Conan The RPG: Impressions + Ideas & GM Support
- Thread starter Iron_Chef
- Start date
A'koss
Explorer
From Douglas Baily on rgfd... and my comments in italics.
I picked up Mongoose Publishing's _Conan_ OGL game at my FLGS yesterday, and while it's not perfect, I'm interested in some of the game-system tweaks the designers have included.
These include (from memory, so incomplete and possibly not quite right):
* Races: All races are actually just different human cultures, though they're still distinguished in game terms. Characters from a given race/culture gain "background skills": 2 ranks -- regardless of cross-class status -- in a couple of specified skills.
- Sounds alright...
* Favoured Class: Characters gain bonus feats for taking multiple levels in their race's favoured class(es), rather than suffering penalties for taking levels outside them. (Bonuses at levels 1/5/10.)
- Not a bad way of handling it IMO.
* Ability Score Increases: In addition to the standard single-ability increases at levels 4/8/12/16/20, characters gain a one-point bonus to *all* ability scores at levels 6/10/14/18.
- At first I thought - whoa... but remember that there aren't a lot of ways to magically improve your ability scores and that all characters gain the same bonus which helps maintain game balance at higher levels.
* Hit Dice: All character classes have either d6, d8 or d10 hit dice. Hit dice are capped at 10th level: from there on out, you get +1 hit point for a d6 HD, +2 hit points for a d8 HD or +3 hit points for a d10 HD.
- This will also help game balance at higher levels by reducing the disparity of HPs between the classes.
* Classes: Barbarian, Borderer [Ranger], Nomad, Noble, Pirate, Scholar, Soldier [Fighter], Thief [Rogue].
* Class Abilities: Too many changes/new ideas to list in full, but a few that come to mind are: making the Barbarian's rage ability (here called "Crimson Mist") dependent on making a Will save against a terrifying foe rather than usable at will; giving archery-using Borderers (Rangers) the Shot On The Run feat instead of Manyshot; and giving Thieves (Rogues) the ability to choose "sneak attack styles" with particular weapons that let them do d8s instead of d6s for sneak attack damage.
* Codes of Honor: No alignment, but there are some specific (barbarian, civilised) "Codes of Honor" which dictate what their practitioners will and won't do. There are some minor-but-nice benefits for having a Code.
-I use something like this IMC as well...
* Reputation: Based on level and Cha, but affected by actions. Reputation penalises Disguise and affects social skills (which ones dependent on the *type* of Reputation: Brave helps Bluff and Intimidate; Honest helps Bluff, Sense Motive and Gather Information; Coward penalises Intimidate but helps Bluff and Gather Information, and so on).
-I'd need to see more on this before making any kind of judgement.
* Money: Characters start with a "budget" which can't be kept if not spent. (And everyone starts off too poor, like 1e AD&D.) Characters automatically spend 50% of their wealth per week, so they always have a reason to go adventuring.
- 50% per week!!! Okay, that's ridiculous.
* Fate Points: Like the Hero Point mechanism. You can spend a Fate Point to: [a] get a break in the story (find a loose rock to break your chains with, etc.); repent and lose a point of Corruption (more on this later); make a Massive Blow (do max. damage on an attack that's already hit, but you break your weapon in the process); or be Left For Dead (stabilise at -10, seemingly dead to inspection: if no-one comes along to heal you, you can make a Fort save to reach -9 hp, otherwise you still die.)
- And you're gonna need them too... see below.
* Feats: Some nice new ones I haven't seen before. Steely Gaze lets you make a combat Intimidate check (to demoralise your foe) as a free action instead of a standard action. Menacing Aura (which requires Steely Gaze and about level 15) lets you make such a check as a free action against *any* foe who comes within 15 feet of you. Also feats for sorcery: Ritual Sacrifice and the like.
- Hmmm....
* Dodging and Parry: Dodging and shields add to Defence Value (= AC). Dodge and Parry are used separately: you can use either one against most attacks, but not both. Character classes have "Base Dodge" and "Base Parry" bonuses by level as well as Base Attack (soldiers are better at parrying, for instance, while pirates are better at dodging... and scholars are equally lousy at both).
*You can't parry ranged weapons (though your shield will help you dodge them). If you haven't got at least one empty square adjacent to you, you suffer a -2 dodge penalty. There's no touch AC: you just *have* to use dodge against touch attacks.
* Armour: Armour gives (fixed) DR rather than affecting the hit roll. Helms add +1 or +2 DR, but heavier helms give a penalty to Listen/Spot rolls.
*Weapons have Armour Piercing values: if your weapon AP plus your Str bonus (if applicable) equals or exceeds the target's armour DR, the DR only counts at half strength. A hit that gets 20 points of damage past armour reduces that armour's DR by 1d4: this can be repaired if caught before the armour is reduced to DR 0.
*sigh*
- Okay, having used at least 3 different varieties of damage-absorbing armor rules in my own games, including something very similar to this, I can unequivocally tell you that this is - too much, too slow & too complicated.
- It's deceptive, because it looks fairly straightforward... taken individually. But throw in multiple opponents with different armor, weapons, varying defensive values against different attacks, varying damage absorption based on the weapon damaging it, damaging armor, easy massive damage (see below) and you've just created a gaming nightmare.
* Finesse: There is no Weapon Finesse feat: all finesse weapons are marked on the weapon table. Finesse attacks don't use the Armour Piercing mechanism: instead, any attack with a margin of success equal to or greater than the defender's DR bypasses that DR. Finesse attacks don't damage armour.
- And yet another mechanic...
* More Combat: The Massive Damage threshold is only 20 hp, and the save is harder (DC 10 + 1/2 damage inflicted). Initiative addes the Reflex save modifier as well as the Dex modifier (so Dex counts *twice*).
- Well I guess the combat mechanics shouldn't be too bothersome seeing as you will be dead before they can really annoy you.
*Heavy armour only reduces a 30 ft. speed character to 25 ft. speed. Everything else -- criticals, special manoeuvres, action types, AoOs, etc. -- works pretty much as in D&D v3.5.
* Combat Manoeuvres: Mostly based upon specific passages from the Howard stories, these are like feats, but don't require any feat slots to use: if you meet the prerequisites, you can use the manoeuvre. Some of them (Low Charge) are just handy variants on standard combat actions; a couple (Decapitating Slash, Desperate Stab) are one-shot fight-enders if they work, though these have very tough prerequisites.
- I like the concept here actually, but I'm not sure on the implementation. Especially considering attacks like Decapitating Slash... do we need more ways to die here? It's not like you can easily come back as you might in core D&D...
- That said, combat maneouvers that have prerequisites, but not actual feats is an idea worth exploring...
* Sorcery: Power Point-based magic system (the only magic system in the game: priests, shamans and sorcerers all draw upon the same sources). Nine schools of magic (Counterspells, Curses, Divination, Hypnotism, Nature Magic, Necromancy, Oriental Magic, Prestidigitation, Summonings), with only a few (fairly powerful by D&D standards) spells listed for each school. No healing magic to speak of. The only class that gets sorcery "built-in" is the Scholar, and even they have the option to take non-magic bonus feats instead. But there's a Dabbler feat that lets *any* character gain a little sorcerous knowledge and a few spells from one of three schools.
* Power Points: Beginning scholars get (4 + Wis bonus) Power Points: this increases slowly with level. Spell costs from 1 to 20+ PP. Casters can gain temporary PP over their normal limit by stealing them from helpless foes, or by ritual sacrifice (the slower and more painful the better), or through other magical rituals with multiple celebrants. Masters can take PP (or give them) to their linked apprentices. Characters without PP suffer Wis damage instead if they're drained (but the drainer still gets PP from the drain).
* Sorcerous Rules: The Rule of Success gives a sorcerer a morale bonus to attack rolls based upon the number of foes he has killed in the previous round. It also dictates that any spell which succeeds may be cast again the next round at half cost. The Rule of Impermanence dictates that sorcerous spells and constructions are destroyed when the caster dies (and probably when he goes below 0 hp, too: there's a DC 25 Will save for each). The Rule of Defense allows a desperate sorcerer to make a "defensive blast" as a free action: it burns off all his Power Points and does 1d6 fire damage (within a 10 ft. radius) per PP expended. The Rule of Obsession says that a sorcerer who becomes obsessed with anything besides sorcery (say, love) loses 1-3 PP permanently... unless he incorporates his obsession into himself (say, by sacrificing his loved one), in which case he gains them back and gets an additional 1-3 PP besides.
* Consequences of Sorcery: Dealing with evil powers gives sorcerers Corruption points and/or madness. Corruption points affect Cha-based skills (positively when dealing with evil/Corrupt creatures, negatively when dealing with characters with Codes of Honor) and have other side effects: the more Corruption a character has, the more screwed-up he'll be both physically and mentally. If you reach 10+ points of Corruption, you're permanently possessed by a demonic entity. There's also Runaway Magic: certain powerful spells, if cast too often, require a Will save, with consequences of failure running the gamut from minor burnout (temporary PP loss) to "fate worse than death" (sorcerer is pulled into hell and eternally damned, his body is possessed by demonic entities, and an area of 1d6 miles radius around him is devastated by magical forces, doing 20d6 to everyone in it).
* War of Souls: Basically a sort of magical/spiritual grapple used to drain Power Points from an opponent.
- Not really enough information to make any real judgement call. Sounds okay on the surface.
* Magic Items: Almost none. Mostly useful for sorcerers: basically no such thing as straightforward +n weapons or armor.
* The game also includes a full gazetteer of Hyboria, stats for animals and monsters, a poisons listing, and notes on Hyborian campaigns. The only obvious thing missing is stats for Conan himself (and other famous characters from the stories): it looks as if those were meant to be included, but were instead pulled out for release in a separate supplement (_Road of Kings_). I don't feel ripped off (it's a 352-page full-colour book!), but this seemed like a weird choice to me.
- The gazetteer sounds good but a 352 page book and no stats for Conan. That irks me... a lot.
The physical book itself is very nice: good map on the endpapers, decent-to-fabulous art, reasonably clear layout (though I'm not crazy about the page borders). It's not quite perfect (the header typeface isn't the clearest, there are several minor typos, mostly of the "weforgot to putaspace here" variety, and the character sheet design is less than optimal), but it's still closer to a WotC book in quality than to most of the other products I've seen by Mongoose.
I'll be interested to see how the various mechanical changes affect the game. The obvious one is that characters get hit much more often (the Dodge and Parry DVs are much lower than comparable D&D characters' ACs), but damaged less often (since *everyone* has DR). I'd like to see how -- and *if* -- this changes the feel of the game.
- Heh...
It's possible that some of these changes are Bad Ideas (I'm still not certain about the Hit Die cap, in particular). But I do think this is an excellent example of how to tweak mechanics to add flavour: the game *feels* very much like Howard to me, and I'm looking forward to trying it.
- And I went from being very eager to buy it to seriously considering just passing on it... especially given it's rather hefty price tag.
doug
- A'koss.
I picked up Mongoose Publishing's _Conan_ OGL game at my FLGS yesterday, and while it's not perfect, I'm interested in some of the game-system tweaks the designers have included.
These include (from memory, so incomplete and possibly not quite right):
* Races: All races are actually just different human cultures, though they're still distinguished in game terms. Characters from a given race/culture gain "background skills": 2 ranks -- regardless of cross-class status -- in a couple of specified skills.
- Sounds alright...
* Favoured Class: Characters gain bonus feats for taking multiple levels in their race's favoured class(es), rather than suffering penalties for taking levels outside them. (Bonuses at levels 1/5/10.)
- Not a bad way of handling it IMO.
* Ability Score Increases: In addition to the standard single-ability increases at levels 4/8/12/16/20, characters gain a one-point bonus to *all* ability scores at levels 6/10/14/18.
- At first I thought - whoa... but remember that there aren't a lot of ways to magically improve your ability scores and that all characters gain the same bonus which helps maintain game balance at higher levels.
* Hit Dice: All character classes have either d6, d8 or d10 hit dice. Hit dice are capped at 10th level: from there on out, you get +1 hit point for a d6 HD, +2 hit points for a d8 HD or +3 hit points for a d10 HD.
- This will also help game balance at higher levels by reducing the disparity of HPs between the classes.
* Classes: Barbarian, Borderer [Ranger], Nomad, Noble, Pirate, Scholar, Soldier [Fighter], Thief [Rogue].
* Class Abilities: Too many changes/new ideas to list in full, but a few that come to mind are: making the Barbarian's rage ability (here called "Crimson Mist") dependent on making a Will save against a terrifying foe rather than usable at will; giving archery-using Borderers (Rangers) the Shot On The Run feat instead of Manyshot; and giving Thieves (Rogues) the ability to choose "sneak attack styles" with particular weapons that let them do d8s instead of d6s for sneak attack damage.
* Codes of Honor: No alignment, but there are some specific (barbarian, civilised) "Codes of Honor" which dictate what their practitioners will and won't do. There are some minor-but-nice benefits for having a Code.
-I use something like this IMC as well...
* Reputation: Based on level and Cha, but affected by actions. Reputation penalises Disguise and affects social skills (which ones dependent on the *type* of Reputation: Brave helps Bluff and Intimidate; Honest helps Bluff, Sense Motive and Gather Information; Coward penalises Intimidate but helps Bluff and Gather Information, and so on).
-I'd need to see more on this before making any kind of judgement.
* Money: Characters start with a "budget" which can't be kept if not spent. (And everyone starts off too poor, like 1e AD&D.) Characters automatically spend 50% of their wealth per week, so they always have a reason to go adventuring.
- 50% per week!!! Okay, that's ridiculous.
* Fate Points: Like the Hero Point mechanism. You can spend a Fate Point to: [a] get a break in the story (find a loose rock to break your chains with, etc.); repent and lose a point of Corruption (more on this later); make a Massive Blow (do max. damage on an attack that's already hit, but you break your weapon in the process); or be Left For Dead (stabilise at -10, seemingly dead to inspection: if no-one comes along to heal you, you can make a Fort save to reach -9 hp, otherwise you still die.)
- And you're gonna need them too... see below.
* Feats: Some nice new ones I haven't seen before. Steely Gaze lets you make a combat Intimidate check (to demoralise your foe) as a free action instead of a standard action. Menacing Aura (which requires Steely Gaze and about level 15) lets you make such a check as a free action against *any* foe who comes within 15 feet of you. Also feats for sorcery: Ritual Sacrifice and the like.
- Hmmm....
* Dodging and Parry: Dodging and shields add to Defence Value (= AC). Dodge and Parry are used separately: you can use either one against most attacks, but not both. Character classes have "Base Dodge" and "Base Parry" bonuses by level as well as Base Attack (soldiers are better at parrying, for instance, while pirates are better at dodging... and scholars are equally lousy at both).
*You can't parry ranged weapons (though your shield will help you dodge them). If you haven't got at least one empty square adjacent to you, you suffer a -2 dodge penalty. There's no touch AC: you just *have* to use dodge against touch attacks.
* Armour: Armour gives (fixed) DR rather than affecting the hit roll. Helms add +1 or +2 DR, but heavier helms give a penalty to Listen/Spot rolls.
*Weapons have Armour Piercing values: if your weapon AP plus your Str bonus (if applicable) equals or exceeds the target's armour DR, the DR only counts at half strength. A hit that gets 20 points of damage past armour reduces that armour's DR by 1d4: this can be repaired if caught before the armour is reduced to DR 0.
*sigh*
- Okay, having used at least 3 different varieties of damage-absorbing armor rules in my own games, including something very similar to this, I can unequivocally tell you that this is - too much, too slow & too complicated.
- It's deceptive, because it looks fairly straightforward... taken individually. But throw in multiple opponents with different armor, weapons, varying defensive values against different attacks, varying damage absorption based on the weapon damaging it, damaging armor, easy massive damage (see below) and you've just created a gaming nightmare.
* Finesse: There is no Weapon Finesse feat: all finesse weapons are marked on the weapon table. Finesse attacks don't use the Armour Piercing mechanism: instead, any attack with a margin of success equal to or greater than the defender's DR bypasses that DR. Finesse attacks don't damage armour.
- And yet another mechanic...
* More Combat: The Massive Damage threshold is only 20 hp, and the save is harder (DC 10 + 1/2 damage inflicted). Initiative addes the Reflex save modifier as well as the Dex modifier (so Dex counts *twice*).
- Well I guess the combat mechanics shouldn't be too bothersome seeing as you will be dead before they can really annoy you.
*Heavy armour only reduces a 30 ft. speed character to 25 ft. speed. Everything else -- criticals, special manoeuvres, action types, AoOs, etc. -- works pretty much as in D&D v3.5.
* Combat Manoeuvres: Mostly based upon specific passages from the Howard stories, these are like feats, but don't require any feat slots to use: if you meet the prerequisites, you can use the manoeuvre. Some of them (Low Charge) are just handy variants on standard combat actions; a couple (Decapitating Slash, Desperate Stab) are one-shot fight-enders if they work, though these have very tough prerequisites.
- I like the concept here actually, but I'm not sure on the implementation. Especially considering attacks like Decapitating Slash... do we need more ways to die here? It's not like you can easily come back as you might in core D&D...
- That said, combat maneouvers that have prerequisites, but not actual feats is an idea worth exploring...
* Sorcery: Power Point-based magic system (the only magic system in the game: priests, shamans and sorcerers all draw upon the same sources). Nine schools of magic (Counterspells, Curses, Divination, Hypnotism, Nature Magic, Necromancy, Oriental Magic, Prestidigitation, Summonings), with only a few (fairly powerful by D&D standards) spells listed for each school. No healing magic to speak of. The only class that gets sorcery "built-in" is the Scholar, and even they have the option to take non-magic bonus feats instead. But there's a Dabbler feat that lets *any* character gain a little sorcerous knowledge and a few spells from one of three schools.
* Power Points: Beginning scholars get (4 + Wis bonus) Power Points: this increases slowly with level. Spell costs from 1 to 20+ PP. Casters can gain temporary PP over their normal limit by stealing them from helpless foes, or by ritual sacrifice (the slower and more painful the better), or through other magical rituals with multiple celebrants. Masters can take PP (or give them) to their linked apprentices. Characters without PP suffer Wis damage instead if they're drained (but the drainer still gets PP from the drain).
* Sorcerous Rules: The Rule of Success gives a sorcerer a morale bonus to attack rolls based upon the number of foes he has killed in the previous round. It also dictates that any spell which succeeds may be cast again the next round at half cost. The Rule of Impermanence dictates that sorcerous spells and constructions are destroyed when the caster dies (and probably when he goes below 0 hp, too: there's a DC 25 Will save for each). The Rule of Defense allows a desperate sorcerer to make a "defensive blast" as a free action: it burns off all his Power Points and does 1d6 fire damage (within a 10 ft. radius) per PP expended. The Rule of Obsession says that a sorcerer who becomes obsessed with anything besides sorcery (say, love) loses 1-3 PP permanently... unless he incorporates his obsession into himself (say, by sacrificing his loved one), in which case he gains them back and gets an additional 1-3 PP besides.
* Consequences of Sorcery: Dealing with evil powers gives sorcerers Corruption points and/or madness. Corruption points affect Cha-based skills (positively when dealing with evil/Corrupt creatures, negatively when dealing with characters with Codes of Honor) and have other side effects: the more Corruption a character has, the more screwed-up he'll be both physically and mentally. If you reach 10+ points of Corruption, you're permanently possessed by a demonic entity. There's also Runaway Magic: certain powerful spells, if cast too often, require a Will save, with consequences of failure running the gamut from minor burnout (temporary PP loss) to "fate worse than death" (sorcerer is pulled into hell and eternally damned, his body is possessed by demonic entities, and an area of 1d6 miles radius around him is devastated by magical forces, doing 20d6 to everyone in it).
* War of Souls: Basically a sort of magical/spiritual grapple used to drain Power Points from an opponent.
- Not really enough information to make any real judgement call. Sounds okay on the surface.
* Magic Items: Almost none. Mostly useful for sorcerers: basically no such thing as straightforward +n weapons or armor.
* The game also includes a full gazetteer of Hyboria, stats for animals and monsters, a poisons listing, and notes on Hyborian campaigns. The only obvious thing missing is stats for Conan himself (and other famous characters from the stories): it looks as if those were meant to be included, but were instead pulled out for release in a separate supplement (_Road of Kings_). I don't feel ripped off (it's a 352-page full-colour book!), but this seemed like a weird choice to me.
- The gazetteer sounds good but a 352 page book and no stats for Conan. That irks me... a lot.
The physical book itself is very nice: good map on the endpapers, decent-to-fabulous art, reasonably clear layout (though I'm not crazy about the page borders). It's not quite perfect (the header typeface isn't the clearest, there are several minor typos, mostly of the "weforgot to putaspace here" variety, and the character sheet design is less than optimal), but it's still closer to a WotC book in quality than to most of the other products I've seen by Mongoose.
I'll be interested to see how the various mechanical changes affect the game. The obvious one is that characters get hit much more often (the Dodge and Parry DVs are much lower than comparable D&D characters' ACs), but damaged less often (since *everyone* has DR). I'd like to see how -- and *if* -- this changes the feel of the game.
- Heh...
It's possible that some of these changes are Bad Ideas (I'm still not certain about the Hit Die cap, in particular). But I do think this is an excellent example of how to tweak mechanics to add flavour: the game *feels* very much like Howard to me, and I'm looking forward to trying it.
- And I went from being very eager to buy it to seriously considering just passing on it... especially given it's rather hefty price tag.
doug
- A'koss.
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Gothmog
First Post
Well, I picked Conan up on Wednesday, and all I can say is "this is the game I have been waiting for". Its recaptured the wonder, sense of the unknown, and nostalgia of 1E from the rather flavorless 3E/d20 behemoth. Character possibilities are simply brimming with the different cultures and classes, and best of all NO NON-HUMAN characters. The fate point idea in this game is really cool, and follows well with Howard's stories. The magic system enhances the setting, rather than ruling it, as it does in D&D. I played out a couple of battles with my girlfriend last night using the combat system, and the dodge, parry, and armor DR system seems well balanced and easily playable- a viable alternate to AC. There is even a 10 page chapter written by Howard, "The Hyborean Age" that details, in his own words, the world of Conan. In addition, the gazeteer section of the book is excellent, and you could easily run a Conan game with only this book (although the upcoming releases Mongoose has planned are making me drool). The production values in the book are amazing, and most art ranges from good to excellent- the artwork and layout of the book capture what I feel is Conan. Unlike Arcana Unearthed, which was overhyped and ended up being disappointing and more of the same thing, Conan is really something different and refreshing. Believe the hype on this one folks (esp if you like magic-rare settings), buy the book- you won't be disappointed!
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blacksagelobo
First Post
As a playtester for the Conan RPG I can tell you that the damage reduction system does not make combat a nightmare. Like any thing thats new you have to work a bit to learn it. Combat in this game takes about the same time as in D+D.
A'koss
Explorer
Well, let's see...
You have two different AC which you choose from to use against melee attacks (though the "choice" I assume is actually dictated by what's better, for the most part) but you can only use your Dodge vs Missile Attacks (which is at -2 if you don't have an adjacent square to move in).
If I understand correctly making an attack with a weapon which has an Armor Penetration Value (plus your Str bonus) you check it against a target's DR, and if greater, DR is reduced to half. If you inflict 20 pts of damage the target's DR is reduced by 1-4 points.
Finesse weapons have a different rule, they have an AP value but rely more on bypassing armor altogether by rolling against their AC + DR value...
Multiple Opponents: When a character is attacked by multiple opponents in
the same round, each opponent after the first gets a cumulative +1
circumstance bonus to attack rolls. (The example is a character with his
back to a wall being attacked by five opponents. The first attacks at
normal Atk bonus, the second at Atk+1, the third at Atk+2, and so on.) This
bonus stacks with the normal flanking bonus, if that's also applicable.
Because there are more hits ("AC" is lower) in the game you will have to make more checks and more calculations, that while individually may be small, all add up in the end. Add in Fate Points, the Sorcerous Rules of Success, easier Massive Damage Rules, and whatever else there is it's essentially every "in-play" calculation in D&D plus all of this. It simply can't be played at the same speed as it doesn't take away any checks or calc's from the core game (that I can see).
At low levels I can see this not being too bad, (again, I've tried very similar rules in the past) but run a 1 year campaign into high levels and then let me know how you feel about it...
Cheers,
A'koss.
Iron_Chef
First Post
Against unarmored opponents at low levels, combat flies by, even if one side is armored. That's because if you are unarmored, you will DIE incredibly fast (two hits if you're lucky, but probably just one at first level). Ferx, I ran this fight:
11 elite Shemite Soldiers (level 1) and 2 elite Hyrkanian Nomad (level 1) allies are camped for the night in the desert, with no fire. Only one Shemite is awake, wearing a leather jerkin (+4 DR), steel cap (+1 DR) and large shield (+4 parry). The party is ambushed by twelve Zuagir Nomads (level 1), unarmored save for large shields (+4 DV), half of whom have Hyrkanian bows (1d10+1 damage, 19-20/x2 crit., and I use auto-crits so any crit threat rolled is an auto-success). The bowmen fire at the guard, who fails his Listen and Spot checks to notice them advancing and taking up position surroundingf his camp. Thanks to the 20% miss chance for it being dark, this amazingly lucky guard managed to be missed completely and called out an alarm. The Zuagir won intiative, and chose to fire again into the camp. Two Shemites stood up (unarmored) and were cut down by arrows as the rest charged into the camp. The Shemites met steel with steel, and neither side being armored (with bad DV), the difference of weapons made a huge difference (as did the 20% miss chance). The Shemites (14 Strength) used war swords (1d12+2, 19-20/x2 crit.), while the Zuagir used Scimitars (1d8+1, 18-20 crit.). Basically, half of every nomad hit died on first strike from the war sword, or had their hit points reduced from 10 (healthy) to 2 (almost dead). Only one more Shemite fell in combat. The Hyrkanians used scimitars from to kill anyone who got close to them. The Zuagir, reduced in number to four, attempted to flee, but lost another one to Hykanian archery as he fled with back turned (reducing his DV to 10). Two of the wounded, dying Shemites were stabilized. All but one Shemite (Elohar The Lucky) were reduced to roughly 50% of their 12 hit points. The Hyrkanians were never scratched, but hung back in the fight and made sure they never fought more than one Zuagir at a time between them both! Half the party gave chase to the fleeing nomads (they wanted not only revenge but valuable camels!). The poor Zuagir ended up losing 5 camels by failing Handle Animal checks and the victorious Shemites elected to give up further pursuit as they had enough booty in the captured camels, the shields and scimitars of the fallen. This was my first Conan combat. The PCs were terrified! As was I. The stink of doom and death lay heavy around the gaming table that night!
The fight didn't seem to take any longer to run than usual for D&D, and was certainly scarier (with those low DVs and high damage weapons). I even used a critical hit bonus effect and critical fumble chart of my own design to spice things up, and since most crits resulted in instant death anyway, it had little to no effect at all. Where it came into play the most was when the lead Shemite (who had sold his war sword for a battleaxe in Akhlat to provision his sword-brothers for their journey across the desert) had his shiny new axe instantly sunder itself in two across the raised shield of his Zuagir foeman... he rolled a "1" to hit and then a "1" on my fumble chart. LOL. He didn't succeed at his Apraise check in the weapon shop, is how I put it. He was forced to continue combat with his poniard (war dagger, 1d6+3 damage, 19-20/x2 crit.). He still kicked butt, praying to Ishtar and using his Two Weapon Combat to shield bash and then gut the Zaugir with the stout shield in the next round.
My second combat occurred when the Shemites and Hyrkanians had joined the mercenary horde being gathered by the Satrap of Zamboula to weed out the Yoggite slave uprising that had spilled out into the desert, damaging trade (Zamboula sits on the crossroads betwen Stygia, Shem, Turan and the Far East). The Zamboulan noble who led the Royal Zamboulan Expeditionary Force led them into an ambush (by refusing to listen to the Hyrkanian nomad's counsel), and their main force of 100 was surrounded and destroyed by 300 Darfari cannibals (Yoggites). I said the party of 10 Shemites and two Hyrkanians fought their way free and holed up in a dead end canyon to await their doom...
I allowed them to set up however they wished while the main battle raged outside, using terrain features for cover and hiding places. Both Shemites and Hyrkanians make excellent archers... At last, a hungry horde of twenty Yoggites (unarmored, no missile weapons, swinging clubs) howled into the canyon. They died real quick before they could rally and retreat. No casualties and only two seriously wounded Shemites, who took up archery positions 20 ft. up on some outcroppings, rotating the former, unwounded archers down. Again, I allowed them time to set-up (the Yoggites were too busy looting and eating to notice that twenty of them were missing). Eventually, they sent a larger force of 25 of their number (back ranks armored with DR 5) under the command of a witchdoctor (scholar 1, curses: lesser ill fortune). The front ranks fell quickly as the party had further refined their tactics. Now came the hard part: equally armored foes (13 + 1 scholar) vs. 12 in the party, half of whom had taken up positions on rocky outcroppings 10-20 ft. up and were effectively able to fire with impunity throughout the battle (all had point blank shot/rapid shot, but not precise shot). Basically, it was a long, slow massacre in favor of the slightly greater numbers of the Yoggites, the witchdoctor cursed four Shemites (basically a 24 bane spell, but this caused them to miss more than once). Eventually, all on the canyon floor were dying, one was dead and only four Yoggites remained + the witchdoctor (who was hiding behind cover and out of PP [spellcasting power points]). The remaining archers killed the Yoggites only due to their superior firing position, though two Yoggites did manage to overrun one such position and bring down a Shemite. End of battle: Witchdoctor (escaped). 24 Yoggites: dead. 2 Hyrkanian nomads: unscathed. 10 Shemite soldiers: 8 dying, 1 wounded (near death), 1 dead. Thanks to some quick Heal checks by the Hyrkanians (Tarim's beard bless them!), the dying were stabilized.
No fate points were ever used, though we were 1 round away from a dying PC (-8) using one. This last battle took a LONG TIME, I'd say maybe 90 minutes, whereas the first two were over in under thirty. This time will of course go down as less and less time needs to be taken to consult the rule book over one point or another. Still, running these combats in D&D I don't think would have taken much less time.
Everyone enjoyed the new rules of Conan, are in love with their character race/class and are fascinated by the flavor and depth of the Hyborian Age setting. I've even got them familiar with their religions and praying to, or swearing/cursing by, their pantheon's gods in battle! It felt very much like Howard, or at least like a good pastiche, LOL. Most importantly, it felt like Conan, not D&D.
"What mattered most was that few stood against many, and that is what will be remembered!"
---Elohar "The Lucky", Son of Shem of the Erukhim, uttered at the battle of the Canyon of Doom, where a dozen men vanquished four times their number and lived to tell of it.
11 elite Shemite Soldiers (level 1) and 2 elite Hyrkanian Nomad (level 1) allies are camped for the night in the desert, with no fire. Only one Shemite is awake, wearing a leather jerkin (+4 DR), steel cap (+1 DR) and large shield (+4 parry). The party is ambushed by twelve Zuagir Nomads (level 1), unarmored save for large shields (+4 DV), half of whom have Hyrkanian bows (1d10+1 damage, 19-20/x2 crit., and I use auto-crits so any crit threat rolled is an auto-success). The bowmen fire at the guard, who fails his Listen and Spot checks to notice them advancing and taking up position surroundingf his camp. Thanks to the 20% miss chance for it being dark, this amazingly lucky guard managed to be missed completely and called out an alarm. The Zuagir won intiative, and chose to fire again into the camp. Two Shemites stood up (unarmored) and were cut down by arrows as the rest charged into the camp. The Shemites met steel with steel, and neither side being armored (with bad DV), the difference of weapons made a huge difference (as did the 20% miss chance). The Shemites (14 Strength) used war swords (1d12+2, 19-20/x2 crit.), while the Zuagir used Scimitars (1d8+1, 18-20 crit.). Basically, half of every nomad hit died on first strike from the war sword, or had their hit points reduced from 10 (healthy) to 2 (almost dead). Only one more Shemite fell in combat. The Hyrkanians used scimitars from to kill anyone who got close to them. The Zuagir, reduced in number to four, attempted to flee, but lost another one to Hykanian archery as he fled with back turned (reducing his DV to 10). Two of the wounded, dying Shemites were stabilized. All but one Shemite (Elohar The Lucky) were reduced to roughly 50% of their 12 hit points. The Hyrkanians were never scratched, but hung back in the fight and made sure they never fought more than one Zuagir at a time between them both! Half the party gave chase to the fleeing nomads (they wanted not only revenge but valuable camels!). The poor Zuagir ended up losing 5 camels by failing Handle Animal checks and the victorious Shemites elected to give up further pursuit as they had enough booty in the captured camels, the shields and scimitars of the fallen. This was my first Conan combat. The PCs were terrified! As was I. The stink of doom and death lay heavy around the gaming table that night!
The fight didn't seem to take any longer to run than usual for D&D, and was certainly scarier (with those low DVs and high damage weapons). I even used a critical hit bonus effect and critical fumble chart of my own design to spice things up, and since most crits resulted in instant death anyway, it had little to no effect at all. Where it came into play the most was when the lead Shemite (who had sold his war sword for a battleaxe in Akhlat to provision his sword-brothers for their journey across the desert) had his shiny new axe instantly sunder itself in two across the raised shield of his Zuagir foeman... he rolled a "1" to hit and then a "1" on my fumble chart. LOL. He didn't succeed at his Apraise check in the weapon shop, is how I put it. He was forced to continue combat with his poniard (war dagger, 1d6+3 damage, 19-20/x2 crit.). He still kicked butt, praying to Ishtar and using his Two Weapon Combat to shield bash and then gut the Zaugir with the stout shield in the next round.
My second combat occurred when the Shemites and Hyrkanians had joined the mercenary horde being gathered by the Satrap of Zamboula to weed out the Yoggite slave uprising that had spilled out into the desert, damaging trade (Zamboula sits on the crossroads betwen Stygia, Shem, Turan and the Far East). The Zamboulan noble who led the Royal Zamboulan Expeditionary Force led them into an ambush (by refusing to listen to the Hyrkanian nomad's counsel), and their main force of 100 was surrounded and destroyed by 300 Darfari cannibals (Yoggites). I said the party of 10 Shemites and two Hyrkanians fought their way free and holed up in a dead end canyon to await their doom...
I allowed them to set up however they wished while the main battle raged outside, using terrain features for cover and hiding places. Both Shemites and Hyrkanians make excellent archers... At last, a hungry horde of twenty Yoggites (unarmored, no missile weapons, swinging clubs) howled into the canyon. They died real quick before they could rally and retreat. No casualties and only two seriously wounded Shemites, who took up archery positions 20 ft. up on some outcroppings, rotating the former, unwounded archers down. Again, I allowed them time to set-up (the Yoggites were too busy looting and eating to notice that twenty of them were missing). Eventually, they sent a larger force of 25 of their number (back ranks armored with DR 5) under the command of a witchdoctor (scholar 1, curses: lesser ill fortune). The front ranks fell quickly as the party had further refined their tactics. Now came the hard part: equally armored foes (13 + 1 scholar) vs. 12 in the party, half of whom had taken up positions on rocky outcroppings 10-20 ft. up and were effectively able to fire with impunity throughout the battle (all had point blank shot/rapid shot, but not precise shot). Basically, it was a long, slow massacre in favor of the slightly greater numbers of the Yoggites, the witchdoctor cursed four Shemites (basically a 24 bane spell, but this caused them to miss more than once). Eventually, all on the canyon floor were dying, one was dead and only four Yoggites remained + the witchdoctor (who was hiding behind cover and out of PP [spellcasting power points]). The remaining archers killed the Yoggites only due to their superior firing position, though two Yoggites did manage to overrun one such position and bring down a Shemite. End of battle: Witchdoctor (escaped). 24 Yoggites: dead. 2 Hyrkanian nomads: unscathed. 10 Shemite soldiers: 8 dying, 1 wounded (near death), 1 dead. Thanks to some quick Heal checks by the Hyrkanians (Tarim's beard bless them!), the dying were stabilized.
No fate points were ever used, though we were 1 round away from a dying PC (-8) using one. This last battle took a LONG TIME, I'd say maybe 90 minutes, whereas the first two were over in under thirty. This time will of course go down as less and less time needs to be taken to consult the rule book over one point or another. Still, running these combats in D&D I don't think would have taken much less time.
Everyone enjoyed the new rules of Conan, are in love with their character race/class and are fascinated by the flavor and depth of the Hyborian Age setting. I've even got them familiar with their religions and praying to, or swearing/cursing by, their pantheon's gods in battle! It felt very much like Howard, or at least like a good pastiche, LOL. Most importantly, it felt like Conan, not D&D.
"What mattered most was that few stood against many, and that is what will be remembered!"
---Elohar "The Lucky", Son of Shem of the Erukhim, uttered at the battle of the Canyon of Doom, where a dozen men vanquished four times their number and lived to tell of it.
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