Bull Rushes: more thought

[LucaCherstich]

I know "Bull rush" has been variously discussed in the past but I must admit that in recent times I really changed my ideas about the usefulness of Bull Rush.
The problem is that the "Bull Rush" part on Conan 2e rules is SO BADLY WRITTEN, especially because its text was just copied from the d20 rules and pasted there.
With "Bull rush" you can push back somebody.
If this man fails his check he is pushed in the following square and if that square is occupied by a second enemy he ends prone.
But what about the second enemy?
My question is about THAT "somebody else", the man who is in the square where the first victim was "bull rushed".
Here are my comments..please, tell me what do you think about:

1) I do not think it is right to make him automatically prone so I give him the opportunity of making a check himself.

2) If he fails, he ends prone together with the first victim in that square....but we know that (usually) two people cannot be in the same square...so what if this second victim is bull-rushed in the following square?

3) A consequence is that bull-rushing an enemy you can start a "chain" of enemies pushed back and, possibly, becoming prone.
I think all of these enemies should be allowed to make a check to resist this "push".
Maybe every enemy after the first should receive a bonus +1 (x number pushed people) on the check since the "pushing strength" become weaker and weaker as it goes from one enemy to the other...

CONSEQUENCES:
These homerules have special consequences and it could create GREAT combat scenes, as we have seen in many Conan marvel comics.
Think about Conan on the top of some stairs inside a tower with 5 or 6 enemies following him.
At some point he turns and bull rushes the first enemy, this ends up in the second enemy square, the second enemy ends up in the third's enemy square, the third ends up in the fourth's enemy square and so on...simply Great and Conanesque!!

 

[Clovenhoof]

Yeah. Just last week I tried to tactically use Bullrush and it didn't do much good. Imagine a palisade-walled village being attacked by barbarian raiders. We were guests in that village and naturally rushed to help the defenders. The attackers had already broken the gate and started to rush in.

The battlemap looked roughly like this:

D D P P P D D


____ A A A A

===|A A A A|=== [palisade]

D = Defender, P = PCs, A = Attacker

So what I tried to do was Bullrush one of the As, in the hopes that the other Defenders would do the same, and we could keep them from pouring in through the gate.

What effectively happened was that I pushed one of them back alright, but nothing else. Essentially I lost one attack with which I could have damaged or even (with a crit) killed an attacker. The other combatants didn't join in, but simply attacked, and all in all it just didn't make any difference in our favour.

I know there is a feat that allows you to combine bullrush with an attack, but I'm kinda tired of investing feats for highly situational maneuvers that you get to use maybe once per three adventures.

 

[Clovenhoof]

Yeah. Just last week I tried to tactically use Bullrush and it didn't do much good. Imagine a palisade-walled village being attacked by barbarian raiders. We were guests in that village and naturally rushed to help the defenders. The attackers had already broken the gate and started to rush in.

The battlemap looked roughly like this:

D D P P P D D


____ A A A A

===|A A A A|=== [palisade]

D = Defender, P = PCs, A = Attacker

So what I tried to do was Bullrush one of the As, in the hopes that the other Defenders would do the same, and we could keep them from pouring in through the gate.

What effectively happened was that I pushed one of them back alright, but nothing else. Essentially I lost one attack with which I could have damaged or even (with a crit) killed an attacker. The other combatants didn't join in, but simply attacked, and all in all it just didn't make any difference in our favour.

I know there is a feat that allows you to combine bullrush with an attack, but I'm kinda tired of investing feats for highly situational maneuvers that you get to use maybe once per three adventures.

 

[treeplanter]

yeah, but you should have convinced the DM to have the Defender bullrush too, otherwise it is worthless.

But I guess even if it is just you, if you succed your bullrush, you can take place in one of the gate space. Now you don't totally stop the flowing attacker, but you get an attack of oportunity against each one that will pass beside you.

As for the feat tree, I think the best you can do is Power attack- imp bull rush - drive your ennemies - bull strike.

So you charge and attack at +6/+4. if you hit you perform a bull rush and trigger bull strike.

 

[LucaCherstich]

well. my point was about bull-rushing somebody pushing it in somebody else's square and making both of them PRONE.

This would have changed A LOT the whole situation.

Here is the situation you described above but with different labels:

D D P P P D D

____ A1A1A1A1

===|A2A2A2A2|=== [palisade]

D = Defender, P = PCs, A1 = Attacker (1st line), A2 = Attacker (2nd line)


If one the players (P) bull-rushes against somebody in the first line (A1) and push him in the square of somebody in the second line (A2) and he is succesfull in the check, you can have BOTH ENEMIES PRONE!!
Maybe you'll suffer some attack of opportunity (unless you have improved bull rush) but the result could be great.
If all of the players do the same you could have a whole line of prone attackers.

THE ONLY PROBLEM IS THAT THE CORE CONAN 2E RULES ARE NOT VERY CLEAR ABOUT THESE "BULL RUSHES CHAINS"
They do not tell anything about the checks tha the enemies of the second line ("A2 in the scheme above) should do.
(See my first post).

Considered in this perspective any feat improving Bull Rush (e.g. Improve B.R., Bull Strike, Drive your enemies, etc..) is MUCH MORE than just a situational-linked feat, but it is a very useful feat!