Best system for Sword & Sorcery

[argo]

The Conan Barb is very free-form fighting class, very adaptable and able to support any wacky idea the player might come up with in the course of an adventure. You can drop him naked into the middle of the Ancient Tomb of Painfull Death and he will come out just fine. His two big strengths are his ability to run around the battlefield with impunity and use any weapon he wants without penalty (including improvised).

A 20th level Conan Barb can pick up a tavern bench, wield it without penalty and with an improved 18-20 threat range, then move his full speed and take his full itterative attack routine... spacing out the attacks along his movement however he wants.

The package is rounded out with some wilderness skills and some abilities to make him thougher to kill (free Endurance and Die Hard, Damage Reduction, Uncanny Dodge).

 

[Zulgyan]

Here you can find a Conan True20 conversion (with a homebrew world, but using Conan style sorcery - with True20 powers etc).

http://taharqa.org/PaxThumanus/

Hey cool! what was used to make the race pics?

 

[Jim Hague]

Hey cool! what was used to make the race pics?

That'd be Jeff Herbert's HeroMachine - I recognize the silhouettes.

And damn, that's a neat conversion.

 

[bolen]

It's interesting because I'm of the opinion that "traditional" S&S probably isn't the best style for player casters. The magic system in Conan is actually really good at emulating the stories. The thing is, all the casters in the stories would essentially be NPC's in an actual game. They are usually very evil and powerful and the abilities they possess are often fully unknown (which adds to their mysteriousness).

I'm of the opinion that players probably shouldn't be casters in a S&S game. If anything, it certainly opens up the GM's options.

In the Conan campaign I ran, the scholar usually required some in-game rulings just because the spells can be quite powerful (and sometimes a bit clumsy) depending on the situation. A lot of the spells also deal with "behind-the-scenes" magic and aren't really applicable in-game.

I still think the Grim Tales magic system works just fine as-is. The GM can control the magic the PC caster has access to by just assigning spells from the start or controlling the spells the caster gains during a campaign. You could also add a simple taint/corruption system for added flavor (which can also be found in Conan).

My only "complaint" of Conan OGL is that some of the classes are a bit boring. For example, the Nomad and Borderer are very similar (the nomad gets some mounted abilities and borderer gets some more favored terrains). I would have liked the Solider to have more variation as well but it ends up being pretty similar to the standard 3ed fighter. The Scholar is a good caster class but I would have liked more options for a skill-based, non-caster class. The Thief, Barbarian, and Pirate classes are very cool and unique.

For me, the ideal S&S combo from a mechanics standpoint would be the Conan combat and defense rules with the Grim Tales class/talent system (which I started to do with the my own ruleset - see my sig).

Do you have anything written up for this?

Edit found it thanks

 

[Eric Tolle]

I'm of the opinion that players probably shouldn't be casters in a S&S game. If anything, it certainly opens up the GM's options.

IMO, while standard D&D style magic would be out of place, don't forget that the Elric saga counts as S&S, and IIRC, there's been some other sorcerous protagonists in S&S books.

I think with some modifications, the magic system in True20 could be made to work well in S&S, since it tends more towards the idea of sorcerers with a few signature powers, rather than mages with dozens of spells. Perhaps use the special effect of all magic involving summoning demons, who can perform a range of tasks ranging from setting things on fire, to disclosing the hidden secrets of men's minds. Make recovery of magical fatigue slower, and maybe make all powers require anywhere from a full turn to a minute of time, and even add in a botch mechanic, and it should fit the genre well enough.

 

[Urizen]

You might consider giving the Blood Throne Campaign Setting (for the True20 system) a look.

It's a gritty Post Apocalyptic fantasy setting, IMHO and could work very well for Sword and Sorcery.