Age of Conan: Saga of Zath

Age of Conan

Conan Exiles is approaching it's official release date. Over the last year it has gone from a game, from what I understand, significant issues, to a game that I quite enjoy. Sure it still has issues. I suspect all games do, but in the end I enjoy the survival sandbox concept with a Conan skin.

So Funcom is working hard on this new Conan game, but what of it's OTHER Conan game? Age of Conan.

If you are unfamiliar with it, Age of Conan was and *IS* a MMORPG set in the Hyborian Age. It was released WAY back in May 2008. Nearly 10 years ago. You start with a character in the Barachan Isles and the city of Tortage where you remain until you get to a high enough level and escape to the world at large. As it is 10 years old, there are less servers than there used to be. I believe only one remains. "CROM" in both PVP vs PVE. The game can be played for free giving you access to a lot of content or through a paid membership giving you certain bonuses and access to everything.

Through out your adventure you are given quests, gain experience and levels, new abilities, crafting recipes and your own guild strongholds.

Saga of Zath

Before Christmas Funcom announced that in the new year they were going to start a new server, something they called a SAGA server. We would all be given the opportunity to start fresh and play the game starting at Tortage. The original content would be in place as well as a new quest called "Saga of Kath". At the end of the saga server run, characters would be rolled back into CROM with all they had gained including marks of saga completion.

From the Saga of Zath website

The Saga Quest Shortly after washing ashore on Tortage Island, you are assigned a “Saga Quest” which tasks you with reaching various progression milestones:

• Reach Level 20
• Reach Level 50
• Reach Level 80
• Fulfill your Destiny
• Complete a Raid via the Raid Finder*
• Classic Raid Progression

Completing each stage of the quest awards a special vanity item or account-wide title exclusive to Saga of Zath, along with powerful loot including a Tier 4 Cloak and a Tier 6 Weapon and Necklace for your class!
* The Raid Finder will not be available at the start of Saga of Zath. Don’t worry--we’ll turn it on shortly after the launch.

January 24th saw the launch of the new Server and so I decided to return to Conan's MMORPG world and logged in last night at 8pm MST and made it to pretty close to level 12 in about 3 hours of solid game play, so I have about 8 levels to go to hit the first Zath quest goal. I hadn't played in about 2 years (Christmas 2016), but I quickly remembered the controls and got used to moving and killing.

I have never personally played a wizard class in the game, and have always stuck with combat. I love the way combate is handled, allowing you to swing at various locations and use combo moves, and get rewarded with fatality animations, such as beheading your opponent.

First Impressions

As I mentioned I played for 3 hours last night. I was able to find my way around fairly easily and remembered the basic maps and how to get to them. ie How to find my way around Tortage, How to get to the Underhalls and Whitesands.

Overall it was cool to see the game as populated as it was, even if that meant at times it was actually hard to find creatures to kill on Whitesands Island. ha ha.

As always the game is good looking, and has an amazing and epic soundtrack. It was commented from the other room while I was playing, "I wish Diablo 3 had an epic soundtrack like that." I often turn the music off in games, but in AoC, it is welcome and epic.

I will continue to play a little when I have time and see how far I get.

I will livestream my entire experience over on my YouTube channel, so come and check it out. SAGA OF ZATH

Quickly! To Barsoom!

Today Modiphius released the quickstart rules for John Carter. We get our first taste of the system.

I wanted to jot down what I see as the major differences between Conan 2d20,as I am most familiar with this system, and the mechanics in the John Carter game.

Dice
The system is the same as Conan in this.
2d20+up to 3 bonus d20s
combat dice are calculated the same, 1,2,0,0,effect,effect.

Accomplishing Tasks
The Same
Roll 2d20, buy up to 3 extras.
Roll vs 2 numbers, get under the TN = 1 success, get under the lower value = 2 successes
Opposed tests work the same. Each side rolls, if both succeed, the side with the most momentum wins.
The Differences
Skills vs attributes
Conan uses Attributes+Skills. Skills have an Expertise and a focus and these plus the attribute provide the TN and Focus to roll against. Example: Melee attack: Agility=9, Melee Ex=4, Fc=4. Melee TN=13, Fc4.
John Carter uses attributes. Each test utilizes two of the attributes. Daring+Might for example. The sum of these is the TN and the lowest of these is the target to gain a second success. Example. Daring=5, Might=6. Daring+Might test: TN=11, FC=5

Momentum, etc.
The Same
You gain one momentum for every point above your target difficulty. Task is Difficulty 2, roll 3 successes, momentum = 1
You lose one momentum at the end of each scene
You can spend momentum for various effects
The Differences
No group pool. Players are allowed to save momentum past their turn, but it is stored in a momentum pool with a maximum equal to the players lowest attribute. Players may contribute to another players momentum pool, but it can't exceed it's maximum. Doom becomes Threat
Fortune becomes Luck

Zones
The Same
The world is broken into zone vs measuring squares. Distances are therefore abstractions.
The Differences
New names for the zones
Immediate - Within arms length. (Melee)
Near - not next to, but easily reachable. (Same zone)
Away - areas apart from others either due to distance or obstacles. (Adjacent zone)
Far - Visible range (2 zones over)
Too Far - Out of visible range, beyond the ability to engage without special tech.

Action Phases
The Same
Broken into rounds and turns. Each round is composed of player turns.
Players go first in initiative. GM can interrupt for the cost of 1 threat.
The Differences
Phases are simplified. Movement, Conflict, spoken.
Movement allows moving to any point within away. Moving further costs a momentum..
Conflict actions. Generally things that require tests.
Spoken actions. Simple quips and spoken commands.
Free actions. Not listed in the quickstart, but references are made to it.

Damage
The Same
Essentially broken into stress and harm. Harms are renamed as afflictions.
Having an affliction causes a penalty on the appropriate stat.
Reducing stress to 0 = 1 affliction.
Causing 5+ points of stress in a single attack = 1 affliction.
The Differences
One additional damage category. Confusion. It's Affliction is called "Madness"
When characters take damage they look at the two attributes used in their defend reaction and choose which stress track to take the damage on. Ex. A character parries with "Cunning" and "Daring", this brings the "Confusion" and "Injury" stress tracks into play and either can take the damage.
Blacking out instead of death at 5 wounds.
Optional note that an affliction can be caused at EACH 5 stress if the GM desires

What other differences have you noticed in the rules between the various 2d20 systems and this "lite" offering? Drop me a comment below and let me know!

John Carter FG Extension Update.

Although I have no screen shots I wanted to drop a quick update on progress. I spent part of last night working on templates to allow the construction of the attribute columns for the John Carter Character sheet. I showed the initial beginnings of the character sheet on a livestream last night.

I have about half of the "plus attributes" on the sheet, but need to make a modification on the code that does the calculations. Right now changing Cunning updates all of the "Cunning+Daring", "Cunning+Might", etc attributes, but does not update those plus attributes associated with the other main attributes. ie changing cunning does not update "Daring+Cunning".

It is a good start, and I'll work on the rest of the layout this week once I square that away. As I am trying to mimic the actual character sheet, this will take some time to make it as cool as it can be.

Happy Birthday to Robert E Howard.

On this day, January 22, in the year 1906 a man was born. This man, Robert E Howard, became one of the best known pulp authors of his, or any, time. He was published in numerous pulp magazines, selling many different stories, across numerous genres. Of course his most famous character is Conan, a barbarian from a forgotten time. Conan is the personification of the struggle of the barbaric man vs civilization.

Howard is credited as being the father of "Sword & Sorcery", and was a contemporary of HP Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. These three are often referred to when people speak of the three big writers of pulp fiction.

He was much more than simply the writer of Conan. Howard was a man that loved history and tried to work it into his stories whenever he could. Many of his yarns take place around historical events, where he tells the stories of people intertwined with them. His writing and characters were expansive ranging from King Kull of Atlantis, through to his modern age. Many of his stories speak of everyone living in a connected universe. Kull to Conan, Kull to Brank Mak Morn. Conan to the modern age.

Kull, Solomon Kane, Conan, Breckenrdige Elkins, El Borak, Sailor Steve Costigan, Brank Mak Morn, Dark Agnes and the list goes on. Many of his characters and stories have been adapted to the television and movie screen to varying degrees of success.

Both a man of his time and a man ahead of his time, he has influenced many people and many elements of fantasy.

Today I raise my glass in salute to a great writer.

John Carter FG Extension, a first look.

Spent a little more time on the project last night.  Largely working on graphics items; choosing and modifying.  Although I didn't get THAT much done I did get some work done include creating the start of a new JCM roller to handle the 2d20 Momentum system.


After last night and this morning I currently have a good start.

Complete.
Desktop - updated - will need further updating to allow for tiling, but this is a good intermediary step.
Sidebar - Updated
Decal - Updated
Chat box - updated.  Framedef needs to be updated still. - Framedef updated
Added a titlebar graphic lifted from the kickstarter page, slightly modified.
Dice rolling fundamentals - completed
New character sheet tab added back into the charsheet allowing the build of a JCM specific sheet, still contains CONAN 2d20 at the moment.

To do.
New character sheet graphics
New NPC sheet & graphics
New CT Graphics
Update the roller with proper documentation

John Carter for Fantasy Grounds. The Beginning.

Last night I started working on a re-skinning of the MoreCore ruleset for use with John Carter of Mars by Modiphius.

I have decided to handle the big graphical components first.  Desktop, decal, sidebars, chat box and option buttons.

After last night and this morning I currently have a good start.
Desktop - updated
Sidebar - Updated
Decal - Updated
Chat box - updated.  Framedef needs to be updated still.

To do.
New character sheet graphics
New NPC graphics
New CT Graphics
Update the character sheet to use the new 2d20 system using 2 attributes.

I hope to have some screenshots available tomorrow.

My Advent on Mars

Like Conan, I came to Barsoom later in my life.  These early works of fiction eluded me.  I had certainly heard of Conan, but I head read none of the comics and NONE of Howard's writing till about 7 years ago.  I considered myself a fan of the character and the movie. 

Barsoom was different.  I have certainly heard of Tarzan, but not of Barsoom.  Maybe I saw the occasional comic cover here and there and didn't know what it was.  When they decided to make a movie, I looked into it more.  I became excited for the movie.  I *ENJOYED* the movie.  Did it have an amazing plot?  No.  Did it have a fun plot?  Sure!  Earth man on new world rescues the Princess and finds love.  What did it have?

Action.  Adventure.  Visuals.

This movie for me is visually stunning, and so the world created by ERB captured my imagination.  Hordes of inhuman, tribal, green Martians with 6 limbs doing battle against the Red human men of Barsoom.  A dying world of violence and conflict.  A world where airships glide across the skies like our ships on the ocean.  The movie showed me all of this and more. 

After the movie I immediately sought out and read the first three of ERBs books set on Barsoom.   They are of course different than the movie.  It seems obvious the writers were going for a more connected set of books starting from day 1.  They had an advantage over ERB in this respect.  They had all 3 books. 

So now I find myself a fan of John Carter of Mars.  The world captures my imagination.

I was delighted to learn Modiphius was planning a series of games centered around John Carter of Mars and I looked forward to the launch of the Kickstarter for the RPG.  The system is based around the same system as their Conan 2d20 lineup, which I am familiar with having played it for the last year and participated in the various forums for a longer time.

So come!  Join me on Barsoom and save YOUR Princess!