Puzzle about the Alternative Combat System

[Jonathan Miller]

I haven't been able to find this question asked or answered on these forums. (Apologies if I've overlooked anything.)

The attack matrix for monsters has four columns which overlap with each other (Men & Magic, p. 20). The first column for monster hit dice is for monsters with "Dice up to 1," the second is for monsters with "1+1" hit dice, and the third is for monsters with "2-3" hit dice. So far, no problem. But the fourth column is for monsters with "3-4" hit dice, the fifth is for monsters with "4-6" hit dice, and the sixth is for monsters with "6-8" hit dice. Each of these hit die ranges overlaps with at least one other column on the table. So do monsters with three hit dice use the third column or the fourth column (for example)?

The puzzle deepens, since the phenomenon of the overlapping columns ends with the sixth column: the seventh column is for monsters with "9-10" hit dice, and the eighth is for monsters with "11&1" hit dice, so there is no overlap (I assume the "1" in the eight column is a typo and the heading should be read as "11 and up").

My solution in-play is to allow monsters with pluses to their hit dice to use the higher of the overlapping columns.

This solution doesn't answer the question of how the table was meant to be interpreted, nor does it explain the puzzle of why the overlapping columns start and stop (rather than being consistent the whole way through the table).

[talysman]

I follow the example of the first entry and assume that each column is "X+1 up to Y hit dice". Thus, column 1 is 0+1 up to 1 hit dice", column 2 is "1+1 up to 2-1 hit dice", column 3 is "2+1 up to 3 hit dice", and column 4 is "3+1 up to 4 hit dice".

I figure column 6 is supposed to say "6+1 up to 8+" and column 7 is thus "9 up to 10+".

However, in practice, I wind up using Target 20, which is pretty easy and close enough to the original results.

[Jonathan Miller]

Thanks for your answer, talysman. In the end I might just go with target 20, too, but for now I'm trying to play the rules as written, at least with regards to combat. (Kind of a foolish thing to do with OD&D, since I don't think any two people interpret the game quite the same! And of course there seem to be gaps in the rules that have to be filled in, such as how to handle initiative using the alternate combat system.)

I find it fascinating that something as essential as the attack matrix for monsters appears to either have errata, or else to be extremely ambiguous. Surely someone in the OD&D community has commented on this before?

It might be helpful to compare the OD&D matrix with that from AD&D. The attack matrix for monsters from the 1st edition AD&D DMG doesn't share the ambiguities of the OD&D matrix; in AD&D, the first column is "up to 1-1," the second is "1-1," the third is "1," the fourth is "1+," the fifth is "2-3+," and it increases in increments of two hit dice from there.

Given that the first column in the AD&D DMG matrix says "up to 1-1" and the second column says "1-1," Gygax evidently intends the phrase "up to" to mean "up to but not including" here. In theory, this could be a clue for interpreting the OD&D matrix. However, if the first column on the OD&D table were for monsters with up to 1 hit die but not including 1 hit die, that would mean that monsters of 1 hit die would use the second column on the table, which is labeled "1+1". It seems unlikely that monsters with 1+1 hit die would use the same column as monsters with 1 hit die.