Round 1: Debrief

[Monsieur Rose]

Thanks so much for participating in this experiment. I'd love to hear your takes on the event and the system.

One glaring thing I found is that grappling and overbearing are incredibly powerful. As long as you are fighting someone smaller. The bonus to the result roll is sometimes over 300%. The table only goes up to 100%.

For this entire process, I made a spreadsheet and leaned heavily on it to calculate results. Even then, it took quite a while. I'll post a link to the google sheet that I made if anyone wants to see the madness.

Google sheet for round 1. I spent too much time on that. Even if there are mistakes, I don't want to know about them. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

[Zhym]

The emphasis on weight is definitely a flaw in the 1e non-weapon combat rules. Part of the reason, I think, is that the NPC weight tables don't actually allow for that much variation. The NPC tables will create a human who weighs between 100 and 178 lbs (and is somewhere between 5' and 6'2" tall). Gary acknowledges that limitation on pp. 11-12, saying that DMs "might find it necessary to allow . . . height and weight variations" of 2-20" and 10-200 lbs for human males.

I mean, it worked out well for Lug, but it's kind of off that it worked out well because of an attribute I just got to pick.

Of course, the more fundamental problem may be that the 1e non-weapon combat rules are really broken.

[Monsieur Rose]

Just shared the google sheet I used. There may be mistakes. I don't want to know about them. One thing I know I did, I estimated the height of people. I did it shorthand, then never went back to convert to inches. I doubt it changed anything.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

[tibbius]

The emphasis on weight is definitely a flaw in the 1e non-weapon combat rules.

Not sure about that. I've practiced martial arts on and off for about twenty years. One thing I've noticed is that it really doesn't matter how skilled a small guy may be - against a really big guy of moderate skill, unless it's in a martial arts movie, the small guy usually can't make an impact. At the length of fists and feet the big guy can protect their head and groin, keep their joints flexed, and basically absorb the small guy's blows long enough to get in one good shot ... then it's over. Even more so in a grapple, where the big guy can literally kill the small guy just by sitting or lying on top of them. Arm bars and leg scissors do work on bigger people to an extent, as long as the locker's leg muscles are stronger than the victim's arm and back muscles. But size really does matter. A lot. = why UFC has weight classes, because watching a heavyweight mash a flyweight would make most people cringe.

[Zhym]

I didn't mean to suggest that it's not realistic. But the heavy emphasis on weight results in an unbalanced system (hey, I see what I did there). That's a problem with the more esoteric AD&D1e rules, IMO. Gary sometimes errs by trying to make rules realistic instead of balanced or usable (weapon to-hit modifiers vs. AC, anyone?). "The much bigger guy always wins" may be true in life, but it doesn't make for a very fun game for the smaller person.

[tibbius]

When I play a small guy, I build a ranged fighter, thief, magic user, or "support" cleric or druid. Never a brawler. The game's still fun, it's just a sort of fun where my character has to avoid close combat and take care of situations in other ways.

[Rex]

It was fun, which was the point. Are the rules broken, yes. But I agree with Tibbius on weight, it plays a huge factor, in fact it should in melee combat too.

[max_vale]

I had a good time, thanks for running this!

As the others have said, yeah weight makes a huge difference in real life (if the combatants are are both at least somewhat skilled), otherwise, why have weight classes in every martial arts tournament in the world? A possible semi-fix might be to take the Pendragon approach and tie Strength and/or Constitution scores to a weight scale.....I don't know....something like....."Combined score of 28-32 = 180-220 lbs". Of course, that takes away some of the Character concept from the player AND it's yet more tables for the DM....but it's a thought.