Melee Combatants, Give it a Rest

[riprock]

I had one DM -- extremely Monty Haul in his judgements -- set a trend that was imitated by several others, including myself when I DM'd AD&D.

He ruled that since it takes 15 minutes to memorize a 1st-level wizard spell, the rest break after combat should allow long enough to re-memorize.

There were a few other AD&D DMs, with whom I did not play as frequently, who said that spells were memorized once a day. Their fighters ran around like marathon runners in platemail and the wizards tagged along after them.

It turns out neither set of DMs were correct, but the non-Monty Haul ones were considerably closer.

If you stop the adventure in the middle of the day to memorize a 1st-level magic-user spell, it's supposed to take 4 hours and 15 minutes. If you memorize two, you can get it done in 4 hours and 30 minutes.

My mind boggles when I consider how many spell levels a good caster has by 7th level. Assume a cleric with 18 wisdom and a magic-user with 18 intelligence. The magic-user doesn't get extra spells; the cleric does. But if they're both 7th level, they both have to sleep for 8 full hours, and then the cleric has to spend eight solid hours praying to get all his spells (five 1st level, five 2nd level, three 3rd level, two 4th level). The wizard can memorize four 1st level, three 2nd level, two 3rd level, and one 4th level in just five hours of study.

Yah. I guess I understand why they changed it to "once a day, one hour to max" in 3.x.

 

[riprock]

It's easier to remember to check for wandering monsters ...if you make the check every turn -- so instead of a wandering monster occuring 1 in 6 checked every other turn (the default in Classic D&D) one occurs 1 in 12 checked every turn; or instead of 1 in 6 checked every 3rd turn (the default in AD&D1) roll 2d6 every turn with a wandering monster occuring on a 2 or 12 ...

I could do that. It would take graph paper, and I would probably end up coding a dice-roller for it anyway, but I could do that.

As for timekeeping in general, it helps to keep things straight if you explicitly emphasize the turn-based nature of exploration in D&D: establish a turn-by-turn procedure and follow it the same way as the round-by-round procedure in combat -- a character can move x distance or perform y other activity in the course of a single turn; think specifically in terms of turns, not freeform actions. Each turn ask each player what is intended action is (or, if you've got a particularly large group, ask a single party spokesperson ("caller") what everyone's actions are), resolve those actions (or as much of those actions as can be resolved within the turn -- ... mark off one turn on the turn-tally, resolve turn-based durations (for spells, light sources, required rest periods, etc. -- keep a list of these under the turn tally: "torch lit turn 3 (expires turn 9)," etc.), check for wandering monsters, and return to step one for the next turn.

That sounds like the right way to do things. Do you use lined paper to keep track of all these things? I suppose it wouldn't be so hard to keep a turn tally. Honestly, I've rarely tried, although I used to play with one DM who kept a written log of every adventure, sort of like those "Adventure Records" you may have seen from TSR.

I should review the relevant time-related rules and start doing this.

 

[vulcan_idic]

This is a rule I've generally seen ignored, with the thought of melee fatigue assumed to be subsumed and included as one of the many factors included in the randomness of the required dice roll. As such part of the way BAB has been viewed among people I game with is that the experience and skill of various characters makes them better able to manage and/or shrug off, temporarily, their fatigue when the situation requires it, thus accounting for one of the factors assumed to be involved in the randomness of the dice roll.

 

[Numion]

Usually our group goes to rest before the 10 min / level spells wear off, at mid-to-high levels. One foray into the dungeon might last about 50-60 minutes on average. It's a strange way of living if you ask me. Long rest / guard duty periods broken up by a hour of extremely dangerous situations and horrors :\

Maybe it's a bit like war - isn't that lots of waiting too?

Sometimes this isn't possible though, because we're under a time limit, but we try to organize things like this to give the spellcasters maximum oomph.

 

[Hussar]

Same here. GURPS has a similar rule, but I think it's after 10 rounds. Having never seen a GURPS combat go that long, I dunno if we used the rule or not

I don't know how any PLAYER could stay awake long enough to do 10 rounds of GURPS combat.

Player: OK OK!!! I fall on my own bloody sword. Just make it stop!!!!!

DM: Gotta roll on Chart 3c....

Player: AUUUUUGGGGGHHHH!!!

 

[riprock]

I don't know how any PLAYER could stay awake long enough to do 10 rounds of GURPS combat.

Player: OK OK!!! I fall on my own bloody sword. Just make it stop!!!!!

DM: Gotta roll on Chart 3c....

Player: AUUUUUGGGGGHHHH!!!

Ha ha ha. We RoleMaster grognards laugh at the weakness of those players who can't spend six hours on five seconds of combat.

Of course, it's those experiences which hone my appreciation of the elegant design of AD&D.

Unfortunately, while I may *enjoy* AD&D, that doesn't necessarily mean I follow the rules as closely as I would like to do.