Have We Lost Our Way? Two masters on combat and alignment

[Rawwedge]

And this topic does come up a bit, but underneath it all my games don't feel a heck of a lot different now than they did in 1984. I think it's how you run your game. Do the new rules get in the way? Only if you're in a group that's really hung up on them...or you let them.

-DM Jeff

I'd have to say that my exprience has been pretty similar. For the most part, the greatest influence on how the game is played rests with the DM and his players. Hack & Slashers have always been drawn to the game regardless of the version as have those who love the role play and flavorful elements.
The game mechanics only become too cumbersome if you allow it to happen.
I've played Expert, 1st edition AD&D, 3.0 & now 3.5. I was a bit disgusted with the rules overkill when I was first introduced to 3rd edition but I eventually saw through play that the game was still the same if everyone around the table wanted to get the same thing out of it. I have been won over by the incredible flexibility and diversity available in character creation and prestige classes; it more than makes up for some of the excessive rule creep that has entered the overall system now. I shudder at the memory of that exotic and mysterious Bard that was buried away in an appendix of the 1st edition DM guide and the warning to DM's to use this class at your own risk!
Having seen both sides of the coin, I far prefer 3rd edition D&D when it is played by gamers who remember what it was like in the old days and want to keep the old flavor alive and well in their campaigns.
Ultimately, DMs and Players make the game, not the rules.

 

[Ourph]

You make do with the tools at hand - and as long as you stuck with actions that were specified within the rulebooks, you were fine.

As soon as you tried anything else, you're like "Ok, so how many rounds does it take for me to do X?"

And then you go, "well, doing that takes a few seconds, and that takes a few seconds. And then moving over there takes a few seconds. Ok, so all up that takes less than 1/4 of the combat round".

And then you realise just how long a minute is.

As soon as you start thinking about ad&d, it starts falling to bits.

It's sure to start falling to bits if you fail to read the rulebooks. Minute long rounds in AD&D combat are specifically explained in the rules as incorporating numerous unnamed actions. So 1/4 of your combat round is spent doing what YOU want to do, and the other 3/4 is spent preventing your enemies from doing what THEY want to do (i.e. chop you into little bite-sized pieces).

Now if you're talking about someone exiting from combat and performing other actions (for example, going into another room, barring the door and making up some mixed drinks) then you're absolutely correct that you can get a lot done in a minute. That character's actions shouldn't be adjudicated according to the normal combat round procedure. What actions s/he can take and how much time is required is left up to DM discretion. As far as my group was concerned we never had a problem adjudicating stuff like that with the application of a little common sense.

So when Black Dougal chickens out on the last three rounds of combat and goes off to make cocktails in the next room, he's got plenty of time to whip up a nice round of Pan-Galactic Gargleblasters to appease his somewhat POed adventuring companions with.

The bits still seem to be in one piece to me.

 

[Henry]

It's sure to start falling to bits if you fail to read the rulebooks. Minute long rounds in AD&D combat are specifically explained in the rules as incorporating numerous unnamed actions. So 1/4 of your combat round is spent doing what YOU want to do, and the other 3/4 is spent preventing your enemies from doing what THEY want to do (i.e. chop you into little bite-sized pieces).

I can understand the point, and I don't want to drag this too far that way, but even 15 seconds is an AWFUL long time to make ONE attack, or shoot ONE missile. Parries, ripostes, etc. are a fine notion, until you hit the wall that reminds you that only the resources for ONE attack are spent in that round. To me, and a lot of other 1st edition players, this meant that the round needed to be short enough for one attack to be believeable. I and about 20 other players I knew wound up doing combat in segments, not rounds, because we couldn't shake our suspensions of disbelief enough to make it work well.

My 2nd edition days were spent doing a lot of handwaving on the issue, and telling my fellow gamers, "don't think about it too much." With 3e switching to segment-long rounds, I no longer have to.

 

[barsoomcore]

Agreed on the one-minute rounds being unmanageable. You had players who would step out of combat and say, "I'm throwing rocks at the wizard in the back. In a minute I can throw, what, 20 rocks at him? Okay, I'm making my rolls. Everybody else wait while I make 20 attack rolls."

I then have to explain that in a minute they can only throw one rock. For some reason.

"But he's standing there casting a spell! He's not dodging around or anything, so I'm just going to chuck rocks at him."

It doesn't make sense, it never did make sense, and we (like Henry) just defaulted to six-second segments.

 

[Ourph]

I can understand the point, and I don't want to drag this too far that way, but even 15 seconds is an AWFUL long time to make ONE attack, or shoot ONE missile. Parries, ripostes, etc. are a fine notion, until you hit the wall that reminds you that only the resources for ONE attack are spent in that round. To me, and a lot of other 1st edition players, this meant that the round needed to be short enough for one attack to be believeable. I and about 20 other players I knew wound up doing combat in segments, not rounds, because we couldn't shake our suspensions of disbelief enough to make it work well.

To each his own. I use 10 second rounds, because that's how rounds are broken down in the B/X rules. I guess my point echoes what Umbran said earlier. A round is a round. How can the amount of "real" time be that much of a factor when all actions in combat are adjudicated by the round, instead of by the minute? If someone was playing out an AD&D combat in front of me, there'd be no way for me to tell whether they were using 6 second, 10 second, 1 minute, 2 minute or 2.58 minute rounds until the combat ended and the DM informed everyone how much time had passed. :\

I then have to explain that in a minute they can only throw one rock. For some reason.

"But he's standing there casting a spell! He's not dodging around or anything, so I'm just going to chuck rocks at him."

As others are wont to say quite often around here, "Sounds like a player problem, not a rules problem to me."

 

[Henry]

I guess my point echoes what Umbran said earlier. A round is a round. How can the amount of "real" time be that much of a factor when all actions in combat are adjudicated by the round, instead of by the minute?

Mechanically, I agree: A round being a "unit" of action time, in which you can make one attack, no problem. But it's more an issue of plausibility. Just like I need to know that there's an at least marginally plausible reason the Wizard can chuck fireballs by mumbling key words and doing gestures, I also need at least a believable amount of time by which an attack can be made. If someone tells me it takes 2 seconds to run across a 30 foot room, I can believe them, at least enough to not question them. If they tell me it takes 60 seconds, I have to wonder what's holding them up.

 

[dcollins]

AD&D 1-minute rounds were hard to justify. I tended to prefer the previous "blue book" D&D 10-second rounds (not sure if "white book" OD&D used the same thing, I assume so).

The one thing to say about AD&D 1-minute rounds is that they looked a bit more like the amount of time you spent playing it out. Or an amount of time that interfaced better with miniature wargaming rules.

 

[Ourph]

Mechanically, I agree: A round being a "unit" of action time, in which you can make one attack, no problem. But it's more an issue of plausibility.

I guess I'm on the other end of the spectrum, where I find it ridiculously implausible to play with rules that allow a character with the right feats and weapon to get upwards of 25 attacks in a 6 second round.

 

[MarkAHart]

In 1st edition, combatants actually had FACING, which meant (among other things) that combatants had a "back". Since most monsters/NPCs/PCs don't have eyes in the back of their head, being at someone's "back" had a slew of combat specific benefits (no Dex modifier to AC, no shield modifier, the Thief gets to use his "backstab", etc.).

I would argue that 3.5 uses an abstraction, while 1st edition is being concrete. 3.5 does not include facing on the assumption an opponent is not going to knowingly permit an enemy to come at him from the rear. If a creature is aware of an incoming foe, it will adjust its facing to meet the new threat. A reasonable assumption. Someone aware of an attacker would realistically adjust his facing if he had the option.

This ruleset avoids bogging combat with specifics of what direction everyone is facing at any moment. In combat, participants move, shift, dodge, etc. This is similar to the abstraction used (in both editions) with what square a target occupies. Opponents do not remain in the same 5-ft. square in a fight; they move around and change positions. Rather than pin this down, the rules assume it happens without players worrying about positioning.

If a creature engaged in melee combat suddenly faces enemies on opposing flanks, both attackers receive a +2 attack bonus. If one of those attackers is a rogue, he can make a sneak attack each round he is one of the flankers. In 1st ed., a thief had to attack from the rear or rear flanks to backstab. In 3rd edition, the thief only needs to catch his enemy unawares from any side -- rear or not.

This abstraction has the effect of offering characters more options in 3rd edition compared to 1st, even though the latter specifies facing of combatants. Characters no longer need attack from one side; they can gain advantage through teamwork and come at the most advantageous side. If a rogue attacks with surprise (e.g., hide), the exact directon of attack is immaterial -- he can make a sneak attack (flatfooted opponent) and the opponent loses his AC DEX bonus. Indeed, any time a combatant is caught flat-footed, he loses his AC DEX bonus, regardless of the angle of attack.

The point about the shield in combat, however, is well taken. In 1st edition, as was pointed out, an opponent caught from behind lost the benefit of the shield's AC bonus. This is not true in 3rd edition. If there are any rules regarding this, I have not see them.

 

[WizarDru]

I guess I'm on the other end of the spectrum, where I find it ridiculously implausible to play with rules that allow a character with the right feats and weapon to get upwards of 25 attacks in a 6 second round.

Could you qualify that, or is that just hyperbole? The only way I could think of that even coming close to reality would involve great cleave, a giant with lots of class levels and a high dex, and lots of kobolds.

The 1 minute rounds were just as illogical to me as GURPS' one second rounds. I agree that, from a metagame standpoint, a round is a round is a round, the actual time unit nothwithstanding...but if a person observing the game then asks "How long did that take?" and you say 40 minutes of game time, because rounds are 2 minutes long, they're going to have some questions.

Typically, combat in an RPG is a quick affair, meant to emulate the speedy give and take of trained opponents or very powerful monsters. Parry and riposte is fine...but we had a lot of situations in AD&D where people were doing non-combat actions simultaneous with the battle, and wondering why it took them five minutes to open a pouch, produce a key, cross the room, unlock a door and walk through it. I've had combats go over ten rounds plenty of times, and a few that have gone well past that. Ten to twenty minutes of solid combat, besides being tiring, is a long time for things to be going on in the rest of the game world, and just seemed a little silly to me.