My AD&D campaign, which I run on Saturday evenings, has now been running for 2¼ years with no sign of stopping any time soon. The last session involved me as DM and nine players(!) and the numbers for this week’s session may be similarly challenging. The group has returned to Rappan Athuk, which they’re now tackling with much more experience. In total, we’ve played over 65 sessions.
And, once again, I’m debating how to run combat. AD&D is legendary in having a badly put-together and explained set of combat rules. The core of AD&D, like every version of D&D, is really simple, but AD&D has the most complicated set of rules for determining when actions take place.
Although it is the fashion in current versions of D&D to work with a cycle of initiative rolls, with each player taking all of their actions at a discrete time, all one after another, AD&D has all actions being declared at the beginning of the round, with the DM then arranging the order of their resolution. This gives a potentially more realistic resolution of combat, with all the chaos that implies, but it is unfortunate that the system as described is terribly complicated and, in my opinion, contradictory.
The most recent session of my AD&D campaign brought this into sharp focus. We had a massive battle – nine PCs against 1 high priest, 6 lesser priests, 12 initiates, 1 vrock and 1 spectre magic-user! A confusion spell affected half the party, and so we had people firing missile weapons, engaging in melee and casting spells all in the same round! What order do they take place in?
A large part of the problem stems from spell casting times. The default assumption for D&D is that you can cast one spell per round, despite spell casting times lasting from 1-10 segments (there are 10 segments in a round). I would imagine that casting a spell that takes a round to cast would begin the casting process at the beginning of the round and take effect at the end of the round. It seems logical, right? That means a magic missile spell will always take effect in the first segment of the round – the casting of all spells beginning at the start of the round.
According to ADDICT, a rather wonderful distillation of the AD&D rules-as-written (with a few extra assumptions thrown in), this is how it works. And it’s how I’ve generally been playing it. The initiative roll is only relevant in spell vs spell when the casting times are identical.
There are some gloriously wonky explanations in the rules. How do you parse this?
“Attacks directed at spell casters will come on that segment of the round shown on the opponent’s or on their own side’s initiative roll, whichever is applicable. (If the spell caster’s side won the initiative with a roll of 5, the attack must come then, not on the opponent’s losing roll of 4 or less) Thus, all such attacks will occur on the 1st-6th segments of the round.”
When do you ever use the opponent’s initiative roll? The only time I can imagine is when a member of the party is attacking the caster! Note also it makes no mention of there being a different procedure for the opponent winning initiative. If you rolled a “2” for initiative whilst casting magic missile and lost initiative, the spell would still take place before any attacks – at least from that reading.
ADDICT changes this: the winner of initiative against a spell-caster gets to strike before the spell, regardless of the casting time of the spell, save only spell vs spell combat. The initiative die roll vs casting time is only checked in the case of the spell-caster winning initiative.
And all of that is cheerfully ignored in the example of combat on page 71 of the DMG. A spell-caster wins initiative, steps forward, and kills his opponent without the opponent getting a chance to strike him first, which could quite possibly be the case (especially given the rules for weapon speed vs casting times).
Go figure. I admire AD&D for the basic structure of the rules and the possibilities that game makes available, but as an explanation of how the game works, the DMG leaves a lot to be desired.
I find the 2e style of initiative works really well for my group. We even use per person, initiative modifiers for weapons/spells/etc.
I really like 1e but 2e went a long way to make the rules clear in areas that really should be.
I really appreciated 2E initiatve when it came along – so much clearer! (And surprise!) I also rather enjoyed the revised system in Combat & Tactics.
Let me attempt to explain AD&D initiative and how simple/effective it realy is. 😀
Spells are declared before initiative is rolled.
Each of the two sides rolls 1d6 for initiative and the side that scores the higher number acts first.
Each side acts on the segment rolled on the opponents initiative die. Spellcasting starts on the
acting segment and takes place after the alloted casting time (in segments).
Example.
PCs roll 5
Orcs roll 3
PCs have initiative as they rolled a higher number but they act in the segment that the Orcs rolled on their die and the Orcs act on the number rolled by the PCs.
(players in segment 3 and Orcs in segment 5)
Two segments pass without action (1st and 2nd segment. (12seconds))
On the 3rd segment (rolled by the Orcs) the PCs act out their actions. The Wizard in the party starts casting his spell that in this example has a casting time of 4 (3+4=7th segment).
Another segment pass without actions (4th segment)
On the 5th segment the Orcs act out all of their actions.
Another segment pass without actions (6th segment)
On the 7th segment the wizards spell takes effect. (Actions start on segment 3 + 4 casting time = segment 7)
Another three segments pass without actions (segment 8-10)
The round ends and initiative is rolled for the next round.
With this said even the “empty” segments have actions. There are tons of attempted attacks, dodges, feints, and other manouvering taking place that should be described by the DM to add flavour to the combat. Once every round we roll for a chance of these attacks actually getting through and doing some “real” damage.
If you want to keep it simple : Just roll 1d6 for each side and let the side with the higher roll go first.
If you want to use casting times with this simplification just do the following : If one side has initiative and wants to cast a spell just add the casting time to the enemies rolled initiative score. If the result is higher than what your side rolled the spell takes place last in that round. If the value is lower than your initiative score the spell takes place before the enemies acts.
Example :
PCs initiative = 6 (player act first and wants to cast a spell)
Orcs initiative = 3
Casting a spell with casting time 2.
Orcs initiative 3 + casting time of 2 equals 5 which is still lower then 6 (PCs Initiative) so the spell takes place before the Orcs act. If the result had been higher than 6 (PCs initiative) the spell would have started when the PCs acted and taken effect after the Orcs acted.
This initiative system i simple and is also handy when PCs want to do a lot of inventive things in a single combat round. The round is after all 1 minute long.
Say a player wanted to dig out a bottle of oil form his pack, light it and throw it at enemies. Would there be enough time? Every segment is 6 seconds long.
If PCs rolled 3 and Orcs rolled 4 there would only be 1 segment (6 seconds) between them and it would be impossible to do all those things in 6 seconds. (4-3= 1 segment =6 seconds)
If the PCs rolled 6 and the Orcs rolled 1 there would be 5 segments (6-1=5 segments = 30 seconds) between them and then there would then be enought time to complete all the actions in lightning and throwing the oil on the enemy.
Sorry for my poor spelling in some areas.