Update- the longer pause

Again apologies.   I’m currently working on some paid writing gigs that take precedence over my musing on the DMG.  Sorry for the long break… I’ll try to squirrel away a few thoughts so that we can get through Combat! (with Vic Morrow, right?) by Halloween.

TTFN

Page 65: Spell Casting During Melee; Turning Undead

There are two items that remain from ‘grenade-like missiles’: crossing flaming oil and holy/unholy water. THe former has you rolling on the FIRE, NORMAL table to see is a jumper’s clothing catch fire (no rules for damage based on type of clothing though…) while (un)holy water causes the recipient “to suffer a burning as if struck by acid”, save for those in non-material or gaseous form. Lucky vampires.

Spell Casting in Melee

Man, like is tough for the average magic-user (and clerics, illusionists, druids, high level rangers and paladins, etc.) This section seems fundamentally intended to explain how there is no way almost any spell could be cast in combat.

In order to cast a spell casters

• Must pick the spell to cast before initiative is announced (even spells taking but 1 segment!)
• Cannot crouch if the spell has “somatic” components (i.e. gestures)
• Cannot move (aside from said gestures required by the spell)
• Cannot use their dexterity modifiers to lower Armor Class
• Cannot be interrupted or pause at any point once the spell begin

Damn. So, the dork in the pointy hat and star-embroidered robes has to pick a spell in advance, stand stock-still while doing one or all of the following- chanting, waving their arms, tossing about some material component. All the while they can’t use their Dexterity bonus to AC (pretty much an automatic AC 10 baring spells or magic items), have 1d4 hp per level and every monster on the other side is gunning (or taloning, daggering, acid-phlegming, and otherwise intending to injure) them. So why does Gygax worry that M-Us are overly powerful again? Because they can cast Leomund’s Tiny Chest?

Gygax suggests that “most magic-users and clerics will opt to use magical devices whenever possible in melee”. Which is why they cost more than your average man-o-war…

I do stand corrected regarding cover and saving throws- “Hard cover will increase chances for saving throws as noted. Cover equal to 90% or better will also give the target creatures the benefit of no damage whatsoever if the appropriate saving throw is successful.” Anybody know where that “as noted” shows up?

Turning to Monster Charm Power (sounds like a Japanese all-girl Ska band), we find that all monster charming powers are stronger than any charm person or charm monster spell. Monsters don’t have to speak to their victims and can command them to harm their friends, abandon their possessions, and anything short of obviously self-destructive tasks. For some odd reason all monsters’ charm powers only have a range of line of sight or 60′… I guess they’re using infrared signals?

Next up is Turning Undead where we find Clerics stepping forward for some fun. Most of the time this process in simple, you see a few zombies, you turn them (or not), and get on with your life. This entry points out all the weird situations that may arise- Mixed undead groups? Check. Multiple clerics? Check. Evil Clerics? Check.

Evil clerics seem to have all the fun. Not only can they turn undead if they want, they can compel them into service and turn those do-gooding paladin types if they are strong enough. We’ll get to more notes on turning ‘tomorrow’…

New word: dweomer, somatic

Page 64: Missile Fire; Grenade-like Missiles

This page is a grab-bag of missile related issues, collecting the specific rules for various types of thrown (which is not spelled “throne” despite what many of my old students thought) weapons. The basis of these rules seems pretty clearly rooted in miniatures gaming (cf. the misses table)…

Strength/Dexterity Bonus Considerations: Here’s a bit of detail that I’m sure the more rule-lawyery types clung to (though I’m not sure it is in the Players Handbook…)- while ‘normal’ bows, crossbows, slings, etc. had no “to hit” or damage bonus, players might be able to employ heavier (or better constructed) versions of missile weapons in order to gain those bonuses. The cumulative effect of an 18 Str and Dex would be pretty nasty I imagine. The price of such weapons is left to the DM. I’m surprised there isn’t a table. Additionally, I’m not sure why missile range is not based, in part, on the strength of the attacker. Surely Kronk the Barbarian (Str 18/100) can out-throw Brother Fhlem of the Cloister (Str 9)?

As for Dexterity, the attack bonus/penalty is for initiative as well as “to hit”, something I had not realized… though since, as previously mentioned, we used a homebrew for initiative, this isn’t too big a surprise.

Gygax clearly loved his giants (consider how they show up in just about everything he wrote save for the Vault of the Drow line…) as there are several notes and modifiers for their use of thrown boulders etc. Boulders and other giant-thrown missiles (as well as siege weapon projectiles) ignore Dexterity bonuses to Armor (it is unclear if they keep the penalty, I’d assume they do)

Concealment/Cover: Here’s yet another frequently neglected bit of minutia- you get an armor class bonus if you are behind cover or obscured you get an AC bonus. I recall seeing this pop up in the occasional module (especially those based on tournament scenarios) but I can’t recall a time when cover or concealment was used in the average AD&D game. Perhaps we should have actually made use of it to avoid frequent painful death… There is nothing about cover providing a bonus to saving throws versus area attacks, which seems logical.

The remainder of the page is a litany of spot rules about grenade-like missiles (why can’t it just be “thrown containers of stuff”?). The main types are acid, holy/unholy water, oil, and poison.  I find it odd that the assumption is that each substance will always come in the same weight/volume and that will cover the same radius, etc.  Oh standardized relentlessness!

How ‘minute’ are these rules?  Consider-

Poison special is dependent upon whether or not the poison is a contact poison or if the container was hurled into the ingestive or respiratory orifice on the target creature.  In the later case, breakage is not necessary if the container was unstoppered; if stoppered check saving throw for breakage using the BLOW, NORMAL column of the ITEM SAVING THROW MATRIX.

One factor that I’m sure most gamers didn’t keep in mind that oil always weighs 1 pound, gravely limiting how many damn flasks you can carry about in the dungeon.

New words: [un]stoppered, ingestive, respiratory

Page 63: Encounter reactions, Avoiding, Parlay, Missile Discharge

I spent a little time checking out some online discussion of the AD&D initiative rules and determined that my confusion is not unique and that apparently there are contradictions between the DMG and the player’s handbook. No surprise there, I guess. If I ever want to run a game that is totally in the letter of the law, as it were, I’ll make sure to figure out what the hell Gygax was talking about but for now I’ll let sleeping jumbled of badly phrased rules lie.

Page 63 starts with a few clarification for initiative- how to handle players or monsters with multiple attacks per round (as opposed to multiple attacks; a fight who gets to go twice per round versus a manticore which can bite, paw, and throw tail spike simultaneously). The system is relatively smooth but I’m sure it was the bone of contention for some groups since it would seem that attackers with multiple attacks will always have the initiative versus slow opponents. Damage occurs sequentially in combat as well (despite that combat is an “average” of the round), giving a slight advantage to those who strike a killing blow and can thus avoid being harmed in turn.

As for Encounter Reaction… I guess we mostly roleplayed this aspect as well. The Dervishes of the Obsidian Death Cult didn’t parlay but the Leucrotta might if it was outnumbered or not particularly hungry. Of course, we can’t have decision like this being made willy-nilly by the players and DM, can we? Of course not- we need a table! Fortunately the table is not too arcane (being one of the relatively rare percentile tables) with modifiers due to charisma- paladins take note.

As for Fleeing, much of what is said here seems obvious- the DM is the final arbiter of if flight is successful, if you surprise an opponent you can flee instead of fighting, “obvious deterrents to pursuit, such as a pool of flaming oil… will modify monster behavior accordingly”, etc. Weirdly the base chance that a pursuer abandons the chase is an arbitrary 50%.
Parleying is left completely left to the DM based on the circumstances. Gygax’s DM versus player ideas do bubble up though- “it is common for player characters to attack first, parlay afterwards. It is recomended that you devise encounters which penalize such action so as to encourage parleying attempts — which will usually be fruitless, of course!” Wonderful… the DM as the ‘wire mother’.

“Awaiting Action. This is self-explanitory, not an attempt to parley but neither an attack. It is seldom utilized by experienced adventurers.”

Missile Discharge. (Please see your physician if you suffer from Missile Discharge.)

Didn’t we just hear that this combat system eschews complexity?  Take this one for size:

Assign probabilities to each participant in the melee or target group according to sheer numbers. In the case of participants of varyng size use half value for size “S”, normal value for  size “M”, and one and one-hlaf value for size “L” creatures which are not too much larger than man-size.  Total the values for each group and ratio one over the other.  If side A has 4 man-sized participants, and side B has 3 smaller than man-sized participants and 1 size “L” bugbear, the ratio id 4:3.  Then, according to the direction of the missile discharge, determine hits using the same ratio.  If 7 missiles were loosed, 4 would have a chance to hit side A, 3 side B.  In cases where the ration does not match the number of missiles, convert it to a percentage chance: 1/7 = 14%, depending on whether the missiles are coming from ahead of side A (14%) or from behind (15%).  Thus 4/7 = 56% or 60% chance per missile that it will hit side A.

Riiiigghhhttt…..

Happily, if you’re attacking a giant-sized creature, your allies can generally hit it with “accurate missiles which have a small area of effect”.  Look out Oliphaunts!

Tomorrow: Grenade-like missiles and more

Page 62: Surprise and Initiative

So, we’ve established that surprise is determined by opposed rolls from each side in combat (the book assumes only a two-way fight; I’ve witnessed more than a few three-way and up battles- hey, mind out of the gutter), higher rolls being better. An example is given via a table showing how the various permutations work out- generally the differences between the two rolls (one side is surprised via a roll of 1 or 2) is the number of segments (recall that each is 1/10th of a ’round’, aka 6 seconds).

In each segment of surprise all members of a party can attack as if it was a full round- a fighter with two attacks per round gets two attacks per surprise segment. That’s pretty damn deadly, especially for higher level fighters. Missile weapons are somewhat slower, being at a x3 rate of fire during surprise segments- I guess if you have 2 arrow attacks per round, you’d have an attack roughly every other segment? Magic users are still restricted by how many segments a particular spell takes to cast unfortunately.

All this is further modified by individual Dexterity bonuses (or penalties). Individuals with a high Dexterity bonus (up to +3 for a Dex of 18 ) are at a base of ‘4′ even if their party rolled as poorly as possible (a ‘1′), therefore some characters will almost never be ’surprised’ even in portions of their party are.

I’ve got to admit, even with two extra decades (a few degrees, countless other game systems) under my belt this system is opaque. Do unsurprised people in a surprised party act as if they’ve surprised their foes as well getting multiple attacks before regular combat starts? Hopefully this will become clearer.

Yet again we’ve got more evidence that AD&D was born of table-top gaming since we’ve got a long discussion of encounter distances- base range is 1d6+4 ‘inches’; recall that an ‘inch’ is 10 yards above ground and 10 underground. What I love are the six possible modifiers to that base range. They are:

1- Line of Sight. “If this in unobstructed and light in involved, the distance possible for determination of another party present is virtually infinite. It could likewise be sharply restricted due to obstructions.”

2- Noise. If you’re noisy (left undefined) the other party may run away or hide, letting them reduce the range of detection to 1d4″. Guess you shouldn’t have worn all that armor guys.

3- Actual area. Wow. This one boggles the mind. If you’re in a space smaller than what you roll, you’re encounter distance is reduced to fit within the space available. Gygax suggests making the range proportional to what is rolled but as constrained by the available space. I guess that is why all those trolls squeeze into 10 x 10 rooms (with their 1d6×1000 gold pieces in burlap sacks)

4- Planned or Unplanned Appearance. “The sudden precipitation of one party upon the other due to any number of factors (teleportation, dimension door spell, other magical means, a chute, etc.) will cause distances similar to that found when actual area is a factor.” You didn’t say…

5- Surprise. If you’re surprised, the range must be 1″ to 3″, apparently.

6- Light. Again something painfully obvious. You can only see people up to twice the radius of your light source. Infra- and ultravision again stop inexplicably at their maximum range.

Initiative:

When surprise is not a factor, the order of action is determined via initiative. Like surprise, a d6 is rolled for each side (didn’t Gyagx have several other options? d12 is not busy, I’m sure.) and is a collective determination without any modifiers from Dexterity. Gygax allows that you might have individuals roll their own initiatives but “what happens to this simple, brief determination if one party consists of 9 characters and 6 henchmen [who used henchmen? anyone?] and the other of 7 giants and 19 dire wolves”?

Here’s where the systems I used significantly differ from the standard. Surprise was almost never rolled for but was instead determined by circumstances- sometimes an initiative bonus but more often by granting a free round or two of action. Initiative itself was determined using a d10, each roll being individual and modified by Dexterity. The monsters tended to have a group roll or a roll for each type of creature of groups of creatures.

So, using the example from my first entry for Page 61 we’d have the following:

Myrkan (elven magic-user), Dhuroth (dwarven fighter), and Himbult the Grey (human thief) are all busy looking at the statue and can’t act for a round. Palinor (human cleric) and Urp-Ra (human monk) are guarding the corridor and also can’t act for a round since they were facing the other way but would be ready if any ghouls showed up. Ziblan the Arcane (gnome illusionist) is looking at inscriptions and can’t act for two rounds while Berrianli (halfling fighter/thief) is likewise distracted searching for secret doors. Truroth the Far Wanderer (human barbarian- his player pestered the DM and begged to use the class out of Dragon #63) is only distracted for a round since he’s looking to loot not study ancient runes.

The statues get to act for a round. Truroth, Ziblan, and Berrianli are all immediately in range of the statues and Truroth, being the dolt who activated the trap will be attacked by two. Ziblan is hit once for five points of damage, Berrianli is missed, and Truroth twice for a total of 9 points.

The next round all the active players make an initiative roll versus the statues. Myrkan rolls a five, modified to four with his initiative bonus. Dhuroth (a slow fellow) rolls a seven, modified to eight with his penalty. Himbult the Grey scores well- a one reduced to negative one by his high Dexterity. Palinor scores a five, Urp-Ra a ten, modified to nine by his Dex. Finally Truroth rolls a three (fortunately for him). Poor Ziblan and Berrianli can do nothing this round but hope not to be hit…

Next time- More initiative, encounter reactions, avoidance, and missile attack! Busy!

Page 61 (cont.)- Actually talking about Combat!

(Assume my usual excuses…)

So, how the hell did AD&D combat work?

First off, it is not a system designed to replicate every swung sword or loosed arrow but instead is an aggregator (I realize I’m appropriating a bit of terminology from computing and twisting it a great deal)- the combat system breaks fighting into discrete melee rounds (called “melee rounds” oddly enough) that generate cumulative results for a whole host of attacks, feints, parries, dodges, etc.

Similarly the august “hit point” is not a one-to-one indicator of physical well-being but is instead is a combination of both actual injury level and your ability to dodge or otherwise move out of the way of an injury.

The reason for this abstraction is Gygax’s interest in player enjoyment:

“The location of a hit or wound, the sort of damage done, sprains, breaks, and dislocations are not the stuff of heroic fantasy.”

“Are crippling disabilities and yet more ways to meet instant death desirable in an open-ended, episodic game where participants seek to identify wit lovingly detailed and developed player-character personae?  No likely!”

“The system of AD&D combat maximizes the sense of hand-to-hand combat and the life-and-death character of melee without undue complications.  Because of this, you, the DM, are enabled to conduct such portions of a game without endless resort to charts, tables, procedure clarifications, and over-lengthy time requirements.  Players, on the other hand, will not become bored with endless dice rolling and rules consulting, but at the same time will have a reasonable chance to seek escape for their characters should the affair go badly.

Now this may strike readers as amusing, considering that the discussion of the combat rules occupy the next twenty pages or coming from the author of that hallmark of capricious character death The Tomb of Horrors, but I think I get his point.  Remember that his point of reference isn’t other RPGs since, when he was writing this, there weren’t any.  Instead he is comparing complexity to miniatures gaming.  Having seen the rules, addenda, and errata for some systems, AD&D’s twenty-odd pages of rules aren’t all that substantial.  Anyone out there familiar enough with those games to give the rest of us an idea of how long they tended to be in that era?

For my own sake, I will reproduce that steps for encounter and combat and occasionally make reference to this page…

1.  Determine if either or both parties are SURPRISED.

2.  Determine distance, if unknown, between the parties.

3.  If both parties are unsurprised, or equally surprised, determine INITIATIVE for that round.

4.  Determine the results of whatever actions are decided upon by the party with initiative:

A.  Avoid engagement (flee, slam door, use magic to escape, etc.) if possible.

B.  Attempt to parley.

C.  Await action by other party.

D.  Discharge missiles or magical devices attack or cast spells or turn undead.

E.  Close to striking range, or charge.

F.  Set weapons against possible opponent charge.

G.  Strike blows with weapons, to kill or subdue.

H.  Grapple or hold

5.  Determine the results of whatever actions are decided upon by the party which lost the initiative (as per A. through H. above)

6.  Continue each melee round by determination of distance, initiative, and action until melee ends due to fleeing, inability to continue, or death of one or both parties.

Wow.  That sounds easy.  Let us handle each topic in turn, starting with…

Surprise!

“The term surprise is basically self-explanatory.  A surprised party is caught unawares or unprepared.”  Right off the bat we are informed that each melee round can be further sub-divided into segments, though the exact number of them is not stated (it is ten, by the way), but can be inferred since each segment is said to be six seconds and each round is a minute in length.   I though we weren’t going to worry about moment-by-moment thrusts, et al?

If your opponent is surprised and you are not, you may act before them, the greater the surprise the longer you may act.  Surprise is determined via an opposed d6 roll (each side rolls), and is modified by dexterity, class, and race.  The base chance for being surprised in 2 in 6 but the parties use the surprise of their best member (an elven ranger with a high Dex is a good thing to have).

Tomorrow (really, honestly): More on Surprise and Initiative

New words: melee, personae