[CONAN] Schools of Fence

[Cheomesh]

So in the Argos and Zingara book, I discovered the Zingaran school of fence. I have not used it yet, and I'm not exactly a top analist so I can't really say how crunchy it is. Don't have the book here at work, but I've been meaning to start a diologue on it for a while now. I know Howard kept the details of sword play pretty simple, primarily because it's hard to write complex swordsmanship - I've tried, it ends up tedious. It seems based on the later medieval / early Rennaisance Spanish school of swordsmanship (which I think is why it includes both the single sword and the great sword (mondonte)). This is slightly at odds with Howards tales, in at least one which he mentions there wasn't much to swordsmanship in the Hyborian Age beyond the basics of evasion, parries and the eight cuts.

Is the Zingaran school of fence a worthy addition to the game? Does it add much to melee combat?

Are there other schools of fence tucked into other books? How do they compare? Are there homebrew ones out there?

How have they found use in your games? In an old game I tried to run, inter-"dojo" rivalry over which is the superior style makes for a good lead into combat encounters / arcs.

Thanks,

M.

 

[Ichabod]

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.

Aquilonian style is mentioned in Player's Guide, slight differences.

* I consider the biggest gain being faking Improved Feint, which is a savings of two feat slots for reliable Sneak Attack murder.