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I know I'm WAAAY behind the times here, but my boys came across my AD&D source books and were begging me to try it. Through the magic of the videogame world, they've played Dark Alliance so they know what it's all about. Trouble is, having re-read the books I figured that the old rules were dated and restrictive. So I managed to get PDFs of the v3.5 source books and managed to convert most of The Ghost Tower of Inverness (my old fave) over to use the new rules. We played for a while last weekend, but I got hung up on a couple of things.

1. Time. Old-scholl AD&D used segments and rounds, which although I found them very clunky, I got used to them. I couldn't find a hell of a lot of explicit information on how time works in 3.5, other than a combat round is 6 seconds. Does that apply across the board (i.e., is that how standard movement is determined too...an average unencumbered human walks 30' in six seconds)?

2. DC. Is it me, or does this function leave a hell of a lot to the DMs discretion (who may not want it and long for the days of a good, old-fashioned table). Maybe it's that the old AD&D modules didn't use DCs and CRs. Is it typical for new modules to give the DM a bit more guidance on suggest DCs for various tasks?

Thanks for any input you've got. If only GG were still around to clarify things...

One round is six seconds in any situation, not only in combat.
DCs are provided every time in an adventure or in a creature's statitics. Many times, the DC is an opposed check, for example the DC to Listen to something, is the score the opponent came up wih when he/she rolled Move Silently
There is a note concerning DCs which is named the golden rule: in a favorable situation, detract 2 from the DC, and in harsh conditions, add 2: for example if someone is trying to balance but a wind suddenly blows, the DC is the given one for the specific type of surface (the Dm's guide provides it), plus 2.

If you want a quick and easy reference, try downloading (or even better buying) the supplement Rules Compendium. Everything you will need to look up is there.

And of course we are also here to answer questions...DM's united against the pesky PC's!

While a round is 6 seconds it can be more than 30ft of movement. You have a standard action, a move action, a swift action, and free actions

You can run 3-5 times your speed depending on armour, terrain, and feats, but you cannot turn during that movement.

A standard action can be converted to a move so you can double move 60ft.

If there are no obstacles you can charge an opponent, which is a double move +attack, usually with +2 on that attack and -2ac for the round.

You can do the standard move+attack or Attack+move.

If you have multiple attacks you can forego your move action to make all your attacks, your still allowed a 5ft step before or after.

Some other actions can be made during a move action (drawing a weapon while moving).

Swift actions take negligible time so can be done with your other actions, but only one is permisible per round, including the time leading up to your round if you've used an immidiate action (a swift action that can be used out of turn eg Featherfall).

There is no limit on free actions except common sense as far as I remember.

Spells with durations are mostly split into instantanious, rounds, minutes, 10's of minutes, hours, lasts 24 hours, or permanant.

And a farmers decided to 'mow' my lawn with cows , so I'll have to leave it at that.

Thanks for the clarification guys. I think I'll use the six-second round, but dummy the rest down a bit. My boys are only 6 and 10. Yeah, that's my excuse...

I think there is a starter boxed set, perhaps you could try that!

Hahahah... I thought you meant your boys as in your gaming group... Silly me...