Hi folks,

I have not yet run a game of Sorcerer although I am getting very close to doing so. However, I still feel a bit unsure about how to handle some aspects of the system. For example, rereading Howard's "Queen of the Black Coast" I found myself wondering how I would handle one of the combat scenes if it was a scene in Sorcerer. (Just as a side note, I have Sorcerer and Sword too and am pretty familiar with the special combat rules in it).

So here's my problem. In "Queen of the Black Coast," Conan finds himself sitting atop a pyramid in the middle of an ancient city that the jungle is slowly reclaiming. Belit and all of the members of the crew are dead, and Conan waits for an attack that he knows is coming. In the story, twenty hyenas (actually, they are men who have been sorcerously transformed into hyenas) start from the jungle and make toward him. Badass that he is, Conan rains death on them with his bow and less than half the pack reach the stairs of the pyramid.


So on to the problem. How would you handle this in your game if you wanted a player to face a similar challenge? To be more precise, how do you handle the issue of the hyenas movement, the distance they must traverse before they can reach the steps, as Conan tries to spit them with his bow? During the declaration phase of combat, what would the hyenas' declarations be? Would you handle them as a group with a single roll for the pack or as individuals? What would happen if they won initiative and Conan lost? What would winning represent here (obviously it would mean fulfillment of the declaration, but what precisely would that be)?

Would you say up front that Conan has, for example, 3 opportunities to fire on them before they reach the stairs, thereby requiring all declarations by the hyenas to be something like "run for cover to the next nearby pillar or crumbling tower so as to cut the distance between us and Conan by a third"?

Clearly the mook rules would be in play, and any successes by the player would immediately remove a hyena from play, but beyond that I am simply stumped.

Admittedly, this situation is not frequent in the literature (at least not in Howard so far as I can tell), so I recognize that I am presenting a situation that doesn't require regular modeling by the game. All the same, I want to be sure not to screw up my first game, so I would appreciate some advice on how to handle it. Perhaps I am just really obtuse and this has already been well canvassed on the list, but a search of the site didn't really yield answers.

Any help would be really appreciated.

Cheers,

Eric

If I recall, the pack is a secondary conflict, before the arrival of the flying ape. You could treat the pack as a single individual with the equivalent of the "Big" power - that way it has, say, a 4 stamina for attack, and 10 for absorbing wounds. Just declare it takes one, two, or three exchanges for the pack to reach melee range.

That's a good one.

I might alternately try this: you start the conflict with the pack of hyena-men moving towards the character's well-fortified position (their declared action: they're far away, Conan has a missile weapon and they don't). The character, being Conan, has a good Stamina, boosted by a couple dice by cascading in the Barbarian Past in setting up a secure redoubt.

So what happens is, Conan keeps beating the pack (treated as a single entity) on the initial roll, winning initiative. The pack could roll one die in defense and then go ahead and take its 'invade Conan's ambush zone' action, setting up different possibilities for the next Free and Clear. But the GM reasons that sooner or later he'll get to run in for free, and that he wants to have a good fight when the beasts get there, or rather that a lame fight with a badly wounded pack is no better for the story than watching Conan pick them off one by one with his bow. So he keeps aborting his action to defend with full dice for several rounds in a row, until he finally wins initiative and takes the redoubt while still having full dice to defend against the Cimmerian's final arrows.

Make it simple. Hyenas' goal: kill Conan. Conan's Goal: kill Hyenas.

Use "big" option for the pack mentioned earlier and give Conan a fat bunch of bonuses for weapon (bow) until the hyenas make the first hit and then it goes away, tactics (postion on top of pyramid), roleplaying (if any), overall coolness of the scene and any preliminary related rolls.

The hyenas would get a penalty for tactics (distance) and weapon (teeth), both penalties would last until they made the first hit and then turn into a small bonus (tactics:outnumber and close combat), of course Conan could then draw his sword and negate that close combat bonus.

Thats it, one contest, lots of drama. From here on out, let the dice fall where they may ;)

Thanks for the responses so far. Unless anyone has any other suggestions for how to handle this, I think I will go with Brendan's option of simply stacking on penalties for the hyenas and loading bonuses on the player.

Cheers,

Eric