Dungeons & Dragons White Box 21

Continuing with this Demosthenean exercise...

Hold Monster: Same as Hold Person but applicable to Monsters.

On some level one has to admire the restraint here. It's a bit like describing a car as, "same as a bike but for more persons," but I can't actually complain about the accuracy of what's here.

Conjure Elemental: A spell to conjure an Air, Water, Fire or Earth Elemental. Only one of each type can be conjured by a Magic-User during any one day. The Elemental will remain until dispelled, but the Magic-User must concentrate on control or the elemental will turn upon its conjurer and attack him (see CHAINMAIL). Conjured elementals are the strongest, with 16 hit dice as is explained in Vol. Il, MONSTERS & TREASURE. Range: 24"

Chainmail has the following to say about elementals:

Conjuration of an Elemental: Wizards can conjure Elementals, but no more than one of each type can be brought into existence. (Note: This does not apply to Djinn and Efreet.) If the Wizard who conjured the Elemental is disturbed (attacked) while the Elemental is still in existence, he loses control of it, and it will then attack the conjurer. An Elemental created by a Wizard who is subsequently killed will attack the nearest figure. Such Elementals must be dispelled by a Wizard or (killed) by combat.

ELEMENTALS (including Djinn and Efrett): In order to bring these creatures into a game, it is necessary that they be conjured up by a Wizard. There are two classes of Elementals, those subject to fire (Air and Water Elemental) and those subject to electricity (Earth and Fire Elementals). Note that fire breathing Dragons will not affect the latter kind of Elementals.

Air Elemental (including Djinn): Fly 24", attack as four Light Horse, are impervious to normal attacks against them,and add two to their dice roll when combating airborne opponents.

Earth Elementals : Move 6", attack as four Heavy Horse, are impervious to normal attacks against them, and add 1 to their dice score when fighting earthbound opponents.

Fire Elementals (including Efreet): Move 12", attack as four Medium Horse, are impervious to normal attacks against them, and add two to their dice score when combating opponents who normally employ fire (Dragons and Wizards who cast fire balls).

Water Elementals: Move 6" outside water, 18" in water (must remain within 6" of water at all times), attack as four Light Horse on land and as four Heavy Horse in water. Water Elementals are impervious to normal attacks against them, and they add 2 to their dice score when fighting within or in 3" of a large body of water (river or lake).

Only one Elemental of each kind may be brought into any game in play at the time. If an Elemental is uncontrolled by the Wizard who summoned it, it will attack the Wizard who conjured it, moving towards him in a straight path, attacking any figures in its path.

Add to this a note from page 40 that says the earth elemental causes 6 points to wooden structures.

The amount given to these creatures, compared with other more common features of D&D, verges on fetishism. It's clear from the Chainmail rules that elementals were a major part of the game. The writers clearly thought these beings central to the idea of fantasy combat, that they should pop up all the time, despite their incredible, overarching amount of power.

According to the way the spell is worded, four elementals per day can be dredged up, so long as we don't exceed one of each.  That's rather fantastic, since it amounts to 64 hit dice. Teleportation is so strong we have to impose a "chance of death" for just using it, but this spell is fine. It's fine! It's not overpowered in any way. After all, the mage must cease personally fighting and do nothing... except allow a marauding hulk to go around smashing everything. Until dispelled. That's more than enough balancing of the mage's power.

I'd like to argue that they were trying to say, "You can pick just one of four possible choices each day..." but that's not what the language in fact does. The problem is later fixed by assigning one elemental per spell of specifically that name, but here, we have a ridiculously overpowered spell. No doubt there are readers saying right now, "YEAH? SO WHAT?"

True enough. I clearly remember how such overpowered elements were seen as "just reward for waiting until reaching the level that would let us wreck all purposeful game play." Even a whiff of, "That's stupid, I'm rolling that back," would get blasted with outrage, demands to let it stand — so long as the DM doesn't use it. There were a lot of players in those days who wanted to be "One Lone Dutchman" as per the joke.

They forget that it was always possible for the DM to be two of them, or four, or ten. Then it's just a bunch of stupid elementals fighting every session and it's boring... for nearly everyone except the dumbass that never gets tired of it.

This is the entropy of early D&D design... which still plagues those who cannot understand how "end game" sessions function. They're caught in the loop of players-vs.-orcs at first level and they think that translates into players-vs.-gods are 28th level. But this expansion doesn't make the game "better" or more "epic," it just makes it longer to run the combats, what with all the bells and whistles now attached. Omnipotence is a slog of mutual annihilation... of game structure and meaning. The higher you climb, the thinner the air gets, until the game suffocates under its own mechanics. The problem is that power breaks tension. The orc encounter works because the players can fail. Once that risk disappears, so does the meaning. High-level D&D becomes an actuarial exercise — mathematically determining how many rounds it takes for omnipotent beings to slowly whittle each other down. No wonder so many tables eventually "reset to factory settings," back to first-level danger, where swords can still miss and death still matters.

And yet, designers chase the horizon, promising an endgame that — this time, makes omipotence compelling. But omnipotence is, by definition, static. The demonstration we have of that is in how the Marvel universe has lost any and all sense of how to make any of the battles mean anything. For a brief period, they made it about people in suits. Now it's just the suits. And the suits, though pretty, don't feel anything. I could say a lot about that, but I won't. Let's just move on.

Telekinesis: By means of this spell, objects may be moved by mental force. Weight limits are calculated by multiplying the level of the Magic-User by 200 Gold Pieces weight. Thus, a "Necromancer" is able to move a weight equal to 2,000 Gold Pieces. Duration: 6 turns. Range 12".

20 pounds. Multiply the level of the necromancer by 20 lbs. Isn't that clearer?

Going through these spells one by one, I can't help noticing that the "speed" at which the items are moved does not appear here. And we know, if we compare this spell to "levitate," "fly" or "wizard eye," we're talking literal inches (not game inches) per second. 10 minutes to send it 120 yards away. That is, about the distance across the street. Piano movers go faster than this. Mind you, there is no speed indicated, like I said. So what are we talking about? I have no idea.

Without velocity, there's no spell, and all velocity measures provided for other like spells are for shit. The spell can't be played as written... and if the writers had a sense of shame, they should certainly be red-faced over this one. Where's Steve Urkel when you need him?

Transmute Rock to Mud: The spell takes effect in one turn, turning earth, sand, and, of course, rock to mud. The area affected is up to 30 square inches. Creatures moving into the mud will become mired, possibly sinking if heavy enough or losing 90% of movement otherwise, unless able to fly or levitate. The spell can only be countered by reversing the incantation (requiring a Transmute Rock to Mud spell) or by normal process of evaporation (3-18 days as determined by rolling three six-sided dice). Range: 12".

I love how the mechanics of evaporation are random. Is there a hydrologist in the house?

Too, can't let that "use this spell to reverse this spell... what spell? Why, the Transmute Rock to Mud spell, in case you didn't know. You readers can't be trusted with anything.

That extra effort, that real push to make sure this spell is clear as day... could have been spent on telekinesis. Once again, I argue that these two spells were written by the same person, and that the latter, while having the number-infatuation of Gygax, has that easy-going "...and, of course..." followed by the "30 square inches" physically written out (which Gygax would NEVER do), and the clarification "...by the normal process..." which is also too conversational to be Gygax. That makes three writers of this thing. The reader could argue that telekinesis was written by Gygax, but I'm sure that if it was, there'd be another three lines in it about why the spell can't be used as a weapon. Since that's missing, NOT Gygax.

Side note. I don't know if it really means 30 ten-foot by ten-foot squares. If so, that's 3000 actual square feet, which is a stunning amount of area to transform. Just saying. About the size of a suburban home lot, and more than enough to literally wreck a giant 30 by 30 foot tower, which covers less than 900 feet. The amount of curtain wall this would just wipe away would be... catastrophic in a siege. You don't need to siege, you just need a bored mage with an afternoon free. No one would ever build castles again.

The author knows that earth and sand are, like, little rocks... right? Or maybe the author thinks maybe we don't know that. I love that monsters just "walk into mud" utterly unaware that they'll get mired by it. Usually things that walk into environments, even if non-intelligent, know whether or not they'll get mired in it. A spider, by the way, even a big one, would just cross the top of it, if it's thick enough to mire things. Most stuff will just walk around it. I admire the two D&D characters saying of the giant, "Cast rock to mud, and when the giant just walks into it..."

Don't talk about the obvious, practical uses of it. Getting rid of a wall, or a pillar, causing a building to collapse, or obliterating a rock bridge, or creating a bomb by transforming lava (burst of 140 degree celsius steam), or causing a cliff overhang to just melt away... no, no, that's just nonsense. This is all about whether or not the creature so transformed can "fly" or "levitate"... because all creatures that do either immediately walk into mud first. It's their thing.

In Chainmail, numbers are given, as per the elemental above, for how much point damage is done to fortifications. That book does not mention rock-to-mud as an attack mode. Wouldn't it have been nice if they'd included that information here?

Wall of Stone: The creation of a stone wall two feet thick with a maximum length and height equalling 10 square inches. The wall will last until dispelled, broken down or battered through as a usual stone wall. Range: 6".

I just love it. There's rock to mud literally on the page above this, and not one reference to it in this spell description.  Not even, "...dispelled, broken down, melted or battered..." The rock-to-mud spell would get rid of three of these. Despite that both spells are the same level.

If the range is 60 feet, and the length of the wall is 100 ft., then I assume that since at least some of the all can occur outside the spell's range, you only need the last foot of the wall to actually be inside that range. So that, when I cast this right down the middle of an ordinary street in a town, I can be 59 ft. away, perhaps standing in a doorway. That's right, isn't it?

Imagine tormenting a town with this, knowing they have to physically take the wall apart each day, while you can just produce another one tomorrow. This is why spells have to have durations. Or at least some kind of actual in-person engagement. Permanence is a plague.

And before you point out "dispel magic," it's your level vs. the caster's... so, yes, thankfully, a town usually has a lot of casters, but if they form a union and they want compensation... then the whole wall appearing, wall coming down thing begins to look suspiciously like this isn't just chance... it’s protection racketeering in ritual form: "Nice thoroughfare you’ve got here, shame if a wall appeared across it overnight." The wizards get a steady income, the mayor gets plausible deniability, and the citizens get to feel both grateful and powerless while they queue up for the morning dispelling.

Wall of Iron: Like a Wall of Stone, but the thickness of the wall is three inches and it's maximum area 5 square inches. Duration: 12 turns. Range: 6".

This one has a duration. However, given the technological development of the time, iron is significantly better than stone. Neither can be removed easily, so that in terms of a spell slot, this one offers really nothing the other one doesn't do better. And with more coverage. Though it will resist rock-to-mud.

Obviously, the real reason for the duration is that iron, compared to stone, is valuable. A permanent iron wall could be frozen, broken up and then melted into more useful things. Also, while I'm on that, this is wrought iron, right? Not steel.

Animate Dead: The creation of animated skeletons or zombies. It in no way brings a creature back to life. For the number of dead animated simply roll one die for every level above the 8th the Magic-User is, thus a "Sorcerer" gets one die or from 1-6 animated dead. Note that the skeletons or dead bodies must be available in order to animate them. The spell lasts until dispelled or the animated dead are done away with.

The dissonance with this one is truly stunning. This fifth level spell produces 1d6 skeletons at 8th level, one time only, which can be hit by normal weapons and are essentially the same combat value as orcs, at a time in the game when same-level clerics can destroy 2d6 skeletons per round without needing to roll. There's a brilliant spell economy at work. Well done, morons!

Not only that, we can't even conjure them out of thin air. I can't even be bothered with the idiocy of this.

Still, kudos. Every sentence is, amazingly, clear.

Magic Jar: By means of this device the Magic-User houses his life force in some inanimate object (even a rock) and attempts to possess the body of any other creature within 12" of his Magic Jar. The container for his life force must be within 3" of his body at the time the spell is pronounced. Possession of another body takes place when the creature in question fails to make its saving throw against magic. If the possessed body is destroyed, the spirit of the Magic-User returns to the Magic Jar, and from thence it may attempt another possession or return to the Magic-User's body. The spirit of the Magic-User can return to the Magic Jar at any time he so desires. Note that if the body of the Magic-User is destroyed the life force must remain in a possessed body or the Magic Jar. If the Magic Jar is destroyed, the Magic-User is totally annihilated.

That is actually not a bad description either. The explanation of the jar, the manner in how the possession takes place, the consequence of the possessed body being destroyed, even the consequence of the jar's destruction, all clear. The compulsion to capitalise "Magic" over and over for two different things IS headache inducing. Five of these sentences includes both "magic user" and "magic jar" in the sentence... and there are only seven sentences altogether. But language is a trainwreck sometimes.

One of my favourite instances occurs in Heinlein's novel, Time Enough for Love. The character is parsing out the probability of two "twin" clones, derived from the same genetic material rather than from sexual reproduction, having a healthy offspring. It gets into the fertilisation of the ova, or egg, which the paragraph then produces in such abundance that if you hold the book at arm's length, you can see "egg" repeated like someone scattershot a hundred "g"s onto the page. Just a little trivia. Not relevant here.

As a spell, a player character would have to be nuts to use it. It's well enough to trust the DM to invent a magic jar the characters must find to kill the dangerous mage villain, what with the characters NOT being omnipotent. But trust a DM to leave my mage's jar alone? You must be joking. The moment you separate your soul from your body, you've essentially handed the DM a note that says, "Please make my continued existence contingent on your mood."

You know it's going to end up with the jar being held hostage and the party being put through hell to get it back. There's just no way I'm doing that. I'd rather give car keys to a 13-year-old and tell him/her to "Go on, have a good time."