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A recent thread over at the Dragonsfoot forums got me thinking about Elves in Holmes and how they might be played.
We know, thanks to Zenopus’s study of the Holmes manuscript, that the Elf was written up originally by Holmes as it was in OD&D – where the player chose to be a Fighting Man (FM) or Magic-User (MU) at the start of each game session. This text was removed in the published version of the rules (presumably) in order to steer it more closely to the AD&D multi-class model.
But if we ignore the intent or the history, and just want to play an Elf strictly by-the-book in Holmes, up to level three, how would we do it? Let’s start with the key facts about Elves as written:
- They have the advantages of both FM and MUs, referring to armor, weapon and spell use.
- They progress as both a FM and a MU, splitting experience equally each game, making them progress more slowly than other classes.
- They use d6 hit dice.
- In the advancement charts on p. 11, we can see the first table is titled “Fighting Men, Elves, Halflings and Dwarves”, to imply we should be using the FM advancement table for Elves.
- Just below the charts, there is the text “Elves progress in two areas – fighting man and magic-user”, to imply we should also be using the MU advancement table for Elves.
- Elves encountered as monsters will have a leader of FM level 2-4 and MU level 2-8.
This list raises some more questions, however. When do Elves gain hit dice (HD), and can they wear armor and cast spells at the same time?
I’d argue that as written, Elves can indeed wear armor and cast spells simultaneously, just due to #1, above, and due to the fact that there is no other qualifying language regarding Elvish use of spells and armor in the Holmes rulebook. Reconciling #2 through #5 is a bit harder, but I think the following does it:
Each game, keep track of the total XP earned, but track it at double the cost and ignore the MU HD progression. The effect will be that when you gain a level as a FM, you add a HD (but 1d6 instead of 1d8), and when you gain a level as a MU, you add spells. You can use this combined table for advancement to see how it works.
+-----+------+-----+------+ |Level|XP |HD |Spells| |FM/MU| | |L1/L2 | +-----+------+-----+------+ |1/1 |0 |1d6 |1/0 | +-----+------+-----+------+ |2/1 |4,000 |2d6 |1/0 | +-----+------+-----+------+ |2/2 |5,000 |- |2/0 | +-----+------+-----+------+ |3/2 |8,000 |3d6 |2/0 | +-----+------+-----+------+ |3/3 |10,000|- |2/1 | +-----+------+-----+------+
This table can be easily extended to higher levels, and I think it’s an elegant way to handle Elves.
Obviously, we’re assuming that Elves don’t progress at matched levels, i.e. they don’t progress from level 1/1 directly to level 2/2, and finally to level 3/3. This is due to #6, above, and due to the fact that you must split the XP evenly between the two classes.
Smoldering Wizard 
I’d argue that this isn’ “by the book” as you say. For one thing, you’ve nerfed the XP cost to gain levels compared to the standard Magic-User class… in fact, that’s the main thing. I don’t disagree at all with combining the XP progressions, as that’s exactly what Moldvay did in the red book, even though that’s not Holmes’ apparent plan and so also not “by the book.”
Hey Chris thanks for the comment. Since the Elf has to split XP evenly between the two classes in Holmes, they won’t reach 3rd level MU until they have 10k total XP (at which point they would have allocated 5k to FM, 5k to MU). So I’m not choosing to nerf the Elf, just progressing them through the levels as per the rules.
In my OD&D games I allow players who run Elves to split XP as they like, which allows them to advance to 3rd level MU immediately upon getting 5k XP, but of course they would still be a 1st-level FM at that point. I agree that is much nicer for the player, however.
Thanks for an interesting read! having read all the TSR D&D rules sets one has the awful tendency to read each in the light of the others. So it is great to have posts like this that make clear what is actually printed.
Personally I find the elf a bit too powerful in low levels, to the point where my players would specifically pick elves any time we would play one-offs etc., so I have mainly been looking for ways to nerf them a bit (playing OD&D). The forced half/half progression and average hit dice of Holmes and the later basic sets seem like nice ways to do it, but I think it is a shame that these drawbacks mostly have an effect further down the road.
Thanks for the comment! I think you’re right about Elves at low levels, particularly in B/X-style games – as a player they are my favorite simply because they offer so many choices.
In my OD&D games I don’t allow Elves to cast spells in normal armor, only magical or Elven chain. This tends to nerf them at low levels when they won’t have such armor. I also let them roll HD when they gain a level in either class, and keep the total if it is higher than what they have already. This tends to help them at higher levels (versus a scheme like this one in Holmes anyway).
Reading the Holmes Basic book I get the feeling that elf should gain new HP-s on gaining level in either class (Fighting Man or Magic-User) and just using average die for it (d6). Son on Your table 3/3 elf should roll 6d6 for HP-s…
I think that would work also, but it would be 5d6 at level 3/3 because Elves get 1d6 hit dice at level 1/1 (not 2d6), then 1d6 each time they gain a level of either class after that.