Armor Check Penalties for Light Armor and Class Descriptions

[Old_Oeridians]

Greetings.

I am gearing up to run my first Conan campaign. Today, I was helping some players make up their first Conan characters.

Several (perhaps all) of the class descriptions repeat information about armor check penalties in the "Weapons and Armour" sections. The problem I am having is that they say, "Note that armour check penalties for wearing medium or heavy armour apply to the skills...etc."

One of my players took this to mean that in Conan you will not incur any armor check penalties for wearing light armor. So I investigated the armor sections and Armour Proficiency (Light) feat and indeed you do still incur armour check penalties for wearing light armor.

It is possible I missed a special rule somewhere. Have I? Or are these "Weapons and Armour" sections in the class descriptions miss-leading or incorrect?

Thanks.

 

[pandancer]

You are correct, Sir.
In the Equipment section the entry under Armour Check Penalty states that this applies with ANY armour heavier than Quilted. The Class description for Weapons and Armour uses an obvoius case of Cut-N-Paste-itis that does not vary for any character class. I would think that the Equipment entry would have more "weight" than the other. Also, since NO class suffers from light armour, per each class description, the ACP for those armours becomes meaningless.
Back in the Olden Days, "Detect Meals and What Kind" was an obvious error and led to some funny gaming bits. These days, due to the blessing of word processing, an error can be repeated so many times in a tangential reference that the actual ruling, mentioned but once, is basically lost.

 

[Bregales]

Hi there Old_Oeridians, welcome to the boards, and you too pandancer. Good question about the Class Descriptions and Armour Check Penalties. The game designers had to list the same note about penalties for every class. It makes sense really, as someone making up a new character has to pay attention to which skills are affected by being encumbered. By listing it in the class features section of each character class, they're trying to ensure you'll make note on your character sheet which skills are affected. NOTE that Scholars, for example, do not get proficieny with Light or Medium Armour. While it doesn't mention the penalty to all movement skills as discussed under the feat (p103AE) (as pandancer noted it's an overly enthusiastic cut-and-paste editing situation), it does draw attention to that facet of the character.

Consider why they did it this way: When you're making up a character, you may have a class concept in mind, so you flip till you find the one you want to make up, you don't carefully read all the others. You probably don't read every skill description and every feat in the book either, you just use the character class description and racial description you want your character to be. So the game designers are trying to make sure you cover the basics. SHOULD the class description of Pirate listed all the affects of not having Medium and Heavy Armour proficiencies? Should the Scholar Class have listed all the affects of not having Light, Medium or Heavy Armour or Shield proficiencies? Maybe, but they do cover the basics. NO game system is perfectly designed, written and formatted, and the OGL system takes a LONG time to learn, but if you'll pardon this confusion you didn't incorrectly read the rules. Just take a second look at the skills and feats sections as well as the character classes your guys made up. If you all know you're starting this game out together and learning as you go, everyone will understand.

Anyways, coming here to the Conan forum with questions is one of the great things Mongoose provides for this game. There's a lot you can find out here, so hope this helps, and good luck with your game! 8)