This is a reprint of the first article I ever wrote for this Substack back in November of 2022, Very few people read the article and Substack isn’t designed in a way that encourages archive digging and this topic is hot in the gaming community right now, so I thought it was a good time to revisit house rules for early D&D combat.
By the way how closely related is that armour vs weapon chart to the similar looking “armor vs weapon adjustment chart” that appears as optional rules in the AD&D 1st edition - in the DMG I think but possibly the PHB?
I think the armor vs weapon adjustment chart and the Chainmail rules are actually very close. There's a post, I'll have to find it, that shows how closely. One of the things I like about this kind of play (the Chainmail Man to Man system) is that it helps fighters scale with Magic Users. They get multiple attacks, but the chance of each individual attack doesn't increase. Thus the value of armor is static, while hit points and number of attacks represent the skill of the combatant.
There was a residue of this rule that we had in 1E AD&D that a fighter (only) got one attack per level, but only when fighting 1 hit die opponents. That was a great rule (perhaps unliked?) that has since been removed, which also goes some way to equalising the warrior vs wizard gap. An adjustment D&D has always needed.
I wish they hadn't nerfed the multiple attacks in AD&D. Multiple attack progression really slowed down, though Specialization in Unearthed fixed this somewhat. The fragility of magic users, and limits on armor and weapons etc., made fighters necessary in older D&D but playing them often felt less exciting than other options.
Of course, missile weapons are devastating in AD&D for magic users. Every time I play Baldur's Gate (1), I make sure to have a lot of ammo and target the magic users first.
In our house rules we keep this rule and generalise it to attacks = (fighter level / opponent hit dice). Without some rule like this, not only do fighters become bit-part actors, but the party as a whole becomes farcically vulnerable to swarm attacks.
Fascinating post! Thank you! I would like to claim I knew that chart was not just cumbersome but plain wrong from the first time I saw it. I honestly didn’t know anyone ever used it. But Delta’s analysis and his research are both very persuasive. Quite the archeological find!
I’m very interested in this specific topic but even more interested in your tantalising suggestion that there is another system out there that Arneson et al were using that is neither Chainmail rules nor the OD&D “Alternate” Combat System.
When you look at Arneson's Blackmoor characters sheets, available on the Secrets of Blackmoor site, you can see that they are playing a very unique game. I wish someone would publish the rules. Daniel Boggs did a "pseudo" version with Champions of Zed, but it wasn't the actual way Arneson played.
There was a ton of work done researching this in the late 00s and early 10s with people like Boggs and Jason Vey doing some great work. I only wish I'd seen that it was a different Ironclad before I bought the game.
By the way how closely related is that armour vs weapon chart to the similar looking “armor vs weapon adjustment chart” that appears as optional rules in the AD&D 1st edition - in the DMG I think but possibly the PHB?
I think the armor vs weapon adjustment chart and the Chainmail rules are actually very close. There's a post, I'll have to find it, that shows how closely. One of the things I like about this kind of play (the Chainmail Man to Man system) is that it helps fighters scale with Magic Users. They get multiple attacks, but the chance of each individual attack doesn't increase. Thus the value of armor is static, while hit points and number of attacks represent the skill of the combatant.
There was a residue of this rule that we had in 1E AD&D that a fighter (only) got one attack per level, but only when fighting 1 hit die opponents. That was a great rule (perhaps unliked?) that has since been removed, which also goes some way to equalising the warrior vs wizard gap. An adjustment D&D has always needed.
I wish they hadn't nerfed the multiple attacks in AD&D. Multiple attack progression really slowed down, though Specialization in Unearthed fixed this somewhat. The fragility of magic users, and limits on armor and weapons etc., made fighters necessary in older D&D but playing them often felt less exciting than other options.
Of course, missile weapons are devastating in AD&D for magic users. Every time I play Baldur's Gate (1), I make sure to have a lot of ammo and target the magic users first.
In our house rules we keep this rule and generalise it to attacks = (fighter level / opponent hit dice). Without some rule like this, not only do fighters become bit-part actors, but the party as a whole becomes farcically vulnerable to swarm attacks.
Here’s ChatGPT comparing the Chainmail armor/weapon matrix to the optional 1E AD&D PHB adjustment matrix:
https://chatgpt.com/s/t_68b21e3fa8ec8191bf71693eb07a78d0
Here's the blog post I was thinking about written by Delta.
https://deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2021/03/the-big-mistake-in-weapon-vs-armor.html
Fascinating post! Thank you! I would like to claim I knew that chart was not just cumbersome but plain wrong from the first time I saw it. I honestly didn’t know anyone ever used it. But Delta’s analysis and his research are both very persuasive. Quite the archeological find!
I’m very interested in this specific topic but even more interested in your tantalising suggestion that there is another system out there that Arneson et al were using that is neither Chainmail rules nor the OD&D “Alternate” Combat System.
When you look at Arneson's Blackmoor characters sheets, available on the Secrets of Blackmoor site, you can see that they are playing a very unique game. I wish someone would publish the rules. Daniel Boggs did a "pseudo" version with Champions of Zed, but it wasn't the actual way Arneson played.
There was a ton of work done researching this in the late 00s and early 10s with people like Boggs and Jason Vey doing some great work. I only wish I'd seen that it was a different Ironclad before I bought the game.