I could have sworn I saw this question addressed once, but all my searches are coming up empty. Perhaps someone here knows:
Throughout the Conan core book there are references to “Willpower tests” which I assume should be “Discipline tests.” But there are so many and they are so flagrant (i.e., literally in the description of the Discipline skill, under Common Uses") that I am surprised it has never been asked about nor referenced in any errata threads on these forums, nor anywhere else I could find.
The reference to Willpower as Skill tests is certainly a remnant from the Mutant Chronicles 2d20 rules. There the Attribute was called Mental Strength and the Skill was called Willpower. It has a very similar function to the Discipline Skill in Conan.
This collection of errata is to be focussed on the core rules, but in some of the published adventures there are “Brawn tests” used for actions that would require an Athletics test or a Resistance test. In Conan 2d20 you never make an Attribute test, it is always a Skill test (even if you don’t have any ranks in that skill, so that the Target Number is equal to your Attribute value).
In the Petty Enchantment descriptions (pages 164 - 165) there are quite a few enchantments that include Fearsome as an effect, but no value is given. On page 152, Fearsome is described as inflicting X mental damage per effect, but the X isn’t given in the enchantment descriptions.
Generally, no number being listed next to the name can be read as an implicit “1” – you can think of Effects as similar to talents that allow multiple ranks to be had.
Melee Talent “Adaptable Combatant” (p. 73)
I move to have this errata’d to something that makes it clear that this only serves to overcome a reach disadvantage while attacking or defending. The way it is worded now it can be argued that while defending, you can increase the Reach of your weapon by 1, making it more difficult for your opponent to hit you. If you use it that way while fighting spear (normally reach 3, raising to 4 using the talent) against sword (normally reach 2), the difficulty of the sword wielder goes up by 2.
While this might be intended, it virtually guarantees that the sowrd wielder will never beat the spear fighter in single combat since he has to hit him and gain 2 momentum to break the guard… which will almost never matter in practice, since the spear fighter will usually use a shield to defend until he regains his guard.
As written, I find this Talent way overpowered.
How so? - You don’t need to break Guard of an opponent to hit and cause damage. Breaking Guard gives you an advantage if you have a shorter Reach weapon, but it is totally sufficient to simply meet the Difficulty and deal damage.
Especially Mobs attacking with 5d20 can beat such a Difficulty quite often.
This Talent is expensive in XP costs and has with Expertise 3 a high requirement, so it is supposed to be powerful. But it is not that powerful (like other Talents that add an additional Wound or like the weapon quality Intense, both of which are in combination the main reason for one-hit kills versus even the toughest Nemesis NPCs).
Don’t forget that even with a Spear at Reach 4, due to this Talent, you still can make a Threaten attack, withdraw and use a ranged weapon or on a lucky hit use the Disarm Momentum spend.
Conan 2d20 offers many diverse tactics and choices to overcome opponents. Breaking Guard is only one of those, and not often and advisable one.
Mobs at 5d20 have a medium to low chance of hitting a character with reach 4. Say they are armed with swords and the difficulty to hit the guy with the spear is therefore 3. Mobs usually have a TN of 10 or lower, meaning they reach the necessary 3 successes every other round (roughly guesstimating, it’s too early to do a real statistical analysis).
But that just means they hit with zero successes left over. A defending character only needs one success on his defense to shrug off the attack. If he is a good fighter, he will generate momentum off that attack by the mob like no tomorrow… and the difficulty will stay at 3 until they break guard.
And Threaten attacks, while theoretically fine, are mostly laughable unless you have a creature really geared up for it… and also, by RAW they don’t really lower your combat readiness at all until you are taken out, since Trauma only affects mental characteristics.
Don’t get me wrong, you are right that there are tactics you can use, ranged attacks and massed formations being among them, but it is incredibly unrealistic to have one guy standing there and fighting off 20 people without really breaking a sweat.
As for the requirement, a fighting optimized character can start with melee 3 right off the bat, and the talents aren’t very expensive at all… which is not a bad thing, since they are cool
Also, there are no “starting characters” in Conan, which I appreciate…
Just saying that being able to turn up the reach is something I find deeply unpleasant since it makes what little challenge the characters face by RAW even less intreresting for everyone involved.
And yes, you can change all that by having the spear break or bend or fall down by spending Doom to create hindrances… but you can’t do it all the time, since it just creates a different kind of frustration.
That’s what a Conan-like capabable Sword&Sorcery hero is supposed to do.
Conan 2d20 emphasizes competent player characters. This is not a bug, it is a feature.
“Realism” and Sword&Sorcery don’t match.
I don’t see any cause for Errata regarding this “Adaptable Combattant” Talent.
You might feel this Talent to be “overpowered”, others see it differently. It is a matter of taste, not a matter of errors. In all of my Conan 2d20 campaigns I never had any problem challenging a character with that Talent. You can always disallow or change it for your campaigns. That does not make it a case for altering the core rules for everyone.
Killing 5 people and coming out of it battered and bloody but triumphant is what a Sword&Sorcery - Hero does (and my remark regarding realism is supposed to reflect the realism of a Sword&Sorcery setting). Killing 20 people without a scratch is more the territory of a Superhero, in my opinion.
But you are right, to each his own. I just wanted to throw it out there as food for thought. I certainly have no problems with the rules remaining as they are.
That is the thing with having NPCs of different “fragility”. 4 Mobs of 5 Minions of low ability are rather easy to dispatch even for a somewhat melee optimized starting PC in Conan. For a slightly experienced one, this is hardly a challenge, at all.
But that is a topic, that is not Errata relevant, as it is about the core design goals of the Conan 2d20 rules. It is better discussed here:
Somewhat realistic though. Typically in real fights between sword and spear, the spear predominantly wins. Even more so if the spear wielded also has a shield.
1 guy against 20?
I don’t really object to any of this… it’s, as Frank said, a matter of how you envision the world. It’s just that 1 vs. 20 with reasonably good odds of walking out of the fight unscathed just doesn’t seem like Sword and Sorcery to me. If I want that, I’ll play D&D.
I think the whole section of posts about the non-errata of the “Adaptive Combattant” should be moved into a separate, dedicated thread.
This is far from the topic of collecting errata for the Conan 2d20 core rules book.
As this question often raises it’s head in Conan games: Can you perform a Reaction while it still is your turn? In the core rules:
“As part of a normal turn, a character can perform a single Standard Action, a Minor Action, and a Free Action. The character may exchange a Standard Action for a Minor Action and/or a Minor Action for any number of Free Actions. Outside of the turn, the character cannot take any actions, but can attempt Reactions in response to the actions of others.”
I read that, and have interpreted that all the time, that you cannot take a Reaction, if you get attacked during your turn, for example due to the successful defender making the Swift Attack Momentum spend or using the Riposte Talent. That means, if you are at the receiving end of a counter-attack which happens while it is technically still your turn, you cannot defend against that. Is that interpretation correct?
Maybe @Modiphius-Nathan could help shed some light on this?
EDIT:
Nathan did clarify this on Discord:
That is correct. It’s partly to shut down “I counter” “well, I counter your counter” “well I counter you countering my counter” shenanigans.
As this question is one of the more frequently asked, it should be included in an FAQ/Errata document, I think.
Another sorcery related question:
For some spells, the duration is listed as “1 round/scene per momentum”. Now, I get how spending momentum to increase the duration works and that spells probably last one round per momentum if used during an action scene and one scene per momentum spent otherwise.
But what happens if a spell that has been cast outside an action scene and made to last several scenes longer gets carried over into an action scene? Does it break immediately, does it stay up and the action scene counts as one of the scenes, or does it break down faster, on a scene-for-round basis?
A frequently asked question is, how Skill substitution (which many Talents allow) functions.
On the 2d20 Gaming Discord @Modiphius-Nathan answered:
OK, so skill substitution…
When you apply a talent which allows you to use a different skill for a skill test in a specific situation - for example, Eyes in the Forest (may use Animal Handling instead of Observation when accompanied by animals) - you may use the TN and Focus for the replacement skill rather than the skill being replaced. Attribute is substituted too, because the game has no provision for swapping which Attribute a skill test uses (that’s a house rule, nothing more). So Eyes of the Forest would let you roll against Animal Handling/Personality instead of Observation/Awareness.
The type of skill test being attempted remains the same. If you have Eyes of the Forest, you get to use your your Animal Handling TN and Focus on Observation tests when accompanied by an animal, but it still counts as an Observation test in all other regards. You simply gain the option to use a TN and Focus from a different skill (which is likely to be better, if you’ve bought the talent).
Yes. In reality you can only fit 4 people around a fighter. and If they are smart they ca easily drag them around keeping it to dealing with one or 2 combatants at a time. I have done it and I am only competent by the standards of those who fought for a living.
You mean about the issue of Skill substitution? Yes, one of the Mystics commented in the 2d20 Discord group and stated that both Skill and Attribute are substituted together.
