D&D 5E Let us stat up Conan the *insert sub-title here*

There are many iterations of Robert E. Howard's Conan.

In most however, he is a Barbarian, a Cimmerian who grew up in the cold, harsh, northern lands of Cimmeria, who learned combat and survival at a young age.

His tales may change slightly, such as what demons he may of slew, how he slew them, how much of a thief he was, etc...

If you had to give class levels based off of Conan's adventures, and stats based off of his accomplishments, how would you stat him out?

Obviously he is strong as all hell, said to be strongest in all the land (for a human).

His agility isn't far off, as he is said to be as agile as a great cat (type of cat varies).

He has a hardy constitution, as Conan usually takes a beating, even from a young age, and can keep going. He's survived days without food, ran for days, endured the cold environments, etc...

As his years progress he has quite the tactical mind, and his ability to think on the spot in a pinch has helped him many a time. He has quit wit and ability to reason. I'd say both his intelligence and wisdom are reasonably high, at least high enough to get him out of many a sticky situation.

We have to admit, the man has charisma. Sure, he may seem brash, punch you in the face, and ask questions later. But the man is large, imposing, and can talk to a room full of guards and keep their attention. He can sway people with words as well as with sword, and eventually, Conan becomes a king, a king of the mightiest land, so it stands to reason his charisma is also quite high.

So all-in-all, how would you stat Conan the (Barbarian; insert other sub-title here)?

Here are my thoughts based on what I have read and what I have watched -

Barbarian 10 (Bear Totem) / Rogue 5 (Thief) / 1 - 5 other levels of?
Str: 20
Dex: 18
Con: 20
Int: 15
Wis: 17
Cha: 18

Obviously he's a Warlord.

I'd go fewer levels of barbarian and thief, and more of fighter.

R E Howard published 18 Conan stories in his lifetime, with 3 more published after his death, and another 4 stories in fragmentary form only. The chronology of the stories is a topic of some dispute (in other words, it's not clear as to Conan's age in many adventures, or which adventures occurred before others). This is especially problematic, given he traveled the breadth of the world and adopted many different roles (barbarian, thief, adventurer, pirate, king, etc).

From my perspective, I tend to break the stories into the following groups:

1. "Thief" (Tower of the Elephant, Rogues in the House, Jewels of Gwahlur?, God in the Bowl)
2. "Soldier / Adventurer" (Black Colossus, Slithering Shadow, People of the Black Circle, Witch shall be Born, Beyond the Black River, Shadows in Zamboula?, Red Nails, Black Stranger)
3. "Pirate / Raider" (Pool of the Black One, Iron Shadows in the Moon, Queen of the Black Coast, Devil in Iron)
4. "King" (Phoenix on the Sword, Scarlet Citadel, Hour of the Dragon)
5. "Barbarian" (Frost Giant's Daughter, Vale of Lost Women?)

The stories with question marks are the hardest to categorize. Jewels of Gwahlur, for example, clearly seems to have occurred later in Conan's career than the other three "Thief" stories (in which is is generally considered to be quite young). And you could easily categorize Jewels in the soldier/adventurer bucket (despite the fact Conan spends most of the story sneaking around, searching for secret doors, and attempting to steal some gems).

The difference between the soldier/adventurer stories and the pirate/raider stories is that, in the latter, Conan generally is generally commanding a ship and a crew, and is up for all kinds of pillaging and looting. In the soldier/adventurer stories, he's usually either working for someone (as a mercenary) or recently departed from a mercenary arrangement.

So, where does all that leave me in my interpretation of his class levels?

I think he started out with 3 levels of Barbarian (Berserker sub-class). He's definitely not Bear Totem; if he's any kind of totem, it's Lion Totem (after his alternate name, Amra the Lion). But I'd argue he's a Berserker. I know Bear Totem is favored for the extra resistances, but Conan never showed any particular resistance to poison (Thog nearly killed him in Slithering Shadow) or magic (he gets laid low by magical effects more than once).

He goes on to a maximum of 3 levels in Rogue (Burglar sub-class). The burglar is an easy pick, given his outstanding climbing proficiency.

From there, I'd argue he's mostly a Fighter (Battlemaster sub-class, for the maneuvers). He's proficient in all weapons, wears heavy armor on occasion, has a ton of feats and stat bumps, and is an outstanding leader of men. You could argue for a few more levels in Barbarian to represent those times when he's leading Vilayet pirates, Red Brotherhood, Zuagirs, Kozaks or similar... but those are actually a minority of the canon stories.

So, let's say: Barbarian 6 (Berserker) / Rogue 3 (Burglar) / Fighter 11 (Battle Master)

In terms of stats, I'd go...

Strength 22 - yeah, I know... but Conan is a nonesuch; he's arguably the strongest mortal hero in the entire world, in an Age renowned for the strength of its warriors
Dexterity 18
Constitution 20
Intelligence 12 - I think 15 is way too high; he's well-traveled and smart, but he's not a top scholar
Wisdom 16
Charisma 18

Curiously, I don't think Conan is trained in any Charisma skills at all. There's a natural tendency to give him training in Intimidation, but in most Conan stories he doesn't actually intimidate anyone into backing down before steel is drawn. I think he has tremendous natural Charisma, but giving him proficiency bonus on top of that isn't reflective of how often he successfully intimidates without killing them (hardly ever, in the canon stories). If there was a Seduction skill, on the other hand, he'd probably be trained and with double-proficiency bonus from rogue expertise. He's a "reader wish-fulfillment machine" with the ladies.

Trained skills would include Athletics, Nature, Perception, Stealth, Survival, Water Vehicles, and something fun like Drinking. I try to resist the urge to give him more than that, despite the fact there are clear cases in the stories where he exhibits Animal Handling, Investigation, etc. The point is, he already has an outstanding ability score array. Do you really need to give him Acrobatics training when he already has an 18 Dex? In particular, see above for the explanation why he doesn't have trained Intimidation. The 18 Cha is representative enough.

One class I don't think is actually appropriate for Conan, is rogue. Even though he spends a few years as a thief, he isn't the typical lock picker. I'm not sure he even spots/removes much in the way of traps, rather his reflexes get him out of trouble. His climbing and stealth ability comes from his barbarian background, when he comes to a lock, Conan just cuts through it with his sword.

I think I would start him as a barbarian (berserker) and then multiclass him into fighter (champion) as he seems pretty straightforward when fighting.

For his stats, Strength 20. He's one of the strongest around only rarely coming up against someone as strong, or stronger, as he is.

I'm not sure what I would put his other stats at. His reflexes and durability show that both dexterity and constitution are high.

His senses could mean a high wisdom although it could also mean proficiency in perception. The same with his will. This could just mean that he has proficiency via feat selection in wisdom saves.

He has an animal magnetism that draws followers so he likely has a high charisma and his intellect is at least the high end of average. I'd probably put his intelligence at a 10-12. I don't think he has less than 10, he's no brainless brute, but then he is fairly straight forward in his thinking so he may not need much of a bonus.

Robert E. Howards "Conan" doesn't fit into the D&D Barbarian class, I'd say Ranger fits better.

Conan Bard 5th
Str, Dex, Con 10
Cha, Wis, 14
Int 12
Conan O'brain does a nightly comedy set at the TBS beer hause in Waterdeep.

Yardiff said:

Robert E. Howards "Conan" doesn't fit into the D&D Barbarian class, I'd say Ranger fits better.

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Conan has definitely raged in the books, although his were more focused than a frothing at the mouth kind of rage, I think the barbarian fits.

Edit: Although I should say, write him up (or just describe him). With literary figures, everyone has a different take on them and I find it interesting to see the differences between my interpretation and someone else's of a character.

Slit518 said:

Barbarian 10 (Bear Totem) / Rogue 5 (Thief) / 1 - 5 other levels of?

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I can't see him as Bear Totem, because of his general distrust of magic. If I had to pin him down, it would be something like Fighter (Champion) 15 / Rogue (Thief) 3 / Ranger 1.

Saelorn said:

I can't see him as Bear Totem, because of his general distrust of magic. If I had to pin him down, it would be something like Fighter (Champion) 15 / Rogue (Thief) 3 / Ranger 1.

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I suggested Totem of the Bear more for it's powers during rage. I was reading one of the graphic novels based off of Robert E. Howard's works. In one of his earlier adventures Conan found himself surrounded I think by about a dozen or so soldiers, they all attacked at once. It was written that each of their attacks would of fell a man, instead they just pissed Conan off and he killed them all.

Slit518 said:

I suggested Totem of the Bear more for it's powers during rage. I was reading one of the graphic novels based off of Robert E. Howard's works. In one of his earlier adventures Conan found himself surrounded I think by about a dozen or so soldiers, they all attacked at once. It was written that each of their attacks would of fell a man, instead they just pissed Conan off and he killed them all.

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Standard barbarian rage covers that, resistance to bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing is a part of the standard rage.

To be honest, even though I'd use berserker as his barbarian subclass, I'm not sure it is entirely suitable just that it is the most suitable of our current options. I guess totem could be used if you ignore the ritual casting ribbon attached to it and just use the totems as a modular abilities to make a barbarian.

Something else I noticed when looking at the totem barbarian, there is another small warlord-like ability at 3rd level with wolf granting allies advantage on all attacks against enemies within 5 feet of you.