Equipment Packs for Holmes

An expedition begins, illustration by DCSIII from B1 In Search of the Unknown

In my early D&D days, buying equipment during character creation was fun, but these days it feels like more of a chore to complete before play can begin. It also slows down the process of character creation, which can be an impediment for new players.

Taking a cue from Jean Wells*, and others since, here's an option for Holmes Basic: each new character can choose to take an equipment pack for the appropriate class in lieu of rolling for starting gold. A standard dwarf or hobbit gets the fighter pack, and a standard elf can choose the fighter or magic-user pack. The DM can also use these packs for on-the-fly determination of NPC equipment. They can also be used for OD&D, which has essentially the same equipment list, if you are using the Holmes' rule for scroll creation. One reason I created these packs is to highlight that a M-U with sufficient funds can start with a scroll.

Fighter
Chainmail & Shield
Sword & Spear
Short Bow & Quiver with 20 Arrows
Water/Wine Skin, filled with water
Leather Backpack (300 coin capacity), holding:

• 50' Rope
• Tinderbox & 6 Torches
• 2 Large Sacks (300 c.c. each)
• Standard Rations (1 person for 1 week)
• 5 GP

Magic-User
Book of First Level Spells (contains known spells)**
Dagger
Water/Wine Skin, filled with water
Small Sack (50 coin capacity), holding:

• Standard Rations (1 person for 1 week)
• Scroll with one first level spell (choose from known spells)

Cleric
Chainmail & Shield
Mace
Wooden Cross (or other holy symbol)
Water/Wine Skin, filled with water
Leather Backpack (300 coin capacity), holding:

• 1 Vial of Holy Water
• 1 Bunch of Wolvesbane
• Tinderbox & 6 Torches
• Standard Rations (1 person for 1 week)
• 13 GP

Thief
Leather Armor
Sword & Dagger
Short Bow & Quiver with 20 Arrows & 2 Silver Arrows
10' Pole
Water/Wine Skin, filled with water
Leather Backpack (300 coin capacity), holding:

• 1 Set of Thief's Tools***
• 12 Iron Spikes
• Mallet & 3 Stakes
• 50' Rope
• 4 Flasks of Oil
• Tinderbox & 12 Torches
• Large Sack (300 c.c.)
• Standard Rations (1 person for 1 week)
• 5 GP

Specific Notes:
*As far as I can tell, the term and concept of "equipment packs" first appeared in TSR D&D in the original orange-covered version of the module B3 Palace of the Silver Princess, by Jean Wells (1981). There may be an earlier non-TSR source.

** "Magic-users can not bring their magic books into the dungeon with them" (pg 13 of the Basic Rulebook). This is presumably because they are unwieldy "giant volumes" like the thaumaturgist's spell books in the Sample Dungeon (pg 44). There's no cost in the rules for these spell books.

*** "Thief's Tools" are not found in the equipment list, but can be found for sale at bank in B2 Keep on the Borderlands, with an actual value of 35 gp. Here, I've assumed that each thief starts with one set at no cost, similar to the magic-user's spell book. These can be omitted if you don't use them in your game. 

General Notes:
The packs are based on 110 gp, just above the average rolled by 3d6 x 10 (105 gp).

I've assumed that Leather and Chain Armor come with appropriate head coverings, and the Helmet on the Holmes equipment list is either for Plate Mail, or replacement cost. This is open to interpretation as neither OD&D or Holmes has clear rules for the Helmets listed in the equipment list.

Each pack has a light source, food and water, so that each class can operate somewhat independently in a dungeon.

I favor the view of the Thief as "Expert Treasure Finder", and they have the most spare money, so here I've given them the most dungeoneering tools - 10' pole, 12 iron spikes, mallet, etc

I'll eventually make some class-specific character sheets including these packs, to speed up character creation. This will be part of Holmes Ref, which is still in progress.

B3 originally written for Holmes Basic

     Earlier this year, I speculated that B3 may have been originally written for Holmes Basic, based on the date of publication and that the author Jean Wells ran a Basic tournament at Gen Con in 1980, before the Moldvay set came out in 1981.

     Today I came across a post by Frank Mentzer from 2008 in his Q&A thread on Dragonsfoot that actually verifies this:

     "Mike wrote B1 pretty much based on OD&D but modified it a bit when Holmes was finalized. Gary wrote B2 as a replacement for B1; he decided that the starter module shouldn't be stocked by novice DMs. When Jean wrote B3, she was working off Holmes but transitioned to Moldvay. (I was involved with B3 somewhat.)"

     Interestingly, the green cover B3 revised by Tom Moldvay contains a short paragraph on using the module with Holmes Basic; it basically just assures the DM that the module can be used as-is with the earlier set.

Monster Manual 1E artwork trivia

Chimeras - 1st print MM (left) vs 2nd print MM (right)

Over on the Acaeum, misterspock has documented several artwork changes that were made to the Monster Manual. The first is the Chimera; the original drawing by David C. Sutherland III (aka DCS III or just DCS) from the first print MM (Dec '77) is missing its wings, despite having an 18"/round flying move. The later drawing, also by DCS, from the 2nd print MM (May '78) has the wings added as well as other changes. Also altered were the Type III Demon and Nightmare.

An older post on Dragonsfoot by Paul Stormberg of the Collector's Trove provides some context for these changes:

"Dave (DCSIII) told me he didn't like some of the creatures he drew (Type III Demon, Chimera, Dinosaurs, and some others) as they had to be hastily done. DCS was a fast artist but it made his quality suffer. The Monster Manual was supposed to be done by Dave Trampier but he worked slowly and often quit and went home or to the local bar to blow off steam regardless of deadlines. Not so for DCS. He labored long into the night to get things done and sacrificed quality for speed when ordered to do so. Tramp was different, he was the golden boy for Gary and Gary did not push him on deadlines. Instead Dave was asked to pick up the slack.

When Dave got the Monster Manual blue lines from the printer he saw "this huge hole" in the document. There were no dinosaur illustrations, at all, just many blank pages. So that night Dave did all of the dinosaur drawings. He was supposed to be working on other things but crammed and speed drew things to pick up the slack. So a few pictures that had been hastily drawn by DCS, and that always bugged Dave were redrawn by him for later editions of the MM. It is the only book where he does this because it was never meant to be his project and the hastily drawn stuff bugged him so he just had to fix some things.

In the end, DCS was selected to be the Art Director for his work ethic and he slowly moved away from having time to create art. Ultimately he directed cartography at the company which you begin to see in fantastic maps like those in I6 Ravenloft."

Tom Wham is also listed in the credits, and contributed both classic "bestiary" drawings that blend well with the others (Beholder, Blink Dog, Herd Animal, Gynosphinx) as well as his signature cartoons (Giant Lynx, Mind Flayer, Giant Pike).

In addition to the altered artwork, later MM prints also added new art. Buried on the Acaeum's Monster Manual errata page is a list of the missing artwork in earlier printings:

First:  Ape (Gorilla), Centaur, Doppleganger, Dryad, Eye of the Deep, Fungi, Gar, Ghost, Hobgoblin, Intellect Devourer, Kobold, Men (Berserker), Merman, Mummy, Otyugh, Pegasus, Pixie, Purple Worm, Rat (Giant, Sumatran), Skeleton, Slug, Sprite

Second:  Ape (Gorilla), Eye of the Deep, Fungi, Otyugh, Rat (Giant, Sumatran)

Third:  Eye of the Deep, Fungi, Otyugh, Rat (Giant, Sumatran)

Fourth:  All pictures present.  Note that some monsters still do not have an accompanying illustration, but the Fourth print is as good as it gets.

[Note: the Ape (Gorilla) here should actually read Ape (Carnivorous)]

Most of these added illustrations are by DCS or Trampier, but the ones added to the fourth print are by Jean Wells (by herself or with DCS), whose name was also added to the credits on the title page.

Unpublished drawings also exist for several monsters that never received an illustration in the Monster Manual, including a Slithering Tracker and Giant Skunk by Bill Willingham, a Masher by Erol Otus, and an unattributed Shadow.

Update: Here's a screenshot of the DCS Chimera in the Blackmoor Supplement (Sep '75) that paleologos pointed out below:

Jean Wells art: Nereid from Lost Tamoachan

Nereid by Jean Wells from Lost Tamoachan tournament module (1979)

Here's art by Jean Wells that I came across tonight that I've never seen before. It's a Nereid, and appears in Lost Tamoachan, the 1979 Origins tournament module that was later turned into C1 Lost Shrine of Tamoachan (1980), by Harold Johnson and Jeff Leason. Jean is given a credit for Interior Art (along with Sutherland, LaForce and Johnson himself) and "much needed help", which apparently was help in getting the module printed in time (See here). This tournament module was limited to 300 copies sold at the convention and is highly sought after by collectors, often selling for well over $1000. Which is why I've never seen this art before (it was not included in C1). The Nereid was a new monster for D&D that first appeared in the Lost Tamoachan, then C1, and then the Monster Manual II (1983). The scan is from this post on the Athornton blog.

Jean Wells GenCon Tournaments

     These are the tournaments that Jean Wells ran at GenCon in 1980 and 1981, courtesy the respective program schedules:

GENCON XIII, Aug 21-24 1980

Basic Tournament  - Head Judge - "a tournament for those who have just started to play D&D using the Basic Set Rules"

Delta IV - Judge - "Can you secure a mining treaty for your home planet and return alive? Delta IV is a yet-to-be published boardgame written by the referee"

GENCON XIV, Aug 13-16 1981

Beauty & The Beast  - Judge - "a fantasy role playing event using AD&D (and a few other) rules"

Outpost of the Forgotten Lands - Judge - "An AD&D game, with variations!"

* * * * *

     The Basic Tournament is interesting because as of mid-80, Holmes Basic was the only Basic Set in print. So this tournament was possible a Holmes Basic tournament. And possibly this tournament was an early version of Wells' Palace of the Silver Princess, which was written in the 1980. So Palace was possibly even originally written for Holmes Basic. On the other hand, Moldvay Basic came out in early 1981, and was probably in development by Aug 1980, so it's entirely possible that this tournament previewed the revised version, and that Palace was always for the same.

    In her 2010 Save or Die podcast interview, Wells mentioned a boardgame that she had completed that was not published by TSR. Here 2010 Grognardia interview also mentioned the same: "I also worked on a space travel board game with play testers, one was Ernie Gygax, and they all had fun, but Lawrence [Schick] said no. I even had it at cost too". A "space travel board game" sounds like the description of Delta IV from GenCon XIV above, so I'm going to conclude these are all the same thing.

     I don't know anything else about the Beauty or Outpost tournaments she ran in 1980.

Obscure TSR art related to B1-B3, pt III

Paleologos over at DF has found another illustration by Jean Wells meant for B3 that was published in Polyhedron (issue #3, pg 10, "Plant Creature"). This one illustrates the Jupiter Blood Sucker, a new monster from the original orange covered B3 that didn't make it into the revised version. Paleologos suggests it is the precursor to the Vampire Rose in the revised version.

Previous entries in this series: pt I, pt II

Obscure TSR art related to B1-B3, pt II

Paleologos continues his excellent art archaeology over at DF, this time turning up a Jean Wells illustration from Polyhedron #4 that shows Duchess and Candella from B3. See here. And Frank Mentzer popped in to confirm this.

Tangentially, I'll add that B3 (and B4) has some notes on the using the module with the Holmes Basic Set.