Questions from a newbie

[Trodax]

Hi!
I recently bought a copy of the rulebook (AE) and have just finished reading it. Looks like a great game to me, and I can't wait to test it in play. However, I have a few questions I was hoping you all could help me out with - if this has been discussed before, or if the answers are obvious when reading the rules a little more closely, I apologize.

1) I'm a little confused about the rules for encumbered movement and running. As I've understood it a character with a move of 30' will have these movement rates and running multiples:

Unarmoured, Light armour or carrying a Light load: 30' x4
Medium armour: 25' x4
Heavy armour: 25' x3
Medium load: 20' x4
Heavy load: 20' x3

Is this correct? What confuses me is that they included a table of speed reductions for all movement rates in the beginning of the book (which states that 30' is reduced to 20') and the description of the Run Feat (which I'm assuming is incorrect).

2) Which prerequisites are correct for the combat manoeuvres Hooking Parry and Leaping Charge? (They differ between the text and the character sheet.)

3) Can natural DR (ie. the kind that Barbarians and other tough beasts get) be penetrated by a high AP or bypassed by finesse?

4) Are there any general rules for how rounding should be done? I think I read that when the DR is halved by AP, it should be rounded down, but what about when you get to add 0.5 or 1.5 of your Strenght bonus? Rounded up or down?

Thankful for help!

 

[Sutek]

1) Not sure. I'll have to look that one up.

2) Yeah, these are screwey. My guess is that you're talking about the mention of Skills but no ranks are fixed as being requisites. I dunno what to tell you here.

3) Yep...it's called poking 'em in the eye, man! (lol)

4) My experience with d20 is that you always round down, but I seem to recall an entry in the Conan book that said that you round normally in this one. I'll dig around and see if I can find it.

 

[Trodax]

2) Yeah the Jump skill prereq of Leaping Charge is missing a number of ranks. More importantly though, the BAB prereq is 15+ on the character sheet and only 6+ in the text. Also, Hooking Parry has a prereq of BPB 1+ in the text, 6+ on the character sheet. Rather big differences....
Shit, I also just noticed that the manoeuvres Sundering Parry and To The Hilt didn't even make it to the character sheet.

 

[argo]

Hi!
I recently bought a copy of the rulebook (AE) and have just finished reading it. Looks like a great game to me, and I can't wait to test it in play. However, I have a few questions I was hoping you all could help me out with - if this has been discussed before, or if the answers are obvious when reading the rules a little more closely, I apologize.

1) I'm a little confused about the rules for encumbered movement and running. As I've understood it a character with a move of 30' will have these movement rates and running multiples:

Unarmoured, Light armour or carrying a Light load: 30' x4
Medium armour: 25' x4
Heavy armour: 25' x3
Medium load: 20' x4
Heavy load: 20' x3

Is this correct? What confuses me is that they included a table of speed reductions for all movement rates in the beginning of the book (which states that 30' is reduced to 20') and the description of the Run Feat (which I'm assuming is incorrect).

This is a known error but, interestingly enough, is a mistake not by Mongoose but by WotC. If you check their errata document you will see that the text of the Run feat has been changed to comply with the text of the movement section in chapter 9. To whit: you run at 4x in light or medium armor/load and 3x in heavy armor/load (or 5x and 4x respectievly if you have the run feat).

The other wrinkle is Conan specific. In conan armor restricts your movement less so you only loose 5' of movement instead of 10' if wearing medium or heavy armor. However, note that if the encumbrance of your armor (and other gear) is enough to push you into a medium or heavy load then you apply the rules for Stacking Penalties and take the worse of the two penalties. IE: your movement drops to 20' and you take the armor check penalty for a medium/heavy load if it is worse than the armor check penalty for your armor.

2) Which prerequisites are correct for the combat manoeuvres Hooking Parry and Leaping Charge? (They differ between the text and the character sheet.)

Rule of Primary Sources: if the text contradicts the character sheet (or other non-text source except for official errata) then the text overrules the character sheet. So use the preq's listed in the text. As to the specific question of Leaping Charge: use a preq of 1 rank in the Jump skill. The precident is that this is the same change they made to the Mounted Combat feat which had a preq of "Ride skill" in 3.0 and "Ride 1 rank" in 3.5.

3) Can natural DR (ie. the kind that Barbarians and other tough beasts get) be penetrated by a high AP or bypassed by finesse?

Yes

4) Are there any general rules for how rounding should be done? I think I read that when the DR is halved by AP, it should be rounded down, but what about when you get to add 0.5 or 1.5 of your Strenght bonus? Rounded up or down?

Always round down unless a specific rule says round up (and such rules are few and far between, I can't think of any off the top of my head). This is one of the basic rules of d20 math, fractions always round down even if the fraction is something like .9 it still rounds down. So a character with a two handed weapon and a 18 Str does +6 damage (4 + 2 = 6) while a character with a 20 Str does +7 damage (5 + 2 = 7). The other important bit of d20 math to remember is that when multiplying values if you have to sum more than one multiple each new multple adds one less than its value to the first multiple (often phrased as "a double of a double is a tripple"). So, if a character has an effect that doubles his damage and another effect also causes his damage to double you do the math like: 2x damage + 2x damage = 3x damage and not 4x damage. The reason is that multipliers are applied to base values only, not modified values, and you should only count the base value once.

That probably confused you, sorry. :?

Thankful for help!

Welcome to the boards! 8)

Later.

 

[Trodax]

Thanks for the help guys! That cleared it up for me.