Spells and Turns.

[aldarron]

<Prolly this has been discussed somewhere but I haven't seen it - if anybody knows please link>

One thing I noticed in some of Arnesons writing is the occasional use of "turn" when its pretty clear a one minute round is meant.

So maybe I'm just more aware of it or whatever but I've been looking more closely at the spells in the 3Lbbs and it started to dawn on me that the timing of the spells is peculiar.

First off, not a single one of them mentions "rounds" of time at all. Time, when it is mentioned, is always measured in Turns.

I just always assumed that Turns here meant ten minutes/rounds as it does elswhere, but that makes for some very odd casting times and durations.

For example Confusion takes place 2d6 turns - level of caster after being cast. So a 4th level caster who rolls an 8 has to wait 40 minutes for those orcs attacking his tower to be confused!?

In AD&D the exact same spell takes a mere 4 segments to take effect.

Another example: the fly spell allows the person to fly 120'/turn. So a flying person in a baseball park takes ten minutes to float from home plate to the pitcher's mound and back. Wha!!? That is too slow to even try to calculate.

The conclusion I'm quickly coming to is that all these "Turns" in every case, must be the old CHAINMAIL turns of 1 minute. In other words, 1 minute rounds were intended.

I don't know if Arneson was to "blame" for this (although it wouldn't surprise me) but the distinction makes a game altering difference.

[coffee]

Yeah, the first place I found mention of rounds (although they were called 'melee turns') was in Greyhawk. Up until then it was just the turns you mention above. Clearly some are 1 minute 'melee turns' and some are 10 minute 'movement turns'.

But it's sometimes tough to determine which is which.

[talysman]

Yeah, I think "turn" originally wasn't meant to mean anything more than it does in Monopoly or other board games, so the length of time changes based on the kind of action. Spells meant for combat have durations measured in minutes, those meant for exploration work out as 10-minute intervals. Calling them all "turns" was confusing, so the round/turn convention came into being. But there's still some left-over confusion.

[aldarron]

May 5, 2011 12:53:03 GMT -6 coffee said:

Yeah, the first place I found mention of rounds (although they were called 'melee turns') was in Greyhawk. Up until then it was just the turns you mention above. Clearly some are 1 minute 'melee turns' and some are 10 minute 'movement turns'.

But it's sometimes tough to determine which is which.

Definetely confusing. There is one place where rounds are explained Coffee

“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).” UWA p8.

The example of a fully armored character referred to above: “The character would move at the speed of an Armored Footman (6"/turn)” M&M p15

I guess the 6”/turn here means 6”/move or 120”/turn in the above example. So by that all per “turn”movement rates should be doubled.

Continuing -

“Melee is fast and furious. There are ten rounds of combat per turn. UWA p8.”

So it looks here to me they were playing around with three time rates:

10 minute turn
5 minute move
1 minute melee round

[coffee]

That's not even counting overland movement rates, where one turn was one day.

So, yeah, definitely confusing. Sort of like the multiple usage of the word level...

[cooper]

May 5, 2011 13:40:14 GMT -6 aldarron said:

May 5, 2011 12:53:03 GMT -6 coffee said:

“Melee is fast and furious. There are ten rounds of combat per turn. UWA p8.”

So it looks here to me they were playing around with three time rates:

1 day overland turn
10 minute turn
5 minute move
1 minute melee round

Great thread. Elderitch wizardry added one more level. 6 ten second segments corresponding to the d6 initiative dice.

10 minute turn
5 minute move
1 minute melee round
10 second segment