All about bows (in 2e)

I’ve really had a few things mixed up regarding bows over the years. The intention has always been to adjudicate missile fire “by the book,” so I’ll begin honoring these immediately:

• Only longbows can fire sheaf arrows; short bows are limited to using flight arrows. (Note that this was already previously discussed here.)
  
• Longbows and short bows can be strung for a “heavier pull” to allow characters with high Strength scores to apply their modifiers to attack and damage rolls; these bows don’t cost more than normal bows unless they intend to enable bonuses for exceptional Strength (18/01 and higher).
• Composite bows work the same as regular bows in terms of pull; what’s different is their design, range, and speed factor.
• There’s no penalty to hit when firing into melee; possible recipients (including allies) are prorated with respect to size and the target is determined randomly (the attack roll still needs to be high enough to hit the target’s AC).

For those wanting to read the relevant passages, review the following sections in the 2e PH:

• Bows (Equipment chapter, p. 73)
• Modifiers to the Attack Roll (Combat chapter, p. 90)
• Ability Modifiers in Missile Combat (Combat chapter, p. 99)
• Firing into a Melee (Combat chapter, p. 99)

Rules Index

This post is a collection of various house rules and rulings we’ve employed over the years. The intention is to update with additions/changes whenever needed.

* The posts/rulings below are intended to be a guide for when similar situations/questions arise in our current game. Note that some of these were issued several years ago, for different campaigns (and in some cases, different rule systems). I reserve the right to alter or update them, if warranted.

 

House Rules

• Ability scores
• 4d6-drop-lowest, arrange to taste; up to two times, you may permanently discard these scores to roll a new set
• Hit points
• Max hp are awarded at 1st level
• For all subsequent levels, any 1s on hit point dice may be rerolled
• Proficiencies
• Both weapon and nonweapon proficiencies are in use going forward
• Critical hits
• An attack roll of natural 20 automatically deals max damage
• Training
• To level up, a PC must train for a number of days equal to the new level
• No monetary cost or mentor requirement is currently enforced

Class Abilities

• Favored enemy (ranger)
• Backstab (thief)
• Turn undead (cleric)
• Crusader (custom character class)

Combat

• AD&D 2e combat basics
• Missile fire
• Sheaf arrows
• Mounted combat
• Rulings on coup de gras permissibility based on various spells

Magic/Spells

• Starting spells for bards
• Learning new spells from captured spellbooks
• Scrolls
• Specific spell rulings
• Detect evil
• Find familiar
• Summon swarm

Miscellaneous

• Staying awake under duress
• Death’s door for NPCs and monsters

AD&D 2e Dungeon Musings YouTube Video

I shared this to our campaign Discord, but wanted to post here as well. This video, while lengthy, is an excellent overview of AD&D 2e in terms of the type of game it facilitates and reasons for potentially running it over newer/modern systems, while still remaining reasonably objective. Highly recommended for those returning to 2e after some time off:

 

Short bows and arrow types

Henceforth, I’ll be correcting a rules error that we’ve been making for several years in allowing “sheaf arrows” to be fired from short bows. Despite the 2e PH not explicitly stating (to my knowledge) that short bows are limited to using “flight arrows” only, I think we have enough suggestive data points to know that it’s not intended for short bows to deal 1d8 damage:

• The “Missile Weapon Ranges” table on p. 69 lists both arrow types under “Longbow,” but no specific type under “Short bow,” implying that either the arrow ranges for short bows are indistinguishable or that only one type of arrow can be used.
• The “Bows” section on p. 73 states that “Arrows for long bows of all types are divided between light-weight flight arrows and heavier sheaf arrows. Flight arrows have longer ranges and are normally used in hunting. Sheaf arrows have a stronger metal head but a reduced range. They are often used in times of war.” It makes no distinction with regards to usable arrow types for short bows.
• It simply doesn’t make mechanical sense for short bows to be able to deal 1d8 damage in the context of the available weapons in the PH.

From this point forward, characters and NPCs using short bows will deal only 1d6 damage per hit. Any preexisting inventory of sheaf arrows on record sheets may be freely converted to flight arrows. Short bows can be “traded in” for longbows in Mirabar or Dagger’s Deep for an “upgrade cost” of 45 gp (the cost difference between the weapons in the PH). Note that certain classes are permitted to use short bows only (the Thief class, in particular), but I don’t believe that any current PCs are subject to this restriction.

AD&D 2e combat

It feels high time to get a revision of this post up to overview how combat works in our AD&D 2e campaign. Here are the key points/rules I want to highlight:

• Surprise. Determined by rolling 1d10 for each side (as deemed necessary by the DM) at the start of an encounter; a result of 1-3 means that each opponent gets to make a free round of attacks (using melee weapons, missile weapons, or magic items, but not spells) against the surprised party. Various modifiers can be applied, for example a +2 bonus to account for a cat familiar’s keen senses around a camp at night.
• Initiative. Determined by rolling 1d10 for each side at the start of each combat round. Lower roll wins, with the results indicating the count on which each side will begin its actions during the round.
• Melee and missile attacks occur on the initiative count. Combatants with multiple weapon attacks (e.g., missile weapons with a high ROF and Fighters with weapon specialization) take any subsequent attacks at the end of the round; monsters with multiple natural attacks (such as claw/claw/bite) and PCs/NPCs with two-weapon fighting make all of their attacks immediately. (Note that, if we used weapon speed, the speed factor would be added to the initiative count for each combatant.)
• Movement and charge attacks begin on the initiative count and consume a number of “segments” necessary to complete the associated movement.
• Spellcasting begins on the initiative count and completes after a number of segments equal to the spell’s casting time. If the caster is damaged while the spell is in the process of being cast, the caster’s concentration is lost and the spell is thwarted.
• Other single-round combat actions include turning undead, lightning a torch, drinking a potion, binding wounds, etc. (also see the 2e PH, p 93).

Other/special combat actions and modifiers:

• Attacking from higher ground grants a -1 bonus to initiative and a +1 bonus to attack rolls.
• Charging allows an attacker to increase his or her movement by 50% and make a single attack against an opponent at +2 to hit. In return, the defender gains a -2 bonus to initiative and the attacker suffers a -1 penalty to armor class in addition to losing his or her Dexterity bonus to AC for the round.
• A critical hit occurs when a combatant rolls a “natural” 20 on an attack roll. In these cases, maximum damage is awarded without rolling.
• Firing into melee results in a -4 penalty to attack rolls to account for the difficulty of avoiding one’s allies. (Note that this is not, in fact, “by the book” for 2e. Per the PH, p. 99, ranged combatants firing into melee do not take a penalty, however targets are chosen at random and being hit by friendly fire is possible. This rule probably warrants further discussion.) This post provides details on how firing into a melee actually works.
• Melee combatants may select specific targets for their attacks when the ability to distinguish one opponent from all others is practical (this is up to the DM’s discretion). When it’s not, the opponent being attacked is determined at random. 
• Withdrawing allows a combatant to disengage from melee at 1/3 speed. Fleeing allows the combatant to run from melee at full speed but draws a free attack from each engaged opponent. (In either case, the combatant exiting the melee may be pursued, unless each pursuer is explicitly blocked off by an ally.)
• Invisible opponents can be attacked with a -4 penalty to hit, as long as the attacker is aware of the opponent.
• Prone opponents can be attacked with a +4 bonus to hit. Only sleeping, held, or fully immobilized opponents can be slain automatically.
• Cover and concealment make it more difficult to hit an opponent with missile fire. Cover (or “hard cover”) means that an obstacle (like a wall or boulder) is blocking the intended target; concealment (“soft cover”) means that the target is obscured by entities (such as fog or foliage) that hide the intended target. (See the 2e PH, p. 99 for details and modifiers.)
• A called shot may be made against a target in an attempt to achieve a specific result, such as forcing an opponent to drop an item. Called shots are made with a -4 penalty to hit, and a +1 penalty to initiative.

In closing, while the above points cover the majority of combat situations in our games, I highly recommend that each player read the full “Combat” chapter in the 2e PH (pp. 89-106) prior to our next session.

Statistical differences between rolling methods

Sean and I have been discussing rolling methods for ability scores, particularly in the context of PCs vs. henchmen. Consider the two following methods for generating a set of abilities (sourced from the 2e PH, p. 13):

• Method II. Roll 3d6 twice and take the higher of the two values.
• Method V. Roll 4d6, discard the lowest roll, and add up the other three.

For player characters, I've long employed Method V (4d6 drop lowest) with a caveat that the player can roll up to three sets; if the player discards one set to roll another, the discarded set cannot be used. This gives the player the ability to discard an underwhelming set or swing for the fences to try to attain a great set, but also adds an element of risk, especially if the third and final set (which must be accepted) turns out to be poor.

For most NPCs and hirelings, I employ Method II, which tends to generate more averages sets. I don't use any re-roll caveat for NPCs. They get what they get.

Because, in our campaign, henchmen have the ability to replace fallen PCs over the long-term, we want to make sure we're in agreement on the rolling method to use. Most AD&D players intuitively know that Method V is more likely to generate high scores (15+) than Method II, but what if we evaluate the methods more deeply? Let's say, for example, that we're looking to create a ranger, which requires two scores of 14 or higher and two additional scores of 13 or higher.

I wrote a quick app to generate random sets of ability scores using both methods. Scores within each set are arranged from highest to lowest, with sets that qualify for the ranger class marked with a letter r. Here are results for ten sets of scores for each method:

Method II results (3d6 twice, take higher):
  16  14  13  13  11  11  (r)
  16  13  12  12  10   8
  15  14  13  11   9   8
  16  15  14  12  11  11
  14  14  13  13  12  11  (r)
  13  11  11  11   9   5
  15  15  15  13  12   8  (r)
  15  14  14  12  12   8
  13  12  12  11  10   8
  16  14  14  13  12  11  (r)

Method V results (4d6 drop lowest):
  15  13  13  12  12  12
  14  14  12  10  10   8
  16  13  12  12   9   4
  17  15  13  11  11   7
  14  14  12   9   9   8
  14  14  12  11   8   7
  17  14  13  12  11   7
  15  12  11  10   9   8
  16  14  13  13  10  10  (r)
  15  15  14  13  10   8  (r)

Four rangers for Method II, only two for Method V. This are very small samples sizes, so let's run them again to observe the variance:

Method II results (3d6 twice, take higher):
  13  12  11  11  11   6
  14  13  13  12  12  12
  14  13  13  12  12  11
  17  16  12  11  10   9
  13  13  13  12  11  10
  15  15  12  10   9   8
  17  16  12  11   9   8
  15  14  14  10   9   9
  16  16  15  15  14   9  (r)
  17  13  13  13  12  12

Method V results (4d6 drop lowest):
  15  12  11  11  10   9
  15  14  13  12  12   7
  15  13  11  11  11   9
  16  14  12  11  10   8
  14  14  13  13  12  12  (r)
  15  15  14  13  11  10  (r)
  17  14  14  14  13  11  (r)
  16  16  15  12  10   8
  15  15  14  13  12   5  (r)
  18  14  13  12   9   9

This time, one ranger for Method II, four rangers for Method V (an opposite result). Obviously, we need more data. I'll have the application roll 100 sets for each method and take the averages (rounded down to whole numbers):

Method II averages:
  15  13  12  11  10   9

Method V averages:
  15  14  12  11  10   8

These are actually really close; in fact, the total number of ability points is the same with both methods. Through another few runs, I was able to verify that these exact averages still hold even with a very high (10,000) number of sets.

But the averages don't tell the full story. Again, we know from intuition that there's going to be tangible variance between the methods. If it's not in the total number of points, then where?

For starters, we know that, in order to get stuck with a score of 3 using Method II, we need to roll six 1s in a row. That means 6^6, or one in 46,656 scores. To get equally unlucky with Method V, you only need to roll four straight 1s, or 6^4, which is one in 1,296 scores.

That's a major difference: you're almost 40 times more likely to end up with a score of 3 using Method V (the 4d6 method) compared with Method II (the 3d6-twice method).

Let's see what the distribution of scores is over ten sets of scores using each rolling method:

Method II totals:
   3s:  0
   4s:  0
   5s:  0
   6s:  0
   7s:  0
   8s:  2
   9s:  6
  10s:  4
  11s:  5
  12s:  12
  13s:  7
  14s:  12
  15s:  6
  16s:  6
  17s:  0
  18s:  0

Method V totals:
   3s:  0
   4s:  0
   5s:  0
   6s:  2
   7s:  2
   8s:  2
   9s:  6
  10s:  3
  11s:  3
  12s:  12
  13s:  9
  14s:  5
  15s:  10
  16s:  3
  17s:  3
  18s:  0

That looks reasonable: fewer high but also fewer low scores when using Method II. How about for 1,000 sets?

Method II totals:
   3s:  0
   4s:  2
   5s:  11
   6s:  36
   7s:  101
   8s:  257
   9s:  424
  10s:  629
  11s:  839
  12s:  979
  13s:  926
  14s:  727
  15s:  513
  16s:  313
  17s:  184
  18s:  59

Method V totals:
   3s:  3
   4s:  25
   5s:  51
   6s:  99
   7s:  194
   8s:  269
   9s:  451
  10s:  585
  11s:  697
  12s:  794
  13s:  740
  14s:  737
  15s:  586
  16s:  430
  17s:  240
  18s:  99

Now we're starting to see the numbers at work. A thousand sets contain 6,000 individual scores; we have three scores of 3 using Method V, and none using Method II. Given that we were expecting only one in 46,656 scores with Method II but about one in 1,296 scores with Method V to result in a lowly 3, these results look pretty solid, though our sample sizes are still small enough that we're hitting a fair degree of variance.

Here are the totals for 100,000 sets:

Method II totals:
   3s:  15
   4s:  184
   5s:  1056
   6s:  3819
   7s:  10642
   8s:  24747
   9s:  43524
  10s:  65439
  11s:  84711
  12s:  94523
  13s:  92145
  14s:  72943
  15s:  51490
  16s:  32525
  17s:  16626
  18s:  5611

Method V totals:
   3s:  473
   4s:  1917
   5s:  4722
   6s:  9581
   7s:  17370
   8s:  29011
   9s:  41925
  10s:  56347
  11s:  68252
  12s:  77520
  13s:  79661
  14s:  74389
  15s:  60690
  16s:  43464
  17s:  25012
  18s:  9666

For Method II, fifteen out of 600,000 scores ended up as 3, or one in 40,000, which is very close to the one in 46,656 ratio that we expect to normalize to over the long term. For Method V, we had 473 scores of 3, which is about one in 1,268... extremely close to the normalized ratio of one in 1,296.

If we add up all the scores of 7 or lower, Method II only generated 15,716 while Method V produced a whopping 34,063. If we add up all the scores of 15 or higher, Method II gave us 106,252 while Method V resulted in 138,832.

The takeaways are that you're more than twice as likely to get bad scores (7 or lower) with the 4d6 method, but only about 30% more likely to get high scores (15 and above). Method V, however, is almost twice as likely to generate very high scores (17 or 18), while Method II is far more likely to hit in the average range of 10 through 14.

Finally, here's a plot graph of the 100,000 set results, which makes everything nice and clear:

Click to enlarge

Though Sean and I still haven't decided exactly how to handle scores for a new henchmen, the above data definitely provides the right ammunition to help us make the best decision for our campaign. As an extra bonus, here are score distributions for two additional rolling methods described in the PH, along with an additional graph that charts all four methods.

• Method I. Roll 3d6 for each score.
• Method IV. Roll 3d6 twelve times, and take the six highest values.

Here are the side-by-side averages of all four methods:

Method II averages:
  15  13  12  11  10   9

Method V averages:
  15  14  12  11  10   8

Method I averages:
  14  12  11   9   8   6

Method IV averages:
  15  13  12  12  11  10

...along with the score distributions of the two new methods:

Method I totals:
   3s:  2817
   4s:  8353
   5s:  16620
   6s:  27915
   7s:  41657
   8s:  58653
   9s:  68882
  10s:  74966
  11s:  74945
  12s:  69277
  13s:  58329
  14s:  41804
  15s:  27916
  16s:  16701
  17s:  8340
  18s:  2825

Method IV totals:
   3s:  0
   4s:  0
   5s:  0
   6s:  1
   7s:  129
   8s:  2063
   9s:  14860
  10s:  50573
  11s:  98940
  12s:  123988
  13s:  114935
  14s:  83276
  15s:  55540
  16s:  33591
  17s:  16596
  18s:  5508

...and the final graph depicting all four methods:

Click to enlarge

(If you made it to the end of this post, congratulations!)

Starting spells for bards

I've made some determinations on Zargon's starting spells. First, a review of the relevant passage from the bard class description (2e PH, p. 42):

Since bards are dabblers rather than full-time wizards, their spells tend to be gained by serendipity and happenstance. In no case can a bard choose to specialize in a school of magic. Beginning bards do not have a selection of spells. A 2nd-level bard begins with one to four spells, chosen either randomly or by the DM. (An Intelligence check must still be made to see if the bard can learn a given spell.) The bard is not guaranteed to know read magic, as this is not needed to read the writings in a spell book. The bard can add new spells to his spell book as he finds them, but he does not automatically gain additional spells as he advances in level. All spells beyond those he starts with must be found during the course of adventuring. The bard's casting level is equal to his current level.

This is fairly clear. I'm going to honor the by-the-book rules, for a few reasons: first, there's no compelling incentive to deviate with a house rule; second, the above limitations reinforce that the bard is merely a “dabbler,” as opposed to a specialist wizard or mage; and third, the party is at a safe point with time on their hands such that new spells can be acquired from other characters.

In the interest of moving things forward, I rolled that the following two spells are in Zargon's starting spellbook:

• Grease
• Mending

Of note, I rolled a 2 on 1d4 for the number of spells. Both “chance to learn spell” rolls succeeded, and the specific spells were rolled randomly from the 1st-level wizard spell list. While it can be argued that a 4th-level bard could or should have additional spells beyond what a 2nd-level bard would know (i.e., acquired through adventuring), we haven't set that precedent with anything else (magic items, gold, etc.) in the campaign, so I'd prefer not to start now. (And again, the party is at a point that Zargon can easily expand his repertoire before his first real adventure.)

Hopefully this seems reasonable enough to everyone?

Death's door for NPCs and monsters

I posted a poll here on this topic after we discussed it following the last session, if anyone's interested in reading the responses.

For context, here's the official text of the [optional] 2e rule for “hovering on death's door” (DMG p. 75):

You may find that your campaign has become particularly deadly. Too many player characters are dying. If this happens, you may want to allow characters to survive for short periods of time even after their hit points reach or drop below 0.

When this rule is in use, a character can remain alive until his hit points reach -10. However, as soon as the character reaches 0 hit points, he falls to the ground unconscious.

Thereafter, he automatically loses one hit point each round. His survival from this point on depends on the quick thinking of his companions. If they reach the character before his hit points reach -10 and spend at least one round tending to his wounds (stanching the flow of blood, etc.), the character does not die immediately.

If the only action is to bind his wounds, the injured character no longer loses one hit point each round, but neither does he gain any. He remains unconscious and vulnerable to damage from further attacks.

If a cure spell of some type is cast upon him, the character is immediately restored to 1 hit point--no more. Further cures do the character no good until he has had at least one day of rest. Until such time, he is weak and feeble, unable to fight and barely able to move. He must stop and rest often, can't cast spells (the shock of near death has wiped them from his mind), and is generally confused and feverish. He is able to move and can hold somewhat disjointed conversations, and that's it.

If a heal spell is cast on the character, his hit points are restored as per the spell, and he has full vitality and wits. Any spells he may have known are still wiped from his memory, however. (Even this powerful spell does not negate the shock of the experience.)

Find familiar ruling

The question arose last session of whether Audric could use find familiar without satisfying the [exorbitant] material component requirement (from the 2e PH, p. 134):

When the wizard decides to find a familiar, he must load a brass brazier with charcoal. When this is burning well, he adds 1,000 gp worth of incense and herbs.

I'm going to rule “yes.” Material components in 2e are treated as optional, and thus far I've made little effort to enforce them. In the case of find familiar specifically, there are already lots of strings attached to this spell (only cast once/year, chance of no familiar in area, consequences if the familiar dies), and there seems to be a solid base of 2e-ers who agree that the cost in this edition (as opposed to 100 gp in 1e) is too over-the-top.

Going forward, assume that material components for spells are not being used, though I reserve the right to “opt in” if it seems appropriate enough for a particular spell. I don't plan to make such decisions lightly, though.

The Crusader (creating a new character class)

For the next campaign, Sean and I have been discussing terms for a new character class that fits the mold he wants to play. The 2e FR accessory Warriors and Priests of the Realms provides a write-up for a class called the "Crusader," which matches Sean's idea thematically (a combat-oriented missionary priest with ties to the goddess of magic) but comes with some mechanical baggage that we're struggling to get past. As a result, we turned to the 2e DMG (pp. 22-23) which describes a framework for creating a new character class from the ground up. Here's our current working model. Each trait listed below has a corresponding modifier; the modifiers are aggregated to determine the XP advancement table.

Crusader (work in progress)

• Must be human (modifier: 0)
• Priest combat values (0)
• Priest saving throw table (0)
• d8 hit dice (+1)
• All armor allowed (0)
• All weapons allowed (0)
• +2 hp per level beyond 9th (+1)
• Cast three spheres of priest spells (+6)
• Learn and cast one school of magic (+3)
• No ability to turn undead (0)
• Use magical items allowed to priests (+1)
• Must be good-aligned (-1)
• Has particular ethos that must be obeyed (-1)
• Cannot keep more treasure than can carry (-0.5)
• Cannot own more than 10 magical items (-0.5)

Modifier total: 9

Experience levels (mage and cleric listed for comparison):

Level	Crusader	Mage	Cleric
1	0	0	0
2	1,800	2,500	1,500
3	3,600	5,000	3,000
4	7,200	10,000	6,000
5	18,000	20,000	13,000
6	36,000	40,000	27,500
7	72,000	60,000	55,000
8	135,000	90,000	110,000
9	252,000	135,000	225,500

The crusader's XP advancement begins much more favorably than the mage and only slightly worse than the cleric, but over time requires greater totals at higher levels of play. I think this is fair and appropriate for a character with multiple types of spellcasting (for anyone concerned about balance with other classes).

One major facet of the class that we need to figure out is how wizard spellcasting should be implemented. The reason for the ability to cast a single school of wizard spells (Sean is choosing conjuration/summoning) is the character's devout ties to Mystra. As such, I think there are two main approaches to consider:

1. The crusader casts priest spells as a priest and wizard spells as a wizard. That is, the crusader's priest and wizard spell slots are independent (the character effectively gets both); bonus spells apply only to the priest spell slots; wizard spells must be learned through study as opposed to prayer; and armor cannot be worn when casting wizard spells (same as a wizard or bard). This treats the character as a multi-classed cleric/mage in terms of spellcasting.
2. The crusader casts all spells as a priest. That is, all spells are gained through prayer, using the character's single set of priest spell slots; the wizard spell school is treated as just another priest sphere; no spellbook is needed and no armor restrictions are applied.

I'm not sure that I have a preference, yet. Mechanically, there are trade-offs, mainly that option #1 gives the character more total spell slots, while option #2 removes the wizardly armor and spellbook restrictions. I think either approach can be justified in-game.

Creating a new class isn't something I've dabbled in before, and it's important that the end result is reasonably fair and balanced (at least, as balanced as anything in AD&D). Interested to hear anyone else's take; the class as constructed seems relatively strong and versatile at low levels, but suffers from a slower rate of advancement the longer the campaign goes on.

Mounted Combat

We hadn't dealt with using weapons and spells from horseback thus far in the campaign, and I was ill-prepared to adjudicate this during the skirmish with the wargs. The 2e DMG discusses mounted combat in detail; below are some of the key points. From p. 76:

Mounts trained for combat (a heavy warhorse, for example) present few problems. These can be used in mounted combat with no penalties. However, steeds not trained for combat are easily frightened by the noise and confusion.

Those fighting from the back of untrained creatures suffer a -2 on their chance to hit, since much of their time is spent simply trying to keep the mount under control.

The horses purchased in Luskan are riding horses only, so going forward this -2 penalty will apply. With regards to melee combat:

In mounted fighting, a character gets a +1 bonus to his chance to hit creatures smaller than his mount. Thus, a man on horseback gains a +1 bonus to his attack rolls against all medium-sized creatures such as other men, but would not gain this bonus against another rider or a giant. Those on foot who fight against a mounted rider, have a -1 penalty; this not applied to attacks against the mount, however.

This would have reduced the first penalty to -1, since the wargs were medium-sized creatures. The wargs wouldn't have incurred a penalty, since they were attacking mounts or dismounted PCs. Missile combat, understandably, is more difficult:

Missile fire from the back of a moving horse is possible only if the rider is proficient in horsemanship. Even then, only short bows, composite short bows, and light crossbows can be fired from horseback by normally proficient characters.

Long bows can be used by those with specialization (if this is used). Heavy crossbows can be fired once, but cannot be reloaded by a mounted man since the bracing and pull is inadequate.

There are details beyond this, including penalties if trying to fire while the mount is moving, but let's leave it here until that situation arises. We don't use proficiencies, but I'll allow short bows and light crossbows to be fired by PCs succeeding a Dexterity check, with failure meaning that the round is lost trying to control the mount (with no ammunition expended). Spellcasting can work similarly. Fair?

I also was too liberal in causing characters to fall from their horses in combat, some of which I corrected during the session. Even Aranos' fall, however, shouldn't have happened, by the book. Here are the relevant excerpts:

Killing the Mount: This is the grim and efficient method. Once the horse (often an easier target) is dead, the rider is certainly dismounted. The steed automatically falls to the ground.

If the rider has the Riding proficiency, he can attempt to land safely on his feet on a successful check. Otherwise, the character also falls to the ground and suffers 1d3 points of damage. The character cannot take any action that round and must spend another entire round gathering himself back up and getting to his feet.

Again in the absence of proficiencies, a Dexterity check should suffice to avoid taking damage from a fall. Aside from killing the steed, an attack roll of 20 will dismount a rider, but a "normal" hit against either party will not:

Weapon Impact: Riders also can be knocked off by solid blows from a variety of weapons. Any time a rider hits another mounted character or creature with a melee weapon 3' or longer and scores a natural 20 on the roll, the other character is knocked from the saddle, suffering 1d3 points of damage (if from the back of a normal horse).

There's a lot here to digest, and more in the actual rulebook. I turned out to be a bit harsh in my rulings, but should be better equipped to deal with this next time.

AD&D initiative technology

Oy - quite a lull between posts, but as mentioned it's a busy year. Sean and I were talking about initiative in D&D this week, and the merits/detriments of different approaches. I don't think any initiative system I've seen is perfect, but I do enjoy the unpredictability of the AD&D systems that require new rolls for every round.

That said, rolling and collecting initiative every round can be burdensome, let alone accounting for combatants individually. In our game, we make a single roll for each side, adjust for casting times, and that's it. The approach works reasonably well, but can lead to polarized situations where one full side acts twice in a row. I told Sean that I'd be willing to try individual initiative per round, IF I could distill it down to a single click.

Achieving that managed to not be too difficult after all; I created a spreadsheet that calculates and sorts the data I need quickly and easily enough that I'd like to give it a go on Saturday and see how the party fares.

Instead of asking anyone to roll initiative, what my spreadsheet allows me to do is:

1. Gather intended actions from each player, as I do today.
2. Determine actions for each DM-controlled participant, as I do today.
3. Type a single keystroke to get full initiative results for the round.

The sheet will include individual modifiers, and durations can be entered to calculate the "end segment" for a particular action (completion of a spell, end of a long movement, etc.). It enables me to use a more robust initiative system while streamlining the initiative process for everyone - hopefully leading to a smoother combat experience overall.

This is what the results look like after issuing a click to make the rolls and accounting for casting times:

Not many drawbacks to at least trying it out. I don't intend to show initiative results to the group regularly - not for any desire to hide them, but simply to avoid putting up a second monitor and distracting everyone with the numbers (not to mention that it could spoil any secret participants in the combat). While this does take initiative rolls out of the hands of the players and is a step away from the transparency I've been shooting for as DM, in this case I think the streamlining of initiative may be worth the exchange. Moreover, since any edit to the initiative roll column on the sheet forces a re-roll of the entire round, it would be difficult for me to "fix" anything as long as I'm willing to show the results when needed.

All for now!

Magical rat swarms are NOT movable...

So after we played last time, Sean pointed out that the swarm conjured by summon swarm is not movable. The second-to-last line in the spell description is "The swarm is stationary once conjured."

Oops. I don't think it would have made that great a difference, given the logistics of the tunnel opening. But FYI for next time...

AD&D 2e: Ranger's favored enemy ruling

From the AD&D 2e Player’s Handbook (p. 29):

In their roles as protectors of good, rangers tend to focus their efforts against some particular creature, usually one that marauds their homeland. Before advancing to 2nd level, every ranger must select a species enemy. Typical enemies include giants, orcs, lizard men, trolls, or ghouls; your DM has final approval on the choice. Thereafter, whenever the ranger encounters that enemy, he gains a +4 bonus to his attack rolls. This enmity can be concealed only with great difficulty, so the ranger suffers a -4 penalty on all encounter reactions with creatures of the hated type. Furthermore, the ranger will actively seek out this enemy in combat in preference to all other foes unless someone else presents a much greater danger.

As we’ve been using the 2e rules consistently for character creation and advancement, this applies to Gaertorin. Through a bit of research, though, I’m going to agree with what seems to be a large segment of DMs that restricting the favored enemy to a specific “species” is sometimes too narrow to be relevant in a given campaign. As such, for Gaertorin, the rule will apply to a broader “type” of enemy, which will allow him to appropriately favor “undead.” This should be a nice benefit to the party and is very much on theme for the character.