Knowledge: Aquilonian Fencing, where is it?

[Magister_Ordo_Lyrae]

I have purchased the base rulebooks (1st and 2nd editions), and the Aquilonia book and I can't find the Knowledge Aquilonian fencing skill anywhere. I have the Argos & Zingara book with Zingaran fencing but I want Aquilonina fencing (my character is Aquilonian). Is there a significant difference between the 2 skills? does Aquilonian fencing exist? is there a different printing of a book I am missing? an S&P article? please help.

 

[flatscan]

The Player's Guide to the Hyborian Age has Aquilonian fencing in it. I think Hyboria's Finest did as well but am not 100% on that.

 

[LucaCherstich]

No, it did not.

 

[The King]

Isn't fencing style something supposed to stem from Zingara?

 

[Demetrio]

Two styles exist in the rpg. Aquilonian (Parry based) found in the Player's Guide - though why it is not also in the Aquilonian sourcebook, if indeed it is not, defies all reason - and Zingaran (Dodge based) found in Argos and Zingara.

 

[VincentDarlage]

Two styles exist in the rpg. Aquilonian (Parry based) found in the Player's Guide - though why it is not also in the Aquilonian sourcebook, if indeed it is not, defies all reason - and Zingaran (Dodge based) found in Argos and Zingara.

It is not in the Aquilonia sourcebook - but not at the defiance of reason. It is a matter of time-line. Let's look at it.

Aquilonia was written in late 2004. I had not even thought about expanding the fencing rules at that time.

I wrote Argos & Zingara a year later. With Zingara, the idea of fencing struck me, so at that time I worked out both fencing styles. Unfortunately, Aquilonia had already been published (as had the Hyboria's F series, IIRC). I put the Zingaran style in the Zingara book. I figured if there was interest I might submit the Aquilonian style to S&P.

I had a chance to finally publish the Aquilonian style in the Player's Guide which I wrote in 2007.

It is not in Aquilonia because I hadn't thought of it when I wrote it - Indeed, I didn't work out those styles until well after its publication. I know in hindsight that this looks like an irritating oversight which defies reason, but sometimes that is just the way it goes.

 

[Demetrio]

Actually I was labouring under the delusion that Argos and Zingara had been published first. Sorry.

As an aside, while I understand the commercial reasons behind new feats and skills not being compiled into a single source, it is one of my pet d20 hates - not confined to Conan of course.

 

[VincentDarlage]

As an aside, while I understand the commercial reasons behind new feats and skills not being compiled into a single source, it is one of my pet d20 hates - not confined to Conan of course.

The other reason (outside of the commercial) for not having such a compilation is that not all the feats have been invented yet. I came up with some Hyrkanian feats recently (and printed in S&P this month), for example. If the compilation had been made last year, those feats would not be there. A compilation such as you suggest is really only feasible when the line is officially over - otherwise it is obsolete as soon as the next sourcebook is written and some new ideas are thought of.

When new cultures are explored, the ideas for new skills and feats light up the light-bulb that sometimes floats over our heads. To be told we cannot make new skills/feats would be very restricting on the authors' imaginations. We wouldn't have the Aquilonian style, for example, if I had been told I can't develop anything new for Aquilonia because the book has already been published.

I don't know about the other authors of the line, but I know I don't just make feats and skills for the sake of including new feats and skills. I develop them when inspiration strikes while researching the base cultures. If I can't think of any, then I don't include any.

 

[flatscan]

The other reason (outside of the commercial) for not having such a compilation is that not all the feats have been invented yet. I came up with some Hyrkanian feats recently (and printed in S&P this month), for example. If the compilation had been made last year, those feats would not be there. A compilation such as you suggest is really only feasible when the line is officially over - otherwise it is obsolete as soon as the next sourcebook is written and some new ideas are thought of.

Could do a PDF feat compilation and put it up on Drivethrurpg.com, updating as new feats are added as bonus inserts or something. I'd pay $5-8 for that.

 

[Demetrio]

Could do a PDF feat compilation and put it up on Drivethrurpg.com, updating as new feats are added as bonus inserts or something. I'd pay $5-8 for that.

Yeah, worth a fiver at least.

I'm not saying Feats should be set in stone and never added to, just that it's irksome flipping through 5+ books to find them.

To be honest even if only the Feats from The Pirate Isles, Secrets of Skelos and the F_____ series were compiled together, that would save a great deal of page flicking and memory searching... ideally something would be comprehensive and updated (say 6 monthly) via pdf as Flatscan suggests.

 

[Magister_Ordo_Lyrae]

Thanks for letting me know where those rules are, I may now have to pick up the players guide just for Aquilonian fencing. It sounded kind of interesting anyways although i wouldn't mind hearing peoples opinions on the players guide...

 

[Demetrio]

The Player's Guide is okay. It has Aquilonian fencing and some feats. Some okay ideas on character background. A few nice unusual items. things like that. But there's a lot of stuff that really is just filler. 20 pages of stuff that a starting characte rmight have for the various cultures. 10 pages of naming charts. I'd say half the book is either useful or at least interesting. The rest is maybe useful occasionally if your desperately lacking in inspiration for some reason.

 

[LucaCherstich]

Look for this topic with the Search instrument of this forum:
Player’s Guide: a disappointed review of a wonderful book

Just a few comments:

Well, I find the equipment packages quite useful.
My style of Conan games is more REH-like with different stories, not a long D&D-like campaign, and so each time I like my players to start with different equipments sets, just as Conan did in the original stories.
So, if my players just come out after 6 months in an Argossean Pirate vessel they will possibly start the adventure with packages similar to Argossean pirates, if they have been scouts for the Turanians they can maybe take packages similar to Turianian borderers, etc..
Furthermore those packages (and names and noble titles) help in creating realistic NPCs.

The names part is great and help in giving the right cultural fealing to each NPC (GameMasters with frequent games usually have problems in creating new names which sound realistic and not generally Fantasy names which are all the same as "Thork, Thark & Therk"...).

I realy enjoyed some of the new weapons (especially the Yataghan...although it looks slightly more lethal than the original Turkish Weapon) but I still do not understand why the Kopis (a Greek Sabre/Sword) should be a typical, regional Iranistani weapon...).
Hyrkanian Silk Undershit is great (straight from Gengis Khan ideas!), but it appeared already in Return to the Road of the Kings.

The lists of previously published feats, maneuvres and spells are quite useful..unfortunately they are limited to those published BEFORE the guide (not include Secrets of Skelos but Scrolls of Skelos).
They would have been more useful if they include alos those in the 2E Core Rules, by they do not.
Furthermore there are editing errors in the Spell list (Summoning and Weather Witching are a bit mixed).

In general, this is a great book, although there are a few faults (as explained in the topic "Player’s Guide: a disappointed review of a wonderful book").