1 minute combat rounds

[Ashtagon]

The late GG did note that the single attack per round didn't reflect the one swing you had, but rather, it represented the one good chance to hit that you had. Unfortunately, the time paradigm breaks down wrt ranged combat.

I'd probably be cool with 10-20 second rounds though.

 

[Water Bob]

We used the 1 minute combat round, and it never did bother me. It's a product of D&D's wargame roots. That single (or even multiple) attack didn't simulate a single blow. It is an abstract throw, not unlike one die throw for a squadron of tanks that meets an enemy unit on the hex board. One attack throw resloved the overall outcome of several hours of WWII combat. Likewise, one attack throw (or a couple) abstractly resolved what happened during the melee combat.

If you think about it, hit points actually make more sense when you're talking about one minute combat rounds and abstract dice throws.

But, there's always contradictions, right? If you look closely at 1E D&D, you'll see that the melee rounds are abstract and one minute long. But, for distance weapons, like bows, the attack throw actually simulated a single attack! So, D&D incorporated both abstract attacks and simulationist attacks.

One attack throw for a character wielding a longsword would represent all sorts of lunges and feints and parries....and several attacks, during that one minute of fighting.

But, for a bow, that one attack throw represented what the archer did with that single arrow--a pure simulation of letting loose one arrow.

Spells,too, were on the "simulationist" scale rather than the "abstract" scale used for melee.

1E is an interesting beast. To this day, the game does not fail to intrigue me. With all its worts, it's still one of my favorite editions of the game.

(Probably because of its worts!)

 

[Andras]

Don't forget that if you had surprise you would get multiple 'rounds' worth of attacks. That goes away if you drop to 6 second turns.

 

[howandwhy99]

I use 1 minute rounds now when initiative is accounted for. 10 minute turns and larger when it isn't.

Psionic combat is one of the few shorter actions tracked, but it happens near instantaneously and all subjects take their turns simultaneously.

 

[MortonStromgal]

We used to roll a d4 to see how many arrows you fired in the 1 min. It got a bit strange when you got multiple attacks and you rolled less arrows than you hit with, i dont remember how we handled that.

 

[airwalkrr]

We always used 1 minute rounds, but never really thought about it that much. Combat was a true abstraction in AD&D for my group. The DM often decided what was an appropriate action for your character to accomplish on any given turn. We always thought he was pretty fair too. We didn't pull out the books during combat back in those days. By comparison 3e+ really made combat into a heavily technical system and our old DM didn't like it at all. He eventually stopped playing with our group shortly after we converted to 3e.

I prefer the AD&D combat system honestly. More significantly, I like the notion that combat is an abstraction. In a role-playing game, I've always felt the emphasis should be on story, action, and character development, not number crunching. There is often too much number crunching in modern RPGs.

 

[Ron]

I rather prefer to say it is an ideterminate period of time. As a turn remains being ten rounds, there is no conflict with the spells or any other rule. One minute is too long and really weird if you consider the game have provision to weapon speed factors, among other stuff I never used.