Weapon Speed

[Water Bob]

Now there is no reason to calculate the % for both the 1 and the hit as well...(not only there is no reason... but the math get complicated...)

The math does get complicated, but there certainly is a reason to calculate the percentage of both a success at the attack and the percentage of the Speed Attack being allowed.

If a character with a dagger only has a 10% chance to hit a foe, he's going to have a Speed Attack probabilty of much less than 10%. But, if the same character has a 70% chance to hit another foe, then his Speed Attack probablity is much higher than with the first foe.

A lot of things have to happen in order for the Speed Attack to be successful...

1. Character has to make a successful attack with a Speed Weapon.

2. Damage on that blow has to be rolled as a "1".

3. And, the Speed attack has to be successful.



So, not only does a character, in effect, have to hit the target twice, but also has to roll minimum damage on the first attack.

All of that, put-together, makes the chances of a Speed Attack happening, then being successful, very slim.

I insist that two handed war spears are not as fast as you think. The "pull-back" is quite tiresome and lengthy.

I agree that the two-handed war spears are big, bulky weapons. That's why they're they're among the least likely to succeed at a Speed Attack from among all the Speed Weapons. I think they're quicker to use, though, than a two-handed great sword.

 

[Raven Crowking]

RCFG Version:

DOUBLE JAB:

This rule comes into play when using a one-handed slashing or piercing weapon, a two-handed piercing weapons (such as a spear), or an unarmed attack. The character must be Trained with the weapon, and the weapon must be of a type that rolls a single die for damage. Weapons that feature two or more damage dice are considered too bulky, unbalanced, or unwieldly for this option.

When a natural "1" is rolled on the damage die after a successful hit with an eligable weapon, the character is allowed immediately make an additional attack against against the same target, using the same weapon and the same combat mode. This extra attack costs a Reaction.

EDIT: Regardless of how many extra attacks are so gained, damage modifiers (including those from magic or Weapon Skill ranks) are only added once.

This rule simulates the ability to make a quick, double jab (or slash) with the weapon.

 

[Water Bob]

I'm not sure if the Conan rules include a monk (or monk-type class), but they should. REH's Conan stories certainly did.

I'm not familiar with a REH story that features a monk.

The Conan RPG core classes feature four (d10 HD) warrior classes: Barbarian (of course!), Borderer (Conan's answer to a Ranger), Soldier, and Nomad.

Then there are three non-warrior (d8 HD) classes: Noble (because of his expensive training, otherwise he'd be a civilian class), Pirate, and Thief.

And, there are two civilian (d6 HD) classes: Scholar and Temptress (who uses her sex to maniuplate men and get what she wants).



But, each class can be widely different among other same classed characters depending on race and environment. For example, a Cimmerian Barbarian is different from the savage Pict Barbarians, and both of those are different from the Barbarians you'll find in The Black Kingdoms.



Also, the Conan RPG is keen on multi-classing to customize characters. From the core classes, almost any type of character imaginable can be made. For example...

Scout = Barbarian/Borderer
Shaman = Barbarian/Scholar
Emissary = Borderer/Noble

Explorer = Borderer/Pirate
Guide = Borderer/Scholar
Outlaw = Borderer/Thief

Corsair = Pirate/Barbarian
Treasure Hunter = Pirate/Borderer
Sea Captain = Pirate/Noble

Privateer = Pirate/Soldier
Smuggler = Pirate/Thief
Gypsy = Temptress/Nomad

Bounty Hunter = Thief/Borderer
Crime Lord = Thief/Noble
Knight = Noble/Soldier

Druid = Scholar/Borderer
Cult Leader = Scholar/Noble
Navigator = Scholar/Pirate

Occultist = Scholar/Thief
Archer = Soldier/Borderer
Assassin = Soldier/Thief


You get the idea. The possibilities are endless.



Also, in the Conan game, class sometimes has little to do the character's profession. Conan was a master thief, but he was never higher than a 1st level Thief.

In the Conan game, if you steal, you're a thief. It doesn't matter what class your character is. If you walk into a thieve's guild in this game, you might find the two ruffians at the door are Soldier/Thief types. The story-teller from the town square who makes his extra money pick-pocketing his listeners can be a Scholar class. The Cimmerian Barbarian who specializes as a "second story man", using his Climb skill, doesn't have a level in the Thief class. And the Soldier who goes around town shaking down the merchants may all be in the thieves guild but not have any character level in the actual Thief class.

The same goes for sorcery in this game. And, for priests and clerics. The Pirate who steps off the boat and is worshipped by the island natives can be a cleric. The Noble who uses his charm and personal presence to grow a cult around him is a Cult leader. Any character can pick up knowledge of the dark arts and become a sorcerer, if he can read the old languages.

So, when you run into a cult leader in this game, you can't count on him being classed as a "cleric" (since there is no cleric class in this game...unless you multiclass one with something like Scholar/Soldier). The guy could be a the Noble, above, who grew the cult around him; a Soldier who leads a horde of fanatics; a Thief who secretly assassinated the previous cult leader; the afore mentioned Pirate who is worshipped by the island natives....a number of things.

It's a very versatile game that breaks free from many of the restrictions of vanilla D&D. (That's not a put-down on D&D. I love that game. It's just fact given the way the Conan RPG rules are written.)

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'm not familiar with a REH story that features a monk.

I can think of one that features four!

The Hour of the Dragon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Returning to his palace chamber, Valerius summoned before him four men of curious and alien aspect. They were tall, gaunt, of yellowish skin, and immobile countenances. They were very similar in appearance, clad alike in long black robes beneath which their sandaled feet were just visible. Their features were shadowed by their hoods. They stood before Valerius with their hands in their wide sleeves; their arms folded.

He stared in stupid amazement at the four invaders, unable to understand their presence; dimly remembering that he had drowsed unexplainably on the stair he was guarding and up which they must have come. He had never slept on duty before. But his master was shrieking with a note of hysteria in his voice, and the Shemite drove like a bull at the strangers, his thickly muscled arm drawing back for the disemboweling thrust. But the stroke was never dealt.

A black-sleeved arm shot out, extending the long staff. Its end but touched the Shemite's brawny breast and was instantly withdrawn. The stroke was horribly like the dart and recovery of a serpent's head.

Gebal halted short in his headlong plunge, as if he had encountered a solid barrier. His bull head toppled forward on his breast, the sword slipped from his fingers, and then he melted slowly to the floor. It was as if all the bones of his frame had suddenly become flabby. Publio turned sick.

"Do not shout again," advised the tallest Khitan. "Your servants sleep soundly, but if you awaken them they will die, and you with them. Where is Conan?"

He rushed at the remaining Khitan, his empty hand lifted like a weapon, and that hand was black as that of a negro. But before he could strike, the staff in the tall Khitan's hand licked out, seeming to elongate itself as the yellow man thrust. The point touched the bosom of Thutothmes and he staggered; again and yet again the staff licked out, and Thutothmes reeled and fell dead, his features blotted out in a rush of blackness that made the whole of him the same hue as his enchanted hand.

The Khitan turned toward the jewel that burned on the breast of the mummy, but Conan was before him.

In a tense stillness the two faced each other, amid that shambles, with the carven mummies staring down upon them.

"Far have I followed you, oh king of Aquilonia," said the Khitan calmly. "Down the long river, and over the mountains, across Poitain and Zingara and through the hills of Argos and down the coast. Not easily did we pick up on your trail from Tarantia, for the priests of Asura are crafty. We lost it in Zingara, but we found your helmet in the forest below the border hills, where you had fought with the ghouls of the forests. Almost we lost the trail tonight among these labyrinths."

Conan reflected that he had been fortunate in returning from the vampire's chamber by another route than that by which he had been led to it. Otherwise he would have run full into these yellow fiends instead of sighting them from afar as they smelled out his spoor like human bloodhounds, with whatever uncanny gift was theirs.

The Khitan shook his head slightly, as if reading his mind.

"That is meaningless; the long trail ends here."

"Why have you hounded me?" demanded Conan, poised to move in any direction with the celerity of a hair-trigger.

"It was a debt to pay," answered the Khitan. "To you who are about to die, I will not withhold knowledge. We were vassals of the king of Aquilonia, Valerius. Long we served him, but of that service we are free now--my brothers by death, and I by the fulfilment of obligation. I shall return to Aquilonia with two hearts; for myself the Heart of Ahriman; for Valerius the heart of Conan. A kiss of the staff that was cut from the living Tree of Death--"

The staff licked out like the dart of a viper, but the slash of Conan's knife was quicker. The staff fell in writhing halves, there was another flicker of the keen steel like a jet of lightning, and the head of the Khitan rolled to the floor.

You might also want to look at the martial arts used by Khemsa in The People of the Black Circle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Khemsa flicked the spear aside with his left hand, as a man might flick a straw, and his right flashed out and back, seeming gently to caress the warrior's neck in passing. And the guard pitched on his face without a sound, his head lolling on a broken neck.

Multiclassed monk/sorcerer!


RC

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

A 1d4 weapon (like daggers), wielded two hands. 25% per dagger. Add in 18 Strength per dagger for a 1d4+4, you have a 25% chance for an additional +5 points of damage per dagger, with two-weapon fighting, and iterative attacks, it can become a good target for abusive builds.

Yeah, this.

Past a certain number of bonus points to your damage roll, you're far better off switching to a low-die weapon and hoping for multiattacks than you are taking a high-die weapon and attacking normally.

 

[Water Bob]

Yeah, this.

Past a certain number of bonus points to your damage roll, you're far better off switching to a low-die weapon and hoping for multiattacks than you are taking a high-die weapon and attacking normally.

You're always going to get a butt load more damage attacking with two weapons rather than one.

It's not the Speed Rule that unbalancing. Given the example (STR 18 and a character using two daggers), if the character were up against a foe that he had a 50% chance of hitting, then the Speed Rule would add an extra 5 points of damage every 4 rounds.

That averages to about 1 extra point per round.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

You're thinking about this the wrong way.

Unless "speed weapons" have different chances to hit vs. non-speed weapons, the differences here are a wash and you can proceed to analyzing what happens after you hit.

Or, in other words, if you're comparing DPR, but the % chance to hit is the same in each case, then you can just compare expected damage numbers.

 

[Water Bob]

You're thinking about this the wrong way.

I'm thinking of it correctly. Yes, the Speed Attack has the same chance to hit, but you don't get a Speed Attack every round.

To prove I'm right, consider the problem if the character had 100% chance to hit his target.

If you've got a 100% chance to hit, you'll hit two times per round, once per weapon. Agreed?

Speed attack happens on a 1 on the d4 damage throw, so that gives you a 25% chance of occurence per weapon. So each weapon will have a Speed Attack event, on average, once per 4 rounds. That's the same as saying every other round.

The extra damage is the same damage that indicates the event: 1 + 3 = 4 points every other round. 1 point from the d4 weapon, and 3 points from the STR 18 (average of +4 main hand and +2 off hand).

With a 100% chance to hit, the Speed Attack adds an average of 2 points of damage per round.



Here it is worked out by round:

This is without the Speed Attack Rule. 100% chance to hit.

1. Hit 1: 2 + 4 = 6
Hit 2: 2 + 2 = 4

2. Hit 1: 2 + 4 = 6
Hit 2: 2 + 2 = 4

3. Hit 1: 2 + 4 = 6
Hit 2: 2 + 2 = 4

4. Hit 1: 2 + 4 = 6
Hit 2: 2 + 2 = 4

That's 40 points in 4 rounds, or 10 pts per round.



Now, with the Speed Rule.


1. Hit 1: 2 + 4 = 6
Hit 2: 2 + 2 = 4

2. Hit 1: 1 + 4 = 5
Speed Hit: 2 + 4 = 6
Hit 2: 2 + 2 = 4

3. Hit 1: 2 + 4 = 6
Hit 2: 2 + 2 = 4

4. Hit 1: 2 + 4 = 6
Hit 2: 1 + 2 = 3
Speed Hit: 2 + 2 = 4

Total Damage is 48 points. That's an average of an extra 2 points per round due to the Speed attack, just like I said.



Now....if you decrease the chance to hit, the number of times the Speed Attack occurs will decrease as well, and the average damage per round will go down.

At a 50% chance of hitting, as I said, the average is an extra 1 point of damage per round.

And so on.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Simplify things a bit and think about a single attack, with 100% chance to hit; then compare two different speed weapons. I think the problem become a little more apparent.

If you compare two different speed weapons (eg, shortswords (1d6) to daggers (1d4)), I believe you'll see a cross-over at which point the lower damage die one has has better DPR than the greater; in other words, daggers become inherently superior to shorswords when the damage modifier become significantly bigger than the damage die.

Think of it this way: consider a dagger with +100 in damage modifiers (strength, magic, whatever), compared to a shortsword with +100 in damage modifiers. The difference in average damage is 1 point. But even though both put out effectively the same damage, the dagger has a 25% chance to get in an extra attack each round, compared to the shortsword's 16% chance. With enough damage mods, the dagger is clearly superior, simply because it has a smaller damage die.

This +100 is an extreme case, but I believe this crossover in effectiveness actually becomes an issue somewhere down around +6 or +8, not especially unthinkable numbers-- but I'm not sure on that (I keep munging my estimates).

I think that's what the concern is when people talk about creating abusive builds based on this speed rule.

 

[Water Bob]

Simplify things a bit and think about a single attack, with 100% chance to hit; then compare two different speed weapons. I think the problem become a little more apparent.

This is apples and oranges compared to what I was talking about. The above posts suggested the Speed Rule having a much higher effect on the actual attack.

Now, we're discussing the better of two speed weapons.

Unless I read something wrong....

If you compare two different speed weapons (eg, shortswords (1d6) to daggers (1d4)), I believe you'll see a cross-over at which point the lower damage die one has has better DPR than the greater; in other words, daggers become inherently superior to shorswords when the damage modifier become significantly bigger than the damage die.

I see the point, but I'm not sure it's correct. If you took the same character and gave him a different speed weapon, which one would he do better with?

Let's look at it.

STR 18 character with d4 Speed Weapon.

1. Hit 1: 2 + 4 = 6

2. Hit 1: 2 + 4 = 6

3. Hit 1: 2 + 4 = 6

4. Hit 1: 1 + 4 = 5
Speed Hit: 2 + 4 = 6

5. Hit 1: 2 + 4 = 6

6. Hit 1: 2 + 4 = 6

7. Hit 1: 2 + 4 = 6

8. Hit 1: 1 + 4 = 5
Speed Hit: 2 + 4 = 6

9. Hit 1: 2 + 4 = 6

10. Hit 1: 2 + 4 = 6

Total Average Damage for 10 rounds = 70 points.





STR 18 character with d6 Speed Weapon.

1. Hit 1: 3 + 4 = 7

2. Hit 1: 3 + 4 = 7
3. Hit 1: 3 + 4 = 7

4. Hit 1: 3 + 4 = 7
5. Hit 1: 3 + 4 = 7
6. Hit 1: 1 + 4 = 5
Speed Hit: 3 + 4 = 7

7. Hit 1: 3 + 4 = 7
8. Hit 1: 3 + 4 = 7
9. Hit 1: 3 + 4 = 7

10. Hit 1: 3 + 4 = 7

Total Average Damage for 10 rounds = 75 points.





STR 18 character with d8 Speed Weapon.

1. Hit 1: 4 + 4 = 8
2. Hit 1: 4 + 4 = 8
3. Hit 1: 4 + 4 = 8

4. Hit 1: 4 + 4 = 8
5. Hit 1: 4 + 4 = 8
6. Hit 1: 4 + 4 = 8

7. Hit 1: 4 + 4 = 8
8. Hit 1: 1 + 4 = 5
Speed Hit: 4 + 4 = 8

9. Hit 1: 4 + 4 = 8
10. Hit 1: 4 + 4 = 8

Total Average Damage for 10 rounds = 85 points.





STR 18 character with d10 Speed Weapon.

1. Hit 1: 5 + 4 = 9
2. Hit 1: 5 + 4 = 9
3. Hit 1: 5 + 4 = 9

4. Hit 1: 5 + 4 = 9
5. Hit 1: 5 + 4 = 9
6. Hit 1: 5 + 4 = 9

7. Hit 1: 5 + 4 = 9
8. Hit 1: 5 + 4 = 9
9. Hit 1: 5 + 4 = 9
10. Hit 1: 1 + 4 = 5
Speed Hit: 5 + 4 = 9

Total Average Damage for 10 rounds = 95 points.



Now, there ARE little breaks in the comparison, but I think they are acceptible. For example, if you go just 4 rounds, the d4 weapon totals 29 hit points where the d6 weapon totals 28 points, but d6 catches up the longer it goes.

Another thing to remember is that we're not that much interested in anything past 10 rounds. Our focus is really on the first 5 rounds or so, since most combat don't last longer than 5 rounds or so.

Given the data, I'm completely comfortable with the Speed Rule.