07 August 2018

III: 31 through 36, Wrapping It All Up; Annotated

Page 31

 

More Naval Combat rules: shearing oars, grappling, and boarding. 

Boarding invokes the Chainmail rules again, and introduces newcomers to gaming to the concept of Command Control (C&C). C&C is explained more fully on the next page, the remainder of this page is taken up with melee rules, presumably for those who do not possess Chainmail

Page 32

 

Command Control: we learn here C&C is the ability of the command figure to have his troops follow his orders and remain under his control. It is based upon Charisma, a fine choice given how CHA works in D&D. Basically, one must keep the leader visible to his troops and free from melee. 

Page 33

 

Swimming: good guidelines for swimming, drowning, and armor removal here. One might well suppose anyone wearing plate who finds themselves in the water should spend it making peace with their deity or deities. 

Rules for ship capturing and typical crew by ship types, and their respective tasks, follows. 

Pages 34-36

 

These last few pages kick off with some detailed advice on running certain monsters in an aquatic setting. The man-type aquatic species are quite fond of grappling passing ships. There is also good information for the attentive reader for establishing movement speeds and armor classes. 

Healing Wounds: in light of Gygax’s explanations regarding the nature of hit points, one may question the glacial rate of recovery. The rules themselves even dryly point out [t]his can take a long time. Basically, Gygax claimed approximately d6 of a PC’s hit points were actually representative of physical damage. The remainder a combination of luck, stamina, divine favor, etc. 

Time: easy to follow, basic guidelines for timekeeping in a campaign. Gygax felt this was an important component to conducting a game. Careful timekeeping records would certainly aid a referee with multiple groups running in the same campaign, rather less common nowadays then it was in the halcyon days of the hobby. 

Afterward

 

A final pat on the back from the author, exhorting us to go forth and make new rulings in accordance with how we felt the game should run. The afterword asks an important question, one which every referee considering running an OD&D should ask themselves: why have us do any more of your imagining for you?

Page Bottom Illustration: though they are part of an illustration, we have always regarded them as the last words of the rules … 

FIGHT ON!

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