Optional Rules - Does anybody use them?

[quigs]

I was looking through my copy of AE today and noticed a few rules that might spice up combat a little bit. Just wondering if anybody uses them or not and what your thoughts are?

The 2 I was most interested in were the optional parrying rule in regards to weapon damage on page 150, and the optional minimum damage rule on page 153.

The parrying one I can see being a good reason to use the incredibly expensive swords rather than the cheaper battleaxe or similar weapons. One of my players is still trying to figure out why he should buy a sword rather than a battle axe. Apparently he needs more reason than "they cost more to make" and "certain races and classes have bonuses with swords". I said the increased hardness was a big advantage, but it isn't really unless you fight a lot of people who use the sunder attack.

The minimum damage rule will help the archer in the group, who gets frustrated easily when fighting high DR creatures or NPC's.

I know as a player, there is nothing that pisses me off more than landing a solid blow against a human opponent, only to be told I deal absolutely no damage whatsoever.

FYI, I love the Conan combat rules, and will probably use them in every d20 game that I play from now on

 

[Jakusotsu]

I use the Damage Reduction rule, but I wasn't able to find the optional parrying rule. I sadly don't have the Atlantean Edition, that being in the possession of a friend. If someone can recap the rule for me, that'd be great, as I'd be interested in using it.

 

[arnon]

We use both rules, but as of yet (after three sessions) no one has gotten a chance to sunder a weapon due to equal attack vs. parry rolls.

 

[Trodax]

We use the minimum damage rule. I think its nice that you can't totally rely on armour (armour is still very, very powerful, even with this rule).

The parrying rule we haven't used; I thought it seemed like too much of a hassle. Might use it in the future, though.

 

[Tegman]

I use both rules when I referee and so far one of the barbarians has managed to sunder a shield due to the parry rule and she wasn't unhappy about it
So far, my players hasn't been on the receiving end of that rule, but they like that it can happen and so do I.
If the rule is forgotten it's no big deal, but it adds a nice touch to the fights.

But, what happens if someone with Improved unarmed strike Parry and the rule kicks in? :wink: hehe
GM: "Sorry, the guard hits your arm as your parry, and he sunders it, scratch your left arm please" :twisted:
j/k, but I think I'll try and remember it, just to see the look on the face of the player that it happens to, just for fun

 

[ricardo440]

We play my own optional rule that armour is like Stoneskin from D&D. i.e. it has HP.

When you hit someone with armour you record how much damage is taken by the armour. For each DR on the armour the armour has 15 HP (more or less for better or worse quality armour).
When 15 points are taken the DR drops by one until fixed.

This means that even if a hit does no damage through the armour it can still weaken the armour for future blows. Loosening lames, knocking joints, weakening plates...

bit more record keeping but I think it works well.

 

[quigs]

Wow, sounds promising. And to answer Jakusotsu's question, the rule is simply that if you attack a parrying character and hit the exact number of their parry defense, instead of hitting them you get a free successful sunder attack on their weapon or shield.

I'm letting the attacker choose what gets sundered, but the only viable choices are a readied shield, drawn weapon, arm or hand (if parrying unarmed) etc. You can't sunder somebody's armour, belt, backpack, etc. with this type of sunder attack.

One of my players thinks that the defender should get to choose what gets sundered, as he thinks someone using a shield would automatically be parrying with it. I argued that the defender already gets the benefit of not getting hit for that attack when it normally would hit him, and his gear instead takes the punishment. Plus I'm the GM so I automatically win all arguments

 

[Strom]

We use the optional rule for minimum damage - It's one of the rules we really love and could not play without now. Really makes a Player think about his actions when low on HP's.

Have yet to use the parry optional rule.

 

[Hexaphim]

When I start my Conan campaign (hopefully next week), I intend to use both optional rules. I REALLY like the parry rule as written, and I hope it turns out good in the game. I definitely don't want my players to get too attached to their gear...

As for the minimum damage rule, as far as I can tell armor is really powerful in this game, and I don't really like the idea of invulnerable human tanks in my game.

 

[Valaryc]

We play my own optional rule that armour is like Stoneskin from D&D. i.e. it has HP.

When you hit someone with armour you record how much damage is taken by the armour. For each DR on the armour the armour has 15 HP (more or less for better or worse quality armour).
When 15 points are taken the DR drops by one until fixed.

nice rule....but i think it's a lot of book keeping and slows the fight down

 

[ricardo440]

I have found it doesn't slow the fights down. The PCs can do the extra book keeping without affecting play. The GM is a bit more tricky, but for most opponents it is irrelevant, they will be dead before their armour takes 15 hits. so the GM need never record it.
Most of the PCs either finnesse straight past it, sneak attack, or clobber it with huge damage and AP.

e.g. a leather jerkin with 4 DR being attacked by anyone with 4Ap of more is only going to absorb 2 points of damage each hit. So it would take 8 hits to reduce the armour by 1. The goon will be dead in 1 or 2 hits, so you need not record it.

For a single big opponent say a big nasty death knight type, it actually means that each of the players is still valauble, because even if they cause no damage through the armour to the NPC they are still weakening him for future attacks.

 

[GrimJesta]

My game should be starting in just over a week, and I plan on using both rules. The guys I'm playing with are gamers who really loathe and despise the D&D 3.x systems, much like myself, so we'll be using all of the options. Why? because they make combat even more different than D&D. The two things that I hated about 3.x was the combat system and the magic system, and Conan fixed both.

So yea, I'll be using them. 8)

-=Grim=-