How Did You Run AD&D Combat?

[Water Bob]

Another thread got me curious. AD&D has the most convoluted, complicated combat round system (mostly the initiative ins-and-outs) of any D&D edition ever published. I don't think I've ever met anyone who has run 1E AD&D strictly by the book.

In my own games, way back when, so many years ago, we used to throw 1d10 for initiative, and we threw it individually. The throw was modified by DEX reaction modifier (yes, even melee strikes) and weapon speed factor. Although we used this system waaaayyy before 2nd edition came out, what we did looked more like 2E than it did 1E.

We also allowed a character to complete his entire round, including movement and all attacks, before the next guy in the initiative chain was allowed to act. I remember that we used casting time to modify initiative, too, and we'd let the mage player either decide at the beginning of the round which spell he would throw (so that he could include this modifier to nish). Or, the mage player had the option of picking his spell on his nish but then going later in the round (for example, if a mage threw 3 on his 1d10 nish throw, he could wait until his turn to decide to throw a spell. If that spell took 4 segments to cast, then the mage acted on nish 7 instead of nish 3, later in the round).

All of this, of course, flies in the face of what was written in the AD&D PHB and DMG. We didn't use Armor Adjustments to the attack roll, either (though we used them when 2E came around...curious).





THIS is a flow chart to help DMs run AD&D combat by the book, Rules As Written. Out of curiosity, did any of you blokes ever run AD&D as it is laid out in the rules? Did you master that beast?

Or, did you (like my group) find some sort of house-rule that made everybody happy?

It would be interesting to see all the permuations that the "official" AD&D combat rules inspired.

 

[kitcik]

As I implied in the original thread, I think you'd have to go pretty far afield to be considered "homebrew" in 1E as the whole idea is that the DM ruled and everyone lived by the results. I mean, if you abandoned ThACO and went diceless, that would be homebrew. Gygax intended for the rules to be guidelines.

That said, we did very similar to aMerric:
d6, casting time = segment (we actually did casting time + init = segment), Dex to missile init, faster weapon wins a tie, multiple attacks go first/last

 

[MerricB]

As I implied in the original thread, I think you'd have to go pretty far afield to be considered "homebrew" in 1E as the whole idea is that the DM ruled and everyone lived by the results. I mean, if you abandoned ThACO and went diceless, that would be homebrew. Gygax intended for the rules to be guidelines.

It's a bit debatable that point with AD&D - Gygax wrote several times that he was trying to write a standardized set of rules suitable for tournaments.

d6, casting time = segment (we actually did casting time + init = segment), Dex to missile init, faster weapon wins a tie, multiple attacks go first/last

Incidentally, the reason I don't add the die roll to the segment is that it gives longer spells the possibility of taking place in the next round...

Cheers!

 

[trancejeremy]

I started playing while AD&D was in the process of coming out - my friends' older brothers had picked up the booklet D&D and they DMed for us at first, so we didn't use the segment style combat, or the weapon speed/armor factors.

Later on, I never played with anyone that did either, but I never played in any official tournaments.

 

[Niccodaemus]

We never added dice rolls to the casting segment. The rational was that the magic user was in the back, and he didn't have anything impeding him from starting his casting at the beginning of the round.

Fighters on the other hand are in dynamic situations, and their opportunity to strike is somewhat governed by chance.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

When I started ad&d it was without access to the DMG (players dont read THAT!) and the system I played under for several years ("the 4M system") divided the round into 4 discretely resolved parts. First all melee was resolved, then all missile fire, then magic, then movement. Initiative was d10 iirc adjusted by dex. Magic was subdivided into 4+ phases according to casting time.

A year or so after I finally got my own DMG I tried to talk the dm into going "by the book" which was a MESS, but in the aftermath of that debacle I did convince him to use something very like what got used in 2E.

Later tried again on my own as DM to go BTB with 1E initiative but it just made no sense to me and I gave it up. Not till ADDICT did I grok it - and if I had grokked it way back when I started ad&d I'd have argued against using it as strongly as that appalling "4M" garbage.


---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=34.221725,-119.070382

 

[Water Bob]

First all melee was resolved, then all missile fire, then magic, then movement.

That's actually not bad and better than the you-do-everything-on-your-turn systems. The problem with a 4M type system, though is that, well, it's boring. Players like to get in and get their turns done. Although better to simulate the simultaneous action of a round, a 4M type system goes around the table 4 times with each combat participant doing a small fraction of what he can normally do. The game resembles a board game more than usual, and it's hard to "live" in the game, imagining you're there.

A year or so after I finally got my own DMG I tried to talk the dm into going "by the book" which was a MESS....

I'd still like to try the DMG as written one of these days to see if I could make it work.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

That's actually not bad and better than the you-do-everything-on-your-turn systems. The problem with a 4M type system, though is that, well, it's boring. Players like to get in and get their turns done.

Actually, it went quite fast as everyone knew it well and weren't trying to game it - but it was indeed quite boring. It's real failing was that it was exceptionally ruthless for spellcasters, moreso even than BTB which was already pretty ruthless (though I didn't know that til much later).

If a spellcaster wanted to try and cast a spell in combat EVERYONE gets to hit him or shoot at him regardless of what anyones initiative result was - and then enemy spellcasters might still be able to land one on you if you didn't stick to faster spells. I just couldn't accept that in a 1 minute round a spellcaster with even his fastest spell would never, EVER beat out any physical attack no matter how slow the attackers reactions or awkward his weapon - excepting only end-of-round zombie attacks. And same with missile fire - unless you started a round with arrow nocked and target in sight you would never, EVER beat out a melee attack.

It made combat tedious because melee was KING - always. Missile fire was a poor second (until the Nuclear Arrows of Unearthed Arcana specialization, but I digress...), and spellcasters were whipping boys who lived for the chance of getting just one combat spell off before getting whacked. The only reason spellcasters didn't die constantly was because of movement. We had movement reduced drastically so that a spellcaster could maintain a decent distance from the general scrum and at least not be swarmed on the first round or two if he risked casting, leaving just missile fire to deal with. Movement also came last in the order, and even though casting a spell meant you were allowed zero movement, the DM saw to it that the melee crowd typically had their hands full with significant hand-to-hand.

I'd still like to try the DMG as written one of these days to see if I could make it work.

I've gone through ADDICT several times and it actually can be whittled down and simplified while preserving the same general results. Casting in combat is still a gamble but you at least have a fair and reasonable chance. Weapon Speed Factors are kept as an option yet in their original role - just breaking ties. I've got it down to a single page: Surprise and Initiative (scroll down to the bottom for the "short form" itself). I like to think that it is proof that AD&D CAN be improved; that the 1E surprise and initiative systems were pretty crappy, and crappily implemented. And my Short Form still keeps VERY close to the functionality of the original system. It simply jettisons all the extraneous crap that it had.

The original system CAN and DOES "work", even though I've never used it (nor been able to use my Short Form either - yet). But the real question is, "Why would you even want to try using the BTB system?" It's just so blatantly awful in its construction. My only desire to ever try using BTB myself is just to be able to brag that I did - ONCE, and that 35 or so years after its publication.

 

[kitcik]

I've gone through ADDICT several times and it actually can be whittled down and simplified while preserving the same general results. Casting in combat is still a gamble but you at least have a fair and reasonable chance. Weapon Speed Factors are kept as an option yet in their original role - just breaking ties. I've got it down to a single page: Surprise and Initiative (scroll down to the bottom for the "short form" itself). I like to think that it is proof that AD&D CAN be improved; that the 1E surprise and initiative systems were pretty crappy, and crappily implemented. And my Short Form still keeps VERY close to the functionality of the original system. It simply jettisons all the extraneous crap that it had.

I think you've done a good job here, but I don't like the part where casters that lose initiative automatically get their spells off. Since they don't decide on whether to cast a spell until their initiative, this is the case.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I think you've done a good job here, but I don't like the part where casters that lose initiative automatically get their spells off. Since they don't decide on whether to cast a spell until their initiative, this is the case.

Casters that lose initiative are more likely to be hit by melee, missile or spell and end up unable to cast in that round at all.