Question About Combat in 1e

I never played 1e very much. And while I played a lot of 2e, I never DMed until 3e. In 1e and 2e my DM took care of tracking most of the combat stuff, as I was young and really had little clue what the rules were about and do not remember much of what I did know. At the time, I thought burning hands made your hands look like the human torch's when he shouted "flame on!" So I never paid much attention to the minutiae of combat. I simply did whatever the DM would allow me to do. Anyway...

I've been going back over the rules of 1e (my new favorite) and have a question about how actions were resolved in combat. Combat rounds being divided into segments and initiative determining what segment the party acts on, it seems like it would be possible to cast a spell that didn't take effect until the next round if one happened to roll poorly for initiative. For example, the PCs roll a 6 for initiative and act on the 6th segment. If the wizard casts a 7th level spell taking 7 segments to cast, would the spell not go off on the 2nd segment of the next round?

I am also confused about exactly how much time certain actions take. I am clear on movement being your rate per segment, but what about attacking? It seems as if you are limited to only attacking during that round if you attack but how do you decide when the attacks take place? Simply by initiative order?

Help a n00b out!

airwalkrr said:

I've been going back over the rules of 1e (my new favorite) and have a question about how actions were resolved in combat. Combat rounds being divided into segments and initiative determining what segment the party acts on, it seems like it would be possible to cast a spell that didn't take effect until the next round if one happened to roll poorly for initiative.

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Yes, that's correct; it would be possible.

After re-reading the question, I want to amend that. When saying "Yes," I was thinking of a surprise situation, where you have a number of segments to act. If your enemy is surprised for two segments and you cast meteor swarm (casting time of 9 segments), your spell would go off in the seventh segment of the "next round" (i.e. the first full round of the combat). However, in a round with no surprise segments, your initiative roll doesn't necessarily indicate the segment that you will begin your action -- it's just an abstract measure of who has the initiative. The ADDICT document's spell casting examples show how it works.

In any case, some of the higher level spells are quite difficult to cast in combat because they take so many segments to complete, so there's a good chance of spell disruption before you're finished.

It seems as if you are limited to only attacking during that round if you attack but how do you decide when the attacks take place? Simply by initiative order?

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Basically, yes. However, mutliple attacks can introduce an exception (see "Initiative For Creatures With Multiple Attack Routines" on pg 62 of the DMG). Also, weapon speed is used as the determining factor in the case of an initiative tie when both combatants are using weapons. Charges are also an exception, since the combatant with the longest reach/weapon will strike first.

For a definitive, by-the-book approach to 1E combat, check out DMPrata's ADDICT document (link is to a PDF). Note that the 1E rules can be interpreted a couple of different ways, but ADDICT is pretty comprehensive.

Also, the 1E grognards at Dragonsfoot and Knights-n-Knaves are pretty good at fielding 1E rules questions.

It'd be worth asking this question on Dragonsfoot.org

Initiative in AD&D is... confusing.

Cheers!

A few weeks back I was at my folk's, where my old ADD and 2e are. I was flipping through the ADD DMG and was surprised by how many combat rules I (and everyone I ever played with) ignored and never used. I though I was reading 3e with manuevers like flanking.

airwalkrr said:

I've been going back over the rules of 1e...

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The short story is that the full set of rules in the 1E DMG is actually self-inconsistent. If you ask EGG himself for clarification (I've done so), he'll say that what he gamed with personally bears little resemblence to what got printed in the DMG.

You must streamline the 1E DMG rules, because they're inherently contradictory. Recommend: Don't worry about segments (except for surprise segments). Assume any spell occurs within the round of casting.

The ADDICT doc is very useful. Thank you!

Mighty Veil said:

A few weeks back I was at my folk's, where my old ADD and 2e are. I was flipping through the ADD DMG and was surprised by how many combat rules I (and everyone I ever played with) ignored and never used. I though I was reading 3e with manuevers like flanking.

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In fact, I think this is a major reason you hear a lot of comments about how 1E was much less rules intensive than 3E. It's not that it was, it's just that most people ignored much of 1E and so the AD&D game they played was less rules intensive.

(I will note I was in the group that ignored many of the rules. I never touched weapon speeds, unarmed combat rules, etc).

airwalkrr said:

The ADDICT doc is very useful. Thank you!

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You're welcome.

Glyfair said:

In fact, I think this is a major reason you hear a lot of comments about how 1E was much less rules intensive than 3E. It's not that it was, it's just that most people ignored much of 1E and so the AD&D game they played was less rules intensive.

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I think that's true; 1E combat is actually quite rules-intensive, IMO. It's a different set of rules and complications from 3E, but no less complex, for being different. I think many people played 1E more like B/X or BECMI. My early AD&D games generally used Holmes Basic as the basis for determining initiative and combat, with AD&D being kind of a supplement. Eventually, my 1E game evolved to a more BtB approach. Ultimately, though, I found I prefered the B/X or BECMI approach for handling combat turns.

AD&D: the game where the wielder of a dagger prays for a tie on initiative with the wielder of a pike!

(Result: Dagger attacks three times, Pike attacks once).

It's interesting to look at Hackmaster's take on initiative.

Cheers!