Alex Wrote:
Question #2: Wands of Detection and Swords of Detection
For legacy reasons relating to old versions of D&D, the range and duration of detection spells and detection items do not line up.
Specifically:
*Wand of detecting enemies lasts 1 round; “detect evil” spell lasts 6 turns
*Wand of detecting magic lasts 1 round and has 20’ range; "detect magic spell has 60’ range and lasts 2 turns
*Wand of detecting traps lasts 1 round and has 20’ range; “find traps” spell has 30’ range and lasts 3 turns
*Intelligent sword’s detection of good/evil lasts 1 round and has 20’ range; “detect evil” spell has 60’ range and lasts 6 turns
*Intelligent sword’s detection of traps lasts 1 round and has 10’ range; “find traps” spell has 30’ range and lasts 3 turns
Dan:
Yeah except no. Meaning that they are closer than they appear. When D&D was being writen in '72 - '73 the game was framed around CHAINMAIL combat and there was no such thing as a “round”. There were just game “turns” of about a minute each. In CHAINMAIL it is possible to have multiple “attacks” or “rounds” (throws of the dice) in each “Turn”. So at some point, fairly late in the development, Gygax formalized that as the 10 rounds (minutes) per turn.
Thing is the spells were already written in the old CM turn and never revised to the D&D round. Thing also is that both Gygax and Arneson paid very little attention to the Turns/round thing in those days and, (especially Dave)frequently said turn when they meant what we would call a round - old habits. Gygax even confused the thing more when he wrote Swords and Spells and changed the length of a round to 2 minutes.
Upshot is that if you turned (heh) turns to rounds for the cast spells it would actually be returning to original intent, and easier to harmonize with the magic items as you see fit.