Alternative *Alternative* Combat System

What was the purpose of the original Alternative Combat System outlined in the first booklet of original Dungeons & Dragons?

The common explanation by the wider OSR for as long as I've been listening has been, to replace the Chainmail combat system and to provide a universal mechanism for hit resolution - separating the Chainmail game from the original edition in all but a reference. For a long time, I accepted this explanation: it made sense, all of the clones I had seen used the ACS with no mention of mass combat or of Weapon vs Armor, and having not invested in the original booklets, even the inexpensive PDF option - I was playing Basic: why should I worry? Why should I concern myself with it? - I had no reason to disbelieve the gray-hairs who maintained the original edition was a free-wheeling one: an incomplete game which required continuous ruling and referee improvisation to form into a collective experience - later to be completed in the 1st edition, with all (or at least most) of the cracks and crevices puttied.

Since then, I've been disabused of that error.

While there is no reason not to use the ACS in your 0e game as the primary it resolution mechanism - I'm not here to have that debate - it's also not the reason the ACS was included. In Chainmail - included in the same "recommended equipment" section as "dice" and "players" - two tiers of play surface: the normal scale, comprising orcs, men, and the like; and the heroic scale, the fantastic scale - comprised of wizards and dragons and heroes! To fight between these creatures leveraged the Fantasy Combat table: which functioned much like the Man to Man, providing a target number on 2d6 for one side to come out victorious: with the probabilities influenced according to the literature and mythology informing them: Wizards and Balrogs, an homage to the bridge at Khazad-Dum; Heroes and Trolls; to Anderson's Holger Carlsen. Knowing this - the matrix between each disparate type is necessarily as large in both rows and columns as the number of supported monsters: in a game with potentially endless enemies and mythologies from which to draw them, such a matrix becomes untenable! First - competing mythologies may have no overlap: how should the Pondo impundulu bird fare against a Mesoamerican chaneque? 

And second - citing Gary's own rationale from the proto-D&D (or Pre&D, as I like to call it), to create a matrix in that manner would rapidly exceed the available margins. What worked for a tightly bound fantasy wargame - Chainmail Fantasy Supplement - would not be feasible for the new, unbound idea that would become Dungeons & Dragons.  

So - suffice to say - the original combat system being alternated out was the Fantasy Combat system, not the Man to Man or troop combat systems previously defined.

An Alternative Alternative

So - what am I up to?

One of the characteristic elements of Chainmail and of most wargames is their dependence on the d6: specifically, both Man to Man and Fantasy Combat use 2d6 against a target number for hit resolution. By introducing a d20 based ACS, a totally separate mental mechanic is introduced - so, instead, why not stick with 2d6: retaining the curve and dice feel, but producing the same outcome - a universal approach to replace the confines of the Fantasy matrix?

While gaming at home - in off hours with my older offspring (when their mother isn't looking) - I've been arbitrating armed combat against fantastic opponents using 2d6, leveraging the following:

	To Hit Armor Class
Attacker Tier	<2	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9+
I	11	10		9			8		7
II	10		9			8		7
III	10	9			8		7
IV	9			8		7			6
V	9		8		7			6

Player characters advance, as normal, according to class and level, maintaining compatibility, as close as feasible:

	Tier by Level Range
Class	I	II	III	IV	V
Fighting Man	1-3	4-6	7-9	10-12	13-15
Cleric / Thief	1-4	5-8	9-12	13-16	~
Magic User	1-5	6-10	11-15	~

The table could be expanded as far as necessary - 0e provides a mechanism to extrapolate into the 20s - but since adopting this test, the highest level at play is 4, so it seemed premature.

But why?

First, in Chainmail, the Fantasy Supplement is generally assumed to be intended for the Man-to-Man scale: that is, when you were playing a fantasy game, you were using a 1:1 figure scale. In Man-to-Man, attacks are resolved on 2d6, based on the weapon the attacker is using versus the armor the defender is wearing. So as you worked your way across the battlefield - a Superhero may, for example, hack his way across normal infantry according to what he's wearing: rolling up to eight attacks per turn - but once he finishes working his way towards the enemy Troll, he instead rolls a single 2d6. If he succeeds, the Troll is defeated; if the Troll succeeds - he is defeated. As such, if I want to use the Man-to-Man tables in my 0e game, then it logically follows a 2d6 resolution is in line with the spirit of the Fantasy table for my 0e game.

This consistency of resolution mechanic mirrors the Armor vs. Weapon table Gary would provide in the Greyhawk supplement for the d20 based ACS. Gary understood that the unified attack mechanic was easier for players to use and would make for smoother gameplay. If you have multiple attacks and coincidentally have multiple d20s, you can simply roll them all together. Further, while it's easy to add two single digit numbers together, if you are simply reading a number off a single die, that is necessarily smoother and faster at the table, itself. Lastly, from a business perspective - if his game used funny dice while borderline every other game stuck with the d6, the d20 would then be a delineator: a visual and mental distinguishing factor to make D&D stick out from the crowd. So I understand why he went with the d20 - but in the same way he introduced the Weapon vs Armor Class table for Greyhawk to standardize around the ACS, I can also standardize around the 2d6 - conforming the Fantasy matrix to the Man-to-Man: the reverse of Gary's approach.

Second, and more importantly - bonuses and penalties. As anyone with AnyDice is aware - and as Gary explained in the 1e DMG - any pool of dice (2d6, 3d6, etc) will have a curve to the result. Depending on your target number, adding (or subtracting) from the roll will have a likewise different impact: when rolling against a target 10 on 2d6, you have about a 1-in-6 chance to hit: if you have a +2 bonus to the roll, you're suddenly aiming at an 8 instead: about a 41% chance to hit! That +2 is worth 25 percentage points! Conversely, if you're rolling against a 6, the difference a +2 bonus makes is 19 percentage points: up to 91% from 72%. 

Of course, 19 percentage points is nothing to sneeze at: but because the way curves work, having smaller bonuses can give significantly larger impact: preventing numbers bloat. Vorpal Sword (+5) cumulative with Strength bonus +5? No thanks.

Lastly, as it pertains to bonuses and penalties, consider also that now - there is no need of leveling the bonuses. If I am using Man to Man in one combat and the original, d20 ACS in the other - my +2 sword from before means more in the former instance than it does in the latter - as a +2 is always 10 percentage points on a d20. The argument has been made that this is a good thing - it makes the d20 easier to predict in the head - but honestly: with a bounded curve with as small a band as 2 to 12? It's not hard to figure out "I usually hit when I have a target number of 6, and its hard to hit once it gets above 8." The vagueness of the gut reaction to a curve produces better immersion - if you know instinctively your exact changes, you then can weigh changes with precision: something that doesn't evoke the same emotion as having a notion of "it's hard to hit, but can I make it?"

Target Number Bands

You'll have noted, also - some numbers are more common than others. Target 9, for example, bands over three armor class ratings in all but the highest of attack tiers.

The reason for this is twofold: first, it corresponds more closely to the probability of the d20 on the corresponding OD&D matrix - preserving compatibility with TSR content - but second: it adds some spice to armor. The player is no longer bound to have the best armor he can afford - of course, heavier armor is generally better, but if he's up against low HD enemies who may be attacking as a Tier I or II, if he can get to a 5, he doesn't see improvement again until 2: which frees him up to either invest in that plate mail or to accept an AC 5 - and with it the reduced encumbrance of that armor: he can swim now and not most assuredly die; he can carry more treasure or more equipment, possibly a second weapon - as some weapons work better in some circumstances in Man-to-Man: in contrast to the ACS, where all weapons are effectively equal. That magic ring that offers armor class? That magic shield? Suddenly Warduke's historically absurd attire makes sense! And we're not in history, after all - we're in pulp sword & sorcery!

So that's what I've been up to.

I hope it's provided something to think about - and maybe it gives you a way to include more Chupacabra in your Chainmail at the same time.

Delve on, readers!

 

Proficiency Dice for 0e?

When running any OSR system, especially one which is based on (or is) the original edition, it comes to head fairly quickly - how do you resolve situations that can't be role-played? Climbing a wall, for example: it's impractical to ask your players to demonstrate on your backyard fence or cliff overhang wall climbing in order to justify the character action. If one of you out there does run a table like that - I would like to participate at least once just to see - but that's beside the point. For Thief specialties, it's easy: there is a chart provided in Greyhawk or usually included by default in your system of choice. For other actions, precedent exists - the rules for kicking a door open, for example are X in 6, as are the rules for Surprise. Logically, it can follow that other things can be done X in 6. 

That's is the approach I had taken in Weapons, Wits, & Wizardry to start. I changed the six-sider to an eight-sider to allow for different growth rates and to facilitate modifying those chances by ability scores - a more agile character is more likely to walk a tightrope, etc. - but having written a post about dice pool resolution, and later having been edified that there's actually TSR precedent in The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun for ability-based dice pool resolution, I started thinking - could dice pools rolling under abilities serve in the place of skills?

Here is the system that I have in mind and have bounced off my unfortunately sporadic home game:

Proficiency Dice

When advancing a character, the player should have an option to invest experience points into improving their capabilities in a given skill or task, defined as an action which is not role-playable nor directly derivative of another class or character feature, in the form of Proficiency Dice: at increasing cost for each successive as follows:

Die No.	XP Cost
1st	600
2nd	1,800
3rd	5,500
4th	16,500
5th	50,000

Note, these are per die, per proficiency. So a character investing in two dice total - a first in, say, Hiding in Shadows and another first in, say, Climbing Sheer Surfaces, would pay 1,200 XP total - or two times 600: not 1,800.

When investing in dice, the current XP pool of the character is reduced by the amount invested - thus, a character with 5,800 XP which takes a second die in, for example, disabling traps would reduce this XP total from 5,800 to 4,000 and mark the Proficiency Die on its character sheet accordingly.

At the discretion of the referee, a character may not de-level in this manner - that is, a level three character may not invest experience sufficient to fall to level two - in order to advance a particularly expensive proficiency.

Task Resolution

Confluent with dice pool resolution, when executing a task in which the character has proficiency, the normal dice as prescribed by the referee are rolled. In addition, a number of D6 equal to the characters proficiency dice are likewise rolled. Of the net pool, only the lowest are retained. 

Thus, a character attempting to perform a task rated at 3d6 which has a 2 proficiency dice relevant to the task would roll 5d6 total, summing the lowest 3 in the pool, and comparing that result to the relevant Ability score:

• If the result is equal or under the relevant Ability score, the task succeeds. 
• If the result exceeds the relevant Ability score, the task fails.
  

In Practice

In practice, it works. Or, at my table, no one has complained.

However, this assigns more value to the attributes than they typically have in classic editions - understandably, some will be turned off by the idea. Regardless, for the sake of having tried it in play and liked how it felt, ability scores on 3d6 being fairly tightly in the middle, it felt worthwhile to explore the mathematics behind it and see how it balances against the traditional Thief. 

Why buy dice?

Buying Proficiency Dice allows a degree of customization on the part of the character without compromising two big benefits of a nominally class based system. This could be a blog post all its own (maybe a podcast episode?) but such will have to be another entry. 

First, one of the key elements of OSR gaming - defining "OSR gaming" as a romanticized emulation of the experience of the first 10 years of D&D's existence - is the dispensability of characters. You play multiple in a stable - sometimes multiple at a time, if your player group is too small - you generate them quickly and swap them out according to the adventure (or when one of them dies), and you can port them table to table: presuming that the campaigns are running compatible systems. This is why Thief skills in OSR games typically are not modified by anything apart from level. Level needs to be the important deciding factor - among the reasons for which is the interoperability of characters in a campaign. 

Sandboxes are essential to the movement.

Open tables, west marches: these styles of play have taken a forefront in public games.  

With skill dice purchased with XP - you still have the same character on the same track with the same basic abilities - you just have an added bonus in very specific circumstances. Very easy to adjudicate.

Second, having an increasing cost associated with purchasing Proficiency Dice means that you continue to be bound within the level and fighting capability aspect. If I spend 600 XP on a die, it means I can do that thing better, but I sacrifice the rapidity with which I advance in my primary role. Fighting Men who are specialized in dungeoneering activities will fight less effectively than their brethren because they advance less quickly. The difference isn't necessarily that pronounced with the smaller dice, however to become a true specialist, the costs add up and the character noticeably slows down in terms of their contributions to the combats.

Similarly, this prevents the acquisition of too much skill for your level range. I physically can't afford a third Proficiency Die if I have not sufficiently leveled up that the bandwidth between now and next level is sufficient to cover it. In the same way that a level 1 Fighting Man is not going to be able to stand their ground against an Ogre with six hit dice, you know that a level one Thief character equivalent is not going to be picking the pockets of a passing name level Arch Wizard.

But how do I know my chances?

This is a fair criticism. Unless you are an avid statistician, you probably won't know precisely. However, for the sake of compatibility and intellectual honesty, I did a little math to figure out the answer. As follows are the chances of success at mid-range tasks at varying levels of skill as defined by proficiency dice pool:

		Proficiency Dice Added
		0	1	2	3	4	5
Pool: 3	7:	16%	36%	53%	66%	76%	83%
	10:	50%	73%	86%	93%	96%	98%
	13:	84%	94%	98%	99%	99%	99%
Pool: 4	7:	3%	9%	17%	26%	35%	45%
	10:	16%	34%	51%	65%	75%	83%
	13:	44%	67%	81%	89%	94%	96%
Pool: 5	7:	1%	1%	3%	6%	9%	49%
	10:	3%	10%	19%	29%	40%	81%
	13:	5%	32%	48%	62%	73%	96%

Truthfully, I did not do a lot of math - anydice.com did a lot of math - but that is beside the point. Please note, also, that the numbers are approximate and decimals are rounded according to how I was feeling at the moment.

For comparison, here are the Thief percentages as presented in Greyhawk - the initial implementation, compatibility with which I would be most concerned about when running an original edition game:

Thief Level	Open Locks	Remove Traps	Pick Pocket	Move Silently	Hide in Shadows	Hear Noise*
1	15%	10%	20%	20%	10%	33%
2	20%	15%	25%	25%	15%	33%
3	25%	20%	30%	30%	20%	50%
4	35%	30%	35%	35%	25%	50%
5	40%	35%	45%	45%	35%	50%
6	45%	40%	55%	55%	45%	50%
7	55%	50%	60%	60%	50%	66%
8	65%	60%	65%	65%	55%	66%
9	75%	70%	75%	75%	65%	66%
10	85%	80%	85%	85%	75%	66%
11	95%	90%	95%	95%	85%	83%
12	100%	95%	100%	100%	90%	83%
13	100%	100%	100%	100%	95%	100%

* Hear Noise is a chance in six - but a percentile is provided to approximate: e.g. 33% in lieu of 2-in-6.

At first glance, comparing the table, it immediately becomes evident that the dice pool strategy results in much more rapid advancement - in terms of success rates. With a pool of four dice, it looks parallel to start - assuming an ability score of 10, the 16% success rate mirrors the Apprentice (level 1) - however a first proficiency die brings the character in line with a Burglar (level 4)! Additionally, to think on it, a zero proficiency character does not imply Apprentice. Zero proficiency implies that you have not been trained, you have no experience in it, that you are going on instinct. Thus, comparing one Proficiency Die to the Apprentice rank would be more apt. Comparing thusly, 4 dice is entirely too generous, breaking adventures written with TSR numbers in mind by making those challenges far too likely to bypass.

Moving up to a pool of 5 dice, the prospects are bleak for a character with a ability score of 10. While the first Proficiency Die delivers a probability that is under the Apprentice - one third the likelihood for traps and locks, half for picking pockets and moving silently - the second Proficiency Die brings you into Footpad territory, a third into Robber, and the 4th into Cutpurse - giving Burglar a miss. That's not too bad: against a target of 10, five dice delivers - accounting for Proficiency Dice being added to the pool over time, percentage success chances increase proportionally to what would be expected by an 0e adventure. 

But - how many Thieves have a Dexterity of 10?

The classic Thief archetype implies agility. This is addressed in OSR games as a prime requisite bonus- the character will level faster as a Thief if they have a high dexterity. Thus, we should bump ourselves to the success chances at the Ability target of 13: more in line with what we're likely to see at the table. The compatibility here is a bit bleaker - the first Proficiency Die  grants a whopping 32% - in line with a Burglar (again, fourth level Thief). The second Proficiency Die jumps to about a Sharper, the third to a Master Pilfer, on average. So, a character with a 13 Dexterity is going to advance more quickly with Proficiency Dice than a Thief would with a 13 Dexterity.

Come to think of it - though - who said that they have to be one to one?

The point of rescue for this system becomes in the experience balancing. How much experience does a Thief have to have in the original edition to hit those percentages? In all of them - the Thief advances more rapidly than other classes. Where a Fighting Man might require 2,500 XP to hit Level 2, at the same 2500 xp, a Thief has hit Level 3. This continues through the course of their advancement track. Thieves will have low chances to succeed, will have the smallest hit die, but will also hit the higher chances quickly and gain hit dice more rapidly than other party members - allowing them to "catch up" in terms of effectiveness. Hence comes the pricing model prescribed to the dice.

Each Proficiency Die, in invested experience, is adjusted assuming a target 13 Ability score to roll under with 5 dice. Yes, it starts off as a Burglar - but isn't a common complaint for the Thief class that they start off useless? Bumping them to one-in-three is hardly a game breaker and will make the character feel more useful, mechanically - and, as the player will be investing in multiple dice across the board in order to keep up with all of the functions (assuming the player is building a Thief to a T) the XP invested, sacrificed away from fighting capability and/or hit dice, will be proportional to a 4th level Thief: a net zero in terms of total difference.

After the first, each die purchased advances the skill Chance by about two levels - so, a character with a 13 Dexterity that invests in Proficiency Dice going forward will - to achieve the same percentile success rate - again, be parallel in terms of how much XP is needed to the classic Thief. 

Balance preserved

But what is to stop a character from maxing out? From investing entirely in one skill/ proficiency and thereby breaking that part of the adventure?

As mentioned above, the referee is encouraged to disallow de-leveling - thereby preventing too much investment in one place without first advancing in level to appropriately higher position. Will it eliminate all disparity? Will characters intentionally try to be better and one thing versus another? It's possible. But if the goal is to maintain compatibility - allow you to run an 0e, Thief-less game in an adventure that assumes a Thief's existence, this helps. It enables that end while also allowing a modicum of customization: which, for Weapons, Wits, & Wizardry, was a design objective all along.

To Conclude

I presently like where these numbers sit. 

I intend to present this to my players and allow them to try it - hammering out the kinks as we go. The numbers may change, I may or may not update this post, but you can bet that the final version will be in the Weapons, Wits, & Wizardry booklets - assuming it scales as well as it plays at low level.

There are disparities for higher abilities - I understand that - looking at the 16 target range, one Proficiency Die on a pool 5 task has a 90% chance to succeed - but I'm going to wait to see if that's actually a problem before I try to solve it. Though I get that other people who play the original edition enjoy that the Abilities offer very little to the character. That makes sense to me, too. If you desire, try this system out while retaining a static Target of 13 with 5 dice - call it the Lucky 13 rule - that way everyone will remember it. And the character having progressed, the equivalent of leveling up, as a Thief, will be preserved.

So - like it? Hate it? Would love to hear your thoughts- readers and players alike. 

In any case, delve on! 

 

Public domain artwork retrieved from OldBookIllustrations.com. Attributions in alt text.

Weapons, Wits, & Wizardry: Skirmish & Duel Combat

Updated: 10/9/2022

Man to Man

...with Multiples

The primary appeal of Chainmail resolution to me is twofold - first, its simplicity and its expeditiousness; and second, its utilization of concurrent hits to casualty larger than life figures. Where the traditional approach of hit points can be used to abstract both grit and skill - the lesser fighter will take a more grievous injury than the superior fighter who knows how to roll with the punches - it doesn't fit well in the context of the game: giving a character multiple attacks, but requiring multiple hits to "connect", better presents the target as defending itself and scaling that defense according to martial prowess: determined by level of experience.

So, with troop combat - there is speed of dice pool successes; and with man to man - there is the granularity of weapon versus armor: how to combine the two? 

To take a hint from Fantasy Combat resolution (and reverse an idea from Majestic Fantasy for Swords & Wizardry to make it fit!)

Man Equivalence and Attack Pool

Each character should consider its own offensive capability in terms of a pool: this pool is a number of attacks equal to the character’s Man Equivalence and is refreshed each round. During the appropriate phase - Missile or Melee - the attack sequence below is then executed.

Attack Sequence

1. Assign: The character assigns a number of attacks from their pool to a given target, up to their remaining attack pool.
   
   
2. Resolve: Dice are rolled – 2d6 – and the value, after modifiers, is compared to the target number of the weapon versus the armor (or armor equivalence) of the target.
   
   If the target number is met or exceeded, the target suffers a number of Hits equal to the number of attacks allocated in Step 1.
   
   
3. Remove & Repeat: The number of attacks assigned in Step 1 are then – regardless of success or failure in Step 2 – deducted from the attack pool. If the character has additional attacks remaining, the controlling player may then repeat this process on the same or a new target.
   

Once the pool reaches 0, the character may make no further attacks until the following combat round.

Injuries

When a defender has accrued a number of Hits in one round (cumulative between all sources) equal to or greater than its own Man Equivalence, an Injury is suffered (or casualty inflicted, hit points lost, etc. - to taste).

Critical Blows

For an attack which succeeds and on which doubles are rolled on the 2d6 attack roll, a Critical Blow is struck. When a Critical Blow occurs, the hits inflicted on the defender are equal to double the attacks assigned to the roll.

Additionally, hits against vulnerable targets - targets unaware they are under attack, targets which are prone on the field of battle, and so on - are likewise doubled.

This is designed to prevent characters of only slightly higher level than an adversary from being invincible to that adversary in man to man while still preserving the possibility of great warriors or powerful monsters only a hero could hope to tackle alone.

The Math: Hits and Crits

A hit on the Man to Man table can be achieved - depending on weapon vs armor - on between a 5 and 12 on 2d6: producing a wide variety of probabilities. To prove I've thought about it - for the purposes of illustration, we'll focus on target numbers of 6, 8, and 10 - an easy, a normal, and a challenging result.

Provided, a matrix of all possible combinations on 2d6 - with their respective result:

2d6 1 2 3 4 5 6 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

In red, a result which will miss all target numbers. In yellow, a result which would hit only the easiest target number, 6. In blue, a result which would hit both the easiest 6 and the moderate target number of 8. In green, a roll which would hit all target numbers. In deeper highlight and italicized, a double: representing on hit a result which would indicate a critical result.

Observing the provided, there are 36 possible outcomes - with six possibilities for a double. Thus:

Target Number	Chance for a Hit	Chance for a Double
6	26-in-36, or around 72%.	4-in-36, or around 11%.
8	15-in-36, or around 42%.	3-in-36, or around 8%.
10	6-in-36, or just shy of 17%.	2-in-36, or just shy of 6%.

A character well armed - having a weapon appropriate to the enemy's defenses - may reasonably expect to hit frequently and hit above their pay-grade on a d20 equivalent of 19: whereas a character armed poorly relative to the enemy's defenses will have a difficult time hitting - and will hit above their pay-grade on a d20 equivalent to a natural 20.

Inspiration

The Hero can stand against a squad of normal men, holding his own; the Wizard stares down a fell beast which has laid waste to an army before it! Chainmail accomplishes this via the Fantasy Combat table - a solution to a problem where some units take many hits before going down: making them prime candidates to strategically lock down other units. Concurrent hits - as I describe above - are actually very uncommon: only Lycanthropes, Heroes, Super Heroes, and Wizards (implied) use them: however, this is an even more extreme example - as two Heroes who run into each other on the battlefield, using troop combat - have a statistically insignificant chance (almost 1 in 1,300) to end their conflict in anything other than a draw. Thus, the Fantasy Combat matrix is provided to pit Fantastic creatures and figures against one another - catering to the fiction from which they are drawn: Dragons cannot be killed in normal combat, but can be slain by a Hero with a bow and magic arrows (*cough* *Esgaroth* *cough*) with only a moderate degree of luck; Trolls are fearsome opponents, but are vulnerable to the magical weapons Elves carry (*cough* *The Broken Sword* *cough*). The key take-away here, however, is less the fiction: but from the gamist perspective, the rapidity of resolution. 

Chainmail is a wargame. The intent of Chainmail is not to imitate epic show-downs, but instead to allow armies to clash and to vie against one another for land, treasure, or honor. For that reason, it has to be quick - to bog the game down would result in the inability to utilize the rule in a tournament setting: and might inspire players to ban the Fantasy Supplement altogether - favoring the tight rules for more real-world military engagements. And it accomplishes this smoothness by pairing Fantastic adversaries against one another on a chart - requiring one roll only to decide the fray.

But how to accomplish the same result without ever and infinitely expanding a literature-based table?

An Equivalence Solution

I referenced Majestic Fantasy for Swords & Wizardry above. In reality, I should have referenced a blog post - Multiple Fighter attacks revisited for Swords & Wizardry: written by Rob Conley, proprietor of Bat in the Attic Games the author of the aforementioned Majestic Fantasy and a perennial figure in the OSR ecosystem. You're shilling him awfully hard  this post, CWR - what's up with that? I want to highlight Rob and his product line because - while, admittedly, I like some of it more than others - by and large he's a sharp cookie who has good insights into the experience of an OSR sandbox game. If you play Swords & Wizardry, or if you play OSE or any other TSR-friendly OSR system - I would encourage you to consider looking into his blog, checking out some of his work, and seeing if it's right for you. 

But - for the time being, we'll focus on what I saw that changed how I wanted to approach combat in Chainmail and Weapons, Wits, & Wizardry: namely, multiple attacks. In AD&D 1e, a Fighter gets multiple attacks - one per level - against enemies of 1 HD or less. This is an import from the Chainmail roots of the game, promoting the Name-Level-Fighter-As-A-Wrecking-Ball of mass combat. Encountering 40-400 Kobolds? No problem. You're taking out 10 at a time - plus, by that point, you're assumed to have retainers behind you: but that's another story. This didn't sit well with me - as I commented on Rob's post when I first read it - because a Fighter is a whirlwind of destruction against 1 HD enemies - skeletons, normal men, goblins - but then becomes no better than his own normal men troops immediately facing anything else - zombies, Elves, a freaking badger, etc. How Rob handles this - I recommend his blog post for a better explanation - but he counts down: the Fighter "spends" attacks according to the HD of the enemy - attacking, dealing damage, and so on as normal with each. It's a considerable boost - but one which is much needed for the character archetype that, though allegedly Gary's favorite, falls behind fellow classes in effectiveness as the levels accrue. Approaching it from a Chainmail perspective - I had the opposite problem: too many attacks and how to pare them down!

In the Spirit of Fantasy Combat

The resolution strategy of Fantasy Combat is solid - the problem comes with extensibility. In Chainmail, Fantasy Combat is a chart - depending on which figure engages which other figure, cross-referenced on the matrix. Knowing this, each new Fantastic monster would need to have a new entry on the list - and values determined for each potential opponent. To stick to literary inspiration - this would also pose a problem as some new monsters have no precedent to appear next to one another in the fiction: naturally providing a narrative limitation on the addition in addition to the margin limitation: that is, how big can the table get before it no longer fits in a book?

The Man to Man approach with a multiple-hits caveat solves this problem.

By treating the attack and defense of a Fantastic creature according to an equivalence on the Man to Man table - which can be extended indefinitely in rows, if the need arises - it provides a natural answer to "how would this monster affect this other monster?" and "how would a human heroic character overcome this monster?" Thus, say we create a Grue. The Grue - according to our own table - has 4 hit dice: a fighting man of normal bearing has no chance to hurt it. However - a Hero - armed accordingly - has a chance. A single success will strike the creature down - as would a Fantasy Combat entry - and also it allows the Hero to outfit himself for the occasion. We know that Grue attack by eating their foes: perhaps bulkier armor (Plate), preventing easy swallowing, will affect its ability to inflict that attack. Weapon and armor choice continues to matter - giving the Fighting Man more tools in the toolbox. But that's another story.

What about Monsters?

Ostensibly, monsters should receive multiple attacks. A cave troll crashing into the packed ranks of pikemen, rending left and right, throwing men asunder before coming face to face with a champion in its way - this is accomplished in Chainmail by troop combats followed by Fantasy Combat when the pair square off. In the same sense - combining the two under the Man to Man approach described above, the troll would - having a high Man Equivalence - be entitled to multiple attacks (the aforementioned left and right) and then few - perhaps one or two - against the hero, who likewise has an elevated Man Equivalence.

If it gets to the point where it's tedious? Say, rolling 2d6 three or four times in a row?

In that case - I may recommend defaulting to troop combat. Roll dice, on 6s - count a hit: appropriate to the light/heavy/armored spectrum - just in the name of speed. However: for the time being, the rule stands - and unless play-test proves a problem? We'll see how it goes!

Thanks for reading!

Public domain artwork retrieved from OldBookIllustrations.com and the National Gallery of Art and adapted for use. Attribution in alt text.

Weapons, Wits, and Wizardry: An Adventurer's Guide

With the understanding that, to produce a game with as much breadth as Weapons, Wits, and Wizardry attempts to do, even when standing on the shoulders of giants - this represents a massive endeavor: one which, if attempted in whole at once, would require years of development and play-test. So - in the interest of progressing, I'm taking a queue from the progenitors - the originals: focus, first, on pushing a product out; then expand, representing larger swaths of the game, second. That in mind, here presented, Weapons, Wits, & Wizardry: An Adventurer's Guide.

Weapons, Wits, & Wizardry:
An Adventurer's Guide

What's In These Rules?

These rules are a booklet - a subset of the larger game - focused on the first part of the Old School experience: the dungeon. Procedures, practices, and charts that support the orchestration of - in whole: player and referee alike - the dungeoneering experience.

The first four levels of the character races (or six, for Elves), the first six tiers of dungeoneering proficiencies and arcane magic (plus the first four tiers for patron - read divine - magic), are included in this booklet. The first three levels of spells - plus a few bigger ones - are included. Exploration and trap procedures, combat procedures - including chase and pursuit rules - are included in this booklet. Equipment, weapons, and armor are included.

Limitations being key to keeping the scope small enough to be achievable, the above should constitute a "Basic Set" - to use the vernacular - an introductory, initial part of the game: in and of itself, well worth playing and catering to the Old School spirit.

What Sets This Booklet Apart? 

This booklet contains everything from the PDFs linked in the previous post - limited to low-level, dungeon-delving characters. In addition, it makes some changes and expansions to support the complete experience while maintaining a streamlined, smooth flow at the table.

To change and improve what was: Converts combat to use the Duel: adding player choice; and modifies hit values to help differentiate weapons, armor, and shields. Imports the Ringmail rules referenced into the main book and imports the relevant sections of the Referee's Enchiridion into a referee's section in the back of the book, reducing the need for multiple PDFs to be open or multiple print-outs to be held at the table. Updated wizardry to run on Entropy - an escalating spell-point style system mathematically equivalent with OSR systems: allowing either Ringmail style spontaneous spell-casting while also supporting traditional Vancian spell casting.

To expand on it: Adds Patron and Pact magic - allowing the creation of Clerics (dealing with benevolent powers beyond) or Warlocks (dealing with the malign). Adds a list of Miracles - spells for Patron and Pact spell-casters. Introduces language families: improving the effectiveness and incidence of negotiation and non-combat solutions in dungeon. Adds Chase and Pursuit mechanics - firm ones - to make retreat move viable, even for parties in armor. Updates alignment - introducing a three-way pull, between the drive of nature, the impetus of civilization, and the influence of change, decay, and rebirth.

But, the most exciting difference about this book - apart from not having internal links in the PDF yet and needing me to insert recalculated treasure tables - it is beta ready. 

From here, I would feel comfortable, with this book, attempting to run a dungeon crawl. Is it ready for prime time? Probably not - I anticipate there will be things I miss (there are missing things I'm adding now, as I am prepping this post, which I hope to have updated in the linked copy by the time the post publishes) and I anticipate there will be things I will want to change, based on those play experiences. However the excitement derives not from completion - but tangible progress towards it.

Are you updating the old PDFs? Yes - albeit slowly. I have pollinated back some of the changes to the existing WW&W and Referee's Enchiridion PDFs, but I have not pollinated back all of them: and I don't know if - as of when this post is scheduled to go live - I will have had time to load my local PDFs back into drive so as to update the links. I will try - but if you see a discrepancy, keep an eye out: because the changes are coming.

What Comes Next?

An Adventurer's Guide handles the first part of the OSR experience: dungeon delves. From here, in addition to play-test, a second book will necessarily follow to cover the next part of an OSR player character's life style: forming a war-band and exploring the wilderness. Following that, a tertiary book to cover domain level play. By breaking up the game into tiers of experience - adventurer to warlord, warlord to sovereign - it both focuses design,

How is "getting involved" going? There exist some play-test groups who downloaded the rules and are integrating bits and pieces of the design into their home games. When I became aware of that happening - that became the highlight of my week. It was (and is) the coolest thing ever to see a community of people out there both interested in the direction I was taking and also to see the product, even unfinished, drawing attention from people outside my home table!

In terms of my own progress, I have not yet set up a server to run the game, myself: but this too, is coming: and you, the reader, will be among the first to know about it. Bear in mind - my wife and I are expecting - in addition to a set of 2-year-old twins. That, coupled with working a real job and moving forward on a couple other OSR/RPG projects (e.g. the podcast), means that it's a challenge to find time - especially in 3-4 hour blocks - in order to run (or even play!). Thus, progress on that end may be slower - but again: I'm jonesin', been jonesin' for a while, so it will - in time - come to pass.

In the meantime - delve on, readers! And let me know what you think!

Public domain art retrieved from OldBookIllustrations.com and adapted for thematic use. Attributions in alt text.