Regarding the Wizard's Missiles.

[Torreny]

Terribly sorry to start up a new thread for this, given that I've failed to relocate the original thread.

However, I recall a discussion talking about the supposed area both the fireball and lightning bolt occupies, in relation to OD&D and CM's Man-to-Man, and that they affect a smaller area than we're accustomed to assuming. So, Chainmail states 3-1/2" for fireball, which at a scale of 1" = 10 yd, I'd take that as a 35 yd area, as opposed to LBB's 2" radius of 40 yd area. Wasn't there a smaller number mentioned there somewhere having to do with Man-to-Man scale (as relates to the siege component of the game?)

The subject's been biting at my fingertips for a good while now. Am I crazy?

[cooper]

It begins in my thread in the chain mail forums on catapults.

[Torreny]

Ah, thank you. I was reading it at work, and then couldn't find it at home.

[cooper]

Catapults reference the siege rules, which are man to man, not the mass combat rules, so 1" would be not 10 yards, but 1" figurine would be a single man, or 3 1/2 feet which Gygax references in ad&d.

I realized this when I was running the battle of the 5 armies from the hobbit, using a catapult to represent the boulder the heroes tip over onto some dwarves, it seemed ridiculous to have them kill 300 men. A catapult isn't a bomb that wipes out platoons.

It is easy to miss that the catapult rules are designed to be used in man to man and not mass combat.