[RPG] The Mysteries of AD&D 1e Initiative

adnd-1einitiative

Out of all the concepts I have learnt in AD&D 1e, I find initiative to be the most difficult to wrap my head around in a realistic way.

I understand thus far that combat is divided into rounds of one minute. Then, it is further divided into ten segments of six seconds. First, the two parties decide what they are going to do. Then two parties roll for initiative. Say party A rolls a 4, and party B rolls a 5, that means that party A will have their actions resolved on segment 5, while party B will have their actions resolved on segment on 4. I don't really understand what this means, however.

I certainly do not know how to deal with contradictions. Say for example, a fighter wants to attack an Orc leader, but he lost initiative, and a slew of subordinate orcs surround him. During the fighter's segment, he is now unable to reach the Orc leader, and I don't know what he does now in accordance with the rules.

Another example would have to deal with movement and segments themselves. I do not understand exactly what can be accomplished by a party in one round. It only makes sense to me that both parties would begin moving towards (or away) the other by the time segment one started, as it would be ridiculous if a dice roll decided that one party stayed standing in one spot for 30 seconds while the other party is beating them to death.

And if a combat round ends, I don't know why those still performing an action (such as preparing a spell) would have to roll initiative again to see when they can resume.

I know that I am misunderstanding these concepts, so if somebody could help me decipher this system of initiative it would be greatly appreciated.

Best Answer

Try to ignore segments. They're a concept that was mostly introduced to keep track of how long it takes to cast a spell (more on that below), and aren't helpful for the rest of combat.

Instead, concentrate in the actual initiative results. Treat the action of a round as mostly simultaneous, but with the winners of the initiative getting the advantage. So it's not really that the losing side stands still for 30s, it's that they both maneuver, but the side with the initiative simply maneuvered better and got the battle line they wanted.

So in general, just use initiative to decide what order to resolve actions in. You can layer on house rules on this to make it work more how you think it should, but it's not necessary. (One house rule you'll see sometimes is resolving all combatants' movement in initiative order first, and then resolving actions in initiative order, to make the feeling of everyone just standing around go away.)

As for spells, a spellcaster already in mid-spell from an earlier round doesn't act on the initiative number of their side. Segments are counted to find out when the spell finishes, and until it does they are occupied. This often won't matter, as many spells are fast enough to begin and finish before the enemy acts or the round ends, but when the initiative rolls are close, then it matters, and when the spell takes a lot of segments to cast, it matters more. The most important thing segments tell you is: does the magic-user get hit before the spell finishes, disrupting it? and, does the spell take up their next round as well? Segments exist almost entirely as a tool to determine the answer to those two questions.