Monsters get multiple attacks against Normal Men?

[derv]

Feb 28, 2015 20:52:05 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

Let me take this from another angle.

Chainmail "horse" refers to a mounted man, not a horse.

The only time in Chainmail that an actual horse fights is in man-to-man combat, where it fights as if it were 1 mace, 2 maces, or 2 flails, for light, medium, or heavy horse respectively (p. 25).

D&D's hit dice for horses of 2, 2+1, and 3 for light, medium, and heavy horse do not correspond to anything in Chainmail.

There is no evidence, therefore, that Chainmail or D&D ever defines fantastic combat as starting at 4 hit dice. The evidence points to starting at 2 HD, which is when a monster first gets extra attacks against normal men or man-type monsters.

Even though I share your conclusions in practice about what constitutes fantastic combat, I do not share your line of reason or your jump in logic.

A Chainmail horse does refer to a horse in MtM, not just a mounted man.

Part of the reason you may have come to your conclusion is because the rules, seperate from the Fantasy Supplement, were intended for historical simulation and naturally included mounted men. Yet, one should also acknowledge that not only does a horse gain it's own seperate attack (2 attacks for Medium & Heavy Horse), but horses can also be targeted seperately from their riders with the MtM combat system (see MtM table appendix B under Horse). One hit will kill the horse and unhorse the rider, potentially stunning him.

Now, with the Fantasy Supplement, all the above does not mean you cannot have a game that includes wild horses without riders. In fact every thing to do so is already established. As you pointed out, a light horse would melee as 1 mace, medium horse as 2 maces, and a heavy horse as 2 flails. All of them would be considered "normal".

You suggest that horses in D&D "do not correspond to anything in Chainmail". I would change that statement to "Horses in D&D were altered from what they were in Chainmail" because they do correspond in every way but HD. They were altered much like other figures, such as Ogres, Trolls, Wizards, Wights, Wraiths, Ghouls, etc., yet there is a correlation. The very mechanic we are discussing of multiple attacks corresponds to Chainmail in an altered state also.

Bottom line, my opinion about multiple attacks is play it as you like. Determine what is "normal" and what is "fantastic" in your game and make it so. This might even be a ruling that says normals are 1HD or less and fantastics, who benefit from multiple attacks, start at 4HD, with a category of neither normal nor fantastic from 1+1 to 3HD who are not subject to multiple attacks nor do they benefit from multiple attacks. You can even make an exception for this category for those of magical origin, if you like.

[derv]

Feb 28, 2015 20:53:01 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Hey, ya wanna know how Gary REALLY did it?

A 4th level fighter versus orcs... he rolled a d4 to see how many orcs got killed.
A 6th level fighter versus orcs... he rolled a d6 to see how manh orcs got killed.

tetramorph, look at that. Pretty close to what you came up with

[waysoftheearth]

I'm interested in 1973/74 D&D I'm interested in the 1973 D&D draft and the D&D rules as they were printed in 1974, especially where the printed rules may differ from how EGG reportedly played, so let's ignore the FAQ (from mid 1975) for a moment. Here's a table of info appearing in Chainmail and the 3LBBs:



On the left are all the types described in Chainmail's Fantasy Supplement, plus a few extras (in blue) from the 3LBBs.

The red-dashed boxes highlight "interesting" CM figures.
The green-dashed boxes highlight "interesting" D&D figures.


From the Chainmail Perspective

Elves: elves with magic swords gain increased attack capability versus normals and even make a camio appearance on the FCT to attack a subset of fantastic/heroic monsters, but they still defend as a normal heavy foot against these.

Wights, Ghouls: have the attack capability of one normal figure, and take only one normal hit to kill. Yet they fight on the FCT.

Basalisks, Cockatrice: take 4 normal hits (or 1 magical hit) to kill yet have no normal or fantasy attack capability. They defend (only!) on the FCT as lycanthropes.

Giant Spiders: have no normal attacks yet they fight on the FCT (as lycanthropes).

Giant Wolves: the description of these has always seemed obscure. The best I can make of In combat against fantastic opponents give them two attacks as men. is: "in combat versus sprites, dwarves, elves, etc. give them two attacks as men.".  

(I have to read Fantastic as meaning "all the creatures appearing in the Fantasy Supplement", rather than creatures of heroic/fantastic stature. FWIW, this terminology also occurs under elves, where orcs and goblins are included among "fantastic" creatures).

The next sentence They require a score equal to that necessary to kill a Wight to kill them. is equally fraught. My best interpretation is: "Like wights, they defend as heavy horse."

Finally, the initial statement that These creatures are equal to Light Horse in attack I presume to be unmounted, while the two attacks as men. I presume to apply when carrying a rider.

If you believe all that(!) then mtd Giant Wolves attack as 2 men, have 1 hit to kill, and yet don't appear on the FCT.


From the D&D Perspective

Firstly note that, other than heroes and superheroes, there isn't a neat 1:1 correspondence between CM's attack capability versus normals and D&D's number of hit dice. The M&T (p5) rule changes the attack capabilities versus normals specified by CM.  All good.

Secondly, note that I included a "Max Appearing" column in the above table. This statistic gives, IMHO, a reasonable overview of the mooks vs the monsters. The mooks occur in their hundreds!! while the fantastic types occur in smaller numbers. By this view cavemen and gnolls would seem likely candidates as normals. On the other hand, Dryads and Ghouls (with the same HD) occur in smaller numbers and, with their special powers, probably aren't normal.

Finally, note that I added in a few types from D&D that I feel are somewhere "near" the boundary between normal and heroic/fantastic.

The green-boxed types are, IMHO, worth mentioning specifically:


Veterans: 1st level fighters have a FC of 1+1 men in normal combat (identical to the Leader described in CM's normal combat rules), and have no status on the FCT.

Warriors: 2nd level fighters have a FC of 2 men+1 in normal combat, and have no status on the FCT.

Swordsmen: 3rd level fighters have a FC of 3 men in normal combat, and fight on the FCT as a hero -1.

Cavemen These guys have to be mentioned specifically due to their description in M&T: Cavemen fight as 2nd level Fighting-Men, armed with weapons equal to Morning Stars. They have no armor but get 2 Hit Dice.

The use of morning stars is only relevant to the MtM combat table. So cavemen fight on the MtM table, where they fight as a 2nd level F-M. A 2nd level F-M's fighting capability is listed in M&M as 2 men+1 in normal combat and no status on the FCT. So we have it that 2 HD cavemen fight with morning stars on the MtM table as 2 men +1, and don't have any status on the FCT.


It's worthwhile mentioning, perhaps, that while the F-M and M-U fighting capability vs normals given in M&M lines up neatly with the M&T p5 rule, the cleric's FC does not. This introduces an inconsistency when anti-clerics are encountered: should they use the M&T p5 rule, or the M&M FC?  (seems to me that the cleric FC is crying out to be lined up with the M&T p5 rule correctly )



To sum up, it's my (present) view that any figure that would be subject to attack on the FCT is heroic/fantastic; any figure that is only ever subject to normal combat attacks is normal. Note that it's about how a figure can be attacked, not about how he can attack.

By this definition the elf with magic sword is normal, the basalisk is fantastic, mtd giant wolves are normal (as are mtd horses), and warriors, cavemen and gnolls are all normal.


I get that other folks place more value on the additional info appearing in the FAQ, but the above definition seems to me to fit everything we see in the original game rather neatly.

Ultimately none of the "evidence" matters overly much because it's not an exact science. It all comes down to whether the referee decides a particular monster is a "rank and file" type, or a "fantastic" monster. There will always be edge cases requiring the ref's judgement, and what is normal in one setting may well be fantastic in another.


Enjoy!

[Deleted]

Mar 2, 2015 6:25:17 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

I'm interested in 1973/74 D&D, so let's ignore the FAQ (from mid 1975) for a moment.

So you're not interested in how Gary actually played the game, or how he intended it to be played, but some mythical "Ur-D&D" that, if it existed at all, only existed by accident?

[waysoftheearth]

Mar 2, 2015 17:00:27 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

So you're not interested in how Gary actually played the game, or how he intended it to be played, but some mythical "Ur-D&D" that, if it existed at all, only existed by accident?

I'm interested in how Gary played/ruled, sure. I'm especially interested in where that may differ from what is printed.

That aside, I fail to see how the printed rules are "mythical". All I'm doing is reading what's in the booklets closely, as you suggested young readers should do:

Nov 27, 2012 0:02:35 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

It's a matter of learning to close read.

[aldarron]

There is a related and informative discussion here Fighting Man Back

As to what is fantastic and what isn't - looking to hit dice is barking up the wrong tree. (The normal/fantastic distinction and FC is a the heart of combat in Champions of ZED, so this is a well trod road for me.)

Anyway, "fantastic" is no more nor less than it seems, meaning rare, special, amazing and "magical". A creature of fantasy.

Normal is everything else.

There isn't meant to be a hard and fast rule about which is which or how many hit dice one or the other should have. Although CHAINMAIL's fantasy combat table can be taken as a general guide, it really all depends on the mileau, especially for man type creatures like elves or hobgoblins.

[Deleted]

Mar 2, 2015 18:17:49 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

That aside, I fail to see how the printed rules are "mythical".

The printed rules may not be "mythical," but the notion of a game played entirely based off only them is. Firstly, the game originally spread by word of mouth, not by selling the rules. Between the people Dave taught the game to, and Gary taught the game to, and the people THOSE people taught the game to, most of the sales of D&D in its first year were TO PEOPLE WHO HAD ALREADY PLAYED, or had been introduced to it by Gary's numerous written articles in the year before its release for sale.

[waysoftheearth]

Mar 2, 2015 20:26:29 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

The printed rules may not be "mythical," but the notion of a game played entirely based off only them is. Firstly, the game originally spread by word of mouth, not by selling the rules. Between the people Dave taught the game to, and Gary taught the game to, and the people THOSE people taught the game to, most of the sales of D&D in its first year were TO PEOPLE WHO HAD ALREADY PLAYED, or had been introduced to it by Gary's numerous written articles in the year before its release for sale.

That's all fine and valuable, but it's fine and valuable to discuss the rules as written too.

So there's no confusion I'll go back to my previous post and change I'm interested in 1973/74 D&D to I'm interested in the 1973 D&D draft and the D&D rules as they were printed in 1974, especially where the printed rules may differ from how EGG reportedly played.

[Scott Anderson]

Generalizing a little from this example and some other cases I have come across, it seems like many of the earliest authors wrote complicated rules, or at least wrote rather impenetrable rules, and then house ruled to simpler resolutions at the table. Yeah?

[Deleted]

D&D is a particular puzzlement in that respect. I'm having a long correspondence with Jon Peterson, author of "Playing at the World," on that very subject. I've read and played a number of games Gary wrote or co-wrote; CHAINMAIL, TRACTICS, Don't Give Up the Ship, Boot Hill -- and I've read, but not played, Warriors of Mars.

I've also read a number of his articles and columns from the early days.

None of them are the mangled, confused mess that OD&D is. I think the time pressure to get to print must have been very, very severe in late 1973. Alas, I was in Minneapolis at that time.

[Deleted]

Mar 2, 2015 21:01:04 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

I'm interested in the 1973 D&D draft and the D&D rules as they were printed in 1974, especially where the printed rules may differ from how EGG reportedly played.

Stated that way it's quite an interesting question, and makes me wonder "why the hell didn't Gary write the game he was playing?" Or, perhaps, "what the hell happened?"

[aldarron]

Mar 3, 2015 0:22:50 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Mar 2, 2015 21:01:04 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

I'm interested in the 1973 D&D draft and the D&D rules as they were printed in 1974, especially where the printed rules may differ from how EGG reportedly played.

Stated that way it's quite an interesting question, and makes me wonder "why the hell didn't Gary write the game he was playing?" Or, perhaps, "what the hell happened?"

Not to derail the thread, but yeah. I don't know the why's or wherefores, but I do know the Beyond This Point be Dragons draft is well organized and easy enough to follow and that draft had to follow after the papers you have - so sometime in September '73 at the earliest. So that means that in a space of no more than 3 months, a whole bunch of new material was added, some old material cut, a lot tweaked or changed, and the whole thing split up into three separate, totally reorganized booklets. <shrug>

[derv]

Mar 3, 2015 0:22:50 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Mar 2, 2015 21:01:04 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

I'm interested in the 1973 D&D draft and the D&D rules as they were printed in 1974, especially where the printed rules may differ from how EGG reportedly played.

Stated that way it's quite an interesting question, and makes me wonder "why the hell didn't Gary write the game he was playing?" Or, perhaps, "what the hell happened?"

It is an interesting question. Since you had already been playing the game prior to it's publication, was this your initail thought the first time you read through the published version?

If it was your impression, having played the game with Dave and Gary, it's no wonder people were writing Gary for rules clarifications and we still debate the finer points today.

[waysoftheearth]

Mar 3, 2015 0:22:50 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Stated that way it's quite an interesting question, and makes me wonder "why the hell didn't Gary write the game he was playing?" Or, perhaps, "what the hell happened?"

I don't know anything, of course, but here's some unsolicited speculation/rambling:


I imagine something like a classic Venn diagram of three intersecting cirlces:

The first circle is the printed rules.
The second circle is what actually happened.
The third circle is what's remembered 40 years later.

There'd be significant intersection between these three circles, and some differences between them too.


Consider the circles a moment:

The printed rules are the same today as they were in 1974.

What actually happened each day is absolutely what it was, but it seems likely (if publication of the supplments/'zines is any guide) that what happened month by month was changing as new rules were added/tried throughout the mid-1970s. I imagine the game in 1973 could have been quite different to the game in 1975. (So really, we probably need a series of Venn diagrams; one for each year, or for each month, or...).

Regarding what's remembered: Human memory is well known to be unrelaiable. People can generally recall "the gist" of things much better than "the detail"; most of us can't recall fine details very well at all, and memories themselves change over time. If I think back to, say, my school eduction (which was "only" about 30-odd years ago), there's no way I can recall accurate details around how or when I learned the rules of addition, multiplication, algebra, or trigonometry, what books I used, what problems I solved or didn't, etc.. Any expectation that someone could remember accurate details of changing game rules 40 years on is, I think, a tad unrealistic.


That said, I'm sure that the game that was played back in "the day" differed from the printed rules, if only because the rules were being developed faster than they could be put into print. There's a fair chance, I'd guess, that there were already unwritten rules being played the moment D&D went to print.

On the otherhand, the printed rules are still the only "complete snapshot" we have of a moment in D&D history. Regardless of how brief, muddled, or obsolete that moment may be, it's the moment most of us can get a good look at.

I think the difference between what was printed and how the game was genuinely played will always be a fascinating topic.

[Deleted]

That mostly misses my main point, though.

OD&D as written is incredibly disorganized; far more disorganized than other rule sets Gary worked on at about the same time. Why "rules as written" don't match "game as played" can be explained in a lot of ways. What's harder to explain is the absolute jumble that OD&D is in many ways, so much so that in 1975 or so a very experienced and intelligent wargamer brought his box set to me and said "How do you play this game?"

[waysoftheearth]

I dunno... I've never really noticed that OD&D is remarkably more disorganised than Greyhawk, Boothill, WoM, or Eldritch Wizardry, but perhaps I'm too accustomed to it to notice. Maybe it's just that OD&D is longer and split across three booklets/? Or was put together in a bit of a hurry?

[waysoftheearth]

Feb 27, 2015 12:40:10 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

If you encounter an army of humans a dragon gets multi-attacks since they are "mundane" but against an army of elves this is negated since they are above 1 HD.

Worthwhile observing, perhaps, that M&T (p16) says:

For every 50 Elves encountered there will be one of above-normal capabilities.

(emphasis added).

[Stormcrow]

Right. In Chainmail Elves without Magic Swords are normal figures, not fantastic ones. This holds in D&D as per your quotation (except for those with character levels). This shows that the +1 to their hit die doesn't count against being a "man-type" when considering multiple attacks by monsters with multiple hit dice.

Perhaps a good way to decide if something is normal or fantastic (or "supernormal" or "above-normal") is to look at its LEVEL, rather than directly at its hit dice. Character level depends on experience points. Monster level, as per the FAQ, depends on base hit dice, ignoring any pluses, with bonus levels for special abilities as determined by the referee. Anything level 2 and above counts as fantastic; anything level 1 counts as normal.

The example of the troll in Men & Magic slightly contradicts this by saying a troll is a 7th level monster "because it has over 6 hit dice," but I am finding less and less value in that example every day. I would call a troll a 7th level monster because it has 6 base hit dice and a +1 bonus for its regeneration.

[waysoftheearth]

Mar 12, 2015 9:16:00 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

Right. In Chainmail Elves without Magic Swords are normal figures, not fantastic ones. This holds in D&D as per your quotation (except for those with character levels). This shows that the +1 to their hit die doesn't count against being a "man-type" when considering multiple attacks by monsters with multiple hit dice.

Perhaps a good way to decide if something is normal or fantastic (or "supernormal" or "above-normal") is to look at its LEVEL, rather than directly at its hit dice. Character level depends on experience points. Monster level, as per the FAQ, depends on base hit dice, ignoring any pluses, with bonus levels for special abilities as determined by the referee. Anything level 2 and above counts as fantastic; anything level 1 counts as normal.

The example of the troll in Men & Magic slightly contradicts this by saying a troll is a 7th level monster "because it has over 6 hit dice," but I am finding less and less value in that example every day. I would call a troll a 7th level monster because it has 6 base hit dice and a +1 bonus for its regeneration.

I agree that the distinction between normal and heroic/fantastic comes back to Chainmail. That is the origin of these terms. I also agree that we need to look further than numbers of hit-dice for the line between between normal and heroic/fantastic in D&D.

I disagree that monster level 2 (aka 2 HD) implies heroic/fantastic status. By this definition horses and cavemen and gnolls are fantastic by virtue of their numbers of HD.

I believe a more useful distinction can be drawn by observing the function of the monster in question. If it's a perfectly ordinary rank and file type of creature, then I believe it should be considered as "normal" regardless of its number of HD.

Perhaps it is unfortunate that numbers of HD in D&D are not as straightforward an indication of a monster's normal/heroic status as the FAQ implies. On the otherhand, this isn't such a big deal that an enthusiastic referee couldn't identify the handful of "edge cases" and tweak their numbers of HD so that they fall neatly to either side of the normal/heroic line as desired.

[Stormcrow]

Mar 12, 2015 16:39:11 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

I disagree that monster level 2 (aka 2 HD) implies heroic/fantastic status. By this definition horses and cavemen and gnolls are fantastic by virtue of their numbers of HD.

That's why I also used the terms super-normal and above-normal, both of which were used by Gygax. So yes: horses, cavemen, and gnolls qualify. The point of "fantastic" is not that it comes from Fairy Tale Land, but that it's super-normal.

[waysoftheearth]

I agree that super-normal and fantastic are synonymous.

I still don't agree that horses or cavemen are super-normal, but I'm not going to be upset if you want to run them that way in your game.

[Stormcrow]

Do you feel that horses and cavemen have about the same fighting ability as feudal knights or Saracen light troops? That's what "normal" means.

[aldarron]

Mar 12, 2015 17:39:53 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

...... So yes: horses, cavemen, and gnolls qualify. The point of "fantastic" is not that it comes from Fairy Tale Land, but that it's super-normal.

Mar 13, 2015 7:24:57 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

Do you feel that horses and cavemen have about the same fighting ability as feudal knights or Saracen light troops? That's what "normal" means.

I think the normal/fantastic distinction is very much yours to make, and I can't say how Gygax may have ruled on the example mentioned, although I can point to how Arneson and the Twin Cities gamers played it regarding horses. That is, a distinction was indeed made between normal, heroic, and superheroic warhorses. You can see some of that in the Loch Gloomin section of the FFC.

[Deleted]

I asked Gary about it, and he said "supernormal" means a character that can go up levels.

I asked him some time ago, of course.

[sepulchre]

Given supernormal is an analogue of fantastic, how would one make sense this use of the 'supernormal'? I realize it's a citation not particularly lost on any of us, but it appears to me that even though a swordsman was not chosen for this description, supernormal still begins here with a hero...

Although Bandits are normal men, they will have leaders who are supernormal fighters, magical types or clerical types...There will be the following super-normal types with them:
six Fighting-Men of 4th level
three Fighting-Men of 5th or 6th level
one Fighting-Man of the 8th or 9th level (the leader) (5 M&T).

[waysoftheearth]

Mar 13, 2015 7:24:57 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

Do you feel that horses and cavemen have about the same fighting ability as feudal knights or Saracen light troops? That's what "normal" means.

Short answer: Yes.
Longer answer: It seems clear to me that horses fight as either 1 or 2 men with maces or flails but can only attack other footmen (CM p25), and that cavemen fight as two men (M&T p7, M&M p17). If I were to play a Neanderthal army in mass battle, I'd be tempted to class caveman as AF (accounting for their great toughness rather than any genuine armor). Or perhaps I'd have them attack as AF and defend as LF but suffer only half the indicated hits against them--similar to the dwarf rule (I'd have to test that out first).


The other side of that same coin is:

Do you feel that horses and cavemen have about the same fighting ability as Dragons or Heroes? That's what "fantastic" means.

[waysoftheearth]

Mar 13, 2015 8:58:13 GMT -6 aldarron said:

I think the normal/fantastic distinction is very much yours to make

I think you might be onto it aldarron

[Stormcrow]

No quote, 'cos I'm on my phone.

Heroes and dragons do not have the same fighting ability; your question is flawed. Fantastic fighting ability is a wide range of ability; normal ability is not. Normal ability is the ability of a single figure to fight as a single man. Cavemen and horses fight as two men, hence they have more than the ability to fight as a single man.

[waysoftheearth]

Mar 13, 2015 19:18:50 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

Fantastic fighting ability is a wide range of ability; normal ability is not. Normal ability is the ability of a single figure to fight as a single man. Cavemen and horses fight as two men, hence they have more than the ability to fight as a single man.

In my view "normal" fighting capability is anything within the range from LF to HH. These are not one and the same thing; they are a range of capability, albeit a narrower one than what fantastic FC represents.

I agree that horses and cavemen fight as two men.

You assert again that any FC greater than one man is fantastic. This is a plausible ruling, for those that like it, but I don't agree this ruling is inclusive of all the RAW.

It's clear from CM that a normal horseman figure has a FC greater than one man on foot--in man-to-man this figure has a FC of two or possibly even three men. To generalise: mounted troops are (according to many wargames rules, including CM) expected to hit harder than footmen. That is, they have a greater FC. Despite their greater FC, horsemen are still normal rank and file troops.

Moreover, it's crystal clear from the player-type charts in M&M that a FC of 2 men is not synonymous with an ability to participate on the FCT.

For me, it's the inability to participate on the FCT which is the critical distinction between normal/fantastic. You clearly prefer something else, and that's fine.

[Deleted]

Once again, you can't back-port rules from D&D to CHAINMAIL.