Page 76: Turning (concl.) and Psionics

Let’s finish up turning, shall we?

A couple of important notes are given here about evil clerics (I wonder how that looks on a business card?) and their ability to turn paladins.  I guess you can’t always send a paladin to do a cleric’s job.  Also- I’d forgotten that clerics only affect 1d12 undead at a time.  It is unclear if this is of each class of undead (as I’d believe) or in toto.  The rules also seem to say that once you fail to turn some undead, you don’t get another bite at the (rotting) apple.

Also evil clerics can control undead rather than turning them, a sort of necromantic version of the pied piper, I suppose.  This does explain why evil clerics always have loads of undead minions- it is not just an aesthetic decision.   I’ve always preferred the Death Master personally.

As ever, Gygax warns not to tinker with the table, though he admits the progression of skill is uneven – to give lower-level clerics a chance against tough undead and then to make “the worst evil creature” harder to turn.  A little lee-way is offered to adjust thing but “do not otherwise alter the table as it could prove to be a serious factor in balance – weakening or strengthening clerics too greatly.”  Yep, you get sticks to snakes and slow poison and suddenly you can conquer the world…

IV.A Psionic VS. Psionic in Mental Combat

I guess it is confession time…

I’ve never really quite understood how psionics worked.  Sure, I ran (briefly) a psionicist in a short-lived 2nd. Ed. game, but I never even dabbled in the 1st Ed. rules.  Sure, I fought some mind flayers, and have an adventuring companion or two who mind blasted their way through life, but I never took the time to actually read and comprehend the system.

I blame the thought eater.  It looks like a zombie platypus and it eats your brain.  If I was to die in a dungeon, I’d much rather have it be at the hands (well, claws, talons, tentacle, or amorphous blob more likely) of something that didn’t look so ridiculous.  I know the flumph is widely mocked, and the modrons derided, but I personally could never take the thought eater seriously.

This is a "monster"

I will confess that, given what he was working with, Trampier did a reasonable job… but there are limits to what the artist can do.

So what do we have here then?  Well the X axis of this chart has various “defense modes” while the Y axis has “attack modes” grouped by the psionic  strength of the attacker (1 to 25, 26 to 50, etc.).  Since the psionic rules are in the PHB, I won’t go into them, but I will note that I always thought “Tower of Iron Will” sounded pretty cool.  Perhaps I should go read the rules and try to make sense of the table…

New words: Ego, Id, Insinuation

Page 75: Assasination, Turning, and Monster Matrices

Sweet potato pie, another page of tables.

We have three tables and a chart today, I will take each in turn.

I.D.2- Assassins’ Table for Assinations

This bad boy was never used in my gaming life, since almost no one ever ran assassins and in those rare cases they did, we made them play out the attempt rather than just rolling some dice.  The chances for low level assassins are pretty poor- they’ve just got a 50% to assassinate  a 0 or 1st level character-  but they eventually get much better.  I still don’t get the point- why do this rolling for anyone, especially a player character.  You don’t have a “plunder the tomb” skill roll for thieves, or a “summon the elder spirit” for magic-users.  Methinks Gygax just didn’t want to deal with assassins.  Weirdly there is a note that this table can be used for all character for attacks against “helpless opponents”.  Watch out tiny kittens, I guess.

II. Attack Matrix for Monsters

Why dear lord is this thing burried 1/3 of the way into the book?  This table, along with saving throws, was the most useful part of the whole damn book.  Monsters have a slightly better chance to hit than fighters.  Progression is similar, 2 points ever two levels- a 10 hit die monster has a THAC0 of 10, while a 10th level fighter has a 12 (or 11, if using the graded progress option).  Monsters, until they are slain, have their lairs plundered, and are gutted either as a trophy, for material components, or in a search for swallowed gems and rings, get all the breaks.

Our chart follows, providing monsters of a certain hit die to hit monsters normally hit only by magic weapons.  Ogres (4+1 and up) can hit the various lycanthropes (+1 weapons required); an intellect devourer (6+6) can hit a stone golem (+2 required), a blue slaad (8+4) can hit Orcus (+3 required), and a formorian giant (13+1-3) might strike a tertian (a variety of hierach modron, +4 required).  I guess if you want to fight gods you just need some dinosaurs- the apatosaurs has 36 hit dice.  It is unclear if certain creatures that have very specialize ‘to hit’ rules (such as Demi-liches) can be harmed by high HD monsters.  I’d presume not.

III. Matrix for Clerics Affecting Undead, et al.

Another oft-used table.  I have a personal fondness for the ‘D’ result, where the undead is vaporized in a flash.  “Hey there, mixed group of skeletons and zombies- check out my holy symbol!”

Tomorrow: Undead turning (concl.), PSIONICS… save me now.

Page 74: Combat tables

This is one part of the book that I know I referred to very often, though not as much as the treasure section.  Here we have combat tables for clerics (and druids and monks), fighters (and paladins, rangers, bards, and 0 level halflings and humans), magic-users (and illusionists), and thieves (and assassins).  The X axis for each table is the range of armor classes -10 to 10, with the Y axis being grouped together levels (different for each class grouping).  Most players rapidly hacked the ratio out of the tables and used THAC0, To Hit Armor Class 0 and the formula THAC0 + opponent armor class rather than constantly looking at these tables.

In reexamining these tables, I notice a few things- fighters have the option of progressing at 1 point improvement per level rather than 2 points per two (i.e. a 1st level fighter hits AC 3 on rolls of 17 and above, while a 3rd level fighter does so at 15 and above); I always assumed that option was just a house rule with our group.  There is a reminder, under magic-users, that their “to hit adjustment” for missiles (“-5 at long range, -2 at medium range” and it is repeated under each table, although they are adjacent!) is only for “normal, not magical” ones.  Like anyone playing an M-U doesn’t know a magic missile doesn’t need a to hit roll?  The damage multipliers for backstabbing (thieves and assassins only) are also repeated.

I do find it odd that certain races (elves, dwarves, gnomes, and half-orcs) all are considered to be by default 1st level characters (or in the case of half-orcs, monsters).  Only we weak humans and hobbits halflings can have no level and no class.

Marking and damage: There are check marks (probably from that villain ‘Joe’) by the heading of each table.

Art: The page is split by an illustration of a scimitar, the blade facing up and to the left.  The pommel is a stylize bird head (best guess).  Across the guard is are the initials DCSIII, meaning this is another illustration by David Sutherland.  It looks a little like this:

Sort of the right scimitar

Page 73: Weaponless Combat (conl.) and COMBAT TABLES!

We have charts people!

Unfortunately there is a little more unarmed combat to wrap up; grappeling damage working in an almost identical way to pummeling, save the addition of various holds (was Gygax a wrestler in school?), from waist clinch to strangle hold.  The best result is, as always stunning your foe for a round.  RoleMaster critical tables this ain’t gang.

As for overbearing, better known as tackling, you’ve got again the system of initiative, determine chance to hit, results table.  Damage is substantially less than pummeling or grappeling, but the impairment to the victim can be much greater- no one wants to fight from a prone position in AD&D.

The section concludes with the odds and ends that didn’t fit earlier… notes on multiple opponents (all the halfings grab the ogre!), rules for monsters (aren’t they almost all ‘unarmed’?), unarmed vs. armed combat, and monks.  I can see why these rules were frequently replaced by house-rules.  It is nice to see monks can always use their regular punch skills, even if grappled etc.  I do wonder about the note that creatures always attack to overbear (except, oddly bears- they grapple); do I ignore the claw damage of the giant badger in favor of it tackling the party?

At long last (long since I took that six-month+ break) we have finally reached the combat tables.  Now here is part of the book I referred to frequently.  Page 73 serves a prelude to the giant tables that come tomorrow, with an index of the tables and a chart saying the Armor Class granted by various types of armor a la the Players Handbook.

We have four “attack matrices” listed:

I. Attack Matrices for Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Half-Elves, Halflings, Half-Orcs, and Humans

A. Clerics, Druids, and Monks

B. Fighters, Paladins, rangers, and 0 Level Halflings and Humans

C. Magic-Users and Illusionists

D. 1. Thieves and Assassins

2. Assasssins’ table for Assassinations

II. Attack Matrix for Monsters

III. Matrick for Clerics Affecting Undead

IV. Matrices for Psionic Combat (I’ll leave these be for now)

A brief note on armor- it is interesting that the AD&D armor continuum is totally ahistorical, with Roman ’splint’ mixed with Carolingian chain and late Renaissance field plate.  I guess if we’ve got wizards and purple worms, who gives a wererat’s ass about these details.

Tomorrow: Four tables and a big scimitar

New words: matrix/-ices, psionic

Page 72: Non-leathal and weaponless combat

Let’s get ready to pummel!

Have you ever wondered why people have said that AD&D was overburdened by seemingly arbitrary rules?  Today is a case in point…

There are three “recommended” modes of unarmed attack (are there other Gygax had some moral opposition to?  Harsh language?).  These are PUMMELING, GRAPPLING, and OVERBEARING.

In pummeling (“battering an opponent into unconsciousness”) you have the following steps:

A) Determine the attacker and defender’s initial bonus/penalty.  How do I derive this number?  Well, calculate the number of columns over the individual uses on the “Attack Matrix”- so an 11th level fighter has a base value of 7 (I assume I count the 0 level column), an 11th level thief has 3,  an M-U a 3 as well, and a cleric a 4.  To this value a secretly rolled die is added (1d6 for attacker, 1d4 for defender).  I assume that this number is rerolled during each round of pummeling but this is not stated specifically.

This value can be used to either increase your own chance to hit during pummeling or to improve your results from said pummeling; alternately you can use your points to reduce your oppents chances of the same.  Everything make sense so far?

Next, you must determine initiative, as per the usual rules (phew).

This is followed by a determination of the base score to hit.  Variable here include your Dexterity, high strength, Armor Class, and speed of opponent.  The final result is a % base chance to hit.  Each round of pummeling combat there are two pummeling attacks, the chance to hit each round is the base % modified by another list of variables- strength, if using a “mailed fist”, “a wooden butt”, or “metal pommel”, speed of opponent (again), defender Dexterity, defender Armor, and type of helmet.

Once you’ve figured all this out, you roll on the table:

Adjusted score – - – - – - – - Result – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – Damage

under 01 – - – - – - – - – - – - – - Miss, foe may counter – - – - – - – - None

01-20  – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - Ineffective blow, strike again  – - – - None

21-40  – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - Glancing blow, off balance*  – - – - -  2+ strength bonus

41-60  – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - Solid punch, strike again  – - – - – - -  4+ strength bonus

61-80  – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - Solid punch, off balance*  – - – - – - -  6+ strength bonus

81-100  – - – - – - – - – - – - – - -Solid punch, strike again – - – - – - – - 8+ strength bonus

over 00   – - – - – - – - – - – - – -Crushing blow, opponent stunned – 10+ stength bonus**

* Series ends, determination of next strike must be made

** Opponent unable to attack for 1 full round

Damage is 25% “real”, 75% heals at 1 point per round.

Now that is what I call cumbersome.

As for grappling (“holding the opponent and rendering him or her helpless”), we have much of the same- determine “variables”, initiative, base chance, etc.  Happily those continue onto the next page, so that will wait until tomorrow.

Tomorrow: Grappling and overbearing and then… COMBAT TABLES!

Page 71: More melee- Meet Gutboy Barrelhouse

This page starts off with a discussion of how the Dungeon Master should handle combat, in particular how players announce their actions.  Gygax takes some pleasure at pointing out how long exactly it might take to throw some oil, drink a potion of invisibility, then sneak up on a foe.  I imagine him chuckling and saying something about ’segments.’  I wonder if anyone used his suggestion of making the players write down their actions at the start of the turn… what is this, a war game?

Next up we have a passage I read and reread in order to understand how combat worked (though I clearly ignored much of what was here in favor of my house-ruled D&D/AD&D hybrid).  I had, until starting this project, forgotten how, shall we say, colorful Gygax’s character names are.

Without further ado… Example Melee!

In this corner, weighing in at over 6700 gold pieces, it is party A!  From the tough streets of Phlonx, Aggro the Axe!  See his weapon fly!  Representing the Mystical Masters of Mayhem is Abner!  There is nothing ‘lil about his spellbook, ladies and gentlemen!  To his right is that Divine Dealer of Deadly Drubbings, Arkayn, cleric of Szudo-Nihm.  And last, but certainly not least is the lovely, the leathal Arlanni!  Watch our or she’ll back stab your heart.

And in this corner, with a combined experience point total of over 64,000 is party B.  First the newcomer- he may not be allowed to wear armor, but he’s got a lot of heart, it s Balto the Monk!  His name may be stupid, but don’t tell him that because his spells are deadly- Blastum the Mage!  Next up the that master of multi-classed murderous mayhem, Barjin.  If his spells don’t get you his sword will.  Finally, we have the Dwarf fighter who needs no introduction- Gutboy (-boy -boy -boy) Barrelhouse (-house -house -house)!

Party A won the surprise so they act first- remember kids, only losers parlay.  Arlanni, sling at the ready, takes a shot at Blastum and- oooh, a sling and a miss.  Meanwhile Aggro has closed in on the scrappy newcomer Balto and clips him- first blood for the kid with AC 10, and with a hand axe, no less.  Somebody call a cleric!

What’s this?  Spells flying from Abner and Arkayn- Abner falling back on his old standby magic missle and Arkayn mixing things up with a command- trying to take out B team’s lead player Gutboy.  The missles hit (ouch!) but he makes his save versus the command- and by the look in his eyes Gutboy will make Arkayn pay for that cheap trick.  That’s right folks, I’ve got a million of them.

Meanwhile, uh, I’m not sure how this happened up Arlanni is setting down her crossbow- get we get an instant replay here, I swore she was using a sling- and is pulling out her sword.  Balto, you’ve got to give it to him, ladies and gentlemen, the kid with only four hit points is not running away, with his reaction adjustment gets to act this segment, holding off Aggro’s next attack.  In the back row, Arkayn is readying his mace while Abner unrolls a scroll- I wonder what’s he’s got on there?

And it is time for initiative and this time B has the upper hand.  Balto with a swing and miss on Aggro, never bring a staff to a sword fight, folks, he never had a chance with those penalties.  Gutboy and Bajin have their sights set on Arkayn and -0h!- the double whammy!  I guess the cleric should start saying his prayers!  And what’s this?  Blastum has lived up to his name and has felled Arlanni with a shocking grasp spell.  Bestill her beating heart!

Don’t count party A out yet though- Aggro keeps thing even, nailing Balto a second time and with his +1 axe there is no doubt that the plucky monk is down for the count.  Guess he’s a Grandmaster of Pushing Daisies…  Meanwhile Arkayn isn’t taking his wounds laying down- who would with the combat penalties for fighting prone- and takes a swing at Gutboy, but unless the Dwarf has an Invisible Stalker, connects only with air.

Oh my!  Ladies and gentlemen, we have a game-changer!  Abner has just launched a we across most of the ten by ten corridor (got to love the feel of these traditional ball parks) and he’s caught Gutboy, Barjin, and Blastum in its sticky tendrils as well as his teammate Arkayn- there will be some harsh words in the locker room, no doubt.  Poor Blastum couldn’t ever complete his spell… should have used a wand, buddy.  And we can see Aggro, closing in on poor Gutboy who is still struggling with the web… call Mrs. Barrelhouse and tell her she’s a widow.   It is all over except for the looting…

New words: stickler, vein (in a non-circulatory sense), dauntless, dithering, hastening

Page 70: Melee

We’re back, and still in the middle of combat…

Depending on your position vis a vis the target, attackers can acrue  certain bonuses- flank attacks negate the shield, rear flank attacks also ignore any Dexterity bonus to Armor Class, rear attacks are the same at +2 to hit, stunned and prone again the same but at +4 (this includes motionless opponents, so your crossbow weilding assassin is in luck), sleepers/paralyzed/immobilized foes automatically slain (see the discussion page 67).  The invisible are generally in luck though- they always get the benefit of shield and dex and they can only be attacked if they can somehow be detected, at which point you’re still at a -4.

I am a little confused by a note regarding “To Hit” adjustments, suggesting that a natural ‘20′ is an automatic hit.  I’ll have to look that one up.

The entire paragraph “Who Attacks Whom” doesn’t make much sense: “it is generally not possible to select a specific opponent in mass melee“.  Really?  The example on the next page has characters doing just that.  Should we roll dice to see who I hit each round instead?

Up next is a discussion of melee attacks against spell casters and as you may have already guessed, any time a spell caster is successfully hit, the spell is interrupted and (thank you Jack Vance) “LOST”.  I’m curious if this is true for spell-like effects or if the attack hits but cannot hurt the opponent- a vampire Magic-User hit by a mundane sling stone, for example.

Attacking with two weapons- I’m looking now at a certain Drow Cavalier- is possible but the second weapon must be a dagger or hand ax (we’re still pre-Unearthed Arcana here people), and baring some Dexterity modifier, you are at -2/-4 to hit.  I guess that berzerker in the Monster Manual is legitimate (page 67 for your readingthedmg completists)…

Breaking off from melee isn’t that hard, though your opponent does get a free attack at your rear (hence the term “rear-guard action” obviously) but then you can use the exciting pursuit rules we’ve just discussed.

Finally our grab-bag today concludes with rules for monks and their hand-to-hand (quite literally) attacks.  We’ve not talked of monks too much; they were always a weird addition to a faux-Medieval setting (since these are more Shao-lin than Cistercian).  I can imagine campaign setting where they fit just fine (they sort of work in Greyhawk via the Scarlet Brotherhood) but in others I can’t see how they’d make sense.  I suppose the same is true of questing knights, druids, and other cultural-specific classes, but I digress.  The important question here is, how big an opponent can I punch as a 6th level monk and have hopes of stunning (or even killing) them?  (The answer 7′4″, 550 lbs.)  Sorry, even the Grandmaster of Flowers can’t kill a storm giant with a punch (unless the punch is spiked with Type E ingestive poison… I’ll be here all week, tip your kobolds).  Just so you know, you can’t stun something that is not alive or is a golem (they’re alive?) or a doppelganger.   Fortunately you still do your normal damage (if you can hurt them),  just watch our for the undead…

Keith Herber, R.I.P.

'Doc'

Though he has nothing to do with AD&D or the Dungeon Master’s Guide, I wanted to take a moment to mark the passing of Keith Herber, author of some of Call of Cthulhu’s (and rpg’s) finest supplements, including Arkham Unveiled (a personal favorite) and The Fungi From Yuggoth.  We had recently chatted via email regarding a scenario I was writing for his new company Miskatonic River Press.  I always found him to be a charming, friendly, genuinely nice guy who was very encouraging to me as a writer.  He will be missed.

I don’t see an obituary for him yet, but people are posting comments on Yog-Sothoth.com.   My condolences for his friends, his wife, and his son.

Goodnight, Herbert Hike, wherever you are.

{Update 3/17 – his obituary has been published.}

Page 69: Pursuit

Just to get it out of the way…

Pursuit (outdoor):

Moving out of the dungeon (what ever will we do with out 10′ poles?), we now turn to consider pursuit on land.  Base  chance to evade a pursuer is 80%, modified by speed and size of parties invovled, terrain, and available light.  The modifiers all seem sensible and the language of the discussion on “available light” implicitly takes into account infravision and ultravision (though if we recall those only work out to 120′ (which I think means yards outdoors)).

Example:

Ziphlac the Purple Warlock and his mercenaries (twenty in all) are chasing Flippy Lippinstopper and his merry band of halfling thieves (five total, since one was eaten by an ettin) who were trying to steal Ziphlan’s Chalice of Oblivion.  The chase is through light woods at twilight.

Base chance: 80%

Modifiers: Pursuer is faster -20%, scrub +10%, pusued party <6 +10%, twilight -10%

…which mean every hour the foul warlock has a 30% chance of catching our band of hobbits halflings, though in the next hour the chance drops to 20% as night falls…

Let’s try that again-

Khujunk the Barbarian is being chased by the Legionares of Blood (something about a giant gem, some deflowered maiden, and a slain Priest-King).  The chase occurs on plains (-50%), in daylight (-30%), he’s alone (+10%), and is being chased by over a hundred angry zealots (+10%).  Our wily barbarian has a 20% chance to evade pursuit.

Gygax explicitly tells the DM to adjudicated matters of fatigue since the are too many variables to consider… which must mean there are a hell of a lot of them if he found them unweildly.

Melee:

First off, I remember asking my parents what on earth a melee was (it was not in my little dictionary).  They had me crack open the titanic dictionary I’d never realized we had, starting me on a few months of constant paging through.  Zymurgy, as it so often is, was the last word.

Did you know “melee does not include such facets of combt as missle fire, spell casting, etc.”?  It only referrs to the close-quarters aspect of battle, which I guess this is the COMBAT chapter rather than the MELEE chapter.

There is a strong relationship between the discussion here and using miniatures- x number of opponents can attack a y sized foe, though there is an admission that the number of possible variables to these guidelines.  For some reason (I’ll leave it to you to figure out) only Official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons miniatures should be used, otherwise the figure might not conform to the Monster Manual.  Oh no!  (And this coming from a guy who made up many of his monsters from weird Chinese toys…)

Diagrams:

Four different attempts (in “grid figures”) to demonstrate the relationship between the defender and their front, flanks, and rear, cut into six segments, the top two use hexagons, the bottom using squares.

Page 68: Pursuit and Evasion of Pursuit

I must confess more than a little of this seems obvious, pursuit wise.  Another remnant of the “rules for everything” ideal of wargaming perhaps?

The rules for pursuit are mostly logical- if you are slower than your prey you give up quickly, if you are faster you catch up unless you lose sight of them or are too exhausted to continue, etc.- but some of the distance factors seem rather arbitrary, 100 feet here, 200 feet there.  I suppose this is due to the utter inability of most beings other than rangers to track (curse you, lack of skill system!).  Those invisible stalkers have to be good for something, eh?

As for modifiers, I’m not sure it needs to be said that a physical barrier will halt pursuit.  Gee, those gnolls won’t chase me through a wall of fire, huh?  The specific percentage chance that pursuers will give up if I drop food or treasure is amusing.  What if the ogre magi has a rarefied palate and won’t stop for anything less than cockitrice fois gras?

We also have a discussion of what happens if there is some fork in the path and/or dungeon which again seems to be solely common sense with die rolls attached (“Thus, at a branching passage where there are 3 possible ways which could have been taken, there is a basic 2 in 3 chance that the pursuer(s) will take the wrong passage.)

Finally, for the 10 x 10 obsessives, you cannot map while either pursuing or being pursued.  Time to crack out the rules for being lost.

Art:

We have an illustration by David Sutherland.  This one depicts a fighter pounding in terror at a closed door.  Approaching across the flooded (flooding?) room is a skeleton.  I always liked this one, a sort of in media res of what I imagined to be some sort of nasty trap sprung.  “After the door seals the room will begin to fill with water in 10 rounds.  A secret door in the floor will open after the second round, allowing a skeleton to climb up from below and attack anyone trapped within…”

This is the first bit of Sutherland art since the cover… well, the original cover, as listed in the text, not the actual cover.  I know I’d read that he had died back in 2005, but I found this obituary particularly moving.  Clearly another fine moment for Wizards of the Coast.

New words: citronella (I kid not.)

Tomorrow: Pursuit (concluded!) and melee