Post by tavis on Oct 7, 2008 6:17:43 GMT -6
Recently a friend at the New York Red Box site pointed out a passage from squareman's description of playing OD&D that I'd never paid attention to before:
Do you use rules for parrying - either derived from Chainmail! or elsewhere? If so, how do you handle it?
I went back and read the man-to-man section of Chainmail. It has four relevant rules for melee. Rules 1-3 deal with who gets first blow, which is vitally important because first blow is often the last blow given that single hit kills an ordinary combatant. If there aren't situational modifiers, first blow depends on your weapon class. Higher weapon class = longer but more unwieldy, from 1 (dagger) to 12 (pike). A weapon 2 classes higher than the opponent's wins first blow in the first round, as the shorter weapon has to move into reach of the longer weapon, but then the lower class gets in subsequent rounds because it's better suited for in-fighting.
Rule 4 deals with parry. It depends on your weapon class. Here are some ranges of weapon class disparity & how they can parry:
* 2 or more higher than attacker. (Morning star vs. sword, 2-handed sword vs. spear). No parry possible.
* +1 to -3 within attacker's class. (Sword vs. mace to flail, battle axe vs. sword to spear). You can trade your attack this round for subtracting 2 from the opponent's attack roll (on 2d6).
* -4 to -7 lower than attacker. (Sword vs. spear, hand axe vs. sword). You get two attacks this round, going first and last in the round. Or you can give up your first attack to parry, in which case the attacker has first blow. If, despite your parry, the attacker's first blow still hits, your lighter weapon breaks. If the parry is successful, and you survive the first blow, you can make your second attack. Or you could just attack twice, going first and last in the round.
* -8 or more lower than attacker. (Mace vs. pike, dagger vs. halberd). You get three attacks this round. The first of your attacks is the first blow. You can trade your second attack for a parry, but this parry only subtracts -1 from the attacker's roll and risks breaking the weapon as above. If the parry is successful and you survive the attacker's blow, you can attack a third time..
It seems to me that this system isn't well suited to D&D because the usefulness of long weapons depends on the likelihood of being able to kill the enemy in the first round. If getting that first blow in before the shorter weapon can close doesn't offer a pretty good chance of ending the fight, then you're much better off wielding a dagger and hoping to get two or three attacks a round.
I'm not sure the man-to-man rules straight out of Chainmail! even work all that well on their own terms, judging by the combat my son and I played. Since he is six he always wants to be the best of everything, so he chose the strongest armor and the fastest weapon. (He also wanted the highest damage, which I was happy to say yes to since we weren't really using damage, just one-hit kill). I gave my chess pieces plate mail armor and spears vs. his plate and daggers.
Getting first blow hardly helped my spearmen at all, since they needed a 12 to hit, meaning there was a low probability of ending the fight with first blow. The daggermen also needed a 12 to hit, so getting two attacks per round was enormous - my son had twice as many chances to roll the two 6's needed for a kill. He never chose to parry, which is good because subtracting two from my roll would have meant never being able to hit!
Jim is reading Chainmail.... and as Jim’s reading it, for the first time in 30 years, he says “holy shirt we never played with any of this. No wonder we had to houserule everything.” Here are rules for parrying and weapon speeds.... which gave people an interesting choice in combat. Frankly, I thought these were the best parry rules I’d ever seen.
Do you use rules for parrying - either derived from Chainmail! or elsewhere? If so, how do you handle it?
I went back and read the man-to-man section of Chainmail. It has four relevant rules for melee. Rules 1-3 deal with who gets first blow, which is vitally important because first blow is often the last blow given that single hit kills an ordinary combatant. If there aren't situational modifiers, first blow depends on your weapon class. Higher weapon class = longer but more unwieldy, from 1 (dagger) to 12 (pike). A weapon 2 classes higher than the opponent's wins first blow in the first round, as the shorter weapon has to move into reach of the longer weapon, but then the lower class gets in subsequent rounds because it's better suited for in-fighting.
Rule 4 deals with parry. It depends on your weapon class. Here are some ranges of weapon class disparity & how they can parry:
* 2 or more higher than attacker. (Morning star vs. sword, 2-handed sword vs. spear). No parry possible.
* +1 to -3 within attacker's class. (Sword vs. mace to flail, battle axe vs. sword to spear). You can trade your attack this round for subtracting 2 from the opponent's attack roll (on 2d6).
* -4 to -7 lower than attacker. (Sword vs. spear, hand axe vs. sword). You get two attacks this round, going first and last in the round. Or you can give up your first attack to parry, in which case the attacker has first blow. If, despite your parry, the attacker's first blow still hits, your lighter weapon breaks. If the parry is successful, and you survive the first blow, you can make your second attack. Or you could just attack twice, going first and last in the round.
* -8 or more lower than attacker. (Mace vs. pike, dagger vs. halberd). You get three attacks this round. The first of your attacks is the first blow. You can trade your second attack for a parry, but this parry only subtracts -1 from the attacker's roll and risks breaking the weapon as above. If the parry is successful and you survive the attacker's blow, you can attack a third time..
It seems to me that this system isn't well suited to D&D because the usefulness of long weapons depends on the likelihood of being able to kill the enemy in the first round. If getting that first blow in before the shorter weapon can close doesn't offer a pretty good chance of ending the fight, then you're much better off wielding a dagger and hoping to get two or three attacks a round.
I'm not sure the man-to-man rules straight out of Chainmail! even work all that well on their own terms, judging by the combat my son and I played. Since he is six he always wants to be the best of everything, so he chose the strongest armor and the fastest weapon. (He also wanted the highest damage, which I was happy to say yes to since we weren't really using damage, just one-hit kill). I gave my chess pieces plate mail armor and spears vs. his plate and daggers.
Getting first blow hardly helped my spearmen at all, since they needed a 12 to hit, meaning there was a low probability of ending the fight with first blow. The daggermen also needed a 12 to hit, so getting two attacks per round was enormous - my son had twice as many chances to roll the two 6's needed for a kill. He never chose to parry, which is good because subtracting two from my roll would have meant never being able to hit!
