Out of Character Discussions (OOC):

[saalaria]

Welcome Zhym. Another friendly(ish!) face!

[GreyWolfVT]

One more thing! Lol doubt anyone remembers what cartoon i got that from...... jackie chan adventures animated show... but anyways before I depart since I have not been removed as of yet You could do like the day of the doctor and have 3 different doctor's in the same place

[DadsAngry]

One more thing! Lol doubt anyone remembers what cartoon i got that from...... jackie chan adventures animated show... but anyways before I depart since I have not been removed as of yet You could do like the day of the doctor and have 3 different doctor's in the same place

The doctor casts mirror image.

[Mondego]

Teladrin has already moved and fired two arrows during round 1. I am assuming that his actions are complete until the start of round 2, or are you running things differently?

[PyroArrow]

Not running things differently, it's the start of the next segment for round 1.

Rounds have 10 segments & it's segment 7 of actions so Teladrin fires two more arrows at either one or 1 arrow each at the two remaining Goblins in the foyer.

[Zhym]

I admit I'm confused about this too. The normal combat rules in AD&D 1e give one action per round. That action might start and end in a certain segment depending on initiative and how long it takes to complete, but I've never seen AD&D 1e combats run so that each character got an action each segment of combat.

[PyroArrow]

Zhym that is the shortened quickie method of combat!

Less confusing i guess.

I've done that with tabletop playing.

Using the quickie method it's like moving only 12 feet each round instead of each segment!

But the way around that is the DM just says you can move 120 feet then attack. Then next round & start all over.

Quickie method makes the combat look longer than it really is as well, because you stick with rounds & not go into the segments.

So here so far round 1 is taking 7 segments long.

Quickie method would have it appear to be 7 rounds long (7 minutes) instead of 42 seconds long (7 segments).

[Zhym]

Combats that last several in-game minutes are actually the standard in 1e. Everything that happens in the course of a round is abstracted to one "hit" or "miss." Gary wrote a whole explanation of it in the DMG or PHB or somewhere.

This sounds more like what I've heard about 4e combat rules. I've only played 1e and 2e, where it's one action per round, not per segment, so this combat system is pretty confusing for me.

[DadsAngry]

Since we are all confused I'd like to bring up the entangle spell. It's an area affect spell and all those in the area are affected. You can't just target specific targets. The wife, merchant and anyone else who enters while the spell is still active would be entangled unless a saving throw is made. That means Hemlock could not kill the three goblins without entering the area of effect unless it was a ranged attack or had a ring of free action. Same with Arn healing the merchant. Not looking to go back in time. Just info for the future.

[PyroArrow]

Yea, i know what you mean there, like how the Entangle spell works in the Baldur's gate game.

So, yes then eveyone in the room except Hemlocks would have had to save vs spell to be only slowed down by half.

I got confused i guess because at first you seemed to be focusing on controlling the entangle to grab only the goblin on the woman, then after i looked up the spell, i could see that it could entangle more thus why i mentioned if you wanted to entangle all 3.

That said the spell works as shown in the Baldur's gate game.

That said, i can see a custom higher level Entangle spell where the caster has better control over what & how many get entangled based on his level.

[PyroArrow]

Looks like Gygax tried to simplify things about the combat, there a bit to lessen confusion & that in the 4th & 5th edition it is made more clear what was originally intended.

[DadsAngry]

Zhym that is the shortened quickie method of combat!

Less confusing i guess.

I've done that with tabletop playing.

Using the quickie method it's like moving only 12 feet each round instead of each segment!

But the way around that is the DM just says you can move 120 feet then attack. Then next round & start all over.

Quickie method makes the combat look longer than it really is as well, because you stick with rounds & not go into the segments.

So here so far round 1 is taking 7 segments long.

Quickie method would have it appear to be 7 rounds long (7 minutes) instead of 42 seconds long (7 segments).

Could you try and explain that again? I'm still confused on how this works. You've converted segments into rounds? 7 segments is really 7 rounds? What's a round then compared to a turn?

[Zhym]

What do you mean by "originally?" I've always been under the impression that 4e and 5e (which, again, I have no familiarity with) were new combat systems, not attempts to clarify what was originally intended.

If you'd rather use a 4e/5e combat system, there's nothing wrong with that, but those of us used to combats by round will have to do some adjusting and learning.

[PyroArrow]

I am not familar with 4 or 5e either however what i have read about combat in 5e in the basic pdf, is just how i already am doing it.

All that is going on is simply more detail with more realism to the flow.

It seems in describing the combat in the original DM there were two things going on, & the simplified round was made more clear in the examples, perhaps as a bridge between the basic/expert sets to Advanaced D&D?

Here is combat rounds from my other game starting here as an example:
viewtopic.php?p=113701#p113701

[DadsAngry]

Cayley & Tuireann: will arrive in 2 1/2 rounds. (Beginning of Round 4 : Segment 1)

Each round contains 10 segments and each segment is a combat round.
So that means Cayley & Tuireann will enter back into the story after 40 combat actions from the group. Wake me up when you kill them all.

[Zhym]

Okay, so it looks like you're using 5e combat then. The "simplified round" seems to be a 5e thing. There's no such thing as a "simplified round" in AD&D or OD&D (i.e., B/X, etc., the stuff that came out in 1974 or 1977), there's just a combat round, and a round is 60 seconds. In those systems, a segment is nothing more than a way of resolving the order of actions in a combat round. But each character or monster still only gets one action.

What I'd suggest, if you want to use 10 second combat actions, is just say a round = 10 seconds and go round by round, not segment by segment. But, really, 1e grognards are so used to one-minute rounds that I don't think anyone is going to feel the combat is less realistic if we get one action per one-minute combat round. We're used to it.

[PyroArrow]

Okay, so it looks like you're using 5e combat then. The "simplified round" seems to be a 5e thing. There's no such thing as a "simplified round" in AD&D or OD&D (i.e., B/X, etc., the stuff that came out in 1974 or 1977), there's just a combat round, and a round is 60 seconds. In those systems, a segment is nothing more than a way of resolving the order of actions in a combat round. But each character or monster still only gets one action.

What I'd suggest, if you want to use 10 second combat actions, is just say a round = 10 seconds and go round by round, not segment by segment. But, really, 1e grognards are so used to one-minute rounds that I don't think anyone is going to feel the combat is less realistic if we get one action per one-minute combat round. We're used to it.

I am using the 1st edition though i may layer in other edition stuff later on, though this module is short like a tournament/one shot one, so there may not be more layered in than what has already been done.

I'm used to it as well, like i mentioned before, the simplified way is used often in the tabletop playing i have done, but i wanted to let the combat go to it's full detailed extent, not just use the simplified version.

I even early on in the other game cut the round after each single action the players gave, but then later, simply let it all out so as the detail can be better seen how it actually goes.

In the current battle with the goblins you see in better detail what is happening when Elusev opted to get his armor on, you see better all the other actions that is happening when Hemlocks readies & then cast his Entangle spell.

[Starbeard]

I agree with Zhym, that many 1e players are so ingrained with the definitions for segments and rounds, and that '1 round = 1 action', that there's likely going to be a hiccup when combat gets run another way, at least until the GM can lay out what the logic is.

That being said (and in Pyro's defense), breaking combat down into segments doesn't seem that far-fetched to me. I've seen D&D combat 'granulated' down before, in several different ways. In the early days one of the mechanics people regularly tweaked or reduced was the abstraction of combat actions and time, and plenty of the early offshoot RPGs worked with a quicker combat round, but not always quicker spell casting. I think Pyro's way (of switching combat to the segment, rather than shortening the combat round) is actually less work, since it doesn't require any change to the rules texts other than, 'you get one action per segment'.

For example, the time to cast a spell is given in segments, and making a full move takes a full round. So, if you shorten the combat round, then you have to decide whether those things happen much more quickly, or whether you have to recalculate how many 'new' rounds those actions take. By simply allowing characters one action per segment, then the time it takes to perform actions is the same as before, but everyone now gets the chance to attack in each segment, making melee combat more fast and furious—which should be perfectly familiar to us through the rules for surprise, where the surprising party gets to act each segment, but the time it takes to do things stays unchanged. I think Pyro is simply handling all combat using the surprise rules, in that way.

[Zhym]

Right. There's no reason one action per segment can't work, but it requires careful attention to all the other AD&D timing rules, like surprise and casting time. For example, do monsters get 3 attacks in the 3 segments it takes to cast fireball? If so, that makes casting much more difficult, since monsters get three chances instead of one to interrupt the spell.

The combat system won't affect the Doctor too much—I'm going to be playing him mostly as a pacifist. Lots of sleep and charm spells. He may not be memorizing magic missile again.

[NeoPlasmaVice]

...Why is the goblin speaking like Yoda? XD