Better believe this was a LOT of work....

Complete vs normal surprise was an OD&D mechanic was it not? I don't know, I haven't read those books. Anyway, your way makes perfect sense. I don't disagree or think it's a flawed method at all. In fact, I think it's very good. However, I will just say I don't really have a problem with a 7th level fighter turning into a wheeling whirlwind of death among a bunch of extremely surprised (I imagine the lot of them being caught with their pants down, more-or-less literally) opponents, even if it meant they were all cut down before combat even begun. That to me is just nowhere near as problematic nor as large a stretch of believably as a non-proficient, 1st-level character firing off arrows at a rate of one-per-second, not to mention 30 of them in a row! FWIW, it does actually specify the word, "blows" (which in my mind, do not include arrow shots) when describing the entire-round-in-one-segment mechanic on p62. That also hinted to me that maybe the interpretation that I gave above actually was what Gygax intended as opposed to me just desperately wanting the btb rules to make sense. "Melee" is also generally used to describe hand-to-hand combat, not ranged weapon fire. ... then of course we have the further confusing of the PHB stating fairly specifically that you get only 1 attack per segment of surprise. So I dunno. It's a pity those books weren't edited a bit more carefully. lol.

It was your blog that was the starting point for sure. The character sheet I just looked at afterwards. I stupidly thought I'd whip it up in a few weeks however. That was a big mistake! :D Not a backwater, it's great. Let's be honest though, everything 1E is a little bit of a "backwater" these days. Although there seems to be a retro resurgence, so fingers crossed. Definitely building it with stuff like customizable weapons in-mind. The code probably doesn't mean a whole heap, but if the peak attached shows anything, it's that adding another "row" to that heap is not a huge deal. But you're right, I've bitten off a huge chunk (working for free! ... sorry ... for the love of the game. ;) ) I just want to get this finished and released and then I'll think about house rules etc. But defo on the cards, especially if it's used by the community.

What you've done already is great! Suggestions as to what exactly makes a character sheet the most useful and convenient I guess is helpful. But of course I already downloaded yours and studied it, so I dunno...

@Steve Powers Thanks man, really appreciate that support!!

Thanks man, that means a lot, especially coming from the OG. Your blog and by-the-book role-playing philosophy really did inspire me, and I went a bit crazy with this. Gary Gygax certainly did not think like a computer programmer, his rules are very "unstructured". But I like them. Certainly way better than the more modern incarnations. It isn't finished yet, hopefully you will share it with your players again then. :) It's a waaaaay bigger job than I had thought. I thought I'd "whip it up over a few weekends for my players". That was a year and 20,000 lines of code ago.