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Re: AD&D 2nd Edition Attack Speed
Yep, I remember those AD&D 2e Speed Factors, and used them myself back in the day.
But they are outside of my main topic. I'm yammering about attack speeds in terms of how much time it actually takes to make an attack, and how many attacks fit into a given time period/turn/round. Speed Factor, IIRC, only affects initiative, and initiative doesn't interest me much. For typical RPG uses of initiative, however you determine it, it doesn't change how long each subsequent attack takes or, or how many you get in a round/turn. In AD&D 2E, the dagger with its Speed Factor of 2 is likely to attack each round before the pike with SF 13, true, but at the end of 10 rounds each will have had opportunity to attack 10 times. That's the attack speed I'm talking about, and Speed Factor doesn't make the dagger any faster than the pike in that regard (that I recall).
The Rate of Fire for ranged weapons that you mention does create a weapon-based difference in attack frequency. Thanks for the reminder. Though once again, I'm sure that multiple ranged attacks per turn fell under the abstract "all at once" model, rather than some more realistic model that allowed interleaving of your three dart throws with my three dart throws.
Re the Dragon article you mention: Do you remember whether it only adjusted melee weapon initiative for weapon type, or actual attack frequency as well? The latter would be the kind of speed adjustments I'm talking about, which seem to be very rare in RPG melee rules.