Q&A with Jeff Berry

[chirine ba kal]

Hey Chirine,

I asked an EPT question regarding the one minute round on the ODD74 forum you might know the answer to. http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?ac ... 375&page=1 It may relate to how Dave was handling rounds in Blackmoor too. Any Thoughts?

I do happen to know the answer to this one; may I suggest having a look at a copy of the original "Chainmail" which, back in those ancient days of yore, was the standard set of miniatures combat rules here in the Upper Midwest:

"The ratio of figures to assumed is 1:20, the ground scale is 1":10 yards, and one turn of play is roughly equivalent to one minute of time in battle."

Everybody associated with the Castle and Crusade Society used these rules back then, as the WRG rules sets were very hard to get as you had to send off to some mythical place called "England" to have them mailed to you. As far as I know, the original RPG game sessions used "Chainmail" with the man-to-man rules, and everybody used the one minute round as the standard. From there, it got into the RPG rules that came out of those games.

Does this help, or am I making things more confused?

yours, Chirine

Well, the thing I'm not sure about really is whether a round means one dice roll or two, meaning does the EPT 1 minute round have one roll for the attacker and one counterattack for the defender, or does it just have one roll for the attacker, followed by a whole new 1 minute round for the defenders counter attack. Here's the quote from EPT that I'm refering to:

"combat rounds are fought in pairs: one for the attacker..., one for the defender. Thus, if the defender is slain during the attacker's round, he still gets a chance to strike a "dying blow" on his last round."

This makes it sound like both attacker and defender get a full seperate minute/round. If the defender who is killed gets a full attack round, then no combat can last less than an average of 2 minutes, since a round averages 1 minute.


The other complication is that "A fighter always gets to strike during any combat round..." meaning presumably that they attack either 10 times in a 10 minute turn where other characters attack 5 times, or they attack 20 times when most characters attack 10.

BTW, I've looked in the AD&D books, both 1e and 2e and it's as clear as mud there too.

Okay; I see what you're getting at.

The 'combat round', at least the way both Dave and Phil played it, was that each 'combat round' consisted of one dice roll per person or creature engaged in the combat; each player would roll to see if they hit their target and do damage. Usually, they'd do it with the 'attacker' in the melee striking first, with the 'defender' then rolling; both Dave and Phil would allow the defender to choose between attacking back or trying to parry the blow. The 'round' would consist of a set of dice rolls for each attacker and defender, as well as any other actions by parties not engaged in the actual melee.

The EPT variations on this were basically that the longest weapon stuck first, no matter who held it, and that multiple-limbed beings could attack with each weapon held in a limb; it's what made Ahoggya and Pe Choi so deadly in individual combat, as they'd get twice the number of strike per turn as any humans.

Example:

Chirine and Vrisa are attacking a human and a Pe Choi. Both Chirine and Vrisa have their two-handed swords, and attack first as the human has a mace and the Pe Choi has a mace and a dagger, along with two of the small buckers they favor; the human also has a shield.

First Round: Chirine and Vrisa roll to hit; Chirine hits, and rolls damage dice; the human rolls to hit back, and missed (to Phil's annoyance). Vrisa missed, and the Pe Choi rolls twice, once for each weapon; it misses with the dagger, and nicks Vrisa with the sword.

Second Round: Vrisa gets mad, and hits the Pe Choi with a mighty blow, dropping the insectoid; it, however, gets a dying blow with each weapon (Phil rolls very well), and Vrisa gets cut up a bit. Chirine, trying to see if Vrisa is in danger, misses the dice roll and misses his opponent; opponent nails Chrine up the side of his head with his mace, and Chirine drops. Origo, the magic user behind Chirine, rolls to hit the human with his Eye of Sheer Annoyance, misses and nearly fries Vrisa in the back blast.

Third Round: Vrisa swings at the human and hits, and the human chooses to aim his dying blow at Origo; he hits, doing the unarmored priest of Ksarul quite a bit of damage. Origo, in his return blow, sticks his dagger into the human fighter, finishing him off. Kayalen rolls to see if she can drag Chirine out of the combat, and misses her dice roll.

Fourth Round: Vrisa, seeing Origo getting hit, swings again and really messes up the human; being already dead, he doesn't get a return blow. Kayalen rolls again, and this time makes her roll and drags Chirine out of the melee.

Fifth Round: Kayalen rolls to see if her healing spell fixes up Chirine; Origo rolls to use his Eye of Healing on himself; Vrisa applies various banadages and needles Chirine about not being able to kill some git with a mace.

Does this help?

yours, Chirine