Recent content by Ichabod

The reason it lasts a round is game balance. If you must have a flavor reason, think of it less as a dramatic scaring someone silly and more as a "that move was pretty awesome, maybe I can't take him" thought that comes and goes. Quite a bit of fiction has such round by round "concerns" in...

To answer the question, no. I wouldn't quit because I got killed. It is possible to remove survival as a factor of success, but only certain genres would make sense with such. Failure would be determined by what happened to your friends, your riches, your pride, etc. but not to your life...

As I said, my view is that PCs should be special. PCs should go beyond the rules in some way. This can be one such way since it's a fairly elegant way to identify what makes PCs special. Of course, it takes much of the thunder from Hyborians, though there are still other reasons to play them...

I think PCs should be special and all classes should be favored classes for them. I think NPCs are built however the GM wants them to be built. The favored class rules are fine for providing stereotypes or average members of the race, which helps with quicker NPC creation/use. If you concern...

Power Attack isn't a combat maneuver. Yes, you can use your feat, your class ability, and the combat maneuver together. On an unrelated note, what's sad about the pirate is being unable to use Ferocious Attack and Sneak Attack together.

Getting back to the original idea. Seems reasonable. I would note that there are weapons intended to be balanced by having a greater critical range. Without adjusting for weapons like scimitar, I could see the battleaxes of the world being a lot more interesting in comparison. May not be...

I consider them cheesy. You trade skill ranks to get feats*. For some characters, that's not much of a deal. For others - decent INT thief, for instance - should be efficient. Note that you do need Sneak Attack damage at decent levels to make up for using inferior weapons, so, again thief...

Out of the 2e book for direct combat: 1. Gelid Bones - essentially save or die, not ranged though 2. Dread Serpent - (use a staff), save or die, 20' range 3. Agonising Doom - 4d6 per round, Will save to act, only vs. less than 8HD, requires Death Touch 4. Death Touch - make save, stunned...

Writeup? I don't hate soldiers, I just would hate playing one. Here's a list of skills I rolled in our last session in which at least one roll was a success: Appraise Bluff Craft (Herbalism) Diplomacy Heal Knowledge (Arcana) Knowledge (Local) Knowledge (Nobility) Knowledge (Religion) Knowledge...

Making some assumptions*, he will be short changed just because soldier is a terrible class. You could just say that he gets the bonuses of his fighting styles without needing anyone else for something simple that mitigates the awfulness of the class. Alternatively, double the soldier's skill...

The -2 was because of the Combined Damage maneuver, which also gives -2 on AP, but I ignore that since it only matters some of the time. That was assumed because the whole thread is about whether the maneuver is any good or not. 2w fighting is pretty much useless for the obvious reason that...

I always thought the intent of the maneuver was to make 2w fighting viable. Of course I would allow it with 2w fighting as the only thing that matters in combat 80% of the time is forcing MDSs. Two-weapon fighting is just so awful in the game, unless, of course, you have a bunch of Sneak...

Roll initiative as normal for everyone. The point of dice or whatever random mechanic to resolve RPG situations is to describe (dictate) what happens. That may not be all that clear. Let me try examples. In many RPGs or with many GMs, there's a desire to describe what you are doing in...

Remember the Aid Another combat action. Obviously, this isn't as important when the PCs are relatively balanced in combat prowess, but our main party has always been highly unbalanced in murder-factor, so I should have been using this way more often, same with the all parry, all of the time guy...

Funny, on the AEG forums, a few people are whining incessantly about how unfair it is that L5R makes ronin schools weaker than clan schools, which is entirely consistent with the setting. I keep being tempted to post in the thread about how different my views are with Conan than with L5R. In...