kintire said:
After only a few sessions? I recently saw a new player intorduced to d20. She understood the combat system after a few rounds.
When I say "understood" I mean that the players know all that there is to know about the combat system. They know every option that their character has and how it works. They don't need index cards with rules summaries on them and there's no flipping through books.
After 10 or so years of GMing D20 I still don't know all of the base combat rules by heart.
Of course in those other systems that's because there are less options for their characters but my point still stands.
kintire said:
oly said:
As I've already said not only are the base combat rules of Conan D20 far more complicated than any of the other games that I list
I'm sorry, this is false. The only way a case can be made that d20 is complicated is by bringing all the feats into it. The basic mechanic, roll 1d20, add bonus, get higher than difficulty number, is just as simple as any of the systems above and simpler than Fudge.
Sure that very basic mechanic is simple. However look at all the other options in the Conan base combat rules. We've got flanking, attacks of opportunity, variable reach weapons, grapples, tripping, bull rushes, disarms, feints and so on and so forth. And that's not even touching upon all the combat manoeuvres.
Basically CoC manages to have it's entire combat system in about 7 pages to which there are no real exceptions in, Conan requires 35 not including the exceptions made by feats and abilities.
There are simply more rules for Conan, so it's more complicated, I don't see what the problem with saying that is. If you claim it's false to say that a 35 page partial combat system is no more complicated than a 7 page complete combat system then how would you compare them?
I would never praise the Conan system to a gaming friend by saying "oh it's rules light, you've love it." They'll have a quick look at the book and knowing a true rules light system, like CoC or something even lighter, and never take Conan seriously.
However what I can and do praise it for is it's detail and options, it's a meaty system that's not overly complicated. At it's heart there is a very simple and logical system, however layered over it are rules and exceptions to those rules, and then exceptions to those exceptions all of which will pop up in pretty much every combat you run.
The complexity and detail to me aren't a problem and I don't see why we should try and hide from them. It's not like we've got a Rolemaster type of game with tables of tables of tables or Twilight 2000 with it's calculator driven vehicle combat.
We have a detailed game with lots of tactical and character options for combat compared to something like CoC where pretty much your only option in combat is to just attack someone using your base combat skill.
If you're facing an armoured character in complicated Conan you might feint him to buy some time for a friend to come up, then you trip him, then you grapple him, then you pin him, then your friend does a finesse attack around his armour and kills him.
Great stuff! There's real rules and advantages and disadvantages to each of those tactical moves.
In simple CoC you roll against your weapon skill until one of you drops.
Exciting... (Please note that I also love the CoC system, though it's just not the one for me to run gritty melee combats with)
That is the Conan systems strength and let's be proud of it.
Yes it's big, yes it takes time to learn, yes there is lots of rules flipping and referencing for even experienced players and yes we can discuss exactly how attacks of opportunity work for hours but by Crom we love it!