If you want to get the full dose of what Gygax wrote for the 1st edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons look at A.D.D.I.C.T. It explains the AD&D combat system in full. It is 20 pages, the first 10 pages goes rule by rule through the entire system and the rest is a detailed combat example. David M. Prata put this together and went the extra mile by footnoting everything so you can go back to the rulebook and see if he got it right in your opinion.
While you are at Dragonsfoot you may want to browse around. They have many excellent downloads for older editions of D&D.
The Dragonsfoot 1e character generator is a splendid tool for the DM - although it's a little idiosyncratic in places (won't let you play a gnome illusionist, for example). Nevertheless, probably the only thing that could make it better is a second page that enables the player to buy his equipment, weapons and armour. If there's anyone from Dragonsfoot reading this, have a go, chaps - you know it makes sense.
ReplyDeleteIt seems fine to me. It's a much more complex version of the rules than we play by at my table, but then at ours we include rules for side attacks, automatic knockbacks and so on. We play with instantaneous spell casting and all attacks occur within the same initiative phase. After reading all of that, I may start include a d12 o clock roll for the position of enemies in random encounters and such (not featured in the PDF, but it got me thinking).
ReplyDeleteSee, now, this is exactly why I'm going to be streamlining combat in Emprise!
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw this post, I wasn't sure whether I should be elated or horrified. Even after I downloaded and read the entire document, I'm still unsure.
ReplyDeleteIf my AD&D campaign were still active, it would be nice to have this printed and handy. (I was going to call it a cheat sheet, but given it's length...oy.)
Having read the example combat with the rules-as-exactly-damn-written, I'm almost tempted to use the RC or just Red Book next time I do fantasy. :P