Zones Revisited for Miniatures. Conan 2d20 RPG

One of the things I have struggled with is zones, especially when outdoors. Playing an action scene with miniatures and having zones that are not clearly defined can be difficult. D&D and others get around this by using grids, one square typically equals five feet. If you character has a move of 30'/turn, they move 6 squares. Nice and easy. Some players of these systems have moved away from grids and gone gridless. In systems like this if 1 inch equals 5 feet. A character with a 30'/turn moves 6". Still simple. This is generally how wargames work.

Of note is an independent skirmish wargame called "A Song of Blades and Heros", which is an awesome game that I highly recommend. In this game characters are moved via a move stick. No measuring apart from the stick. You do lose a little granularity, but what you lose there you make up in speed. It's a cool system.

I am sure some of you are wondering what I am on about. This is CONAN 2d20! It doesn't use a grid! It uses abstract zones! Zones based around scenery, zones based around where the action is happening!

Yes. This is all 100% true and if you can easily define zones you can create areas that are larger and some that are smaller, allowing you to control speed of the characters moving across the environment. ie a large zone represents an area a character can move fast and a small zone represents an area a character needs to move slowly across.

If you have time and can create defined zones in your outdoor scenes that your players can clearly identify, this is the way that more closely resembles how the rules are written and I suggest that it might be the best way to go. Best, but not fastest.

Using some of the above ideas from gridless D&D games as well as SoBH, I want to suggest the use of a stick. This stick is the size you want your average zone to be, + 1/2 that length again. In the case of a 4.5" stick we mark it at 1.5" from the end, and label it "Close", label the remainder as "Medium".

Indoors it might be small, say 4.5" long, and outdoors it might be double that size representing faster movement in larger, more open areas. As you can gather this stick represents the length of a zone. At the start of a players turn we assume his or hers character is sitting in the middle of their "zone".

• Adjust - Free action - Miniature may move within any point listed as "Close" on the stick. Representing moving within the zone.
• Move - Minor action - Miniature may move within any point on the stick. This represents moving to any place within "Medium" Range.
• Sprint - Standard - Miniature may move to any point on the stick + the medium range portion of the stick, representing moving to "Long Range".

Basically we are picking a length for what we want the "MOVE" action to be. In D&D that might be a 6" stick representing the move of 30'. Once we have that we are allowing half that distance in the free action "Adjust", that full length for "Move" and two of those lengths for "Spring". Compared to the zone map we had before we can see how this might look and how well it translates.

This is a simple method that will allow your more tactically minded players to have a better grip on how far they can move in a round of play. It does have it's downsides, the biggest of them is you can't simply make a zone larger or smaller because the terrain is easier or more difficult to move across.

If you play Conan 2d20 with miniatures I would love to hear your thoughts on using a measuring system vs a zone system. Drop me a comment below and let me know. If you don't play Conan 2d20 but do play gridless I'd also love to hear what you think of it. Till next time, don't forget to Keep it Weird!

Back to the Pulps. Clark Ashton Smith.

Yesterday, August 14, is a day that marks the anniversary of the passing of Clark Ashton Smith. Smith became known to me through reading Robert E Howard. CAS is often spoken in the same sentences that name Robert E Howard and Howard Phillips Lovecraft. He was a common contributor to Weird Tales at the same time as the other two, often being referred to as part of a trio of weird. Like Howard he was a member of what has come to be known as Lovecraft's literary circle.

If you haven't read any Clark Ashton Smith I highly recommend you pick up some of his work and get to know him a little. To help you with that I found a website containing a fairly large repository of his writing, "The Eldritch Dark, The Sanctum of Clark Ashton Smith" and I am going to link some of my favorites below for you to check out.

Here we have five stories to read and a website full of many many more. I myself have only read a small portion of this author's work but you should give him a shot if you haven't. You will be rewarded with a myriad of strange and fantastic worlds the likes of which you have not seen before.

• The Charnel God
• The Abominations of Yondo
• Master of the Asteroid
• The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan
• The Tale of Satampra Zeiros

Modern Age: Print Edition.

Over the past few weeks I have been delving into the new Expanse RPG by Green Ronin Publishing. When it was Kickstarted we learned it would be based on Green Ronin's Modern AGE, a ruleset for modern adventures based on their AGE system.

I wanted to pick up the rules and looked at the PDF on drivethrurpg, but ultimately I ended up ordering directly from Green Ronin in order to get a copy of the printed rules. For me PDFs have a place but to learn and read a system, very little beats a physical book.

My copy of the physical rules showed up yesterday and I wanted to share my initial thoughts of the book itself and in the coming weeks maybe delve a little deeper into my thoughts on the system itself since it is what the Expanse is based upon.


So first up is the volume itself. Looks good, nice cover, hardback edition of the rules. Nothing to complain about here, a solid first impression of the book.

Despite being shipped with a large amount of packing material in an undamaged box far larger than the book, I still had a little damage due to shipping from somewhere along the line.

Not ideal but not a deal breaker for me. One of the hazards of ordering on-line. I will note the game was shipped from Alliance Distributors, not from Green Ronin itself.

It's possible I could launch a complaint and maybe even get a new book, but this one works and the damage is so minor to me that pursuing that line is a waste of my time.



These next two images are just a couple of quick screenshots from the interior of the book. Nothing new for me here as I have seen the pdf. However I will say the paper seems high quality. It doesn't feel cheap. However the binding leaves me uncertain, some places in the book it feels tight and in others loose. That is to say I can lay the book open on some pages and not on others. I am not sure it will fall apart, it just gives me a little pause.

Art wise I like it but don't love it. I love some of it, but not all of it. They do list twelve interior artists so it's possible I just like some of their skills more than others. I believe this is simply a personal preference. It is well executed and in full color. Nothing to complain about.

Throughout the book are a series of color coding geared to take the game through it's three flavors: Gritty, Pulpy and Cinematic. I think it is a nice way to lay out these options that is clear, concise and immediately tells the reader that this is a place where we can change the overall feel for the game. Even with the color coding each entry is clearly labelled as to what it represents.

This page is detailing character advancement over the course of the game based on these three styles of play, but there are also entries on how damage is applied etc.

The book has a two page index which appears to be comprehensive, although I have not used it so I can't actually confirm how comprehensive it is at this time. Either way it is better than not having an index at all, a direction some publishers have chosen.

Finally we have a few pages of character sheets and quick reference and initiative sheets for players and NPCs. The character sheet is plain and maybe a little unimaginative, but for a generic system that makes some sense. It is ALSO easy to ready and reference.

To better understand my opinions of the book I have summarized it over a few metrics, scored out of 5.

• First impression: 85%. Good solid book.
• Book quality: 85%. High quality paper, good cover. I am not 100% convinced of the binding.
• Organization: 90%. I like how it is organized. It seems clear. It has an index.
• Art: 80% The art is good, but for me, not mind blowing.

FOUR SKULLS OF MY ENEMIES!

The Expanse RPG. The Churn.

Kenzo: It must be nice, having everything figured out like that.
Amos: Ain’t nothing to do with me: we’re just caught in the Churn, that’s all.
Kenzo: I have no idea what you just said.
Amos: This boss I used to work for in Baltimore, he called it the Churn. When the rules of the game change.
Kenzo: What game?
Amos: The only game. Survival. When the jungle tears itself down and builds itself into something new. Guys like you and me, we end up dead. Doesn’t really mean anything. Or, if we happen to live through it, well that doesn’t mean anything either.

We got another Expanse Extra yesterday. That is a new mechanic from the RPG that isn't in the quick start. This time the Churn is detailed. This is a mechanic to simulate things going from bad to worse. It will add tension and consequence to the adventure. For me it is similar but different to the role Doom plays in Conan 2d20.

In 2d20, doom stands as a pile that gets added to when various things occur. The GM can then spend that to make bad guys more powerful, introduce more bad guys or just in general make things hard on the players. It is a mechanic designed to simulate the flow of Robert E Howard's epic tales of Conan.

The Churn, although implemented differently, is essentially a mechanic with the same goal in terms of the flow of the story. Things are going well for the players, they have this in the bag. Suddenly the rules change on them and what was easy now becomes difficult.

In it's essence "The Churn" is a running total, when characters do certain things a point is added to that total. When it reaches 10 there is a chance a Minor Stage 1 Churn event happens. If it doesn't happen, the total will increase. When it reaches 20 a Major Stage 2 Churn event may occur. If no event is triggered it continues to increase until it reaches 30, here we have a chance of an Epic Stage 3 Churn event. As you can see each time we get to 10, we check for an event, the level of event increases as the multiple of 10 increases. If you get to 10 points in stage 3, an Epic Stage 3 event occurs. No matter when the pool is triggered it resets to 0.

My first impression is that the Stage 1 events are a little weak IMHO, more choice here would be great. However since I haven't played I don't actually know how fast these things will get generated and it might happen several times in an encounter, and if that is the case it is probably fine.

Either way I am a fan of this style of mechanic. The fact that accumulating The Churn means something bad is going to happen may add enough tension all on it's own to make players a little squirrely.

Be sure to check out my other articles on the Expanse RPG!

The Expanse RPG. Let's Get Advanced!

Continuing my look at the quickstart rules for the Expanse RPG, I wanted to circle back and look at skill tests. Like many games the skill test is the core of the game, anything a character wants to do, of consequence, is generally resolved with a skill test roll by the player.

In many games that boils down to non-combat characters doing their shining moment in a roll or two, leaving combat characters rolling a lot and being more engaged in that way within the game engine. Although conflict is a very important part of RPGs and narratives it can leave some characters out in the cold so to speak.

When RuneHammer Games released ICRPG he included an effort system. You could assign 10 effort points to a task, say translating runes, your party member with the ability to translate could now be a more active part. Now it wasn't a roll with a pass/fail, now it was a matter of time before the runes could be deciphered. Adding in combat with this added even more tension. It is a cool mechanic and it was the first time I had personally encountered it's use.

Wait? Why are we talking about RuneHammer? I thought this was about "The Expanse RPG"? The Expanse has a similar system called "Advanced Tests". These are generally described as more advanced test. In this case the GM is going to assign a TN as well a success threshold. When a player rolls for their character and succeeds the drama die is added to a running total, and once that total meets or exceeds that success threshold the test is successful. Of course each attempt at the test consumes time and perhaps resources depending on the test.

ok. Lets take a look at this in action!

Noelle Intelligence: 2 Focus: Technology

Deep in Ceres station Noelle and her crew are attempting to hack into a computer system. The right information can make you wealthy. Things haven't gone well for our heroes though and they are pinned down at the access node by Star Helix operatives. Reinforcements are most certainly on the way. As it turns out Noelle is a bit of a whiz with computers and they decide to attempt the hack despite the presence of the security officers and their guns.

The GM has set this encounter to allow the Players to escape if they desire. For every round they stay an additional D4 guards take up position firing on the players, to a max of 5 operatives. We will assume Star Helix has enough man power to essentially keep throwing low level operatives at them.

The GM sets the computer system hack as an Advanced test with a Threshold of 10, and a TN of 13.

Round 1: Noelle gets to work attempting to bypass the security system while her crew and Star Helix exchange fire. Her players rolls 1,4,(4) = 9 + 2 Int + 2 focus = 13 = SUCCESS! 4 is added to the running total. The remainder of the round is her crew and Star Helix rolling and attempting to kill each other. Some of her crew take damage, and one or two SH operatives are dropped.

Round 2: The crew calls back as the desperately hold off SH, "HOW MUCH LONGER!!??" Noelle, while working as fast as she can yells back, "I'm in! Almost there!!". Her players makes another roll to work on the system. This time her roll is 3,6,(1) = 10 + 2 Int + 2 focus = 14 = SUCCESS! 1 is added to the running total. Noelle curses under her breath as ICE work to stop her attempts at access in the main database. Star Helix continues their onslaught as more guards turn up to help capture the renegades.

Round 3: A Star Helix officer gets a bead on Noelle and fires at her, the bullet glances off the bulk head just to the right of her head, her fortune holds as she continues to work against the computer. This time her roll is 2,1,(6) = 9 + 2 Int + 2 Focus = 13 = SUCCESS! 6 is added to the running total, brining it to 10. Noelle lets out a whoop as she successfully breaks into the system. The gun battle continues, Star Helix continues shooting, their bullets finally finding their marks as the luck of Noelle's crew begins to run out.

Hopefully, if you haven't used a system like this, you can see how it can engage a non-combat character more thoroughly into the game beyond the simple roll to pass/fail their key skill. I think the concept can make the game a lot more fun for everyone and allow a cooler and more interesting skill test interaction.

Be sure to check out my other articles on the Expanse RPG!

Conan 2d20 on Roll20. Using Decks for Doom, Fortune and Momentum.

This is a simple how to tutorial designed to walk you through setting up a way to use Roll20s decks to build piles of Doom, Fortune and Momentum. It will give you a nice visual way to track the use of these items within Conan 2d20.

The following steps will build a DOOM deck, and you should be able to create the other decks as you need. Lets get to it!

	The first thing we need to do is created a new deck. Go to the Macros and Deck sections of roll 20. Click "+Add", then click on the "New Deck" that was created. This will open the dialog box governing that new deck.
Give the deck a name, in this case "DOOM". The players don't need to see the decks. The players don't need to be able to draw cards. We only have 1 card in these decks, so the set Cards are infinite and disable being able to choose from the deck. The discard pile should show the backs of the cards. They don't need stats and I set my size to be 50x50, although that might change depending on your screen and resolution.
	Scroll down to the bottom of the deck dialog box and click "+ Add Card", in that new cards dialog box, add a name and drag and drop the icon you want to use. In this example I am using a basic doom icon, a red box with a black D in it. Once that is complete, save you changes and drag and drop the same icon into the Card backing area and again save those changes.
The deck is now set up. Click on "SHOW" (which will then change to "HIDE") and the new deck will be displayed on the side of your screen.

To use the deck, just hover over the deck and choose deal. Select the number of icons to distribute and select the player to give them to. In this case, 5 Doom tokens to the GM.

	Here we can see the GM has 5 Doom tokens. Click on the 5, displays a box showing each instance of the token.
	When you want to spend them, simply drag and drop them from this opened window onto the desktop. Once there they can be counted, compared and deleted when you are done with them.

Hopefully this quick guide gets you on your way to building a useable Roll20 interface for Conan 2d20 (and others!)

Conan Exiles. Survive, Build, Dominate. The Review.

Sometime last year Funcom released Conan Exiles into a wide beta release on Steam known as "Early Access". Drop your coin and start playing the game as is, close to a year before the official release date. See it update. See it change. Follow the development. Watch it form.

As it happened at it's original early access release many people said it was unplayable. They were mad. Some people couldn't play it due to issues with their PC, but were unable to return it, presumably it worked initially and then something changed and they were past the hours played threshold. I don't know. I didn't pick it up back then.

I *DID* pick it up at Christmas and although it certainly had some issues I enjoyed playing it. I liked the ability to create my own house and harvest the land. To grow strong. To hunt. To craft. I personally have about 160 hours into two games, one with a character at around level 50 and one around level 26. I am still exploring and finding new stuff, and at release the world will grow even larger, I have solidly got my moneys worth out of this game.

Let's rewind, just in case you are unfamiliar with this game. This is Funcom's latest offering to the Conan Franchise. It is an open world survival game that can be played solo or on servers of various sizes ranging from about 10 to 40. You start with nothing and you must, as they say,
Survive. Build. Dominate.

Played 100% as intended you start crucified naked in the desert. Everything you have known has been taken from you; family, money, pride. Once you define your character you are cut down and set free into the Exiled Lands. You start, quite literally, with nothing.

As you progress through the game you gather resources, make clothing, armor, houses, weapons, fortresses and any number of things to help decorate. If you are so inclined you can even go out and find other settlements, and take their men and women to be broken on your wheels of pain so they become your thralls. These thralls will work for you defending and crafting, sometimes their skill at crafting far surpasses yours.

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So Conan Exiles. Let's take a quick look at what it is, and what it isn't.

• Is this Robert E. Howard's Conan? In a short response. No it is not purely REH's Conan. It takes flavor from the stories by REH as well as the pastiches, comics and movies that came after. They all add to the overall flavor of the game.
• Will we get to explore earth during the Hyborian Age? In a word, no. You like the other Exiles are trapped in a land where humanity once waged war against some forgotten race. Presumably it exists somewhere on earth, but is now cut off any only used to dump prisoners.
• Do I get to play Conan? No. You get to play a random Exile from a country of your choice who worships a deity of your choice.
  
• Does it feel like a Conan game? For me, it does. I won't pretend it's a perfect game, or a perfect representation of what I think Conan is or represents. For me the survival aspect is enjoyable and the flavor from Howard and others that defines the Hyborian Age adds a lot for me. I just enjoy seeing things like "Stygian Banner" or "Dafari Drums" on my screen.
• Civilization vs Barbarism? This is something I struggle with a little. It feels like we are trying to build a civilization vs remaining strong and barbaric. In reality civilization isn't defined by the technology we build it is defined by society and the laws we create. This game in many ways feels like it showcases this. You removed from your civilization and dropped back to barbarism.
  
• Survival? Besides the hostile creatures and other exiles out to end your life, the environment itself is harsh. There are a few main elements that need to conquered to ensure survival: food, water, shelter and temperature.
  • Water: You must secure water and food or you will die. Wander into places that are very hot, or wear clothing that is too warm? Your thirst will increase, and when you run out of water. You will die.
  • Food: As you progress through the world you will grow hungry. If you do not eat, or eat the wrong things, you will die. Find animals, hunt them and cook them to maintain a healthy hunger level. Food will also allow you to regenerate your vitality.
  • Temperature: Being too hot or too cold will negatively affect you as well. Wearing heavy clothing in the sun, or just being out in the desert too long will result in you needing more water, and if you run out, you die. Likewise being in the north without wearing clothing will result in frostbite and death.
  • Shelter: Shelter can also help regulate temperature, but it also serves to protect you from the sandstorm that ravages the lands. Getting caught in this will cut a man or woman to ribbons....and you will die.

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Although the game has no quests of the variety: Find NPC, Talk to NPC, Retrieve 20 wolf pelts, it does have a journey system which functions both as a tutorial and then later as a guide and a direction system. Doing what is suggests will take you into dungeons and out across the vast expanses of the Exiled lands. For me, at least, this is a superior system. I was never a fan of the general quest concept in MMORPGs. This world is an open sandbox, you can go anywhere, anytime for any reason; provided you are strong enough.

My initial impressions of this when I picked it up in Early Access were good, I enjoyed it. The last major update improved the game immensly. I was watching a stream just yesterday by a new player who had never played in early access and after a few days playing his impressions of the game were glowing. If you are looking for a beautifully immersive game with a story that will lead you along and be amazing, I suspect the new God of War might be up your alley. If you are seeking an immersive game that allows you to go and do what you want, build your fortress, take slaves and try and survive in a brutal world, crafting your own story, then 100% check out Conan Exiles.

On Steam I have played for 169 hours. I am still going strong and with the new areas opening...............

4 out 5 Skulls of My Enemies!
*Just a word of warning: This game is violent. This game features killing humans in gruesome ways. This game features nudity. This game features slavery.

Conan 2d20 RPG Overview: The Nemesis.

Welcome back to the blog everyone! I hope your weekend was full of friends and good times. My last few posts have focused on the adversaries, minions and toughened opponents, in the Conan 2d20 rpg. Today we are going to wrap up the final one of these classes; The Nemesis. What is a nemesis? Well the following quote gives us a little insight. No, it's not from Conan, in fact it's not even from Robert E Howard, but I think you will recognize it either way.

Do you know what "nemesis" means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible ****... me. Bricktop, Snatch, 2000

A great line by a very bad man. It defines "nemesis" for us. In the Conan 2d20 RPG these are the personification of powerful entities. The nemesis class is the most capable class of foe your characters will face. They will present their largest challenge.

We talked about the town guard being minions and the sergeants being examples of the toughened classes. Continuing this example, the leaders of the guard, generals and the like, will be this nemesis class. Conan himself served as the leader of men in this capacity. These are the horrors in the dark, the witches, the wizards and the warriors of renown that Conan faced throughout his travels.

Ok so what does all this mean? The nemesis class is again going to have better equipment and attributes as compared to minions and toughened opponents. In addition the follow items are true of a nemesis.

• The nemesis can suffer 5 physical and 5 mental harms.
• The nemesis can react as per normal reaction rules.
• The nemesis can spend 3 doom and gain a fortune point.
• The nemesis often have a wide range of skills and abilities
• The nemesis uses hit locations and armor just as a player does.
• The nemesis is often leading multiple bands of foes.
• The nemesis CAN lead a squad.

When it comes to special rules the nemesis is, in some ways, the simplest of the three classes. They work just like player characters. They become complicated in how they are played and their wide range of talents and abilities.

Now lets not get carried away here, if you drop a single nemesis down against a party of players, the nemesis will be lucky to survive a single round. These opponents become truly epic and frightening when they are leading groups of toughened or minions, forcing the players to engage their followers first.

Another thing to keep in mind is the one large difference between PCs and the nemesis. If the PCs want to buy 3 bonus dice and have no momentum, they can exchange dice for doom. If the nemesis has no doom they are unable to get bonus dice.

If your PCs are able to survive off of their built up momentum then the nemesis is going to be considerably weaker than one who has a fat pile of doom to draw from. This is something to keep in mind as players roll complications, if you are low on doom, it might be better to stockpile the complications till the final confrontation. Also keep in mind that any generated momentum by the nemesis can be stored as doom if it's not use right away.

The nemesis is a powerful entity in it's own right, but for it to really shine, it will need strategy and support. As always I love to hear comments and feedback, ideas and errata. As we go forward I wonder what else would be useful to go over? Till next time, KEEP IT WEIRD!

If you are interested in checking out the Conan system why not head over to DriveThruRPG and pick up a copy of either the Conan 2d20 core book or the Conan 2d20 quickstart pdf?

Conan 2d20 RPG Overview: The Lowly Minion.

Our last overview talked about armor and protection, basically how to reduce the amount of damage a weapon does to you. This time I wanted to talk about NPCs and Monsters; creatures from the outerdark and loathsome pirates. Conan 2d20 has 3 classes of creatures: minion, toughened and nemesis. I had intended on covering all three of these in this article, but I have decided to start with the minion, as they have a few special rules and specific place in the game.

First, when I say minion I don't mean the little yellow guys from "Despicable Me", although they would certainly fit into this category. Minions are the low skilled henchmen, townfolk, small creatures and any number of other things. The key aspect to these is they are fodder. They do not stand against the characters in any real way. They are in general throngs to be cut down with bloody swaths of a sword. They are the 100s of soldiers in movies and books that pose no real threat to our heros.

I can hear you say, "Why do they need their own post if they are just fodder?" The answer to that is a rule in the game that allows a character to lend a d20 in assistance to another during a skill test, but we will get to that in a bit.

Lets go over the special rules for the basic minion.

• Minions, unlike characters, can suffer a single HARM before being killed or driven off. So doing a blow that inflicts 5 stress, or dropping a stress value to zero ends the life of the minion.
• Minions can not parry, dodge or actively defend. They are not allowed to react.
• Minions roll a single d20 for their skill tests (including attacks.)
• Minions do not use hit locations.

As you can see they are weak, can't defend themselves and don't roll many dice. There is an exception to this, and THIS is why I felt they needed their own entry. The Mob

Up to five identical minions can form together into a mob. Due to that assistance rule I mentioned earlier the mob attacks as a single entity and so rolls 1d20 for the lead minion +1d20 for each remaining member of the mob. So a Mob with 5 total members would roll a base of 5d20, 1d20 for the leader and +4d20 for the four remaining minions in the mob.

It is important to remember there is nothing stopping the GM from buying +3d20 worth of additional dice for that lead minion, giving the lead minion 4d20, with the mob contributing another 4d20, bringing the die total rolled for that mob to 8d20. Despite this massive roll of the dice, the mob only gains a single attack and it can be parried, dodged or resisted like any other single attack.

As you can already see we have written a fair bit about this simple and easy to kill part of Conan 2d20 and we have one more thing to talk about when they are arrayed as a mob. How do we apply damage? Damage is applied to the first member of the mob until a harm is caused. Any remaining damage is passed to the next member of the mob until a harm is caused. This cascade continues until the mob is dead, or we run out of damage. Soak is subtracted once at the start. Lets wrap this up with a couple of examples.

For example: Single Minion, Conal is faced off against a single town guard (Vigor: 5 soak: 1). The guard is classified as a minion. Conal rolls 2d20+2d20 from momentum, and scored 3 successes on a D1 attack leaving him with 2 momentum Conal rolls damage and does 8 points of damage and uses his momentum to penetrate the guards armor. The guard now tales 8 points of vigor stress, which causes a wound eliminating the minion, nice and quick and simple.

For example: The Mob, Now Conal is faced off against a mob of 5 town guards (Vigor: 5 soak: 1) Round 1: Using the same situation as above, Conal causes 8 points of damage and negates the armor on the guard. The first guard takes 5 points of stress damage and receives a wound, eliminating him. The remaining 3 points of Vigor go to the next guard reducing his total to 2. Next the mob attacks, but now with only 4 members, the GM opts to buy 2 addition dice for the lead minion giving him 3d20+3d20 assistance dice. The attack succeeds and generates 4 momentum, but Conal's parry also succeeds and generates 4 momentum. The guards attack is barely turned aside. Round 2: Conal feeling pressured by the mob decides to try and end this, and buys 3 additional dice. He scored 3 points of momentum and rolls 7 damage, using momentum to defeat the armor he does 2 points to the damaged guard reducing his vigor to zero, removing him from play. The remaining 5 points of damage is applied to the next guard, causing yet another wound and removing a second guard from play. Conal spends 2 points of momentum for a swift action and strikes again. This time he succeeds but only gains a single point of momentum. Luckily he rolls 10 damage! Using the single point of momentum his sword slices past the armor of the remaining guards. 5 damage to the first eliminates it, followed by the remaining 5 damage being applied to the last guard, also killing it.

I intend on doing two more articles on toughened and nemesis over the next few days, and as a companion piece I will get some sort of combat demo up on youtube. Until next time, drop me a comment and don't forget to keep it WEIRD!

If you are interested in checking out the Conan system why not head over to DriveThruRPG and pick up a copy of either the Conan 2d20 core book or the Conan 2d20 quickstart pdf?

Conan 2d20 Momentum Spend - Wrecked Weapon Trope.

They stopped short. Conan faced them, not a naked man roused mazed and unarmed out of deep sleep to be butchered like a sheep, but a barbarian wide- awake and at bay, partly armored, and with his long sword in his hand. "In, rogues!" yelled the outlaw. "He is one to twenty and he has no helmet!" True; there had been lack of time to don the heavy plumed casque, or to lace in place the side-plates of the cuirass, nor was there now time to snatch the great shield from the wall. Still, Conan was better protected than any of his foes except Volmana and Gromel, who were in full armor. The king glared, puzzled as to their identity. Ascalante he did not know; he could not see through the closed vizors of the armored conspirators, and Rinaldo had pulled his slouch cap down above his eyes. But there was no time for surmise. With a yell that rang to the roof, the killers flooded into the room, Gromel first. He came like a charging bull, head down, sword low for the disembowelling thrust. Conan sprang to meet him, and all his tigerish strength went into the arm that swung the sword. In a whistling arc the great blade flashed through the air and crashed on the Bossonian's helmet. Blade and casque shivered together and Gromel rolled lifeless on the floor. Conan bounded back, still gripping the broken hilt. The Phoenix on the Sword -Robert E Howard

One of the most iconic occurences in a final battle is a weapon being broken. Troy, Willow and the '82 Conan film all feature this prominently.

In Willow, Mad Martigan, after becoming his heroic self, charges General Kael who easily parries the blow, redirecting it into the wooden structure of the fortress, where it becomes lodged. With a deliberate blow Kael shatters Martigan's sword leaving him on the ground without a weapon. It is a tense moment.

In front of Troy two heroes do battle; Achilles and Hector. As they fight back and forth, Achilles swings his shield and snaps the spear of Hector. Hector retreats and throws his useless weapon aside. Achilles seeing a moment of weakness presses in for the kill. Hector defends himself with skill and prowess as death comes for him. The onslaught continues and Hector is unable to draw his sword during the exchange. Finally Achilles thrusts at Hector who redirects the blow to the ground. In the next instant Hector snaps the spear of Achilles like a twig.

And of course in the '82 Conan film Conan and Rexor in their final battle clash sword on sword. Finally Conan is victorious as the gleaming Atlantean blade slices through the sword crafter by his father and continues through to mortally wound Rexor.

As we see above, Howard himself employed this in the very first Conan story. It is a dramatic, cool and powerful piece of story telling, and as such I believe it deserves a place in this fantastic role playing game.

This is a fairly easy thing to plug into a game that has a system in it like Momentum. Knowing how well an attack or parry was executed allows us to decide to add cool moves and flavor into our combat. Looking through the combat momentum spends we find one called Disarm. It costs 2 or 3 momentum to disarm someone you are engaged with. This seemed like a pretty solid place to start building the Weapon Break momentum spend.

Clearly we want this to be a more expensive spend than disarm, as it has far greater ramifications. My initial thoughts have involved adding 1 momentum to the spend raising it from 2-3 to 3-4 AND also making it only a CHANCE of breaking the weapon.

Spend	Cost	Description
Weapon Break	3-4+	The attacker may attempt to break one melee weapon being weilded by the target. This costs 3 points of Momentum if the target is holding the weapon in one hand or 4 points of Momentum if the weapon is braced or held in two hands. The attacker then rolls 2cd. On a roll of 2 effects, the weapon is shattered. On a roll of 2 numbers the weapon is knocked away. Any roll of a blank indicates that the attempt has failed. The attacker may spend 2 additional momentum to reduce the 2cd roll a to 1cd roll.

WAIT! There is more! In ALL of the scenes I talk about above that broken weapon is used to end the fight or used to end the quest. Clealry, even though they are broken they are still effective weapons, Conan has rules for improvised weapons, but I think we can do better than that. My initial thought is the weapon simply become broken and stats are reduced. For a guideline on this I am thinking reach is reduced by 1. If reach becomes 0 it is completely useless. Damage dice are reduced to 3cd or lowered by 1, whichever is lower. And then we remove the effects "Intense", "Grappling", "Knockdown" and "Fearsome".

For example: Conal is wielding a broadsword (Unb, Rch2, 5cd, Parrying) against Thokuh, Captain of the "Serpent of Set". Conal swings his steel in a deadly arc, but Thokuh deftly redirects the blow into the ground, and with a quick action drops his weight against the flat of the blade snapping it in two. Conal dances back, his broken broadsword in his hand (1H, Rch1, 3cd, Parrying). Thokuh laughs and moves in swiftly bringing his cutlass down in a flashing heavy blow. Conal barely blocks the blow catching the cutlass on his broken sword, before pressing past Thokuh's guard and driving the broken blade hard into the fat stomach of Thokuh."

What do you think? Is this a worthy mechanic and something you might try in this form or another? Think I am crazy? Let me know!

If you are interested in checking out the Conan system why not head over to DriveThruRPG and pick up a copy of either the Conan 2d20 core book or the Conan 2d20 quickstart pdf?

Conan 2d20 RPG overview: Tasks and Difficulties

In my previous Conan 2d20 article we talked about skill checks and how they work. Today I want to go over what they represent in more detail, really understanding these and what the represent is pivotal to getting your head around what this system is trying to do.

• Task - A task is anything a player is trying to accomplish: steal an apple, attack a skeleton, sail a ship etc.
• Difficulty - How hard is it for the player to complete this task?
  
  

Conan 2d20 uses a system of 6 values to define how hard a task is to accomplish.

• A difficulty 0 rating is a Simple task, nothing of any consequence, we don't even need to roll any dice to succeed!
• A difficulty 1 rating is an Average task, and if we roll our 2d20 we have a pretty good chance of accomplishing this.
• A difficulty 2 rating is Challenging. This is something that is hard for the player to accomplish, but not out of the realm of a standard person.
• A difficulty 3 rating is Daunting. This is a hard task. If you are not trained in this skill, you are going to fail. If you are trained, you are going to need a little luck.
• A difficulty 4 task is Dire. Think of this as a VERY hard thing to do. You are going to fail unless you are trained and get VERY lucky.
• Finally the Difficulty 5 task is Epic. Don't bother. You will need the gods with you to complete this task.

Attributes for humans range from 6 - 12, with average being an 8. This means an average, untrained human, has around a 60% chance of successfully completing a D1 task. This jumps to about 70% with a little training

It is possible to gain 2 successes on every roll of a d20 if you are trained in a skill, so you could roll up to 4 successes on 2d20, the base roll in the game.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tambako/13894106014 (CC)

For example:
Conal is faced off against a wolf growling at him, it's jaws are slavering as it anticipates it's dinner. The night is inky black with only a sliver of light coming from what is left of the day. To make matters worse the rain has become harder as the storm grows ever more violent.

Attacking the Wolf is an average difficulty, or D1. However it is raining and dark, moving it from a D1 to a D3.




Lets examine this with two versions of Conal; the Merchant and the Warrior.

• Merchant Conal has no training in combat and so the player can only roll a maximum of 2 successes.
  With a roar the wolf leaps forward and lands on the helpless merchant, Conal falls into the muck as the wolf tears at his flesh, ending his business permanently.
  
  
• Warrior Conal has training in combat and so the player can roll a maximum of 4 successes.
  With a roar the wolf leaps at Conal who raises his shield just in time, and sends the wolf off in another direction. In a flashing moment the wolf twists and is back on it's feet. Lightning flashes in the darkness, it's light reflected onto Conal's sword. The two circle each other warily.
  
  

The next segment of this series will talk about Doom and Momentum. These are probably the most controversial part of Conan 2d20, and understanding the above ideas will help to lay the foundation for how these two mechanics work.

If you are interested in checking out the Conan system why not head over to DriveThruRPG and pick up a copy of either the Conan 2d20 core book or the Conan 2d20 quickstart pdf?

Conan 2d20 RPG - The Black God.

When I started writing the last adventure for our group, I had no clear goal on what I wanted to do. The players had trapped themselves in a small vault designed to contain an artifact of, perhaps, alien origin. Why they were there or how they became trapped isn't of great importance. I set out with an eight point system for writing short fiction: Stasis, Trigger, Quest, Surprise, Critical Choice, Climax, Reversal, Resolution. Armed with a basic outline I laid out the first room and then proceeded to not go very much further.

A few weeks later 'ol Hankerin' Ferinale posted a podcast on something he called "Monster Sets", basically 3 creatures connected in theme and perhaps in some other method. Translated to Conan 2d20, maybe you have a Minion type who is easy to kill, and perhaps you have a toughened opponent that can summon Minions at will, or whatever. The Nemesis is probably your boss. For a clearer idea I highly recommend you check out Hankerin' at the link above.

I wanted to try the Monster Set idea in my game. I knew my players had an aversion to statues. I had already placed several statues as creatures in the adventure but was at a loss on how to go forward. I needed to find a way to create a Monster Set around these. Fortunately for me I had just read "The Black God's Kiss" and "The Black God's Shadow" by CL Moore.

To make a long story short, Jirel, the main character retrieves a weapon to exact her revenge, which she then determines was the wrong action. In her attempt at redemption she heads back to the realm from which her weapon came from. Here she finds her victim locked in a black statue, the personification of all of his magnified sins. She releases him from this and he becomes a shade she needs to track across this unholy landscape. Meanwhile she is assaulted by the Black God and feels herself losing and becoming a statue herself, barely fighting them off. If you haven't read those stories, I do highly recommend them, there are of course links on the sidebar to Amazon so you can get copies of the stories.

But back to Conan. And so I had Statues, Shades and the Black God itself, and with this triumvirate the Monster Set was born. I wrote some custom creatures that were perhaps a little over powered, but only by a little.

The first is the Black Statue, an unholy abomination of some black material. Sin, magnified and made real. Physical forms twisted and distorted, no two the same.

The second is the Black Shade, an ethereal form of the statue. The soul trapped within the statue freed from its physical constraints. These are horrific apparitions that strike the most stalwart warrior down to a gibbering child.

I failed to used these strategically so I am not certain on how useful the ability to regen the statues is. I pretty much attacked with the Black Shades and followed up with the Black Statues.

Finally the Black God itself. The Black God can not actually be attacked by physical means. It must be present to be attacked, ie it must be engaged in combat with someone. I would allow direct mental attacks against it. As well, a player resisting successfully over two rounds will drive it off for 2cd rounds

These challenges proved exceptionally difficult for my party of five, the shades wreaking havoc on them with the mental attack they possess. I modified them a little in this post to make them a little more reasonable, but you might wish to tweak them further if you so desire.