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Friday, August 04, 2023

AD&D DMG cover to cover - part VI, pages 61-83 (COMBAT)

We´ve been reading the original DMG - the ultimate DM book! - but from a B/X and OSR point-of-view.

Check the other parts of this series here.

Today we discuss COMBAT!


COMBAT 61
— ENCOUNTERS, COMBAT, AND INITIATIVE 61
— Surprise 61
— ENCOUNTER REACTIONS 63
— DISCHARGE MISSILES63
— GRENADE-LIKE MISSILES 64
— Holy/Unholy Water 65
— SPELL CASTING DURING MELEE 65
— Magical Device Attacks 65
— Effect of Cover On Spells And Spell-like Powers 65
— Monster Charm Power 65
— TURNING UNDEAD 65
— Counter-Affecting 66
— FURTHER ACTIONS 66
— Charge 66
— Weapon Speed Factor 66
— Striking To Subdue 67
— Special “To Hit” Bonuses 67
— MORALE 67
— MORALE SCORES 67
— MORALE FAILURE 67
— PURSUIT AND EVASION OF PURSUIT 67
— Pursuit And Evasion In Outdoor Settings 69
— MELEE 69
— Special Types Of Attacks 70
— Important Note Regarding “To Hit” Adjustments 70
— Attacks With Two Weapons 70
— Breaking Off From Melee 70
— Monks’ Open Hand Melee 70
— Actions During Combat And Similar Time-important Situations 71
— Example of Melee 71
— NON-LETHAL AND WEAPONLESS COMBAT PROCEDURES 72
— COMBAT TABLES 73
— Opponent Armor Class Description 73
— ATTACK MATRICES 74
— ASSASSINS’ TABLE FOR ASSASSINATIONS 75
— ATTACK MATRIX FOR MONSTERS 75
— CREATURES STRUCK ONLY BY MAGIC WEAPONS 75
— MATRIX FOR CLERICS AFFECTING UNDEAD 75
— PSIONIC COMBAT TABLES 76
— PSIONIC COMBAT NOTES 79
— SAVING THROW MATRICES 79
— SAVING THROWS 80
— MAGIC ARMOR AND SAVING THROWS 81
— PROGRESSION ON THE COMBAT TABLES 82
— HIT POINTS 82
— EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL AND DRUGS 82
— RECOVERY FROM INTOXICATION 83
— INSANITY 83

ENCOUNTERS, COMBAT, AND INITIATIVE contains a lengthy quote that I'll reproduce here:
"It is not in the best interests of an adventure game, however, to delve too deeply into cut and thrust, parry and riposte. The location of a hit or wound, the sort of damage done, sprains, breaks, and dislocations are not the stuff of heroic fantasy. [...] 
As has been detailed, hit points are not actually a measure of physical damage [...]. Therefore, the location of hits and the type of damage caused are not germane to them. While this is not true with respect to most monsters, it is neither necessary nor particularly useful. Lest some purist immediately object, consider the many charts and tables necessary to handle this sort of detail, and then think about how area effect spells would work. In like manner, consider all of the nasty things which face adventurers as the rules stand. Are crippling disabilities and yet more ways to meet instant death desirable in an open-ended, episodic game where participants seek to identify with lovingly detailed and developed player-character personae? Not likely! Certain death is as undesirable as a give-away campaign. Combat is a common pursuit in the vast majority of adventures, and the participants in the campaign deserve a chance to exercise intelligent choice during such confrontations. As hit points dwindle they can opt to break off the encounter and attempt to flee. With complex combat systems which stress so-called realism and feature hit location, special damage, and so on, either this option is severely limited or the rules are highly slanted towards favoring the player characters at the expense of their opponents. (Such rules as double damage and critical hits must cut both ways — in which case the life expectancy of player characters will be shortened considerably — or the monsters are being grossly misrepresented and unfairly treated by the system. [...])
While critical hits are certainly a matter of taste, I disagree with most these points. "Sprains, breaks, and dislocations are not the stuff of heroic fantasy"? What about ear disease

Besides, you shouldn't need hit location or critical hit tables for each hit. E.g., if you ONLY use them when you reach 0 HP, it doesn't increase lethality nor complexity; on the contrary. Also, "double damage" is not even necessary; you could treat a natural 20 as maximum damage, +1 damage, or another attack (potentially against another creature). 

I think most tables today prefer having the thrill of the "natural 20" mean something - even if they are playing B/X or AD&D.

Anyway.

As the author explains in this section, combat is more or less abstracted and simplified. Well, not REALLY simplified, as you'll see... Coming from B/X, this is a bit of a nightmare.

Surprise allows the surprising party to take action for a number of six-second "segments" before the surprise party reacts. But each segment allows you to make the same number of attacks as you normally do in a round (1 minute). In certain circumstances, a medium-level fighter could attack you half a dozen times before you can react, or fire arrows three times faster than usual, which soudns strange and extreme. OTOH, spells are not "sped up" accordingly, so this provides a deserved boost for fighters at the expense of wizards.

This section contains lots of good common-sense rulings/advice on surprise and detection, morale, parlaying, distance, and so on - all readily applicable to B/X.

Initiative is simple enough at first. then you need to factor in the order of attacks (for creatures with more than one), but the whole thing is pretty sensible and intuitive - although it might become a nuisance in practice. I won't go to deep into AD&D initiative here since this probably requires the PHB.

ENCOUNTER REACTIONS are similar to the classic B/X reaction table, but uses d100. It assumes that the parties are speaking, which clarifies things a bit. Doesn't explain how to deal with "uncertain" results however (or what to do when PCs decide to wait and see).

Some sensible remarks on  avoiding, parlaying and waiting come next.

MISSILE DISCHARGE contains rules on firing into a melee - you usually do not get to choose your targets, unless one size is significantly larger. Fair enough.

Then, there is this:

Dexterity Penalty And Bonus Considerations: The Dexterity Attacking Adjustment is for missile firing considerations when initiative is considered. It adjusts the initiative die roll for the concerned individual only. Thus, it may well allow the concerned individual to discharge a missile prior to the opponent’s attack even though the opponent has gained the initiative otherwise or vice versa. More important, this factor also gives the individual a “to hit” penalty or bonus when discharging a missile at an opponent.

A terrible rule and unnecessary fiddly, IMO.

The section keeps on to describe various special cases: siege machines (that curiously ignore AC bonus provided by Dex, another baffling idea IMO), cover, concealment, grenade-like weapons (oil, holy water, etc. - the require a roll to see if they break, but fortunately glass break 95% of the time...), etc.

SPELL CASTING DURING MELEE requires the caster to be motionless and concentrate; being hit spoils the spell. I appreciate the extra difficulty to spell casting. Magical devices are faster, however.

Monster Charm Power contains some detailed rules on the subject.

TURNING UNDEAD contains an idea I like to use in my B/X games: "If the undead are in a mixed group — for example, 1 vampire, 3 ghasts, and 8 ghouls — you may opt to disallow any turning or other effect if the most powerful member — in the example above, the vampire — is not affected by
the cleric. Naturally, this rule applies only to groups of mixed undead where the lesser are following or serving the greater. Mindless undead, skeletons and zombies, cannot be considered.". Neat!

Evil clerics can control undead, evil areas make turning undead harder.

FURTHER ACTIONS contains detailed rules on charges, including a bonus to movement and attacks, and a penalty to AC. "Initiative is NOT checked at the end of charge movement. The opponent with the longer weapon/reach attacks first." another sensible and fun idea.

Tied initiative brings "Weapon Speed Factor" into effect, allowing a knife to attack two (or three) times against someone using a heavy weapon, for example. This also affects the chances of stopping a spell with a weapon.

I love these small details that differentiate weapons, and even the interaction with spells is fun if a little complex (here is a good chance you can interrupt a powerful mage with a magic missile!). I cannot help but to wish for a simplified version of this system (e.g., roll 1d20 for initiative and subtract you speed factor or spell level, a natural 20 allows multiple attacks etc.).

MORALE is more detailed here than in B/X; multiple circumstances are considered - including HD, since AD&D monsters default to 50% morale (curiously, unintelligent monsters seem to get no bonus).

PURSUIT AND EVASION OF PURSUIT

This are the "chase" rules, including how likely a pursuit happens in the first place. Sensible, detailed stuff, but nothing specially fun, and in the end it is up to the DM in some cases ("The likelihood of any distraction being successful is a matter for individual adjudication by the DM", etc.).

MELEE

This sections start with some rules about positioning, flanking, rear attacks, grids, etc. "Magically sleeping" opponents suffer maximum damage and twice the number of attacks (curiously, not as many as some surprised opponents...).

Another curious rule asserts that "it is generally not possible to select a specific opponent in a mass melee. If this is the case, simply use some random number generation to find out which attacks are upon which opponents", but if "creatures are able to single out an opponent" somehow, "then the concerned figures will remain locked in melee until one side is dead or opts to attempt to break off the combat". I fail to see the point of the entire section; maybe it means unintelligent monsters will attack randomly. Here are my thoughts on the matter.

Attacking with a secondary weapon is possible with a penalty.

Breaking off from melee allows a free attack (so "attacks of opportunity" are a thing from the beginning...).

Monks get to affect larger and heavier opponents with their stunning/killing as they level up. Unfortunately, "weight" an "height" are not usually included in monster statistics, so the GM has to guess. And it is suggested the DM can change the table anyway. Sigh.

Actions During Combat likewise leave to DM common sense to decide if a PC can attack, drink a potion and stab in the same round.

Example of Melee is a lengthy description of combat bringing most of this stuff (and PHB stuff like the weapon versus armor table) together in a coherent whole.

NON-LETHAL AND WEAPONLESS COMBAT PROCEDURES has an entirely different combat system for unarmed combat, using percentages rather than the d20, substituting AC for penalties, and (partly temporary) damage included in the d100 roll. There must be some easier way!

An "example of unarmed combat" might be useful here, but alas, we get none.

From a brief glance, the system is based on adding all kinds of bonus to get to a percentage, and then roll to find out how you attack you enemy (it is not up to the attacker to decide to kick or bite, for example; kicking is extremely hard to do, but OTOH is much more effective than a dagger if you hit...). It gives me the feeling that the author doesn't know much about actual grappling or striking either.

There could be some ideas on how to create a d100 combat system here, but adding an entirely different combat system ON TOP of the existing one is not something I want to do.

COMBAT TABLES are attack matrices (chances to hit a target), the assassination table (for assassins), turn undead (for clerics), saving throws (including for items), and so on. They are missing from the PHB, IIRC. Here is one example:


While I prefer THAC0 or a simple formula, I like AD&Ds smoother progression for fighters (about 1 point per level, suggested as an optional rule over the indicated 2 point per 2 levels) over B/X. They deserve the boost. Notice that rolling a 20 basically counts as 25, allowing anyone to hit opponents in formidable armor.

Monster save as fighters. They could attack as fighters too, but why make things simpler?

This section also include mental combat (psionics). I will not even try to understand this one (there is no B/X equivalent), sorry. Maybe some other time. It looks amazingly complex and it baffles me that they couldn't simply use something more similar to spellcasting (example). It is probably a cool rock-paper-scissors systems if you're familiar enough.

SAVING THROWS explains, in the convoluted Gygaxian tone, the reason of this mechanic. The interesting part is that each character has its own method of avoiding spells/effects: fighters with defiance, thieves with quickness, clerics with faith, etc. A natural 1 is always a failure, a natural 20 always a success. Magical armor enhances your saving throws, which is nice.

HIT POINTS are described here as toughness PLUS intuition, luck, magic and so on. HP loss is not wounds - but a high-level fighter, "having sustained 40 or 50 hit points of damage", "will be covered with a number of nicks, scratches, cuts and bruises. It will require a long period of rest and recuperation to regain the physical and metaphysical peak of 95 hit points". Okay... At least "4 weeks of continuous rest will restore any character to full strength".

Zero Hit Points do not mean immediate death, necessarily, but unconsciousness and bleeding.  -6 HP could cause the lass of a member, etc. Since the DMG advises against critical hit tables, this is left to DM discretion.

EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL AND DRUGS include making you braver, tougher, and dumber.

Are we still in the combat section? Okay.

Next we have the various types of INSANITY.


This is certainly useful for some types of campaigns.

"Naturally, these forms of insanity are not clinically correct. They are designed to conform to game terms and situations. Their inclusion is to fill in an area of the game where a condition exists and no adequate explanation is otherwise given (Cf. DISEASE)."

What have we learned today?
 
This section was frustrating, TBH. 

AD&D contains lots of cool combat ideas (e.g., I like weapon speed, length, etc.) but the whole thing is convoluted, often unnecessarily so. 

I've been trying to add detail to B/X combat, and this was less helpful than I had hoped. I should probably look at the PHB again for weapon details. But anyway, I like the ideas on charging, speed factor, and even segments. 

Let's see if we can adapt this to B/X somehow.

Here are a couple of ideas to play with in the future: minimalist unarmed combat and "hitting the unhittable".

25 comments:

  1. Wow. This is great. Why am I just finding this now? Well. I better make up for lost time and go back to the start of this one.

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  2. It's been said a million times that AD&D is disjointed and scattered. Both throughout single books and it's various associated products. And unfortunately I think that combat might be the biggest victim of this, which might explain why you found this section frustrating.

    It's almost interesting that AD&D Player's Handbook is SO long and still doesn't have all the rules the players actually need at the table. There's just so many optional and niche setting-specific rules included in the PHB. Rules Gary didn't even use.(https://www.enworld.org/threads/q-a-with-gary-gygax.22566/page-35#post-639985). Maybe it's this lack of use that they seem interesting on the surface but fail to provide. Needed more playtesting and editing.

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    1. Yes, I think you're right - combat suffers a lot from being too scattered. I'd love to see a streamlined version.

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    2. OSRIC my man! The first retroclone makes it much more concise, you can still easily download it for free.

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    3. Yes, I love OSRIC! Unfortunately, doesn't contain some of the cool parts like weapon speed and effectiveness against armor. A great resource nonetheless.

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  3. I'm about half way through this section of pages and my sentiments so far are similar - I like weapon speed, length and adjustments vs armor as a way to different weapon selection, there's good advice peppered throughout but there's an equal amount of strange or nonsensical bits.

    The part about surprise granting an attack every segment just does not sound like a real system that people ever used in a long campaign.

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    1. Yes, segments is probably my least favorite part. All these parts are cool but they don't seem to fit so well together.

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    2. Segments are tricky because they're used both to compare the speeds of weapons in melee combat AND to make spells with long casting times more interruptible (and a couple other things).

      On top of the multiple uses, there are lots of little exceptions and addendums (multiple attacks, surprise, dexterity adjustments, crossbows of speed, bow specialists, etc)

      I like both the idea of stronger spells being easier to interrupt and differentiating melee weapons in combat, but I don't think you can port segments directly into B/X without adding weapon speed factors to all melee weapons and casting times to all spells.

      You could maybe create a simplified version where spells have a a casting time of 1, 2 or 3. Compare the difference in initiative - the casters side needs to win by at least the casting time for the spell to go off prior to the enemy sides actions.

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    3. Segments also limit the brutality of surprise, kinda. Closing to melee is difficult as you don't get much movement and you only get a couple segments of casting time. On the other hand, you can machine gun attack with missile weapons so I dunno.

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    4. The "machine gun" part is odd for me. A dagger is much faster than a long bow. In combat, a sword is (occasionally) slower than a fireball, but during surprise the sword is much faster.

      It doesn't feel coherent.

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    5. Yeah there's definitely some game balance over coherence going on here.

      I don't mind this one too much - I can imagine a group of opponents being slower to react effectively against missiles which may have come from multiple directions, and might be relatively quiet compared to a dude running at you with a sword, which will provoke an immediate reaction.

      As a loose example, from kingdom of heaven:https://youtu.be/C0vEP3tMODI

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  4. Going back to the start was totally worth the time and effort. Now *I* want to reread the DMG cover to cover again. So much here I have forgotten.

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  5. Initiative - Gygax talks about side based initiative vs individual initiative as a matter of scale here which I find compelling. If you're gonna play with old school party sizes, or mercenary bands or small armies, side based initiative is a must.

    Encounter reactions - I favor the B/X 2d6 system, but the numbers here seem pretty similar.

    Avoiding - "it is always possible to flee from an undesired confrontation if the other party is surprised. It is never possible to flee from an encounter where the opponent party is in striking distance" basically - if you get surprised and the enemies close to melee, you're in for the fight. I would extrapolate this to mean that if you try to flee and fail, the enemy has caught up to melee striking distance. I think this gets spelled out this way later.

    Pursuit continued - good list of considerations for whether monsters pursue. Generally, pursuits occur 50% of the time - different than B/X where pursuit by monsters occurs 100% of the time.

    Parleying - not Gygax's finest wisdom here - "it is recommended that you devise encounters which penalize [attacking first and parleying after] so as to encourage parleying attempts - which will usually be fruitless, of course!". Parley (and positive monster encounter rolls) can be tricky to adjudicate well - I wish this section was expanded.

    Missile discharge - firing into melee is impossible to do safely. You can fire into melee but your target is determined by the ratio of targets per side + modifiers per side. I'm curious how "sticky" melee is in AD&D in the coming sections - can your melee fighters attack and then step out of melee and fire at enemies they're now a few feet away from? This is one of those things that phased combat rounds keep in check. (Reading on, AD&D includes "opportunity attacks" which makes melee quite sticky)

    Strength bonus consideration - special missile weapons that take advantage of strength just seems like an unnecessary door to open for player options.

    Dexterity penalty and bonus considerations - strange stuff here - dex adjustment can mean specific individuals can fire missiles first even if they lose initiative. Too fiddly for my taste, though I like the general idea.

    Giant and machine missiles - this one is interesting. Removing dex adjustments for big projectiles seems counter-intuitive. I'd almost think you'd *only* use dex adjustments and armor wouldn't matter for large enough projectiles. But at that point you might as well use a saving throw.

    Cover - a little more fleshed out than B/X which gives a loose +1 to +4 bonus to AC for cover. I like that this system applies to very strong forms of cover like arrow slits. One thing I dislike about cover in d&d generally is that it can make fights near doors or corridor corners feel really dumb.

    Grenade-like missiles - there's a trade off here where characters get to choose just how potent they want their missiles to be (glass containers break vs crushing blow 19/20 times) but they're more likely to break while adventuring. That's good AD&D stuff. In general I like this section - it spells out the considerations for splash, whether a container breaks, what happens if you miss. Good stuff. I've had to house rule most of this stuff in my b/x game myself.

    Splash hits - keeping track of creatures within 3' is a little unusual - I've only ever seen people use 5' squares, Though I seem to recall Gygax suggesting using 3' squares on page 10. The end result is "anyone right next to the target" which seems like something you can adjudicate easily enough on theater of the mind or with minis.

    Misses - I've used the "roll d8 to figure out where your miss goes" approach before and I tend to like it.

    Crossing flaming oil - you just leap over it and take no damage!…unless your clothes catch fire in which case you take…some damage? Also, the monsters maybe don't leap over if pursuing - they maybe decide they don't want their clothes to catch fire. A little jumbled but good stuff.

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  6. Who attacks whom - "it is generally not possible to select a specific opponent in a mass melee" - this is pretty interesting, I've never played in a game using this sort of rule. Makes hitting spellcasters potentially very difficult, if they have lots of friends in melee with them. Spellcasters might be less likely to get interrupted in melee than at range, where they can be targeted by opponents with ranged weapons specially.

    Attacks with two weapons - a clever system where dexterity factors into your ability to use two weapons, supporting the "nimble two weapon fighter" archetype. I like it. OSE advanced has a similar rule though I'm not sure if it factors in Dex.

    Breaking off from melee - opportunity attacks are very nasty in AD&D. B/X is much more lenient with the "fighting withdrawal" or "full retreat" options neither of which creates extra attacks or (god forbid) attack routines. I like that B/X allows for a bit more "uh oh, we're in over our heads, let's bail" but I don't love that ranged attackers can simply step out of melee and fire each round, using the fighting withdrawal. Maybe a b/x fighting withdrawal should require a melee weapon to be used?

    Monks' open hands melee - keeping track of which targets you can kill by weight and height is classic AD&D crunch. Does the MM have weight and height entries for each humanoid? My bet would be no, but I'm not sure.

    Actions during combat and similar time-important situations - this section gets 99% of the way to the implied "declare actions before initiative each round" rule. The example of characters doing a bunch of different things in a round highlights why I like a shorter round - it's obvious that characters can do one major thing per round - attack, use an item, etc

    Example of melee - old D&D rulebook examples are always enlightening. The first thing I notice is that surprise is rolled for these two parties, though both presumably have lights and should not be able to surprise anyone with vision. The distance rolled being short makes sense in the context of rounding a corner and stumbling upon the enemy, which lines up with rolling surprise in the first place.

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    1. Good points!

      "Does the MM have weight and height entries for each humanoid?" Nope!

      "Who attacks whom" - I never heard of a game using such rule; maybe the author was thinking of mass combat. Would still require some clarification IMO.

      "Breaking off from melee" - I like the idea of standing still to use a bow (or cast a spell), although I don't remember where this is from. Move more than a few feet while shooting a bow should be hard, especially if you were just in melee...

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    2. Yeah the "who attacks whom" thing in melee definitely has a wargame feel. It makes some sense with the very abstract 1 minute combat round, but I wonder if it's one of those "no one ever did it this way" type rules. Maybe decent guidance on the GM side (randomize the targets of your monster melee attacks)

      "Breaking off from melee" one thing I noticed in my OSE game was that players with ranged weapons would "kite" their opponents by stepping out of melee and firing every turn. I don't think there's anything in the combat sequence that would forbid this, but I don't like the mental image of firing a bow while someone is trying to hit you in the face with a sword, seems absurd.

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    3. One other thing that segments does (I think) which seems nice - you can move just a little bit before casting a spell if you need to adjust a sightline or get in range, and it just delays the cast a bit. Playing B/X on a grid requiring no movement for the whole round often resulted in spellcasters that were just slightly out of position, especially clerics trying to cast cure light wounds on wires 10-15 ft away.

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    4. The other half of this section, page 72-83

      Variable applicable to all pummeling, grappling and overbearing attacks - reminds me of the contested rolls that 5e uses for grappling, though less swingy, s it's only part of a larger mechanic.

      Pummel - rules look the same as the Striking to Subdue rules on pg67. Not sure what damage fists do, but it seems like you'd rather just smack someone with the flat of your 1d8 dmg sword than punch them with 1d2(?) damage fists (provided you've got a sword). [Turns out later that fists don't do damage like weapons, there's a whole system]

      Determination of first attack initiative - oh no, more exceptions to the initiative systems. I think this whole section is gonna be super detailed.

      Base score to hit - there are way too many modifiers to take into account on the fly to really use this system. I'd much prefer one that either starts with an existing system (To-Hit vs AC, rolling your HD, rolling a save, etc) and modifies It just a little bit. These separate systems take everything elegant that Gygax praises at the beginning of the book and toss it out the window.

      Pummeling / grappling / overbearing - I kinda like that the tables get specific about what sort of grappling holds you might pull off, or what exact effect knocking an opponent over might have, as they spark the imagination, but they don't set the DM up to adjudicate a player saying something like "I grab the guy!" very easily. I like that potentially you can do a large chunk of damage (10+ strength bonus!) as this kind of unarmed fighting has the ability to end quickly unlike in B/X where 1d2 + str bonus damage for unarmed attacks will likely result in a slog. but the whole system gets way too fiddly imo.

      Multiple opponent attacks - I love the image of 20 goblins trying to bring down a single fighter by sheer weight, but I'm not sure how that really plays out here.

      Monsters using these attack modes - do bears with the bear-hug attack actually use these systems? Need to check the MM.

      Opponents with weapons used normally - basically, you need to be hard to hit to even have a shot at grappling successfully. An interesting check on the whole system that probably makes it never get used.

      Combat tables - very interesting that these are in the DMG, not the PHB. I like the system for missile attacks being -2 at medium range and -5 at long range better than B/X's +1/+0/-1 for short/medium/long, which is too generous for long ranges imo.

      Special note regarding fighters' progression - you can smooth out the fighter tables if you want to. The topic of smoothing out the B/X combat tables comes up pretty frequently, and I think it's nice to give fighters something beyond a hit die each level. Also, AD&D fighters gain quite a bit better chance of hitting things compared to B/X fighters.

      Attack matrix for thieves and assassins - backstab damage multiplier going up every 4 levels is a nice bonus that I'd consider giving B/X thieves. Backstab requires a dangerous commitment to melee for a squishy class.

      Assassination table - the infamously strange assassination table. Seems like its intended use is for NPC assassins taking on missions off screen, but I can't imagine that being a common thing in most d&d campaigns, which aren't super geared for that sort of thing.

      Attack matrix for monsters - like B/X, the monster attack table scales a bit better than even fighters, though it's much closer in AD&D.

      General combat table thoughts - in B/X there are 3 tables: one for martial types - fighters, dwarves, elves and halflings, one for semi-martial types - clerics and thieves, and one for magic-users. AD&D beefs up the fighter table, and bumps the table clerics use above the table for thieves.

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    5. Creatures struck only by magic weapons - systemizes creatures being able to hit each other despite magic immunity. A nice little table, useful in rare cases. The granularity of including monsters that can only be hit by +X weapons is very AD&D (actually…does this appear in OD&D?...). I suppose it can help keep the drive for more powerful magic weapons high, but it feels a bit gamey for my taste.

      Matrix for clerics affecting undead - again, evil cleric turning is arguably better than good cleric turning, which feels off. The evil cleric almost feels like a separate class. The note about changing the table is fascinating, similar to the note about smoothing the fighter table - surprising to see in AD&D.

      Psionic vs psionic in mental combat - this table makes psionics seem relatively straightforward, though I don't know if I've seen a straightforward procedure just yet for how exactly psionic combat works. I like the idea of the various attacks and defenses - each opponent having to select the attack they think will be most effective against what their opponent will do, has a nice "yomi" aspect to it. Also, the names of the psionics are super evocative.

      Psionic blast attack upon non-psionic creatures - this whole page is quite confusing. LOTS of little tweaks that really make the system appear to be too unwieldy to use as-is.

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    6. Saving throws - compared to Basic (temporarily a backwards comparison), paralyzation has been moved to the "death or poison" category, petrification now also includes polymorph and staves + rods have been lumped in with wands. Generally I think these are good changes - paralysis allowing for automatic hits is very strong and should be easy to save against, polymorph is quite debilitating as well and should be easier to save against and the various magical devices being in the same category makes sense.

      The notes for this table generally follow the principle to use the most deadly category (easiest save to make) when unsure (ie if a spell causes death, the save should be vs death) EXCEPT for a wand of polymorph, which uses the save for wands, for some reason.

      Saving throw matrix for monsters - unintelligent monsters have much worse saves, except for vs death. I like that, it's a nice little tweak

      Saving throw matrix for magical and non-magical items - a much more fleshed out version of the item saving throw system used in basic, incorporating the type of attack and material of the item. Critically, it does not specify *when* to roll an item save. Basic specifies that item saves only need to be rolled when a character is killed (I believe OD&D says the same) but the DMG descriptions of the attack forms seem to imply that items will need to save more often than when a character dies, perhaps whenever a character fails a save?

      Saving throws - "yet because the player characters is all-important, he or she must always - or nearly always - have a chance, no matter how small, a chance of somehow escaping what otherwise would be inevitable destruction" - I like the idea that a character always gets a save, as a last chance. I've considered adding a house rule to B/X to include a "roll the body over and see if they're still alive" save vs death for characters killed by mundane means that normally don't include a save (regular damage from weapons mostly, but maybe falls and other such hazards)

      Saving throw modifiers - good advice on altering saves based on circumstances. The note about very large creatures not being affected by very small venomous creatures is a good one. Magical armor adding bonuses to saving throws is not something I've seen in other editions - another one of those little things that make fighters strong in AD&D.

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    7. Progression on the combat tables - the repeating 20's on the combat tables are interesting. They function similarly to the "20s always hit" rule in basic (and OD&D?), but have some quirks. Enough additions to the attack roll can make very low ACs relatively easy to hit where progression on the chart (leveling) cannot. This increases the focus on gear and ability scores compared to basic.

      Hit points - "meat points vs character luck/skill" laid out nicely. Love the note about baselining off Rasputin.

      Recovery of hit points - a little more complex than the B/X "1d3 per day" system, but I think it does a better representation of wound recovery. I like the note on a maximum of 4 weeks recovering any character to full keeping your high level fighters from sitting around forever, if you don't have a cleric.

      Zero hit points - actually more generous a system than I expected, if I'm understanding correctly. When you go down (to 0 HP or below) you're not dead, but bleeding out, and lose 1hp per round until -10, at which point you die. Any character can stabilize a downed character at which point there's no more danger. I'm not sure I understand the note about -3 HP - is it a cap on how low an individual blow may bring someone? Or is it a note to the GM allowing them to adjust the default negative HP starting point? I don't love the predictability of steadily losing 1hp per round, but I think the evolution away from "death at 0 HP" and no mitigating factors was inevitable. It seems like most old school DMs end up house ruling something in to keep campaigns from getting mired in low level meat grinder mode.

      Effects of alcohol and drugs - I can't imagine this table survived into 2e with the Satanic Panic going on.

      Intoxication Recovery Table - suffers the same issue as the disease table - "mild" and "strong" simulants are much less evocative than "coffee" and "fantasy amphetamines". A fun table to have nonetheless.

      Insanity - better than the intoxicant recovery table, as the entire are nice and specific. Insanity seems like one of those things best used sparingly, like fear or mind control, as taking the player characters out of player control isn't terribly fun. Insanity probably doesn't occur super often.

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  7. *on allies (wish blogspot allowed editing comments)

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  8. Anyway, my overly verbose parallel notes aside - I'm basically aligned with your thoughts on most of this section.

    My favorite tidbit is changing into melee. I think that whole system works nicely to make appears and pokey polearms dangerous to close with, which is great.

    Unarmed combat and psionics both seem like they've got cool ideas, but like you said - why are these totally separate systems?

    Also yeah, agreed about the fighter attack progression boost - a nicely deserved boost for the (not so much in AD&D) humble fighter

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    1. Same here, agree with most of your thoughts.

      Fighters and thieves deserve the boost, armor giving a bonus to saves is great (I even added it to 5e in my 5e armor PDF), -2 at medium range and -5 at long range is better than B/X, etc.

      The main difficulty is bringing the fun stuff down to B/X levels of complexity; here is my attempt for easier grappling, BTW:

      https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2023/08/minimalist-grappling-and-striking-bx-osr.html

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