Character Generation #1 - Stats

We've been playing Explore for two years or so now, and this blog has been running for about half that time. Recently I've been busy playing the game and revising the rules, but not much on the blog front. I've decided to concentrate my efforts in presenting the revised rules in full. Hopefully this may be of some use, make my blog posts make more sense, and help me concentrate on completing any remaining gaps.

It makes sense to start with rolling up a character...

Stats

Characters have six stats – Strength, Constitution, Agility, Reflexes, Intuition, and Memory. Each stat has a value from -3 to 3 and they add up to 0. They come in pairs, and the two stats in a pair never differ by more than two.

STRENGTH (STR) – bonus on damage, lifting, sprinting.

CONSTITUTION (CON) – bonus on damage save, poison save, walking.

AGILITY (AG) – bonus on melee attack, acrobatics, high jump.

REFLEXES (REF) – bonus on parry.

INTUITION (IN) – bonus on spell attack, bow attack, scout, thief, ranger skills.

MEMORY (ME) – bonus on spell save, healing.

There are no stats for a character’s personality (Charisma), or problem solving ability (Logic); these are instead realised through play. Players should attempt to persuade NPCs through Role Playing, and solve problems themselves. Intuition can be used as a fallback if necessary. 

Rolling Stats

Roll d% twice to give you a 4 digit number in the range 0000-9999.

Look this up on the table below.

This gives you three pairs to allocate to the three pairs of stats - STR/CON, AG/REF, IN/MEM. You can choose the order in each pair.

For example if you roll 32 and 73 you get 3273 which is the row 3144: 2,0  0,0  -1,-1. Thus you might have STR 2 CON 0, AG -1, REF -1, IN 0, ME 0. Or you might take STR -1, CON -1, AG 0, REF 2, IN 0, ME 0 etc. etc. You must assign them in pairs, for example you cannot have STR 2 and CON -1. 

You can also take the d% the other way round.

In our example that would be 7332 which is 2,2  0,0  -2,-2. 

You may choose to have the inverse of your stats (swap all + and – signs). This is given as an extra column in the table (it is omitted if it is the same).

In our example that gives just one more possibility: 1,1  0,0  0,-2 or 2,2  0,0  -2,-2. .

9996	3	3	1	-1	-3	-3
9988	3	3	0	0	-3	-3
9890	3	3	0	-1	-2	-3		3	2	1	0	-3	-3
9875	3	3	0	-2	-1	-3		3	1	2	0	-3	-3
9843	3	3	-1	-1	-1	-3		3	1	1	1	-3	-3
9812	3	3	0	-2	-2	-2		2	2	2	0	-3	-3
9749	3	3	-1	-1	-2	-2		2	2	1	1	-3	-3
9676	3	3	-1	-2	-1	-2		2	1	2	1	-3	-3
9615	3	2	1	-1	-2	-3
9494	3	2	0	0	-2	-3
9312	3	2	0	-1	-1	-3		3	1	1	0	-2	-3
8948	3	2	0	-1	-2	-2		2	2	1	0	-2	-3
8722	3	2	0	-2	-1	-2		2	1	2	0	-2	-3
8271	3	2	-1	-1	-1	-2		2	1	1	1	-2	-3
8255	3	1	1	-1	-1	-3
8224	3	1	0	0	-1	-3
8161	3	1	1	-1	-2	-2		2	2	1	-1	-1	-3
8037	3	1	0	0	-2	-2		2	2	0	0	-1	-3
7679	3	1	0	-1	-1	-2		2	1	1	0	-1	-3
7655	3	1	0	-2	0	-2		2	0	2	0	-1	-3
7560	3	1	-1	-1	0	-2		2	0	1	1	-1	-3
7464	3	1	-1	-1	-1	-1		1	1	1	1	-1	-3
7401	2	2	1	-1	-2	-2
7277	2	2	0	0	-2	-2
6561	2	2	0	-1	-1	-2		2	1	1	0	-2	-2
6513	2	2	0	-2	0	-2		2	0	2	0	2	2
6322	2	2	-1	-1	0	-2		2	0	1	1	-2	-2
6131	2	2	-1	-1	-1	-1		1	1	1	1	-2	-2
5893	2	1	1	-1	-1	-2
5426	2	1	0	0	-1	-2
4844	2	1	0	-1	0	-2		2	0	1	0	-1	-2
3680	2	1	0	-1	-1	-1		1	1	1	0	-1	-2
3638	2	0	1	-1	0	-2
3471	2	0	1	-1	-1	-1		1	1	1	-1	0	-2
3144	2	0	0	0	-1	-1		1	1	0	0	0	-2
2763	2	0	0	-1	0	-1		1	0	1	0	0	2
2681	2	0	0	0	0	-2
1918	1	1	0	-1	0	-1		1	0	1	0	-1	-1
1751	1	1	1	-1	-1	-1
1424	1	1	0	0	-1	-1
1013	1	0	1	-1	0	-1
0209	1	0	0	0	0	-1
0201	1	-1	1	-1	1	-1
0154	1	-1	1	-1	0	0
0061	1	-1	0	0	0	0
0000	0	0	0	0	0	0

What's The Distribution?

The stats have a bell curve distribution:

But although stats are balanced - they always add up to zero - not all sets of stats are equal. Usually the higher the roll the more desirable the set of stats.

Where a row has an alternate result, the main result has a couple of big bonuses and four small penalties; the alternate one has four small bonuses and two large penalties.

Combat Manoeuvres - Trip and Disarm

This post started life as an explanation of how I was at an impasse in developing a rule for combat manoeuvres, but the very act of writing it has fixed the issue.

If you beat the score needed to hit your opponent by 10 or more you get the opportunity to make a combat manoeuvre or take an extra dice on the kill roll.

The combat manoeuvre is resolved by opposed melee bonus + d6 (open).

Right from the start of developing Explore I recognised that some form of combat manoeuvres would be required, but as it wasn’t essential to playing the game, and needed to compliment the play style that would emerge from the other rules, I left it for future inspiration. Recently the lack of such rules has become more evident in play, particularly when facing a far inferior foe, so I started to work on it.

Too Much Choice?
Firstly I decided that this should be an option that presented itself occasionally in combat, rather than a choice that had to be made every round. That would typically be on a critical result, and in Explore the equivalent is your attack roll beating the target by 10 or more. Currently in that case you get an extra d10 for damage, which as a side-effect makes the counting up your to hit score interesting even when success is clear.

This leads us to the first half of the combat manoeuvres rule - if you beat your "to hit" by 10 or more then you get the opportunity to make a combat manoeuvre or take an extra dice on the kill roll. This brings home the fact that an attack roll is not a single swing of your sword but represents the best opportunity you get in a sequence of parries and feints. For example, you might swing your sword, it is parried, but you follow through with a thrust from the dagger in your offhand – that’s all counted as a single "attack".

What are the stats of this? It’s usually about an 8% chance (given that you succeeded), but if you have greater than 75% chance of a hit then this rises quickly – for example if you only need 3 to hit, then 36% of the time you get to use a combat manoeuvre. Thus a greater proportion of successes turn into combat manoeuvres against lesser opponents.

Making a Resolution
So how to resolve the combat manoeuvre? It would make sense for this to be a second 2d10 open roll (same as the attack and kill roll) – but would it be against their Melee or Parry? I don’t think a shield should give you a bonus, so it would be versus Melee. Would it include weapon bonuses? I think it should be easier to disarm someone if you're wielding a sword, so yes. Would it be opposed rolls or a fixed bonus? The arbitrary fixed bonus seems a bit, well, arbitrary. It can’t be the standard idea of an opposed roll (both sides roll 2d10) as that increases the variance of the result (increasing the factor that luck plays and reducing the importance of skill). The alternative is an opposed roll where both sides roll 1 dice – this keeps the numbers correct and seems appropriate.

Playing the Odds
So what’s the chance of winning here, compared to simply taking the kill roll? That is, if you hit by 10 is it better to take the extra dice on the kill roll or take the combat manoeuvre?

Consider two first level fighters with full armour with sword and shield. Parry:7, Attack: 4, Kill:4 Saves:11/14/17/20 (23). If you hit by 10 and take the extra dice, then with three dice the chance of getting an outright kill is 35% - fairly high.

Imagine much better combatants – P:12, A:9, K:9, 11/17/22/28 (33).  A kill would be rolling 24+ which is 12% chance. (Their combats typically last longer and have several wounds before a kill)

The better versus the worse opponent needs to roll 14+ to kill (70% chance), the worse versus the better needs to roll 29+ (4% chance).

So that goes to a table of 35% / 4% / 70% / 12%.
With a single opposed d10 roll system the chance of success are 45% / 11% / 84% / 45%.

This means the chance of disarming is higher than the kill, which I like, and I also like the fact that the chance between two equal opponents is always the same – but I want the other values to be more extreme. Skill should play a larger role here, and 70% chance of death should be swapped for near certain disarming.

Less is More
With a single opposed d6 roll system the tail end decay is the same but there’s a steeper curve in the middle so this gives us what we want – the chances of success are 42% / 5% / 94% / 42%.

Using d6 instead of d10 solves another problem I found in play testing when I tried out using single d10 rolls in another area of the game – players would invariable roll two dice instead of one and when told they should have only rolled one wanted to keep the higher number! It also highlights another issue I found when play testing open d6 – players don’t like to accept replacing a 6 with 2d6. In this case we can offer a choice to reroll if you like – thus if you lose you’ll always reroll but if you win you might still reroll for a great success.

Over Achieving
If beating by 10+ is good, we need a rule for beating by more:

If you succeed by 20+ in the attack and choose a combat manoeuvre you get two dice on the kill, or 2 dice for the combat manoeuvre.

In addition I’d like great success or failure at a manoeuvre to be rewarded. Beating by 10 isn’t very likely with the squeezed middle of the probability curve, so I’ve reduced it to beating by 5. This equates nicely to evenly matched opponents rolling a 1 and a 6.

You are almost guaranteed this if you far outclass your opponent, but only 11% of evenly matched successes are great successes. Unfortunately the curve for opposed rolls is less smooth so if you are outclassed 30% of your successes turn out to be a great success - but this is a compromise I’ll accept.
Great failure I’ll take to be failing by 5 or more.

Great Failure (lose by 5): Fumble! Opponent disarms you…
Fail: Nothing
Success: Disarm or Trip
Great Success (win by 5): Disarm (all weapons), grapple hold, can throw opponent if strong enough.

But what about?
This only covers trip and disarm - actual "manoevering" your opponent around the battlefield is next to come...

Classes Revised

My last post was a revision of skill points for Explore, which means a slight revision of the class system is needed. I described the class system here - it is basically the same skill system but with less bookkeeping.

In short a class is a pre-selected set of starting skills (worth 10pts) and then every time your XP doubles you go up a level (100XP is level 1, 200XP is level 2 etc) and go up one level in every skill.

The rule change has no effect on the non-spell using classes, for example:

Fighter
Melee: Char Level+2
Parry, Athletics: Char Level+1
Unarmed, Thrown: Char Level

At level 1 that's Melee 3 (4pts), Parry 2 (2pts), Athletics 2 (2pts), Unarmed 1 (1pt), Thrown 1 (1pt) - so 10 points in total (100XP). (You can see for yourself that at level 2,3,4 the pts required are 20,40,80).

But most of the spell using classes are like this:

Elementalist
Air, Earth, Fire, Water: Char Level
Any two magic skills: Char Level +1
Melee, Parry: Char Level

Which is Air 1 (1pt), Earth 1 (1pt), Fire 1 (1pt), Water 1 (1pt), leaving only 1pt for fighting skills (as a spell caster they only have 5 points to spend). Note the magic skills (e.g. Runes) are free - but they are also liable to be dumped from the rules.

Hence with 1/2/4 pts to spend I'd choose the following fighting skills:
@ Level 1: Parry 1.
@ Level 2: Parry 1, Melee 1
@ Levels 2+: Parry, Melee: Char Level-1

So I might write this as:

Elementalist
Air, Earth, Fire, Water: Char Level
Any two magic skills: Char Level +1
Parry: Char Level-1 (min 1)
Melee: Char Level-1 (min 0)

This change covers all the sample magic using classes except the Healer which now becomes:

Healer
Healer: Char Level+1
Body Control: Char Level+1
Parry: Char Level-1 (min 1)
Melee: Char Level-1 (min 0)

Note that Athletics (which gives half the level as a bonus to kill) could also be a useful skill for occasional fights for spellcasters, but in general parry and melee are better so that skill isn't included for spellcasters. If you want to break with convention and have a muscly wizard you can at any point switch to using the full skill system.

Apologies for the technical nature of this post - it takes a lot of play testing and tweaking to iron out issues with rules but I think it's worth it in the end - and the journey is fun.

Skills Revised - Training to be a Wizard

I described my skill system here. In brief:

For every 10 XP you get to spend 1 point on skills.
You start with 100 XP and 10 skill points to spend.

Skills cost 1 / 1 / 2 / 4 / 8 / 16 / 32 / 64... points for 1st / 2nd / 3rd... level.

Thus for example, third level costs you 1+1+2 = 4 points. You don't have to add this up as when you cross them off:

1 / 1 / 2 / 4 / 8 / 16 / 32 / 64...

The total cost is the first number not crossed off.

Spells cost you twice as much as other skills - i.e. 2 / 2 / 4 / 8 etc.

This means that whatever decisions you make early on don't have a big impact later on - if you decide that spending one point in athletics was a mistake then in time that measly one point becomes unimportant.
Secondly it doesn't matter when you spend your points on your skills - that first level in athletics always costs 1 point no matter when you spend it.

Together this means that the metagame of skill choice is downplayed - choose what you feel like and stop worrying about the "best choice".

We've been playing with this system for about two years now and the characters have maxed out at tenth level in some skills, and this has laid bare a known quirk in the design - due to the low relative cost and high usefulness of spells all characters can now cast some spells.

When it comes to a Wizard taking a couple of levels in fighting skills that's fine  - this is precisely what the rules were designed to encourage - but a Fighter suddenly learning some spells seems wrong. But I couldn't see how to fix this without breaking the system.

Then I realised I could replace the "spells cost you twice as much" rule with the following:

If you learn spells then you only get 1 skill point per 20 XP.

If you only take fighting skills, then this is the same as before.
If you only take spell skills, then this is the same as before.
A Wizard who starts learning fighting skills can still do so, they just cost more (as do all skills) - so a slight change (in effect this is just a -1 penalty on all non spells skills).

BUT...

If a Fighter who has spent 100 skill points (1000 XP) wants to learn one spell list to first level this doesn't cost 2 (as in the old system) - they have to get another 1020 XP before they have 101 skill points and spell ability.

In game the explanation is simple - they have to train to become a Wizard - and the longer you leave this the more difficult the training.

So with this system (which I'm not imposing retrospectively on the current campaign!) it makes sense to have pure Wizards, Wizards with a bit of skill at fighting, and also true Fighter - Wizards, but not Fighters with just one or two spells.

Roll With It

Last week I watched The Force Awakens again, and one line really got me thinking:

Han Solo: The longer we’re here, the less luck we’re gonna have.

This quote prompted me to rethink "let it ride" and devise an alternative.

"Let it Ride" is an idea that gained traction about ten years ago – if a character successfully makes (for example) a sneak roll then you let all subsequent sneak rolls also pass until you need to make a more difficult roll. This is to stop the "roll until you fail" problem, but I've not been entirely satisfied with the solution.

The problem the rule addresses is that multiple rolls for repeated applications of a skill will cause it to fail eventually. This is easily seen by the following graph which shows how a given % chance for a single check turns into a much lower % chance of passing multiple checks:

The rapid drop off is clear. 70% chance of success becomes 49% chance of two successes – by ten successes it’s dropped to just 3%.

The “Let It Ride” rule however replaces this with a "first check is everything" system:

This means that after you get past the first guard there’s no chance of failing to sneak past the second guard. Han is never going to say his line. What is required is some middle ground…

I went through various solutions which I discarded before settling on a simple rule. (Skip past the next section if you just want to go straight to the actual proposed rule).

Prototype Solutions

My first idea was you roll once, and that roll is reused for each subsequent check except that the roll is reduced by one each time. Thus if you need 14+ to sneak past each guard, and you roll a 17, then you get 17 for the first guard, 16 for the second, 15 for the third, 14 for the fourth, 13 for the fifth. So you fail to sneak past the fifth guard.

This works quite well, except that you will always eventually fail to sneak past a guard (assuming there are enough of them).

Version two is that each time you can also roll to see if you improve the score. Thus if you roll 17, 5, 15, 18, 3 then you get 17 => 16 (better than 5) => 15 (equal to 15) => 18 (better than 14) => 17 (better than 3).

This looks like there might be a lot of book keeping. Also you could improve your chance at a hard task by doing several easy tasks first!

Version 3 is for the DM to roll a D6 each time to see if the roll is decreased. That’s a bit of an improvement but still sounds like a lot of fuss and complicated statistics.

The fourth version is to decrease it by one each time until the roll fails, and then allow the player a second roll. So that’s exactly like the first example, but instead of failing to sneak past the fifth guard you need to roll again. That is, you needed a 14 and got a 17 so you get to pass the first four guards before you roll again.

So how does this look in practice? For a d10:

If you have a 70% chance of success and need ten successes, then the usual rule reduces you to 3% chance of success; let it roll gives you 70%, this rule gives you 35%. So after you’ve got past the first guard you've a 50:50 chance of sneaking past the next 9.

The obvious mechanical concern with this rule is that the effect of it depends heavily upon the dice system in use – the effect of lowering your score by one depends upon what dice you’re rolling! If you switch from d10 to d20 then the drop off is half as steep – 70% only drops to 54. This could be remedied to a certain extent by altering how much you knock off each time – with a d20 system you’d probably knock off two every time.

Final Version - Roll With It.

Hence enter the fifth (and final) version. The roll you make carries over to subsequent checks each time unless you roll a 1 or 2 on a d6 – in which case you reroll it. You roll a 17 for sneaking past the first guard? Then you get 17 for all subsequent sneak attempts until you roll a 1 or 2 on a d6; at which point you roll again.

This gives you a similar outcome to the last version - 

- but this system bypasses the dice system in use – the above graph is true whichever dice system you use. If you have a 70% chance of sneaking past a guard, you have a 27% chance of sneaking past 10 of them. It also removes any need for book keeping – all you need to do is note the roll made. The precise system can be modified according to taste - you could have reroll on a 1 which makes the drop off half as steep.

What Does It Mean In Practice?

The way to validate a system like this is to put some numbers into it:

If you have a 90% chance of passing the first guard, you’ll have 80% chance of getting past 5 guards, and half of the time it’s the first guard that spots you. If you get past the first guard, on average you’ll get past 14 of them.

If you only have a 10% chance of passing the first guard – but you still make it – you're on a roll and the chances are you’ll make it pass one or two more. If you get past the first guard, on average you’ll get past 3 of them.

Keep It Secret

Note that the player may roll a 3 and yay! Keep the roll! But then fail the check (because this check required a higher roll). The player doesn't get the option to reroll – else you would improve your chances of succeeding at a hard task by trying an easier one first.

Hence you must keep the player’s initial roll secret (e.g. via the draw a card method) so they don’t know if they’ll make this harder check or not – there’s always an element of suspense.

Now all I need is to persuade my players they should try sneaking past some guards...

The Worst: Blackmoor

This is another installment in my irregular series of the Best & Worst bits that I have had the luck (or misfortune) to read in RPG products. Normal service will resume shortly...

OD&D is both brilliant and flawed. For example Greyhawk is full of many brilliant ideas but has others which are (at best) a tad iffy (does anyone have much love for percentile strength?).

Blackmoor though completely stumped me - there is almost nothing inspired or even of any use in the whole first half of the book (and the second half is only saved by being mostly a very strange module).

New Classes
Firstly there are the new character classes. Monks are just plain weird. Described as a Cleric / Fighter / Thief. Any hit by 5 or more has a 25% chance of killing outright...  Hands are a deadly weapon, but they only get d4 hit points. They are dead easy to hit, until at high levels were they do ridiculous amounts of damage. Does this class work in practice? I never allowed one in AD&D but no-one ever asked to play one either!

In the middle of the Monk we get a picture of a Lammasu. No, it's not a monster described in the book. Throughout the rest of the supplement we get pictures of Hell Hounds, Umber Hulks, Harpies, Mind Flayers, Ropers, and a Chimera - none of which are monsters out of this book...

The second new class is equally strange - Assassin. Must be Neutral? Can use poison, but if someone spots you are they get angry and can attack you at +4 to hit, +4 damage?? The % chance of assassination table is just plain strange. What happens if you fail in the attempt?

Hit Locations
Did anyone ever use this? Did the author ever use it? Is it just a brain dump of random thoughts?

Rolemaster come back - all is forgiven!

Giant Monsters! 
Giant Crab. Giant Octopus. Giant Squid. Giant Crocodile. Giant Toad. Giant Frog. Giant Leech. Giant Beaver. Giant Otter. Giant Wasp. Giant Beetle. Giant Shark. Giant Eagle. Giant Sea Spider. Giant Wasteoftime. (To be fair it does have Sahuagin - and an illustration of one!).

The Second Half
At this point the supplement changes tack entirely. There's half a page of brief descriptions of Magic Items with an underwater theme which are OK.

The Temple Of The Frog forms the bulk of the second half of the supplement (21 pages). I'm unsure of how you were expected to run this adventure, and I don't know whether Dave had ever run it or just wrote it for the supplement. It is certainly very different from other early adventures, and if nothing else it's an interesting curiosity.

Then we have seven pages of Underwater Adventures, Sages, and Diseases, which all manage to read as fairly sensible and potentially of use.

Who Wrote What?
As is fairly well known, Blackmoor had a difficult gestation. It was the work of several authors, Tim Kask given the unenviable task of combining them together. Steve Marsh wrote the Underwater Monsters, (probably) the Magic Items and the Underwater Adventures section, which are some of the best sections. The Temple Of The Frog is Arneson. The rest appears to be by various authors with Tim Kask attempting to work them into something usable, and unsurprisingly not really succeeding.

I've found a thread over at Dragonsfoot which discusses who may or may not have written what.

This supplement would have worked much better simply as a bunch of articles in The Strategic Review. As such they would not be viewed so critically now - as the follow up act to Greyhawk they invite derision. The best that can be said is that it encourages the reader to think "I can do better", and readers frequently have. As a view into Dave Arneson's game it isn't very illuminating. For that you're better looking at The First Fantasy Campaign (I'm still on the look out for a reasonably priced copy).

Poleaxe not Pollax

There is a common repeated webtruth that "Poleaxe" is not the correct spelling, but a 19th century erroneous change, and that the correct spelling is "Pollax".

For example, the Wikipedia entry is "Pollax" and it states:

The poleaxe in that spelling^{[citation needed]}, refers to an animal culling device of similar appearance. It was swung so the spike struck the animal, normally cattle, in the forehead. Hence also the phrase 'to be poleaxed' referring to being stunned. This term does not seem to appear before the 19th century.

This is in direct contradiction to the Oxford English Dictionary:

Poleaxe:

[ME. pollax, polax, Sc. powax = MDu. polaex, pollaex, MLG. and LG. polexe, pollexe (whence MSw. 15th c. polyxe, pulyxe, MDa. polöxe), f. pol, POLL n.1, Sc. pow, MDu., MLG. polle, pol head + AXE: cf. MDu. polhamer = poll-hammer, also a weapon of war. It does not appear whether the combination denoted an axe with a special kind of head, or one for cutting off or splitting the head of an enemy. In the 16th c. the word began to be written by some pole-axe (which after 1625 became the usual spelling), as if an axe upon a pole or long handle. This may have been connected with the rise of sense 2. Similarly, mod.Sw. pålyxa and Westphalian dial. pålexe have their first element = pole. Sense 3 may be a substitute for the earlier bole-axe, which was applied to a butcher's axe.]

It intrigued me as to whether one could find corroborating proof that it had indeed changed from pollax / polax to poleaxe during the period 1500-1625.

The Middle English Spelling
In Middle English, the spelling was Polax, as can be seen from these lines in Chaucer from The Knight's Tale:

No man therfore, up peyne of los of lyf,
No maner shot, ne polax, ne short knyf
Into the lystes sende, ne thider brynge.

This is not a primary resource however, so I looked for scans of early editions, and I found:

This is from an online scanned copy of The Canterbury Tales - William Caxton's printed edition (the first such) from 1478. There is no single authoritative version of Chaucer, and there are many differences between versions. This source has "pollax" instead of "polax", but also has many other changes in these three lines, for example "los of lyf" to "losyng his lif" which shows the sheer variety of spellings at this time.

Hence it is reasonable to accept that in Middle English the word could be "pollax" or "polax".

The Modern Spelling
If one is looking for the spelling of a word, where else would you look other than a dictionary?

The first edition of Samuel Johnson's "Dictionary of the English Language" (1755) is also rather handily scanned and online, and here we find:

So by 1755 the spelling "Poleaxe" was the accepted one in the dictionary. Note that in the intervening 277 years the spelling has almost entirely changed from the odd Middle English spellings (such as knyf for knife) into modern spellings.  We cannot tell whether the spelling changed from "Polax" to "Poleaxe" which made them think that it meant "Pole" + "Axe", or whether the belief that it was "Pole" + "Axe" caused them to change their spelling. What we do know is that it is not a recent change by the Victorians.

Johnson helpfully cites sources for his words, and here gives a quote from Dryden. This is from John Dryden's poem "Palamon and Arcite", a reworking of The Knight's Tale, published in "Fables, ancient and Modern" in 1700. You'd expect Johnson to have preserved the spelling, but when we look on line for a scanned copy of this book we find:

So in the original from 1700 it is Poleax (spelling variant #4!!). There are also later printings of this poem which change it to Poleaxe, so perhaps Johnson was referring to them. Note also the reference to "Coat-armour, imitating Scale"!

Since "Palamon and Arcite" was a retelling of The Knight's Tale it is perhaps no surprise that at the end of the book Dryden gives Chaucer's original text, and it has the old spelling "polax":

(Though note knyf has changed to knife). Hence we have now seen that the spelling "poleax" was in use by 1700, and with full knowledge that this was a change of spelling from middle english. During this period English saw a major upheaval, changing from Middle English into something very close to the English of today, and this change of spelling was just one of many changes.

According to The Oxford English Dictionary we can date this introduction of the "e" in the middle as starting in the 16th century and becoming the usual spelling after 1625.

The Rebutal
There are several possible grounds by which one might claim that Pollax is the correct spelling - let's examine them one at a time.

Poleaxe is an incorrect spelling
Any spelling listed in the Oxford English Dictionary is "correct". Poleaxe is spelled this way in the OED, so cannot be called incorrect.

Poleaxe is a modern spelling
The OED dates it back to the 16th century, and we've seen the "e" in the middle in a document from 1700, it is most definitely NOT a modern spelling

Poleaxe is an anachronstic spelling  - it post dates the period of the weapon
The weapon called the pollax/poleaxe was in use roughly from 1300-1700. Thus for nearly half this period "poleaxe" was a normal spelling, and it was the usual spelling for the last 75 years of this period.

Pollax is the original spelling, and therefore correct

By this argument we should use "knyf" for knife. We cannot replace English spellings with those from Middle English.

Poleaxe is etymologically incorrect and misleading

Many words are equally so. "Shamefaced" is a corruption, it comes from Middle English scamfæst, which is scam ("shame") + fæst ("fast"). So it *should* be shamefast. The change from "fast" to "faced" changes the meaning to imply showing guilt on the face. This does not mean we should change the meaning of Shamefaced in the dictionary to match the old meaning, nor should we change its spelling.

So it will be Poleaxe in Explore ;-)