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Post by countingwizard on Feb 28, 2020 10:00:56 GMT -6
I like the way the dungeons were modelled in FFC: corridors were at weird angles and not orthogonal, conforming to the lines of quadrille paper. That by itself would give mappers a headache. It gives the referee a headache trying to describe Yeah, like how am I, the referee, supposed to say how long a hallway is without using a ruler to measure the distance myself.
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 27, 2020 15:24:04 GMT -6
I wasn't aware of Warlord games. Not terribly expensive in the larger army boxes (less than a dollar per figure).
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 26, 2020 20:24:32 GMT -6
40mm or 30mm
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 26, 2020 9:46:35 GMT -6
I would love to use the original plastic figures mentioned in Chainmail, but they are incredibly expensive for the numbers needed, and it is hard to find modern equivalents. You would think it should be easy to find plastic army-man figures or something but medieval, but no.
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 22, 2020 23:15:47 GMT -6
Are there any, that when encountered, cause you to stop caring about the game session and let other people drive the session?
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 19, 2020 12:19:13 GMT -6
I hate the idea of magical darkness as something that overrides continual light or natural/spell infravision. Particularly when it comes in shapes like a sphere. When I see powers or dungeon features that utilize darkness, I switch it out for a thick unnatural fog that does not allow you to see farther than the tip of your nose. Use of very bright light in such a fog will cause blindness for several rounds even after exiting the fog. So when something like a demon wanders by in a sphere of darkness, I describe it as a thick cloud of billowing smoke or fog that appears to be rolling towards or away from the party. Alternatively, I cause progressive dimming of magical light sources, and immediate snuffing out of natural light sources. Totally agree with the motivation here (agree that spherical magical darkness as a common thing is bleagh). In my game, I switched the "darkness" spell to be an instantaneous extinguish-all-lights-in-range magic. This makes it a useful tactic for creatures with infravision, and PC's wind up frantically try to light up torches with flint-and-steel (well, while elves & dwarves hold off monsters). Our group's been very happy with it. Yeah. I alternate with it. I've had some good success using it with my mountain wraiths; which are incorporeal shadow ghosts with coal red eyes that sense and hunt the living within Dwarven Halls (lifted from Raymond Feist's Riftwar Saga). As soon as it picks up a player's trail, players sense some ill presence somewhere far in the distance, and from turn to turn it gets closer or further depending on their movement speed; until it's on them. Then their torches blow out, lantern flames extinguish, and magical light sources take a round or two to dim and then go dark; with coal red eyes lurking at the edge of what light they have left, the wraiths waiting for their chance to feed. Only light and magical weapons can harm them; and the light itself keeps them at bay. Any source of light within its range dies out; but players can still light a torch or oil, etc. it just dies out within a round or so.
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 14, 2020 22:21:41 GMT -6
I hate the idea of magical darkness as something that overrides continual light or natural/spell infravision. Particularly when it comes in shapes like a sphere. When I see powers or dungeon features that utilize darkness, I switch it out for a thick unnatural fog that does not allow you to see farther than the tip of your nose. Use of very bright light in such a fog will cause blindness for several rounds even after exiting the fog. So when something like a demon wanders by in a sphere of darkness, I describe it as a thick cloud of billowing smoke or fog that appears to be rolling towards or away from the party. Alternatively, I cause progressive dimming of magical light sources, and immediate snuffing out of natural light sources.
The current dungeon I'm building uses progressively trickier tricks and traps the further in. Nothing as devious as Tomb of Horrors. And I'm working on avoiding things that cause cumulative map errors to mislead, and things that would make players crumple up their map (like I tend to do if mapping gets f**ked as a player). I think what I may have to do is build something in to notify players that they may want to start a new map until they can decide where things line up again so they can consolidate.
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 14, 2020 11:05:28 GMT -6
The earliest dungeons utilized various tricks and techniques with the design of the map in order to fool players or provide an obstacle to overcome. On one hand, when I create my dungeons I want to players to be able to clearly understand the information I am conveying so that there isn't any miscommunication about what they see and experience, and so that they have a stronger sense of being in the game world. But I would like to get other people's perspectives on what they consider unfair, not fun, not novel, and just an impediment to playing the game at all. So below is a list of many of the different techniques I've found to confuse and confound mappers in the game: - Secret Doors
- Secret Doors with two possible ways to open (pushing on left side of door opens a passage to the left but blocks an unseen passage to the right)
- False Doors
- Slanted hallways that do not match evenly with the corners
- Sloping Passages that descend or ascend unnoticeably to a different level
- Rotating Rooms
- Random Teleport Traps
- Steps leading to a slanting passage so that the player actually stays on the same level.
- Dead ends; usually as part of a maze of corridors.
- Illusion areas which hide true exits and show false exits.
- Doors (and secret doors) which only open from one side (e.g. one-way trip); used to funnel people deeper or further away from an area so they have to find alternative routes.
- Natural passages and caverns (super irregular in shape and impossible to accurately map without seeing a drawing of it).
- Rooms or passages whose width is off by 1 or 2 feet, so that the mapper is forced to eyeball how to draw it on graph paper, potentially staggering the entire dungeon offset with the grid (e.g. a room that is 8x10 vs 10x10 or 5x10)
- Spaces that defy the laws of physics, taking up more or less space than they actually occupy, or simultaneously existing in two places at once (e.g. a roofless room in the dungeon which opens up into a forest 500 miles away in the world, but is simultaneously still in the dungeon)
- Doors that just open up into random locations in the dungeon; kinda like a teleport room, but where just the door connects the two spaces.
- Areas that obscure via darkness or fog the actual layout and contents of a space.
- Magical trap that disorients the entire party so that they no longer know what direction they were facing
- Symmetrical room layouts paired with the above disorienting trap, so that players can't see any obvious signs of what direction they came from.
- Rotator/Teleportation tricks that don't alert the player that something has occurred
- Stairs that go up/down more than one level
- Multiple doors (or corridors) to choose from; sometimes coupled with a path that leads to a room with even more doors/corridors to choose.
Edit: If you have additional ideas to add to this list, that would also be appreciated.
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 7, 2020 15:04:34 GMT -6
Given the limitations of the original spell, and the fact that reversing it would be for combat purposes, I would be ok with it either doing 1d6+1 as a spell in compliance with whatever range is listed, or as spell that fires off alongside a successful melee attack, causing 1d6 from weapon and an additional 1d6+1 from cause light wounds.
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 6, 2020 11:24:19 GMT -6
AustinJimm has the different penalties kick in for constitution, movement, and maybe attack/AC rolls as well.
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Wolves
Feb 6, 2020 5:43:36 GMT -6
Post by countingwizard on Feb 6, 2020 5:43:36 GMT -6
I thought structures only take 1hp of damage per hit?
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 5, 2020 10:12:31 GMT -6
At 125$ that's about half the amount an original would cost. Sounds good to me.
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Wolves
Feb 4, 2020 9:17:24 GMT -6
Post by countingwizard on Feb 4, 2020 9:17:24 GMT -6
Sounds about right to me. Hmmm, purple worms must actually be fairly feeble combatants; they have 15 HD, but "some reach a length of 50 feet and a girth of nearly 10 feet diameter [...] able to swallow up to ogre-sized opponents in one gulp". That would make them the mass of good-sized whales, 50 tons or more easily. But a 20' Cloud Giant (probably about 3 1/2 or 4 tons if scaling up from humans) has 12+2 HD and a Tyrannosaurus Rex (~8 tons) is "near 20, let us say". I think the T-Rex is probably the only creature besides level-draining undead, that would make me "nope" the f**k out of a situation.
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 4, 2020 9:10:23 GMT -6
It seems you are superseding the existing rules for rest in D&D then. btb D&D requires one turn of rest after every six turns (which could include turns of combat) or two turns of rest after flight/pursuit (which is variable but could be as little as one turn). In contrast Chainmail requires one turn of rest after five turns of movement, or a lesser combination of movement with melee, or basically one turn of combat. Keep in mind Chainmail turns are one minute. I highly doubt the post melee morale rules were used. The example is very similar to the "reaction table" mechanic. But, I think he was referring to the excess casualty morale which is easily ported over. Either way, morale checks are only rolled after casualties are taken, fatigued or not. So, it becomes a matter of who can be the first to cause casualties that forces such a check. This becomes the only option if your movement rate is already reduced by half because of fatigue. Flight will not be viable in most cases. It may help to ignore the time equivalents for one minute and consider game mechanic terms used to describe play: turns, rounds, and turn segments (a chainmail term used for each phase of a turn; e.g. move, missile fire, melee). Arguments involving scale usually result in a rehash of this type of argument: odd74.proboards.com/thread/13836/faq-scale-20-fantasy-supplement , which boils down to the game is played exactly the same no matter what scale is used for the figures or distance. Also this isn't about how most people ran it this way, or even how Gygax/Arneson may have eventually ran it in their games. This is about how to run it by the rules as written, which hopefully aligns to how Gygax ran the game the day he typed those rules. The idealized version in his head. Please bear in mind I'm also trying to show new readers these ideas, so if I cover arguments you've already seen or over explain things, I'm not talking down to you. p.25 U&WA, "LAND COMBAT: The basic system is that from CHAINMAIL, with one figure representing one man or creature. Melee can be conducted with the combat table given in Volume I or by the CHAINMAIL system, with scores equalling a drive back or kill equal only to a hit. Battles involving large numbers of figures can be fought at a 20:1 ratio, with single fantastic types fighting separately at 1:1 or otherwise against but a single 20:1 figure."
This quote indicates that the Chainmail combat framework is the basis for combat in D&D. D&D supercedes this system in a variety of small ways identified throughout the books, but most of it remains in place. Kills & Drive Backs = 1d6 of damage. Hits-to-kills are replaced with the appropriate d6 HD to determine hitpoints of a creature or player character. Rough time equivalents such as 1 turn = 10 rounds. You get the picture. p.8 U&WA, The Move/Turn in the Underworld, "Movement (distances given in Vol. 1) is in segments of approximately ten minutes. Thus it takes ten minutes to move about two moves -- 120 feet for a fully armored character. Two moves constitute a turn, except in flight/pursuit situations where the moves/turn will be doubled (and no mapping allowed)."From this we get 1 turn = 10 minutes; 1 hour = 6 turns. p.8 U&WA, The Move/Turn in the Underworld, "Time must be taken to rest, so one turn every hour must be spent motionless, and double the rest period must be taken after a flight/pursuit takes place."The phrasing of this leans could be either the 6th turn is rest or the 7th turn. The reason I say that it leans towards the 6th turn is rest, is because it could have been worded as "One turn of rest, spent motionless, must be taken after every hour..." instead. Also, the later wording for the rest required in wilderness travel is: p.17 "All creatures must rest after six days of movement." Gygax clearly could have written it a similar way if that is what he intended. Rest appears to be a way to include Chainmail "fatigue" into the non-combat exploration portion of the game, so I'm going to lean towards being consistent with Chainmail since the wording doesn't clearly contradict the Chainmail rule. Chainmail does not require casualties for the post-melee morale check to be made. D&D doesn't mention morale at all except: - p.13, M&M, "Morale dice can cause a man or intelligent monster to attempt to surrender or become subdued.
- in terms of non-player characters and men-at-arms having to make morale checks, p.13 M&M, "whenever a highly dangerous or un-nerving situation arises."
- in terms of loyalty's effect on morale (p.13 M&M)
- in terms of Drums of Panic's effect, p.37 M&T, "creatures who fail to make their morale throw to flee in rout (for morale throw use saving throw vs. magic)."
There aren't any rules in D&D or Chainmail that say fatigue effects movement rates. So that would be referee judgment.
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 3, 2020 16:02:11 GMT -6
Forget Greyhawk is all I have to say. Greyhawk hadn't yet been published, and this FAQ was more to clarify rules about the LBBs. He used judgment to determine where those orcs were positioned in both cases. And where they were flanking the Hero or behind the hero, they received a +2 bonus to their attack.
The example is also still not a great combat example, because it doesn't tell you at what range melee attacks can be made, it doesn't tell you what order or sequence combat occurs in context with movement, missile attacks, or spells.
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 3, 2020 15:22:54 GMT -6
Fatigue is a factor for players if the monsters show up after the players have been moving a few turns. Unless the referee gives the players a fair shake by rolling to see how many turns a wandering monster has been moving, players may experience one to three rounds of melee where they are receiving a -1 penalty to both their AC and their own attack rolls. If players also have mercenaries with them, the mercenaries will be more likely to withdraw or run away from a battle, leaving the players to decide whether to join them. Static monsters would be considered fresh no matter what, so players would eventually have one round of fatigue before the enemy balances out the effect with their own fatigue.
Undead are unaffected by fatigue or morale. Unintelligent creatures are unaffected by morale.
Also fatigue requires a turn to rest from, which requires another wandering monster check.
That quote from Gygax is unclear whether he is talking about the morale check from excess casualties or the post-melee morale check, which are two separate things.
Morale Check from Excess Casualties, factors: Number of Casualties taken and confidence based on training/arms/armor of the men in a unit. The outcome is either continue fighting or flee in rout/retreat.
Post-melee Morale Check, factors: How many more people a unit killed compared to their opponent, who has the greater number of men, what quality soldier those men are. The outcome is either continued fighting, withdraw, retreat, rout, or surrender.
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 2, 2020 13:14:55 GMT -6
There are penalties for lack of food and water. They are covered by rules for Outdoor Survival. The boardgame has Life Level cards that help track food and water needs. You lose life levels as you go into starvation dehydration, which slows movement from turn to turn. Life-level effects can be converted at the referee's judgment into D&D terms such as constitution/strength modifiers and scaled to normal movement penalties.
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 2, 2020 9:57:01 GMT -6
The emphasis appears to be on "Units" being drawn in. It typically occurs because some units just don't have the movement points to both turn and march on an enemy in formation (i.e. for positioning reasons). It still allows those units to be drawn in and participate.
Figuring out how mass combat works can be a mess though. Do you include all the figures in the unit, or just figures in contact. Some relevant quotes:
p.14 Chainmail, "MELEES Melee casualties will be determined by rolling certain numbers of dice and evaluating the scores for the combatants from each side on the Combat Tables given herein (see Appendix A)..."
p.15 Chainmail, "Charge: The Charge move is permitted only when melee contact is expected during some portion of the turn."
p.15 Chainmail, "Melee Resolution: After both players have rolled the number of dice alloted to them for their meleeing troops by the Combat Tables, casualties are removed, and morale for both opponents is checked."
p.15 Chainmail, "[POST MELEE MORALE] The side with the greater number of surviving troops which were involved in the melee determines the positive difference between the number of his troops and those of the enemy..."
p.15 Chainmail, "Example of a small melee: 10 Heavy Horse attack 20 Heavy Foot, kill 8 and lose 2 HH. The HH then score 6 (for greater kills) times a die roll, thus: 8-2-6x3 (assumed die roll result) = 18. To this total the HH add a morale rating of 9 multiplied by the number of their survivors, thus: 9x8=-72...The HF have more survivors, so they score 4 (12 HF as opposed to 8 HC) = a positive difference of 4)..."
10 heavy horse and 20 heavy foot were involved in the melee. It is unclear what "involved" means. Whether it includes the entirety of the unit or just the figures that contributed to the dice roll on the combat table. Because the example doesn't list out the steps for melee itself, and we know that additional attacks are possible when figures are finishing out their charge movements.
p.15 Chainmail, "Number of Ranks Fighting: 1 rank."
The above shows that only the 1st rank can fight in a melee.
p.16 Chainmail, "Flank Attack: Units attacking from..."
p.16 Chainmail, "Rear Attack: Units which attack from..."
p.9 Chainmail, "[simultaneous move system] Both sides move their units according to their written orders, making one-half of the move, checking for unordered melee contact due to opponent movement..."
p.16 Chainmail, "The Heavy Cavalry must continue their charge, if applicable, and if they again contact the Heavy Foot the two units will again melee that turn."
p.18 Chainmail, "Although Light Horse may be brigaded with Medium, or Medium with Heavy, other types of troops cannot be intermixed, and even different units of like types of troops should not be joined. Units that become intermixed in a melee will require one full turn to separate and reorganize."
p.16 Chainmail, "After the first round of melee excess troops (figures unopposed by an enemy directly before them) from the flanks or from rear ranks may be moved so as to overlap the enemy formation's flanks and even rear if movement at one-half normal will allow."
For the above consider that both players will be moving excess troops at the same time or in sequential fashion to try and overlap and bring more figures into contact.
So in actual play, which I've attempted with other people a couple times, what ends up happening is that on melee contact the formations start to break up as we mush the units together to increase melee contact. I think the entire unit is "involved" in the melee for morale calculation purposes and firing into melee, but since all other references are about "contact" and only 1 rank can attack, and the stated rules about units becoming disorganized or intermixed, I lean towards the thinking that only figures that are in base-to-base contact can attack. No melee range is given for mass to mass combat to tell us otherwise.
And it's easier to see Gygax's/Perrin's thinking about the scale change to man-to-man turning into 3" to make attacks, since man-to-man is where they started being able to add stuff like castle walls and other man-sized structures, so it made it easier to conduct melees because the introduction of elevation differences and balancing miniatures necessitates some rule flexibility so that attacks can even occur.
I think some of the rules could be interpreted a little differently, but I'd have to see how they play out to determine otherwise. Stuff like 1" to make an attack seems like it would be reasonable in melee combat due to how figures get slightly bumped around and that the Elastolin/Starlux figures they used didn't have uniform base sizes (i.e. not the neat round or square bases we have today).
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 2, 2020 0:19:10 GMT -6
Joining in the fun 4 years later.
Consider that in Chainmail mass combat, melee attacks are (likely) not possible unless a figure is adjacent and in base-to-base contact. Consider that in Chainmail man-to-man, melee attacks suddenly become possible at 3" away, even atop walls, without any movement necessary. Consider that at 1:20 ratio, 3" = 30 yards [outright stated in rules]. At 1:10 ratio 3" = 15 yards [implied by scale adjustment]. At 1:1 ratio 3" = 1.5 yards [implied by scale adjustment]. Mass combat occurs at 1:20 or 1:10. Man-to-man occurs at 1:1. The only difference in scale is that the missile fire ranges in inches stay the same.
Suddenly the 3" = 30' for man-to-man/D&D assumption no longer makes sense. D&D uses 1" = 10' scale. So melee attacks then become only possible on base-to-base contact, with it being allowed anywhere within 1" (10') of another figure due to the example given by surprise attacks, which is likely based on the Chainmail 1" infiltration rule and Ghoul touch distance.
And melee is only a condition in Chainmail, which straight up disallows ranged attacks into an ongoing battle/mixup between units. In D&D, anything can be attempted. OD&D has not yet created a rule that says "monsters get a free attack if you try to disengage from melee". You simply run, and if the monster catches you, you are unable to return the attack because there is a rule that says those attacked in the rear are unable to attack the one attacking them.
p16 Chainmail, "Rear Attack: Units which attack from the rear deliver casualties without receiving any in return. In addition, such troops receive the bonus stated above for flank attack."
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 1, 2020 23:52:33 GMT -6
Could you perhaps dropbox these charts for download? I think this is very interesting. The other thing to think about is the carrying capacity of the sacks and backpacks. A backpack holds only 300 gp. 80 gp is taken up by miscellaneous items which means you only 220 gp of room left in there. You could maybe tie a large sack to your backpack, put that still only gives you an extra 300 gp of carrying capacity. So just because you can technically carry the treasure without movement penalty doesn't mean you have a place to put it. drive.google.com/open?id=1dCsh50ybyBxhzRX_dYkCZYJop2uKUJfA
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 1, 2020 23:51:44 GMT -6
Food and (especially) water could be a consideration too Could be. But "misc equipment" is a good way not to have to track the crap items individually. Also, I'm starting to think food ration costs in particular are reflective of whether a character spends a week in town vs adventuring. i.e. added support costs in addition to the 1% experience periodic gold costs. Normal rations are unlabeled, while "iron rations" are labeled for use in dungeons. Honestly I'd just let my players stuff as many bags of wonderbread as they want into the backpack. Soft limit is probably 2 weeks worth.
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Post by countingwizard on Feb 1, 2020 8:48:31 GMT -6
Literally, according to M&T there is no saving throw at all. Hit = paralysis. I had played it that way for some time, with Ghouls as the most feared creatures in the game next to Wights. Later I've added ST, using Wands OR Paralysis column. As for the normal-types, I lean towards waysoftheearth vision, ie. with hobgoblins, gnolls, elves & veterans (and lizard-men or troglodytes) being "normal". You have to rise to the rank of Swordsman to get a "Heroic" status and become impervious to Ghoul Paralysis. By the way, in CHAINMAIL Ghouls as well as Wights can be meleed in normal, non-fantastic combat. You can see clearly that at first Wights & Wraiths didn't have draining powers, this rule was added later (take note at THE FIRST FANTASY CAMPAIGN, Richard Snider's Additions). In CM they simply paralyze like ghouls. I agree this is the literal rule. Saving throws are only for effects specifically listed. Paralysis is not a listed effect, it's a word used to emphasize that even Wands that do not cause damage can have a saving throw apply.
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Post by countingwizard on Jan 31, 2020 22:01:42 GMT -6
Yeah. With the way normal-types are used, it seems to only indicate creatures that aren't strong enough to appear on the Fantasy Combat Tables (i.e. only those multiple attacks can be made against). Which sucks, because then Ghouls are just 2HD undead with nothing to be afraid of unless they are attacking your hireling or a party of 1st level characters. Never looked at it from the Charm aspect. I'll have to look at that a bit more.
I read that the other day and was super bummed, so I decided that all Ghouls in my game would become "Ghouls" a very similar named monster, with only the slightest and most subtle difference in pronunciation, whose description exactly matches that of Ghouls, but will paralyze any non-elf they touch.
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Post by countingwizard on Jan 31, 2020 11:12:11 GMT -6
I ran my OD&D event game with fatigue rules, and noticed that combat rarely went 3 rounds. It mostly has an effect if the party has been moving several prior turns, or if the monsters come into battle being more fatigued. Like I suspected, the biggest effect is that it actually shortens battles by making npc's more likely to flee (morale check due to excess casualties) or give ground or flee (due to the post-melee morale check). My players, even when fatigued, preferred to keep pushing forward and continue combat when monsters were giving ground; although I do recall one situation where the withdraw led the players to call for terms of surrender with a bandit leader. I found it easiest to track fatigue status this way: The one on the left has just fulfilled the requirements of fatigue this round of combat and will gain the fatigued status next round. Next round will see the players meet the requirement of fatigue as well. I cross off the section and stop tracking, once they are fatigued. The biggest effect from fatigue will be when the player or monster enters combat after 5 turns of movement. They will be unable to charge, and will suffer from fatigue immediately during the course of battle unless they can withdraw and rest unattacked for a round.
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Post by countingwizard on Jan 31, 2020 9:45:05 GMT -6
Does a 1st or 2nd edition pdf of Chainmail exist? What I really need is a physical copy of the Chainmail rules, but one of the earlier editions might have some better guidance on how to play the LBBs by the book.
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Post by countingwizard on Jan 29, 2020 10:47:35 GMT -6
I guess the real question is how to judge missile fire across, basically, a 20 foot room, as a bunch of orcs are rushing towards you I ran into this situation several times when I was running the game taking into consideration the original Chainmail framework. Pretty interesting how it worked. Here are some example situations on how it shook out. Scenario 1: - Players declared a sleep spell.
- Monsters won initiative.
- Monsters performed a charge to close into melee distance (contact/10')
- Players gave monsters pass-through missile fire by deciding that archers would forgo movement.
- Players chose not to move.
- Monsters didn't perform pass-through fire.
- Monsters didn't have any spells or further missile fire to conduct.
- Players spell went off, putting some of the monsters to sleep. A 2nd volley of missile fire was made for the longbow wielding characters just before the charge hit.
- Player archers refused combat by stepping back from the front rank (up to 30').
- Monsters made their attacks, receiving the impetus bonus from charging across relatively smooth level surface while heavily armored.
- Players made their attacks.
- Post-melee morale was conducted to determine how the monsters would move in the following turn.
Scenario 2:
- Players chose not to cast a spell since they would be on the move.
- Monsters won initiative.
- Monsters performed a charge to close into melee distance.
- No pass-through missile fire was conducted by players.
- Players performed normal movement to run from the charge while the elves used split move & fire to pick off monsters pursuing.
- No pass-through missile fire was conducted by monsters.
- No spells or further missile fire occurred for either side (split move & fire disallows 2nd attack by bows).
- Monsters just barely caught the players in melee range by the end of the turn, but the archers were still able to refuse combat because enough allies remain to hinder enemy infiltration.
- Monsters made their attacks, receive the impetus bonus from charging across relatively smooth level surface while heavily armored, as well as a bonus for attacking from the rear.
- Players are unable to turn and attack due to the rule that disallows a response to attacks from the rear. They will have to decide if that is what they do next turn.
- Post-melee morale was conducted to determine how the monsters would move in the following turn.
Scenario 3: - Monsters have three magic-users. One declared a spell and is out of melee range, another declared a spell but stays in melee range, but the last one decided not to because he wanted to move out of melee range this round.
- Monsters won intiative.
- Monsters stayed in melee range, holding their ground, with one of the magic-users moving a full movement out of melee range.
- Players conducted pass-through fire the spell caster outside of melee and score a hit, thus disrupting their spell.
- Players stood in melee range, holding their ground.
- No pass-through fire was conducted by monsters.
- The magic-user in melee had their spell go off, but because it is in melee there was a chance of friendly fire and or miscast (referee judgment).
- Players attempted to conduct normal missile fire on the remaining spell caster who is engaged in melee from last round. They missed, and the referee accounts for friendly fire.
- Monsters have their magic user refuse combat, and he pulls back from the front ranks out of melee range.
- Monsters make their melee attacks.
- Players make their melee attacks.
- Post-melee morale was conducted to determine how the monsters would move in the following turn.
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Post by countingwizard on Jan 29, 2020 9:06:33 GMT -6
I think it's safe to say most of us gloss over the weight rules for the LBBs. The argument is they are cumbersome, tedious to track, etc. etc. Most of us come up with a house rule, a rule of thumb, or just eyeball it as to what the effect of weight actually is going to be when it comes up. Well have I got an argument for you! We only care about weight in this game for 2 reasons (3 if you are a player, 4 if you are a grognard): - How fast can a character move?
- How much treasure can a character (or party) carry?
- (Players) What do I need to drop in order to escape the monsters?
- (Grognards) What AC should Light Foot, Heavy Foot, Armored Foot, Light Horse, Medium Horse, and Heavy Horse be?
Well, the D&D weight system can actually answer all those questions. And it's not as cumbersome as you think. Players don't need to know the movement charts by heart or the weight thresholds; and we don't need to track the weight of each and every piece of equipment. In fact that is not what the original rules intended if you look at the examples given in M&M.
The only thing a player needs to do is write down at the bottom of their character sheet under inventory:
- Total Weight of Weaponry: ...
- Total Weight of Armor (helm/shield/armor): ...
- Total Misc Weight: 80. It's always 80. Unless you literally only have weapons and armor on you.
- Total Treasure: (only if they are bringing it into the dungeon with them).
- Total Weight: ...
(note the below paragraph assumes the easier method of using a group treasure pool, and then splitting it up once back to town) From that, before the group enters the dungeon, the referee can note each character's standard move rate. If the character picks up a new piece of armor or weapon, take the character sheet, update the total and see if it changes the move rate. Thats it. When the players decide to grab treasure, eyeball whether that amount is large enough to possibly have an effect on the move speed of the party. If so, total up the group's capacity to carry weight and still move at 60' and also at 30', and see whether there is enough treasure to exceed that. If there is, notify the group so they can make a choice and start figuring out if they have enough bags to carry it all. If the group is trying to get out of the dungeon and they are burdened, the amount of treasure they need to drop to escape should be clear. You see, not painful. You don't have to track the weight of every individual item. And once calculated you just adjust it when circumstances change. Players can clearly see which of their weight categories they need to try and lose weight from. They can ask what weight threshold they need to reach to achieve their movement goal. This is a number to inform you, not cause you pain. Now for you Grognards. I've had many discussions in real-life and online about what we think the AC each of the categories of troops should be. My argument in the past has been that it's clearly a term used to indicate armor coverage and weight of that armor, completely ignoring shields. So I've always assumed that Light Troops were unarmored or armored in leather, Heavy Troops were armored in chainmail, Armored Troops were armored in platemail, Light Horse were unarmored or armored in leather, Medium Horse were armored in chainmail, and Heavy Horse were armored in platemail. Well, the rules D&D provides can't tell you what those troops are exactly wearing, but they can tell you how fast a person with a set of equipment moves, and from that you can kinda start seeing what those troops might be wearing. Behold, my equipment weight analysis! I carefully outfitted 40 adventures with the highest quality medieval equipment, and then calculated what the weight and AC of each of those configurations might be: As you can see, all AC 6 adventurers were traveling around like they were light foot! And surprisingly, five of the eight AC 5 adventurers were travelling around as light foot as well! The rest of the chainmail wearers were considered heavy foot. What is more surprising is that five of the eight AC 3 adventurers traveled as heavy foot! With the remaining platemail wearers travelling as armored foot. This analysis shows that we are often greatly overestimating the weight of armor when we use a rule of thumb or try to abstract the weight of equipment. I've got one last tidbit however that may be useful to that crowd who remains unconvinced to use the D&D weight method. From that prior analysis I took the most overburdened adventurers from each AC category, and built a chart to tell you how much weight a character can carry (at worst), based on their Armor Class: I hope you enjoyed my TED talk, and that at least one of these things was useful to you in some way. Edit: My biggest assumption was that a character will not be able to carry and use both a shield and a large or extra large weapon. Although after actual play I was able to see it was possible for mounted troops to have a lance and shield, and foot troops using a spear and shield.
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Post by countingwizard on Jan 29, 2020 8:08:36 GMT -6
There is some argument about what classifies as "normal". M&T does use a sprinkling of language to differentiate between normal types, supernormal types, or above-normal types (but not most of the time). The best indicator seems to be whether the creature defends as a creature listed on the Chainmail Fantasy Combat Table. Giant Wolves for example do, even though they don't attack as a fantastic type. That's a plausible case c.w. Here's another possible reading of the Giant Wolf entry that leans the other way for your amusement: These creatures are equal to Light Horse in attack (implies normal combat as LH don't typically feature in fantastic combat) and Medium Horse in movement (18" unmounted). They can bear small creatures like Goblins on their backs, but this reduces their speed to that of Heavy Horse (12" mounted). In combat against fantastic opponents give them (presumably "them" now refers to mounted giant wolves) two attacks as men (implies the mounted giant wolf is considered a normal type because; 1. there is no concept of an attack as a man in fantastic combat, and 2. any combat between a fantastic opponent and a normal type is resolved with normal combat where attack as a man makes sense. A goblin mounted on a wolf is then much like a man mounted on a horse. The goblin and the wolf notionally contribute 1 man of FC each, resulting in two attacks as a man). They (the "fantastic opponent") require a score equal to that necessary to kill a Wight (which defend as Heavy Horse) to kill them ("them" being the mounted giant wolf. So this is effectively a round-about way of saying: mounted giant wolves defend as heavy horse). I'm not suggesting "it is so". I'm just saying it's another tyre to kick. Final point--it may be worth noting that Giant Wolves (giant orcs too FWIW) were added to Chainmail 3rd Ed in 1975 (post D&D), so it's plausible that may have influenced the way it was written. Or maybe the fact that wights are the very next entry in the text made the reference seem obvious? Enjoy The irony is that was the argument in my original response to you in the other thread. I deleted the part about considering it a mount because I thought you would point out the period between the two sentences. The part that broke my brain was that in the course of a single round of combat against a fantastic opponent, the giant wolf would roll two attacks on the Man-to-Man Table, and then roll to defend on the Fantasy Combat Table. It really does seem like that monster is intended to fight as a Light Horse (cavalry) in mass combat, and I guess with one attack as Light Horse in man-to-man (how? use the mounted combat rules?) against normal opponents. I don't see enough connection in the rule to say that would defend as a Heavy Horse though. Other entries are very specific when the monster attacks as one thing but defends as another, and the wording is very specific that it is referencing the Wight on the Fantasy Combat Table.
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Post by countingwizard on Jan 28, 2020 21:46:33 GMT -6
I'm a little slow today: I don't understand the question! Did you start at level 78 of the dungeon and work your way up while designing it. Or did you start at level 1 and work your way down?
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Post by countingwizard on Jan 28, 2020 14:51:27 GMT -6
I know in Chainmail that player characters get multiple attacks and become real forces of nature as they otherwise prove themselves exceptional in most instances of combat.
But I've been wondering how to implement it into just standard OD&D without chainmail, and to give weapons different chances against AC akin to that.
Allowing Fighters multiple attacks per hit die, and only fighters is one(in ratio with creatures HD). Until they fight truly fantastical creatures where only one attack is made. To accomplish the after mentioned AC with different weapons providing bonuses to such, I would use the Greyhawk tables.
But for other creatures, they still attack 1 per hit die(in ratio with the characters HD), and the other classes don't get this option as their role in a party lies elsewhere.
I'm still trying to smooth it out to implement it into my games. How does it sound so far? I'm pretty sure multiple attacks are standard in OD&D. Here is a more detailed argument I just made: odd74.proboards.com/post/224701/threadBasically, I think that any player class or monster gets a number of attacks equal to their HD against "normal" types, using the lowest level row on the monster charts for each attack, and adding the HD bonus to the first attack. There is some argument about what classifies as "normal". M&T does use a sprinkling of language to differentiate between normal types, supernormal types, or above-normal types (but not most of the time). The best indicator seems to be whether the creature defends as a creature listed on the Chainmail Fantasy Combat Table. Giant Wolves for example do, even though they don't attack as a fantastic type. I think a good rule of thumb is 1 HD or 1+1 HD and less, or monsters that appear as part of large groups.
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