Friday, May 28, 2021

Random Roll: DMG, p. 74

Page 74 of the Advanced D&D Dungeon Masters Guide features four attack matrices to aid the DM in adjudicating combat. They're all quite interesting in their way, but Matrix I.B, which concerns fighters and related classes, is especially so.

Let's start at the top. This matrix covers attacks by fighters and its two sub-classes paladins and rangers. Bards also make use of this table, though only at the highest level of fighter they have attained. That's interesting, because, if I'm understanding the rule correctly, it means that bards never increase in their combat effectiveness. Also interesting is that non-player half-orcs use the monster attack matrix rather than this one, unlike NPCs of all other playable demihuman races (are half-orcs even considered demihumans?).

It's difficult to compare AD&D's matrices with those in OD&D, since there is a wider range of armor classes in AD&D available. Nevertheless, it's notable that a 1st-level fighter in AD&D needs 11 to land a hit on AC 9, while an OD&D fighter of the same level needs only 10. On the other hand, AD&D fighters advance in steps of two levels rather than in steps of three in OD&D. (AD&D clerics, meanwhile, are more effective than their OD&D counterparts, since they advance in steps of three rather than four.)  The "special note" below the matrix offers the suggestion that fighters could advance in steps of one level, with each level granting a +1 bonus rather than the +2 bonus provided by the standard approach. I've never known anyone who used this optional rule, though I recall an article in the pages of Dragon that advocated strongly in favor of it.

A final observation concerns the notorious repeating 20s on the matrix. For reasons I don't quite understand – readers can enlighten me in the comments below – the matrix includes a series of six 20s before the advancing again beyond 20. I've always played Dungeons & Dragons with the "rule" that a roll of 1 is always a failure and a roll of 20 is always a success. I don't know where I picked this up, but it's now so ingrained in my mind that I instinctively use it. Given that, I don't find the repeating 20s odd at all; what seems strange to me is that there are target numbers higher than 20. What does that represent? How are we supposed to interpret it? I welcome any insights people better versed in the intricacies of AD&D can offer.

29 comments:

  1. "A final observation concerns the notorious repeating 20s on the matrix."

    See pg. 82.

    (Also, the Rule of 1 only applies to saves in 1st ed AD&D viz. DMG pg. 79; I don't think natural 20s and 1s as auto-hits and -misses exists in 1st ed AD&D [I think that's a BECMI thing].)

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  2. Oops. Forgot:

    "it's notable that a 1st-level fighter in AD&D needs 11 to land a hit on AC 9, while an OD&D fighter of the same level needs only 10."

    Shouldn't that comparison be between AC 9 (OD&D) and AC 10 (1st ed AD&D)? Those are the equivalents for having no armour. There's some overlap between the designations in the two sets, but it's not perfect.

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  3. My theory (not substantiated or supported by the rules in any way)
    Repeating 20s are there because things can only get too hard to hit up to a point... but after a while things start picking up again and become truly, unhumanly hard to hit.
    I guess target numbers above 20 are also there so that you can still feel the difference between a +1, +4 or +7 modifier to hit.
    And remember we have armor type modifiers in AD&D.
    Making a parallel with reality let's take a pistol and tanks. For a pistol any difference between tank armor is pointless (the same goes for an average 1st level Fighter versus AC -3 or -10).
    Things change if you start comparing rockets, bazooka, or lasers to tank armor (a 1st level character with high strength, specialization maybe, and magical weapons, or a high level Fighter versus the same AC -3 to -10).
    So, basically, I think those numbers are there to nuance high-end combat effectiveness.
    Does it make sense?

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  4. We always used the special note of a Fighter's chance to hit increasing with every level.

    Really makes a difference compared to Clerics and Thieves who don't increase their chance to hit until 4th or 5th level.

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  5. If a natural 20 isn't an auto hit in AD&D the table basically says a fighter needs some kind of 'plus' to hit the higher ACs.

    I get the whole natural 20 always hits thing, but realistically everyone shouldn't have a 5% chance to hit.

    Trying to shoot a humming bird from 100 feet with a long bow should be impossible for anyone but the most skilled.

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  6. Bonuses from magic or high strength was how I understood it.

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  7. no one is commenting on how we get a 26 on a d20?

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  8. As the first commentator mentioned, the explanation is on DMG page 82. The first 20 can be either natural or with bonuses. The next 5 20s must be natural. 21 and beyond require a natural 20 plus a bonus.

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    1. No, that's if one uses the optional rule from pg. 82. If one doesn't, any attack that generates a result of 20, either with a natural 20 or one that gets a 20 result due to bonuses, can hit that section of 20s.

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  9. As regards the repeating 20s in the matrices: Gygax explains this in the DMG on page 82 (after all the combat tables, and the clerics turning undead table, and the saving throw tables...why, Gary?). In a section headed "PROGRESSION ON THE COMBAT TABLES," he writes "A quick glance at the progression of numbers on the COMBAT TABLES will reveal that 20 is repeated. This reflects the fact that a 20 indicates a "perfect" hit. It also incidentally helps to assure that opponents with high armor class value are not "hit proof" in most cases." He goes on to say that if you don't like this, you can decide that all those 20s after the first one on the matrix have to be rolled naturally; you can't add modifiers. Anything above 20 must be achieved by a natural roll of 20 plus modifiers.

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  10. Two further observations:
    It's interesting that Gygax first justifies the string of 20s by saying that 20 is a perfect hit; it's as if a 20 represents a blow so amazing that it can shear through even extremely tough defenses. Only then does he mention the need to keep some foes from being hitproof, which I would consider the more compelling reason for the design decision.
    My other observation is that the section on p. 82 needs to be closer to the combat matrices; just another example of the haphazard arrangement of info in the DMG.

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  11. Two points:
    I ALWAYS used the optional rule that Fighters get +1/level.

    The really interesting thing with this table is how it compares to the other attack tables in the DMG, and how the tables in the DMG differ from OD&D. This table includes a column for 0 level Humans, which was not present in OD&D. Looking at the attack tables for other classes, we see that the first column for Magic-user (1-5) and Thieves (1-4) is the same as 0 level humans. This is a downgrade for those classes from OD&D (and B/X), and creates the odd circumstance where Dwarves, Gnomes, and Elves of the Magic-User or Thief classes start with attacks that are worse than if they had no class at all!
    Personally I have no problem with MUs starting with attacks equal to 0 level humans, that just seems logical. I do have mixed feelings on thieves though, and it really depends on how you view the class.(and that is a whole other topic)

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  12. The repeating Nat 20+ point for 1st level fighters more or less begins where supernatural levels of AC begin... that is, an opponent with an AC -1 or better is almost certainly a supernatural creature or has magical armor, unless perhaps wearing plate and shield with DEX 17+...

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  13. I wonder why halflings, alone among demihumans, can be 0-level. I suppose it reflects their generally peaceful natures, but then how warlike are gnomes? Also, I note that on page 73, the list ofattack matrices includes this: "I. Attack Matrices for Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Half-Elves, Halflings, Half-Orcs and Humans." This isn't quite right, though, as we've noted: NPC half-orcs use the monster table.

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    1. Dwarves, elves, and gnomes are much longer lived than humans or halflings (DMG p. 13), and are always endangered by goblins, orcs, and so forth much more so than humans and halflings, so any encountered outside the home are going to have at least 1 level of experience worth of fighting skill.

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  14. Another perfect example of why to just stick with OD&D, and enjoy AD&D for Gary's gaming and DM advice. OD&D is a mess because of what it lacks, AD&D is a mess because of everything jammed into it.

    Everyone in my group pretty much abandoned AD&D as a system earl on, kept up with OD&D and just stole the good bits from AD&D- HD increases, spells, items, Modules, etc.

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    1. After messing around in OD&D for better part of a decade, I actually can to the opposite conclusion. Now AD&D seems a more sensible home.

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  15. I went into a deep dive on to-hit mechanics a while back. I refer to the repeating 20s that appear in several editions as the "wart" that thac0 removed.

    The thing most modern readers miss is that as-written, this is not a natural 20 target; it means that a +1 to-hit renders a wide range of ACs hittable with a natural 19. Bigger bonuses have even weirder effects, and in Basic the wart recurs at 30.

    https://gdorn.circuitlocution.com/rpgblog/history_of_thac0.html

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  16. Am I reading this correctly? Those repeated 20s don’t make much sense if you give a +1 to even-leveled fighters, because then the roll-to-hit bounces back and forth between 19 and 20 as they advance in levels.

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    1. It's intended that you just follow the pattern. Since the 20s are shifted up two rows each column, you can just shift them up one row instead on the "in-between" columns. For example, the first 20 occurs at AC0 at level 1 and the last one at AC-5. Therefore, the first 20 would occur at AC-1 at level 2, with the last at AC-6. Then, at level 3, the table shows the first 20 occurring at AC-2 and the last at AC-7, so at level 4 it would shift up to AC-3 and AC-8. And so on.

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    2. Thanks. I had been too lazy to look closely at that table the first time, Since it was clearly designed this way, why didn’t GG state it a lot more simply, like THAC0?

      To hit:

      d20 >= C - L - AC - other modifiers,

      where C = 21 if L + AC > 0; C = 16 if L + AC < -3, and otherwise C = 20 + L + AC.



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  17. The note on page 82 is an example of a rule that helps the player but isn't presented as a player-helper.

    Players are far more likely to have bonuses coming in from all over - ability scores, magic weapons, spells like prayer, plus all the situational modifiers AD&D envisioned for things like higher ground, etc. So if they get a natural 20 then they're likely to hit a much better AC than the monster. (Monsters usually hit better ACs on dice rolls less than 20 to compensate).

    But players are also more likely to get into the rarefied air of super-low ACs than monsters, and so are more likely to break "the sound barrier" as it were, where only a nat 20 plus the bonuses a monster is unlikely to have will attrite the players' hit points (and indirectly spells, potions, and other resources).

    So a more heroic style of play comes into effect in a very uneven progression - the characters reach a zone where they're just hard to hit. This is balanced out by item saving throws routinely dropping players back below the "sound barrier" due to destruction of the magic launching them there, and also that overbearing bypasses this system should the players foolishly mock the gods' benevolence by wading with disdain into hordes of monsters having no one to protect their flanks and backs.

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  18. RE: Bards

    Yep, they're capped at their highest level of fighter, similar to a multi-classed character. However, 7th level fighter is still pretty good, especially when one has magic weapons. I don't recall my old bard character missing all that much (or at all).

    RE: +1/level for fighters

    As kids, we completely missed this optional rule or I'm sure we would have used it. I use it now in my AD&D campaign; in fact, we extrapolate the rule for ALL classes (giving them a +1 bump halfway through the level progression). Works well.

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  19. As much as I like the aesthetics of attacks and saves only changing every three or four experience levels, in practice players really want to see their stats grow as they level up. So I went to the trouble of producing <a href="https://1drv.ms/b/s!AhaNHhtrqdOVrWoXCojCH6Be0aAc?e=PNuenQ>granular tables</a> for all the attack rolls and saving throws in both D&D and AD&D. Players seem to prefer the more frequent 1-point bumps to the occasional but more significant 2-point bumps constituting the standard tables.

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  20. Something fairly irrelevant, but interesting, that I just noticed: Gygax uses the plural "dwarves" here. This is a non-standard plural (it should be "dwarfs") that was introduced by Tolkien in The Hobbit. Another example of how even people who don't like Tolkien can't get away from his influence.

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    1. I think Gygax disliked Tolkien the way many copycats desperately try to distance themselves from their source material.

      Gygax wrote a game about hobbits, dwarves, elves, half-elves, half-orcs, wizards, burglars, magic swords, cloaks of elvenkind, cursed rings, orcs, goblins, wights, wraiths, secret doors, giant eagles, giant spiders, ents, balrogs, treasure maps, dragons, treasure hoards, and the deep, dark places of the world, and he didn't pay Tolkien a royalty.

      Of course he claimed he didn't like Tolkien!

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    2. I don't think so - Gary was a fan of really pulpy fantasy and the slow and careful worldbuilding and limited action of Tolkien really wasn't to his taste. He has a lot of superficial borrowings but in effect they are no different than his borrowings from Greek Mythology, medieval beastiaries, and B movies.

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    3. The difference is that what Gygax "borrowed" from Greek mythology and medieval bestiaries had already fallen into public domain. Tolkien has not.

      But why would such a big fan of pulp fantasy include hobbits that are good at burgling and throwing rocks, dwarves, elves, wood elves, half-elves, half-orcs, good wizards, rangers, wargs, glowing magic swords, cloaks of elvenkind, cursed rings, orcs that fight amongst themselves unless led by a powerful leader, goblins, wights, wraiths, intelligent giant eagles, ents, balrogs, and fire-breathing red dragons?

      I don't remember Howard and Leiber writing about those!

      When you "borrow" something without permission or payment, what is that called?

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