Old-School Essentials: Reference Booklet (2026)

A quick reference for the most commonly used Old-School Essentials rules and tables.

Game procedures: Summaries of the core rules of the game, including the procedures for dungeon, wilderness, and waterborne adventuring, and combat.
Player characters: All tables pertaining to PCs, including ability score modifiers, saving throws, class skills, spell progression, and native languages.
Downtime and equipment: Common PC activities between adventures, plus full equipment lists, including mounts, dogs, and vehicles.
Monsters: Complete dungeon and wilderness encounter tables and monsters listed by Hit Dice.

Requires the Old-School Essentials core books.

This updated 2026 printing has the following changes from the previous edition of the Reference Booklet:

New cover art by Peter Mullen.
Now includes full wilderness encounter tables.
Minor rules errata for greater fidelity with the B/X core rules. (e.g. attacks from behind gain a +2 bonus.)
Additional notes on weapon specialisation and multi-classing optional rules.
Minor updates in line with the upcoming 2026 Update OSE core books. (e.g. revised secondary skills list closer to AD&D.)