My Life As A Gamer: You Got Man-To-Man Combat In My Wargame (Part Four)

(Citations from the Player's Handbook (PHB) and Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG) for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 1st Edition (AD&D1e) as needed.)

(Monday's post is here, and Tuesday's is here, and yesterday's is here.)

We're getting into the meat of the AD&D1e Combat Procedure today. This is a long post. You've been warned.

Missile

Per DMG p. 63, this phase includes anti-personnel missiles (arrows, bolts, sling stones, firearms, hurled weapons) as well as artillery (catapults, ballistae, cannon, etc.) and fantastic creatures whose hurling attacks can be considered such (e.g. giants throwing boulders). It also includes spell-casting, item usage, and similar abilities, such as Turn Undead.

As this occurs before Movement and Melee, it means that those so armed and ready get the opportunity to shoot down their targets before said targets could close to shiv them to death.

This is not a hard concept to grasp; watch some decent war films, or a playthrough of Total War (any, really), and you'll see this in action. The Romans even figured out how to do this on the attack with their legendary pilae, and horse archers are notorious for making this a core battle tactic.

The downside is that loosing missiles into a melee doesn't allow the loosing side to avoid friendly fire. While the size of combatants is weighed such that bigger targets tend to get shot at more, by default special status is not relevant; you're not going to pick out Conan from the rest of the scrum.

What this means is that if you want to target someone or something in particular, then you must wait for the target to separate from the scrum somehow before you can pick him off.

This can be through separation from the melee, change of size, being around a mostly-static and easily identifable marker (such as a banner or standard), etc.- a garishly attired target among a mud-caked mob may count at the Dungeon Master (DM)'s discretion. Otherwise you will need some special ability to circumvent this obstacle such as a spell.

You may not think this is a big deal early on, until you realize that a 1st level Fighter counts as a Sergeant (DMG p. 31) and can readily lead up to 10 mercenary soldiers on his own.

Rangers and Paladins, being Fighter sub-Classes, enjoy similar privledges; they too can command such troops readily. Suddenly your party's Fighter has a gang at his command; even equipped on the cheap, that's still 10 men with clubs and slings to add to a party's combat capacity, and they'll go as deep as Level 3 of the Dungeon.

That's 10 men loosing missiles at this phase. Suddenly having a clear phase to adjudicate such attacks make sense, doesn't it?

So does quickly adjudicated odds of friendly fire if they loose into melee, as slinger in history routinely did (as they were skirmishers, not line troops).

Those same 10 men can also hurl grenades, including flaming oil and holy water, and now that gang of hirelings can shape the battlefield for a party at the Fighter's command. Put Greek Fire grenades--Molotov cocktails--in their hands and they can turn that troll into a much lesser threat than it otherwise would be.

Meanwhile, the spell-casters also get their moment. There's a catch, which is that spell-casting in melee is dangerous.

Per DMG p. 65, casters must declare casting (that they are, and what is cast) before Initiative is rolled. Intelligent opponents will notice and move to counter this threat if able. No Dexterity bonus to Armor Class while casting. Successful attacks (including anything forcing a Saving Throw, and that throw fails) spoil spell-casting automatically; "Concentration checks" are not a thing.

Opponents able to act either simultaneously with the caster or before the caster can spoil the cast; if someone is close enough to melee the shooter or caster they may attempt to do so here (see below).

Noted is that Turning Undead has no such restrictions.

Once all missile/spell-casting/etc. are resolved for that party, we go to movement.

Movement

Again, Movement is in Inches and meant to be translated as necessary to feet or yards depending on environment and circumstances. You should have figure this out for your man as well as for all NPC subordinates beforehand.

Options here are straightfoward. "Close to Melee" means exactly that; you advance in good order, retaining all bonues (etc.) but not allowed to do melee attacks that Round. After that is Charging, where your distance covered is greater at the cost of your Dexterity bonus (DMG p. 66); setting an eligible polearm against a Charge is done here.

Only one Charge per Turn (per 10 Rounds) is allowed. Make it count.

Other movement is done at this time, such as a Thief moving around the flank of a melee to target something behind the enemy party.

This phase of a party's Round is going to be the shortest to cover as there's not much to explain that is not obvious. Remember that allution to a Roman Legion on the attack? It's this simple: first you shoot, then you close, then you hack.

Melee

Now we get to the swordplay and spearwork section.

This takes a bit to untangle.

First, check for Charges and Sets; Initiative is ignored in favor of weapon length. Chargers get a +2 to attack rolls and certain weapons do double damge on a Charge. Set attacks do double damage on hit (literal x2, not doubled dice; p. 66).

After that, it matters if two corner cases are met: Simultaneous Inititive rolls and Shooter/Caster Gets Meleed.

For the former, this is when Weapon Speed comes into play; lower Speed goes first. If the difference between them too great (either +5 slower or 2x slower, whichever is lesser) the faster gets to attack twice; if it's 10+, the faster attacks twice before the slower and then one more time after.

Melee attacks against shooters and casters are the other time when Speed is checked, and it is checked if (a) the target is close enough to melee attack and (b) that side elects to do so.

The attacker subtracts their side's Initiative die roll from the weapon's Speed, treating Negatives as positive (i.e. -1 = 1); this is compared to the shooter/caster's Speed/Casting Time (in Segments). This represents the split-second window of opportunity to disrupt the target's action. This modification does not occur on tied Initiative.

Striking to Subdue happens here, as do other non-lethal melee options, but one in particular here bears noting: Overbearing. (DMG p.73)

Players of later editions may recognize this as "Bull Rush" or something similar, but what matters here is that Overbearing can be done by animals and similar opponents- such as the warhorse of a charging knight. This is what makes a Charge attack dangerous, not just the damage done by the rider; the mount can, and will, knock targets prone or push them out of the way and thus open them up for follow-up attacks at considerable advantage while limiting their capacity to react.

Monks are explicitly noted as being able to do these while attacking in normal melee, and armed targets are noted as being able to negate attempts to use these modes with successful melee rolls.

Note that this squares with how real practice goes. Grappling is rarely done in mass combat, confined instead to routes and subduing high-value targets. Much the same goes for Pummeling; only Overbearing is likely to see much use in melee, and often that is to set up Grapples and Pummels. This is something that is done to wrap up a bigger Encounter.

Commentary

Here, folks, is the proof that AD&D1e is a wargame first and foremost.

The additional attacks that Fighters (and Rangers/Paladins) get against sub-1HD targets so long as no 1HD (or greater) leader is among them also plays into melee combat, making that mid-to-high level Fighter leading a small army of mercenary hirelings a major power in his own right- and that's before any Henchmen with their hirelings.

You are expected to raise and lead your own warbands to assist your men in their adventuring pursuits from the get-go; this is a Gold Sink in itself, as you have to pay them wages, equip them, and maintain them.

Druids can have their own animal menageries following them around, or concentrate that power later on in a smaller number of more powerful ones. Fear the Druid that has a large pack of Dire Wolves at their command. Clerics have their own ability to raise forces, and nothing stops a Magic-User or Thief from doing similiar.

This means that some things that always were taken as anomolous, such as Fighters suddenly getting a personal army, now make sense: your man was doing that from the get-go, and Name Level is the culmination of this path.

Again, the wargamers know what's up. Troops and Heroes are known game mechanics to them, and this is how AD&D1e actually works.

You can see how, rather than this being a Man-To-Man ruleset that (fails to) scale up, it's a Mass Combat ruleset that (successfully) scales down.

You can also see how Naval and Aerial Combat builds on this, needing only rules for manuevering and momentum (mainly for flying), and it does, which is also how all of these can integrate seamlessly in the same battle even with interactions between them (such as naval artillery bombarding a shore melee).

This is a huge perspective shift, and now all the abstractions so often mocked make sense; you don't have time to bother with every little nagging detail when your man is at the head of a fleet or a column and has to deal with a horde of monsters coming at him and his men.

You are not shiftless murderhobos. You are leaders in the making. You are Pompei, Caesar, Arminius, St. Paul, Kepler, Cao Cao, Nobunaga, Shaka Zulu, etc.- or, rather, you could be if you are skilled and lucky enough to earn that fame. Success is not guaranteed, and even victory can extract ruinous prices (as Pyrrhus found out).

Which means we're talking Recovery tomorrow to finish the week.