AD&D1 Combat Exercise

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Yeah, my group used the Basic D&D combat sequence, though we used the attack and save tables from the 1E DMG. I found the minutae of 1E combat too confusing at that age, even with the example of combat in the DMG.

Heck, I find it far too confusing still!

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Nice example, although I expected the opponents to get at least a couple of more hits, which is closer to T. Foster's example.

 

[tzor]

I have a theory that's based on no actual facts but sounds nice and is similar to what you're saying. When the 1E books came out there were two types of people. One were kids that were ages 9-13 (see the poll on ages if you don't believe me). Those kids probably had a copy of the Basic set (Holmes or later Red Booklet) and piece-wise incorporated ADnD rules into their game. The other type of DnD'er was an old-schooler who learned DND from the ODnD booklets, had probably worked out their own house systems for some aspects combat, and adapted (like the kids) the ADnD rules to their existing game as appropriate - grabbing the cool stuff first ("hey, different weapons do different damage").

I propose there were at lease three. I started playing AD&D in 1980 in college at the age of 18. (I still remember the horror when I saw E.T. for the first time and thought "how can 'kids' be able to understand the complexities of an advanged game like AD&D?") The group was already integrating material from various other game systems; character creation tables from Arduim Grimore, critical hit tabels from Role Master, (or was that roll master, so many dice one needed to roll) and so forth. We avoided a few of the complex combat rules; unarmed combat and weapon vs armor type, but kept a number of the rules in force, expecially facing. (Yes we thought facing in one minute turns was stupid then, but suspension of disbelief for the betterment of the game was common at the time. Realism was for infravision/ultravision.)

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I tried to run a (1E) AD&D RAW campaign once. ONCE.

I have never YET met anyone who genuinely ran AD&D RAW - including Gygax. The homebrewed combat/initiative system that I wound up playing under for years in AD&D may have been simpler than the RAW, but it made VASTLY less sense. We eventually settled on using THACO instead of the tables, weapon vs. armor adjustements, dex to-hit mods for missile fire, and d6+dex mod (no other nonsense) for initiative. Oh yeah, it all was adjusted to conform to the "5% principle" as well.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Check out this summary of a battle with the lich, Asberdies, from D1. It's not as rules-detailed as the exercise/example, above, but quite an epic struggle.