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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Iosue" data-source="post: 6086802" data-attributes="member: 6680772">So, a closer look at combat.Defensive Movement - Once a character is in melee (that is, within 5' of a hostile opponent), their only possible movement is a fighting withdrawal - half one's movement rate backwards.  Or, a retreat - full movement straight back, no attacks.  The opponent gets +2 to their attack.  However it doesn't say that the enemy gets a free attack, like in AD&D.  As I interpret it, if you win initiative and decide to bug out, and you have a clear path, you can run away like a Final Fantasy character, but if you have a lower speed than your opponent, they're probably going to catch up to you.  If you're faster, you're home free.  If you lose initiative, you can still make your run (you made your intentions clear before rolling), but the enemy get's a plus +2 to their attack.  The upside is, if you survive, you can take off and they can't follow you unless they win the next initiative as well.How to Attack - Here Moldvay has the "attack always succeeds on a 20, always misses on a 1".  No criticals, but it's interesting to find this in the rules this early; for some reason I'd always thought it came later.  Perhaps 1e's combat tables confused me.This section also has an attack on "unhittable" creatures option.  What do you do when you have a monster fighting a monster that can only be hit by silver or magic weapons?  Moldvay gives two options.  The first is, unhittable creatures can hit unhittable creatures.  Alternatively or concurrently, as you like, monsters of more than 4 HD can hit unhittable creatures.Damage - The first line.  "If an attack hits, the DM must determine how much damage the attack has done."  How did I miss this?  Was it because the guy who introduced me to the game had me roll my own damage?  Did I do it like this in the deeps of time, and stop after getting the BECM books, where PCs roll their own damage?All weapon damage is 1d6 unless variable damage is used.  As I've said before, I'd like to start up a game using this rule.  However, it does create one of the few holes in the Moldvay rules (and continued into Mentzer, I think).  If 1d6 is used for all weapons, no one would ever want to use a two-handed sword, since they would lose AC and have nothing to gain for it (except perhaps role-playing satisfaction?).  Two-handed weapons also automatically lose initiative, but as near as I can tell, this only applies if you are using individual initiative and variable weapon damage.You are dead when HP drops to 0.  A day of rest heals 1-3 hp, and clerical spells will heal hp immediately.  This is one of my few, few gripes with Moldvay: a higher level character will take forever to heal.  Heck, even the classes will differ.  Drop the wizard down to 1 hp, and it's possible for him to be back at full strength in one day.  Drop a fighter down to 1 hp and it might take him two or three days.  What I'd do is just use percentages.  Instead of 1-3 hp, it's 10%-30% hp.Missile Fire - Cover rules are light, and depend heavily on DM adjudication.  Moldvay simply explains there's full cover (completely hidden) and then partial cover, which can be a -1 to -4 penalty depending on how the DM judges.Oil gets two whole paragraphs!  One flask makes a pool 3 feet in diameter.  Burning oil does 1d8 damage.  If thrown and lit on a creature, it will burn and cause damage for 2 rounds before dripping off.  A pool of burning oil burns for 1 turn.  This is another rule explicitly left to the DM: "That chance of oil catching fire depends on the situation, and is left for the DM to figure out.  Touching the oil with a flaming torch should almost certainly cause the oil to light.  Other methods may have less chance of success."  Holy water basically acts like burning oil for undead (1d8 damage), although it doesn't say anything specific about dripping off.Saving Throws - As noted above, it's Death Ray/Poison, Magic Wands, Paralysis/Turn to Stone, Dragon Breath, and Rod/Staves/Spells.  Or my interpretation: save or die, save to dodge, save to prevent body change, save vs. area effect, and save vs. any other applicable magic.  Here we see the first clear indication that adventurers are Special People.  The top of the Saving Throw chart is a line for "Normal Man", and their saves suck!  Interestingly, their saves are generally one worse than the worst character class save.  So the worst PC Dragon Breath save is 16, and the Normal Man saves at 17.  But the Normal Man's save vs Paralysis/Turn to Stone (16) is two worse than the worst PC saves (cleric and fighter with 14).Melee Combat - The Normal Man appears again, now with a THAC0 of 20.  Characters start with a THAC0 of 19.  Actually THAC0 isn't used, of course, but it's a handy shorthand.  The chart also includes a line for 4th or higher level, for NPCs or PCs who've reached 4th level before they've bought the Expert Rules.  Initially everyone has the same chance to hit, so a fighter's main advantage is extra damage if the variable damage rules are used.  Otherwise, his likely high Str bonus will be the only thing that makes him better at stabbing faces than any other character.Morale - I've been thinking about player psychology and rules presentation.  I think perhaps "optional" might not be the best word.  It seems that when a rule is labeled "optional", people reading through to learn the rules probably have a tendency to skip right past it.  It probably also carries a certain nuance of "will make your game more complicated".  These are perhaps good reasons for Moldvay to have labeled morale as optional.  It is an extra thing to keep track of.  But using it in a PbEM last year, I found it cut a lot of battles short, and really kept the game moving along.Retainers do not check morale in combat, unless the danger is unreasonable.  I suspect the guideline is if the PCs are thinking about high-tailing it, it's crossed the retainers' minds as well.Next time - the infamous Silverleaf, Fredrik, Morgan Ironwolf, and Sister Rebecca appear!</blockquote>

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