Clovenhoof
Mongoose
Folks, the first part of my post is just about a current discussion between me and my GM, you may safely skip this part until the first line in bold print.
Last night our GM sent me an email that he wants to massively rework the whole combat maneuver system, unfortunately in a way that I don't agree with.
FYI, he's thinking of a "maneuver point" system, where you keep track of the points by which your attacks beat the opponent's defense. For instance, if his Defense is 18 and you roll a 25, you gain 7 maneuver points. When you have accumulated enough points, you may pull off a maneuver, such as Pantherish Twist (making your opponents attack each other), and your point reserve drops accordingly.
(Now that I write this, I think he got this idea from computer games like WoW where you build up Rage Points to pull off stunts)
His issues with the standard rules are that many of the maneuvers as written are useless (here I agree) and players will want to spam the more useful maneuvers as often as possible, which he considers "unrealistic and eventually boring".
I contend that I am not interested in a simulation of reality, and I consider the realism argument moot in a Sword&Sorcery game; and more importantly, that I find it excessively boring to stupidly roll down each other's hitpoints in a war of attrition until finally someone has got some spare points for a maneuver. Also, a resource-based system will still not mean that maneuvers are carried out when climatically appropriate, but only when the player has accumulated enough maneuver points.
I also am loth to radically change the system, especially as I have played and GMed Conan before and he didn't, but he immediately wants to change everything without really having tried it. In my response I am suggesting that we should rather make careful and small changes instead of getting a whole new system.
When writing all that, I again realized how most characters in Conan are One-trick Ponies, with only very few real options to pull off, so of course it's only a matter of time before things get repetitive and, ultimately, boring.
How can Combat be made more diverse?
No, this time I'm not talking about the bloody two-handed weapons, that subject has been done to death, and a really good solution is yet to come up. For the sake of this argument, let's just assume that the various weapon styles can be considered equal.
In my opinion, what we need is rather _more_ Combat Maneuvers, and they need to be more easily accessible.
* the effective feat cost needs to be reduced for several maneuvers;
* some feats could be merged to be more useful and attractive;
* some feats could be entirely changed into general maneuvers (Power Attack would be such a candidate)
* some feats could have less hefty prereqs. Also, the prereqs need to be plausible and thematic, not just imposed for balance reasons. Example: Whirlwind Attack requires 4 feats, most of which really have nothing to do with emulating a little tornado with a blade.
* and last not least, characters should get more feats. For comparison, the somewhat similar D20 derivative Iron Heroes (also magic-free) gives you one extra feat at _every_ level. For Conan, it might be a good start to give a character feat at every odd level, plus the usual favoured class bonus feats. If nothing else, there should be some extra feats in the second half of the game (levels 11+).
I consider a combination of several (if not all) of these steps necessary to allow broadly skilled characters. We really need to get away from this one-trick approach carried over from D&D.
The problems with the current combat maneuvers are that they often are ill-balanced, and either require very harsh prerequisites, or bestow a very minor benefit at the cost of a much bigger drawback. Others would be okay if they worked, but have a ridiculously small chance of success.
One idea to reduce randomness would be to replace all opposed Strength checks with opposed Attack rolls, and opposed Dex checks with opposed Reflex rolls. Even more preferable would be to require just a single die roll, no opposed checks or followup rolls.
Generally, combat maneuvers should be easier to qualify for, easier to carry out and more powerful in effect.
Of course we don't want to see a maneuver spam where one particularly effective move is repeated over and over like in a bad Beat-em-up video game. But that is easily fixed as well. Simply impose cumulative penalties for each repetition against any opponent you observed you using the same maneuver before. That way players will use any particular maneuver only once, maybe twice per encounter.
Particularly powerful combat maneuvers might have to be paid for with a Fate Point. Or maybe just introduce a new, more flexible currency that isn't as static as the Conan Fate Points. More like Bennies in Savage Worlds; easy come, easy go.
That would be my thoughts on the matter so far. What do you think?
Last night our GM sent me an email that he wants to massively rework the whole combat maneuver system, unfortunately in a way that I don't agree with.
FYI, he's thinking of a "maneuver point" system, where you keep track of the points by which your attacks beat the opponent's defense. For instance, if his Defense is 18 and you roll a 25, you gain 7 maneuver points. When you have accumulated enough points, you may pull off a maneuver, such as Pantherish Twist (making your opponents attack each other), and your point reserve drops accordingly.
(Now that I write this, I think he got this idea from computer games like WoW where you build up Rage Points to pull off stunts)
His issues with the standard rules are that many of the maneuvers as written are useless (here I agree) and players will want to spam the more useful maneuvers as often as possible, which he considers "unrealistic and eventually boring".
I contend that I am not interested in a simulation of reality, and I consider the realism argument moot in a Sword&Sorcery game; and more importantly, that I find it excessively boring to stupidly roll down each other's hitpoints in a war of attrition until finally someone has got some spare points for a maneuver. Also, a resource-based system will still not mean that maneuvers are carried out when climatically appropriate, but only when the player has accumulated enough maneuver points.
I also am loth to radically change the system, especially as I have played and GMed Conan before and he didn't, but he immediately wants to change everything without really having tried it. In my response I am suggesting that we should rather make careful and small changes instead of getting a whole new system.
When writing all that, I again realized how most characters in Conan are One-trick Ponies, with only very few real options to pull off, so of course it's only a matter of time before things get repetitive and, ultimately, boring.
How can Combat be made more diverse?
No, this time I'm not talking about the bloody two-handed weapons, that subject has been done to death, and a really good solution is yet to come up. For the sake of this argument, let's just assume that the various weapon styles can be considered equal.
In my opinion, what we need is rather _more_ Combat Maneuvers, and they need to be more easily accessible.
* the effective feat cost needs to be reduced for several maneuvers;
* some feats could be merged to be more useful and attractive;
* some feats could be entirely changed into general maneuvers (Power Attack would be such a candidate)
* some feats could have less hefty prereqs. Also, the prereqs need to be plausible and thematic, not just imposed for balance reasons. Example: Whirlwind Attack requires 4 feats, most of which really have nothing to do with emulating a little tornado with a blade.
* and last not least, characters should get more feats. For comparison, the somewhat similar D20 derivative Iron Heroes (also magic-free) gives you one extra feat at _every_ level. For Conan, it might be a good start to give a character feat at every odd level, plus the usual favoured class bonus feats. If nothing else, there should be some extra feats in the second half of the game (levels 11+).
I consider a combination of several (if not all) of these steps necessary to allow broadly skilled characters. We really need to get away from this one-trick approach carried over from D&D.
The problems with the current combat maneuvers are that they often are ill-balanced, and either require very harsh prerequisites, or bestow a very minor benefit at the cost of a much bigger drawback. Others would be okay if they worked, but have a ridiculously small chance of success.
One idea to reduce randomness would be to replace all opposed Strength checks with opposed Attack rolls, and opposed Dex checks with opposed Reflex rolls. Even more preferable would be to require just a single die roll, no opposed checks or followup rolls.
Generally, combat maneuvers should be easier to qualify for, easier to carry out and more powerful in effect.
Of course we don't want to see a maneuver spam where one particularly effective move is repeated over and over like in a bad Beat-em-up video game. But that is easily fixed as well. Simply impose cumulative penalties for each repetition against any opponent you observed you using the same maneuver before. That way players will use any particular maneuver only once, maybe twice per encounter.
Particularly powerful combat maneuvers might have to be paid for with a Fate Point. Or maybe just introduce a new, more flexible currency that isn't as static as the Conan Fate Points. More like Bennies in Savage Worlds; easy come, easy go.
That would be my thoughts on the matter so far. What do you think?
