D&D General The Renewing Charm of the Old School Play Experience

[Warpiglet]

I suggest you look at the rules again.

"Each 1 of surprise equals 1 segment (six seconds) of time lost to the surprised party, and during the lost time the surprising party can freely act to escape or attack or whatever."

The immediately following table (which only lists to 3 segments) is for if both parties surprise the other - a 4 and a 1, for instance, gives 3 segments of surprise.

A 3 Dex character (-3 reaction speed) surprised with a roll of a 4 by a hellhound is surprised for a full SEVEN segments! Poor fellow!

Cheers!

There were also some creatures such as drow and other under dark minions that used other than a d6 for some surprise situations (d8).

I don’t think we fully Grocked those rules!

 

[Helldritch]

I suggest you look at the rules again.
"Each 1 of surprise equals 1 segment (six seconds) of time lost to the surprised party, and during the lost time the surprising party can freely act to escape or attack or whatever."

The immediately following table (which only lists to 3 segments) is for if both parties surprise the other - a 4 and a 1, for instance, gives 3 segments of surprise.

A 3 Dex character (-3 reaction speed) surprised with a roll of a 4 by a hellhound is surprised for a full SEVEN segments! Poor fellow!

The table on the DMG p61 goes only to a maximum of 3 segments and for good reasons (it is the same table as in the PHB). It was a hard cap to avoid destroying a whole group using surprise. It was the same for monsters or characters. If a creature could surprise with a d8. It would still get only a maximum of 3 segments. It was explained in a dragon magazine (or at a convention) if I recall correctly.

As for the poor fellow with a -3 adjustment... It would only ensure that he would always be surprised for a full 3 segments. There were a lot of downside to low dexterity. This one was a killer. But I never saw a character this low on dex. And the penalties only started a miser score of 5. Some monsters were that low, and it was a good thing. But the 3 segments of surprise was a hard cap. Imagine the 18th level drow wizard getting a 6 segments of surprise (and just to push it further, give him a 25 dex from multiple wishes, he could. This would give him 8 segments, enough for some really dangerous 8th level spells.). This could well be the end of any group. Gygax always said that a TPK should come from the player`s actions and not from an inevitable shenanigan or a simple streak of bad luck.

 

[MerricB]

The table on the DMG p61 goes only to a maximum of 3 segments and for good reasons (it is the same table as in the PHB). It was a hard cap to avoid destroying a whole group using surprise.

How curious that no-one on Dragonsfoot in any of their discussions about surprise has brought up this "cap". People there have house ruled a cap (to 2 segments generally), but no-one's ever mentioned it as being an official rule.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It is in the DMG. The first sentence in the combat section is: "Combat is divided into 1 minute period melee rounds, or simply rounds, in order to have reasonably manageable combat."

(melee rounds and rounds are italicized in the source)

It's also in the PHB.

For example, the ranger explains that a critter has to be tracked withih 3 turns (and then says in parentheses- 30 minutes). There are numerous examples of this, such as hearing noise sauing that it takes a full minute, aka a melee round, to listen.

But if you want the ur-source, just look for TIME in the PHB on p, 39, There is breaks it down for you.


(This was never a very hidden rule!)

 

[Mallus]

My group's playing a Scandinavian-themed campaign ("Früsen Sörja") using Labyrinth Lord over Roll20 right now and it's plenty charming. I started with AD&D, so LL's take on Basic is a little... ahem... basic for me, but that's a minor quibble. We're using Jeff Rients's excellent carousing rules for converting gold to XP via debauchery.

It got me interested in the slightly more... how do the kids say today?... extra take on original D&D found in Swords and Wizardry. I'm already sketching out a new setting, ie I have begun jotting down extravagantly stupid names.

 

[rabindranath72]

I think the distinction many people make is between surprise tout court, and complete surprise, which is mentioned more than once by Gygax. So I guess this could explain how to use the information of surprise for monsters which rely on a percentage chance; that would simply be the probability of complete surprise.

 

[Helldritch]

How curious that no-one on Dragonsfoot in any of their discussions about surprise has brought up this "cap". People there have house ruled a cap (to 2 segments generally), but no-one's ever mentioned it as being an official rule.

Yep, a lot of old rulings were often in the Dragon magazine (either in sage advice, forum letter or articles), or given at a convention. I was quite young at the time and my english was not as it is today. From what I understood then, as a rule of thumb (for 1ed and "basic"), the table's numbers are fixed. If a table is to be extended it will be in a supplement, source book or dragon magazine. That was either in 86 or 87.