th level of experience…” (p. B3)

• “…[o]ther monsters…” (p. B29)

• “…a magical way to cure energy drains…” (p. B29)

The Companion rules, as promised in the Basic and Expert rulebooks, were never released. Instead, TSR revamped the entire B/X line, publishing updated versions of the Basic and Expert rules, followed by a Companion set which included information on character classes up to 25th (not 36th) level, and additional monsters, as well as both a spell and magic items granting the ability to restore levels lost to energy drain attacks. These rules were followed by Master and Immortals rules, completing the third edition of the D&D Basic line, known today as BECMI.

The BECMI rules make several changes to the B/X rules, including (among others):

• Chances for success when using several thief abilities are reduced at lower levels to allow more gradual improvement across a total of 36 levels (rather than the 14 of B/X.)

• Clerical progression to higher level spells is also more gradual.

• Various changes to class saving throws.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment with the Companion supplement TSR actually released is that players and DMs must search across both the Companion and Master rules in order to run characters from 15th-36th level. Possibly to justify selling the added rules set, TSR also introduces new subsystems—such as skills and weapon mastery—dispensing with the simple design philosophy followed by Moldvay, Cook, and Marsh.

Deprived of our promised Companion rules, the B/X community has stepped-up over the past several years, creating our own versions of what TSR refused to give us. It’s still difficult to avoid wondering, however, what an official TSR B/X/C Companion set might have looked liked.

So there you have it—the top 10 elements of B/X I would change if I had the chance. If I ever design my own fantasy heartbreaker, a lot of these will probably make it in. In the meantime, the merits of B/X more than make up for its weaknesses, so I will continue to play on!  :)

Coming Soon:

What’s up with all the books?