Questions about the system after a few plays

Conan: Adventures In an Age Undreamed Of
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Been playing Conan a couple weeks after over a year of Star Trek Adventures. A few questions:

  1. Is there any way to make an effective ‘finesse killer’? It seems like if you want to be good with a melee weapon you NEED to have a high brawn. There’s a stealth talent that lets you use your stealth for attack and add +1 damage, but that’s still far less than a barbarian with a 12 brawn.

  2. It seems that you are an idiot not to use a shield if you can, correct? If you are strong enough there’s no downside to a shield and a ton of upside. Unlike, say, Pathfinder, there’s no additional damage bonus to using a weapon with two hands, right?

  3. This one is about reinforcements. Our group attacked a large, spread out bandit camp, attempting to take out the leader and steal information before the rest of the camp reacted. After 3 rounds, over a dozen minion level enemies arrived to join the fray from another part of the camp. In another system, this is something the GM just does based on the scenario. In Conan, does he need to use doom to bring in reinforcements? Or, because they were already in the camp (a few hundred feet away at night in pouring rain, btw), they are already considered part of the encounter and doom is not required?

  4. Am I correct that character development is super-heavily front loaded? i.e. you are best off maximizing skills during creation, since the cost of going from 4-5 is 1 starting skill point, but the cost of doing it with XP (both focus and rank) is a whopping 2000? Especially since the net improvement in the skill from 0-1 is actually larger than 4 to 5 (since 0-1 grants you the ability to use fortune for an automatic crit?). Meanwhile talents seem pretty cheap. So do experienced characters basically look skill wise not much different but with lots of talents?

  5. Hit locations seem weird. I like the armor for different body parts. But there’s no difference in getting hit in different locations. That means that ironically, for many characters getting hit in the head is the best possible outcome because helmets typically have high armor values! This doesn’t make any sense really. The whole reason helmets are sturdy is because the head is so vital. But in Conan it means nothing? I’m just not sure why they even bothered to have hit locations if they are meaningless.

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Greetings. Not an expert on the game but will take a stab at this.

  1. Depends on what you define as a finesse killer. One way to do it is with high coordination and awareness- the archer. Our archer pc can essentially do as much damage as our barbarian, although the barbarian doesn’t have the best weapon yet and just got a shield. I can imagine an assassin who uses misdirection to get close to a target, exploit to boost damage and a ranged weapon used within 10 feet or so- hand crossbow, throwing knives. If you are asking just about raw damage dealt with a melee weapon- yeah the high brawn pc will generate more raw damage dice. A stealth killer will need to use the exploit action to add damage dice.
  2. Correct, I think, although brawn doesn’t enter in to it until you try to heft the tower shield.
  3. This is up to you. The reinforcements doom spend doesn’t specify where the fresh enemies must come from. If the scene was designed with all the bandits already there, and they will become engaged when condition x, y, z is met, I wouldn’t pay doom for that. I would only pay doom to bring in brand new enemies, not part of the scene as written.
  4. Yes, from a purely monetary perspective. I have one pc who is min-maxed as a melee character and one who is min-maxed as a horse archer. The 3rd pc was rolled randomly as a scoundrel and has a broader skill base with lower attributes. But yes, from a purely min-max advancement perspective you are correct, it will cost the scoundrel lots more xp to reach for a 4 or 5 skill. My reading shows you can use fortune points for an automatic success on an unskilled check. If you have skill focus it will count as 2 successes.
  5. Yes. Piercing quality and momentum spends for called shot add some color, but I agree. For a system so crunchy in combat it seems weird that taking a harm in the head doesn’t result in some effect- stun? A harm in the leg doesn’t make your movement more difficult? Potentially it does by increasing your check difficulties; heroic pcs will overcome that.
    Thanks for the topic. I like to dig into the rules.
    M
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From Benn, our Conan expert, among other things.

Is there any way to make an effective ‘finesse killer’? It seems like if you want to be good with a melee weapon you NEED to have a high brawn. There’s a stealth talent that lets you use your stealth for attack and add +1 damage, but that’s still far less than a barbarian with a 12 brawn.

YES – Look at the blood on steel and Anatomist talents as your starting point (or perhaps archery). But ultimately high brawn is how you roll more damage dice. You only need 5-6 dice to be a deadly character in Conan so don’t go getting a Brawn fetish at the cost of other attributes.

It seems that you are an idiot not to use a shield if you can, correct? If you are strong enough there’s no downside to a shield and a ton of upside. Unlike, say, Pathfinder, there’s no additional damage bonus to using a weapon with two hands, right?

You’re an idiot not to have a second weapon. And correct there’s no ATTACK benefit to using a weapon in both hands. It is harder to disarm a character using a weapon with 2 hands and the GM can set difficulties pretty freely if they think your action should be harder than baseline.
This one is about reinforcements. Our group attacked a large, spread out bandit camp, attempting to take out the leader and steal information before the rest of the camp reacted. After 3 rounds, over a dozen minion level enemies arrived to join the fray from another part of the camp. In another system, this is something the GM just does based on the scenario. In Conan, does he need to use doom to bring in reinforcements? Or, because they were already in the camp (a few hundred feet away at night in pouring rain, btw), they are already considered part of the encounter and doom is not required?

If the adventure says there’s a timer that drops minions then it costs nothing. BUT if the GM can pay Doom (Given to them by the players) to accelerate this or to just have a minion turn up.

Am I correct that character development is super-heavily front loaded? i.e. you are best off maximizing skills during creation, since the cost of going from 4-5 is 1 starting skill point, but the cost of doing it with XP (both focus and rank) is a whopping 2000? Especially since the net improvement in the skill from 0-1 is actually larger than 4 to 5 (since 0-1 grants you the ability to use fortune for an automatic crit?). Meanwhile talents seem pretty cheap. So do experienced characters basically look skill wise not much different but with lots of talents?

Yes, Build the character you want to play up front and use talents to showcase tricks they’ve learnt along the way. If you want a heroes journey campaign get your players onboard first.
Hit locations seem weird. I like the armor for different body parts. But there’s no difference in getting hit in different locations. That means that ironically, for many characters getting hit in the head is the best possible outcome because helmets typically have high armor values! This doesn’t make any sense really. The whole reason helmets are sturdy is because the head is so vital. But in Conan it means nothing? I’m just not sure why they even bothered to have hit locations if they are meaningless.
3 things you might be missing 1) armour can be spent to ignore a wound & losing armour creates an opening for relatively weak attacks to cause wounds. So its meaning is in the protection it affords being lost and the compromises this entails. 2) the GM can call for an alternative wound (+2 difficulty penalty) should a weakspot get hit. 3) you can’t fully heal wounds until downtime.
So if you want hitlocations to be meaningful have your NPCs call shots to avoid armour, inflict significant specific wounds (Sprained ankles make running away really hard) and make sure to remember that as soon as you inflict a wound ALL the wounds suffered come back at once.

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I have been running this as if the wound is of the same type. For instance one of my characters has taken a ton of fire damage. I ruled that those wounds could be re-instated if she took another fire damage wound not necessarily any other wound. (Until the scenario ends of course) Is that incorrect?

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Wounds are wounds mate- any ‘New Wounds’ opens up old ones…

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The hit location system is rather underdeveloped yes. However I’d burn some Doom for a head-related Complication on hit because it makes narrative sense.

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Re: Finesse vs Brawn
The stealth killer will only complete with a barbarian by being a stealth killer. I played an assassin who had multiple murdery stealth talents. His damage was so off the high when I appropriately set myself up. If you want high damage and are willing to get it by playing clever then that can be a fantastic finesse character. For 2 momentum I just “made” all my damage dice be effects, which multiplied my unforgiving and piercing qualities.

You could also make a character who combines a whip and dueling sword. That whip has the potential to ■■■■■■■ by inflicting a grapple with enough effects. You also get free resolve damage. Once the target is grappled the dueling sword gets piercing and it’s unforgiving, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume a grappled target loses guard.l since escaping the grapple is the only thing the victim can attempt.

I have a version of that character I’ve played in one session so far. Replace the dueling sword with a katar. I got the protection of my reach 3 whip against a foe with a two handed sword plus parry from my katar. Then I grappled and followed up with my katar with the bonus dice from using a weapon with 2 lower reach than my foe and piercing 2 and unforgiving.

That character also has very high personality (highest stat) so if I score a great hit with the whip I can follow it up with a steely glare of about 5 or 6 dice to go for trauma instead of wounds.

In Conan you won’t achieve the D&D version of a finesse melee character where the player just aligns numbers differently to make a finesse melee character and still plays the same as a brute fighter. You’ll also need to play as a finesse fighter, but the game has the mechanics to help. Brute is still going to be the simple straightforward “I put my damage in it” though.

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Agreed. I may add another way of attacking with “finesse”, the Observation build. We can expect someone with a high awareness to focus on ranged attacks, but what if they are forced into melee combat? Well, better be done with it as quickly as possible and that is where the crippling blow talent comes into play. One hit, better make it count, so the archer will try to exploit with observation and then activate Crippling blow on the same attack. The exploit also helps the blow to connect if the archer doesn’t have so great an Agility or Melee skill. The weapons one can choose are mainly the Zhaibar knife, for standard reach and Unforgiving 2 and the seax (Barbarian), a cd less and inferior range but Parry and Hidden (if it lures an enemy into thinking he had an easy target, so much the better).
If we assume 3 successes achieved on the exploit test and Observation 4/4, an attack with a Zhaibar knife rolls 4d20 for 10 cd Vicious 2 Intense. I would assume it largely ensures that a toughened enemy will be downed, allowing our hypothetic archer to resume ranged combat.

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takes notes