Most of it, yes.

Quote from: Benoist;496520Most of it, yes.

I admit the organization of that book has me a bit stumped. I need to spend more time examining the TOC. BTW, the tiny print of the book drives me mad.

Quote from: bombshelter13;496503'Each 1 of surprise equals 1 segment (six seconds) of time lost to the surprised party, and during the lost time the surprising party can
freely act to escape or attack or whatever.'

A chart follows explicating that the difference between the two surprise dice is the number or segments lost.

So, if the difference in the surprise dice is 3 and the side that was surprised subsequently loses initiative on the first normal round of combat, they could potentially have been hit by up to 4 attacks before getting to resolve any of their own actions.

It's not really the difference in dice that is important, it's the difference in surprise segments.  AD&D surprise works like this:

1.  Roll the die.
2.  If your die roll comes up within your range to be surprised, you're surprised the number of segments shown on the die.
3a.  If only one side is surprised, they are surprised the number of segments shown on their die.  No subtraction/calculation needed.
3b.  If both sides are surprised, subtract the number of surprise segments to find the net effect.

Say Side A is invisible and silent, and surprises 4 in 6, while Side B has the standard chance to surprise (i.e. 2 in 6):

Side A rolls 6.
Side B rolls 4.
Side A is not surprised.  Side B is surprised 4 segments.

Side A rolls 2.
Side B rolls 4.
Side A is surprised 2 segments.  Side B is surprised 4 segments.  The net effect is that Side B is surprised 2 segments.

Side A rolls 6.
Side B rolls 1.
Side B is surprised 1 segment.

Side A rolls 2.
Side B rolls 6.
Side A is surprised 2 segments.

Quote from: Aos;496522I admit the organization of that book has me a bit stumped. I need to spend more time examining the TOC. BTW, the tiny print of the book drives me mad.

It's by far the biggest flaw of the book, for sure. OSRIC does help tremendously in that regard, because it cleaned up the text and reorganized the subject matter to make it more accessible. It loses a lot of the flavor, some of the detail, and pretty much all the tone of the original, so generally what I do is read the DMG between games, when I have time to think and ponder stuff, etc., and use the OSRIC book in the game for quick reference. Works wonders for me.

Yeah, one minute I'm reading about alignment or disease and then all of a sudden I'm reading about gem value. It's slightly jarring.

The information presentation in early TSR products is abysmal. It's not surprising that so many people end up playing it as "walk forward, hit the monster, let it hit you, repeat until dead/victorious".

In my opinion, the style of play detailed in the "Successful Adventures" section is how the game is meant to be played - if you approach the rules from this not unreasonable position, they make a lot more sense.

If you don't want to play that way, fine! Nobody says you have to. I find that the rules support playing the way I play very well - because I think that's how they were written.

It's a game of survival, exploration, adventure. Combat encounters are traps. And, just like traps, they're trivial if you are adequately prepared, and absolutely lethal if you just blunder into them.

Quote from: Kaldric;496544It's a game of survival, exploration, adventure.

This is IT. You got it, man. Too many people forget that.

If someone were to come to me and ask me if they should buy AD&D, I'd tell them to download an OSRIC pdf, read through it, then refer back to AD&D if they want a specific old rule.

AD&D's presentation is just truly horrible. Many of the explanations seem to have been created specifically to confuse people.

The weapon speed system is actually really easy to use. The explanation of it is god-awful.

Quote from: Kaldric;496554If someone were to come to me and ask me if they should buy AD&D, I'd tell them to download an OSRIC pdf, read through it, then refer back to AD&D if they want a specific old rule.

AD&D's presentation is just truly horrible. Many of the explanations seem to have been created specifically to confuse people.

The weapon speed system is actually really easy to use. The explanation of it is god-awful.

Does osric include the rules for wilderness travel (getting lost and whatnot) and such?

OSRIC has rules for wilderness travel, getting lost, etc. Very simple ones.

AD&D has more elaborate ones, with differing odds of becoming lost and severity of misdirection, per terrain type. Essentially, there's a procedure followed when you get lost, where you lose your direction and travel semi-randomly for a day. If you're lucky, you cut your own backtrail which - if you've been mapping, will let you know you're going the wrong direction right away. If not, you could wander for some time - and if you're someplace nasty, this gets pretty bad.

It's still not all that complicated, though - it does add a scary element to striking out into virgin territory. You'll want to hire a guide, or learn landmarks before you go.

Basically, there's rules for exploring the wilderness. It's part of the game.

Quote from: Kaldric;496588OSRIC has rules for wilderness travel, getting lost, etc. Very simple ones.

AD&D has more elaborate ones, with differing odds of becoming lost and severity of misdirection, per terrain type. Essentially, there's a procedure followed when you get lost, where you lose your direction and travel semi-randomly for a day. If you're lucky, you cut your own backtrail which - if you've been mapping, will let you know you're going the wrong direction right away. If not, you could wander for some time - and if you're someplace nasty, this gets pretty bad.

It's still not all that complicated, though - it does add a scary element to striking out into virgin territory. You'll want to hire a guide, or learn landmarks before you go.

Basically, there's rules for exploring the wilderness. It's part of the game.

Yeah I read the AD&D wilderness rules earlier today, and was just wondering if OSRIC covered any of that ground.

Where AD&D has a chart of the odds for getting lost in any particular terrain, OSRIC just gives a vague baseline of 10-25% in 'normal' circumstances. OSRIC doesn't give rules for realizing that you're lost, and finding your way again, it just gives a rather vague 'you move somewhere within 60 degrees of your intended route, unless you get really lost and turn farther'.

Mostly OSRIC just glosses over it, although it explains the ways you can avoid having to check in the first place. AD&D assumes you're going to get lost at some point, and gives a procedure.

I think it's likely OSRIC did this because, when you're playing a module or designing one, the 'getting lost' rules aren't really necessary. A lot of OSRIC is like that - it's a set of rules that started out as a 'compatibility document' for module designers.

Quote from: Kaldric;496508AD&D, 1st edition. If you know the monsters are there (you've reconnoitered), they don't get to roll against you (DMG page 62)  You'll surprise them 33% of the time, (1-2 on a d6) for 1 or 2 segments. If your advance party is all elves and halflings or in boots of elvenkind/cloaks of elvenkind or otherwise moving in such a way as to be certain the monsters don't see or hear you (and why wouldn't they be, when setting up an ambush), you'll surprise 66% of the time, for 1 to 4 segments. These aren't normal segments - each one is treated as an entire round, for purposes of missile fire and melee combat - so, if a fighter gets 2 attacks a round, and gets 4 segments of surprise, that fighter will get 10 attacks before the monsters get any (gaining surprise means you automatically win initiative). A missile weapon fires at triple speed during surprise segments, again treating each surprise segment as an entire round. Surprise is murderously lethal. If you achieve surprise and are ready to take advantage of it, killing monsters outright is the rule, not the exception.

 If you set it up intelligently, you can get up to 4 - and be firing missile weapons at triple speed for all 4 segments.
  No, that's actually the just the base morale score a monster has. All sorts of things can force the monster to check more than one time - for instance, fighting an obviously superior force makes them check morale every round. An obviously superior force is up to the DM, but an example is one that hits them 2x for every 1x they hit back. A force of 5 PCs firing bows is going to make a monster run like hell, most times. Having their leader slain forces a check on an entire force with an 80% chance of failure. You could make a hundred hobgoblins run by slaughtering their leader in the surprise round. Losing 25% of the group forces a morale check. They check again when they've lost 50% of their hitpoints, and 50% of the group. By the book, the vast majority of combats should be ending when the monsters do a fighting retreat, try to disengage, flee in panic, or surrender. Some monsters will fight to the death, and they're tagged that way.

 Fighters wearing heavy armor don't get to be in the front group - it's like ringing a dinner bell for monsters. IMC, fighters don't wear heavy armor when exploring at all. You can't surprise anyone while dressed like that, and you drastically increase your chances of being surprised - the ranger's and elves' and halflings abilities don't work when they're with fighters dressed in a blacksmith's shop. Fighters IMC wear heavy armor only when they absolutely know they can't achieve surprise, or it's not a significant factor - in pitched battles in open terrain, in other words.

As for the pursuit and evasion rules dooming you, not really. Drop some caltrops. Drop flaming oil. Drop some coins if the pursuers are smart. Drop food, if they're hungry and dumb. All of these are ways to distract or halt pursuers, even when they're faster than you. Have reinforcements along your backtrail - when they join with you, the monsters check again to see if they follow. The pursuit rules are as much a system as the combat rules. Assuming you play smart, you get away - or lead the monsters into an ambush you've prepared.

 This sounds horribly boring to me. It's basically just giving up on tactics and strategy, pretending the surprise and morale and pursuit rules aren't in the game, or don't matter, when they really do matter quite a bit.

edit: And how did everyone else attack when the fighters charged in? In AD&D, you can't target individuals in a melee with ranged weapons. You just roll randomly to see who you hit.

Again, I was using averages.  Sure, you could end up with a big surprise, but IME most of the time you rarely ever get it.  Similarly, you might be able to run away or you might cause the monster to lose morale.  But the math is against you in the average situation.

I've never, in my 25+ years of gaming, with any group or at any conventions, ever seen a group where the fighters wore light armor and everyone just snuck around and set up ambushes all the time.  While you may call this the "intended way" of playing the game, it's more certainly not the way most people play it (which can be seen in the way the segments/surprise/evade rules were heavily re-written over the years).  Also, keep in mind that the AD&D 1e rules tended to be played wildly different by different groups because of differing interpretations.

The "fighters rush up and attack" method is boring and repetitive, no doubt about it.  But your way sounds equally boring and repetitive to me (try to sneak in and kill with surprise; if not, run and throw food/coins/caltrops).

As for what the other people do in the usual combats I've seen - they either attack a non-engaged enemy using a ranged weapon, or just stayed back.  Magic using types would cast spells or just sit there.  Clerics usually had heavy armor and would assist the fighters if they ran out of healing abilities.  Thieves tended to stay towards the back unless they could sneak around and backstab.

Or they just fired ranged weapons into melee anyway, because only about half of the groups out there bothered to use the rule (which, again, was changed over editions because people didn't like/use it).

Quote from: jgants;496650I've never, in my 25+ years of gaming, with any group or at any conventions, ever seen a group where the fighters wore light armor and everyone just snuck around and set up ambushes all the time.  While you may call this the "intended way" of playing the game, it's more certainly not the way most people play it (which can be seen in the way the segments/surprise/evade rules were heavily re-written over the years).  Also, keep in mind that the AD&D 1e rules tended to be played wildly different by different groups because of differing interpretations.

I played in a couple groups like that, but they were small and, in retrospect, had somewhat abusive access to elven chain mail. I've also played where we used the Basic D&D surprise rules, on account of having 3 or 4 surprise rounds is pretty stupid and hard to gloss over in a lot of cases.

It was more typical to have a couple of point men try to chop down some monsters by surprise and then lead the rest to where the party had prepared a position to fight the bulk of the enemies (or, have a magic-user come up to fireball the unwitting monsters, if circumstances permitted)

I don't think my style's quite that boring.

This 'ambush' style of play produces at least six distinct types of combat.

1. Forward group intentionally lures monsters back to main ambush.
2. Forward group has a heads-up fight - usually after a couple segments of surprise.
3. Forward group outright kills monsters from ambush.
4. Forward group needs rescue, and can't run - fights defensive holding action while main group reinforces.
5. Forward group bites off more than it can chew, runs back to main ambush trying to evade pursuit. Often sprinting full out, hollering at the top of their lungs, etc. This is usually pretty funny, as long as no one dies.
6. Forward group detects monsters that can't be surprised, or the advantage given by surprise won't be sufficient to carry the fight. Buff spells get put on, armor is donned, and there's a heads up fight.

Intentionally or unintentionally ignoring or misapplying the surprise rules and pursuit rules and the morale rules pretty much means you get only the last type, and it always plays out the same.

It's kind of like very few people play Monopoly by the actual rules, and thus everyone thinks Monopoly is a boring game that never ends, when in fact it's usually over in an hour or two, and can be a lot of fun.

If you ignore the rule that every time anyone lands on an unpurchased property, it must be sold either to that person or at auction? If you put money on Free Parking? Monopoly going to be boring as heck, and take forever.

If you change the morale rules? Misapply the surprise rules? Ignore the pursuit rules? Discard the targeting rules? Always wear heavy armor in the dungeon? D&D is going to be a game where you play just as jgants describes.

Some people like that game. Some don't.