Across Thunder River

[MadDog]

I have been reading Across Thunder River. I had a few questions and comments.

1) On page 83, under Clothing and Appearance, there is a statement "All pictish clothing tends to be elaborately beaded and thier moccasins provde a +2 bonus to Move Silently checks becuase they allow a character to feel the ground beneath them and avoid snapping sticks.

Is this bonus added into the skills stats in the pictish character blocks ? This also seems to imply that anyone can use this footwear to get the bonus, in which case there should be a craft DC mentioned somewhere. Finally, this somewhat implies that characters that go barefoot should also get a bonus to Move Silently.

2) On page 55, in the sample clerk listings. All the clerks are illiterate. Wouldnt it be rather difficult to be an effective clerk if you are illiterate ?

3) Page 50, there is the following quote "Few borderes will have armor becuase it makes too much noise".

Steel helmits and quilted armor have no armor penalty and thus are not noisier. So why not wear them ? Maybe quilted armor doesnt stand up well to the environment ?

4) Page 65, under the sample pict shaman listings. It appears that each example assumes that Scholar is a favored class for the pict, giving extra feats in each case.

5) The sample Alligator clan picts have improved unarmed strike. Thousl would seem a rather odd choice for an Alligator clan feat. Wouldnt "Teeth Gleaming" be more in tune with the animal totem ?

6) Page 106, under the Raven Clan samples. Each one has Precise Shot which none of them could take due to not having Point Blank Shot.

7) In the bestiary section, a number of monsters have the Weapon Finesse feat, which I assume is from a DnD holdover.

I am having fun playing Conan with our group. I dont want to sound too critical, but it would be nice if the book editing/proof-reading would tighten up a bit. Or at least, put PDF errata documents up on the site.

thanks,

Mad Dog

 

[MadDog]

All the sample pic tribesmen have club listed as a finesse attack. Club is not listed as a finesse weapon in the rules.
thanks,

Mad Dog

 

[VincentDarlage]

Overall, please remember that Across the Thunder River was largely written BEFORE the final rules were published. Feats such as Weapon Finesse were part of the playtest rules I was given. Many of your criticisms have extremely easy and obvious fixes (for example, replace Precise Shot with Point Blank Shot; remove a few feats from the Shamans). Editing HAS been tightened since then. My apologies for the errors.

You're welcome,
Vincent

 

[MadDog]

I didnt know AtTR was before the final rules. That makes more sense now.

Any interest in errata files ? I also had some questions about Free Companies (see an earlier thread in the forum).

thanks,

Tom

 

[gawdsofwar]

Actually, the editing has improved quite a bit. I didn't really notice any errors in Tales of the Black Kingdoms and Hyboria's Fiercest. Keep up the good work.

BTW, Mad Dog, last night's Conan adventure kicked major arse.

- Craig

 

[MadDog]

Thanks Craig.

If anyone is interested, I used a adventure from Dungeon magazine (May/June 2001) called "Tinderbox". It only needed a few minor tweaks to Conan-ize it for the Westermark area. It is a rather non-standard adventure (you need an egg timer) but was well written and thought out.

Mad Dog

 

[The King]

Answer to the 1st question: in many Conan's short stories, the Cimmerian performs his feats barefooted to prevent noisemaking. It is thus a good thing that PCs get this bonus but only if the precise they put their shoes off.

This brings me to a new question: does small animals (rats, snake, spiders, scorpions, etc.) have bonus to hit if there preys are bare feet ?

 

[ahzad]

Thanks Craig.

If anyone is interested, I used a adventure from Dungeon magazine (May/June 2001) called "Tinderbox". It only needed a few minor tweaks to Conan-ize it for the Westermark area. It is a rather non-standard adventure (you need an egg timer) but was well written and thought out.

Mad Dog

Just to clarify in case anyone goes hunting for this like i did, the adventure is actually found in Dungeon 87 July/August and it was an adventure on the CD that came with the mag.

 

[MadDog]

SPOILERS....








For Tinderbox, I had to change the NPC names to more Hyborian sounding ones. The main bad guy was changed from rogue-4 to scholar-4/thief-1 (hypnotism spells). I had to change the "firetruck" from the magical one to a pump engine like as described in Messantia. Thats about it. The wood fort theme works real well for the Westermark.

Mad Dog