Dodge Defence Values for Animals, Monsters, etc.

[quigs]

Does anybody know how they came up with the Dodge defence modifiers for animals and monsters in Conan?

It appears that the typical d20 animals and vermin were given either a good, average, or poor dodge modifier according to their hit dice. There doesn't seem to be any indicators or pattern as to which animal gets which dodge modifier though.

Perhaps the developers or someone with a bigger brain than me can shed some light on this, as I'm converting a lot of animals and monsters from other sources for use in Conan, and this is the only stat I'm having problems with.

I have Uncle Bear's conversion rules on this as well, but he appears to have used the old Conan rules, and only uses a poor or good defence value and doesn't really state when you would use one instead of the other.

 

[Trodax]

It's based on the creatures Reflex save. Creatures with a poor Reflex save get Dodge progression as the Scholar, while creatures with a good Reflex save get the Barbarians Dodge progression.

This is noted somewhere in the rulebook (at least in the AE). In the beginning of the Creature chapter, IIRC.

 

[Taharqa]

I attempted to work this out in a very old post before AE.


http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1738&highlight=

Trodax's deduction about dodge is better than mine, but there may be some useful info there.

 

[quigs]

There are minor inconsistencies though. For instance the Boar has a good reflex save and 3 hit dice, but only got a +1 bonus to its Dodge when it should have been +2.

For the most part though the suggestion works. Only reason I ask is that I need a Dire Boar for my next adventure and needed to clarify the bonus it would get

 

[ricardo440]

there are quite a few errors in the stats for things.

Scrolls of skellos had a load with the wrong power points for the scholars, and the initiative bonus is often just added to the reflex to get the Conan initiative bonus. This means it often counts Dex twice.

it generally doesn't matter though I don't think.

 

[quigs]

Yes, I own Skelos and agree that those stat blocks are quite bad. Actually, that whole book needs to be carefully read as some of the feats have the wrong wordings and the general mechanics of some of the rules are slightly wrong.

Still, a great book though just for the fluff!

 

[slaughterj]

there are quite a few errors in the stats for things.

Scrolls of skellos had a load with the wrong power points for the scholars, and the initiative bonus is often just added to the reflex to get the Conan initiative bonus. This means it often counts Dex twice.

it generally doesn't matter though I don't think.

The game has gone back and forth it seems on whether DEX was to be included twice, i.e., once directly and once indirectly through the Reflex save. The errata says which way it is, which I think was to add it twice, though IIRC, typically the characters in the books calculated it in the more sensical fashion of just once. I'd have to look back at it all to confirm though.