D&D Capped at Level 3

Using ONLY one of the Basic D&D sets as a complete set of rules.
AKA "Holmes Only" D&D

This whole project started as a post on Dragonsfoot in 2008.
The link is right here -> Holmes as complete game.

Now, I know what you are thinking - how is this a game review?  Technically, it isn't, but this has been stuck in my mind for a couple of weeks so I have gone through the Holmes basic rules, its retroclone Blueholme Prentice, and for the sake of both completeness, and because it is my favorite version of Dungeons & Dragons ever, I did the same for the Moldvay basic rules.

I will be doing some direct comparisons between the three rules sets as well as posting my "house rules" I would use if I ever decide to do this in a real campaign, and not just as an intellectual exercise.

This is the cover of the 1977 Holmes Basic Set rules.

Some notes on it:

• Classes are fighting man, cleric, magic-user, and thief; it allows dwarves, halfling, elves, and humans as races. 
  
• Clerics automatically turn skeletons at level 2 and both skeletons and zombies at level 3.
• 1st and 2nd level magic-user spells and 1st and 2nd level clerical spells are listed and described.  3rd level magic-user spells are listed but not described.
• Contains 57 monsters (considering all colored dragons as a singular "dragon", e.g.)
• All weapons d6 damage, daggers attack 2x per round, heavy weapons every-other-round.
  

This is the cover of the 1981 Moldvay Basic Set rules.

Some notes on it:

• Classes are cleric, fighter, magic-user, thief, dwarf, elf, and halfling. 
• Clerics automatically turn skeletons at level 2 and both skeletons and zombies at level 3.
• 1st and 2nd level magic-user spells and 1st level clerical spells are listed and described.
  
• Contains 68 monsters (considering all colored dragons as a singular "dragon", e.g.)
• All weapons do d6 damage but an optional rules it to use the d4, d6, d8, and d10, depending on weapon.  All weapons attack once per round.
  

This is the cover of the 2017 Blueholme Prentice rules.

Some notes on it:

• Classes are cleric, fighter, magic-user, and thief; it allows dwarves, elves, halflings, and humans as races.
• Clerics do NOT automatically turn skeletons at level 2 and both skeletons and zombies at level 3, requiring a successful turn check at all 3 levels.
• 1st and 2nd level magic-user spells and 1st level clerical spells are listed and described.
• Contains 70 monsters (considering all colored dragons as a singular "dragon", e.g.)
•  All weapons do d6 damage but light crossbows attack every 2nd round and heavy crossbows attack every 3rd round.
  

 

 

ADDITIONAL NOTES ON CLASSES

According to the Holmes rules, dwarves and halflings MUST be fighting men according to the dwarf and halfling descriptions, however according to the fighting man description, both races can opt to be thieves.  It gets even trickier with elves.  They advance as fighting men AND magic-users according to the both the elf description and the fighting man description, but according to the magic-user description, SOME elves are magic-users.  As a DM, I would be lenient and allow dwarves and halflings to be fighters or thieves and I would allow elves to be fighting men, thieves, or multi-class as fighter/magic-user.

Moldvay uses the much-maligned, but better in my opinion, "race-as-class".  A dwarf is a fighter with some additional special abilities, and the same goes for the halfling.  An elf is a combination of fighter and magic-user.  Mr. Moldvay cleaned up most, if not all, of the head-scratching which made it into Holmes from the 1974 original D&D rules.

Bluehome Prentice, like Moldvay, forces dwarves and halflings into the fighter class and makes it clear from the actual Holmes rules, that elves can be fighters, magic-users, or a combination of both.  Interestingly, Blueholme also has rules for "Combination Classes", which allow characters to combine any two classes (elves do this by default).  Theoretically, you can create a halfling-thief or dwarf-cleric with these rules.

 Mr. Thomas made the decision to never give clerics the ability to automatically turn undead.  I find this strange since he stuck really close to the rest of Holmes for his rules.

OTHER GENERAL NOTES

Treasure types and hordes differ between using a letter (Type A, Type B, etc.) or a number (1, 2, 3, etc.) for treasure types.  Most of the differences in the books, especially in regards to Blueholme Prentice is probably to avoid copyright infringement.

Other than what has been mentioned, all three games are either the same or nearly the same on all other details.   

MONSTERS

All three rules have a good assortment of monsters.  

Holmes has monsters from 1/2 hit die (kobold) through 15 hit dice (purple worm), 4 types of dragons, and 6 types of giants.

Moldvay has monsters from 1 hit point (bat) through 11 hit dice (gold dragon), 6 types of dragons and no giants.

Blueholme Prentice has monsters from 1d2 hit points (normal centipede) through 15 hit dice (storm giant and purple worm), 4 types of dragons and 6 types of giants.

We see that Moldvay, I assume because the Expert set was produced along with the Basic set, has a lower-powered spread of monsters.  Additionally, quite a few monsters are just humans (acolyte, bandit, noble, etc.) with differences in armor, spells, higher-level leaders, etc.  For a game maxing out at 3rd level, I think this is a good choice.  It would be nice to have a few higher-level critters, though, if only to show the DM what his players might be getting up to.  Again, with the Cook-Marsh set right on the heels of Moldvay, high power monsters in the basic set wasn't needed.

MY IDEAS AND NOTES

As an intellectual exercise, as stated before, I decided to make house rules for each of the sets.  I gave myself one page per game, each nicely organized, and (hopefully) easy to understand.

Some other thoughts were to boost the combat ability of fighters since all character classes have exactly the same "to hit" values on levels 1 through 3.  I ended up giving fighters a damage bonus at each level.  I could easily have given them an attack bonus, instead.  I suppose I thought that fighters should be "closers" when it comes to killing foes, especially since all weapons do 1d6 damage across all three sets of rules.

With thieves, I ditched percentile thief abilities completely and went with a 1d6 thief skill test.  I did this partly because thieves are wretched at thievery until mid levels, and I wanted them to be adequate thieves at level 1, and partly because percentile thief skills are too fiddly as a general rule.  They are nearly always at 5% or 10% increments until the highest level as it is.  If you have not read my comparison of White Box Fantastic Medieval Adventure Game and Delving Deeper, rest assured that the authors of those two books feel as I do and ditched the percentage skills, too.

I mentioned clerics and turning a couple of times, so I added back in automatic turning when using Blueholme.

Experience in any of the three games will be an issue if giving experience points for treasure.  To alleviate this, simply switching to a silver standard for purchases and living, while keeping 1 gold piece = 1 experience point is the simplest solution for me.  You could also just give 1 xp for 10 gp, and keep a gold standard.  I prefer a silver standard anyway, so I did what I did.

I also adjusted Holmes' attacks per round, since as written, it is pointless to ever carry anything besides a dagger as a melee weapon and crossbows are horrible, so I gave bonuses when using them.

I have the exact same "X-in-6 Rule" on each document.  This is how I often adjudicate 

- "Hey ref, can my fighter, Conanyan jump across this gorge and attempt to grab that broken rope bridge hanging down on the other side?"  

= "Sure you can, roll 1-3 on a d6!"

- "Hey, I want my magic-user Urkle to do that too!"

= "Ok, if you insist, roll a 1 on 1d6.  Oh wait, you have a 15 dexterity, make it a 1-2 on d6."

In all three systems I allowed higher level spells as rituals.  This would work for non-combat spells, which I find desirous - summoning monsters and dispelling magic seems quite suited to swords & sorcery, while fireball doesn't.

I suppose this is a good time to mention I made additional notes for each rules for a more sword & sorcery game, which is the biggest benefit of limiting all classes to 3rd level.  They are also exactly the same on each of the rules documents.

Oh, one more thing, I don't own Mentzer Basic set, so I could not compare it.  I assume it is nearly identical, as far as rules, spells, and mosters as Moldvay, but if there are differences, one of you fine folks can do your own basic set as entire campaign thingimajig and let me know what you think.

Firstly, the original rules which caused the conversation back in 2008.

Secondly, Blueholme Prentice retroclone.

And finally, my OG game set, Moldvay.