Just finished re-reading "Three Hearts and Three Lions" and something caught my attention at the outset of the battle with the troll, when it surprises the party:
"Alianora screamed. Even then Holger thought he had never before heard real fear in her voice. "God have mercy," Carahue choked. Hugi crouched and snarled. Holger dropped his sword, stooped to get it, dropped it again as sweat spurted out of him."
I always wondered where Holmes got his rule about a 1 in 6 chance of dropping what you're holding, if surprised...could this have been an influence?
Love that novel.. and it gave us the D&D/AD&D troll, the paladin class, and the swanmay : ) Not sure if that specific passage may have influenced Holmes' rule - he seems to have been much more steeped in the ERB lore - but it's possible!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of that rule.. might be worth checking the Warlock rules and see if its in there; many of Holmes' house rules seem to have been common with the Aero Hobbies gaming scene, out of which Warlock arose.
I should probably use surprise more often.
ReplyDeleteOff-topic, but I hadn't realized Darrell Sweet did a cover for this book. Was he the defining artist of 80s SF/F paperbacks?
ReplyDeletehttp://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2011/12/darrell-k-sweet-1934-2011.html?m=1
Fwiw, the dropping consequence of surprise was in OD&D.
ReplyDeleteStill a great book though. We should mention Poul Anderson the author. Also The Broken Sword which is not as fun, but still great. I never liked the rule of being so surprised you would drop your sword, no pulp hero has ever done that. I have a house rule where you drop your weapon on a role of one
ReplyDeleteGuy Fullerton is right. I would imagine this might be the source Gygax was inspired by, especially with all of the other rules that came directly from Appendix N.
ReplyDeleteZach H Yes, I love his work! This was the illustration on the cover of the paperback I first read, back in the 90s.
ReplyDeleteR.J. Thompson Aha - you're probably right...
The 1975 Warlock doesn't really cover surprise, I guess because it is often handled under "encounters" rather than "combat". There is a Fumble table that includes a chance of dropping a weapon.
ReplyDeleteSo Vol 3 of OD&D had a 25% chance of dropping a held item, Holmes changed this to a 1 in 6 chance, possibly so the same dice as used for surprise could be used.
ReplyDeleteYes Zach Warlock was mostly an alternate combat and magic system. You would still need OD &D to play it. Does anyone do individual surprise or is it always rolled for the group?
ReplyDeleteChris Holmes: you can do it either way under AD&D, but it's still generally group surprise rolled, with some PCs (with high Dex scores) being less surprised than the rest of the group.
ReplyDeleteThere's an excellent article on surprise by Leigh L. Krehmeyer in Dragon #133 that provides some good thoughts on managing surprirse, as well as calculating complex surprise odds.
Thanks, I would think hobbits and thieves would be less likely to be surprised.
ReplyDeleteMonks in Blackmoor are only surprised on 1 in 6. Plus this section gives a crypto-rule (not mentioned elsewhere) that hobbits, thieves, undead and bugbears are twice as likely to surprise someone. One could certainly extend the monk rule to these others.
ReplyDeleteSounds good to me.
ReplyDeleteZach H, regarding D. Sweet...yes, yes he was! :) (Sorry, bias here..he's my fave artist of the period and genre.)
ReplyDelete