Thanks for taking the time to post a new comment or a reply to one! First scan these quick notes, if you please:
General
* Currently, previewing a post is optional; you're welcome to preview or post immediately.
* You should see plain text input by default; click "enable rich text" for fancy formatting tools. (Some people love that and some don't. Be aware that formatting tool performance may vary by browser.)
* With apologies to all, I have to use a simple "captcha" question for unregistered posters. Otherwise, the spam flow will dwarf the Nile.
Registration and login
* Registration is available! Sign up here. Chief benefits at present include the ability to edit your own comments and manage subscriptions (newsletter, threads, etc.).
* If you'd prefer to post as an unregistered visitor, that's welcome too. Just leave "Your name" as the default "Esteemed Visitor", or type in some other name. (But if you happen to type in a name used by a registered user – say, "tbone" – you'll get an error telling you so when you hit "post comment". And while your post text should still be there, waiting for a revised user name, there's a chance it could disappear.)
* If you're a registered user but haven't logged in and want to post a quick comment as Esteemed Visitor, that's fine; see above.
* If you're a registered user but haven't logged in, and enter your user name under "Your name" when posting, you'll get an error saying that's the name of a registered user. That's a good thing; it means strangers can't make posts under your user name! But as above, there's a chance of losing your post text. It's best to log in first here, and then start your posting.
Final
All the above is standard stuff for community web sites, but reminders are good; I hate post-related glitches, and hate to see people run into them on this site. On this or any site, it's a good practice to do a quick "Select All" and "Copy" on your post text before hitting "Preview comment" or "Post comment" – just in case.
For more on the whole topic of interaction with the site, please see User Interaction (opens in new window).
Re: AD&D 2nd Edition Attack Speed
Tue, 2006-11-21 14:48 — tboneYep, 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.