Conan Second Edition

[Water Bob]

Overall Conan 2e is the best d20 game out there. The only major problem I have is with the scholar; while I like the overall concept of magic sorcerers simply know far too few spells. Thoth-Amon would need several hundred levels of scholar to account for all the spells the novels claim he knows.

I'll admit that I haven't read much about the sorcerers. I like, overall, what I see of magic. And, I like that magic is gritty and dark and unnatural. But, so far, like in the Conan stories, sorcery has been the arena of the bad-guys in my game.

I think PC sorcerers should be as rare as they spells they use, and when they do exists, it seems as if the entire campaign should be build around the sorcerers.

I don't view the Conan game as a D&D game, where the players can play any class they want. I restricted all my players to playing Cimmerian Barbarians when we started out, and our story has taken place, so far, entirely within Cimmria.

It would be hard for me to imagine a "standard D&D" group where there is a sorcerer, a thief, a soldier, a temptress, and pirate all out adventuring together. Unless, of course, the story is about a group of escaped slaves (or something else that makes sense).

 

[DrunkonDuty]

I used the Conan d20 game to run a (short lived) campaign in a home-brewed setting. It was a sort of Lovecraft meets Jane Austen meets Dumas game with manners, duels and things man and woman were not meant to know all muddled up. (I'd love to give it another try with a group that actually wanted to play a heavy role playing game instead of dungeon bashing.)

The system works perfectly for what I wanted - especially the magic system. It's different from the regular/vancian d20 magic system. But no more complex. I also feel the spells are explained in better fashion and work better. This is because, although each spell is it's own subset of rules (as in standard d20) the magic is rarer and very different in style from the standard DnD magic. I doubt you'd get the sort of head to head clash or poorly written spell descriptions you get in regular D20.

As for enemies mostly being PCs: yes this can make for a lot of work for the DM. I spent some time prepping a long list of various types of mook. Things like Mugger, Clever Henchman, Big Henchman, Young Rake and so forth. These were the basic, bread and butter types the PCs got to fight. Once the list was done all I had to do was grab what ever filled my needs at the time. I'd play them a bit differently and mix and match types depending on the situation but the stats were all done up.

BBEGs are another story. Lots of personalisation there. But this is no worse than any other game system.

And there ARE monsters listed in the book. Not that many and they're very Conan in style. A generic demon, a couple of carnivorous man-apes, some dangerous animals, that sort of thing. But translating monsters from your Monster Manual wouldn't be that hard. Really the only things to do is decide their Fear rating, DR, Dodge and Parry bonuses. Maybe re-jig some special abilities to make them more Conan-esque.

I agree with Water Bob about the levels sweet spot being low by d20 standards. I'd actually limit it to something like an E6 game. This keeps mooks credible threats at all stages of play. (I did go to the effort of making a list of mooks after all...) Also I'd allow extra spells to be learned in game or charged at a rate of X spells per feat. (I'd say 2 Basic spells or 1 Major spell per feat, but the character must have access to them some how.) I'd also give more feats and skills to starting characters, allow for more/broader personalisation.

Overall I'd say this is my favourite D20 system. Go for it, I think you'll like it.

cheers.

 

[Water Bob]

(I'd love to give it another try with a group that actually wanted to play a heavy role playing game instead of dungeon bashing.)

My game is very heavy on the role playing. You're definitely correct, there.

As for enemies mostly being PCs: yes this can make for a lot of work for the DM.

It does...and it doesn't. I find that, BECAUSE the players are fighting other humans a lot of the time, you don't need as many enemies (especially at low level). So, if you've got a party of four, you might make up four NPCs, or two of them that are higher level.

If the PCs run into a room with 10 bad guys, they should run--not engage. Those 10 humans will probably eat them up, even if the 10 baddies are a couple of levels lower than the PCs.

In the Conan stories, Conan is rarely up against hordes of bad guys. That's they way my game has gone so far. If I'm converting a D&D module for use in my Conan game, and I see 10 goblins attacking a halfling and some elf guards in a wagon along the road (this is really an encounter I adapted), the goblins became a rival clan, and I cut their number from 10 to 3. The halfling became a commoner trapper, and the 8 elves became the trapper's children--not one over age 10. The elves were supposed to be dead in the D&D module, so I just made them children to give the attack a little more depth (hoping the players will "care" for the kids...if I play them right).

I also remove almost all magic from a D&D adventure--sometimes I use only very powerful, artifact-like stuff. And I may turn stuff like +1 swords into steel swords with higher hardness or penetration values.

Also...I stay away from dungeon crawls (which is 99% of most D&D adventures), always looking for wilderness or city-based adventures. I'll occasionally use a dungeon, but I typically change it drastically.

I'm very prone to using one encounter from one published adventure and then an encounter from another published adventure, then tying it all together with a completely self-created adventure.



Going back to the point above, about the number of baddies to create and the required GM time, I don't mind as much because it allows me to "spend time" with the NPC baddie, giving him a personality for the adventure. Since there are fewer baddies, I can focus on making them memorable with character traits and role playing.

If you just don't have to time to invest into NPCs, there are enough listed in the various game books and supplements, plus the huge list that Vincent Delarge (the guy who wrote half of the game) of over 100 NPCs that you can download. Just pick a set of stats and role with hit.

I agree with Water Bob about the levels sweet spot being low by d20 standards. I'd actually limit it to something like an E6 game. This keeps mooks credible threats at all stages of play.

The Second Edition actually suggests keeping the campaign low. On pg. 12 of the Core Rulebook, it says, "12th level or higher characters are exceedingly rare--these are legendary figures whose deeds will be remembered for generations to come."

This means that your average mook is much, much lower level. As I said above, the game really "lives" in the 1-10 range, with level 1 indicating a 15 year old novice and level 8 a 40-50 year old average character.

Those that make it any higher than level 8 are usually over 50 years old or have been exposed to more adventures than your average adventurer. The player characters will probably fall into that category. At least--they should, if they are, in deed, heroes.





I'll note, too, that a major difference between D&D and the Conan game is that the D&D game is Level-dynamic, and the Conan game is Level-static.

Well, what does that mean?

Level dynamic (D&D) means that you scale the world to the character's level. If they are level 1, then the barkeep might be a Commoner. All the guards are level 1. And, the captain of the guard is a level 4 character.

Then, when you get to level 5, the same type of guards might be level 3. The Barkeep is a level 2 Thief. And the captain of the guard is 8th level.

The world scales with the characters.

Conan doesn't do that.

In Conan, the average level means the same, no matter what. Level 1 newbies are 15 year old kids. Level 3 Soldiers are combat veterans. Level 8 might be the level of a clan chieftain. But, no matter what level the PCs are, the world stays the same.

As a 15 year old who just learned to pick up a sword, you wouldn't take on the combat veteran soldiers, would ya? This game makes it so you probably won't until you, yourself, gets more expereince under your belt.

In Conan, the hard level ceiling is Level 20, providing 10 levels for the "normal" world and 10 levels for the heroic, magical world of stuff.

I can see playing an entire campaign and never going over 10th level.

Overall I'd say this is my favourite D20 system. Go for it, I think you'll like it.

I'll second both statements.

 

[Water Bob]

It took me a while to get a handle on how much XP to award since, in the Conan RPG, XP is strictly up to the GM. It's story based, not combat based.

You want to be able to give out awards. I try to do it at the beginning of each game session, giving me time between sessions to digest the previous game's happenings. You want to make sure your players don't advance too fast, though. They shouldn't advance as fast as they would in a D&D game (i.e. go into a dungeon on the first game session, play three nights, and come out 3rd level).

If you do that, your PCs are going to be high level in no time.

What I use as a rule fo thumb: 1000 XP = about what an averge person will earn in one game year.

25 XP and 50 XP are common in my game. If I'm about to give out a 500 XP award, I ask myself, "Did what they face earn them the same amount of XP that it takes the normal person six months to get?"

The answer is usually "no", and I lower my award to 100 XP or so.



OTOH, I will also skip large blocks of time during the campaign. I might say, "OK, it's one year later, and so-and-so is..."

When this happens, I award the PCs XP for all the time we didn't play. I give them what the common, average character would earn. If it's a year I skip, then I give them 1000 XP for all the little stuff they would have learned.

It seems a little bit backward, I know, to award the PCs 100 XP for the fight of their lives and then turn around and give the same character 1000 XP for doing nothing but skipping ahead a year.

I find the players don't balk too much at it, though. They dig getting the XP. If someone asks, "I killed a Vanir rader and got only 25 XP, but I simply wait a year and I get 1000 XP?"

I'll answer that most people are constantly learning something. A character may be a hunter, so he's gaining XP here and there, while he's out hunting and such.

Most people grow, on average, between 2-3 XP points per day. Somedays, you get nothing and somedays, you track a wild boar and learn something from your experience--still getting your 2-3 XP a day.




I don't change the XP awards, either. The higher a PC grows, the slower he will grow. The goal is to get into the 4-6 range and play most of the campaign in that range--and still have the players feel like they're not stagnated.

So, you want your players to grow...you just don't want them to grow too fast, either.