Fix scans in Judges Guild PDF's

This is mainly for my own reference, but some of you might also find it useful. The RPGnow PDF's of original Judges Guild products—like the Ready Ref Sheets—were made from low-contrast grayscale scans. They read OK on screen, but don't print cleanly. If you have a Linux box (or any OS with a recent ImageMagick version) this command will produce a cleaner printing PDF:

convert -density 300 -brightness-contrast 0%x90% JGld-ReadyRefSheets.pdf readyrefsheets-contrasty.pdf

That grinds my machine to a halt for several minutes, so you might want to lower the priority level of the process with nice. If you have an older version of ImageMagick, you may be able to achieve similar results using the -contrast-stretch option instead of -brightness-contrast. If you have a better way to achieve similar results, I'd like to know. Thanks.

Initiative by weapon priority

I've been looking for an initiative system for my nascent OD&D game, and came across the weapon priority charts on page 17 of the Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets. I'm not positive that those charts were originally intended as an initiative system per se, but they could do the job. This violates my general principle that any house rule should be expressible as a simple sentence, but something about it appeals to me—perhaps that it solves the initiative problem while giving players significant tactical options with low rules overhead. The original charts assign a weapon priority based on the type of attack, the armor class or monster speed, and the dexterity of each combatant. Three variable is a little too crunchy for my tastes. I don't think much would be lost by dropping the armor/speed and dexterity variables, and assuming that all actions of a particular type take effect simultaneously. This list is a slightly modified form of the Judges Guild chart:

1. Gaze attacks
2. Breath weapons
3. Spells level 1-3
4. Missile weapons
5. Long weapons (polearms, spears)
6. Spells level 4-6
7. Medium weapons (swords, maces)
8. Short weapons (daggers, saps)
9. Spells level 7-9
10. Read scrolls, other actions

Of course, you could still roll initiative to see who goes first at each of the stages—if that's your thing—or let those wearing no/light armor or with high dexterity act one step sooner.