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Post by derv on Mar 1, 2015 20:51:02 GMT -6
When reading Chainmail I have been making the assumption that an Elf armed with a magic sword is essentially a Hero-type. The sword enabled him to melee certain Fantastic Figures that he would not otherwise be able to. Those figures and their unique target numbers are listed under the Elves description on p.29.
Along with this, I projected that the Elf also defended as a Hero-type and would defend using the Fantasy Combat Table as such. Part of the reason is because it states under Enchanted Arrows, "treat Elves armed with enchanted arrows as Hero-types for the purpose of missile fire against fantastic targets". In my reading of that sentence I failed to recognize what the second part of it was actually saying- "for the purpose of missile fire (only)".
Both Enchanted Arrows and Magic Swords are found in the short one page section on Magical Weapons. All it says under Magic Swords is, "Besides allowing Elves to combat certain fantastic figures, they give a plus 1 to the dice score when employing the Fantasy Combat Table." Again, I failed to recognise the limits of what this was actually saying.
Then under the actual description of Elves it says, "Those Elves armed with magical weapons add an extra die in normal combat, and against other fantastic creatures they will perform even better". It goes on to list bonuses against Goblins and Orcs (extra dice for the Mass Combat Table, extra pips for MtM), then the target numbers for one hit kills against certain fantastic creatures.
What is not found anywhere in the rules is that Elves defend as Hero-types, even when armed with magic weapons. On the Fantasy Reference Table- Appendix D, they are listed as Heavy Foot.
It seems that they actually defend in the same manner as their non-magic bearing kin- as a normal Heavy Foot.
In light of this, it is also interesting that the Elves description in OD&D says, "For every 50 Elves encountered there will be one of above-normal capabilities......For every 100 encountered there will be a Hero/Warlock........Elves armed with magic weapons will add one pip to dice rolled to determine damage."
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Post by Scott Anderson on Mar 1, 2015 23:01:55 GMT -6
So elves Attack as fantastic combatants but defend as normal ones, even in melee?
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Post by derv on Mar 2, 2015 6:24:42 GMT -6
So elves Attack as fantastic combatants but defend as normal ones, even in melee? What it suggests is that the magic sword allows him to engage certain fantastic creatures he couldn't other wise, but has no bearing on his defensive capabilities (much like D&D). The consequence is that he can melee figures like Superheroes and kill them with a one-roll successful hit, but he is subject to them being worth multiple men when they counter attack. In the case of the Superhero, he's worth 8 men. On the Mass Combat Table, HF vs HF, this would mean the Super would get 8 dice that a 6 kills on. MtM, sword vs. chain & shield, would have a target number of 9 on 2d6 and the Super would get at least 8 attacks. Compare this to treating the Elf as a Hero-type on the Fantasy Combat Table where the Super would only get one roll with a target number of 5 on 2d6. |
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Post by Finarvyn on Mar 2, 2015 7:52:38 GMT -6
The monster list in M&T credits elves with 1+1 hit dice, which I interpret to mean that they do not defend as normal men in melee combat.
When I convert "hit dice" into "hits taken before death" I round plusses up. (E.g. a 1+1 hit die would imply that one hit won't kill the elf but the second one would, which translates into 2 hits before death. Clearly not "normal men" in stature.)
Anyhow, that's the way I've done it for years and it seems to work fine for me.
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Post by kesher on Mar 2, 2015 13:46:27 GMT -6
That's a good read, Fin!
I always found it interesting that elves armed with a magic sword get not only the normal bonus to hit, but an additional bonus to damage as well...
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Post by waysoftheearth on Mar 2, 2015 15:32:56 GMT -6
The OP is, I think, regarding "Chainmail Elves" who have no D&D hit dice  But to digress further for a moment (sorry Derv); M&T also describes various sort of "Men"--including 1+1 HD sorts--whose composition of forces is described in terms of Chainmail's normal troop types; light foot, heavy foot, light horse, etc. etc. M&T's Men--including 1+1 HD sorts--are as normal as can be |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 2, 2015 16:56:19 GMT -6
Well, in CHAINMAIL on the LGTSA sand table, a single elf with a magic sword had a chance to kill a Superhero, but if he didn't the Superhero had eight chances to kill the elf.
Make of this what you will.
Back-porting stuff from D&D to CHAINMAIL simply never happened back then.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Mar 2, 2015 17:54:19 GMT -6
Well, in CHAINMAIL on the LGTSA sand table, a single elf with a magic sword had a chance to kill a Superhero, but if he didn't the Superhero had eight chances to kill the elf. I'm pretty sure that's exactly what derv suggests in the OP. |
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Post by derv on Mar 3, 2015 17:04:47 GMT -6
Yes, I was specifically focusing on Elves in Chainmail, though it certainly has it's implications for D&D. But, no purposeful intentions of back-porting. It was an interesting over sight on my part because of how the Fantasy Supplement is written and I wanted to throw it out there to offer some clarity to others. I wasn't sure if there might be some who had made the same assumptions I originally had. My original research into Chainmail's Magical Weapons and particularly the Elf with Magic Sword can be found in my Flannelgraph thread here. |
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Post by Starbeard on Mar 5, 2015 6:45:47 GMT -6
The interpretation makes a lot of sense if you look to Tolkien as a primary precedent for elves with magic swords in Chainmail. There's an implication in his books that a sword crafted by elves was inherently magical, and while it might hold great power against fantastical creatures (or in general), it did not necessarily augment the wielder like He-Man's Power Sword might.
So from that, an elf in Middle-earth could reasonably be expected to have a magical sword, and while it would allow him to go toe to toe against greater beings, it wouldn't in itself make him greater.
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Post by derv on Mar 5, 2015 17:40:34 GMT -6
That's a good possibility Starbeard. I also see some of Poul Anderson's influence when it comes to Elves, Trolls, and Magic Swords |
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Post by Starbeard on Mar 6, 2015 4:43:11 GMT -6
That's definitely true, derv. I wonder if it's even possible that readers in the 50s-70s might have even conflated the two ideas subconsciously since both authors were nominally drawing from the same heritage of creature myths—although I get the impression that Poul was more influenced by the modern folk tales of his upbringing and Tolkien was more influenced by medieval sources, rather than the other way around, despite whatever Moorcock said about them. On that note, I'm not sure if I can really see much of Michael Moorcock directly in Chainmail, but his influence definitely shows up by the time the Dungeons & Dragons supplement was being written, specifically in the direction magic swords were evolving. That's certainly one reason mixing Chainmail and D&D terminology can lead to confusing results, since a magic sword in CM and a magic sword in D&D aren't necessarily the same thing.
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Post by Red Baron on Mar 6, 2015 10:42:22 GMT -6
On that note, I'm not sure if I can really see much of Michael Moorcock directly in Chainmail
Elementals. Wizards have the best fantastic combat scores. |
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Post by Zenopus on Mar 6, 2015 12:43:18 GMT -6
The "Combination Figures" section of Chainmail specifically references Elric, so Gygax was familiar with at least some of those tales at the time of writing.
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Post by Starbeard on Mar 7, 2015 3:47:47 GMT -6
On that note, I'm not sure if I can really see much of Michael Moorcock directly in Chainmail
Elementals. Wizards have the best fantastic combat scores. That's probably accurate. I don't think I would have never looked at them and thought, 'Clearly, these must be derived specifically from Elric', especially wizard combat scores, but that's probably only because I'm looking with hindsight and assume that these things were simply standard fantastical fare, when they probably weren't. Actually, now that I think about it, I completely take back my original statement: in this interview in 2000 Gary Gygax claimed that the Law/Chaos alignment system was inspired by Moorcock's stories. I recall now reading that before somewhere, but had forgotten about it. That's another connection I wouldn't have thought to put together right away, either—like including elementals as monsters, a law/chaos alignment system seems so plainly common sense now that it's hard to believe that it had to come from a specific literary precedent. |
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Post by Red Baron on Mar 7, 2015 7:40:16 GMT -6
Actually, now that I think about it, I completely take back my original statement: in this interview in 2000 Gary Gygax claimed that the Law/Chaos alignment system was inspired by Moorcock's stories. I recall now reading that before somewhere, but had forgotten about it. That's another connection I wouldn't have thought to put together right away, either—like including elementals as monsters, a law/chaos alignment system seems so plainly common sense now that it's hard to believe that it had to come from a specific literary precedent. This is running off thread topic, but it seems to me that law/chaos is modeled off of Three Hearts and Three Lions. Law/chaos in the Elric stories are very different from law/chaos in Chainmail/3LBBs. |
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Post by derv on Mar 7, 2015 10:24:36 GMT -6
I find the subject of literary or cinematic influences on the Fantasy Supplement pretty interesting and worthy of a seperate thread. It's worth discussing how some of these sources would have been understood in Chainmail and how they carried through or evolved in D&D. There are discussions out there that suggest Gary wasn't really into Tolkien and only included Tolkienesque material under duress from the people he was gaming with  |
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