A question to all of my readers: what is, in your opinion, the worst rule or rules in AD&D 1st edition? Additional kudos, if you justify your choice(s). I admit that initiative is a bit confusing but I don't really enjoy unarmed and grappling combat. I will use it to test it in combat, although the situation never came up in play, but as written, they are a mess. What is your worst rule or rules?
16 comments:
Grappling rules are insane, but rules on movement and encumberance have been certainly the ones that gave me more headaches: weight allowance? encumberance and weight as separated things? weights in gp?
There were two things I never had any use for over the years I played and DMed 1e - class level limits for the races, and weapon speed factors. The former I used until they bumped up against my vision of the campaign world I created, then I dispensed with them. The latter I tried to use, but they consistently slowed down combat and didn't add any fun. I was vindicated when I asked Gygax himself about WSF, and found he hadn't used them, either. If I have to pick one as the worst rule from 1e, I'll go with WSF, by a narrow margin.
I can see how weapon speeds can slow down combat. However, I was under the impression that speed was only a factor when two groups were tied down for initiative. Am I reading it wrong?
It's been a long while, but yeah, that sounds right. It happened often enough to be aggravating at my table.
I can see why those would be aggravating, but oddly enough, they never bothered me or my players. It was kind of a running joke for everyone in my group to keep track of encumbrance down to the gold piece. Those pictures in old issues of Dragon with the adventurer plodding under a pack 10 times bigger than him was very much in keeping with the guys for whom I DMed.
Weapon vs Armor type really wasn't needed, but the % strength rule was the worst regularly played rule. Whi actually wanted a character with 18-01 strength?
This made me laugh, because I remember way back when we were kids that my brother and I got into a heated argument over percentile strength. My dwarf fighter somehow got 18 Strength, and my brother was outraged that I got to roll for percentile dice. He just couldn't countenance my character being that much stronger than his. I hadn't thought about that in 30 years.
Actually, the player in my group with the ranger is pretty happy with his 18/88 Strength. But then, you mention 18/01 which I assume you mean 18/01-50. Isn't that an improvement above the fighter with just 18 strength?
Weapon speed factors were indeed bad; slow, fiddly, -and- less realistic. But some of the worst AD&D rules were the odd ones that just served no purpose. For example, when a player finds a scroll as treasure there is a percentage chance that the scroll is unusable. Why go through all the trouble of randomly generating a treasure only to find it doesn't work?
That's a good one, but I have to say that I actually recall something like your scroll scenario happening in a campaign. I get what you're saying, and I can see why it would be frustrating, but such stuff appealed to me as a DM and as a player. Consider: the scroll is unusable, but my players would be wondering "why?" and coming up with all kinds of ideas that I could file away for future use. It gives a bit of mystery and verisimilitude to the game. However, I fully understand why it would aggravate you and be of no use in your game.
I would have to say Weapon speed factors.
While the psionics rules aren't as clear or as simple as they were originally introduced in Eldritch Wizardry, I'd have to say that percentile strength is one of my least favorite AD&D rules and the main reason why I stick to the Ability score bonus scheme from B/X, but I've never used the grappling/wrestling/pummeling rules as written either.
I use Weapon vs AC for individual combats and WSF, segments for spell-casting etc. as a last resort to breaking initiative ties, so those "confusing" rules at least have some use IMG.
Why the Strength percentile score hate? You're not the first one to say this.
Yeah, it's basically a tie-breaker. I don't get the hate.
Surprise and initiative. A total mess.
I'm a history buff and love realism in a game, well a fairly high amount of realism in a fantasy game anyway. One thing that always drove me nuts was the weight of weapons in particular. Completely unrealistic as originally written. The heaviest two handed sword ever actually meant for fighting weighed about 7 pounds, and believe me, that is a hefty sword. An "average single hand sword weighs about 2 pounds, 12 ounces. Daggers are between 8 and 12 ounces, etc. So I always reworked the weapons weight list and usually tinkered with the damage dice. Not specifically a rules change I guess, but talk of speed factor got me thinking about it. Speed factor was never popular in our games. I too generally raised or dispensed with racial level limits, but I would compensate by giving humans some special abilities and attribute mods. Humans have always been my favourite race anyway.
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