Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary of Blackmoor and of Role-Playing!
Today is Part 62 (Part B) of my series on OD&D, with The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures Vol. 3.
**For those coming in, in the middle of this series I am giving you my take on OD&D during my first exposure starting in Sept of 1975. For this first part it is just the first three books of the original woodgrain box set and prior to obtaining the Greyhawk, Blackmoor and later Supplements.**
Today we continue on with the Move/Turn in the Underworld:
At the time I did go with "Undead" never making a sound with one exception. Vampires could possibly be heard talking to someone or something, since they could have living allies or underlings. That is not the case anymore, currently my Zombies moan, because I like it that way. I am also looking at adding some noise to some of the others too, for instance Skeletons that are moving should make quite a racket on a stone floor.
Anything not human that has infravision, still has infravision as a player character or as a hireling of a player character. This was a very early house rule as it is nothing more than a gotcha rule and so I dispensed with it.
As I previously noted, Magic Spells do not change because they are underground. While the scale for the game changes due to being in a confined space, the Magic Spells do the same thing below ground as they do above ground. Therefore that stated length of 6" is 60 yards above and below ground. So you have to be very careful casting offensive spells underground because of the rebound effect. The only way that stone is destroyed is if you do something like cast a fireball and then the next round cast a spell of cold, in the same area, then you can get shattering of the stone.
Now I said that I would spend some time talking about movement, movement rates, Exploration Turns, Melee Turns, Melee Rounds and time measuring.
The thing IMO that you need to remember is that the scale changes when you go below ground, because IMO the distance that you can see is reduced and IMO not for any other reason. Therefore the movement rates do not change unless you are mapping or searching or something that causes you to walk slower than normal.
So let us take several standard creatures and look at movement rates. Back in Men & Magic Vol 1 of the rules, it says that a man weighing 175 pounds:
So using my scale I determined in 10 minutes at a 6" movement rate the party while mapping could cover 1,760 feet. Suddenly it becomes possible to explore large dungeons even while reducing the movement due to searching and such. So now we have determined a 10 minute Exploration Turn that at least for me is no longer a distraction. Also I will note that because 6" is 2 mph I posit that Dwarves, Gnomes and Hobbits are not noticeably slowed by wearing armor, unlike humans.
Now if we use a Melee Turn of 1 minute made up of ten - 6 second Melee Rounds we get the following:
So that is why I altered the whole movement system very early as a referee. Also I would add that you have normal move for a fully armored character is walking (2 MPH), double move is jogging (4 MPH), a triple move is running (6 MPH) and a quadruple move is a charge (sprint)(8 MPH). A man or elf in leather armor would move at 4 MPH, 8 MPH, 12 MPH and 18 MPH.
Tomorrow we will move on to Underworld Monsters.
Today is Part 62 (Part B) of my series on OD&D, with The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures Vol. 3.
**For those coming in, in the middle of this series I am giving you my take on OD&D during my first exposure starting in Sept of 1975. For this first part it is just the first three books of the original woodgrain box set and prior to obtaining the Greyhawk, Blackmoor and later Supplements.**
Today we continue on with the Move/Turn in the Underworld:
At the time I did go with "Undead" never making a sound with one exception. Vampires could possibly be heard talking to someone or something, since they could have living allies or underlings. That is not the case anymore, currently my Zombies moan, because I like it that way. I am also looking at adding some noise to some of the others too, for instance Skeletons that are moving should make quite a racket on a stone floor.
Anything not human that has infravision, still has infravision as a player character or as a hireling of a player character. This was a very early house rule as it is nothing more than a gotcha rule and so I dispensed with it.
As I previously noted, Magic Spells do not change because they are underground. While the scale for the game changes due to being in a confined space, the Magic Spells do the same thing below ground as they do above ground. Therefore that stated length of 6" is 60 yards above and below ground. So you have to be very careful casting offensive spells underground because of the rebound effect. The only way that stone is destroyed is if you do something like cast a fireball and then the next round cast a spell of cold, in the same area, then you can get shattering of the stone.
Now I said that I would spend some time talking about movement, movement rates, Exploration Turns, Melee Turns, Melee Rounds and time measuring.
The thing IMO that you need to remember is that the scale changes when you go below ground, because IMO the distance that you can see is reduced and IMO not for any other reason. Therefore the movement rates do not change unless you are mapping or searching or something that causes you to walk slower than normal.
So let us take several standard creatures and look at movement rates. Back in Men & Magic Vol 1 of the rules, it says that a man weighing 175 pounds:
Carrying 75 pounds can move at 12" (Light Foot) (Leather)For Non-Player Characters
Carrying 100 pounds can move at 9" (Heavy Foot) (Chainmail)
Carrying 150 pounds can move at 6" (Armored Foot) (Plate)
Elves can move at 12"I decided to use the following scale for movement:
Orcs, Hobgoblins and Gnolls move at 9"
Dwarves, Gnomes and Hobbits move at 6"
6" is equal to 2 mph = 176 feet per minuteSo if an Adventuring party traveled at the speed of the slowest members of the party i.e. 6". Then in the rules it says that a fully armored character would travel at 6" and would cover 120 feet in 10 minutes. But that rounds to 0.137 miles per hour. So that whole scale is like squeaking chalk on a blackboard.
9" is equal to 3 mph = 264 feet per minute
12" is equal to 4 mph = 352 feet per minute
So using my scale I determined in 10 minutes at a 6" movement rate the party while mapping could cover 1,760 feet. Suddenly it becomes possible to explore large dungeons even while reducing the movement due to searching and such. So now we have determined a 10 minute Exploration Turn that at least for me is no longer a distraction. Also I will note that because 6" is 2 mph I posit that Dwarves, Gnomes and Hobbits are not noticeably slowed by wearing armor, unlike humans.
Now if we use a Melee Turn of 1 minute made up of ten - 6 second Melee Rounds we get the following:
6" in a Melee Round is 17.6 feet rounds to 18 feet vs 12 feet in a minuteSo the first distance is a 6 second Melee Round and the second listed distance is a one minute Melee Round. As you can see neither one is all that good for movement on a dungeon map with 10 foot squares. On the other hand the 6 second Melee Round IMO makes sense and the one minute Melee Round IMO does not.
9" in a Melee Round is 26.4 feet rounds to 26 feet vs 18 feet in a minute
12" in a Melee Round is 35.2 feet rounds to 35 feet vs 24 feet in a minute
So that is why I altered the whole movement system very early as a referee. Also I would add that you have normal move for a fully armored character is walking (2 MPH), double move is jogging (4 MPH), a triple move is running (6 MPH) and a quadruple move is a charge (sprint)(8 MPH). A man or elf in leather armor would move at 4 MPH, 8 MPH, 12 MPH and 18 MPH.
Tomorrow we will move on to Underworld Monsters.
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