1 minute combat rounds

Bullgrit · Oct 10, 2011

In AD&D1, combat rounds were 1 minute long, by the rules as written. Did you play it that way, or did you use a different time scale for combat rounds?

Bullgrit

billd91 · Oct 10, 2011

I answered 1 minute but for the most part it didn't really matter unless you were keeping track of time for some other purpose. Within the bounds of the combat, it really wouldn't matter if each round were 1 minutes, 10 minutes, or 30 seconds. Rounds were just tools to manage the flow of actions and the time could be perfectly arbitrary as long as they enabled you to pace out the actions the way you wanted to.

With respect to some actions, like picking locks, 1 minute rounds work better than 3e/PF 6 second rounds. With respect to trading blows in combat with a single opponent, 1 minute strikes me as way too long. Moving about a large scale battlefield, fighting a mook here and there where each is dispatched in one round before you move on to another opponent, the 1 minute works better.

Aurumvorax · Oct 10, 2011

If you changed the scale then spells and other durations would be screwed up. I don't see any reason to change the 1 minute rounds because the game was designed around them.

the Jester · Oct 10, 2011

I'll grant it was a little weird, especially when a combat would take 10 rounds, but yeah, one round in 1e = one minute.

Dausuul · Oct 10, 2011

We used 1 round = 1 minute, mainly because spell durations were predicated on that. It never sat very well, and I for one was very happy to see 3E reduce round length to 6 seconds.

Huw · Oct 10, 2011

One minute combat rounds, like armour protecting from being hit rather than being damaged, is one of those weird conventions that doesn't make sense when you read it, but works surprisingly well in play.

I remember one AD&D combat we did which was going badly. Half the party were paralysed by ghouls. The other half held off the ghouls long enough that the paralysis wore off. For low level, that felt epic. I also remember a combat where the party kept a couple of giants at bay while the magic-user summoned an elemental (casting time: 1 turn=10 minutes) to deal with them.

(un)reason · Oct 10, 2011

We were always using a hodgepodge of basic and advanced D&D stuff, so we stuck with the BD&D 10 second rounds.

Crothian · Oct 10, 2011

We used the one minute rounds way back then and now a days in the new 1e campaign I'm in we are still using the one minute for one round rule. I've never seen any reason to change that.

Bullgrit · Oct 10, 2011

(un)reason said:
We were always using a hodgepodge of basic and advanced D&D stuff, so we stuck with the BD&D 10 second rounds.

This was my experience, too. It's affect/relationship with any other rule or situation never even came to mind.

Bullgrit

Vegepygmy · Oct 11, 2011

Dausuul said:
We used 1 round = 1 minute, mainly because spell durations were predicated on that. It never sat very well, and I for one was very happy to see 3E reduce round length to 6 seconds.

It was always 1 round = 1 minute for me, and even back then I thought that was way too long. 1 round = 6 seconds makes a lot more sense to me.