Questions concering figures and men

[carjack]

Okay, so I'm getting my brain wrapped around Chainmail and am eager to try it out, but I still don't understand a few bits.


Let's say we use a scale of 1:20, where each figure equals 20 men. Lets say a line of 6 light foot figures attacks an equal line of light foot. The combat table shows that lt ft vs lt ft throws 1 die for every man and scores a hit on a 6.

So, am I throwing 20 dice for each figure? If so, on a 6, am I removing the whole enemy figure or am I somehow tracking how many men are lost for each fig? 20 dice 6 times in a row seems excessive to me, so that's what makes me think I'm not understanding what is going on here.

Now, what if a superhero is included here? He is one man represented by a single figure, correct? If he attacks a figure, he is basically fighting 20 men by himself, and fighting as 8 men?

I'll have more questions later!

[coffee]

As I understand it, the terms "man" and "figure" are pretty much used interchangeably. Roll one die per man (figure) and on a 6, remove one enemy man (figure). At least, that's the way I've always understood it.

I have seen some wargames of such complexity (or possibly intensity) that did indeed expect you to track each man and only remove a figure when 20 kills have been scored. But Chainmail doesn't seem like that kind of a game. The authors were clearly more concerned with a fun game that strict historical accuracy. (Note how the section "Historical Characteristics" is clearly labeled "optional".)

As to the second part of your question, yes indeed, the Superhero counts as 8 figures. The description calls him a one man army, and that is reflected in his combat prowess.

Then again, I could be wrong about all this. But it's your game now, so you can use it however you like.

[Deleted]

This is how I interpret it, too.

[carjack]

Okay, that makes sense.

So, what are the ratios of 1:20 or 1:10 concerning figures and men for? Is this just a scale that the game works at that really doesn' t affect the rest of the game? Figuring point costs? Or are the point costs listed per figure?

[coffee]

The ratio of 20:1 refers to the frontage such a unit occupied historically. That's why, for smaller figures, you'd use 10:1 instead of 20:1.

That way, if you want to refight a historical battle, you don't need to go out and get, say, 2000 french knights to refight Agincourt, you can get by with 100. (Which is actually a bit much for one guy, but if a whole games club does it as a group project it becomes more feasible...)

Some games, such as Warriors of Mars, have a ratio of 50:1. That makes massive battles feasible.

[jacar]

Oct 8, 2009 14:28:36 GMT -6 coffee said:

The ratio of 20:1 refers to the frontage such a unit occupied historically. That's why, for smaller figures, you'd use 10:1 instead of 20:1.

That way, if you want to refight a historical battle, you don't need to go out and get, say, 2000 french knights to refight Agincourt, you can get by with 100. (Which is actually a bit much for one guy, but if a whole games club does it as a group project it becomes more feasible...)

Some games, such as Warriors of Mars, have a ratio of 50:1. That makes massive battles feasible.

Actually, the 20:1 or 10:1 refers specifically to the number of men per figures. When you "kill" a man, you lose 1 figure. That one figure represents 20 men becoming combat ineffective...they die, are wounded, run away etc. This is not a new term in war gaming. As for the frontage, the men represented with each figure would likely be multiple ranks deep. Probably 4 with a 5 man width. So if you had 2 ranks of figures, they would represent a formation 8 ranks deep.

[Finarvyn]

Oct 8, 2009 11:05:04 GMT -6 carjack said:

what if a superhero is included here? He is one man represented by a single figure, correct? If he attacks a figure, he is basically fighting 20 men by himself, and fighting as 8 men?

The Hero and Superhero question has always bothered people. I just "roll with it" and try not to get distressed.

Here's the issue: suppose you have a 20:1 ratio and a Hero is four figures, so does that mean that the Hero is worth 80 men? And that a Superhero is worth 160?

Both are clearly absurd. Which is why I ignore the problem altogether.

So, if a Hero is worth 4 figures I just let it be the equalent to 4 men on the table and don't try to convert this into actual human bodies. Perhaps you can justify that the Hero is accompanied by a few lesser men-at-arms or body guards. Whatever. I just let realism slip in favor of playability and fun.

At least, that's how I interpret the rule.

It's like in the Star Trek wargame Federation Space where a "warp factor 5" ship moves 5 hexes while a "warp 6" ship moves 6 spaces. Clearly the Star Trek canon has established that warp speed is a number cubed times the speed of light, so WF 5 is 125c but WF 6 is 216c and the WF 6 ship should be able to move about twice as far as a WF 5 ship per turn. Except that this speed imbalance translates into a game imbalance and really "breaks" the game, so you ignore the way it's "supposed" to work and concentrate on the way it makes the game work.

[snorri]

Nov 3, 2009 15:29:17 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Oct 8, 2009 11:05:04 GMT -6 carjack said:

what if a superhero is included here? He is one man represented by a single figure, correct? If he attacks a figure, he is basically fighting 20 men by himself, and fighting as 8 men?

The Hero and Superhero question has always bothered people. I just "roll with it" and try not to get distressed.

Here's the issue: suppose you have a 20:1 ratio and a Hero is four figures, so does that mean that the Hero is worth 80 men? And that a Superhero is worth 160?

Both are clearly absurd.

Not so much. A super-hero is described as a one-man army, so 160 men is just fine. In OD&D, if we admit that reading, he could strike 8 times per round (at least againt 1HD men), and would probably kill a lot of if, as suggest the rules, he got a magic weapon. After all, it needs 4 Hit (so 80 men) to kill a hero in one round.

The main problem is that the clear rationalization made the characters far much less powerful. With Chainmail as a ruleset, you could play any wuxipian movie !

[Finarvyn]

Nov 3, 2009 15:39:28 GMT -6 snorri said:

A super-hero is described as a on-man army, so 160 men is just fine. In OD&D, if we admit that reading, he could strike 8 times per round (at least againt 1HD men), and would probably kill a lot of if, as suggest the rules, he got a magic weapon. After all, it needs 4 Hit (so 80 men) to kill a hero in one round.

I still say that would be absurd. I mean, I can imagine Conan battlin' a dozen guys or maybe a couple of dozen ... but 160? And he can deliver 160 or so hits to his foes during that same time? I'd say that stretches credibility a tad, even for Conan!

(This goes to show how level inflation has slowly slipped into later ediitons of the game ... if an 8th level character can do all of this, imagine a 20th level character. The scale would be totally out of whack, only several times over.)

I'd prefer to simply ignore the scale of the figures and just have fun with it.

[coffee]

Nov 3, 2009 22:03:58 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I'd prefer to simply ignore the scale of the figures and just have fun with it.

I think that's the way Gary would want you to do it.

[snorri]

Nov 3, 2009 22:03:58 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Nov 3, 2009 15:39:28 GMT -6 snorri said:

I mean, I can imagine Conan battlin' a dozen guys or maybe a couple of dozen ... but 160? And he can deliver 160 or so hits to his foes during that same time? I'd say that stretches credibility a tad, even for Conan!

Maybe Conan is just a poor hero, abble to battle with 80 guys only (anyway, with the morale rules, they will flee before he smashed them all). Let's try with a superhero. Thor, for example

I guess this is one of the problem when going from the wargame to the proto-rpg scale : what makes sense in the first don't necessary in the second.

[jacar]

Nov 3, 2009 22:03:58 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Nov 3, 2009 15:39:28 GMT -6 snorri said:

A super-hero is described as a on-man army, so 160 men is just fine. In OD&D, if we admit that reading, he could strike 8 times per round (at least againt 1HD men), and would probably kill a lot of if, as suggest the rules, he got a magic weapon. After all, it needs 4 Hit (so 80 men) to kill a hero in one round.

I still say that would be absurd. I mean, I can imagine Conan battlin' a dozen guys or maybe a couple of dozen ... but 160? And he can deliver 160 or so hits to his foes during that same time? I'd say that stretches credibility a tad, even for Conan!

(This goes to show how level inflation has slowly slipped into later ediitons of the game ... if an 8th level character can do all of this, imagine a 20th level character. The scale would be totally out of whack, only several times over.)

I'd prefer to simply ignore the scale of the figures and just have fun with it.

That's what I would do as well. A (super) hero might be a single man and a couple of picked men as his body guard or he might simply be a one man wrecking crew. Either way, he has the ability of 4(8) figures!

[delta]

Oct 8, 2009 11:05:04 GMT -6 carjack said:

Let's say we use a scale of 1:20... So, am I throwing 20 dice for each figure?... Now, what if a superhero is included here? He is one man represented by a single figure, correct? If he attacks a figure, he is basically fighting 20 men by himself, and fighting as 8 men?

I've been studying this recently, and finding that Gygax was very consistent when asked about this issue over the years. Counter to what a lot of people expect from Chainmail.

Main results are that (a) one figure rolls one die, and (b) Heroes and other fantasy supplement figures are used only in man-to-man combat (1:1), never in mass combat. See quotes from Gary on my recent blog post.

deltasdnd.blogspot.com/2009/12/gygax-on-chainmails-fantasy-scale.html

Heroes are used only in Man-to-Man play, so one is equal to four normal men... the Hero and all the other Fantasy supplement figures were employed only in the play of Man-to-Man games, never in the mass system where one figure equalled 20.

The FANTASY SUPPLEMENT written for CHAINMAIL assumed a man-for-man situation.

The basic system is that from CHAINMAIL, with one figure representing on man or creature.

[thegreyelf]

Gary's statements above don't jibe with what's in the book. Chainmail is pretty clear that Heroes and Superheroes are the last men in any given unit to be killed unless specifically targeted by another hero/superhero.

This says two things:

1. The Fantasy Supplement is intended for use with unit-based (ie. 20:1) play.

2. Units can have heroes and superheroes attached. Generally, you'd just somehow note (with a counter, perhaps) which unit had the extraordinary character attached to it, rather than using a separate figure. Now, if the hero became separated from the unit (for example, the unit is killed, leaving the hero alone), then he would gain his own figure until he linked up with another unit (or you could continue to just use the counter, to keep things simple).

At least, that's my interpretation.

[snorri]

Dec 27, 2009 16:32:12 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

Units can have heroes and superheroes attached.

Very good point Jason! This make sense, exactly as explain Chainmail:

They are the last figure in a unit that will be killed by regular missile fire of melee

So, there is One hero, but he fights along with an unit.

but they may be attacked individually by enemy troops of like type (such as other Hero-types) or creatures shown on the Fantasy Combat Table. Heroes (and Anti-heroes) may act independent of their command in order to combat some other fantastic character.

When a unit with an hero (or an hero alone, when is unit died) fight vs. another fantasy figure, the Fantasy table is being used.

When meleed by regular troops, and combat takes place on the non-Fantasy Combat Tables, four simultaneous kills must be scored against Heroes (or Anti-heroes) to eliminate them. Otherwise, there is no effect upon them.

and when he's with the unit, it's still possible to kill him, but the "4 kills" rules apply there. So One Hero inside of a 20 men unit fits fine.

Anyway, this still means they fight as four men. That's why super-heroes ar described as one-man armies [please note the ONE-man].

They have the fighting ability of four figures, the class being dependent on the arms and equipment of the Hero types themselves, who can range from Light Foot to Heavy Horse.

...as the +1 bonus seems to apply to morale for their unit rather than to fight.

Heroes (and Anti-heroes) need never check morale, and they add 1 to the die or dice of their unit (or whatever unit they are with).

[delta]

Dec 27, 2009 16:32:12 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

Gary's statements above don't jibe with what's in the book. Chainmail is pretty clear that Heroes and Superheroes are the last men in any given unit to be killed unless specifically targeted by another hero/superhero.

So there are unit-formations even at 1:1 scale. I don't see either of your other two conclusions following logically.

Chainmail is explicit that a Hero is a "figure", not some abstract noted attachment to a unit. Same thing in the 1972 report on play: "Regular troops have only a few added touches of paint, but hero-types have such things as gilded or enamelled armour, jewels, and carefully painted devices on their shields."

grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/12/1972-gygax-article.html

[harami2000]

Dec 27, 2009 17:42:58 GMT -6 delta said:

Chainmail is explicit that a Hero is a "figure", not some abstract noted attachment to a unit.

Which, as noted, rather begged the question as to how it was intended to handle combat vs. the "leader" (call them hero, or whatever?) in Gary's "Dark Ages, Medieval Conflict on Alternate World "Entropy"" in DB#7 since other units were all handled per the LGTSA rules from DB#5.

In Chainmail Fantasy proper, the Hero can be attached to a unit, or separate.

Dec 27, 2009 17:42:58 GMT -6 delta said:

Same thing in the 1972 report on play

aside: That's a very, very late article vs. the timeline for Chainmail Fantasy as originally compiled/written; even allowing for a couple of months lead, October 1972 is just about tipping into Lake Geneva D&D territory.
Can also see that it would've been a smart idea to write a sales pitch for a product currently available, even if things had progressed further by then.

Dec 27, 2009 16:32:12 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

Gary's statements above don't jibe with what's in the book. Chainmail is pretty clear that Heroes and Superheroes are the last men in any given unit to be killed unless specifically targeted by another hero/superhero.

This says two things:

1. The Fantasy Supplement is intended for use with unit-based (ie. 20:1) play.

2. Units can have heroes and superheroes attached. Generally, you'd just somehow note (with a counter, perhaps) which unit had the extraordinary character attached to it, rather than using a separate figure. Now, if the hero became separated from the unit (for example, the unit is killed, leaving the hero alone), then he would gain his own figure until he linked up with another unit (or you could continue to just use the counter, to keep things simple).

At least, that's my interpretation.

Ah, Jason; are you hoping that's the same wording in 1e's Fantasy Supplement, or do you know that it is?
*
If the former, I'll swap that for some cutting and pasting from IFW v5n1 if relevant as my copy's still awol and I trust one of you must have one lying around. v4n8 only has the 1:1 missile rules (/finally/, having been noted as "absent, required" in the rules Gary put his name to in DB#7) and Giants.

Cheers,
David.

[thegreyelf]

I've never seen 1e so I can't say. I have various printings of Chainmail 3rd edition (first, second, and three, 3+ printings). On page 30 of 3rd edition (first and second printing--I haven't looked at the later, post-Tolkien-reference ones) it states that Heroes are the last in a unit killed but may be targeted directly by other hero-types.

[harami2000]

Dec 27, 2009 23:42:38 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

I've never seen 1e so I can't say. I have various printings of Chainmail 3rd edition (first, second, and three, 3+ printings). On page 30 of 3rd edition (first and second printing--I haven't looked at the later, post-Tolkien-reference ones) it states that Heroes are the last in a unit killed but may be targeted directly by other hero-types.

You're on safe ground for that one, Jason (1e & 2e are the same) but do need to be careful making clear what material is being referenced as things are messy enough to try to disentangle as it is.

No IFW v5n1 anywhere, I take it? Hmm... Had already spent an hour or two looking - and getting sidetracked - but was worried previously that it might've been stacked with the APAs or somewhere else equally well "hidden in plain sight".

[jacar]

I wish someone would snip out the Man to man combat system in chainmail so that we would never have to look at it again. That would solve all of these questions on what to use and what not to use. Of course, not in my book!

[cooper]

A super-hero is described as a on-man army, so 160 men is just fine. In OD&D, if we admit that reading, he could strike 8 times per round (at least againt 1HD men), and would probably kill a lot of if, as suggest the rules, he got a magic weapon. After all, it needs 4 Hit (so 80 men) to kill a hero in one round.

I still say that would be absurd. I mean, I can imagine Conan battlin' a dozen guys or maybe a couple of dozen ... but 160? And he can deliver 160 or so hits to his foes during that same time? I'd say that stretches credibility a tad, even for Conan!

.....That day Conan, king of Aquilonia, had seen the pick of his chivalry cut to pieces, smashed and hammered to bits, and swept into eternity. With five thousand knights he had crossed the south-eastern border of Aquilonia and ridden into the grassy meadowlands of Ophir, to find his former ally, King Amalrus of Ophir, drawn up against him with the hosts of Strabonus, king of Koth. Too late he had seen the trap. All that a man might do he had done with his five thousand cavalrymen against the thirty thousand knights, archers and spearmen of the conspirators.


-Robert Howard, "The Scarlet Citadel"
.

Hello everyone! Let me dive right in. I'm surprised no one has done the simple task which I am about to perform. No offense to Firnarvyn and Delta--two men whose opinions I enjoy reading regularly!

One way to read the above is to say that a hero unit is a "force multiplier". His 8d6 damage per turn is an abstraction of what a great military leader/commander can eek out his men. I don't use this metaphor, rather I prefer the following literal approach:

8th level super-hero (fighter in later editions), lets give him:
36 hit points
8 attacks per round against 0-level men-at-arms
He hits them with, say, 80% accuracy.

They themselves, can only hit our super-hero in magical plate/shield on a 20 (using d&d rules). As only 8 men can surround our super-hero and each of them only have a 5% of landing a blow, they have a 40% chance each round of doing 3.5 dmage (average of a d6)

Question: How many men will conan kill per round and how many rounds and how many men required until the 0-level men kill him in return?

The men at arms will kill Conan in 25 rounds. For Conan his 20% miss rate means he kills 6.4 men per roundx25 = 160 men dead before he falls. This is consistant though all editions of dungeons and dragons. This also means that--at minimum it takes 8 "figures" (1:20!) of men to kill 1 figure of a super hero. This is exactly the minimum required in Chainmail! Give our super-hero a defensible position (doorway, back to a wall etc) a few potions of healing, and perhaps a henchman, and he's nigh unkillable by anthing other than a very large force.


Read this way, chainmail is a perfect medium of turning a 25 round d&d fight into a fast and consistant 1:10/1:20 scale battle. So, you may think that it crashes credulity to have conan kill 160 men, but generations of dungeons and dragons fighters have been doing exactly that for 30 years and nobody bats an eyelash over it.

Am I missing anything?

[waysoftheearth]

Jul 7, 2010 20:51:52 GMT -6 cooper said:

They themselves, can only hit our super-hero in magical plate/shield on a 20 (using d&d rules). As only 8 men can surround our super-hero and each of them only have a 5% of landing a blow, they have a 40% chance each round of doing 3.5 dmage (average of a d6)

I think you will find this is not the case.

I'm not a maths guru by any stretch, but I suspect the odds of exactly one of the 8 Men hitting are something like 8 x (.05 x .95 x .95 x .95 x .95 x .95 x .95 x .95 x .95) = 27.9%.

But what you probably care more about is the odds of at least one of the 8 Men landing a hit, which will be slightly higher.

But then you'll need to know how many hit to figure your damage. So in fact, you'll need to know the odds of exactly one hit, exactly two hits, exactly three hits, exactly four hits, and so on, all the way up to exactly eight hits.

Then you can figure out how many rounds Conan will live for

[cooper]

No one ever accused me of being good at math either, but I don't think it matters if exactly one man hits conan in any particular round or if 3 hit conan in any particular round because averaged out, he will be hit slightly less than once every other round. i.e. perhaps he's hit 3x in one round but then no blows land on him for the next 6. Average is the same as what I wrote.

For the 0-level men 8x(0.05x3.5)=DPR (damage per round)

This comes out to 1.4dpr. This would take 25.714 rounds to whittle conan from 36 hit points to 0.

Delta? Matthew? I humbly await correction!

[waysoftheearth]

I did some more figuring and came up with this...

Hits	Misses	Combinations	P	Dam/round
1	7	8	27.9%	0.98
2	6	28	5.1%	0.36
3	5	56	0.5%	0.057
4	4	70	0.04%	0.005
5	3	56	0.002%	---
6	2	28	0.00004%	---
7	1	8	0.0000006%	---
8	0	1	0.000000004%	---

So, by these figures, the total average damage per round inflicted by 8 men (assuming 3.5 hit points per average hit) is 1.4 hit-points per round.

edit : added damage per round.

[Finarvyn]

Jul 7, 2010 20:51:52 GMT -6 cooper said:

Question: How many men will conan kill per round and how many rounds and how many men required until the 0-level men kill him in return?

The men at arms will kill Conan in 25 rounds. For Conan his 20% miss rate means he kills 6.4 men per roundx25 = 160 men dead before he falls.

There are two questions here:
1. How many guys can Conan kill before he dies?
2. How many guys is Conan "worth"?

You've answered #1 fine enough (although you used d8's for Conan's hit dice as per Greyhawk rather than d6's in Men & Magic) but I don't think this addresses #2 at all.

If a single Super Hero figure counts like 8 figures on the battlefield, and the scale of the figures is 1:20, then that one Super Hero would still equate to 160 men. In D&D it's impossible for a character to kill 20 guys in a round, but in Chainmail a single unit killed would be 20 guys.

The question that really needs to be addressed with Chainmail combat is whether the Super Hero is able to kill at least 8 figures before he dies, and with Chainmail combat if he needs to take 8 hits in the same round (Chainmail doesn't use hit points) then he's essentially invincible. What are the odds of 8 simultaneous hits on the Super Hero?

[cooper]

There are two questions here:
1. How many guys can Conan kill before he dies?
2. How many guys is Conan worth.

You've answered #1 fine enough (although you used d8's for Conan's hit dice as per Greyhawk rather than d6's in Men & Magic)

I was thinking d6 per level, but gave him +1 for high constitution.

but I don't think this addresses #2 at all.

If a single Super Hero figure counts like 8 figures on the battlefield, and the scale of the figures is 1:20, then that one Super Hero would still equate to 160 men. In D&D it's impossible for a character to kill 20 guys in a round, but in Chainmail a single unit killed would be 20 guys.

Even though a round in chainmail lists combat as 1 turn = 1 minute, I think this is best thought of as 1:20 as well, otherwise whole midieval battles can be completed in the time it takes to boil an egg instead of "all day" affairs that is more realistic. The 1 turn = 1 minute is also abstract. What takes 25 rounds in d&d takes 2.5 turns in chainmail. Exactly what you would expect in a mass battle simulacrum. you roll 10d6 instead of 100d6 and a round is 1 minute instead of 1 hour.

The question that really needs to be addressed with Chainmail combat is whether the Super Hero is able to kill at least 8 figures before he dies, and with Chainmail combat if he needs to take 8 hits in the same round (Chainmail doesn't use hit points) then he's essentially invincible. What are the odds of 8 simultaneous hits on the Super Hero?

And here, I showed that a troop force of 160 men doesn't really have a shot at killing conan using d&d rules, this is mirrored in chainmail as 8d6 men have an infantesimal chance of killing him.

In d&d conan (or his like) would have a few potions of healing, maybe an extra magic item or two and perhaps some henchmen, he would decimate (literally) a group of 160 0-level soldiers, if our conan had a defensible position (easily had waved in chainmail) the chances that even a force twice the size could not bring him down are small.

So our d&d conan would mop up the 160 men, drink a potion of healing and then go clean house on another 160 men-at-arms somewhere--exactly mimicing chainmail. Can a super hero die in chainmail? Yes, it is possible for the 160 to roll well and bring him down in d&d and in chainmail. Either way, if you really want to take him down, you need to bring in a fantasy figure, trolls, dragons, balrogs or a very powerful and large army.

The superhero is a magnitude more than what a hero is worth. While a superhero literally can walk around all day with a good chance of killing thousands of men, a hero has a fair chance of being killed against his first 160 men. So, your average hero is a much more down to earth fantasy figure. Realizing how truly world breaking Elric, conan, carter, gandalf, et al are in full battlefield glory helps make sense of it all. In gandalf's case this is easily viewed as he went from "the grey" to "the white". Or better yet look at 4th-8th-12th as the birds eye view of 10th-20th-30th in 4e d&d or 80th level =8th level in world of warcraft (games I don't play, but have read/seen). A 12th level Elric literally unmakes the world with his power. A 13th+ level Raistlin slays pantheons, Fafhrd is 8th level in 0d&d/chainmail and 20th level in Ad&d...works perfectly I think the cognitive dissonance is in the "small numbers". If 12+ alters the universe, 8th level is a "one man army", and 4th level is a leader of men.

Like the cold war between the united states and the soviet union, Gandalf is inhibited from doing more damage to Sarumon army in, "The Two Towers" by constantly keeping him tied up fighting trolls, and nazguls etc. The answer to keeping super heroes from wrecking havoc is to pester them with fantasy figures of course! I realize this is similar to some of you who "subsume" the hero figures inside units of men and pull them out to fight on the fantasy table. Assuming both sides are doing this, it all works out the same.

I still admit I may be missing something and am willing to entertain such ideas as they are presented.

[Matthew]

Jul 7, 2010 23:42:07 GMT -6 cooper said:

No one ever accused me of being good at math either, but I don't think it matters if exactly one man hits Conan in any particular round or if 3 hit Conan in any particular round because averaged out, he will be hit slightly less than once every other round. i.e. perhaps he's hit 3x in one round but then no blows land on him for the next 6. Average is the same as what I wrote.

For the 0-level men 8 x (0.05 x 3.5)=DPR (damage per round)

This comes out to 1.4dpr. This would take 25.714 rounds to whittle conan from 36 hit points to 0.

Delta? Matthew? I humbly await correction!

It is a bit complicated to work out the actual probability of killing Conan in X number of rounds, but that is indeed the average amount of damage done over time against him. Technically, in the Scarlet Citadel Conan is not in any danger of dying in melee on the battlefield, but that is probably besides the point. ;D

You can use this binomial calculator to determine the probabilities, though. Let us say that Conan can only be attacked by 8 0-level men at arms at once and we are using the alternative combat system, we can determine that after 1 round the probability of scoring 8 hits or more is:

01 Round = negligible
02 Rounds = less than 1 in 1,000,000 (if I am reading that right)
03 Rounds = Still negligible
04 Rounds = 0.000139
05 Rounds = 0.000712
06 Rounds = 0.002448
07 Rounds = 0.006477
08 Rounds = 0.014219 (finally, 1.4%!)
09 Rounds = 0.027159
10 Rounds = 0.046591
20 Rounds = 0.550631

So, yeah, he has something like a 50/50 chance of lasting probably twenty rounds and a 95% chance of lasting more than 10 rounds. Once you start factoring in the probability of damage as well it gets even more complicated. Still, his chances of lasting twenty rounds are pretty good. It is worth adding that Conan's chances of scoring 145 hits or more are about 99%.