I don’t think so. Many Conan players want their characters to be competent slayers of beasts and men.
And those very same characters are often hilariously incompetent when confronted with a REAL challenge: social interaction, investigation, etc.
There are no “dump stats” in Conan. If you create a strong damage dealing combat monster, then you have chosen the way of defeat: all other fields besides combat.
The challenges in a Conan campaign are very diverse. Man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. beasts, man vs. sorcery. And not all of those can be “solved” by brute force or violence.
I wouldn’t restrict the character builds at all, but my players know - and I tell new players in advance - that combat is not the only type of challenge they might face.
An example: a strong, agile, close-combat character often has few points left for Willpower and Discipline. So this character might be a combat monster, but is easily intimidated and reduced to a vegetable.
Another example: the character might be strong and combat experienced, but when the group’s ship was damaged by a storm, badly in need of repair, you need Craft and Sailing, not Melee to survive.
I strive to present every player character challenges that let their individual field of competence shine. That might be a visceral fight scene against an unspeakable monster, but it might as well be a devious court intrigue or a heist where the mark must not be aware of what is going on.
So after my first run through with my group, we did the Vultures of Shem. The team has one combat monster, one highly trained scholar, and a very competent thief, with a smattering of other skills.
Bad guys dying too easy is the best way to describe it. But rather than Doom points and how to spend them, as I got very few extra, it was the ease at which talented characters gained Momentum.
In the last scene the thief did major damage to the mobs with his sling, and then to the Unspeakable Abomination (the god Mordiggian) setting up for the Aquilonian swordsmen to kill Mordiggian in one blow with his megadamage weapon (of course maxxed out with extra momentum gained from the thief’s successes).
I love Conan, and R.E. Howard’s tales, want to make this work but I am shocked at how easily a good character can pick up momentum, merely by using what skills he’s already good at. The pool was almost always full.
A GM shouldn’t go into a session trying desperately to find a way to prevent characters from using their best skills, just so they don’t get even better. It feels awkward, to say the least.
My GM’img experience is extensive, across many systems but this Momentum/Doom pendulum is weird to get a grip on. Any further tips would be appreciated greatly.
In our first Conan campaign, we noticed that the Doom Pool was drying up very quickly if the GM tries to keep up with the players and they are careful with their Doom expenditure until they can get a momentum pool going. We actually sat down and talked about how it would be more fun for everyone if the GM had more doom to spend, so the players agreed to use doom more often. In return there was unspoken agreement, that this would not be used to outright kill the characters, since there is no fun in that as well.
As to the generation of momentum, that is hard to manage. First step would be to ban rolling on D0 tests, since those generate a lot of momentum at very little risk.
Second step is to actually get the players to spend the momentum on other effects, like getting more information, or needing less time. In combat, they should be spending momentum on the Armor Piercing and Damage momentum spends and other stuff.
Also, the main reason in my experience that momentum gain in combat is so rapid is that the NPCs as presented in the rules are pushovers. They simply do not genereate enough successes in Struggles to meaningfully take successes away from the characters. The way I have come up with is to scale up NPCs as stated above. I don’t do that for every combat encounters, but for the meaningful ones. Our sessions don’t tend to be extremely combat heavy, so I’m not worried about immediately having to send them into another combat situation while their wounds haven’t healed.
Also, I’m using a modified version of the Infinity wound rules, so wounds are not that much of a hindrance in my games.
Oh, and don’t forget that at the end of each combat round, you get to reduce the momentum pool by one. It doesn’t help much, but it helps.
We use the house rule that Bonus Momentum, generated by kits or Talents, cannot be added to the Group Momentum Pool. Use it right away or lose it. That helped a lot.
Thanks Kilburn and FrankF. You both have some good pointers. I will try to adopt for our next session on Saturday night. This will be my first run of my own created adventure for this game. I find it easier to control the flow when you’re the creative driver rather than trying to absorb and retell someone else’s story.
A last thought. I’d love to play in this world and system to understand from the player’s perspective, but none of my group are willing GMs. Are there any online groups out there looking for players, or at least a way to connect with one another specific to Conan? I find Roll20 and it’s like don’t seem to have many more than the standard D&D and Pathfnder.
I have discovered that a reasonably effective method, if all else fails, of challenging players who are finding it easy, is to have stuff collapse. Seriously, its nearly always possible and requires zero prep. The floor collapses, preferably in such a way that only half the party (or one PC) falls into the ensuing pit. I try to have a spare map to hand for what lies below. Of the ceiling collapses, doing damage and splitting the party AND putting all the lights out. Blinding the characters with darkness always increases challenge. As does water.
Interestingly, my players have actually suggested I improve Toughened NPCs, too. As well as adding Abilities (they suggested Talents, but I’m not sure that would work - my players don’t get to see NPC character sheets!) , they actually want more Wounds. So I’m going to try Toughened NPCs at 3 Wounds, instead of 2. Especially as one of my players has a axe, and we all know what that can do…
Yes, the axe thing. In my campaign the megafighter uses a meteoric iron axe, 4CD, plus 4CD for his18 brawn and 2CD for the axe's quality giving a total of 10 CD with five rerolls on damage. Nothing physical can take a hit from him and stay standing. Personally I wouldn't enjoy having such a character, however he's playing him as a grim, *reluctant* fighter which makes it slightly more interesting. I have to find appropriate ways to keep him distracted from any major combat adversary, at least until the final scene.
A further question on mobs, for I'm still learning here and couldn't find clarification. If you hit a mob of soldiers armored in 3 point armor, and cause let's say 17 hits, with piercing 2 activated, how much damage do you actually do?
We ruled that the piercing only works on the first man hit, so he goes out with 6 (1 armor still counting), leaving 11. After that the next absorbs 3, therefore needing a total of 8 to take out, and the last 3 are absorbed by the third mans armor.
This was disputed by one of our group though, he felt that the piercing should work on each target. This would mean that the third man had 4 hits.
Thanks for all the great feedback.
That makes me very curious: How did he manage to get 18 Brawn?
In character creation, the maximum Attribute value is 14, and that only by triggering the Ancient Bloodline.
Add to that the maximum Expertise rank of 5 makes a Target Number 19, so every roll not a natural 20 (the automatic Complication) is a success.
Even if you don’t learn any Skill up to Rank 5, but only to Rank 3, an Attribute value of 16 is the (very expensive in invested XP) practical maximum that has any measurable effect, as it results in Target Number 19, too. Any excess TN beyond 19 is always wasted, as you never modify the Target number, only the number of successes necessary, the Difficulty.
At Brawn 16 the maximum melee damage bonus of +5 combat dice is gained, so further raising Brawn does not affect this.
So this character must have spent 1500 XP to raise Brawn from 14 to 15, then 1600 to raise it to 16, then 1700 to raise it to 17, and then 1800 to raise it to 18.
That is a total of 6600 XP invested in a single Attribute that is not even used for attacking or defending, but only for determining the damage bonus and Athletics and Resistance tests.
So this character surely must have very low stats in all other Attributes and have next to no Talents, as 6600 XP would mean approximately 132 hours of game time to accumulate those XP for the Attribute raise only.
That amount of XP would make any other character more versatile and VERY competent in whatever they do.
You mentioned him being able to re-roll 5 combat dice, so he must have at least 5 Melee Talents, so he must have at least acquired one on top of the 4 Talents you get at character creation.
How much XP does this character have spent in total?
Piercing is applied to all armor and cover soak.
A mob with armor soak of 3 on each individual would only protect for 1 point of soak after receiving a hit with Piercing 2.
This protection is applied to each individual.
In the case of a hit with 17 damage, and taking the usual Vigor 5 per Minion NPC, that would mean:
NPC: 6 damage (-1 remaining effective armor soak) => 2 Wounds (5+ in one hit and Vigor dropped to 0) => Dead.
NPC: 6 damage (-1 remaining effective armor soak) => 2 Wounds (5+ in one hit and Vigor dropped to 0) => Dead.
NPC: 5 damage (the remaining of the 17 that was caused) (-1 effective armor soak) => Vigor now down to 1, no Wound, still active.
Add on: @caratacus It really helps if you don’t use the “code” formatting, as it makes your post next to unreadable, most of the text “disappearing”.
EDIT:
I was WRONG with the above answer about a Mob of Minions and the application of the Piercing quality. The Conan core rules say:
When attacking a Mob or Squad, a single creature within the group is nominated as the primary target. It is to this creature that damage and effects are caused. If the damage is enough to inflict one or more Harms, then that will take out a single Minion (as normal — Minions are taken out of action by a single Harm), then any remaining damage is applied to the next creature in the squad.
That means, you select a single Minion in a Mob as the actual, primary target.
If you roll damage and trigger any Effects, like Piercing, this is applied only to this primary target in the Mob.
If that is enough damage to take the primary target out, the remaining damage will be applied to the next Minion - NOT the triggered Effects.
That could be read as the damage will be applied in full to the Vigor of the next Minion.
Or it could be read as the damage will be applied, but the next Minion’s armor soak will still be applied regardless of the triggered Piercing Effect on the primary target.
Now, after re-reading this rules paragraph, I must confess, I’m quite confused.
I applied Piercing the way I did in my description above. That seemed plausible to me, but now I’m not sure if this is the intended way.
Hi Frank,
Thanks for your reply once again.
I miswrote when I indicated 18 Brawn. I should have said 14 Brawn with 5 focus/expertise in melee. Not sure why 18 was stuck in my head.
As to the mobs, perhaps now you understand our confusion.
Rules as Written, Effects apply only to the initial target struck, not to any subsequent targets when the damage carries over into the mob.
But, but as a house rule for the sake of quicker resolution, Piercing can be applied across multiple Minions in a Mob - it’s an easy tweak to apply, and one I’ve used in demonstration games to keep the action moving. The game doesn’t break either way, so long as you agree upon a single method beforehand.
A question similar to this came up in our last session. When using the secondary target momentum spend, where the second enemy takes half the damage of the primary target, are effect rolls applied to the secondary target or just the half damage?
I’ve never applied effects to any target other than the primary since you’re not rolling dice to generate effects. I also halve the damage before effects like Vicious are taken into account.
Like the others said use doom to have the enemies go first. If your players are armoured have their enemies use spears and maces or crossbows with the Piercing quality. Also don’t be afraid of having the enemies gang up on a lone player character to hurt him/her the most.