Banning instead of errata

Ichabod

Mongoose
This is a new thread started based on the endless debates about the brokenness of combat in the game and how to fix what bothers people. For background, see any thread about weapon damage, two-handed fighting, Power Attack, Sneak Attack, critical hits, attack progression, etc.


Not that I see a light at the end of the tunnel on fixing what is broken in combat or what bothers particular groups, but there is another path that I don't see floated often.

What about banning Power Attack? Either the whole feat tree or just it could be gotten rid of, I'd go with the whole tree.

Of course, that's just a start. Then, 2w fighting looks vastly better. And, it does nothing to rein in SA. The idea of a muscle-y dude running around with a 1h weapon still wouldn't transfer to paper. I just had a thought on how to redo PA to help 1h fighting, but that would get off topic.

But, the more general point is that at some point it becomes too much of a hassle to fix something and it's easier to just eliminate the source of problems. Sure, this is often given as a reason not to use d20 in the first place, but let's pretend you were going to stick with d20.

Speaking of looking at ways to eliminate the source of problems, there's banning 2h weapons. Oh, for those who will go "you can't ban something that exists", just say every 2h weapon works the same way as 1h weapons. A bardiche is just a battle axe, a greatsword is just a war sword. No damage greater than a war sword's 1d12, no x1.5 STR, no disarm benefits, ..., no mechanical benefit to 2h fighting whatsoever. Yes, that means no one will ever use a weapon 2h. Doesn't bother me any more than the "I don't care if I have to use a fish and take -10 to hit, it has to be a 2h weapon." idiocy that I find built into the system.

There's just something terribly wrong when there are dozens of possible fixes and it isn't clear which actually makes sense. For d20 haters, it's no better as pretty much every system has these sorts of "I can't get things the way I want them" problems.

Ultimately, I just see sucking it up, playing with a system, recognizing the flaws, having the GM and players work together to ignore them, and just play with the idea that RPGs aren't Advanced Squad Leader.
 
Reaching MD without Power Attack would be difficult then, don't you think? (even if I concede PA has to be nerfed). If it's too easy with a 2hd weapon with the current rules, I fear triggering MD would become very difficult without Power Attack. Actually, I think that 2hd weapons are a bigger problem in the game than PA is.
 
Distinguishing weapon types in RPG rules, which comes out of Chainmail,
-- makes some kind of sense with small-scale wargaming
-- corresponds to very little fiction, certainly almost no sword and sorcery or heroic fantasy, where no one ever won or lost a fight due to what weapon they were using unless the weapon is particularly bad or particularly good
-- is spurious micromanagement in terms of emulating the Conan stories
-- invites powergamers to make min/maxing decisions that reduce the variety of weapons used in play, however one tries to 'balance' the rules in the abstract
 
But virtually every game does make a distinction between weapons... to be honest I can't think of a single fantasy rpg that does not.

I take your point, and it has some merit, but I'd be very surprised if more than a small fraction of players were happy (in any system) to disregard weapon type as a factor in combat.
 
There are quite a few that don't: HeroQuest, Fudge, and various other modern games. The fact that most of them do is a legacy from D&D, something veteran players thus expect but new ones (not enculturated to 'gamer' assumptions) likely wouldn't (unless they were peculiarly naive about how stories work).
 
Howard does draw distinction between weapons though. In Hour of the Dragon, pikes are too clumsy for easy use agaisnt Conan when he is freeing the countess.

Now I grant you, Conan uses battleaxe, poniard and broadsword with equal facility but he tends to do far more damage with axe and sword than with his knife, which generally comes into play when he's grappling monsters and his sword is therefore useless.

As I say, I can see the argument but to me it flies in the face of what most players expect and also it does run counter to what we see in Howard where Conan's weapon does dictate his style of fighting at the least.

Also in at least two stories the longbow outperforms the crossbow.

I'm not saying that Howard draws as great a difference between weapons as is found in the Conan d20 game, becaue he most certainly does not. But neither does he have an 'all weapons are equal stance.

Actually, I think that 2hd weapons are a bigger problem in the game than PA is

I'd certainly agree. PA is fine as a concept and if limited to equal to Str bonus as a maximum add can be kept within reasonable bounds I think.

Someone, it may have been Kintire, suggested simply doing away with MD, which is not to everyone's taste but has the merit of simplicity and if coupled with a nerfing of 2hw would remove a lot of problems. At the expense of longer combats and the 'rolling down' of hps that MD is designed to avoid. But this thread's for simple solutions and it is certainly one.
 
I don't know. Power Attack, to me, isn't really that great. I mean, you have to hit for it to work. And you are subtracting points away from hitting. I like cleave (and the rest) so I usually take power attack if a barbarian but never really use it.
 
Differentiation of weapons is a critical means of providing variety. If you GM allows you to essetially have any weapon you want, this is undermined somewhat. However, it likewise makes sense that heavier two-handed weapons deal more damage in the usual meta-realistic RPG sense of things. This is why most every RPG worth playing has differnetiated weapon damage. Systems like FUDGE are meant to be so generic that it really doesn't matter, providing speed of play rather than accuracy.

I really don't understand the dilema with two-handed weapons in conan, apart fromt he die-hards that don't feel that they are canon enough. Fine. BUt they do have thier place in a fantasy RPG, and that's what Conan is at it's core. You don't like them because they didn't appear in Howards writings, eliminate them. It's GM perogative.

Power Attack is a differnt issue. The only reason why it is even in the same conversation with two-handed weapons is because of the huge damage that is generated from the straign port for 3.X D&D into Conan, and that only becomes problematic because the Massive Damage value is quite low by comparison. It's the doubling of the amount added to damage that does it, too, and, although I still don't have a problem with it since everyone (PC and NPCs alike) use the feat equally, an alternative that works great is the modification found in Pathfinder RPG by Piazo.

In that system you add an amount equal to your STR mod or BAB, whichever is lower, and in either case, not over +5 for at least multiple EXP lvls. This is in addition to normal STR bonus applied ot damage. You add that to melee damage, but also subtract the same amount from all attack rolls that round. In addition, if you use a two-handed weapon to make those attacks, you double the damage bonus.

Now, it's a set number, so the player cannot optimize on the fly, and therefore, at really high STR mod values, it starts to undermine the benefit because the attack penalty increases by the same increment. It's also the lower of the two scores, STR mod or BAB, so having a massive STR doesn't necessarily benefit you.

I think this is the best tweak I've seen because it diminishes the ovewhelming nature of the feat, but doesn't nerf it completely.

Another thing to bare in mind it that something is needed as a stepping stone to obtaining Cleave, and PA has that function also: to act as prerequisite to other feats.
 
Hervé said:
Reaching MD without Power Attack would be difficult then, don't you think? (even if I concede PA has to be nerfed). If it's too easy with a 2hd weapon with the current rules, I fear triggering MD would become very difficult without Power Attack. Actually, I think that 2hd weapons are a bigger problem in the game than PA is.

Here's what I would do:
BAN MASSIVE DAMAGE
then allow only a +5 bonus cap to PA.

THis solves the insta-kills big time.

You can't ban a two handed sword, that's too silly.
What I would do is ban the strength x 1.5 bonus, because a 2H sword already has the damage built into its stat.
 
Faraer said:
Distinguishing weapon types in RPG rules, which comes out of Chainmail,
-- makes some kind of sense with small-scale wargaming
-- corresponds to very little fiction, certainly almost no sword and sorcery or heroic fantasy, where no one ever won or lost a fight due to what weapon they were using unless the weapon is particularly bad or particularly good
-- is spurious micromanagement in terms of emulating the Conan stories
-- invites powergamers to make min/maxing decisions that reduce the variety of weapons used in play, however one tries to 'balance' the rules in the abstract
That's quite well spoken, and I agree.

I'm actually quite fond of the way weapons are handled in Warhammer Fantasy RPG; almost all weapons are just considered 'hand weapons', which are all mechanically identical, and you can just choose if you want it to be an axe, a sword, or a club, depending on what you think looks cool on your character. Well, to be fair there are also some other variants (like spear and two-hander, for example), which have some additional benefits and drawbacks, but most characters will just run around with that simple 'hand weapon'.

For the Conan game (or any Sword & Sorcery, really), I think Mongoose should have taken this direction and made different weapons, if anything, more similar than they were in D&D 3.5 upon which the game is based. Instead, they took the opposite direction (a dagger deals 1d4, a greatsword 2d10!), and I think the combat system has turned out a bit wonky because of it.

My guess is the reasoning went something like:
- Let's make fighting with two weapons free for everyone and remove the penalties!
- But now no one will want to wear a shield, so lets make the shield bonus bigger!
- But now no one will want to fight with a two-handed weapon, so lets increase the damage on those!

I think this was a bit unfortunate, as it made fighting with just a regular weapon (which is what Conan almost always does!) the suckiest suck.
I think the game would actually work better if things in this regard were more similar to the original; you take a penalty when fighting with two weapons, a shield gives you a smaller bonus, and the difference in damage-dealing isn't that big between a broadsword and a greatsword.

Ichabod said:
Speaking of looking at ways to eliminate the source of problems, there's banning 2h weapons. Oh, for those who will go "you can't ban something that exists", just say every 2h weapon works the same way as 1h weapons. A bardiche is just a battle axe, a greatsword is just a war sword. No damage greater than a war sword's 1d12, no x1.5 STR, no disarm benefits, ..., no mechanical benefit to 2h fighting whatsoever. Yes, that means no one will ever use a weapon 2h. Doesn't bother me any more than the "I don't care if I have to use a fish and take -10 to hit, it has to be a 2h weapon." idiocy that I find built into the system.
This is actually something I could consider doing.
 
I don't know. Power Attack, to me, isn't really that great. I mean, you have to hit for it to work. And you are subtracting points away from hitting.

Seriously?
Don't forget Defense values in Conan are generally lower than their D&D AC counterparts and lower than attack scores. Furthermore, you can have a lot of attack bonuses (from weapon specialization, charge and so on...) that can convert easily in double damage with Power Attack.

Power Attacking is very easy in Conan, far too much actually. And it's far too deadly with 2hd weapons as it allows to trigger MD on every blow.
There's no way you can be as powerful with one handed weapons, even with two weapon combat or sneak attack. And it gets even more exaggerated when combining with other feats as Cleave for instance.

2hd weapons suck so much as they get the best of both worlds:
-Higher Damage rating
-Higher Strength Bonus (x1.5)
-Higher Power Attack Bonus (-1/+2)

That's far too much for a game that is supposed to rely on human prowess rather than on stuff. 2hd weapons recall too much where the rules are coming from: good ol' munchkin D&D where stuff is everything...
 
I think this is up to the DM to adapt the rule so everyone is happy.

In another thread somebody mentionned something interresting: Since 2-handed weapon are lot harder to wield and take lot more room you can add some ruling like giving penality when in a tight space.

So, the same way you can't use a Pike against an Adjacent opponent, the GM can decide when you can't use your Greatsword or your bardiche. (Like when surrounded or in a 5 foot-wide corridor for exemple).

You can also remove attack of opportunity against grappling/bull rushing or disarming opponent to represent the slow reaction time in close combat.

you could also give a penality to initiative, or say it take a full round action to draw/ready those weapon (1 move if you have quick draw)
 
Well, first off I'd like to honour that this thread is dedicated to simple all-or-nothing solutions, "banning instead of errata". So in this light: Ban two-handed weapons. Ban Sneak Attack also. Maybe also ban MD.

But what you get then is a rather dull system where everyone does similar, small amounts of damage, and fights are reverted to the attrition battles we know from earlier systems. Like, there are 70HP per fighter, you do 1d8 damage, everyone start rolling until the first one drops. That's pretty boring.

As for treeplanter's suggestions, I like the first one where you simply can't use Large weapons at all in confined spaces. (That's the reason why Spearmen etc always had a small backup weapon)

About denying AoOs, I'm not so sure... a big weapon is pretty dangerous _until_ you get close enough And exactly that point is where you provoke the AoO, so I think it should stay.

Initiative modifiers by weapon are like a red rag to me, at least in D20, firstly because weapon reach and speed can be assumed to cancel out, secondly because it has weird implications when for example your Ini goes up because you switch weapons.
 
yeah but they are sure slower to react than one handed weapon and AoO are about reacting :)

Especially the big 3 (bardiche, greatsword and tulwar)

Initiative malus could be a bit harsh. But on the other end it is a really simple way to nerf them without changing all the math. dunno

Of course one could also just opt for the 4th ed damage ratio (wich is one of the thing I actually like in 4th ed)
 
Also you could just rule that an "Assault" of 20 damages trigger the destroy-armor and MD where an Assault = consecutive damage within the same round

So you have you hit twice with your bow for 24 damage, you force pierce the DR for 1d4 and force the MD save

this is not unlogical anyway and it would put 2-weapon and 2-hand and range, so ALONG with a slight modiffication of PA it would put the 3 styles almost on par
 
treeplanter said:
yeah but they are sure slower to react than one handed weapon and AoO are about reacting :)

Especially the big 3 (bardiche, greatsword and tulwar)

Initiative malus could be a bit harsh. But on the other end it is a really simple way to nerf them without changing all the math. dunno

Of course one could also just opt for the 4th ed damage ratio (wich is one of the thing I actually like in 4th ed)

I can't speak with any real knowledge about a bardiche or tulwar but a greatsword at least is a remarkably nimble weapon, especially for its size. Read about half-swording techiques if you are interested. I've also seen some bardiche-like weapons used with similarly deceptive agility and speed when proper technique is employed.

Yet, more to the point, I don't see those AoOs when people close distance as being about purely 'reaction'. I see them as, aptly named, opportunities. You can't close with someone with such a reach advantage on you without having to deal with their effort to get you not to ( preferrably because you are dead. ).

Closing with someone with a greatsword can be challenging as they can keep striking at you while making adjustments with their footwork to try and stay out of your reach. And 'getting inside' is much more difficult than might be thought. Half-swording technique gives the weapon a tighter range and speed difference for use under just such circumstances, more like staff or polearm techniques, and the change in range and technique can be very ... surprising. The ability to switch between half-swording and 'regular' greatsword techniques make the weapon very versatile.

I'm rambling again, but my ultimate point is that I dislike the assumption in many RPGs that simply because a weapon is bigger it must be slower. In some cases this is true but in others it simply betrays misconceptions about the weapons in question and how they ( with real training ) are used.
 
My impression is that the weapon most akin to the one used historically for half-swording is in fact the warsword. The d20 greatsword is far more akin to the historic zweihander which was far more cumbersome than the historic 'longsword'/d20 warsword and essentially designed as a weapon to beat down pikes.

The confusion often arises because any 2h sword can be colloquially referred to as a greatsword and longsword has, thanks to D&D, become in the minds of the rpg public a purely 1h sword.

The zweihander (d20 greatsword) weighed about twice as much (or more) than a longsword (d20 warsword/bastard sword), which weighted a bit more than a typical arming sword (D&D longsword). Plenty of historical evidence exists for half-swording and really very sophisticated fencing techniques being employed by weilders of the various types of 'longsword'. No such historical evidence exists that those techniques were ever applied to the zweihander. It is not impossible that they were so used but the complete absence of historical accounts or manuals describing zweihanders being used in this way, and a fair amount of testimony existing to their use as (fairly sophisticated) hacking/disarming weapons, with a specific 'anti-polearm' focus, makes it seem rather unlikely that they were used for half-swording etc. in the same way as the longsword.

To represent its sluggishness in recovery from a swing, I'd suggest allowing only one attack per round regardless of feats etc. (plus a maximum of one AoO also).
 
"To represent its sluggishness in recovery from a swing, I'd suggest allowing only one attack per round regardless of feats etc. (plus a maximum of one AoO also)."

Hum not a bad idea at all. That is sure a BIG nerf!!
 
Just one attack per round is too big a nerf I think, but maybe limit the iterative attack to a BAB 11+. That way a 2Her gets 2 attacks per round where a one-hander gets 3-4 and a TWFer gets 6-8 attacks per round.
 
cbrunish said:
I don't know. Power Attack, to me, isn't really that great. I mean, you have to hit for it to work. And you are subtracting points away from hitting. I like cleave (and the rest) so I usually take power attack if a barbarian but never really use it.

At very low levels, Cleave is more important. Extra attacks are more important than a few extra points of damage as the consistent 20+ hasn't been achieved yet for an 18 STR character.

About 5th level, BABs are high enough that PA starts becoming big enough to have a high probability of forcing MDSs with every hit. PA is important for creating Cleaves.

With Reckless Attack or some other way to pump damage, the balance between PA and Cleave becomes highly situation dependent at around 10th level. Clearing out junk is a Cleave function. Nuking big bads is a PA function.

So, I can see an argument for Cleave being better than PA in the grand scheme of things, but it's essential that damage consistently be 20+ and PA makes that easy from mid levels up. Plus, if you have Cleave, you have PA, so you always have the best of both worlds. This is in contrast to SA, which for all of its "you have no hope, well 5% chance, of surviving if I hit you" effect, isn't always usable and sucks for clearing out junk.
 
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