How Did You Run AD&D Combat?

[kitcik]

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.

OK, so you're saying if they're hit even before they start casting then they cannot cast that round? But they could choose to do something else in their init since they never started casting?

In that case, I like it.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

OK, so you're saying if they're hit even before they start casting then they cannot cast that round? But they could choose to do something else in their init since they never started casting?

In that case, I like it.

Yep. The "Short Form" doesn't quite include all the little details but all the stuff above it should fill in some blanks.

 

[Water Bob]

Actually, it went quite fast as everyone knew it well and weren't trying to game it - but it was indeed quite boring.

I didn't play AD&D this way, but I have played games with similar rules. One of the editons of the D6 Star Wars game (which I otherwise love) treated movement that way, IIRC.

Move actions were similar to move actions under the d20 rules. Except, with the Star Wars game, a character got to perform one action--not his entire number of actions for the round--before the focus jumped to the next character. Around and round the combat took you until everyone was out of actions.

On paper, I liked the idea. It surely did support a more "simultaneous" move environment. If a character wanted to move twice his movement and then fire his blaster, other characters got to do A LOT before that blaster went off. And, for the player, it always seemed as if you were hurrying up to do very little, "OK, it's your turn again!"

"Um, I'm moving...here."

"Right! Now, on to the Stormtrooper."

I found it logical but boring and not fun.

I was following the book, playing this way, when a player convinced me to allow character to do all of their actions at one time because it was more cinematic...and more fun.

In an earlier game sessions when I was allowing character all actions at once, this player had his character lean around a doorway, fire his blaster, jump to the other side of the portal, then flip off the stormtroopers with "the finger".

It was a hoot, the way he described his action. It was "fun". Everybody laughed. The game was more enjoyable.

When I got hardnosed and made everyone do it "by the book", the player reminded me of that scene, saying, "That type of thing can never happen again under these rules."

 

[Crothian]

We do pretty much rules as written but we don't use speed of weapons or factor in weapons verse armor. It is pretty simple. If you have an encounter that there could be surprise we roll for surprise. When surprise is done we roll initiative. If characters have multiple attacks they get one now and the rest at the end of the round.

 

[zepherusbane]

Today I have to say that I think dexterity, weapon speed, and casting time are the most useful tools to get a more realistic response time.

Back in 1st edition I never ever messed with such however, typically just a 10 sided die was rolled by each character and people went in the order of the flat number. By the time I started playing 2nd edition, I started using dex bonus to adjust but most of the time nothing else.

It wasn't until 3/3.5 that I really got serious enough to use some of the other things like weapon speed and casting time. It only works if your players are on board with it. If they never think about the time differences between say a short sword and a battle axe, then they won't be happy when they are always last to do their action. Plus, all those feats that can help you with initiative would never get taken by the group if these things were not incorporated.

 

[Water Bob]

Today I have to say that I think dexterity, weapon speed, and casting time are the most useful tools to get a more realistic response time.

Back in 1st edition I never ever messed with such however, typically just a 10 sided die was rolled by each character and people went in the order of the flat number. By the time I started playing 2nd edition, I started using dex bonus to adjust but most of the time nothing else.

The reason I think so many people skipped weapon speed factors in 1E and 2E AD&D is that the rule is implemented in a quirky manner.

IIRC (those playing 1E AD&D correct me), the character with the longer weapon always attacked first on the first round of combat, and then on the character's initiative for his side. Weapon Speed Factors were used to break ties, and when they were used, a smaller weapon could gain extra attacks if its SF was sufficiently smaller than the SF of his opponent.

With 2E AD&D, the Speed Factor rule was simplified a bit in that it was used as a straight modifier to initiative.

In 3E, Speed Factors were thrown out of the game.



The idea behind the rule is to account for size, weight, encumbrance, and the speed at which a character can wield a weapon. To some extent, it's also about weapon length. For example, a character wielding a dagger might be able to zip in and jab his pointed edge at the enemy several times as his opponent makes one swing of a big two-handed weapon. But, the dagger user has got to get in close enough to use his weapon--and that's not easy when your enemy is swinging a long two handed hammer at you.



The CONAN RPG approaches this idea from a different angle. The rule is simple and easily portable to D&D games. There's no fuss as there was with the Speed Factors of old.

The rule is this: For every size category a weapon is larger than his opponent's weapon, the attacker gets a +1 Parry Defense modifier and the defender must use a -1 Parry Defense modifier.

For example, let's say one character uses a dagger and his foe uses a two-handed sword. The two handed sword is two steps bigger per size category than the dagger (The dagger is a Lite weapon. Then, there's One-Handed weapons, and the next category is Two-Handed weapons).

This means that, when the dagger character defends, he is -2 to his Parry AC. And, when the two-handed charactger defends, he is +2 to his Parry AC.

Note that in Conan, a character also has the option to Dodge, which is a separate defence AC. Thus, in the situation just described: Let's say the dagger user has a Parry AC 14 and Dodge AC 13. This modifier reduces the Parry AC but not the Dodge AC, thus the character is AC 12 when parrying the two-handed sword and AC 13 when Dodging the same attacke--therefore the dagger user will Dodge the two-handed sword user and not try to parry his big weapon.

 

[zepherusbane]

With 2E AD&D, the Speed Factor rule was simplified a bit in that it was used as a straight modifier to initiative.

In 3E, Speed Factors were thrown out of the game.

Ah, I was typing that up incorrectly. For some reason I had a brain malfunction, putting the weapon speed as 3rd ed. Getting so old that the years of playing 2nd ed and 3rd are getting mixed up in my memory (too old I guess, heh).

 

[pdiddy]

IIRC (those playing 1E AD&D correct me), the character with the longer weapon always attacked first on the first round of combat, and then on the character's initiative for his side. Weapon Speed Factors were used to break ties, and when they were used, a smaller weapon could gain extra attacks if its SF was sufficiently smaller than the SF of his opponent.

I believe that 1E weapons speeds were only used to:
1. break initiative ties between combatants using weapons ("Simultaneous Initiative" - pg 66, DMG),
2. if faster weapons get multiple attacks against slower weapons (second paragraph of "Weapon Speed Factor" - pg 66, DMG), and
3. if an attacker that loses initiative can still interrupt a spell being cast ("Other Weapon Factor Determinants" - pgs 66 & 67, DMG).

Longer weapons always attacked first during a charge ("Melee at End of Charge" - pg 66, DMG). If you just close, you pass to the next round as melee is not allowed and go with the usual initiative procedure ("Close to Striking Range" - pg 66, DMG).

 

[billd91]

For 1e AD&D, we pretty much just used strict d6 initiative per side. The side that rolled higher went first, any order within the group was fine and we didn't declare actions first. We didn't do anything with spell casting times, for the most part, unless it took more than 1 round. We followed the alternating rule for multiple attacks - one side then the other. And we used weapon speed factors to determine who went first if both sides rolled the same initiative.

In 2e, we went whole-hearted for the individual d10 roll, modified by weapon speed, casting time, and Dex. We even declared our actions before we rolled. It was slower compiling out the initiative order compared to 3e's cyclical initiative, but anti-caster actions were much easier to perform - a good thing. We didn't bother as much with alternating attacks for iterative attacks and we sometimes toyed with how the casting time actually worked - if you hit the wizard before his rolled initiative without factoring in the casting time, he didn't lose the spell, he just couldn't cast it but if you hit him between his rolled init and the modified init with the casting time, then the spell was actually lost... I'm not sure it was always worth the effort to do that though.

 

[kitsune9]

We did pretty much what Water Bob stated in the OP. We never used modifiers for different armor though. When 2e came out, we did resolve multiple attacks for the figter types in that they got their first swing and at the end of the round, they finished up their other attacks. Don't remember if this was a homerule or from the book.