More questions from our gaming sessions

[bc99]

Hello again, fair scholars and barbarians!

Once again I have questions from the rules, please help me, as we are set (Set?) to play on Wednesday once again.

1) Armor: DR vs. armor piercing.

During the last game we played the players found themselves battling some mercenaries who were armored in padded leather (DR 4) and metal helms (+1) for a total of 5. The players were unarmed for the most part, but a couple of them had scimitars (ap 2).

When the players hit they found that the ap + str bonus was only 4. Therefore, they will never be able to defeat the humble DR bonus of 5. Is this correct? It took a long time for them to hack through the armor of their enemies (I play with the minimum damage rule so they always scred at least 1 hit point).

2) Finesse: Bypassing all the armor.

I found that our finesse player (who had a dagger) needed a total score (roll + bonuses) of 21 to bypass armor. I believe this is correct (base defense of 16 for parry + 5 DR = 21) but wanted to make sure. He was able to bypass and hit the guard for a good shot where often times the scimitars were doing 1-3 points of damage per round.

Armor is TOUGH.

3) Grappling: What happens when someone attacks two people who are grappling.

I felt like I needed a PhD. in grappling to run this adventure, everybody was trying it! There came a point when one of the guards was being grappled by a player, and another player tried to hit the guard with his dagger.

Ermm, how do I do resolve this? I gave a -4 to hit penalty as they swerved around, but had the guard use his dodge roll ( I think I read that in grappling 101- Basic Grappling, I can't remember).

Whew, that's what cropped up this time, I think I may have forgot another grappling.

Anyway, I'll write out the adventure soon enough, and thanks for the answers!

 

[urdinaran]

1) Armor: DR vs. armor piercing.

During the last game we played the players found themselves battling some mercenaries who were armored in padded leather (DR 4) and metal helms (+1) for a total of 5. The players were unarmed for the most part, but a couple of them had scimitars (ap 2).

When the players hit they found that the ap + str bonus was only 4. Therefore, they will never be able to defeat the humble DR bonus of 5. Is this correct? It took a long time for them to hack through the armor of their enemies (I play with the minimum damage rule so they always scred at least 1 hit point).

2) Finesse: Bypassing all the armor.

I found that our finesse player (who had a dagger) needed a total score (roll + bonuses) of 21 to bypass armor. I believe this is correct (base defense of 16 for parry + 5 DR = 21) but wanted to make sure. He was able to bypass and hit the guard for a good shot where often times the scimitars were doing 1-3 points of damage per round.

Armor is TOUGH.

Just wondering what the levels of the PCs and the mercenaries are.

If you're PCs don't have big AP/Str, they are going to have to finesse. A good idea is to flank whenever you can, and remember that Power Attack can come in handy.

Also, it's good to finesse with something a little bigger than a dagger.

 

[quigs]

Armour is pretty tough to punch through in Conan, so your players really need to consider having some kind of a bonus in Strength, or sinking some feats into doing more damage. Either that or they'll need to use some combat manouevres like bull's charge or take some levels in thief or pirate to get some sneak attack damage.

In the above example, you should note that if you wield a 1 handed or 2 handed weapon in 2 hands, you get to add 1.5 times your strength bonus to damage as well as AP.

So if my math is correct, your players would have had an AP of 5 using a scimitar in 2 hands as a 2 handed weapon. This would have reduced their enemy's DR down to 2 (half of 5 rounded down) and probably would have sped up the fight a bit.

 

[bc99]

Levels of the PCs were 1, the mercenaries were taken from level 1 soldier NPCs from the download.

They only had daggers because they were slaves... and were fighting to escape. What they had was what they could take off their guards.

So wielding a weapon with 2 hands = 1.5 times str for hit/ap? I think I read that somewhere as well. Is there any downside to using these weapons with 2 hands?

Ciao, and thanks!

 

[quigs]

There's no downside to using a weapon in 2 hands except that you are using both your hands That, and you need at least a +2 from your strength to get any benefit from it.

 

[Foxworthy]

Do you know that even if the dagger fails to finesse past the armor it would still do normal damage? Which while it wouldn't get above the DR it would still do the one point of damage from the optional rule.

 

[argo]

1) Armor: DR vs. armor piercing.

During the last game we played the players found themselves battling some mercenaries who were armored in padded leather (DR 4) and metal helms (+1) for a total of 5. The players were unarmed for the most part, but a couple of them had scimitars (ap 2).

When the players hit they found that the ap + str bonus was only 4. Therefore, they will never be able to defeat the humble DR bonus of 5. Is this correct? It took a long time for them to hack through the armor of their enemies (I play with the minimum damage rule so they always scred at least 1 hit point).

As mentioned wielding a weapon in two hands adds 1.5 Str to AP as well. Otherwise you ran this correctly.

2) Finesse: Bypassing all the armor.

I found that our finesse player (who had a dagger) needed a total score (roll + bonuses) of 21 to bypass armor. I believe this is correct (base defense of 16 for parry + 5 DR = 21) but wanted to make sure. He was able to bypass and hit the guard for a good shot where often times the scimitars were doing 1-3 points of damage per round.

You also ran this correctly

Armor is TOUGH.

Yes, yes it is

However armor can be overcome with good tactics. Here is a simple example; following the first round the players delay/ready actions so that they go in the following order
-Big high-Str guy (hopefully with improved trip) trips an opponent, if he has Imp Trip he remembers to declare a +4 PA prior to starting his trip since prone opponents are at -4 DV, IOW free power attack.
-next biggest guy moves in and attacks prone opponent (-4 DV) and gains multiple attacker bonus (+1 for second), he should also power attack
-finesse guy probably went first in the first round but in this round he delays to go last, now he tumbles into flanking position and attacks prone opponent (-4 DV) with flank bonus (+2) and multiple opponent bonus (+2 for third attacker) giving him an effective +8 to hit, so he should bypass the armor.

Like I said, that is just one example of good group tactics.

3) Grappling: What happens when someone attacks two people who are grappling.

I felt like I needed a PhD. in grappling to run this adventure, everybody was trying it! There came a point when one of the guards was being grappled by a player, and another player tried to hit the guard with his dagger.

Ermm, how do I do resolve this? I gave a -4 to hit penalty as they swerved around, but had the guard use his dodge roll ( I think I read that in grappling 101- Basic Grappling, I can't remember).

Your memory is good but you have crossed a few concepts.

In a grapple you are either participating as one of the grapplers or you are outside the grapple.

If you are participating as one of the graplers then if the other grappler tries to attack you you can only use Dodge DV. If you try to attack the other grappler you can only use a light weapon and you make your attack roll with a -4 penalty (or you can deal damage as with an unarmed strike by winning an opposed grapple check). This is meant to emulate the scene in the movies where two guys are rolling around with kinves.

If you are outside the grapple then everyone in the grapple looses their parry/dodge with respect to you, IOW they are DV 10! This is the "you hold him I'll hit him" trick. If you are making a melee attack there is no chance to hit the wrong grappler but if you are making a ranged attack you roll randomly to decide which grappler you hit.

Hope that helps.

 

[bc99]

Excellent responses, and thank you this helps a lot.