While a lot of folks have commented that when they played AD&D back in the day they swapped out a lot of the more confusing gibberish for simpler rules cribbed from the Basic books. Well, probably because we didn't play Basic D&D long enough to actually learn the rules, my gang went a different direction: we did not use surprise rules at all. Unless one party was lying in
ambush or
actively sneaking up on the other, or one party was clearly distracted
or drunk or asleep--surprise was not a state of being that existed. The side that got the drop on the other based on the situation had a
free round to assault the stooges. Rolling for Surprise! at the start of every
encounter seemed like just another complication in an already
complicated rule set.
But the point of today's post is not to lecture you on the olden ways, but to deliver up a demonstration of Surprise! in action. Continuing on the example from last time when Schlomo, Quisling, and the rest of Party B were surprised by Party A...
Example of Surprise
Today we're going to run the above scenario through as it might happen at the gaming table. Party A is a group of six gnolls patrolling their sector of the dungeon, and Party B is a group of six low level adventurers arguing about how to split up the treasure they just secured after killing the ogre in room 14. They are:
As already determined the
entire party is surprised for 2 segments after which time Quisling, thanks to his +2 reaction adj. will
move out of surprise, except this time Quisling goes against
his nature and actually stays loyal to his countrymen. Two segments later everyone except Schlomo will awake from their stupor. Schlomo, whose pitiful dex afflicts him with a -2 rx adj., will have to wait until segment 7 before he's paroled.
The Gnolls have a move of 9" and are 20'
away so they won't even be in stabbing range until surprise
segment 2. Wait a second, with a move of 9 inches you can cover most of 18 feet in
2 segments? Fear not, we'll have a How to... session on Movement in AD&D soon.
Segment 1: Two gnolls lob spears at Party B (not Cardi B) before advancing. One hits Furdok while the other bounces harmlessly off the wall. Gnoll 6 fires a heavy crossbow for 7 dmg. killing Spungor the Spelliferous--now the Lifeless. The rest of the gnolls move 1/10th of their move, getting 9' closer to the party. Yes, 9' in 6 seconds is p-a-i-n-f-u-l-l-y slow but there are probably several paragraphs somewhere in the DMG where Gary explains that movement in AD&D does not represent actual spacial displacement over time, but is a conceptual representation of yada yada yada.
Segment 2: The gnolls now move into melee range and start swiping at Party B. The two who tossed the spears last time choose to charge the party allowing them to cover twice their movement and still get an attack. This makes the other gnolls wonder why they didn't do that in the previous round. [It's probably because they're following this blog series and we haven't covered charging yet.] Anyway, there's one gnoll for each party member because Gnoll 6 is hanging back reloading the heavy crossbow at 3x the normal speed. Let the slaughter begin!
Segment 3: Quisling--"Quiz" to his friends, at least to the ones he hasn't betrayed yet--is no longer surprised, so Gnoll 3, who had attacked him the previous segment can no longer get in those sweet "telling blows." They have to roll initiative at this point, even though everyone else is still involved in Surprise.
Quisling: 4, Gnoll: 2.
Quiz gets to swing first, rolls a 5 and misses with his short sword. Gnoll 3's turn but she says "Screw that, if I attack you I'm done for the round. There's a guy standing next to you who'll be surprised for at least 2 more segments, I'm attacking him instead." She cuffs Schlomo up side the head with a morningstar.
Segment 4: The gnolls keep whaling on the still-surprised party members, some of whom are not looking so hot. Quisling has shot his wad bolt, um, you get the idea, for the round
and should, by standard melee protocol, be feinting, parrying, and dodging
blows from Gnoll 3 for the next 54 seconds. But Gnoll 3 chose instead to attack a still-suprised
party member and therefore remain involved in the Surprise Party.
Quisling has fallen into a rift in the melee continuum: he
has already used his one attack for the
round, but his co-combatant has decided not to return the favor. Does
Quisling have to dance around pretending to dodge and parry blows that no one is delivering? That's preposterous. Does he get to deliver another blow on Gnoll 3? Gnoll 3 isn't surprised
so segment-based telling blows do not apply, but they do apply to his surprised comrades--don't do it Quisling! He resists temptation and wanders
away from combat. [No kiddies, opportunity attacks do not exist in AD&D; for all its flaws it at least has that going for it.]
Segment 5: Everyone but Schlomo is now un-surprised. If not for Slo-mo Schlomo, we'd start a new round here, but since he's still got 2 more segments of inaction, the Surprise Party continues and we're gonna' use the same initiative roll from segment 3. That's ok by Party B since Quisling won that roll; they start retaliating for the punishment they've taken. Most of the gnolls now engage in normal melee, Gnoll 5 drops Furdok of Burd with a blow from his zwei-handed sword, but Gnolls 3 & 4 are still attacking poor Schlomo rather than join the regular initiative. Quisling, still occupying the rift in the space time continuum, takes this opportunity to cast a 1 segment spell, magic missile, at Gnoll 3.
Segment 6: There are still 2
gnolls who insist on beating on poor Schlomo, and Gnoll 5, having used
his regular melee attack to kill Furdok during the last segment, decides
he wants to go back to the Surprise party and attack Schlomo too. The players all cry foul but the DM persists and Gnoll 5 swings at the beleaguered cleric anyway, hitting for 3 pts of dmg. Schlomo--shockingly--withstands the blow and, even worse for the DM, the players will absolutely use this decision against him in the future.
I was doing it this way for a while (difference between surprise results to determine segments of surprise), but repeated readings and study and play have brought me to the Pip system I talked about in my comment on your last post, where a roll of 1 is one segment, 2 is two and 3 is three. If a monster had a better than 50% chance to surprise a victim I suppose a 4 or 5 would be four or five segments of surprise, respectively.
ReplyDeleteSurprise and the "surprise round" are like their own mini-game in that it has its own rules for movement, attacking and action. Managing a parallel system kind of sucks, it's true.
You've outlined some interesting challenges here: segment-based movement, attacking surprised versus not-surprised participants, and missile fire (thrown, arrows, bolts -- all different, of course). That issue with Gnoll3 and Q + S is a head scratcher. All I can figure is that S must be standing there having a, "What's goin' on Big Dan?" moment. While Q desperately tries to distract Big Dan, albeit unsuccessfully.
I'm still trying to figure out Gary's deal with the 1 minute combat round. Why'd he do that? All the other D&D's use much shorter combat rounds and yet here's AD&D with it's single roll (hit or save), always-charge-to-attack and a 1 minute slice of time? Inspired by the boxing round, maybe? I've messed with house-ruling it but it just messes up everything else, like casting times, effect durations and so forth.
Hey O.C., I started to reply to this but it got so long-winded that I turned it into the blogpost du jour.
ReplyDeleteSo, the example here is incorrect.
ReplyDeleteThe surprised party (in this case, Party B) is only surprised for a number of segments equal to the number that came up on the die. They rolled a "1" (what Gygax elswhere calls "partial surprise") and are thus surprised for one segment.
Party A (the gnolls) rolled a "5" and so they are not surprised at all. If Party B had (for some reason) a 5 in 6 chance to surprise them, they would have been surprised for 5 segments and REALLY been up shit creek!
We subtract the difference in surprise segments (1-0 = 1) to find the total number of segments the "most surprised party" loses. This is the number of segments the gnolls can act freely with surprise. If the PCs had been able to surprise the gnolls on a 5 in 6 chance, the gnolls would have lost 4 segments to the party (5-1 = 4) and the party would have (effectively) lost none...although Schlomo would only have been able to act in 2 of those segments (see below).
Since Quisling has a 17 DEX, she can act immediately. There are a number of ways to handle this. The easiest (and way I generally handle it) is treat each surprise segment as a round EXCEPT with regard to movement and spell-casting. SO: Quisling and the gnolls roll off for initiative for the surprise segment and then act in turn (Quisling can attack, move a distance based on a 6-second segment, fumble for a flask of oil, cast a 1 segment spell, etc.). Everyone else stands around.
Since Shlomo has a 4 DEX (ugly!) she is surprised for THREE segments, instead of one. Again, there are multiple ways to handle this. I've never seen a character with such a low DEX in an AD&D game (maybe because it would be suicidal?) but I suppose I'd most likely treat each extra segment as an individual round, with the entirety of BOTH groups (save Shlomo) rolling for initiative and acting in standard round order...except with regard to movement, spell-casting, and actions requiring more than six seconds to perform.
This is not ideal, as it raises the question of "Why do these PCs (like Quisling) get to make three attacks in 18 seconds, when normally she only gets one per round?" A convenient answer might be "adrenaline" but that doesn't really wash since there is (presumably) adrenaline in EVERY life-or-death combat round.
The one minute combat round is supposed to be a bunch of maneuvering, feints, parries, and strikes with the attack roll (& subsequent damage roll) being the determination of how effective a character was at injuring an opponent in the round. The reason a surprising party gets to make one attack roll per SEGMENT during surprise is that the surprised creature OFFERS NO RESISTANCE (or poor/slow resistance) to the attacker. No maneuvering, feinting, etc. needed.
Once the "normal" surprise portion of the round is ended, Shlomo is still standing around with her mouth gaping open...but the REST of her party is not and, offering resistance perhaps should force the gnolls back into "standard" time. I.e. NO EXTRA ATTACKS (in the surprise round) should be allowed, so long as the gnolls are pressed by Shlomo's companions. Shlomo is effectively slaved from the beating she so richly deserves and (in the next round...7 segments following her surprise wearing off), she can act normally on the party's initiative.
But then...wouldn't the same logic follow for Quisling? Shouldn't his fast reaction allow him to save his ENTIRE PARTY due to his ability to respond immediately to the gnoll ambush?
As I said, multiple ways to handle the fall out from DEX-based reaction adjustments. However, the handling of surprise itself (before DEX considerations) is pretty cut-and-dry.
; )