Most of my D&D time of late has been taken up with designing and playtesting my abstract solo game. (Fear not, Ultimate Sandbox enthusiasts, that project keeps chugging along.) I've played through a few sessions that I...

Dwarves: This entry wisely directs the DM to the Dwarf PC class for special abilities. Otherwise things match with OD&D, but with several things omitted. There’s no chance given now for higher-level Dwarves to own magic...

Chimera: In OD&D they could have an alignment of Neutral or Chaotic, but in Holmes Basic they are now Chaotic Evil. There’s also a small change to their damage dice. In Supplement I, the goat head...

I have a habit of flitting about from project to project. One week I'm obsessed with writing a novel, the next I'm programming a text adventure, and the week after that I'm trying to write a mega-gamebook...

MONSTERS: The monster section opens with some broad advice on using monsters in the campaign. It goes through how the monster entries are laid out, how the DM should stock his dungeon, provides some advice on...

MAGIC WEAPONS: The brief treatment of magic weapons given here in the combat section matches fairly well with the OD&D rules. We'll see if that's still the case when Holmes gets into more depth in the...

Melee Combat: Combat in Holmes is much the same as all forms of old-school D&D; roll 1d20, look on a chart to see what Armor Class you hit, and roll damage if you landed a blow....

CLERICAL SPELLS: The brief run-down of how clerical magic works goes through the basics, such as the fact that OD&D clerics don’t cast spells at first level. It is said that they don’t have to study...

2nd LEVEL MAGIC-USER SPELLS The spell list given here is the same as from Supplement I, with two new spells added: Audible Glamer and Ray of Enfeeblement . Audible Glamer: Simply put this spell allows the...

Thief Saving Throws: While I was going over the saving throw rules, I missed the changes relating to the Thief class. Originally, they had the same saving throw numbers as Magic-Users, but now they save as...