Conan RPG Acheronian Edition

[Majestic7]

As it is now, gaining +1 to all (BAB thru WILL) at every even level, every class gainst an additional attack at 12th level, also. At least if you're sticking to iterative attacks mechanics (every +6 BAB adds an additional +1 iterative attack). You don't address that in these rules. Now, I'm okay with that applying to martial classes, but Nobles and Sorcerers shouldn't get that progression. Nether should Thieves or Borderers, really. That's why there are three progressions, even though as they stand they allow for (ahem) high accuracy and easy hitting. You will want a broader variation between classes combat wise, otherwise a Srcerer is just as good in close combat as a Barbarian, and that breaks the Feat system, not to mention being rather unrealistic.

In the Conan Survival Thread you were complaining that 4th Edition would be very bad for Conan RPG because classes there are so limited and in Conan a Thief can be a diplomat and so forth.... this is exactly that. Everyone has a chance at everything. Taking feats and abilities for that role reinforces it. Few Scholars have good Strength and take close combat feats with their feat choices. If they do, well, they still can't be as good as same level Soldiers in a fight. Soldier always has that +1 edge in Parry and Attack, has more feats, has more likely abilities for the job and in the end, has higher HD and more Hit Points. So, the classes are not equal even if they are not as widely different from each other as they used to be. When basic increases to attacks and defences are low, stuff like a +1 bonus matters much more. This makes Formation Combat, for example, a much better thing to have. I don't see anything here breaking feats or making any classes worse than before. It only makes all characters more versatile which has always been the spirit of Conan. In the progress, it fixes the annoying high level bugs. A win win situation.

Making Rope Use a DEX check is valid, one could choose to do that. But for that matter, Hide/Stealth could be as well. WHy have the skill list at all? Yes, please do pick and choose and glom them all together, but remember this: One problem we had with 4th edition was that there's no Appraise Skill. Yes, really. We looked it up for about an hour before finally coming to the un-aied conclusion, through deduction rather than any explicit rule, that gems had only four values, and weapons and armor were worth whatever they were in the equipment lists...and everyone in the world has just memorized that crap. It's a silly 'delete' and took a large portion of Role Playing my Thief completely out of the game, because I could no longer have the abiltiy to dupe my fellow party memebers in character with my high Bluff Skill, etc.

Fourth Edition is a whole different game that streamlines everything a lot so that the game is faster. It is not a good basis for comparison. However, I addressed these things in my previous post - about Profession skills etc - so I'm not repeating them.

Honestly, connection between skills is handeld just fine with Synergy in my opinion, and I allow Synergy Bonuses to stack, so that Tumble, Climb and Balance all end up boosting a single Climb check. I just feel like stripping it all back to just a few skills doesn't allow for the customizability that I like, or that the game works really well with. If you enjoy not having the Appraise, Rope Use or Forgery skills...knock yourself out. I just think it's an unnecessary rule change.

The trouble with synergies and other floating bonuses is that they tend to stack incredibly big if you are not careful and players tend to lose their touch on what builds up their skill bonus totals. The first was/is one of the worst problems of 3.5 - just look at all the broken builds based on abusing that, such as building a diplomatic character that can turn anyone from Hostile to Friendly with one Diplomacy check, even middle of combat. Synergy complicates the system even more while gives very little to reinforce it. It only pushes player characters towards selecting one specific talent type and spending all skill points on it. For example, being an athlete means spending points on Tumble, Jump, Balance and so forth to get all the synergy bonuses. In the same way having one talent, such as Stealth, divided among several skills makes the player use skill points to less variety, resulting in more dull, one-sided characters.

Glad you reminded me about multiple attacks and synergy, I'll add them to the first post.

 

[Majestic7]

Rather than M7's rewrite of the game, since if you are going to rewrite the game, I'd fix tons of other things first, I'd be inclined to try Clovenhoof's DV progression bump to see if it works.
.

I don't think it does. It only affects DV, while saves need attention too. On the side, it makes it very, very hard for lower level enemies to hit higher level foes if DVs upgrade too fast. Attacks that target saves need to be in line with attacks that target DV... as having a high level character (or mega-HD monsie) with a pitifully weak Will save can be pretty crippling. It is nice for characters and monsters to have weaknesses, but if it those weaknesses mean that a high level Soldier will ~always fail his Terror check, it can be pretty annoying. Now those weak saves will be more like ~five points lower than the strongest one, instead of being ~ten points lower. It is a big difference, while it still leaves space for good tactics and targeting weak points like before. I'd sure like to see other solutions for fixing the thing that plague the game at higher levels than just mine though - but they'd need to take in to account all sides of the puzzle, not just one minor aspect.

The fewer things that someone is forced to spend ranks on, the more they can toss ranks into more flavorful skills, like performs, professions, crafts (mundane). Those three are never not going to be a problem given how inferior they are to adventuring skills, but as a patch on the game before doing a major overhaul some consolidation of the excessive adventuring skills seems appropriate. Of course, another house rule could be to simply go through the skill list, prune everything that isn't adventuring effective in terms of being something that you assign ranks to, and assign values in those skills based on character concept and player/GM agreement.

It seems you said almost the same as I just wrote, only with different words. What comes to pruning skill list, 4th Edition / SW Saga pretty much does that. Choose X class skills from a tight list - those get +5, everything else is just 1/2 level + ability modifier. Fourth Edition list is especially limited. It made me wonder why they didn't drop all skills and handle them through feats, like Mounted Combat (there is no Ride).

 

[Sutek]

If your high level Soldier is failing Terror checks, then that's the way it should be because the more educated, mentally stable classes are the ones with thier progression for WILL starting at +2 at LVL 1. I don't see that as a problem, a glitch or imballanced. It's ballanced because some classes have strengths where others have weaknesses, and if you iron all of that out to flat bonuses accross the board, then why have differenc lcasses at all? They instantly become superfluous, except for the les-than-a-handfull bonuses you do actually assign. There's feats like Iron Will that allow higher WILL saves to be accrued, and I'd say that a house ruled Combat manuver, maybe call it Collective Resolve that can be used to get a +2 bonus for WILL saves when one or more allies are adjacent. I don't know...just wiping the slate and putting every class at an even keel just seems very unintersting to me, and does away with the variable aspects of a class based system.

I don't think thatt Soldiers are aiming for that 7 ranks in Perform, either. But the class skills and/or skill points could be better. But you also have to remember that any skill points accrued solely from INT are no restricted by the Cross Class Skills rule that requires a 2 to 1 expendature. INT gained skill points spend 1 to 1 on skill that count as cross class. There's plenty of opportunity to get your Soldier performing...erm...mime, or lute or whatever...if the player makes him smart.

I don't know. You like this stuff, so more power to you. I don't want to just hang around bad mouthing your ideas, i just think they are totally unnecessary, disruptive to the system over all, and rob the best D20 game out there, and maybe one of the best RPGs period, of the flavor it nails right on the head: capturing the Conan stories and letting all of us play around in that universe.

 

[Edhel]

The low masive damage value of Conan is, in essence, the Minion Rule from 4e. At a certain point 20+ points of damage is happening nearly every strike, resulting in rolling heads and bisected bodies galore. It is a factor of the high instance of attack/hit frequency that makes Cleave/Great Cleave work.

I thought I explained this pretty clearly in my piece. The massive damage rules turns everyone to minions in higher levels.

I thought I also covered this:

It's ballanced because some classes have strengths where others have weaknesses, and if you iron all of that out to flat bonuses accross the board, then why have differenc lcasses at all? They instantly become superfluous, except for the les-than-a-handfull bonuses you do actually assign.

It's much more than just the couple of bonuses. Eg. soldiers get combat feats, and all in all the characters are much more defined by their ability scores than their level based bonuses. The fix I proposed also fixes the growing disparateness between saves/defenses and attacks when your characters gain levels. The soldier's +0 Will save vs the scholar's +2 Will save (not including the ability modifiers) grows to +3 Will save vs +7 Will save (level 10). Not spending all your feats to cover your weak spots allows you to develop your character's strong points, like sorcery, combat, mudkip farming or rope-using.

I like the differences between classes, but the point was to try to keep the required _target number_ of the dice roll the same (not including feats or other specialization) throughout the levels.

I don't know. You like this stuff, so more power to you. I don't want to just hang around bad mouthing your ideas, i just think they are totally unnecessary, disruptive to the system over all, and rob the best D20 game out there, and maybe one of the best RPGs period, of the flavor it nails right on the head: capturing the Conan stories and letting all of us play around in that universe.

Lol'd. Now you just sound religious.

More sweet art of Justin Sweet.

 

[Ichabod]

If your high level Soldier is failing Terror checks, then that's the way it should be because the more educated, mentally stable classes are the ones with thier progression for WILL starting at +2 at LVL 1. I don't see that as a problem, a glitch or imballanced. It's ballanced because some classes have strengths where others have weaknesses, and if you iron all of that out to flat bonuses accross the board, then why have differenc lcasses at all?

Getting increasingly far afield ...

Anyway, there are some things we've run into often enough that I'm amazed other people don't have a problem with them. One of them is just how much failing Terror checks sucks. I can kind of, sort of buy that a thief failing a Terror check is a balancing mechanic since the thief will provide a lot of value added outside of combat with scary monsters. Soldiers provide no value added outside of combat. When a pure combat character runs away in the major fights, the player might as well be playing a blank character sheet.

So, we have in 2E the mechanic of spending Fate Points to ignore Terror. Except, Fate Points shouldn't be infinite and should be used up on other stuff, like not dying when the scary monster puts the soldier down.

Your comments are painting things in black and white terms. There is some middle ground of having classes have different features without them being screwed by the rules. One of the things I've always found absurd is that people's response to some classes having crap Will saves is "well, just take Iron Will, all my _ take Iron Will". It doesn't take a lot of effort to see that there's something broken in the game when you are forced to take stuff to be a functional character.

Will saves aren't the only problem, of course. Poor Fortitude saves means that anything threatening to the fighters or pirates is outrageously lethal to the rest of the party. I don't know for sure, but I think one of our 12th level characters has a Fort save of 5. I don't know what sort of combats other people see, but in ours, characters don't have the option of saying "oh, yeah, I suck at combat, I'll just sit this one out while you all go at it", nevermind being required to make Fort saves for things other than massive damage, so it's kind of pathetic watching him go down from stiff breezes. Reflex saves haven't been as painful, but of course, if the game is one of whoever strikes first wins, poor Reflex saves mean poor initiatives, which can make for combat useless characters.

Like with Will saves, these things can be worked around using RAW. Multiclassing is one of the reasons his Fort save sucks so bad, but multiclassing is the best way to jack saves. And, so forth. But, again, what's really happening is that characters are converging in order to be functional. You ask: Why bother having classes at all? That the system punishes numerous options has precisely the effect of reducing the relevance of what classes people play.

Why wouldn't everyone pick up a level of barbarian to get +2 Fort, +2 Reflex, +2 vs. Terror? Then, once you have that first level, why not 4 levels to pick up Uncanny Dodge? The only characters who don't particularly have a reason to do this are scholars who want to be strong sorcerers.

Not to rehash the code of honor argument, but it's the same deal. Even if a code of honor lasts 5 minutes, it was money for nothing and chicks for free for those 5 minutes. When one party member has a code, there's no reason any other shouldn't. Now, this is not necessarily a problem for a particular group of PCs, but it does mean that characters increasingly all look alike.

But you also have to remember that any skill points accrued solely from INT are no restricted by the Cross Class Skills rule that requires a 2 to 1 expendature. INT gained skill points spend 1 to 1 on skill that count as cross class. There's plenty of opportunity to get your Soldier performing...erm...mime, or lute or whatever...if the player makes him smart.

Be real. Players are not going to cripple their characters by investing in stuff that does them no good when there are numerous things that do them a lot of good.

It's hard to relate to, but even assuming a campaign where someone's soldier can get away with never having to interact with nature or people and doesn't have to know jack, those skill ranks that could be oh so effectively used on P: Useless could be spent on Heal, Sense Motive, Spot, or Tumble.

 

[seanbickford]

I like the ideas in this thread. Here are my two cents:

1) Skill consolidation is the way to go. Obviously, by reducing the number of skills there will be some situations where an action has to fit into a broader category and it won't be an exact fit. However, by intelligently making skills more broadly defined, you: A) reduce rules clutter; B) eliminate unrealistic situations where a character knows something closely related to another skill of which they no nothing at all; and C) end up creating better, more streamlined character concepts. (More on that last point, having characters that are good at only a few skills rather than good at everything makes for more tangible PCs. IMO.)

2) I think that in dealing with the BAB/defense progression, it helps to define the goals of the system. What exactly are you guys looking for? It seems to me it is this: A) Similiar leveled characters should have an even chance in a one-on-one fight. This should be consistent at every level. This also must not be a fight where the character who wins initiative wins the battle. An encounter like this should last at least a couple of rounds. B) Higher level characters should be able to defeat a moderate number of much lower level foes. It feels very Conan-like and heroic to slaughter 5 or 6 guys without significant risk. At the same time, lower level foes should at least have a decent chance to turn the tables. In game terms this means that the lower level dudes should have a 10-20% to do some noteworthy damage. C) Overall, I think combat should be pretty deadly and shouldn't last too long. I think that's pretty consistent with both historical accounts and the novels of REH.

Once the goals have been established, the rules can be debated. Personally, I think HP in general are pretty whacked. As far as the BAB progression, I haven't gotten my group up to 10+, but I can already see it is going to be a problem. Overall, I would love to see a major rules revision. Please don't take this as a criticism of the entire Conan game; ultimately, it comes down to having fun and we do, but there is always room for improvement.

 

[Edhel]

One of them is just how much failing Terror checks sucks.

Exactly and I totally agree about the other points of making the character totally useless or glass-jawed. I have yet to see an interesting game mechanic for fear in a d20 system. One way is to ignore the current system, the other is to replace it with penalties instead of flight or whip up a partial success system that gives penalties for a small failure and you only flee if you fail badly.

So, we have in 2E the mechanic of spending Fate Points to ignore Terror. Except, Fate Points shouldn't be infinite and should be used up on other stuff, like not dying when the scary monster puts the soldier down.

That's why I like our hero/action point system. They're fate points Light and basically allow you to ignore the fear system. The real fate points are reserved for big things and you rarely get one.

Still, it's just a band-aid on the fear system and I'd rather see a mechanic that was eg. more about character's flaws like making the fearful sorcerer more corruptible. Fear could make even the heroic characters succumb to their dark sides. Yoda knew how it goes -_-.


Edit:

2) I think that in dealing with the BAB/defense progression, it helps to define the goals of the system.

I agree. Yet again, I tried to establish that in my earlier post and state my reasons for the change. I think 4E design philosophy has confronted most of these issues (being useless, instakills, attack/defense disparity) but I think it could use some more lasting effects to put the fear of sorcery in characters and players.

 

[Majestic7]

I don't know. You like this stuff, so more power to you. I don't want to just hang around bad mouthing your ideas, i just think they are totally unnecessary, disruptive to the system over all, and rob the best D20 game out there, and maybe one of the best RPGs period, of the flavor it nails right on the head: capturing the Conan stories and letting all of us play around in that universe.

Oh please. You have me baffled here. Please explain -
1) How the Acheronian Edition is disruptive to the system, using mathematical and mechanical examples
2) How you would solve the higher level problems or do you think they are working just fine and dandy RAW
3) How they rob the game of its flavor when two level 10 barbarians don't hit each other with every blow, causing a MD?

I made several posts above describing the mechanical effects and fixes of the Acheronian Edition. Please read them.

 

[Majestic7]

Anyway, there are some things we've run into often enough that I'm amazed other people don't have a problem with them. One of them is just how much failing Terror checks sucks. I can kind of, sort of buy that a thief failing a Terror check is a balancing mechanic since the thief will provide a lot of value added outside of combat with scary monsters. Soldiers provide no value added outside of combat. When a pure combat character runs away in the major fights, the player might as well be playing a blank character sheet.

So, we have in 2E the mechanic of spending Fate Points to ignore Terror. Except, Fate Points shouldn't be infinite and should be used up on other stuff, like not dying when the scary monster puts the soldier down.

Hero Point mechanic was pretty much engineered for that. I like Terror as a concept. Unfortunately fight or flee is a quite hard way to put it. It would be nice if failing the save would cripple the character, say giving -4 to all checks and failing by 10 or more would put him in panic. Most NPC's would logically flee anyway after failing a save, whether the mechanics force them to or not. Making Fate Points trivial in the Second Edition was one of its many mistakes, in my opinion.

Will saves aren't the only problem, of course. Poor Fortitude saves means that anything threatening to the fighters or pirates is outrageously lethal to the rest of the party. I don't know for sure, but I think one of our 12th level characters has a Fort save of 5. I don't know what sort of combats other people see, but in ours, characters don't have the option of saying "oh, yeah, I suck at combat, I'll just sit this one out while you all go at it", nevermind being required to make Fort saves for things other than massive damage, so it's kind of pathetic watching him go down from stiff breezes. Reflex saves haven't been as painful, but of course, if the game is one of whoever strikes first wins, poor Reflex saves mean poor initiatives, which can make for combat useless characters.

I think Acheronian Edition fixes this pretty well. Everyone has at least +5 in every save at level 10, more with feats and high ability scores, giving at least a chance to succeed in most saves without a natural 20.

Like with Will saves, these things can be worked around using RAW. Multiclassing is one of the reasons his Fort save sucks so bad, but multiclassing is the best way to jack saves. And, so forth. But, again, what's really happening is that characters are converging in order to be functional. You ask: Why bother having classes at all? That the system punishes numerous options has precisely the effect of reducing the relevance of what classes people play.

Multiclassing is as well a way to build one save very high RAW. Noble/Temptress/Scholar is a realistic build in regards to different abilities and it grants outright +6 Will. Of course it means dumping Fort save to get a better Will, but still. Prestige classes add to the mess, they often give +2 to one save when you first take them. In that sense, multiclassing is broken to both ways, crippling and reinforcing the character too much at the same time in different areas.

Not to rehash the code of honor argument, but it's the same deal. Even if a code of honor lasts 5 minutes, it was money for nothing and chicks for free for those 5 minutes. When one party member has a code, there's no reason any other shouldn't. Now, this is not necessarily a problem for a particular group of PCs, but it does mean that characters increasingly all look alike.

I don't mind Codes of Honor. They genuinely limit the options available for player characters and once they break the code, it is gone. In my current campaign, three characters started with CoH. All three lost it, only one has regained it. (..and it seems it will lost again sooner or later.) Of course you could make CoH a feat whose benefits one can conditionally lose if you think it is too much of a freebie right now. Overall a very good and insightful post.

 

[Majestic7]

I like the ideas in this thread. Here are my two cents:

*SNIP*

Once the goals have been established, the rules can be debated. Personally, I think HP in general are pretty whacked. As far as the BAB progression, I haven't gotten my group up to 10+, but I can already see it is going to be a problem. Overall, I would love to see a major rules revision. Please don't take this as a criticism of the entire Conan game; ultimately, it comes down to having fun and we do, but there is always room for improvement.

I must say that those were pretty much the goals when building the Acheronian Edition. (Which wasn't much of a project, only involving some discussion in IRC before putting it together.) It fixes those parts of the game, but doesn't go as far as making the system incompatible with the most crunch published by Mongoose.

Hit Points are a funny thing. If you are playing silly high fantasy like D&D often is, no point in thinking about it, really when there are so many other parts of the game that rub against suspension of disbelief much worse if you give them any thought. In Conan games it kind of fits to the genre that Hit Points are literally that - how much beating you can take. Howardian heroes are "iron men", guys who get beaten down again and again, but always get back on their feet, enduring through sheer willpower and trekking through to their goals.

 

[rabindranath72]

Well thought out! Should I play d20 Conan again, I would surely try out your modifications. 8)

 

[Sutek]

I don't know. You like this stuff, so more power to you. I don't want to just hang around bad mouthing your ideas, i just think they are totally unnecessary, disruptive to the system over all, and rob the best D20 game out there, and maybe one of the best RPGs period, of the flavor it nails right on the head: capturing the Conan stories and letting all of us play around in that universe.

Oh please. You have me baffled here. Please explain -
1) How the Acheronian Edition is disruptive to the system, using mathematical and mechanical examples
2) How you would solve the higher level problems or do you think they are working just fine and dandy RAW
3) How they rob the game of its flavor when two level 10 barbarians don't hit each other with every blow, causing a MD?

I made several posts above describing the mechanical effects and fixes of the Acheronian Edition. Please read them.

Sorry to baffle you. (lol) let me explain:

1) The proposed changes are, I feel, disruptive to the system because they..erm...disrupt the system by changing it drastically? i mean, I should think that was obvious. I acquiesced and said "Don't like the changes, but more power to ya." And yet I get jumped by several folks for simply not liking this stuff. Jeeze...chill.

2) I wouldn't. I'd either play as written or wing things to make things more challenging to the players. Math is great, but math is not fun to me, and if I ahve to think about it too much, something is wrong. I don't think this is so much about making a fun game, but more about posting it so everyone will say how great the ideas are. Don't get me wrong, I've read some great ideas on this forum in the years I'v been here, but this isn't a set of ideas about how to improve the Conan RPG, they are exclusively ideas about how to make a totally different game. I like the one I've got, warts and all. I don't pay as much attention to the "math" as some folks do because I just play for fun, making interseting characters and hanging out with my pals for a number of hours.

3) Equalizing everything generalizes the experience and dilutes role playing. Role playing games shold be inherently imballanced where the character build rules are concerned, IMO, because some classes should be more challenging than others. Further more, if two lvl 10 Barbarians arent' hitting each other at all, (A) combat is an abstraction in d20 and (B) something is sverly screwed up in the way that the creators of those characters created them. Additionally, 20pts of damage is all that's needed to initiate a MD save, and yet, surprise, Barbarians are very equipped to handle passing that save. It's a game based on Conan the BARBARIAN!!! I expect a certain imballance toward that class, quite frankly, before I open the bloody book for the first time. (lol)

This is the last I'll say in this thread, although I'll check back to see how the discussion is going, but truly, I just don't like what I see. Sorry to hurt feelings, but I don't. That doesn't mean I'm right (although I totally am - lol), but I will posit this: It is disruptive to the game as a whole because new people who want to play it may come here, see this thread deriding and re-vamping a perfectly good RPG, and get the wrong idea.

Don't call it Acheronian Edition as if it's a revision, or be able to take harsh criticism without getting all bent out of shape and personal.

Enjoy. 8)

 

[rabindranath72]

a perfectly good RPG,

You realise this too is a strictly personal opinion like the above proposed changes are, don't you?

 

[Majestic7]

1) The proposed changes are, I feel, disruptive to the system because they..erm...disrupt the system by changing it drastically? i mean, I should think that was obvious. I acquiesced and said "Don't like the changes, but more power to ya." And yet I get jumped by several folks for simply not liking this stuff. Jeeze...chill.

You still haven't shown in any way or form how they are disruptive to the system. That is the problem. It seems that you are basing your criticism on vague feelings, not mathematics of the system. Sure, you are free to not like the system or hate it, but saying that it "disrupts the system" and "changes it drastically" without any real arguments to back it up is strange. I get the impression that you resist change because it is change.

2) I wouldn't. I'd either play as written or wing things to make things more challenging to the players. Math is great, but math is not fun to me, and if I ahve to think about it too much, something is wrong. I don't think this is so much about making a fun game, but more about posting it so everyone will say how great the ideas are. Don't get me wrong, I've read some great ideas on this forum in the years I'v been here, but this isn't a set of ideas about how to improve the Conan RPG, they are exclusively ideas about how to make a totally different game. I like the one I've got, warts and all. I don't pay as much attention to the "math" as some folks do because I just play for fun, making interseting characters and hanging out with my pals for a number of hours.

You have the key there - "Math is great, but math is not fun to me, and if I ahve to think about it too much, something is wrong." This has been the problem with 3.5 D&D all along. I'm afraid it has so many moving parts that it is easy to change it a little and have it all scrambled up. In regular D&D, Attack & Defence progression at higher levels is not nearly as bad as in Conan because spells and magic items kind of negate the problems a little. (Pure Fighters and Thieves still suck at Will saves though.) I certainly think that trying to fix the math is the best way to improve the Conan RPG system-wise. If you don't want to get down to the math and see how it affects outcomes of high-level play, there is really no point in explaining the underlying concepts and decisions in greater detail. Trust me, I don't like math either. I want it to stay on the background and reinforce the game, not bar its way or steal center of the stage.

Challenge for players has never been the point. There are a thousand ways to challenge players and many of them don't need to involve combat at all. The trouble is that two characters who are at roughly the same power level will hit each other with every attack and how certain characters are practically guaranteed to fail in certain saves. It frustrates the players and invalidates certain parts of the system.

3) Equalizing everything generalizes the experience and dilutes role playing. Role playing games shold be inherently imballanced where the character build rules are concerned, IMO, because some classes should be more challenging than others. Further more, if two lvl 10 Barbarians arent' hitting each other at all, (A) combat is an abstraction in d20 and (B) something is sverly screwed up in the way that the creators of those characters created them. Additionally, 20pts of damage is all that's needed to initiate a MD save, and yet, surprise, Barbarians are very equipped to handle passing that save. It's a game based on Conan the BARBARIAN!!! I expect a certain imballance toward that class, quite frankly, before I open the bloody book for the first time. (lol)

The system does not equalize everything and everyone. Class abilities and basic abilities make the characters differ from each other a lot. If anything, Acheronian Edition allows the characters to differ MORE from each other since feats, stuff like Formation Combat and class abilities now matter more, mathematically, than old attack and defence progressions. I'm completely unable to understand how being able to make more versatile and unique characters within the limits of the same classes "dilutes roleplay", especially as you don't bother to back up your claims in any way.

The part about Barbarians is a complete strawman. I've never said anything about old Barbarians being too powerful. They still have their very good class abilities in the Acheronian Edition and you can always give them +1 to Attack, Parry and all saves if you want them to be vastly superior. The example about two guys hitting each other could have been done with Soldiers. Level 10 Barbs (or Soldiers) have Fort save +11 if they have Con 18, +12 with Con 20. It is still flipping a coin to see which one dies.

I repeat the numbers: primary attack bonus is +15 while their Dodge is 21 (assuming Str 20 and Dex 18). It means they hit each other with a roll of 6 from d20. They can safely use four points of Power Attack and still have a roughly 50% chance to hit. This results in 2d10+15 damage per strike. It means causing massive damage with pretty much every blow (without DR and armor would get damaged by the first such strike). Using two points of Power Attack is most likely the sweet point, with 2d10+11 on damage and still hitting with more than 50% chance. With Fort save around +11, it is almost tossing a coin to see which one dies in the first combat round. That doesn't sound like a very exciting or an entertaining duel, neither in a story nor a roleplaying game. If you think it is fine, that is good. I think it actively cripples the game and what kind of stories can be told using it.

This is the last I'll say in this thread, although I'll check back to see how the discussion is going, but truly, I just don't like what I see. Sorry to hurt feelings, but I don't. That doesn't mean I'm right (although I totally am - lol), but I will posit this: It is disruptive to the game as a whole because new people who want to play it may come here, see this thread deriding and re-vamping a perfectly good RPG, and get the wrong idea.

How is it disruptive? Or is this some sort of authoritarian thinking about it being "disruptive" for me to point out design flaws in the official systems and try to fix them instead of, say, moving on to Savage Worlds like I've been suggested to do? I certainly hope that people who get in to Conan as new players see this thread and consider the fixes before they get too deep with RAW. It could save them from a lot of frustration.

Don't call it Acheronian Edition as if it's a revision, or be able to take harsh criticism without getting all bent out of shape and personal.

Meh, where have I been getting out of shape and personal? Mild amusement is the only emotion I can think of attaching to this discussion. I really don't care a bit if you think the Acheronian Edition to be "disrupting", but I care and attack against bad argumentation regardless of what is being discussed.

 

[rabindranath72]

Or is this some sort of authoritarian thinking about it being "disruptive" for me to point out design flaws in the official systems and try to fix them instead of, say, moving on to Savage Worlds like I've been suggested to do?

Nah, you would only need to move to Sorcerer & Sword, and all would be fine :wink:

 

[flatscan]

Using two points of Power Attack is most likely the sweet point, with 2d10+11 on damage and still hitting with more than 50% chance. With Fort save around +11, it is almost tossing a coin to see which one dies in the first combat round. That doesn't sound like a very exciting or an entertaining duel, neither in a story nor a roleplaying game. If you think it is fine, that is good. I think it actively cripples the game and what kind of stories can be told using it.

The REH Conan stories are filled with instances of Conan killing an opponent with a single hit. My players are at a level where the 2 Barbarian/Soldiers wielding Greatswords (deal 1d10+1d8+Str Mod in 2e) are forcing Massive Damage saves quite often. It's kept combat fast and fluid, and in my opinion in line with combat in REH's Hyborian Age.

 

[warzen]

The REH Conan stories are filled with instances of Conan killing an opponent with a single hit.

But the stories are not filled with instances of opponent killing Conan in a single hit. That's the issue M7 is trying to solve, as far as I understood.

W.

 

[flatscan]

But the stories are not filled with instances of opponent killing Conan in a single hit. That's the issue M7 is trying to solve, as far as I understood.

W.

Sure. He has a good Fort save. :wink: Some of my nPeeps have forced Massive Damage saves on PCs. Mainly the Barbar/Soldiers as they are obvious targets and deal out the most damage. The PCs have either made their saves, or spent a Fate Point to reroll the save, or spent a Fate Point to be Left for Dead. It's my experience that killing a PC is quite difficult in the Conan 2e system.

 

[Edhel]

I'm kinda hopeless . Why does this still go on? I've linked to my explanation something like 3-4 times and explained again in these posts.

The short version:
The point was NOT to remove massive damage but to fix the wide gap between attack and defenses that usually causes massive damage with every Set-cursed hit in higher levels. The saves are really low for non-fighter characters, like thieves*, and the revision made slightly improved their chances of survival. Poison and sorcery DCs are also through the roof and there's no correlation between attacks and defenses. The Acheronian edition defenses also fix the 1st level saving throw bonus accumulation from multiclassing and streamlines the math and makes character generation a bit faster. I also know that some characters MAY have high or even very high Fort saves due multiclassing - but most don't. Constant massive damage saves make hit points totally irrelevant because higher level game degenerates to 'autohit, Fort DC 34 or you're dead'. That's not fun for me.

Constructive criticism is welcome, but do tell what specifically do you have a problem with and don't talk about your feelings or how you dislike change.


* My character, Alcemides, a half-pict thief and savage, has spent 11-12 fate points in Majestic7's campaign. All of them save one was spent to 'left for dead' option. All of them were earned through suicidal heroism/stupidity.

 

[Ichabod]

But the stories are not filled with instances of opponent killing Conan in a single hit. That's the issue M7 is trying to solve, as far as I understood.

W.

Sure. He has a good Fort save. :wink: Some of my nPeeps have forced Massive Damage saves on PCs. Mainly the Barbar/Soldiers as they are obvious targets and deal out the most damage. The PCs have either made their saves, or spent a Fate Point to reroll the save, or spent a Fate Point to be Left for Dead. It's my experience that killing a PC is quite difficult in the Conan 2e system.

We find killing PCs quite difficult, but I don't think it's killing PCs that is the concern - it's removing them from playing the game. The barbarians may have Diehard to continue functioning after failing a MDS, but the soldiers?

As opposition gets tougher to continue to provide a challenge to higher level PCs, the percentage of attacks on PCs that force MDSs should skyrocket. Then, keep in mind the negative effects on the party of damage. Having a PC go down is often brutal whereas it's what is supposed to happen to the antagonists. Recovering hit points is slow, i.e. tedious. As an extreme case, I had an unhurt PC fail a MDS, get short-term care, and still be down 95 hit points. He had to limp through the rest of that session and two more sessions, running around at 1hp by the time everything was done - fortunately, one of the other characters in the party basically does all of the fighting, so the party could survive having him and two other members be nonfunctional in combat. Still, not exactly fun to be along for the ride or, in another character's case, be carried around.

The game seems to work when the PCs can occasionally do massive damage and the antagonists only do so in a climactic battle (followed by completely safe, total rest). That means the game breaks somewhere between 6th and 10th level depending upon PC builds and what sort of opposition you throw at them. It could break in either direction or in both, likely first in favor of the PCs and later in both, but I find it irritatingly gamey what GMs should do with their antagonists to make fights interesting.

BTW, people seem to be forgetting that 2H weapons have 1.5x STR damage.

Also, has nobody else's campaign seen someone take Reckless Attack? Our barbarian would overuse it in that he didn't take into account that he'd only kill 5 out of 8 of the monsters (or all of the ones he could get adjacent to) that would counterattack with their 20+ STRs and Power Attack in the first round of combat. Really, he should PA only first to clear out 3-4 enemies and kill the rest on round two; obviously, if there are only 4 or less to begin with, they should all be dead by the end of round 1.

I'm all in favor of quick, bloody combat. But, the way the game works, there's a lot of pressure on the GM to come up with situations where combat isn't just a massacre. Too often, I think the GM needs to fight the system to give combat a chance of being interesting.

As to Sutek's comment about ranting about the system. I do think there is an awful lot of hatin' on d20 on this forum (I have to bite my tongue to add to it, myself). I could see someone showing up, going "gee, everyone hates the rules, I guess I won't buy the game", and finding something else to do. Nothing wrong with suggesting improvements or talking about house rules or suggesting other systems that can be used and there's no way to avoid the random "this is why 3.5 sucks" comments, but it probably is more constructive to try to spin things more positively or, at least, neutrally.