Turtle! Turtle! Turtle!

[Anonymous]

The fact you can strap a shield over your back to improve your rear DR by +2 makes an important strategic difference in dealing with foes thus protected. Don't forget about this rule!

Frex, in my first Conan game, we had one crazed Darfari Yoggite cannibal climbing a stand-alone rock formation to get at a Shemite archer positioned above, and the allied Hyrkanians kept shooting at his rear (DR 7), and every hit, he took no more than 1-3 hp damage, made his climb checks, and kept on going! We called him the "hungry turtle." The evil freak was hit at least three times by arrows in his 2 round climb, and managed to get up and take out the archer he was after! :twisted:

It was only after archers were brought to face his front that he could be taken out. Interesting story, and food for thought for fiendish Conan Game Masters...

 

[Malkaline]

What a coincidence! I was just looking through the book and read the rules on shields. That is very cool. Every time I open the book I find something else that is different from d20. I don't agree with +2DR against only one opponent, that doesn't make sense. It sounds like you didn't use it either since there was multiple archers.

 

[Anonymous]

What a coincidence! I was just looking through the book and read the rules on shields. That is very cool. Every time I open the book I find something else that is different from d20. I don't agree with +2DR against only one opponent, that doesn't make sense. It sounds like you didn't use it either since there was multiple archers.

Well, yeah. I forgot about the +2 DR rule being only vs. 1 opponent, but the archers had nearly identical angles on him, so why not? Maybe the rule should be +2 DR for the first attack of each opponent each round; after that, the opponent changes his aim to miss the shield area? Beats me. There are a lot of little exceptions to the rules that I can't be bothered to remember in the heat of battle.

I badly botched the enemy sorceress in the battle (who wasn't even on a sheet, but in my head), letting her wear leather armor with no spell failure, use her evil eye without a 50% miss chance, and cast one or two extra lesser ill fortune spell than she should have at 1st level. The players were terrified of the sorceress, not knowing Conan magic, and thought that the crappy -1 hit curse was something much worse (because she only targeted NPCs by sheer luck--I rolled her targets randomly). They were badly disappointed when I had to reveal it was only a slightly souped up D&D "bane" spell (as they were running the NPCs for me and from my vivid description, thought the curse victims were blinded and incapable of making further attacks, LOL). Since I couldn't be bothered to keep track of the curse modifiers, I had to let that secret slip... :roll:

 

[Anonymous]

>Maybe the rule should be +2 DR for the first attack of each opponent >each round; after that, the opponent changes his aim to miss the shield >area?

This got discussed in my own game but I ended up keeping it as it is in the final incarnation to limit the amount of round-to-round note making the GM would have to do. Essentially, treating it as dodge seemed to work more fluidly. You can, of course, tweak it as you wish, in fact i'll be keeping a track on particularly good house rules, rules additions and the like as the discussions on Conan continue.

 

[Ravager_of_Worlds]

always a fan of Shields... and anything related to defense... sounds like my characters will need two shields now... just waiting for Amazon to finish shipping my book (it's only 2 states away!)