A Flagon of Wine

[Trodax]

OK, this is basically a pointless feel-good thread, but I just wanted to share some stuff with you guys. During the holidays I got the opportunity to game with a group of Conan newbies. We played The Tower of the Elephant, which turned out to be a great adventure. One scene was especially memorable…

The Cimmerian barbarian of the group (a female going by the name of Ruslana!) has just taken a severe beating in a tough fight which has her disabled at 0 hp. I tell her about the "A Flagon of Wine"-rule, and she of course takes advantage of it by downing a bottle of strong wine. Back at 1 hp she is, and ready to go. In the next scene a Monstrosity from Hell comes at the group. The Cimmerian (still at 1 hp) enters Crimson Mist, charges the beast and dishes out a maxed-out Power Attack. The Monstrosity takes 25 hp damage and fails its massive damage save. Splat! Blood and gore fly everywhere.
It was awesome.

Whatever Mongoose decide to do with Conan 2nd edition, "A Flagon of Wine" should definitely be kept. I love that rule, and it's astonishing how often it has actually come into play in my games (for some reason people often seem to end up at exactly 0 hp). In this particular adventure, the group took advantage of the rule no less than twice, and at the end they were carrying around a bottle of drink "just in case". You gotta love that shit.

OK, I'm done, I just wanted to say how much I love playing Conan and what a great game it is.

 

[slaughterj]

OK, this is basically a pointless feel-good thread, but I just wanted to share some stuff with you guys. During the holidays I got the opportunity to game with a group of Conan newbies. We played The Tower of the Elephant, which turned out to be a great adventure. One scene was especially memorable…

The Cimmerian barbarian of the group (a female going by the name of Ruslana!) has just taken a severe beating in a tough fight which has her disabled at 0 hp. I tell her about the "A Flagon of Wine"-rule, and she of course takes advantage of it by downing a bottle of strong wine. Back at 1 hp she is, and ready to go. In the next scene a Monstrosity from Hell comes at the group. The Cimmerian (still at 1 hp) enters Crimson Mist, charges the beast and dishes out a maxed-out Power Attack. The Monstrosity takes 25 hp damage and fails its massive damage save. Splat! Blood and gore fly everywhere.
It was awesome.

Whatever Mongoose decide to do with Conan 2nd edition, "A Flagon of Wine" should definitely be kept. I love that rule, and it's astonishing how often it has actually come into play in my games (for some reason people often seem to end up at exactly 0 hp). In this particular adventure, the group took advantage of the rule no less than twice, and at the end they were carrying around a bottle of drink "just in case". You gotta love that ****.

OK, I'm done, I just wanted to say how much I love playing Conan and what a great game it is.

That all does sound cool, and there's no reason such shouldn't remain!

But I've yet to have anyone hit 0 HP, so had no use for it

Hitting 0, or even hitting -1 to -9 (and thus not insta-death) are often tough to have happen, especially as levels go up and foes deal more damage, seems to be a fundamental issue with the archaic HP system that doesn't facilitate people being disabled but functional, knocked out (there's the kludge of a system known as subdual damage), etc., which is unfortunate.

 

[Clovenhoof]

Ruslana? Not by any means related to the Ukrainian singer? ^^

Since healing is so limited in Conan, I think it can be justified to add another failsafe to prevent untimely character demise.
For example, you might make the maximum negative hit points to equal the CON score. So a char with CON 15 would only die when dropping below -15 HP. A few more rounds for his chums to tend to him.

Moreover, you could rule a character may be Disabled not only when hitting exactly 0, but let's say a range between 0 and 1/2 CON score. A Flagon Of Wine should still bring you back to 1HP.
However, you could also add for balance reasons that after a certain time (1 minute, 10 minutes, 1 hour, you decide), any HP restored from below 0 are lost again, but you remain stable unless further HP loss is inflicted.

Example:
Groo has CON 15, which gives him a death threshold of -15 and a disability threshold of -7 HP. In combat, he is reduced to -5 HP, which disables him. Groo imbibes a flagon of wine, bringing him back to 1HP for a short while. After the effects of the wine wear off, he drops back to -4HP, but hopefully he is safe now and can recover to a positive HP amount with a good night's rest.

Alternative
In a previous low-magic game I mastered yonks ago, I gave each character a number of Base HP or Life Points equal to their Con score, in addition to any HD acquired through class levels. HP granted through the CON modifier were added to LP, the HD themselves to regular HP. So a Lv 10 Fighter with CON 14 might have had 34 LP and 60HP.
Lost HP were first deducted from HP, which recovered very quickly because they were interpreted as fatigue or stress (from dodging blows etc) rather than wounds.
When HP hit zero, further damage was deducted from LP, which recovered more slowly - these were real physical damage like wounds. (I planned to divide the LP into further portions simulating impairment through increasing penalties, but never got around to implementing this.)
Only at 0 LP did a character eventually drop; negative HP/LP handled as per standard rules.
Another problem with this system was handling poison and other effects that directly influence the body; to keep things simple we simply sticked to the "HP first, then LP" rule since the system was meant to make characters more survivable, not less.

Now I'll wait and see how it goes in Conan with the standard rules before thinking about reinstating this LP/HP mechanism.

 

[Valgrim Bragisson]

This is great stuff! Never used the "Falgon of Wine" rule, but like the idea. The one time I tried to use it, the GM said no because we only had ale, not "wine". :roll: But I realy like that one hit kill story! Hyboria's Funniest Crits: When Barbarians Attack!! One time my character, Valgrim the Vanir, killed a Wooly Mamoth with one blow. Now that's entertainment! :twisted:

MP

 

[Trodax]

Ruslana? Not by any means related to the Ukrainian singer? ^^

We did have a couple of jokes about that (it was unavoidable since she was a fur-clad barbarian). "There she goes again, wild danciiiiing..."

Moreover, you could rule a character may be Disabled not only when hitting exactly 0, but let's say a range between 0 and 1/2 CON score.

Remember that three of the eight core classes get the Die Hard feat for free at level 6, so at slightly higher levels you will have people running around doing partial actions because they are wounded.

I do like your LP/HP system, sounds pretty good (and poison seems to be a problem for all hit point systems).

While we're discussing hit points, I might elaborate some more and say that one thing I've found is important when dealing with hit points in Conan is the way you describe wounds. Two points to remember:
1) You heal naturally very quickly (often a disabled character can get fully restored by just spending a day or two in bed).
2) You don't take any penalties for losing hp until you are disabled (in fact, you can run around and be very effective with only 1 hp as was seen in my example above :wink: ).

Because of #1, I always describe wounds that the PC's get as pretty light (cuts and bruises mostly). Even if a PC took a huge hit from a greatsword and failed his massive damage save, I would describe it as, for example, "You take a heavy hit to the head, but luckily your helmet saves you as the blade glances off it" (if he spent a Fate point to be Left For Dead that is, if he was out of Fate points his death would be gruesome indeed). For me and my players, it just feels too unrealistic if a character gets stabbed in the gut with a sword and is then back on his feet after a day in bed.

For NPC's the fate is always more harsh, and I generally rule that most unimportant characters (mooks) are killed when they hit 0 hp, just to get things a bit more bloody and gory (as they should be in Conan :twisted: ). Because of point #2 above, though, wounds are always very relative, so to speak. For example, a pictish barbarian with 20 hp who takes a 10 hp hit might be described as getting a nasty gash along his arm. If he then takes another 10 hp hit (putting him out of the fight), I could describe that as "His arm is severed at the shoulder, and he goes down screaming and with blood squirting everywhere".

I don't know if this makes any sense, but my point is that hit points are best handled as very abstract; a hit that causes 10 hp can mean very different things, if it just wounds someone it's only a cut or bruise, if it takes an NPC out of the fight it can be a gruesome death, and if it takes a PC out of the fight it can mean a knockout blow (because the PC will probably heal that wound very quickly).

 

[are]

In Star Wars D20 1st edition player characters had Wound Points (= constitution) and Vitality Points based on level and Constitution Bonus. Critical Hits meant damage directly to the Wound Points (no doubling), otherwise you had to reduce the targets Vitality Points to zero before they took wounds. Loosing Wound Points meant real harm, but was still handled abstractly, otherwise the system was very similar to Clovenhoofs suggestions.

In 2nd edition the armour worked just like it does in Conan D20.


On a darker note, in the post-rapture RPG "The Meek", a character just has Life Points equal to their Constitution and gets one more per level increase.

 

[rgrove0172]

I don't know if this makes any sense, but my point is that hit points are best handled as very abstract;

It makes perfect sense. I find in it challenging and absolutely essential to describe the effects of combat in a relative manner, based on the ratio of HP remaining and HP delivered. A similar hit with a weapon can have a wide variety of actual effects dependent on who or what it hit. Some might say the description is just color and not that essential to the game but our group relishes the theatrical element. Describing a wound in a certain way seals it in the minds of the players, if the rules then present an unrealistic outcome, it spoiles the whole thing. Like I said, its a challenge sometimes to make it all work out.

By the way, someone above mentioned "GROO" - I had all but forgotten that old Barbarian from the Comix. Man that brings back some fond memories. Sergio Argonez was the artist was he not? Groo always brought some yucks to our gaming table back in the day.

 

[Trodax]

A similar hit with a weapon can have a wide variety of actual effects dependent on who or what it hit.

Exactly. When we used to play D&D back in the day, we used to interpret hp loss much more like actual wounds. So two guys with a 100 hp each who were hitting one another for 10 hp of damage every round, were actually really hacking into each other with their swords. That of course makes for quite bizarre situations (and I would never play it like this if I played D&D today), but the prevalence of healing magic somehow made it a little more OK.
"Your groin is smashed into a bloody pulp, but nice Mr Cleric touches you with his healing hands and all is well" is obviously very high-magic and strange, but if the world has powerful magic that can pull that sort of stuff off, then so be it.

In Conan you heal very fast on your own, which makes the above situation totally unlogical. "Your groin is smashed into a bloody pulp, but after two days of rest you are ready for yet another night of wining and whoring."
Not believable if you ask me. Not that I have had my groin smashed into a bloody pulp in real life, but if I did I would probably stay away from the ladies for at least a month. :wink:

 

[slaughterj]

This is great stuff! Never used the "Falgon of Wine" rule, but like the idea. The one time I tried to use it, the GM said no because we only had ale, not "wine". :roll:

Nice. :roll: I think that it shouldn't have been just wine, but written more generally as "spirits" to keep overly restrictive GMs from ruining the fun.

 

[Clovenhoof]

It does read "strong wine or other powerful liquor", so you're settled. That doesn't include beer by default, though there are some types of beer (like Bock, Ice-Bock, and special brands like Kulminator) that have as much bang as wine.

 

[slaughterj]

It does read "strong wine or other powerful liquor", so you're settled. That doesn't include beer by default, though there are some types of beer (like Bock, Ice-Bock, and special brands like Kulminator) that have as much bang as wine.

Sure, but most ales wouldn't fit, thus I would like to see it written more broadly, to avoid tight GMs.

 

[Etepete]

Most belgian beers would be fine, and almost none else, right?

 

[Auggie]

This is great stuff! Never used the "Falgon of Wine" rule, but like the idea. The one time I tried to use it, the GM said no because we only had ale, not "wine". :roll: But I realy like that one hit kill story! Hyboria's Funniest Crits: When Barbarians Attack!! One time my character, Valgrim the Vanir, killed a Wooly Mamoth with one blow. Now that's entertainment! :twisted:

MP

I'm Valgrim's GM 8) . True, I did not allow the "Flagon of Wine" because we only had ale available. However, after reading many of the posts, I would be inclined in the future to allow the players to use ale if wine isn't available. Face it, some of the places our characters frequent, the ale would be stronger than acid! :shock: