Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Old D&D House Rule - Using DEX for offense, levels for defense

I promised the other day I'd show the entire page of house rules my uncle had in his D&D binder - along with Rolemaster critical hit charts, Moldvay Basic, Moldvay Expert, and materials from Holmes D&D (which I remember him using at the table.)

This is something I've never seen elsewhere, and to date I haven't seen anything quite like this elsewhere.

Here is the whole sheet:



Here is the text, retyped (with extraneous spaces removed):

"DEXTERITY IN MELEE

During a round any combatant cane use some or ALL his/her dexterity bonuses for attack or defense. For example: A fighter with a dexterity of 17 can use his 3+ bonus in any combination between Attack and Defense (no fractions). Thus the above fighter can elect to add up to 3+ on his to hit roll for that melee round. Any dexterity used for attack cannot be then used for defense in the same round. ALL decisions of use of dexterity must be stated BEFORE the initiative roll.

Also a combatant may also elect to use some or ALL of his/her experience levels on defense. This subtracts the amount of levels used from an opponents to hit roll. The combatant must then strike at a level he has left. i.e. A 6th level fighter elects to use 3 levels for defense. Any striking at him must subtract 3 levels from their to hit roll. The fighter would then only strike as a 3rd level, however.
"

I think this is very Rolemaster, actually. In Rolemaster, your attacking ability with a weapon - which used bonuses from STR (Strength) or AGL (Agility) (or optionally both in a weighted average) to split between defense and attack.* The idea that you could split your D&D level is very similar to that.

The Dexterity option is an interesting tradeoff. Instead of being DEX 17 with Chainmail and Shield for AC 1, you could be AC 4 and get a +3 to hit. Or AC 3 and +2, or AC 2 and +1. Against a big bad foe with low AC and a lot of allies around you, you're really not taking too much of an extra chance. Oddly, though, if you choose to use a Missile weapon, you get only a +1 to +3, not a +1 to +4, but you do always get your bonus to AC. Stacking both seems excessive, but I'm not sure it's totally broken. It just means briefer fights as both sides in a missile exchange hit more often. It's very useful coupled with the spell Protection from Normal Missiles.

I can see a few ways to abuse this with, say, AD&D. If your DM uses the attack tables unchanged, and doesn't reward fighters with better to hit rolls every level, you may as well use one level towards defense every time you are even-number-leveled. Magic users with their improve "to hit" every 5 levels means a 5th level magic-user should always be -4 to hit, even in melee. Actually, there is never any reason for a non-melee combatant to use any levels for offense. I'd probably rule that you need to be actively engaging in melee for this to matter, and that you cannot claim this as do any non-melee non-missile attack (in other words, not while casting or turning or using a wand.) It might work better allowing you to trade away ranks on the to hit table. Or with THAC0 rules only allow tradeoffs that raise your THAC0. No tradeoff-free defensive bonuses.


As I've mentioned before, this is material my uncle had in his possession in late 1981 / early 1982 when I started gaming with him. A cousin of mine ended up with it, and I inherited it from him along with some of his other gaming materials when he moved out of state permanently (such as Battledroids.)

The sheet is clearly a photocopy of either another photocopy, or of a typed sheet. My uncle certainly didn't come up with this himself.

I don't recall ever using the top two rules. We did have the critical hits come up at least once playing B1 In Search of the Unknown.



* Not that anyone ever used any levels for defense, and then remarked, loudly and often, about how lethal Rolemaster was. Yeah, GURPS is pretty lethal if you only All-Out Attack. But coming from AD&D, where defense was purely a passive effect of armor and DEX, it was an odd thing to think about, using half of your offense for defense.

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