V4 fighter errata

[kenbirdwell]

Is there a V4 errata I should incorporate? Should I just use V5?


In the Fighter section it says:

In melee combat versus normal-types a fighter throws one attack roll as a 1st level fighter for each of his own hit die

In the Combat section it says:

When a single attack roll is used the attacker strikes according to his level (for characters) or number of hit dice (for monsters). When multiple attack rolls are used the attacker always strikes as a 1 hit die monster, regardless of how many levels or hit dice he actually has.

I've been playing D&D since '77 so I'm 99% sure I know what it's supposed to say - the fighter section is correct - but I didn't know that monsters with multiple attacks attack as 1HD monster! I'm still hitting a mix of old school inconsistencies in your wonderful old school rule set, as well as rules I forgot about all these decades. Trying hard not to let my ancient preconceptions cloud my reading of the manual!

[mushgnome]

Hi Ken, welcome!

(edit) What he said! -----v

[waysoftheearth]

Hi @kenbirdwell thanks for you interest in DD!

And thanks @mushgnome for your reply already.

V4 was published in 2014 so it's inevitably beginning to show its age...
Scratching the memory archives, I think there were three versions of V4. The first one was just "V4", then there was an errata sheet and a "V4a", then a second errata sheet and a "V4b". All these are available in soft copy from the downloads area on this forum. V4 and then V4a were available in hard copy (via Lulu); V4a is still available. The hypertext online was continually updated as corrections came in, so it is currently at V4b.

That said, I don't recall if the specific passages you quoted were changed through the V4 lifecycle.

Looking at it now (with the benefit of another decade's worth of research and V5 development) I would say the V4 Fighter text is partially inaccurate. Some of the reason is that V4 (intentionally but, with hindsight, perhaps unfortunately) omits any explicit mention of Fighting Capability. Due to my perceptions of the day, I quietly rolled FC into HD so as not to freak people out with FC. I guess it kinda worked, but it's not perfect.

The important thing to know is that a normal man fights as 1 man and has one, unmodified, THAC2 17 attack. This is the definitive "normal attack". 1 HD implies a Fighting Capability of 1 man, implies one normal attack. Extrapolating out to higher HD figures, each 1 HD implies 1 man of FC, and one (THAC2 17) normal attack. In normal combat only (being any combat involving normal types). Fantastic combat is a different thing.

To your point about multiple HD monsters; yes, these fight as 1 man per HD in normal combat (i.e., versus normal types), just like higher level fighters. This is explicit in OD&D (M&T p5), which is a generalisation of the monster fighting capabilities from Chainmail's mass combat (aka normal combat, i.e., not fantastic combat) rules. E.g., giants, ogres, dragons etc. fight as multiple figures in mass combat. So, over in OD&D-land, a 6 HD troll has 6 attacks as a man versus a bunch of normal men (but not versus a bunch of heroes---that would be resolved as fantastic combat).

A 1st level OD&D fighter has a Fighting Capability of man+1 (and, not entirely coincidentally, 1+1 HD). Considering only normal combat (because all combat involving a 1st level fighter is normal combat, since he himself is a normal type) this means he fights as a normal man (THAC2 17) and then adds one to the die. So a 1st level fighter's attack is better than a normal man's attack by 1 pip on the die. Whereas a 6th level OD&D fighter in normal combat (meaning he must be fighting a bunch of normal types because he himself is a fantastic type) has the FC of 6 men, so he has six attacks as a man (not as a man+1 as the V4 fighter text implies).

DD V4 doesn't talk about FC explicitly. Instead, it relies on that 1:1 relationship between FC and HD, and just talks about HD. In the original, this relationship is imperfect (e.g., for clerics), but it holds for fighters and monsters. This is, in part, why the V4 cleric HD progression was fiddled; to have this relationship hold.

So, getting back to the V4 quotes you posted:

* The Combat Section quote is, i think, .... reasonably accurate. It has attacking as a 1 HD monster rather than as a "normal man", but the net effect is the same: a single THAC2 17 attack.

* The Fighter Section quote is somewhat misleading. It works as is for a 1st level fighter because a 1st level fighter does indeed have one attack at +1. But higher level fighters should not have multiple attacks as a 1st level fighter (at +1); they should have multiple unmodified attacks as a normal man (or, as the V4 monster section quote has it, as a 1 HD monster).


Checking back on what V5 says:
* The explanation of the FC stat says: <<Fighting Capability ... indicating the number of men a figure will fight as in normal combat>>.
* The fighter text doesn't discuss #attacks explicitly, but the fighter stats table gives FC for both normal and fantastic combat, and notes a 1st level fighter has "man+1" FC. Higher level fighters have one man FC per level up to 6 men at 6th level. Further development is implicit but not explicit (per the original).

So, V5 is certainly a more accurate representation of the original. But V4 still works okay, with that one minor tweak for fighters.

Hope that helps?

[kenbirdwell]

Yes! Thank you @waysoftheearth . Sorry, I had somehow missed V5 in my hunt for 0e rules - I've read so many other manuals in this last week, all of them missing key details but once I found your(?) absolutely unbelievably impressive Annotated V5 I had all my questions answered. Now I have all new questions!

Myself and so many of my friends have been confused by the D&D rule set since that Spring of 1977 when Basic D&D came out, and even more so when we tried picking up the original box set. I’m glad it wasn’t our fault, they really were incomprehensible without the proper foundation of previous rules, not something accessible to a bunch of grade school kids in the 70s.

Very happy you’ve done this. Is there any way I can help? I’ve been going through a bunch of manuals and reading them with as few preconceived notions on how to play as possible, not quite an ELI5 but close. I’ve had to give up on most other OSR attempts, too much left unexplained, by far V4b and V5 are the best, a very thorough scholarly work.

[waysoftheearth]

Thanks @kenbirdwell. I'm glad you like V5 so far.

You can post further V5 questions over in the V5 development topic.

FWIW, V5 has been on pause for a few years while I work on other things, but now there is only one year left to get it done before 2024, so I really do need to "turn in on" again. Any questions/feedback that motivate me to get a wriggle on will be welcome. If you have other kinds of help in mind, please let me know; you can PM me here or email me directly. At this stage I could probably use all the help I can get

The annotated version needs some revision, but my first priority is getting (non-annotated versions of) books 2 and 3 into alpha or beta state for wider proof reading. Further work/refinement of the combat section has surfaced recently in the Ref's V5Quickstarter if you want to check that out too.