Supplement I: Greyhawk -review

I finally sat down and read this book. I've previously discussed OD&D, but I've restricted myself to just the 3 LBBs. I liked the material contained within them but I found it limiting, both in terms of the expansiveness of the game and in terms of prepackaged content. Greyhawk adds more content and tries to add more concrete rules to the game and smooth over some incongruities.  This is really the supplement that adds more 'crunch' to the game.

  Within this supplement, the game begins to take on the shape that is recognizable as AD&D and the Basic boxed set line - variable HD for classes, variable weapon damage, all stats now give conditional bonuses for high scores, etc. The infamous strength table and the percentile strength makes its appearance here, though the bonuses it grants are much less than what makes it into AD&D.

 The Thief and Paladin classes are also introduced, but again much weaker than what they will eventually become. The Thief exists as a set of useful dungeoneering skills, and allows Dwarves and Hobbits a second class they can opt for. Multiclassing is also introduced for demihumans, thus cementing the separation of race and class  in the D&D game. The Paladin, as presented in Greyhawk, is just a lawful good fighter that has a limited ability to heal or cure disease, and at higher levels gains extra powers with his holy sword and steed. This version of the Paladin is much less powerful than his AD&D counterpart, who can also cast spells and has a constant aura of protection from evil.

The weapon vs armor to-hit bonus chart appears in Greyhawk, but it has a lot less entries than the one in AD&D. It is clearly a holdover from Chainmail, but given how many publications it has appeared in, I strongly suspect that circa 1977 Gygax used weapon vs armor bonuses in his game. There is more discussion of using the alternate combat system to play D&D, further reducing the need to have a copy of Chainmail to play.

Like every one of Gygax's rulebooks this is poorly laid out and poorly worded, but personally I've spent enough time reading old school D&D rules to be able to pick out the important highlights. Adding the 3 LBBs and Greyhawk together gives a game very similar to AD&D but much more restrained in power and scope. The bonuses for PCs and monsters are smaller, and all classes don't get the fantastic tools that they would get in AD&D. Personally, I would prefer to play this game over AD&D, as I feel that the number crunch of AD&D is much worse, while everything else is otherwise the same.