Issues with CN Troop Combat

 The major issues with CHAINMAIL Troop Combat in OD&D

To use the 1:20 CHAINMAIL combat tables for all combat in OD&D is in theory easy - just define the 6 troop types, establish a troop type for each monster and let them attack as one man per HD. I reality though, many small tweaks are necessary, and in some cases it becomes obvious this system was not intended for the most common form of OD&D combat. I have solved many small issues this far, but some have proven to be more of a challenge:

1. MISSILE VS ARMORED OPPONENTS: CHAINMAIL Missile tables make missile weapons virtually useless against armored opponents, although realistic, it may not be desirable for many groups. For instance, a Superhero shooting an AF opponent with a bow: 

f he succeeds with both Target Dice (5:6), he will score two hits vs the AF. 

If he melees with a Heavy Weapon, he will roll 8 dice (6 hits) vs the AF.

Enchanted Arrow? 

I'll have to look at the statistical difference. 

2. UNMANAGEABLE # OF DICE WHEN MANY STRONG TROOP TYPES ATTACKS WEAK TROOP TYPES: This was ponited out to me in the ODD Discussion Forum. In extreme cases, a higher number, high level/HD (attacks as multiple men) HH opponents vs LF generate an unmanageable number (hundreds) of attack dice. The cases when this will realistically happen are probably rare, but it irks me. A robust system should be able top handle this.

3. CUMBERSOME MATH WHEN DISTRIBUTING ATTACKS BETWEEN DIFFERENT TROOP TYPES: In cases with multiple combatants of different troop types, determining how to divvy up attacks to see how many dice are thrown can be cumbersome in certain situations.

Example: A 5th level AF F-M melees 3 opponents, 1 AF, 1 HF and 1 LF.

He attacks as 5 men and can distribute the “5 men” against his opponents. The player must consult the CT for AF vs. each of the 3 opponents. 

Let’s say 3 of the "men" attacks the AF, 1 attacks the HF and 1 attacks the LF.

Consulting the CT, the player rolls 3 dice vs the AF (6 hits), 1 die vs the HF (5-6 hits) and 1 die vs the LF (4-6 hits).

 

These issue are likely not unsolvable but it is a bit of a challenge to solve to satisfaction.

 

CHAINMAIL Missile Fire in OD&D

The only issue with using the troop combat CHAINMAIL Missile Tables in OD&D CHAINED is the need to re-classify the armor categories to troop types. A bit peculiarly, CHAINMAIL doesn't use the normal troop types for missile fire, but instead - Unarmored, 1/2 Armored or Shield and Fully Armored. I have simply converted these into the normal Light Foot, Heavy Foot and Armored Foot, which doesn't seem that different anyway. 

I really like the CHAINMAIL missile fire tables - especially how powerful heavy armor is - it takes a fair number of men firing to have a chance of hitting armored targets, which correlates well with how it worked historically. 

-- In fact, it may even be a little too hard. A Superhero (F-M 8th level - 8 men) would be hard pressed to score even single hit against an armored target. --

-- Edit: On consideration, I think it's fine. It does has the effect of making heavily armored troops virtually impervious to missile fire unless fired upon by large groups. Even high level Fighting-Men will have a hard time doling out a lot of damage against heavily armored foes. Even if this affect the validity of missile weapons in skirmish situation, I find the verisimilitude attractive. --

Note: I have decided to reduce the number of available missile weapons to Bow, Crossbow and Hurled Weapons. Any bonuses or penalties to attacks go to the Target Die.

Troop Types for Man-Types

Melee Troop Types for Man-Types

In CHAINMAIL, there was no need to elaborate exactly what the troop types constituted so if used with OD&D and its many types of armor and weapons, some work needs to be done.

The basis would primarily be equipment but in various sources, such as Monsters & Treasure and the First Fantasy Campaign, the terms seem to be somewhat flexible, where the same arms and armor seem to result in different troop types. I' have interpreted this is training, so in these definitions of troop types, that will factor in. I have also decided that shields enables the combatant to defend as the next heavier troop type, except for Unarmored and Armored Foot. I've taken this from Jason Vey's discussion of the subject in his Hyperborea Campaign. Combatants in Plate Armor do not benefit from shields, which I don't mind, since I think it's consistent with historical references, for what it's worth. 

This is how I've defined troop types:

Light, Medium and Heavy Weapons are what you'd expect - light weapons are daggers, handaxe etc., medium weapons are sword, morning star etc. and heavy weapons are two handed swords and pole arms. This also makes Fighting-Men the only class able to attack as the best footman/horseman types (Armored Foot, Heavy Horse) since there are no blunt weapons in the Heavy Weapon category. A challenge here is to make individual weapon differ somewhat. I have no ambition to take this to any extremes, after all, individual weapons have limited impact in OD&D. Some examples would be

Polearms and spears - enables attacker to attack from second rank

Spears, daggers, handaxes - can be thrown

Pikes - can nullify charge attacks if used with three combatants in tight formation

Mace, morning stars, flails - blund weapons 

Thieves to Be or Not to Be

Thieves to Be or Not to Be in OD&D

I really like the thief class and I always have. As you know, thieves weren't a part of the LBBs and were introduced in Supplement 1: Greyhawk, and I have the option to include them or not and I'm undecided at this stage.

Thief

• One OD&D variant I really like is Oakes Spalding's variant presented in Seven Voyages of Zylarthen.
• Many players love playing thieves.
• Thieves have a different area of expertise (Underworld exploration) than other classes  and balance them well.
• Thieves have a natural place in Sword & Sorcery literature, such as Cugel, Conan or the Grey Mouser, to a higher degree than clerics, for instance.

No thief

• I have found that not including thieves sort of makes everyone a thief, which I really like. 
• Many "thief" archetypes, some mentioned above, would be thieves by profession only. If I would simulate Conan in OD&D, I would roll a Fighting Man, not a Thief.
• Thieves are not in the LBBs, and I admit to having purist tendencies. 

The Alternative Combat Matrices in OD&D

The Alternative combat matrices in OD&D and their relation to CHAINMAL

As a side track, I've had a look at the Attack Matrix 1 and 2 in Men & Magic. As we all know, this is what became the default D&D combat system in subsequent editions.

In OD&D, the AM 1 and 2 are really only a mechanic to hit a target and don't represent a complete combat system. In addition, there are some potential challenges to overcome when running them. From a glance, they are relatively easy to grasp - the level of the PC or HD of the monster is compared to an AC score and produces a number to meet or beat on a d20.

In the light of the presence of CHAINMAIL in OD&D, however, the procedure may look a lot less straight forward. First, it's unclear if the Fighting Capability is meant to influence the AM or if it is a separate thing altogether. Some questions:

1. Is there a distinction between normal and heroics a thing? If so, what does it look like?
2. How many attacks can be executed per round? If so, which opponents are affected by multiple attacks?
3. There are minor challenges as well, such as how to read AM 2 where some HD numbers appear in more than one column. To me, this seems easier to resolve.

 In the Strategic Review #2 FAQ - Gary shows us a combat example with a 4th level F-M and a bunch of orcs, using the AM to resolve combat. From what I can parse from the example: 

1. There is a distinction between Normals and Heroics, inherited from CHAINMAIL (CM). The line seems to be drawn between HD 1 and >HD 1. 
2. The F-M (and presumably all classes) can use more than 1 attack (i.e. 1 attack for each of the # of men he fights as) and he attacks 4 of the HD 1 orcs in the same round. He uses the AM 1 to resolve his success.  

So while my two main questions are answered in the FAQ, many details remain unanswered. 

Are lvl 2-3 considered heroics or are they subject to multiple attacks? Can they also make multiple attacks? 

How does multiple attacks work when heroics fight each other? Can a HD 12 dragon make multiple attacks against a 4th level fighter?

A viable way using AM 1-2 (I think)

One way to use the AM 1-2 appears in the ODD Discussion forum as well as Wight Box by The Basic Expert. In short, it looks like this:

• The distinction between normies and heroics is intact and drawn at lvl/HD 4. This is true to the SR FAQ.
• A heroic/fantastic monster can attack normals by using the first column in AM 1 (lvl 1-3) and for each man a combatant is able to attack as (so a 4th level F-M can roll 4 times using that column only to hit 4 HD 1 enemies). This is not true to the FAQ, since Gary's F-M in the example attacks 4 times using the second column.
• Combat between heroics and fantastical creatures HD 4+ attack each other once, using the lvl/HD appropriate columns in AM 1-2. This solution is beyond the scope of the FAQ.

What I don't fancy about AM 1-2 

Something that  irks me with AM 1-2 is that weapons loose almost all distinction and the 1 die universal damage goes from elegance to become an issue for me, which is neither the case  for CM man-to-man or 1:20 combat. Oakes Spalding has made a very neat solution to this in Seven Voyages to Zylarthen, where he introduces a simplified d20 variant to the CM man-to-man matrix. This also led him to rewriting all monsters in the M&T though. A working but cumbersome way to solve this, is to introduce unique properties to weapons, which was done in Original Edition Delta (OED). Another way of solving that particular problem is, of course, to introduce variable weapon damage.

 

CHAINMAIL Heroes & Wizards in OD&D CHAINED

 

Wizards and Heroes in OD&D CHAINED

As mentioned in the last post, there are a few ways to treat heroes and wizards in these house rules: 

• Different rules for heroes/wizards applies for skirmish combat and mass combat.
• CHAINMAIL rules for heroes/wizards aren't used at all and consequently these rules will have to be removed from mass combats as well.
• Rules applicable for heroes/wizards in mass combat will also apply in skirmish combat.

These distinctions are important and the will likely have ramifications throughout the system. For this reason it may also be hard to put in as a "optional rules". For me, I think it boils down to this

Heroes/Wizard (CHAINMAIL) - If not used, it will have ramifications on Mass Combat as well, which would be unfortunate and would make Heroes, Super heroes and wizards significantly weaker in that aspect of the game.

Conclusion

In OD&D CHAINED all the CHAINMAIL rules for Heroes and Super-Heroes will apply, some will be specific for each combat mini-game. These effects will come into play when a character becomes a full Hero/Super-Hero/ Wizard, without any penalties (such as Hero - 1). To summarize:

OD&D CHAINED Hero

Skirmish and Mass Combat

Troop type is determined by individual training and equipment

Can hit fantastic creatures without the aid of magic weapons 

Never checks morale (applies to NPCs)

Fights as 4 figures (20x4 men in 1:20 combat, and 4 men in 1:1 Skirmish combat)

Requires 4 simultaneous hits to be hurt (this may not lead to death in skirmish combat, since HP will be used). 

 Will have various immunities to various monster special attacks, such as a Ghoul's paralyzing touch. 

Mass Combat only

A Hero grants a bonus of 1 attack die to the unit they fight in 

A Hero cannot be killed with normal missiles or melee until all normal men in the same unit have been killed first 

A Hero can kill dragons with missile fire on a 10+ (+1 on each attack using an enchanted arrow) on a roll of two dice.

Fantastic Combat (part of Mass Combat)

• Can fight fantastic opponents as Hero 

OD&D CHAINED Super-Hero

Skirmish and Mass Combat 

• As Hero except 
• Fights as 8 figures
• Requires 8 simultaneous hits
• Forces a morale check as if excess casualties on enemies within charge distance.

Mass Combat only

• As Hero except 
• A Hero can kill dragons with missile fire on a 8+ (+1 on each attack using an enchanted arrow) on a roll of two dice. 

Fantastic Combat

• Can fight fantastic opponents as Super-Hero 

OD&D CHAINED Wizard 

Skirmish and Mass Combat 

• As Hero except 
• Forces a morale check as if excess casualties on enemies within charge distance
• All other aspects of the CHAINMAIL Wizard in CHAINED will be handled by OD&D spells.

Mass Combat only

• I may use aspects of CHAINMAIL Wizards to quickly produce an NPC wizard in mass battle situations. 

Fantastic Combat

• Can engage fantastic opponents as Wizard 

In practice 

I will just add the special abilities gained at Hero/Super-Hero and Wizard levels to Men & Magic. 

I don't expect most of them to have a great effect on game play - low level enemies will have a harder time to hit Heroics PCs and will need to gang up on them to be able to hurt them. Perhaps magic-users will benefit most from this. 

The most powerful ability is probably to force enemy morale dice to be rolled within line of sight more or less. I may limit this to creatures below a certain HD, to creatures not classified as "fantastic" themselves. This ability kick in the earliest at 8th level however, and if lower level enemies cover and run at that point is probably just fun. Will have to be play tested.

King Les Edwards

 

CHAINMAIL Heroes in OD&D

CHAINMAIL Heroes (and Wizards) in OD&D

Heroes and Wizards in CHAINMAIL

CHAINMAIL is a wargame and have opponents.  The Hero (or Anti-Hero) in CHAINMAIL is a type of figure with special properties making it a whole other beast than normal men. Heroes and Wizards are part of CHAINMAIL's Fantasy Supplement and are listed among all the other fantastic creatures.

CHAINMAIL Hero

• Can fight fantastic opponents in Fantasy Combat 
• Can fight as any troop type
• Never checks morale
• Infers a bonus of 1 attack die to the unit they fight in
• Fights as 4 figures (20x4 men in 1:20 combat)
• Requires 4 simultaneous "hits" to be killed (i.e. they need to be killed in 1 turn) 
• Cannot be killed with normal missiles or melee until all normal men in the same unit have been killed first
• Can kill dragons with missile fire on a 10+ (+2 to the roll if using an Enchanted Arrow) on a roll of two dice.

Additionally, a hero has various immunities to various monster special attacks.

CHAINMAIL Super-Hero (basically, what it says - a Hero on steroids)

• Has all the perks of a Hero 
• Can fight fantastic opponents in Fantasy Combat (but better than a Hero)
• Forces a morale check as if excess casualties on enemies within charge distance 
• Fights as 8 figures (20x8 men in 1:20 combat)
• Requires 8 simultaneous "hits" to be killed 

CHAINMAIL Wizard 

• Fights as 2 Armored Foot or Medium Horse if mounted
• Can use magic weapons
• Can become invisible at will. The invisibility breaks when they attack.
• Can see in darkness
• Never checks morale
• Forces a morale check as if excess casualties on enemies within charge distance
• Can throw Fireballs and Lightning Bolts at enemies (including fantastic enemies)
• Can cast additional spells (there are 16 of them in CHAINMAIL aside from the two missiles mentioned above, as well as Counter Spell spells of inferior Wizards)

 

Heroes and Wizards in OD&D 

OD&D is an adventure game and have protagonists and antagonists. In light of OD&D, two fantasy types ended up on the protagonist side - the Hero (and Super-Hero) and the Wizard. In OD&D, the hero is persists in all the classes' Fighting Capability, and Wizard only in the magic-user class. Neither have any special role in OD&D if using the Alternative d20 combat system, they are just level titles without any special perks. The Wizard title does come with special perks in OD&D (such as constructing a wizard's tower and magic items, but for Fighting-Men, Lord is arguably a more important step than Hero.

 

Heroes in OD&D with CHAINMAIL

Skirmish Combat

In short - using CHAINMAIL 1:20 combat tables to resolve combat in OD&D doesn't in itself require any need to treat Heroes and Wizards in any special way - they have the same properties as they have OD&D. This is likely the easiest and most straight forward way to treat the subject, although the Hero, Superhero and Wizard can to be translated into "Men" for each class level for ease of use on the Combat Tables. End of story really. 

Mass Combat

Using CHAINMAIL for mass combats, which seems rather natural if using CHAINMAIL for OD&D, then all the properties of heroes and wizards would come into play.

Fantasy Combat

If using the Fantasy Combat Table, the Hero, Super-Hero and Wizard have a special role to play - they enable defeating fantastic, mythical creatures in the Fantasy Combat - system. But in essence, the titles are only used for the Fantasy Combat table - dice roll, they have no further implications. All the aforementioned special rules are only relevant in normal 1:20 mass combat and CHAINMAIL man-to-man rules.

Conclusion

To me, it seems some choices will have to be made:

1. Different rules for heroes/wizards applies for skirmish combat and mass combat.
2. CHAINMAIL rules for heroes/wizards aren't used at all and consequently these rules will have to be removed from mass combats as well.
3. Rules applicable for heroes/wizards in mass combat will also apply in skirmish combat.

 

 

OD&D Men & Magic CHAINED - First Draft

MEN & MAGIC CHAINED - First Draft

Nothing fancy, made in Google docs. Some edits remain, especially in spell descriptions. I don't plan to change many spells drastically from the original game, but I will do some minor edits. 

Notable spell changes in the first draft - haste spell: ages recipient 1 year (AD&D), light (shortened duration), continual light (cast on area, not objects). 

As I work on the rest of the volumes, things will change that will affect vol. 1 content.  

Next to finish will be book 3 which will contain the Underworld, Wilderness and Combat mini-games. I have good hope all four volumes will be finished and the combat system play tested in time for the campaign!

OD&D CHAINED Vol 1_v1 

 

CHAINED House Rules Format and Structure

House Rules Format and Structure

• The books will basically be following the structure of the original 3 books but I will add a fourth book dedicated to the late game. 
• They will contain everything my players need to play - reference to original booklets will not be needed in terms of rules. 
• I will include nothing of how to play an adventure game, how to create and run a campaign, dungeons or wilderness adventures - so for these vital procedures I defer to the original rules.
• I will do some re-structuring of the original books, such as move encounter tables to vol. 2 instead of vol. 3. 
• It is not meant to be a clone, rather the original system adapted for CHAINMAIL 1:20 combat, some structural changes and a few optional house rules. It will not be published, so in places I will just copy-paste from the original rules.  

 

Vol. 1: (Men & Magic) character creation, equipment, hirelings, XP, Magic

Everything needed for Characters creation and to start up the party, as well as spells and basic concepts such as XP. 

Vol. 2: (Monsters & Treasure) monsters, treasure, encounters

The referee's book - like the original vol. 2 but with the basic encounter tables moved here. Monsters will have rules for CHAINMAIL 1:20 combat tables (rather than AC etc.) incl. any special rules for mass combat and fantasy combat.

Vol. 3: (The Underworld & Wilderness) the underworld, wilderness, skirmish combat

This is the rule-book. Rules for most of the mini-games for low-mid levels - the underworld, wilderness and skirmish combat, as well as an appendix for pulpy high-tech things. Atm. I have no plans to include aerial or naval combat. Maybe I'll steal Jimm Johnsson's seafaring rules.

 

Vol. 4: (Baronies & Battles), strongholds, mass combat, fantastic combat, specialists, sieges 

Everything needed for name-level play, such as strongholds, CHAINMAIL mass combat (basically just things added to the skirmish system (such as post melee morale, cavalry charges and other things relevant in mass battles but not in dungeon skirmish), fantasy combat, sieges and unit points. As of right now, I'm going to go off the domain rules found in various places of the LBBs, possibly something from FFC. 

Monster Troop Types in OD&D II

Attempt to classify OD&D Monsters by troop type

The entries below refer the monster troop types as compiled by Daniel Norton's Unchained, a collection of public sources (such as Dragon, FFC etc.) edited by Aldarron, what I've parsed from CHAINMAIL itself, a custom list made by Finarwyn (Marv Breig), as well as my own edits (using the temporary name CHAINED, as an un-hippiefied version of Unchained). As obvious, others have already done the work. 

The list is not complete - only monsters I've found to be somewhat ambiguous or difficult to balance are included. I've also abandoned the idea of using many of the default CHAINMAIL values, as I suspect they will not be well balanced for OD&D, for instance, a dragon in CHAINMAIL fights as 4 Heavy Horse (breath weapons etc. excluded) which is the same as a Hero (4th level F-M) on a heavy horse, which seems unreasonable to me, being that dragons can be up to 12 HD. So I've chosen to use the guideline in OD&D (HD = fighting capability).

OD&D Turns and Rounds

Turns in OD&D

Turns and rounds are sometimes used interchangeably in the three books. I would say they are clearly defined but sometimes EGG seems to fall back on using turns as in CHAINMAIL, where it's a 1 minute combat turn, despite defining that as a "round" in D&D. There is absolutely a distinction made in the rules between a Combat Turn (or Round), A Move (or Underworld) Turn and a Wilderness Turn. 

The THE MOVE/TURN IN THE UNDERWORLD section in Book III is quite clear how different time units are used in the game:

Movement (distances given in Book 1) is in segments of approximately ten minutes. 

Two moves constitute a turn.  

Thus it takes ten minutes to move about two moves. 

There are ten rounds of combat per turn. 

 The WILDERNESS section, under Movement, it is also clear that a turn is something else in the Wilderness: 

Turn: Each move will constitute one day. Each day is considered a turn. 

So far so good really, the problem arises when Gygax then goes and use "Turns" when he likely refers to rounds, in spell descriptions for instance. I won't dwell on this, the use of turns and rounds hasn't bugged me that much - many spells clearly becomes bizarre if you interpret their turn duration as 10-minute or day units. 

Relative Turns 

In these house rules, I will adhere to what's stated in Book III but discard the term round, and instead use the very elegant turn definition presented in Vladar's Blog: Simply put - a turn is a relative term (as it already is in the rules). I also get to use "Combat Turn" - very CHAINMAILY.

The word Turn is always used.

Underworld Turn = 10 minutes

Wilderness Turn = 1 day

Combat Turn = 1 minute

If a spell is cast, its turn duration becomes the same used when you cast it. I.e. if a spell is cast in the Underworld (outside of combat), Underworld turns are used. If cast it in combat, Combat Turns are used. Wilderness Turns will not be used in this context, unless a spell descriptions explikcet

However! If you transition from one situation to another, the duration also transitions - so if a Haste Spell is used in the Underworld turn and combat ensues - whatever duration is left of it is converted to Combat Turns. A caveat would be Wilderness Turns, since few spells translate from minutes or 10s of minutes to days.