Questions and first impressions

[tneva82]

Well had my first(short) session of Conan RPG. Went smoothly enough and even combat went nicely. And you got to love system which makes players think that maybe it's better to just run instead of confronting enemy when there's 2 player characters and 1 bandit Makes it bit more believable when they don't go around killing everybody.

However we couldn't remember was there attack penalty for making attack with offhand? I know you get less of a strenght bonus when resolving damage but whatabout roll to hit?

Also I'll take it S modifier is added to damage roll even if it's negative? Ie if S modifier is -1 then D8 damage is D8-1? If so how you handle the modifier changes for offhand and 2 handed strikes?

 

[Clovenhoof]

In Conan, if your offhand weapon is Light and you have the TWF feat or class feature, you suffer _no_ penalty for any TWF attacks.
If you have TWF and use two one-handed weapons, like two broadswords, you get -4 to all attacks.

This differs from SRD/D&D where you get a -2 penalty for all primary and offhand attacks in even the most favourable conditions (i.e. TWF feat and light offhand weapon).

Also, if my memory isn't playing tricks on me, you get your _full_ ability bonus (normally Str, or Dex if you use finesse) for every attack roll, but only 1/2 your str bonus to damage with your offhand weapon.
Keep in mind that you don't get bonus damage from Power Attack with a Light weapon. So if you have for instance a broadsword and shortsword, and use Power Attack, the attack penalty applies to all attack rolls but the damage bonus only applies to broadsword damage.

Augmenting the TWF procedure in Conan is not breaking the game btw, actually it's still not on par with THF, since you have to sink several feats into it and have a much lower chance of doing massive damage.

TWF only really shines if you have some extra damage source. Since in Conan, there are no magical weapons with +5 enhancement bonus and +2d6 bonus damage dice, the only usual such source will be Sneak Attack. And guess what? TWF is not a Thief class feature, so you'd have to pick the feat or multiclass.

Hyboria's Fiercest, I think, has a feat called Two Weapon Strike that allows you to add primary and offhand damage for purposes of inflicting Massive Damage.
In my game, Two Weapon Strike is a combat manoeuvre that's open to anyone (with TWF) without spending an extra feat, since I find the idea stupid to have to spend several feats just to get closer to something someone else can do without any feats at all.