Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;980525And if, instead of one first level hobbit thief, it had been Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, Glorfindel, Aragorn, and Boromir, it might have gone badly for Smaug.

Also, is it time for "Games are not books" again?

Quote from: estar;980500Since we arguing on the basis of RAW, there is no prohibition written that says that a BBEG can't engage the fighter, decide to break off, make up to a full movement, stopping when the BBEG enters melee range of the Wizard. In short RAW AD&D is no better or worse than 3e or 5e in this regard.

Here's the text I'm looking at:

Quote from: PHB 104Participants in a melee can opt to attack, parry, fall back, or flee.
Attack can be by weapon, bore hands, or grappling.
Parrying disallows any return attack that round, but the strength "to hit" bonus is then subtracted from the opponent's "to hit" dice roll(s), so the character is less likely to be hit.
Falling back is a retrograde move facing the opponent(s) and can be used in conjunction with a parry, and opponent creatures are able to follow if not otherwise engaged.
Fleeing meads as rapid a withdrawal from combat as possible; while it exposes the character to rear attack at the time, subsequent attacks can only be made if the opponent is able to follow the fleeing character at equal or greater speed.

TIL fleeing is called "Breaking Off" in the DMG. Thanks, Gary.

QuoteBBEG move to engage the Fighter
Fight a Round of Melee with the Fighter

So it seems to me that once we are here (this is assuming the fighter can move to intercept the BBEG directly rather than having to argue further on the details of diagonal movement in AD&D), the BBEG's only possible movements are the squares marked with an X, as nothing else would be "away" from the fighter.

| |X|X|X|
| | |B| |
| |-|F|-|

And if the fighter elects to pursue, progress closer to the wizard is precluded.

QuoteDespite our disagreement about breaking off of melee, my interpretation still means that it is going to be rough for the BBEG to attempt this. And not a "I win" plan. But may be the only logical course if getting the Wizard into melee range is that important.

Right. I mean whether you or I are the DM, the fact is this sort of layout gives serious protection to the wizard. My interpretation, he has to stay and get pounded by the fighter. Your interpretation, if he really wants to go for the wizard, he's going to take a blizzard of attacks that, with +3 or better magic weapons, could amount to ~12 HD of damage or more. Seems good to me. That'll outright kill a lot of monsters. So no matter who's interpretation we go with, this is a fairly smart layout for the players, one that the DM can approach in a variety of ways without feeling like an ass.

In 5e, if the BBEG gets a good initiative roll, he moves to the right, draws a single piddly little attack's worth of damage from the fighter, and turns the wizard into paste in a single round. Seriously, look through the manual. A CR N monster is nearly always capable of taking out an Nth-level wizard in one round. And since AoO's don't scale up for the fighter, I'm in a place where either I play moderately stupid, or I play in such a way that 99% of encounters are "the fighter stands in the door while others shoot through him." I've done the latter, and it's kind of boring.

People do play that way. I've played in a few Earthdawn games without "zones of control" and in those games "gank the mage" happened FAST (no Opportunity Attacks in the game either, thank the passions for reactive dodge rolls).

In my current games, as I'm experimenting moving back to the older style, I have simply said moving through a ZoC takes a Dexterity Check against the opponent's Physical Defense (a stat based on Dex), with failure ending movement. This follows the game's "Impaired Movement (Heavy)" rule. Simple. Bam, windlings (faerie PC race) with high Dex float right through your pike formation. Giant clumsy troll has to batter it down or go around it (suffering the same multiple hits the BBEG took in that scenario), possibly getting "stuck" to other intervening units.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;980528Also, is it time for "Games are not books" again?

This is a better response than the first. There is no suggestion in the books that any combination of champions would be able to withstand Smaug. He defeated armies.

Quote from: Voros;980611This is a better response than the first. There is no suggestion in the books that any combination of champions would be able to withstand Smaug. He defeated armies.

Talk about missing the damn point of the satire.

Quote from: Telarus;980603People do play that way. I've played in a few Earthdawn games without "zones of control" and in those games "gank the mage" happened FAST (no Opportunity Attacks in the game either, thank the passions for reactive dodge rolls).

In my current games, as I'm experimenting moving back to the older style, I have simply said moving through a ZoC takes a Dexterity Check against the opponent's Physical Defense (a stat based on Dex), with failure ending movement. This follows the game's "Impaired Movement (Heavy)" rule. Simple. Bam, windlings (faerie PC race) with high Dex float right through your pike formation. Giant clumsy troll has to batter it down or go around it (suffering the same multiple hits the BBEG took in that scenario), possibly getting "stuck" to other intervening units.

Were you the one who asked about allowing Extra Attack in AoO? One reason I think they decided not to allow it is players and monsters are still somewhat symmetrical, and CR-appropriate monsters do buckets of damage. While your 12th-level fighter might only do 1d8+7 per attack, a CR 12 Erinyes does 4d8+4. Allowing her all three attacks on an AoO makes it almost impossible for someone to retreat out of a situation that's gone upside-down.

I've adopted Theater of the Mind rules based loosely on 13th Age. Each side has Melee/Near/Distant ranks, assuming a sufficiently large area, and an enemy in the Melee rank blocks progress unless he's engaged with at least two opponents.

Quote from: estar;980613Talk about missing the damn point of the satire.

No sure if this is in reference to me or Gronan but I thought your post was funny. Not something I say about your posts too often!

Quote from: estar;980455Based on my experience playing later wargames I am going to assume that control in this case means "once entered, movement ceases, the combatant is not in melee". That how ZoC worked in Panzerblitz which is the first time I encountered the concept.

What it doesn't mean that in subsequent rounds the combatant CAN'T move out of the ZoC to somewhere else.

There are a lot of different kinds of ZoC from wargames; looking at Introduction to War Gaming, page 23, you seem to be describing a Rigid, Inactive, Permissive Zone of Control. Not that the effect on supply lines comes up at the usual role-playing level of skirmish combats.

Too many restrictions on movement through melee? Everyone ends up glued to the first spot they ended up next to an opponent. Too few restrictions on movement through melee? No point to even having guards or a marching order, since everyone just attacks whomever they like. A given person's ideal is somewhere in between, although likely closer to the former than the latter.