Travel time is presented in miles per day. Tactical movement is given in inches (both on land and in the air). . . . If by "convert" you mean "make something up" — then, yes, you're right. There aren't, however, any actual rules in the DMG for converting miles per hour on the water into inches of tactical movement.
One tabletop inch equals ten yards (1e
AD&D PHB, "Distance," p. 39), so 1 mph is about 3 inches per round on the tabletop.
Took me about thirty seconds to write out the conversion factors, and about three seconds to solve it.
Yes, it would've been helpful to have included that information in the
DMG, but it's hardly a showstopper if you understand how the rules work together in the first place.
This is a great time to get back to all of those monsters you keep mentioning. Monsters don't have siege attack values.
Actually, they do (1e
AD&D DMG, "Siege Attack Values" table, p. 109).
How is damage inflicted by monsters measured in the game? In HPs. So, either Hull Values function like HPs when determining damage from monster attacks or monsters aren't capable of damaging ships. Again, another thing I consider a hallmark of ill considered design.
I'm on my laptop, which means I don't have access to the 1e
MM at the moment; I only own it on .pdf, unlike my
PHB and
DMG which are here next to me. Iirc, however, the rules under animals like giant squid and giant octopus describe how they damage ships, and this is referenced specifically by the
DMG (p. 55). Once I get to the .pdf, I can give you a more definitive answer.
Just had a thought. You know how people are always arguing for the return of "loose" rules, where things were more open to individual interpretation, instead of being spelled out in stone? Is this what people have been missing about "loose" rules?
Rules-lawyering? If so, I'm not so sure I want "loose" rules to make a comeback.
Or you could just try using the rules as written for the things that are covered and rely on referee intepretation for the things that aren't - provided you actually take the time to understand what the rules cover and how they work in the first place, of course.