New approach to Weapon Damage

[Demetrio]

Well there are two ways of approaching the problem of how to deal with MD.

One is to beef up all weapon damage, the other is to tone down 2hw damage and to lower the MD threshold/make criticals easier etc etc.

Beefing up weapon damage only really works if all weapons are going to do either one dice of damage or two dice. Anything else gives strange situations (like at present) where a broadsword has as much chance of inflicting average damage as it does min and max yet a greatsword (for no good reason) is much more likely to inflict average than extremes - and worse a broadsword has no chance of inflicting MD in the hands of a Str 18 fighter on a normal hit yet a greatsword will have a pretty good chance - about 35% if my maths serves. That's a: silly, b: unrealistic and c: crap from a gameplay pov.

If you increase a dagger from d4 to d8 or even d10, you still have no chance of doing MD on a normal hit.

Being effective at combat is all about figuring out how to deal 20+ net damage with every hit. As long as the MDS threshold is 20, characters are going to do whatever is most efficient, even if it's less efficient than it was, to achieve that. Reining in large weapon damage doesn't change

That is spot on actually. So:

1- either rein in large weapon damage on the grounds that it's just silly as it stands to have a greatsword doing d10+d8 to a broadsword's d10 or increase small weapon damage.

2- make the MD trigger independent of rolled damage, thus allowing small weapons to MD as regularly as large albeit with easier saves if we still tie the saving throw difficulty to the rolled damage.

 

[kintire]

While what you say is entirely true, I tend to get round it by abolishing MDSes, which solves a lot of these problems.

 

[Demetrio]

While what you say is entirely true, I tend to get round it by abolishing MDSes, which solves a lot of these problems.

That would also work.

Or we could say that a critical hit (and only a critical hit) triggers MD (with a minimum difficulty of 20 regardless of rolled damage).

That way you could go for big hits from a 2h axe and hope to just bash down the enemy's total hps or try to crit with a dagger (or similar) and overcome their Fortitude.

In the latter case perhaps one might experiment with Sneak Attack not adding d6s to damage but instead increasing the crit range of a Finesse Sneak Attack attack by 1 or 2 per level.

 

[Hervé]

In fact most two handed weapons tended to be best used defensively, including the various two handed swords - not quite for parrying as most might envisage it, more for keeping one's enemy at bay.

These swords can be quite bulky. Although they might indeed be good for keeping enemies at bay, once you're within your opponent's weapon reach, defending properly gets difficult.

 

[Demetrio]

once you're within your opponent's weapon reach, defending properly gets difficult.

Various techniques could be used to compensate for that, 'half-swording' for instance - and in fact the same is true of all weapons - the knack really is keeping the enemy at optimum 'range' - and while the reach rule works well enough in its way in gampeplay for polearms, it's not really applicable to weapons like the 'greatsword' or ''2h axe' (in common rpg parlance).

One could come up with various methods for determining whether a character should be at a penalty vis a vis another depending on their relative reach. For instance you could say that a character gets -2 to hit and -2 Initiative for every foot of its length his weapon is shorter than his opponent's weapon until he scores a hit when the relationship is reversed (until the new disadvantaged character scores a hit, then the initial state is restored). But that's clumsy and gets very tricky when combats are not one one one.

That's why I'd rather simply give 2h weapons like the greatsword some kind of small Defensive boost while downgrading their damage, it gives the weapon some 'realistic' flavour and removes the current ludicrous imbalance throwing two dice creates.

 

[Krushnak]

it gives the weapon some 'realistic' flavour

Yes all well and good but Conan is a Heroic sword and sorcery game and as such uses the 'cinematic' version of the 2handed sword. Trying to bring 'realism' or 'historical accuracy' into any rpg which hasnt expressly gone for that from the beginning will always end in tears.

 

[Demetrio]

I agree flavour is important, being ahead of realism and perhaps second only to gameplay (or maybe not...). But d8+d10 is ludicrous compared to the d10 of an arming sword or d12 of a 'warsword'.

In Conan stories, 2hw are not generally the weapons of choice, especially not 2h swords, neither do they do disproportionate damage when they do appear - in fact Conan frequently cleaves foes in half with a 'simple' broadsword, which won't happen that often in RAW. One can in this case marry 'realism' and better game balance to appropriate flavour. I'd add that there's no suggestion that the 2h swords wielded by for example the Nemidian Adventurers are like zweihanders, they could easily be more akin to the historical longswords. EDIT - HotD does describe the Adventurer's sword as 'heavy' and the Adventurer is somewhat sluggish to bring it up, leading to his untimely demise, which would tend to make me think that perhaps Howard had a more zweihander like weapon in mind. Even so, the RAW damage is excessive and unbalances game mechanics.

realism' or 'historical accuracy' into any rpg which hasnt expressly gone for that from the beginning will always end in tears.

Sometimes it will. But good heavens I'm not suggesting that weapons be more 'realistic' for realisms sake but because it will enhance gameplay by removing the ridiculous overpowering of 2hw damage whilst allowing them to retain a distinct flavour and as I say, I don't think it will detract from the Conan flavour one whit, rather the reverse as 2hw will likely become less 'must have' than currently.

 

[Demetrio]

If a (game definitions) broadsword is doing d10 and a warsword d12 then a two handed sword should probably do d12+1 or d12+2 but grant a +2 bonus to defence.

On reflection, I'd change the above to a greatsword doing d12+1 damage and granting a +2 bonus to Parry, thus making it less appealing to Dodge based characters.


Typically critical hits in rpgs occur around 5% of the time (RQ, D&D etc) and it seems to me that Massive Damage is in fact Conan's form of Critical Hits - the RAW crits simply being leftovers from the d20 rules.

And the problem with RAW MD is that it really encourages fighting characters to build around scoring 20+ damage as often as possible making the un-Conan like Bardiche and Greatsword the weapons of choice for non-finesse/sneak attack types.

So there doesn't seem to me to be a good reason, for reasons of gameplay and appropriate flavour, not to divorce MD from rolled damage and instead replace it with 'Critical Hits do Massive Damage' as I suggested above whilst reducing the damage of 2hw to single dice and thus bringing them in more in line with the flavour of the books and also improving gameplay and adding a touch more 'realism'.

Now the progression from smallest bladed weapon to largest is quite nice at

Dagger/Knife d4, Poinard d6, Shortsword d8, Arming/Broadsword d10, Warsword d12 and so I'd say make the Greatsword do d12+2 and assume it is indeed modelled on the zweihander. As I say, I'd perhaps allow the wielder a +2 bonus to his Parry to allow for the naturally intimidating effect of the weapon. Other bonuses might be substituted instead to reflect individual preconceptions. Damage could even be left at the ludicrous levels of RAW if desired as MD would no longer result simply from a high damage roll and thus the problem of it being broken in RAW would be solved.

Of course critical hits might not occur often enough to suit one's taste for MD but that could be solved by increasing threat range or perhaps by making a critical hit dependent upon the amount Defence is beaten b the attack roll (with a 20 still being a 'default' crit threat).

Of course Sneak Attack then becomes the mode of choice rather than High strength bardiche/greatsword wielding but one problem at a time... there's no merit my mind in saying "Don't bother 'solving' x because everyone will just do y instead as it's broken too." The next step would be to bring sneak attack to heel.

 

[Kale]

I think the crit = MD save would work well, and i like the idea of lowering the damage of two dice weapons.

I would be tempted to add the condition tracker from Starwars SAGA, with 20 damage in a single hit as a trigger, meaning impressive hits still do have an effect, but not to the extent of a MD save. This could be seen as a 'death spiral' but if you remove levels over time/on healing/resting I think it could work.

(for those that dont know, in SAGA if you beat the equivelent of a modified fort save, you force the pc down a tracker, which gives negatives to 'to hit'/skills, with 5 steps from -1 to unconcious)

 

[Demetrio]

My instinct is that the chance to score a crit would need looked at closely and although I'm quite tempted to tie it to the attack roll (for example any attack that scores 9 or more above the defender's Defence or a natural 20 gives a critical threat) there could be nasty repercusssions to doing that and it might be better just to stick with the current crit ranges (perhaps eased by 1 in every case so for instance an axe would crit on 19-20 instead of just 20).

And if sticking to the current way then I'd also be very tempted to say each dice of Sneak Attack instead adds 2 to the critical threat range of the weapon - same for Master Fencer and suchlike dice adding Feats. Again though it'd want more careful consideration than I have yet given.

 

[kintire]

I'd add that there's no suggestion that the 2h swords wielded by for example the Nemidian Adventurers are like zweihanders, they could easily be more akin to the historical longswords. EDIT - HotD does describe the Adventurer's sword as 'heavy' and the Adventurer is somewhat sluggish to bring it up, leading to his untimely demise, which would tend to make me think that perhaps Howard had a more zweihander like weapon in mind.

Howard's Hyboria is essentially historical fiction without the burden of following history, and most of the elements have a historical basis. Howard describes the Adventurer as "one of the Adventurers, a class of warriors peculiar to Nemedia; men who had not attained to the wealth and position of knighthood, or had fallen from that estate; hard-bitten fighters, dedicating their lives to war and adventure. They constituted a class of their own, sometimes commanding troops, but themselves accountable to no man but the king." Which is not a bad description of the Landsknecht. I think Howard almost certainly had them in mind, and the man was wielding a zweihander.

None of which makes your point about 2h damage being excessive anything other than right, of course.

 

[Demetrio]

We might also fairly say that the Greatsword might allow Sunder attacks without provoking AoO given that the primary use of the zweihander appears to have been the breaking up of pike formations.

So perhaps d12+2 damage, +2 Parry, Sunder attempts do not provoke AoO.

On a different note, someone somewhere was bemoaning the lack of love for spears. Given the classic hoplite overarm spear thrust allowed the shield to cover the whole body we could say the typical 8' or 12' spear wielded with one hand would do d8 damage but would add +2 to the Parry bonus of any large shield used in conjunction. It's debateable whether the 8' spear should qualify as a reach weapon but the 12' certainly should.

Which brings me onto pikes. While a 12' spear wielded one handed probably has an effective reach of about 8' or so, the typical 15' pike has a reach of over 12'. thus one could, if one wished, say the pike threatened opponents three squares away, not two. This would reflect both the historic and Howardian reality that pike formations formed very deep and that the pike really was a weapon suited only to formation combat.

 

[Clovenhoof]

What I'd like to see is a variation of what was done with Star Wars Saga: all PCs and NPCs of import do +1 damage per level with all attacks.

That's an interesting approach.
Of course, for Conan RPG, +1/Level would be way overboard, considering the MDT of 20 and MDS of 10+1/2dmg. Any prick with a toothpick would force DC30 MD saves all the time.

Under the given circumstances, one could evaluate the effects of +1 damage per 4 levels or so. An extra +5 dmg at level 20 would also go a long way towards MDS.

Also, while I like Massive Damage in general because One-hit-kills are very cool, another knob to adjust would be the save DC. If you set that to a fixed 20 instead of having it scale with damage, you remove the Overkill capability from two-handers. (It also effectively means that high-level characters can push their Fort so high they never have to fear MDS.)

--

And on a completely different note, I'm just reading the Mazes & Minotaurs RPG, which is not purely a D&D parody but appears to be very playable in its own right, especially for beginning players. (A particularly nice twist is the pseudo-classical setting instead of pseudo-medieval, with bronze weapons and armour and suchlike.)
Point in case, in M&M all battle weapons (i.e. anything bigger than a dagger) have the same damage range (i.e. D6).
Being a very simplistic game, there are basically just 3 types of melee battle weapons: short swords, spears, and barbarian weapons (broadswords and axes).
Variety is created mainly through unique abilities, i.e.:
* certain classes gain damage or defense bonuses when using a particular weapon
* some weapons / fighting styles permit special combat manoeuvres, granting attack or similar bonuses
* on the other hand anything bigger than a short sword incurs penalties in close-quarter fighting

We're planning to try out M&M in a few weeks. Might well be that this leads to some radical houserules for Conan (though I don't think I'd go as far as switch our Conan game completely to M&M).

 

[Hervé]

So perhaps d12+2 damage, +2 Parry, Sunder attempts do not provoke AoO.

I don't think that would work...
Using a shield will become pretty useless then (you'll get a meager +2 Parry and lose all the damage boosting effects of 2hd weapons), and the huge damage potential of large weapons will be only lightly affected.

As I said in another recent post, two handed weapons have far too many advantages:
-Higher Damage Ratings
-Higher Strength Bonuses
-Higher Power Attack Bonuses

It's the combination of the three that makes 2hd weapons overbalanced. Changing only the damage rating won't help much, as the bonuses from Strength and Power Attack can be far greater than the weapon damage range.

Let's take an exemple:
a 18 STR 6th Lvl soldier would basically strike for 2d10+6. As defences stay at a relative low level in Conan, Power Attacking is way too easy.
So our fighter can put up to 6 points in his PA, giving him a further +12 dmg bonus. If our guy was charging, he can use the charge attack bonus to improve his hit chance while still power attacking to the max (taking only an effective -4 for +12 damage). As he's charging, he can use the Bull's Rush manoeuvre for an extra +2 damage for a total damage of 2d10+20.
And our guy is only using ONE feat to do this!

It can be even worse when combining this with other damage boosting Feats or Abilities, like Fighting Madness for instance...

To my eyes, +20 is far more powerful than the 2d10 weapon range. It also means that the character can do Massive Damage on every strike.

Changing the damage rating will do little to counter this kind of munchkinisation. Furthermore, adding a +2 Parry bonus to the Greatsword will make the weapon even more unbalanced than it is today.

The only way to get back at a more reasonable level would be to nerf Power Attack (like taking the same dmg bonus for 1hd and 2hd weapons) and to rule that 2hd weapons do not get anymore the 1.5 strength bonus multiplier. The 2hd weapons will keep their high damage rating, but will get down to a more reasonable level.

I agree that if fighters got their damage nerfed, something has to be done with Sneak Attacks, which are also incredibly easy and deadly in the game. But I guess this will be for another topic.

Maybe also the Massive Damage rule would need some revising, in the way that really big critters with hundred of Hps can't be O/S in the first round of combat by a mighty barbarian blow... Maybe adding +10 to the MD per size category above medium would do the trick...

Who knows, with a little work, we could even sort a playable game from the OGL rules! :twisted:

 

[Demetrio]

I don't think that would work...
Using a shield will become pretty useless then (you'll get a meager +2 Parry and lose all the damage boosting effects of 2hd weapons), and the huge damage potential of large weapons will be only lightly affected.

I don't quite get what you mean.

A man with broadsword and shield will do d10+str bonus damage and have +4 to Parry.

Under my proposed 2h sword rule the 2h sword wielder rolls d12+2+1.5str bonus and gets +2 Parry.

The huge damage potential of 2h weapons is dramatically reduced...

In fact you could just say a 2h sword gets no parry bonus. d12+2 is still considerably better than the broadsword's d10.

But more importantly I'm convinced that MD should be tied to critical hits, not to rolled damage.

 

[Hervé]

I don't quite get what you mean.
A man with broadsword and shield will do d10+str bonus damage and have +4 to Parry.
Under my proposed 2h sword rule the 2h sword wielder rolls d12+2+1.5str bonus and gets +2 Parry.
The huge damage potential of 2h weapons is dramatically reduced...
In fact you could just say a 2h sword gets no parry bonus. d12+2 is still considerably better than the broadsword's d10.

The average roll of the Greatsword is 11. With your rules it would be reduced to 8-9. That's only a 2-3 points difference so I would not call this "dramatically reduced". As I stated in my previous post it's not only the damage rating of the weapon that causes problem, but also the fact that you multiply your strength bonus by 1.5 and that power attack bonuses are doubled.

Let's take back the example of the 6th lvl soldier above:

-We've seen that our soldier charging and using Power Attack and the Bull Rush's manoeuvre will at -4 to hit for 2d10+20 damage, averaging 31. This is generally enough do to do Massive Damage every time, whatever the DR of your opponent.

-With the rules you're proposing, he will do 1d12+22, averaging 27and he will get a +2 Defence bonus. Again Massive damage will occur most of the time.

-Now the same guy with a broadsword and Shield will only do 1d10+12, averaging 18, with a +4 bonus to Defence. No Massive Damage at all.

So it means that you get a +10 damage for -2 Defence when using a two handed sword with your rules. What do you think the average player will choose?

Slightly reducing the weapon damage range and adding a +2 bonus to Defence doesn't nerf the 2hd weapon problem at all. You have to take all the paramaters into account, especially the multiplied strength bonus and the double power attack bonus if you want to change the rule for these weapons.

 

[Demetrio]

It's not actually the average that's the problem, it's the maximum and the fact that when one rolls two dice of roughly equal value you get a completely differernt spread of results to rolling a single dice of the combined vale. Compare d8 and 2d4 for instance.

And if you make MD trigger on a fixed damage number, be it 20 or whatever you'll always be able to munchkin to maximise chances and 2h weapon will always be the way to go. Better by far to combine criticals with the MD rule. This takes high str and high weapon dice out of the trigger 'equation' but still makes them worthwhile to have.

As I say, I've actually said above that Power Attack should be 'nerfed' for 2h weapons and also that MD should not be reliant on a fixed damage value trigger. You've focused a bit too much on a single post of mine. Which is understandable as I haven't combined all my ideas in a single post.

They are:

MD is triggered by any critical hit - and only by a critical hit. The Difficulty of the Fortitude roll required is equal to rolled damage with a minimum of 20.

2h weapons should be reduced to single dice (eg d12+2 for a 2h sword) with perhaps some additional 'flavour' bonus - like maybe Improved Sunder for a 2H sword. or maybe +2 Parry.

If wielding a weapon with two hands then add 1.5str bonus rather than str bonus as extra damage. But Power Attack deals simply an additional +1 damage per -1 attack penalty regardless of weapon type, strength etc. I'd also limit the maximum add from PA to either +5 (to bring it in line with Combat Expertise) or BAB.

Critical hit range might want increasing by 1 for each weapon type.

Perhaps sneak dice damage should instead increase the critical range of weapons. Perhaps by 2 per level of sneak attack (and this would include Master Fencer and suchlike +d6 damage adding feats).

 

[Ichabod]

If you base it on critical hits, don't you incentivize: lots of attacks; scimitars, et al; feats that increase crit range; barbarians?

The first problem is that you have to figure out whether there are problems with this. Who wants to spend the time playtesting scimitar + whatever barbarians with various feat combinations keyed off additional attacks and/or increased crit ranges?

Actually, the first problem is that anything involving crits is going to be horrendous for PCs. PCs have the advantage of extra hit points at the cost of actually caring about whether they live or die or avoid becoming crippled. It's not a level playing field. An antagonist explodes and that's what's supposed to happen. Some dorkus maximus rolls well and a PC explodes and the party falls apart.

I don't know that people even agree on the current problem. I'm less concerned with the autoMDS from any sort of well-designed character as I am the lack of autoMDS from poorly designed characters. Not to say I don't think it's too easy to kill stuff in this game, but it's the lack of balance between characters that's more annoying than having combat come down to who wins initiative, mitigated by FPs and Diehard.

Getting off the critical hit thing, constant attempts to reduce damage only further encourage characters into a small number of builds. Now, maybe it encourages characters into doing nondamaging annoyance, e.g. grappling, tripping, sundering. That could be interesting, I suppose. Eliminating MDSs has benefits but also costs as it doesn't fix the problem of PCs who can't do anything meaningful in combat. ... and all of the other discussion that's happened over the years.

The fact of the matter is that people's campaigns aren't playtests. That's blatantly obvious when we have any sort of analytical thread. It is possible to glean something from play, obviously, though, so it would be interesting to hear what house rules have worked well for controlling damage problems. I'm just suspect of someone coming up with a perfect fix as I doubt the players will have tried to min/max under the house rules enough to get a clear idea.

 

[Demetrio]

Actually, the first problem is that anything involving crits is going to be horrendous for PCs.

Is it? I don't find that pcs get critted too often really. Whereas a big bruising 2hw wielding npc is going to whack 'em for 20+ quite often. More often than he'll crit.

Tying MD to a damage trigger will always be 'broken' as it will always favour those who can reach that trigger easily. At the moment it encourages either high str and 2hw use or sneak attacks. Other builds are going to be weak. Not every player will min/max, sure. Maybe it's unfixable. Maybe you can live with it being broken as being a lesser evil than fiddling trying to fix it. That's fine by me and more power to your elbow.

Crits are much less frequent than MDs for high str characters. Even using scimitars. That levels the playing field to my mind. Hig str big weapon users will still do more damage overall if MD is tied to crits. They'll just MD less often.

 

[Clovenhoof]

MD is triggered by any critical hit - and only by a critical hit. The Difficulty of the Fortitude roll required is equal to rolled damage with a minimum of 20.

This would make actual damage irrelevant, and shift the entire focus on a wide threat range. Suddenly the Scimitar would be the only weapon anyone would ever want to use, and Power Attack would be replaced by Improved Critical. But the final result would be the same, there would be one no-brainer weapon&feat choice outperforming everything else.

2h weapons should be reduced to single dice (eg d12+2 for a 2h sword) with perhaps some additional 'flavour' bonus - like maybe Improved Sunder for a 2H sword. or maybe +2 Parry.

As Hervé has explained, it's not so much the damage dice but the extra damage that make 2Hs so overpowering. So, yes, you could reduce the damage die to something considerably smaller. But giving a +2 Parry bonus would again mean you only sacrifice 2 points of defense compared to one-hander and shield so that doesn't make sense.

If wielding a weapon with two hands then add 1.5str bonus rather than str bonus as extra damage. But Power Attack deals simply an additional +1 damage per -1 attack penalty regardless of weapon type, strength etc. I'd also limit the maximum add from PA to either +5 (to bring it in line with Combat Expertise) or BAB.

That's what we've been using.

Critical hit range might want increasing by 1 for each weapon type.

That specifically would shift weapon balance in favour of axes and everything with a x3 multiplier. Statistically, 19-20/x2 is identical to 20/x3 - both deal on average 10% extra damage - but 18-20/x3 is inferior to 19-20/x3 because it's 15% vs. 20% extra damage over time.

Basically I wouldn't be opposed to making crits more important. Crits are already a little better in Conan (due to MD) than in standard D20, where they are just noise in the system. But that could be expanded. Maybe doubling all one-handed weapon threat ranges would be an idea. I'll play around with that in my Conan Combat Calculator spreadsheet. ^^

Perhaps sneak dice damage should instead increase the critical range of weapons. Perhaps by 2 per level of sneak attack (and this would include Master Fencer and suchlike +d6 damage adding feats).

That in turn would A) limit Sneak Attack to x2 or x3 of the regular damage, and of course B) also result in all the Thieves running around with Axes rather than daggers because you can sneak so much better with them.
Sneak Attack can dish out insane amounts of damage, yes, but that is made up by Thieves' otherwise inferior combat prowess: bad defense, bad mobility, bad armour. For the Thief, every Sneak Attack is an all-or-nothing: either you kill your victim in the first attack, or he will grind you to mincemeat on his action.
If you want to nerf sneak attack, you might consider dropping it to d4 standard and d6 for style. Or abolish the Style altogether. Personally I'd hate having to have a half-dozen caltrops in my dice bag.