Chainmail Weapon Class in OD&D (mike mornard?)

[Deleted]

Mike Mornard said something to the effect that he now plays OD&D with flat 1(d6) damage, but he uses Chainmail weapon class.

How exactly would that work?  For example:

A human fighter with a mace (WC=3) faces off against  an evil human with a  two handed sword (WC=11) and then an unarmed troll (WC=?). 

The evil human with a 2h sword wins initiative and advances.  He gets first strike unless the defender has a WC 2 or more greater (not in this case).  The evil human strikes first on the first round and then he human with a mace strikes back.  On subsequent rounds, the human with a mace goes first because his WC=3, which is eight less than the 2h WC=11.  In fact, the human with the mace can strike three times per round within the guard of his foe until the foe drops his weapon.

The troll wins initiative and advances.  This brings up two questions:  1) what is the weapon class of a creature with natural weapons (a '1'?) and 2) how do you treat creatures larger and smaller than humans?  For now, since the troll won initiative he advances and gets first strike unless the defender has a weapon class 2 or more greater.  I would assume the troll's long arms counter his natural weapons, so I assume the troll strikes first.  The fighter attacks back with his mace.  On subsequent rounds, do melee exchanges occur based on the initiative dice?

Now look at an unarmed ghoul vs. a human with a 2h sword.

The ghouls wins initiative and advances.  The ghoul is human sized and has natural weapons, so lets assume he has a WC=1.  Thus, the human with the 2h sword (WC=11) goes first in the first round.  The ghoul then gets one claw attack.  On the next round, the ghoul attacks three times (because of the 8 WC difference), lets assume he gets a claw, claw, bite routine like AD&D and I guess the human has to make a save vs. paralysis vs. each attack, right?  On the third round, the human drops his 2h sword and draws his dagger (WC=1), so whichever of the two rolls higher gets to strike first each round, right?

To anyone who plays with weapon class, do you like the feel of multiple weapons having plusses and minuses?  Do you think the mild benefit of a 2h sword getting first strike in the first round is worth the pain of possibly getting attacked two or three times?  Do you enhance two handed swords by using something like roll two dice, take the highest or some other advantage, or are your players used to switching weapons?

Critique the notion of using Chainmail WC in OD&D and let me know how you think it would play in a game.

[Deleted]

First, I would not use this with multiple creature attacks. Having a ghoul attack 3 times vs a human doing 1d8 with a sword or 1d10 with a zweihander is bad enough; having the ghoul attack 3 times vs 1d6 from a human would be butchery.

As Gary always taught me, things have to be even on both sides. If all weapons do 1d6, so do all monster attacks unless specified otherwise in Volume 2.

Second, for larger-than-human opponents I simply pick a weapon class that their natural attack is equivalent to.

To make this work with magic users, I'm going to have to roll initiative anyway, and figure out some way that weapon class modifies initiative. This is a work in progress.

[Deleted]

Did I accurately characterize how you play today: all weapons do 1(d6) and in some way you use the chainmail weapon class system? The first is straightforward, I am just trying to understand how you actually use the chainmail weapon class system.

Do you simply ignore the multiple attacks rules for weapons after the first round? The rules as written are 4 points lower = 2 attacks, and 8 points lower = 3 attacks. In other words, on the first round, the guy with initiative attacks first unless his foe has a 2 point higher weapon class. Then on subsequent rounds, the guy with initiative attacks first unless his foe has a 2 point lower weapon class.

Do you have any simple guidelines for natural weapons? i.e. I would guess typical medium sized monster claws (e.g. a ghoul) would be a WC=1 or 2 (like a hand axe or dagger)

I am curious what you are thinking about magic users, wc and initiative. the AD&D rules never made much sense on this score. Could you do something as simple as comparing the spell level time (1 level=1 segment) vs. the greater/lesser of the attacker's initiative roll or weapon class?

[Stormcrow]

If Weapon Class is to be used as a monster statistic, write in a WC column next to the AC column!

[Zenopus]

In this thread, porphyre77 suggested using Monster HD for Weapon Class. This seems like a quick way to estimate this for unarmed monsters, on the general idea that a higher HD = a longer reach.

[oakesspalding]

1) Swords & Spells (p.17) has these Weapon Class equivalences (the heading numbers are NOT equal to Weapon Class, per se):

1.
Dagger
Hand Axe
Mace
Short Sword
Opponent to 3' tall

2.
Sword
Battle Axe
Morning Star
Short Spear
Opponent to 5' Tall

3.
Bastard Sword
Flail
Opponent to 9' Tall

4.
Spear
Halberd
Bardiche
Pole Arms to 8'
2-Handed Sword
Opponent to 15' tall

5.
Long Spears
Pole Arms of 12' and more
Lances
Pikes
Opponents over 15' tall

Based on the Weapon Classes of 1-12 given in Chainmail, I would translate this as:

Kobold: WC 1-3
Goblin: WC 2-4
Orc: WC 5-7
Troll: WC 7-9
Giant: WC 10-13

2) My proposal:

1st Round: Initiative to higher WC.

2nd and subsequent rounds: Initiative to higher initiative roll. If tied, then initiative to lower WC--including the possibility of multiple attacks if the difference is great enough--one extra attack if difference is 2 or 3, two extra attacks if difference is 4 or 5, three extra attacks if difference is 6 or more.

Among other things, this makes the question of whether high or low WC is better a difficult question to crack mathematically.

3) After playing around with a spreadsheet, then if one goes with the above proposal, and if one makes the guestimate that simply going first in a round is equivalent to having half a free attack, then each +1 of WC has an expected value of +9% attack strength on the first round, but -6% attack strength on each subsequent round. Thus the higher WC has an advantage if the melee lasts 1 or 2 rounds, but the lower WC has the advantage with a melee lasting 3 or more rounds.

[Deleted]

Interesting.

How do magic users figure into that? I'm reluctant to assign a 'weapon class' for spells, but I'm also reluctant to have two different initiative systems.

Using weapon length will tend to mean that users of long weapons also carry a sword and in close combat drop the longer weapon and use the sword, which was done historically.

[Porphyre]

Could the spell level count as WC ?

[Stormcrow]

Aug 3, 2013 14:53:35 GMT -6 Porphyre said:

Could the spell level count as WC ?

Since the highest weapon class is 12 and spells are known to go up to 9th level in the supplements, you'd probably want spells to count as weapon class plus three; e.g., a Fire Ball counts as weapon class 6, equal to a morning star on the Man-to-Man Melee Table.

Hmm... Off-topic musing... Chainmail's Man-to-Man system assumes mundane men fighting, where weapon class is significant in the chance to hit. Dungeons & Dragons seems to assume that a character's fantastic ability, expressed in levels or hit dice, drowns out the effects of weapon class (until you get to Greyhawk's addition of weapon versus armor class). I wonder if, for important single combats against opponents of equal level, it would be worthwhile to return to the Man-to-Man Melee Table, where weapon class is just as important as armor class.

[Deleted]

One of the problems with counting the spell level as WC is that it means that initially, high level spells are faster to cast than low level spells, and after the first round, the opposite is true.

I don't know what "mental image" people have of how magic works in their worlds, but in my mind that idea makes absolutely no d**ned sense at all.

[Deleted]

I might do something quick and easy, like

"Weapons long enough to strike from the second rank, if used in the first rank, get a +1 on Reaction Time in the first melee round, and a -1 on Reaction Time on subsequent melee rounds."

[Deleted]

Mike, is this last response what you have meant when you have said something like you use chainmail weapon class in OD&D?  I am just trying to get a sense of how you actually play, since it is a little unclear (to me) how much of Chainmail is supposed to be incorporated into OD&D.  I don't believe the "1d6 determines initiative" existed until a single line in Gary's FAQ after the publication of OD&D.  I just want to understand how people actually play this part of OD&D and why, particularly since it is obvious that many posters have played a lot more OD&D than me.

None of the posters to my query use the Chainmail weapon class rules as written and I am just curious why.  A little too complex for your taste?

Thanks, Oakespalding, I had forgotten Swords and Spells.  Those who played Chainmail back in the day seem to not have a very high opinion of Swords & Spells.

[Deleted]

Mark,

First, I'm the guy who convinced Gary to put variable weapon damage in GREYHAWK. Pretty much single handedly.

I now think it was a mistake. I think the more abstract D&D combat is, the better. I'm willing to use the "All weapons do 1d6" model. However, I want SOME difference between weapons; there is, or should be, a reason why fighters carry swords and not daggers.

The first thing that came to mind is an adaptation based on CHAINMAIL weapon length.

I've only started playing around with this; I've only run one single game, at GaryCon V, where I did NOT use the GREYHAWK weapon damages.

This is, to me, a chance to hash out my thoughts on going back to an earlier stage of D&D.

Now, perhaps it's not necessary to add weapon length; it never occurred to us to all just use daggers since they're cheapest, but I have this little tickle in me that wants SOME reason for different weapons.

The other way, of course, would be to just make all weapons cost the same, so that it didn't bloody matter.

[Deleted]

You are a tinkerer, I understand. 

I am tempted to try one of two ways:

1) Run OD&D initiative as most people do (roll 1d6) if creatures are the same size and weapons are the same size more or less.  However, if not, on the closing round only, determine first strike based on size modifiers.  Small creatures (goblins) count as -1.  Large creatures (ogres) as +1.  Long weapons (e.g. two handed swords, spears) count as +1, small weapons (e.g. daggers, hand axes) count as -1.  Total these modifiers and go in order (e.g. +2...+1...0...-1 etc.) so an ogre with a club would attack first, followed by a fighter with a sword, a goblin with a dagger, and then stirges last.  After the closing round, revert to rolling 1d6.

2) Chainmail WC slightly simplified to take away the possibility of three attacks per round and slightly reduce the number of weapon classes

With spells, I think you just use spell level as the effective initiative die roll for that character (e.g. a L1 spell is like rolling a '6', a L2 spell = '5', etc.).  Compare this to the initiative roll of the opponent.  If the opponent's roll is higher, he disrupts the spell.  If not or on a tie, the spell gets off.  Or you could say, spells L1-3 go off at the beginning of the round and higher level spells go off at the end of the round.

Mark

[talysman]

I never ran Chainmail (not really a wargamer,) but read through parts of it and decided the weapon length was a good idea. For a short while, I used a crude approximation of Chainmail's weapon classes by just guessing at weapon length to the nearest foot and letting longer weapon strike first on first round, shorter weapon strikes first afterwards. The only problem was remembering to apply the rule.

What I'm thinking of going with now is a modified Holmes approach:

1. Attacks in Dex order, unless surprised, tired or overburdened;
2. ... But on first round, attacker can substitute triple weapon length for Dex (so I don't have to think about it unless the player asks "shouldn't my spear get the first strike on a charge?")
3. On following rounds, ties go to the shortest weapon;
4. Combatant with the highest Move+weapon length gets a +2 bonus for maneuvering, assuming there's room to maneuver.

[Allandaros]

Aug 3, 2013 17:37:08 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

One of the problems with counting the spell level as WC is that it means that initially, high level spells are faster to cast than low level spells, and after the first round, the opposite is true.

I don't know what "mental image" people have of how magic works in their worlds, but in my mind that idea makes absolutely no d**ned sense at all.

I'm coming into this as an utter tyro, but would (10-spell level) = WC be a reasonable fix here then?

[talysman]

Aug 9, 2013 8:19:41 GMT -6 Allandaros said:

Aug 3, 2013 17:37:08 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

One of the problems with counting the spell level as WC is that it means that initially, high level spells are faster to cast than low level spells, and after the first round, the opposite is true.

I don't know what "mental image" people have of how magic works in their worlds, but in my mind that idea makes absolutely no d**ned sense at all.

I'm coming into this as an utter tyro, but would (10-spell level) = WC be a reasonable fix here then?

I think the issue he's raising here is not what the number would be, but the way the speed of the spell changes depending on whether it's the first round or not. Longer weapons strike first on the first round, shorter weapons strike first on the following rounds. If you use spell level as weapon class (weapon length,) that means that a wizard casting a 6th level spell on the first round finishes the spell before a warrior with a mace (WC 3) can attack, but after the initial account, a 6th level spell would go last.

I think the thing to do is to use spell level as effective weapon length on the 2nd and following rounds, but ignore that rule on the first round and treat it as missile fire.

[Porphyre]

Well, actually, spells "by the book" (at least Holmes basic) are not supposed to be cast in Melee, at all.

[talysman]

Aug 9, 2013 13:30:20 GMT -6 Porphyre said:

Well, actually, spells "by the book" (at least Holmes basic) are not supposed to be cast in Melee, at all.

Arrows aren't supposed to be fired in melee, either, but you know someone's going to do it.