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The Combat Computer from Dragon Magazine issue 74 was an essential tool when playing AD&D1e by the book (as opposed to playing it the way we did as teens, which was basically 1981 B/X D&D with all the cool options taken from the AD&D1e rules and ditching stuff like weapon speeds, weapon vs AC tables, segments and all that jazz*).
I keep telling people that 1e isn’t really “my game”, but because of my old school cred, people keep inviting me to 1e games. But I don’t have a copy of the Combat Computer anymore, and the one in the Dragon Magazine CDRom archive is blurry and I swear it is slightly off scale, making it difficult to assemble properly.
So I went out looking for a better electronic version of it. With no luck.
Has anyone in the OSR put together a nice clean PDF of this device so we can print them at home and get back to hitting orcs?
* If you want to play AD&D1e the way we played it back then, Labyrinth Lord’s Advanced Edition Companion pretty much sums up how it worked to a T.
Blogger JedMc created combat wheels for S&W and LL. Perhaps he might be able to provide a template that can be used to recreate the 1e wheel. Here’s his post:
http://www.jedmc.com/ixdd/2010/5/22/swords-wizardry-wheel-chart.html
I have this. Check your contact stuff.
d’oh.
Yeah the scan from the dragon pdf set is blurry as all hell.
I found my original one about a week ago. when I re locate it I’ll just scan it high res and throw it up somewhere.
I never understood the exact details of that weapon-versus-armor-class table. If a goblin has armor class 6, for example, I used to imagine that he would have armor class 6 regardless of whether he were naked or nicely armored as shown in the Monster Manual. Thus I assumed that such rules didn’t apply to monsters, and thus I rationalized ignoring that whole table as much as possible.
You generally don’t use it when fighting monsters, but the majority of bad guys in many mid and low level games I play in are humans and demihumans. Who wear armour.
That’s correct: A monster that wasn’t wearing armour had a base AC of 10.
The weapon v. armor modifiers only considered armour worn and the presence of a shield. Checking the table, I am reminded just how good plate was against so many weapons, (e.g. that ogre with a club needs a 16 to hit someone in nonmagical plate, 18 if he also has a shield).
It is also worth noting that the 1ed rules did not have a natural 20 as an auto hit. If the penalties resulted in you needing to roll an original 21 or higher, you simply could not get a hit at all.
We used to say that a natural 20 gave double damage to the victim. You still had to roll damage though.
That can cause problems, because if PCs can get crits, then so can monsters. That means a goblin with a shortsword could potentially one-hit a 12 HP fighter. Of course, if that’s the sort of game you’re running, then go for it. My players just tend to get a little upset when the characters they’ve spent so much time with take 15 damage from an orc. Too anticlimactic for my game.
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I’m gonna give it a try, if no one else wants to. Might take a few days
That would be awesome. We await your results!
Here’s a link [combat computer] to someone who did it in CC2 format (he does have it in a PNG on that page). I do not have CC2 or 3.
Be forewarned the numbers are INCORRECT in his version. They have to be rotated by more than 90 degrees to have them line up properly. But its a better starting point than the Dragon PDF where the resolution is frankly crap. I’d post my correction but to be honest its still off by a couple of degrees, so I’m waiting for some other generous soul with some graphics experience to come up with a better one.
I was just using the original one for the longest time, but its showing its age at this point, and could use a new one. Can’t really even scan it in at this point because of overall degradation (read soda spilled on it).
Cheers,
Al
Here’s the crappy one from the PDF.
http://mypantsarehaunted.blogspot.com/2011/08/1st-ed-combat-wheel.html
I’ll have a high res/legible one up when I locate my original.
Any progress here? I’d certainly be grateful to be able to make a usable copy of the wheel. Oh, if I’d known about it back in the day!
indiana jones.jpg
“I had it in my hands, Marcus!”
Sorry about the delay – I held it in my hands not three weeks ago – I think I did something clever with it like got distracted and stuck it in one of the books I’d unpacked, which are now stacked in piles all over the rec room.
I’ve got another shelf to clap together, it should turn up when I start filling it. (then I’ll scan, post, etc)
Anything happening here?
Anyone ever get a high-res version uploaded or find one anywhere? Been looking for awhile and still no luck at all.
finally got it.
http://mypantsarehaunted.blogspot.com/2012/02/i-may-be-slow-but-i-get-there-in-end.html
Anyone have a copy of the download of the hi-res version?
I don’t have the 600 dpi version (I understand dyson does) but the version I have is here;
http://mageofthestripedtower.blogspot.com/2012/02/ad-1ed-combat-computer.html