CONAN COMBAT ANALYSIS
Here, I am taking some text from one of Howard's Conan stories and translating the scene with combat game mechanics. The story? Beyond the Black River. The situation? Conan and his companion, Balthus, are in the Pictish Wilderness, attempting to make it to the river. The two are being tracked by Pict savages, and as the scene starts, are, indeed, ambushed.
Howard's text is written in bold.
Balthus, I'm guessing, is a 2nd level Aquilonian Borderer. The Pict warriors are 1st level barbarians, per the core rulebook. Conan is an advanced character, multiclassed as a 1 Thief/ 2 Pirate/ 2 Soldier and at least a 10th level Barbarian (at least a 15th level character), in this story as the tale takes place late in Conan's career, not too long before Conan siezes the throne of Aquilonia.
In Beyond The Black River, Howard writes:
He wheeled an ducked as a bowstring twanged. Something like a white flash of light streaked through the bushes. Balthus knew it was an arrow. Then with a tigerish bound Conan was through the bushes. Balthus caught the gleam of steel as he whirled his sword, and heard a death scream. The next instant he had broken through the bushes after the Cimmerian.
A Pict with a shattered skull lay face-down on the ground, his fingers spasmodically clawing at the grass. Half a dozen others were swarming about Conan, swords and axes lifted. They had cast away thier bows, useless at such deadly close quarters. Their lower jaws were painted white contrasting vividly with their dark faces, and the designs on their muscular breasts differed from any Balthus had ever seen.
The combat starts with a Pict ambush. The Picts have successfully tracked Balthus and Conan, and both the heroes have failed their Spot and/or Listen checks. The Picts act during the Surprise round. They get only one action. There are seven Picts. One uses the surprise to fire his bow. He was probably at the front of the Pict's tracking line. The others use their Surprise action to spread out and get into position to take the two interlopers.
The bow is fired at Conan, and at this point, both Conan and Balthus are caught flatfooted. But, Conan has a special ability as a Barbarian classed character: Uncanny Dodge. This allows 4th level and higher Barbarians to use their Dodge defence, even when the character is caught flatfooted. The first sentence from the story quote, "He wheeled an ducked as a bowstring twanged," is Conan using his Uncanny Dodge ability.
The other Picts, behind the lead bowman, do not have a clear shot at either Conan or Balthus from their positions behind the bowman. In the least, Conan and Balthus have cover from the bush, so any othe bow shots that hit will still have a 20% chance of missing, per the concealment rule. This is the most likely reason the other 1st level Picts chose to move to a better combat position rather than waste an arrow trying to hit their concealed enemies.
When the surprise round is over (The Pict bowman fires and misses; the other Picts use movement to get into combat position), initiative is thrown for the surprised characters. Conan rolls highest and acts first, even before any of the Picts. "Then with a tigerish bound Conan was through the bushes. Balthus caught the gleam of steel as he whirled his sword, and heard a death scream." Conan moves at the closest Pict, the bowman, and attacks with his sword, killing the bowman Pict with that first blow. Conan either rolled a critical hit, doing more than 20 points of damage, at which the Pict failed the Massive Damage save, or, more likely, Conan's damage was more than the Picts 1st level hit points. Note that the Pict isn't killed outright. "A Pict with a shattered skull lay face-down on the ground, his fingers spasmodically clawing at the grass." This Pict has been knocked into the negative hit point region. He'll be dead soon, but he's not quite dead yet.
The other six Pict initiative scores must all be after Conan's total but before Balthus' as when Balthus moves through the bushes to the fight on round one, he sees all six Picts surrounding Conan. "Half a dozen others were swarming about Conan, swords and axes lifted."
Conan must have been between Balthus and the Picts when the combat started. This is probably why the Pict bowman fired at Conan instead of the Aquilonian. And, Balthus is probably a short distance away from Conan because the two were conversing just before this scene started--and Balthus does not attack on round one. Balthus is probably more than 30 feet from Conan's fight because he enters the clearing, sees the dead bowman Pict, but doesn't attack. In game terms, Balthus moved 31-60 feet, as a double move action. The distances could be much shorter, too, as this is thick wilderness. Movement is halved in disagreeable terrain. Balthus probably moved 16-30 feet as his double move.
Conan may or may not have had his sword readied at the start of the scenario. If he had it in his hand, then nothing is changed. If he did not have it in his hand, he could easily pull the weapon as part of his Move action toward the Picts.
Note the part about the Picts discarding their bows: "They had cast away thier bows, useless at such deadly close quarters." In these close quarters, the Picts would open themselves up to Attacks of Opportunity from their foes, so rather than give Conan and Balthus free attacks, they've chosen to drop their bows and pull their melee weapons.
The Picts, surrounding Conan, gain two benefits. First, the flankers gain a +2 attack bonus against the Cimmerian. That will be at least two of the six Picts, but could be as many as all of them with each Pict partnering with another to form a flank. Second, the Picts also gain an attack bonus from their numerical advantage, using the Multiple Opponent's rule. The Pict directly in front of Conan gains no bonus, but the other five gain a +1 to +5 modifier to hit. This means that the flanking Pict directly behind Conan is attacking with a +7 bonus modifier.
Conan probably Parries the blows of these Picts, using his Parry AC, because his Dodge AC is penalized -2 due to being surrounded (it's harder to dodge in that circumstance).
Conan, though, is wearing armor, as indicated earlier in the story. He's wearing a mail shirt and a helmet that have been sound dampened. By the book, this gives Conan damage reduction of DR 6. Eventhough the Picts may hit, Conan is not taking much damage, if any. His armor is protecting him. In addition, Picts use primitive quality weapons, and, thus, there is a chance per successful hit that the weapon will break.
...Summary of the Combat Thus Far...
Surprise Round: Pict bowman fires at Conan as the other six move into position. Conan and Balthus are flatfooted, but Conan uses Uncanny Dodge to avoid the bowshot.
Initiative: Conan wins nish, followed by all seven of the Picts, with Balthus acting last.
Round One: Conan moves, attacks, and kills the Pict bowman. The remaining six Pict surround, flank, and attack Conan with flanking and multiple opponent bonuses. Conan either Parries or Dodges blows. Even if/when hit, Conan's armor keeps him from taking much damage. Balthus moves last, doing a double move to enter the combat clearing, seeing the downed bowman and Conan fighting the rest.
Now...we move on to Round Two.
The story is told from Balthus' point of view. Round two starts with Conan attacking one of his foes. Since the Cimmerian is not moving more than 5 feet this round, Conan can use his multiple attacks. If he's no higher than a 10th level Barbarian in this scene, he gets two attacks per round by taking a Full Round action. In addition, if he has the Cleave Feat, he may be able to take a third attack this round. Conan has a broadsword that does 1d10 damage (a Critical hit is checked on a 19 or 20, that's a 10% chance per swing). Given Conan's game stats, we can surmise that his STR score is somewhere around 22-25 in this story. That's a +6 or +7 STR bonus. Let's call it a +6 bonus, and if Conan uses the broadsword two-handed, he's doing damage of 1d10 + 9. That's a minimum of 10 points of damage. These 1st level Picts average 6 HP each. This means that, on every hit, Conan will kill his target. I tell you this to put into mechancial context the description of Conan's actions below.
It's a good assumption that Conan kills at least 2, possibly 3, Picts at the top of Round Two.
Then, most of the remaining Picts continue their fight with Conan, most either missing due to Conan's Dodge or Parry, or not damaging him as their primitive weapons strike his armor.
But, one of the Picts--probably one from Conan's rear flank--changes target and throws his axe at the new entry into the combat, Balthus.
One of them hurled his axe at Balthus and rushed afer it with lifted knife. Balthus ducked and then caught the wrist that drove the knife licking at his throat. They went to the ground together, rolling over and over. The Pict was like a wild beast, his muscles hard as steel strings.
Only the Dodge AC can be used against thrown weapons, and here we see Balthus "ducking" the hurled axe. Balthus' movement last round must have ended with just five feet between himself and one of Conan's enemies because this foe swirls away from Conan, throws his axe (which has an effective range of 10 feet before penalty), moves the five feet up to Balthus and strikes with his knife.
The Picts get two Feats at 1st level: One that all 1st level characters get and a bonus Feat for being in his race's favored class of Barbarian. This Pict must have at least a DEX 13, Point Blank Shot, and Rapid Shot. The Pict uses the Rapid Shot to throw the Axe normally, and continuing a Full Attack Action, he moves the 5 feet and makes the melee attack with the knife. The knife attack is at -2 due to Rapid Shot Feat, but the Barbarian class provides the Two Weapon Combat Feat--so there are no other penalties.
The Pict rolled a natural one on the knife attack, calling up the GUSTUD rule. This means that Balthus gets to have a special free attack against his enemy on his turn.
As Balthus' turn comes around, the GUSTUD result shows a Grapple. "Balthus ducked and then caught the wrist that drove the knife licking at his throat." Balthus is successful with the grapple and decides to perform a trip maneuver as his standard action in order to get the Pict on the ground. "They went to the ground together, rolling over and over. The Pict was like a wild beast, his muscles hard as steel strings."
We're now ready for Round Three.
...What happened in Round Two...
Conan acted first, using a Full Attack, taking two or three swings, probably killing two or three Picts.
All but one of the remaining Picts, two or three, continue to attack Conan using full actions and, possibly, Two Weapon Combat.
One Pict turns from Conan to engage Balthus, using his Rapid Shot Feat to throw his axe, then, continuing a full action, stepping 5 feet to engage the Aquilonian in melee combat with his knife. The Pict rolls a natural one on the knife attack, giving Balthus a special GUSTUD attack, which turns out to be a grapple.
Balthus, acting last, takes his Grapple against the Pict, then, after its success, uses his normal action to trip his foe. The two fall to the ground.
I'll leave you here, in the middle of this fight. I could go on, but I've only described about half of the fight. Later, the story reads, "The knife broke on Conan's mail," which demonstrates rule that primitive weapons which hit but are completely ineffective against metal armored foes will break with the strike--when the armor's DR reduces the primitive weapon's damage to zero.
The story also describes Conan's fight, as Balthus looks at him. "Conan bestroke two of his attackers, shorn half asunder by that terrible broadsword." This shows Conan using a Full Combat Action, making two attacks with that broadsword, and killing one foe with each blow--nearly tearing the Picts in half! That quite accounts for the mis-match of Conan's level, strength, power, and abilities against these first level Picts.
Here, I am taking some text from one of Howard's Conan stories and translating the scene with combat game mechanics. The story? Beyond the Black River. The situation? Conan and his companion, Balthus, are in the Pictish Wilderness, attempting to make it to the river. The two are being tracked by Pict savages, and as the scene starts, are, indeed, ambushed.
Howard's text is written in bold.
Balthus, I'm guessing, is a 2nd level Aquilonian Borderer. The Pict warriors are 1st level barbarians, per the core rulebook. Conan is an advanced character, multiclassed as a 1 Thief/ 2 Pirate/ 2 Soldier and at least a 10th level Barbarian (at least a 15th level character), in this story as the tale takes place late in Conan's career, not too long before Conan siezes the throne of Aquilonia.
In Beyond The Black River, Howard writes:
He wheeled an ducked as a bowstring twanged. Something like a white flash of light streaked through the bushes. Balthus knew it was an arrow. Then with a tigerish bound Conan was through the bushes. Balthus caught the gleam of steel as he whirled his sword, and heard a death scream. The next instant he had broken through the bushes after the Cimmerian.
A Pict with a shattered skull lay face-down on the ground, his fingers spasmodically clawing at the grass. Half a dozen others were swarming about Conan, swords and axes lifted. They had cast away thier bows, useless at such deadly close quarters. Their lower jaws were painted white contrasting vividly with their dark faces, and the designs on their muscular breasts differed from any Balthus had ever seen.
The combat starts with a Pict ambush. The Picts have successfully tracked Balthus and Conan, and both the heroes have failed their Spot and/or Listen checks. The Picts act during the Surprise round. They get only one action. There are seven Picts. One uses the surprise to fire his bow. He was probably at the front of the Pict's tracking line. The others use their Surprise action to spread out and get into position to take the two interlopers.
The bow is fired at Conan, and at this point, both Conan and Balthus are caught flatfooted. But, Conan has a special ability as a Barbarian classed character: Uncanny Dodge. This allows 4th level and higher Barbarians to use their Dodge defence, even when the character is caught flatfooted. The first sentence from the story quote, "He wheeled an ducked as a bowstring twanged," is Conan using his Uncanny Dodge ability.
The other Picts, behind the lead bowman, do not have a clear shot at either Conan or Balthus from their positions behind the bowman. In the least, Conan and Balthus have cover from the bush, so any othe bow shots that hit will still have a 20% chance of missing, per the concealment rule. This is the most likely reason the other 1st level Picts chose to move to a better combat position rather than waste an arrow trying to hit their concealed enemies.
When the surprise round is over (The Pict bowman fires and misses; the other Picts use movement to get into combat position), initiative is thrown for the surprised characters. Conan rolls highest and acts first, even before any of the Picts. "Then with a tigerish bound Conan was through the bushes. Balthus caught the gleam of steel as he whirled his sword, and heard a death scream." Conan moves at the closest Pict, the bowman, and attacks with his sword, killing the bowman Pict with that first blow. Conan either rolled a critical hit, doing more than 20 points of damage, at which the Pict failed the Massive Damage save, or, more likely, Conan's damage was more than the Picts 1st level hit points. Note that the Pict isn't killed outright. "A Pict with a shattered skull lay face-down on the ground, his fingers spasmodically clawing at the grass." This Pict has been knocked into the negative hit point region. He'll be dead soon, but he's not quite dead yet.
The other six Pict initiative scores must all be after Conan's total but before Balthus' as when Balthus moves through the bushes to the fight on round one, he sees all six Picts surrounding Conan. "Half a dozen others were swarming about Conan, swords and axes lifted."
Conan must have been between Balthus and the Picts when the combat started. This is probably why the Pict bowman fired at Conan instead of the Aquilonian. And, Balthus is probably a short distance away from Conan because the two were conversing just before this scene started--and Balthus does not attack on round one. Balthus is probably more than 30 feet from Conan's fight because he enters the clearing, sees the dead bowman Pict, but doesn't attack. In game terms, Balthus moved 31-60 feet, as a double move action. The distances could be much shorter, too, as this is thick wilderness. Movement is halved in disagreeable terrain. Balthus probably moved 16-30 feet as his double move.
Conan may or may not have had his sword readied at the start of the scenario. If he had it in his hand, then nothing is changed. If he did not have it in his hand, he could easily pull the weapon as part of his Move action toward the Picts.
Note the part about the Picts discarding their bows: "They had cast away thier bows, useless at such deadly close quarters." In these close quarters, the Picts would open themselves up to Attacks of Opportunity from their foes, so rather than give Conan and Balthus free attacks, they've chosen to drop their bows and pull their melee weapons.
The Picts, surrounding Conan, gain two benefits. First, the flankers gain a +2 attack bonus against the Cimmerian. That will be at least two of the six Picts, but could be as many as all of them with each Pict partnering with another to form a flank. Second, the Picts also gain an attack bonus from their numerical advantage, using the Multiple Opponent's rule. The Pict directly in front of Conan gains no bonus, but the other five gain a +1 to +5 modifier to hit. This means that the flanking Pict directly behind Conan is attacking with a +7 bonus modifier.
Conan probably Parries the blows of these Picts, using his Parry AC, because his Dodge AC is penalized -2 due to being surrounded (it's harder to dodge in that circumstance).
Conan, though, is wearing armor, as indicated earlier in the story. He's wearing a mail shirt and a helmet that have been sound dampened. By the book, this gives Conan damage reduction of DR 6. Eventhough the Picts may hit, Conan is not taking much damage, if any. His armor is protecting him. In addition, Picts use primitive quality weapons, and, thus, there is a chance per successful hit that the weapon will break.
...Summary of the Combat Thus Far...
Surprise Round: Pict bowman fires at Conan as the other six move into position. Conan and Balthus are flatfooted, but Conan uses Uncanny Dodge to avoid the bowshot.
Initiative: Conan wins nish, followed by all seven of the Picts, with Balthus acting last.
Round One: Conan moves, attacks, and kills the Pict bowman. The remaining six Pict surround, flank, and attack Conan with flanking and multiple opponent bonuses. Conan either Parries or Dodges blows. Even if/when hit, Conan's armor keeps him from taking much damage. Balthus moves last, doing a double move to enter the combat clearing, seeing the downed bowman and Conan fighting the rest.
Now...we move on to Round Two.
The story is told from Balthus' point of view. Round two starts with Conan attacking one of his foes. Since the Cimmerian is not moving more than 5 feet this round, Conan can use his multiple attacks. If he's no higher than a 10th level Barbarian in this scene, he gets two attacks per round by taking a Full Round action. In addition, if he has the Cleave Feat, he may be able to take a third attack this round. Conan has a broadsword that does 1d10 damage (a Critical hit is checked on a 19 or 20, that's a 10% chance per swing). Given Conan's game stats, we can surmise that his STR score is somewhere around 22-25 in this story. That's a +6 or +7 STR bonus. Let's call it a +6 bonus, and if Conan uses the broadsword two-handed, he's doing damage of 1d10 + 9. That's a minimum of 10 points of damage. These 1st level Picts average 6 HP each. This means that, on every hit, Conan will kill his target. I tell you this to put into mechancial context the description of Conan's actions below.
It's a good assumption that Conan kills at least 2, possibly 3, Picts at the top of Round Two.
Then, most of the remaining Picts continue their fight with Conan, most either missing due to Conan's Dodge or Parry, or not damaging him as their primitive weapons strike his armor.
But, one of the Picts--probably one from Conan's rear flank--changes target and throws his axe at the new entry into the combat, Balthus.
One of them hurled his axe at Balthus and rushed afer it with lifted knife. Balthus ducked and then caught the wrist that drove the knife licking at his throat. They went to the ground together, rolling over and over. The Pict was like a wild beast, his muscles hard as steel strings.
Only the Dodge AC can be used against thrown weapons, and here we see Balthus "ducking" the hurled axe. Balthus' movement last round must have ended with just five feet between himself and one of Conan's enemies because this foe swirls away from Conan, throws his axe (which has an effective range of 10 feet before penalty), moves the five feet up to Balthus and strikes with his knife.
The Picts get two Feats at 1st level: One that all 1st level characters get and a bonus Feat for being in his race's favored class of Barbarian. This Pict must have at least a DEX 13, Point Blank Shot, and Rapid Shot. The Pict uses the Rapid Shot to throw the Axe normally, and continuing a Full Attack Action, he moves the 5 feet and makes the melee attack with the knife. The knife attack is at -2 due to Rapid Shot Feat, but the Barbarian class provides the Two Weapon Combat Feat--so there are no other penalties.
The Pict rolled a natural one on the knife attack, calling up the GUSTUD rule. This means that Balthus gets to have a special free attack against his enemy on his turn.
As Balthus' turn comes around, the GUSTUD result shows a Grapple. "Balthus ducked and then caught the wrist that drove the knife licking at his throat." Balthus is successful with the grapple and decides to perform a trip maneuver as his standard action in order to get the Pict on the ground. "They went to the ground together, rolling over and over. The Pict was like a wild beast, his muscles hard as steel strings."
We're now ready for Round Three.
...What happened in Round Two...
Conan acted first, using a Full Attack, taking two or three swings, probably killing two or three Picts.
All but one of the remaining Picts, two or three, continue to attack Conan using full actions and, possibly, Two Weapon Combat.
One Pict turns from Conan to engage Balthus, using his Rapid Shot Feat to throw his axe, then, continuing a full action, stepping 5 feet to engage the Aquilonian in melee combat with his knife. The Pict rolls a natural one on the knife attack, giving Balthus a special GUSTUD attack, which turns out to be a grapple.
Balthus, acting last, takes his Grapple against the Pict, then, after its success, uses his normal action to trip his foe. The two fall to the ground.
I'll leave you here, in the middle of this fight. I could go on, but I've only described about half of the fight. Later, the story reads, "The knife broke on Conan's mail," which demonstrates rule that primitive weapons which hit but are completely ineffective against metal armored foes will break with the strike--when the armor's DR reduces the primitive weapon's damage to zero.
The story also describes Conan's fight, as Balthus looks at him. "Conan bestroke two of his attackers, shorn half asunder by that terrible broadsword." This shows Conan using a Full Combat Action, making two attacks with that broadsword, and killing one foe with each blow--nearly tearing the Picts in half! That quite accounts for the mis-match of Conan's level, strength, power, and abilities against these first level Picts.
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