AD&D 1E Favorite Obscure Rules from TSR-era D&D

[Alzrius]

How do I tell if it is 1e or 2e? I have the PDF with this cover:
View attachment 365968

That's the AD&D 1E boxed set, published in 1985.

 

[dave2008]

That's the AD&D 1E boxed set, published in 1985.

Is that different than what you want?

 

[CleverNickName]

Is that different than what you want?

Nope, that's the one! I've been looking all over for it.

 

[Lanefan]

Acaeum shows pricing on that to be not too crazy: maybe $35 in good condition, double that if you can find one mint.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Nope, that's the one! I've been looking all over for it.

I remember getting it, and it led to a few fun weekends of massed battles!

But then getting back to the regular sessions. The lesson, I think, is that while it was an enjoyable diversion, people preferred the individualistic nature of D&D. It was kind of like the whole evolution from wargaming to D&D sped up.


This is also why I am always skeptical of the need for mass combat rules. It's not that you never need them, it's more that D&D as a game evolved because people wanted the D&D experience instead of mass combat. It's interesting to me that D&D evolved because people didn't want to use mass combat rules, but then people are always looking to put them back in?

Anyway, I really liked Battlesystem, but it never took root in the larger AD&D ecosystem.

 

[the Jester]

This is also why I am always skeptical of the need for mass combat rules. It's not that you never need them, it's more that D&D as a game evolved because people wanted the D&D experience instead of mass combat. It's interesting to me that D&D evolved because people didn't want to use mass combat rules, but then people are always looking to put them back in?

Anyway, I really liked Battlesystem, but it never took root in the larger AD&D ecosystem.

I really, really love mass combat and having a system for mass combat in D&D. More and more, I think my solution in 5e is to use modified stat blocks that are swarms for units that can represent however many creatures, depending on the scale you're operating at, and switch out the d20 at higher scales to either 2d10 or 3d6 (depending on just how big the scale is) to represent the fact that, in large groups, things should trend toward average rolls instead of having equal chances for extreme and average results.

 

[Staffan]

This is also why I am always skeptical of the need for mass combat rules. It's not that you never need them, it's more that D&D as a game evolved because people wanted the D&D experience instead of mass combat. It's interesting to me that D&D evolved because people didn't want to use mass combat rules, but then people are always looking to put them back in?

I figure that having some form of mass combat rules is useful, particularly if you're running a domain-style campaign (at lower levels, you can get away with the "disaster movie" approach – the battle is happening regardless of what the PCs are doing, they just have to get through it and might influence it by achieving particular goals, but you don't need to play out the battle itself). But it doesn't have to be minis-on-battlefield combat – something like the Companion Rules' War Machine would suffice.

 

[Mannahnin]

I really, really love mass combat and having a system for mass combat in D&D. More and more, I think my solution in 5e is to use modified stat blocks that are swarms for units that can represent however many creatures, depending on the scale you're operating at, and switch out the d20 at higher scales to either 2d10 or 3d6 (depending on just how big the scale is) to represent the fact that, in large groups, things should trend toward average rolls instead of having equal chances for extreme and average results.

I like Delta's Book of War quite a bit. I think Dan's done quite a good job adapting OD&D back to mass miniatures scale. For when you want to run a full scale battle or need to for your campaign, or just as a wargame with reasonably light rules.

 

[James Gasik]

The problem with mass combat is that the individual contributions of one character really shrink- if 10,000 men are fighting another 10,000, surely a 20th-level Fighter should be performing epic feats on the level of Samson taking out 1000 Philistines all by his lonesome, but the rules of the game don't really reflect this- maybe if all these 0-level guys are less than 1 Hit Die, an AD&D Fighter could take out 20 in a turn, letting him do that over the course of 50 combat rounds, but that's probably the pinnacle of what that character could do by their lonesome. They don't provide leadership bonuses on that scale innately (you'd have to add those, but you know, that would beg the question of why they don't inspire their party the same way). Sure, back in the day, a Barbarian could raise a horde, and Fighters, while their followers fell far short of an army, still had some people they could bring with them. But in a mass battle, what characters would be doing is special missions, like a fantasy A-Team, gathering intelligence, taking out enemy leaders, disrupting the chain of command and so on- which while very important and more likely to turn the tides of battle than wading into a mass melee, is probably not the kind of visceral experience a player would want- they want something more like Toei's Warriors series, where one guy runs around the battlefield, bowling over hundreds of foes.

And I hate to bring this up, because I risk dredging up a lot of old arguments, but there is an exception- high level spellcasters. They often have big area spells and the ability to impede or kill large swathes of the enemy.

In fact, thinking about it, this might have been what Gary Gygax was worried about when it came to spellcasters more than their contributions in the adventure- when a high level Druid can eliminate 1000 hit points of enemy troops per casting of creeping doom or pinpoint enemy leaders with call lightning, or wizards dropping 4 40-foot radius spreads of damage with meteor swarm, etc. etc., you really start to realize how terrifying they are on the battlefield, dealing damage equal to a siege weapon, but much faster and with greater accuracy!

I remember a 3.5 game where the DM had us defend a village from goblin raiders- he assumed we'd winnow down their numbers a little, but our victory condition was merely to slow down their advance so reinforcements could survive. He had this huge battlemap set up at the local game shop. I was playing a Druid.

I got out a ruler and some string and started making these huge areas on the map and he stopped me and was like "what are those?". "Well, the green ones are spike growth, the brown ones are transmute rock to mud, and the white ones are stone spikes, all based on the terrain. I got these yellow ones for soften earth and stone, and I have a few holly berry bombs at these choke points using fire seeds as good measure."

He laughed at me and said I'd gotten the scale of the map wrong and went and checked my spells. He got this horrified look on his face when he realized exactly how big some of these spells can be- 12 20' radius squares per casting of a spell really added up! And that was just what I was doing, by the time he got to the Cleric and the Wizard, he realized exactly how futile things were.

We really got into an argument when I pointed out that spike stones and spike growth were considered to be traps and had to be searched for. "If someone sees their buddy walk into an area and take damage, they know not to go there, even if they can't see what's hurting them!", using this to justify having his goblins avoid them- but I'd figured something like this was going to happen, so the goblins were just funneled to a worse tactical position.

In the end he said they would just go off the map around us- even though he'd already shot down (pun intended) our Ranger who pointed out he could fire arrows from off the map at distant targets (and make the Perception check to see at that range, thanks to his eyes of the eagle, all so his reinforcements would be the ones to save the day, lol.

Because the way we were set up, no goblin was going to get through us.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

And I hate to bring this up, because I risk dredging up a lot of old arguments, but there is an exception- high level spellcasters. They often have big area spells and the ability to impede or kill large swathes of the enemy.

In fact, thinking about it, this might have been what Gary Gygax was worried about when it came to spellcasters more than their contributions in the adventure- when a high level Druid can eliminate 1000 hit points of enemy troops per casting of creeping doom or pinpoint enemy leaders with call lightning, or wizards dropping 4 40-foot radius spreads of damage with meteor swarm, etc. etc., you really start to realize how terrifying they are on the battlefield, dealing damage equal to a siege weapon, but much faster and with greater accuracy!

The existence of spellcasters has to be really examined in D&D, if you want a game that also includes army and sieges.

I would say that in GH, the presence of spellcasters, especially higher level ones, was especially rare, and they were unlikely to be involved in those types of conflicts. Which reflects his unease.




IIRC, in the leaders of Greyhawk, there weren't many spellcasters, but the highest levels were an 11th level magic user and a multiclassed (??!!!?) illusionist of 15th level. There was also a 19th level cleric, but screw Veluna.