Feats: Display Prowess & No Prisoners

[Semeket]

Hello all,

I'm new to RPG's and the Conan D20 system - so far things have gone well and my players are enjoying the adventure.

However, as I've been reading the Player's Guide, two questions have arisen with the feats Display Prowess & No Prisoners (effectively, how do these work?).

With Display Prowess, I'm happy with the tumble and perform checks, but the line "the next attack you make against the opponent does not allow her to add her dex bonus to her armour class." I can't find any references to adding dex to armour, could someone please explain?

The following feat, No Prisoners, is also confusing. "opponents gain a -1 confidence bonus to AC and attacks against you." Okay, the -1 bonus to attacks is great, but what does the AC stand for? (let me guess, this is a dumb question and the answer is above - Armour Class? But I still don't know what the Armour Class is or does!)

Any help is gratefully received!

Semeket

 

[Clovenhoof]

What the hell? That's a good catch there Semeket -- indeed Armour Class has no place in the Conan system at all. I'm very surprised that such a blunder can be found in the Player's Guide (which I don't own), which isn't exactly an early release where such faux-pas may have happened more often.

To explain: Armour Class is a term of the basic D20 system that Conan is built upon. It's a strange relic of the olden days of D&D where the armour you wear makes you more difficult to hit. And yes, AC is short for Armour Class.
In Conan, the concept of Defense has replaced Armour Class. You have Dodge Defense and Parry Defense, as you probably know.

Whenever you read an instance of "the character cannot add his Dex bonus to Armour Class", the guys at Mongoose have made a booboo and what they really mean to say is "the character cannot dodge or parry". In that case, the attack goes against Base Defense, which is always 10.

Likewise, when you read about "-1 to AC", it means "-1 to Defense".

Hope that helps.

 

[Semeket]

Many thanks!

I'm thinking of taking Display Prowess for my Zingaran Temptress character and this will allow her to use her sneak attack skill to good effect!

 

[Clovenhoof]

You're welcome. ^^

Yup, that's what this kind of feat is good for.
We also have a Temptress in our group; you may be interested in the neighbour thread "Building a Temptress character" for some further information.