Adjucating Movement and Distances in Abstract Combat

[delverinthedark]

I find myself wondering how others around here judge and keep track of distances in combat without using miniatures and assuming that OD&D combat operates on abstraction. What rules of thumb and principles do you often find yourselves falling back on? I'm particularly curious about this issue as I've been thinking about the kinds of tactical opportunities afforded by choosing to go unarmored and have a movement rate of 12' in Nicolas Dessaux's Searchers of the Unknown. For instance, would a combatant in platemail, and assuming an unenclosed space, ever be able to move in for melee on such a character if that character was attacking with a ranged weapon, or would ranged weapons be the only countermeasure? If so, is that a proper way to run the game? Likewise, would an unarmored character always be able to flee successfully from a combat? These are probably fairly ridiculous issues for old hands, but I find myself newly intrigued by them. I hope to see all kinds of perspectives on the role of movement in OD&D combat without miniatures.

[derv]

I rely on the players aptly describing their actions and the graph or hex papers scale to determine what is possible. The rest comes down to initiative and reactions.

The key thing to know is that random encounters occur at a distance of 20-80 feet in the underworld and 40-240 yards in the wilderness, unless someone is surprised. Surprise closes this distance down to 10-30 feet in the dungeon or yards in the outdoors. This is generally accepted to be melee distance.

What does your 12" movement rate gain you then? It gives you a better chance of evading most monsters, but is no guarantee. Assuming it is inevitable, melee is more difficult to avoid in the close quarters of a dungeon. But Gary offers you some hope. He says that "monsters will continue to pursue in a straight line as long as there is not more than 90 feet between the two." The rest can be found on page 12 of U&WA.

So, yes, there are situations where a combatant in platemail could close the distance on an unarmored opponent if they have initiative at less than 60 feet or have surprised you at 30 feet.

Beyond this though, lighter armor does allow you to carry more loot without severe penalty to movement.

Really though, this may best be answered by the GM who will be running the game. Every GM runs things their own way and many do not track movement and distances or use encumbrance rules.

[sepulchre]

Many here are already familiar with this chart, which is easily adaptable to Chainmail MTM, but it speaks to tactical considerations while balancing the importance of abstraction

[delverinthedark]

Thanks a lot for the perspective, derv and sepulchre, not to mention the snazzy chart! Thinking more about the precise distances at which encounters first occur and what it takes to close to melee is helping a lot in figuring out the possibilities of lightly and heavily armored combatants. This post from hedgehobbit a while back is also helping me conceive of how I would ideally like to run movement:

Actually, the running away from a monster rules (from U&WA pg 12) don't make sense if you're using an initiative roll from later editions.

The party and the monsters each have one of three choices, close to attack, run away and stand still and fire. That's only nine possible outcomes. Two of them (both closing and both fleeing) are easy to resolve. Two of them (monster charge + PCs flee and PCs charge and monsters flee) is resolved by comparing movement rates and using the rules from U&WA pg 12). The other five situations might need a die roll to determine if the side that is standing and shooting will get it's shot off before the other side can charge or shoot itself. Even then it might not matter since if you start within 20 feet of each other (or 30 feet depending on which rule you're using), melee starts automatically so there isn't any possibility of running.

The weapon length based hit priority chart in Chainmail can be used to determine who strikes first in melee. [Although, I don't really agree that lighter weapons should have multiple attacks against longer ones]. The Judges Guild Ready Ref sheets (page 5 IIRC) include a hit priority chart that adds spells and scrolls and adjusts for Dex and encumbrance [another thing I don't particularly agree with]. No die rolling required.

This palette of options, with adjudication by the DM based on the environment, combined with, typically, a single distance between the party and any given unit of monsters seems to make something manageable without keeping track of every step.

I'd still love to hear more about peoples' methods for handling movement in combat!

[bestialwarlust]

I tend to keep it abstracted as od&d rounds tend to be longer. A lot action can occur as long as I judge the distances reasonable (within the 10-30 range) I just roll with it. I find I prefer the freedom and flexibility compared to the shorter 6 second rounds. As far as armor again I tend to eyeball it if it seems reasonable based on type worn...strength of the character I rule on it based on the circumstances. Basically I try not to let combat get to bogged down on details. I prefer to move past combat as quick as we can to get to playing the game.

[derv]

Oct 30, 2015 19:29:27 GMT -6 delverinthedark said:

I'd still love to hear more about peoples' methods for handling movement in combat!

My approach is that there are two moves to a turn. A combat turn is 1 minute.

The turn sequence I use for combat comes from Chainmail- initiative, movement, spells, missiles, melee. Players must declare their actions prior to initiative.

An archer can fire missiles up to two times per move if he does not use his movement segment. He can always fire a round, if his bow is ready, when charged by an enemy. Archers cannot fire into melee or once in melee themselves.

[Deleted]

Personally, I don't use the movement rates once melee combat has become. Instead, if you look at that Ready Ref Sheet chart there are modifiers based on movement rates/encumbrance. If two characters are trying to do things related to movement (such as a fighter trying to get in front of the magic-user before the charging orc), I'll have them both roll a d6 and add the modifier to see who get's there first. This way, I can keep the positioning vague while still allowing for movement rates to have an impact on combat. You could use this sort of movement based roll-off to handle chases.

Since I don't use a pre-round initiative roll, I'll sometimes use a similar roll off to resolve action order. So, if a fighter is trying to rush a magic-user before a spell can be cast, the fighter will roll a d6+movement mods while the magic-user rolls a d6+his Intelligence modifier. High roll goes first.

[Deleted]

Well, the way Gary did it was to keep track of distances over 60 feet, and under 60 feet just wing it. "Can I get behind the giant scorpion this turn?" * rolls dice * "Yeah."

[delverinthedark]

I really appreciate all of these responses; not only do they showcase the diversity of D&D, they've been helpful in my own thinking.

I'm coming around to the thought that maybe I'm taking the movement rates as too static of a property; I think I might prefer using them, in the context of combat at least, as a reference for the possibility of different movements and closings. Noting the references some of you here have made to using dice in the context of movement, perhaps it might be better, rather than sticking to a standard rate, to consider movements that would be contested as rolls modified by the encumbrance/armor of the characters. I think maybe my difficulties wrapping my head around this sort of thing came down to my disbelief that, say, platemail would slow someone down as drastically as to 1/4 the speed of someone without armor. Tests with that kind of armor don't seem to bear that out (though I'm no expert), but it does seem to have a small encumbering effect that is worth taking into judgment.

Another thing I'm considering is possibly replacing movement restrictions with a fatigue mechanic of some sort. It seems that the difficulty of armor might not be so much that it prevents you from taking the kind of movement that's important in combat but that it requires a a greater expenditure of energy to make that movement. So maybe give people relatively free reign to move and attack as they wish in combat, within reason, but put a system into place whereby a penalty for fatigue might accrue at a different rate for different armor classes? I may be overthinking this, but I kind of like that idea...

[Porphyre]

the way I rule it
1/ determine distance between the opponents (ususally using the "surprise" rules, and compare to the movement rates (MR) 
1a. One of the opponent's MR is higher than the distance : he gets initiative this round (unless the defender is using ranged weapons , in which case he may sufferpassing-by fire)
1b. Both opponents MR is lower than the distance between them : each one can move , run , shoot.
1c. Both opponents have a MR higher than the distance, determine initiative (see below)

2/ When both opponents are at each other's reach roll for initiative with 1d6 and adjust accorting to the comparative MR
1a. The opponent with the highest MR , up to twice the opponent MR (6'' vs 3''; 12'' vs 6'', etc), gets  +1
1b. If the opponent with the highest MR is more than twice as fast than the other (>6 vs 3; >12 vs 6; >18 vs 9, etc.) he gets +2
1c. If the opponent with the highest MR is more than thrice as fast than the other (>9 vs 3; >18 vs 6; >27 vs 9, etc.) he gets +3

[Deleted]

Oct 31, 2015 18:51:07 GMT -6 delverinthedark said:

Another thing I'm considering is possibly replacing movement restrictions with a fatigue mechanic of some sort.

In the past I've used a mechanic where a character is fatigued after fighting a number of rounds equal to 1/2 their Con if using heavy armor and equal to their Con if in medium armor. This way you only have to compare one number to the round number to check fatigue. Fatigue results in -2 to attack rolls.

Characters can stay out of combat to remain fresh. I let characters swap positions in the line for free as long as they've practiced doing so during downtime.

I like this method because it's easy to keep track of and only applies during longer fights (an average Joe can fight for 5 rounds in heavy armor).

[talysman]

Oct 31, 2015 10:55:06 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Well, the way Gary did it was to keep track of distances over 60 feet, and under 60 feet just wing it. "Can I get behind the giant scorpion this turn?" * rolls dice * "Yeah."

I think this is the best way to do it, and not just because that's the way Gary did it. If you think about it, your typical room is going to be no larger than 60 feet to the side. Anyone except an overburdened character can move that far in half a turn, so why bother tracking distance at all?

* If no one is stopping the character from moving, say "You move where you want to."
* If someone tries to tackle or block, make an attack roll.
* If no one is actively blocking, but it's a crowded melee, roll 1d6: on 5+, it takes two moves instead of one.
* If someone else tries to get there first, make the same d6 roll for both, but lowest roll is first.

[howandwhy99]

My advice: don't abstract it.