From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd


Help!

I'm a sixth-level fighter/magic-user wielding a bill-guisarme. I have
a STR of 16 and am clad in banded mail without a shield. I'm second in
line in a party of six that is creeping through a narrow (6' wide, 5'
tall) dungeon corridor. The lantern has just blown out and we've been
suddenly attacked from the rear by a pack of ghouls. I've been
attacked once (fortunately I made my saving throw) and now it's my
opportunity to strike. What do I need on a d20 to make a successful
to-hit roll? ;-)

Please answer promptly; the DM is waiting! ;-P















(I left out (at least) one piece of absolutely vital bit of
information just to make things more 'fun' ;-)

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Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

I'm a sixth-level fighter/magic-user wielding a bill-guisarme. I have
a STR of 16 and am clad in banded mail without a shield. I'm second in
line in a party of six that is creeping through a narrow (6' wide, 5'
tall) dungeon corridor. The lantern has just blown out and we've been suddenly attacked from the rear by a pack of ghouls. I've been
attacked once (fortunately I made my saving throw) and now it's my opportunity to strike. What do I need on a d20 to make a successful
to-hit roll? ;-)

All that info! Now, are we playing 1e or 2e? Is this event relevant?
Let's assume 1e.

From the description I would say the character is half-elven and thus
has infravision. Assuming the lantern has been out for more than a
couple of segments (my understanding of the wording above), the
character can see the ghouls, so I'd say you need to roll 10+?

I must admit I've never been good at tracking down modifiers in 1e. :-)
--
Arnaud
https://the-dm.oook.fr/
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From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

On Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:53:19 +0100, Arnaud Gomes <arnaud+rgfd@carrosse.frmug.org> said this thing:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

I'm a sixth-level fighter/magic-user wielding a bill-guisarme. I have
a STR of 16 and am clad in banded mail without a shield. I'm second in
line in a party of six that is creeping through a narrow (6' wide, 5'
tall) dungeon corridor. The lantern has just blown out and we've been
suddenly attacked from the rear by a pack of ghouls. I've been
attacked once (fortunately I made my saving throw) and now it's my
opportunity to strike. What do I need on a d20 to make a successful
to-hit roll? ;-)

All that info! Now, are we playing 1e or 2e? Is this event relevant?
Let's assume 1e.

Heh. That's the Very Important Information I left out. OE, 1E, 2E,
BECMI... the rules are similar enough that the question works in all
the systems, but the answer might be slightly different depending on
the edition.

But mostly I was assuming 1E, just because its the most complicated
;-)

From the description I would say the character is half-elven and thus
has infravision. Assuming the lantern has been out for more than a
couple of segments (my understanding of the wording above), the
character can see the ghouls, so I'd say you need to roll 10+?

I have to admit, I totally forgot about the race-limitation to
multi-classing. In the campaigns I led, demihumans tended to be fairly
rare, and I discouraged multi-classing, so it usually didn't come up
that much. But I guess you're right; having said this character was a
F/MU, they'd have to be an elf or half-elf. This, as you noted,
negates the issue of the blown-out lantern (and the problem --and
to-hit roll penalties-- of fighting in the darkness).

You did miss the issues of using a pole-arm in a narrow, low corridor
(also, being attacked from the rear when you're second in line), and
the potential penalties that might cause.

There might also be argument that the character was attacked in
surprise, and how that might affect the roll.

1E also had optional weapon-vs-armor bonuses/penalties for a lot of
its weapons. Because why make anything simple when you can add yet
another level of complexity on top of an already existing morass of
rules, right Gary? ;-)

I must admit I've never been good at tracking down modifiers in 1e. :-)

In fairness, neither am I. To be quite honest, I have NO idea what the
actual answer to my question is. I was just poking fun at some of the complexities of the system (which, let me be clear, I love... partly
BECAUSE of that complexity), and maybe to provide an opening for
discussion in (a couple) of otherwise quiet newsgroups.


But I'll happily accept your answer as canon... especially since I
just rolled an '11'. Die, evil ghoul, die!!!! ;-)


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On 23/03/2026 16.29, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

You did miss the issues of using a pole-arm in a narrow, low corridor
(also, being attacked from the rear when you're second in line), and
the potential penalties that might cause.

One problem you would have is that you can't rotate the 8 foot long
weapon in the tunnel you were in, even the diagonal is less than the
length of the weapon.

unless you just turn yourself around, use the end of the staff to push
ghouls away, there isn't much more you can do without using up a spell
or two...

Just take it as you have 4 former friends who takes the hit and you do
your best to run away ;)

But I guess you shouldn't tell that to your DM, he may make things a lot harder for you next time :P
--
//Aho
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From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

I have to admit, I totally forgot about the race-limitation to multi-classing. In the campaigns I led, demihumans tended to be fairly
rare, and I discouraged multi-classing, so it usually didn't come up
that much. But I guess you're right; having said this character was a
F/MU, they'd have to be an elf or half-elf. This, as you noted,

Actually an half-elf; elves are immune to ghoul paralysis, so the
character wouldn't have needed a saving throw. ;-)

You did miss the issues of using a pole-arm in a narrow, low corridor
(also, being attacked from the rear when you're second in line), and
the potential penalties that might cause.

There might also be argument that the character was attacked in
surprise, and how that might affect the roll.

As I wrote, never been good, yadda yadda.

1E also had optional weapon-vs-armor bonuses/penalties for a lot of
its weapons. Because why make anything simple when you can add yet
another level of complexity on top of an already existing morass of
rules, right Gary? ;-)

This one I thought about, the bill-guisarme doesn't have a modifier vs
AC 6. ;-) Actually, it only has a couple of +1 or -1 quite far in the
low ACs, I forgot exactly where. Because, of course, only the common
weapons need complicated modifiers that always come up to trip you up,
don't they?

In fairness, neither am I. To be quite honest, I have NO idea what the
actual answer to my question is. I was just poking fun at some of the complexities of the system (which, let me be clear, I love... partly
BECAUSE of that complexity), and maybe to provide an opening for
discussion in (a couple) of otherwise quiet newsgroups.

TBH I was expecting a bunch of +1s and -2s and couldn't find them with a cursory look at my AD&D1 PDFs. I'm quite sure they exist, probably
buried somewhere in the equipment list or whatever; I grew up with 2e, I
have a hard time finding my way around the 1e books.

But I'll happily accept your answer as canon... especially since I
just rolled an '11'. Die, evil ghoul, die!!!! ;-)

Congratulations! :-)
--
Arnaud
https://the-dm.oook.fr/
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From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

Arnaud Gomes <arnaud+rgfd@carrosse.frmug.org> writes:

This one I thought about, the bill-guisarme doesn't have a modifier vs
AC 6. ;-) Actually, it only has a couple of +1 or -1 quite far in the
low ACs, I forgot exactly where. Because, of course, only the common
weapons need complicated modifiers that always come up to trip you up,
don't they?

Come to think of it, I never noticed before but the only weapon in the
PHB with no modifier vs any AC is the partisan, with the bill-guisarme,
glaive and glaive-guisarme close behind, whereas the modifiers for the
swords, axes and club are all over the place. Does it not strike you as
weird that a "standard fighter" is a "standard fighter weilding a
partisan" rather than a long sword or something more common?
--
Arnaud
https://the-dm.oook.fr/
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From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

On 3/23/2026 8:29 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:53:19 +0100, Arnaud Gomes <arnaud+rgfd@carrosse.frmug.org> said this thing:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

I'm a sixth-level fighter/magic-user wielding a bill-guisarme. I have
a STR of 16 and am clad in banded mail without a shield. I'm second in
line in a party of six that is creeping through a narrow (6' wide, 5'
tall) dungeon corridor. The lantern has just blown out and we've been
suddenly attacked from the rear by a pack of ghouls. I've been
attacked once (fortunately I made my saving throw) and now it's my
opportunity to strike. What do I need on a d20 to make a successful
to-hit roll? ;-)

All that info! Now, are we playing 1e or 2e? Is this event relevant?
Let's assume 1e.

O.K.
16 str doesn't grant a bonus to hit, I'm not considering maybes like specialization since it wasn't mentioned. All that matters is your
fighter level and the AC of a ghoul which is 6. Unfortunately I don't
have my handy dandy wheel, or DM screen handy, so I'll have to crack
open the DMG and find that a 6th level fighter hits AC 6 on a 10.

From the description I would say the character is half-elven and thus
has infravision. Assuming the lantern has been out for more than a
couple of segments (my understanding of the wording above), the
character can see the ghouls, so I'd say you need to roll 10+?

You did miss the issues of using a pole-arm in a narrow, low corridor
(also, being attacked from the rear when you're second in line), and
the potential penalties that might cause.

Bill-Guisarme has a 2' space required, I'm assuming you can chop down or
stab with it, that's not a problem.

I did note being attacked from the rear while second in line. Again
we're assuming you're *not* an unreliable narrator and the ghoul is
somewhere it can attack you, and if it can attack you, you're in melee
with it and can attack it back.

Or maybe your DM is running extremely fast and loose and in that case
you better just ask him. Or really you shouldn't be asking him, just
telling him what AC you hit, and the DM will tell you if you hit or miss.

There might also be argument that the character was attacked in
surprise, and how that might affect the roll.

? You said it was his opportunity to strike, unless you're an unreliable narrator or your DM is fast and loose or a noob, I don't see how
surprise is relevant.

1E also had optional weapon-vs-armor bonuses/penalties for a lot of
its weapons. Because why make anything simple when you can add yet
another level of complexity on top of an already existing morass of
rules, right Gary? ;-)

Weapon-vs-armor only applies to armor, monsters don't count by default.
The DM 'can' decide on an armor equivilent, and you're asking me, so I'm
not using them since they don't count for monsters. If it were against
an armored humanoid I'd use them. No modifiers.

I must admit I've never been good at tracking down modifiers in 1e. :-)

1e the rules are merely suggestions. I probably use a lot more
modifiers than most when running 1e. I've certainly never played with
another DM who used weapon vs. armor. I throw out most of the DMG's
version of initiative though.
--
-Justisaur

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From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

On Mon, 23 Mar 2026 21:45:19 +0100, Arnaud Gomes <arnaud+rgfd@carrosse.frmug.org> said this thing:

Come to think of it, I never noticed before but the only weapon in the
PHB with no modifier vs any AC is the partisan, with the bill-guisarme, >glaive and glaive-guisarme close behind, whereas the modifiers for the >swords, axes and club are all over the place. Does it not strike you as
weird that a "standard fighter" is a "standard fighter weilding a
partisan" rather than a long sword or something more common?

I'm not going to pretend to be the expert on medieval weaponry... but
I do know that pole-arms were the more commonly used weapon if you
went by numbers. It was, after all, what the peasantry had available,
and it required much less training to use. So in some ways, it very
well /might/ be the 'standard' weapon of the era and possibly the
game... especially considering most PCs start as low-level nobodies,
and not as fully-trained knight-warriors.

But really, I picked the bill-guisarme only because it was the first
pole-arm I saw in the 1E PHB equipment list, which was all the
research I did for my original post.* I couldn't tell you the
difference between a bill-guisarme, a glaive-guisarme, a fauchard, a
bardiche or any of the other similar pole-arms if my life depended on
it. I certainly couldn't tell you what the 1E stats and modifiers for
the weapons were.

I just wanted something unwieldy and weird-sounding.




----

* as has been pointed out in other posts, where I forgot --amongst
other things-- that only elves and half-elves could be F/MUs, that
elves are immune to ghoul paralyzation, and that they have infravision
so the lack of a torch wouldn't affect them. Not a lot of thought went
into that original post; can you tell? ;-)


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On 3/24/2026 8:53 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

On Mon, 23 Mar 2026 21:45:19 +0100, Arnaud Gomes <arnaud+rgfd@carrosse.frmug.org> said this thing:

Come to think of it, I never noticed before but the only weapon in the
PHB with no modifier vs any AC is the partisan, with the bill-guisarme,
glaive and glaive-guisarme close behind, whereas the modifiers for the
swords, axes and club are all over the place. Does it not strike you as
weird that a "standard fighter" is a "standard fighter weilding a
partisan" rather than a long sword or something more common?

I'm not going to pretend to be the expert on medieval weaponry... but
I do know that pole-arms were the more commonly used weapon if you
went by numbers. It was, after all, what the peasantry had available,
and it required much less training to use. So in some ways, it very
well /might/ be the 'standard' weapon of the era and possibly the
game... especially considering most PCs start as low-level nobodies,
and not as fully-trained knight-warriors.

But really, I picked the bill-guisarme only because it was the first
pole-arm I saw in the 1E PHB equipment list, which was all the
research I did for my original post.* I couldn't tell you the
difference between a bill-guisarme, a glaive-guisarme, a fauchard, a
bardiche or any of the other similar pole-arms if my life depended on
it. I certainly couldn't tell you what the 1E stats and modifiers for
the weapons were.

I used to know this stuff, I think bill refers to the hook as it looks
like a bird bill. Guisarme is I think the axe-knife part. Or was that
the glaive part?

Looking it up, Bill is the hook, however so is Guisarme only a bigger
one and there doesn't seem to actually be a thing that's a
Bill-Guisarme. In fact I just remembered the drawings in the Unearthed arcana, and there's no Bill-Guisarme there either. So even TSR didn't
know what it was.

The Bill there is more like a curved sword on the end though there, and
the bill-hook the bill is the off center spike, and the hook the hook
instead of the guisarme. I'm just getting more confused, I think I'll
stop now. Ah wait! There's the bill-guisarme, though it's only
described there, and matches the imaged of the guisarme pictured on
searches, which indeed looks the most unwieldy.

"has the following features: 1) a sharp spear or awl point; 2) a large
hook formed from the body of the weapon; 3) a back spike for armor
penetration; and 4) several sharpened edges. Some forms of the
billguisarme have a sufficiently heavy blade and cutting edges placed so
that they are actually voulge-like. This form of pole arm persisted the
longest of all save the pike and the halberd, for it was certainly
efficient in all functions - piercing, holding off, cutting,
penetrating, dismounting, and cleaving. The scorpion is one typical form
of the bill-guisarme."

It looks like someone took a swiss army knife and made it into one spiky-hooked, knife-axe. And according to the above writer it was
actually one of the best polearms as it persisted the longest besides
halberd (which really is similar only missing the hook, and the axe is
more axe-like) and pike.

I just wanted something unwieldy and weird-sounding.

You got one looking unweildy and weird sounding. About the only one
that looks and sounds worse is the fauchard-fork.

* as has been pointed out in other posts, where I forgot --amongst
other things-- that only elves and half-elves could be F/MUs, that
elves are immune to ghoul paralyzation, and that they have infravision
so the lack of a torch wouldn't affect them. Not a lot of thought went
into that original post; can you tell? ;-)

I think elves can't use polearms though as they're too long for their
height, while half-elves may be able to depending on height. I can't
find the bit on height and typical height affecting what weapons are
usable, because it's probably tucked in some obscure corner of course.
I'm not sure half-elves are immune to ghouls either.
--
-Justisaur

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From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

On Tue, 24 Mar 2026 08:49:19 -0700, Justisaur <justisaur@yahoo.com>
said this thing:

I've certainly never played with
another DM who used weapon vs. armor.

I don't think anyone did... or at least, not very long. It was just
such a cumbersome and unrewarding mechanism. That said, in the very
early years I played with a DM who /tried/ using those rules. But for
all the added 'realism' they might have brought to the game, they
quickly discarded them because it just slowed things down too much.
Especially considering you already had to reference different to-hit
tables for each class.

If the weapon vs armor rules weren't the most gygaxian part of the
game, then they definitely were a prime contender. (Feel free to
suggest any others though. ;-)


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Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

If the weapon vs armor rules weren't the most gygaxian part of the
game, then they definitely were a prime contender. (Feel free to
suggest any others though. ;-)

ISTR Gygax said he never used these rules himself?

For me, the most "baroque gygaxian" part is probably the full initiative
rules (yes, including the weapon speed factors). Incidentally this part
is among the main changes between 1e and 2e, at least in the main rules
(I'm not talking about whole "secondary" subsystems like hand to hand
combat or psionics); this may not be completely due to random
chance. ;-)
--
Arnaud
https://the-dm.oook.fr/
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From Newsgroup: rec.games.frp.dnd

On Fri, 27 Mar 2026 19:32:13 +0100, Arnaud Gomes <arnaud+rgfd@carrosse.frmug.org> said this thing:

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

If the weapon vs armor rules weren't the most gygaxian part of the
game, then they definitely were a prime contender. (Feel free to
suggest any others though. ;-)

ISTR Gygax said he never used these rules himself?

For me, the most "baroque gygaxian" part is probably the full initiative >rules (yes, including the weapon speed factors). Incidentally this part
is among the main changes between 1e and 2e, at least in the main rules
(I'm not talking about whole "secondary" subsystems like hand to hand
combat or psionics); this may not be completely due to random
chance. ;-)

I can't remember the full details of the 1e initiative, but we used
speed factors when playing 2nd Ed all the time. But this was mostly
because we dropped the combat round to 10 seconds (and used individual initiative for each character and monster), and this added more
variety to the combat rounds. It only got really annoying when there
were dozens of monsters, and then I (with permission of the other
players) tended to fudge it by letting groups of monsters all have the
same initiative... and even then usually only with the monsters who
weren't in direct melee combat with the PCs. Otherwise, I liked the
system.

To this day, I've never entirely grokked the 1e/2e psionic rules
though.


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Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> writes:

I can't remember the full details of the 1e initiative, but we used
speed factors when playing 2nd Ed all the time.

We did use individual initiative with weapon speed factors in 2e as
well, but the way it works is totally different in 1e.

In 1e, initiative is side-based, not character-based, basically the same
as the default (side-based) rules in 2e except it is rolled with 1d6
instead of 1d10 and the die rolls are reversed (your roll is the segment
when your opponent acts in 1e, the segment when you act in 2e [1][2]).

So whereas in 2e weapon speed is just a modifier to the (optional)
individual initiative, in 1e it is a tie-breaker in duels when the sides
act simultaneously. And in this case (and in this case only, go figure),
if a weapon is much faster than another (10+ difference, say a dagger vs
a pike or something), the faster weapon may strike several times during
the exchange of blows. [3]

Weapon speed also supposedly interacts with initiative and spell casting
time to determine if an attacker can interrupt spell casting
"substracting the losing die roll on the initiative die roll from the
weapon factor and treating negative results as positive" followed with a confusing example I'm still not sure I understand correctly, so I will
not try to comment on this parT. :-)

To this day, I've never entirely grokked the 1e/2e psionic rules
though.

I've never even read the 2e psionics handbook. As for the 1e rules, I
read them a couple of times as a historical curiosity but never tried to
play them.



[1] Except 2e no longer uses the "segment" term, which is an improvement
in my book; keeping track of segments, which are purely abstract
units of initiative rather than concrete subdivisions of the round
*and which will overflow into the next round sooner or later if you
insist on them having a fixed duration* is both confusing and
unnecessary.

[2] I have not played AD&D in years, whether 1e or 2e, but were I to
play again today I would use side-base initiative the 2e way without
thinking twice, whether 1e-style 1d6-based or 2e-style 1d10-based;
the obvious advantage of 2e over 1e here is that it has built-in
support for encounters with more than two sides.

[3] Which, I suppose, may happen several times in a round if the
opponents are high-level fighters. I have no idea how all of these
moving parts interact when the opponents have different multi-attack
routines and I'm not sure I want to go down this rabbit hole.
--
Arnaud
https://the-dm.oook.fr/
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