Conan - The Roleplaying Game

[Messageboard Golem]

To all Conan fans,

Conan is the game you've been waiting for. Ian and Paul have done an amazing job conveying Robert E. Howard's stories into one core rulebook. Everything you need to pick up your tulwar and crush your enemies is in this book. The classes are nicely oriented towards folk of action - no fireball slingin' wizards need apply.

They've done a great job mixing in REH quotes amidst the rules - and each quote applies to the rules being presented. Lest you think that the "Conan RPG" would focus overly much on Cimmerians, don't worry! There are tons of playable races/ethnicities, including Southern Islanders, Stygians and Afghulis!

Sorcery as presented fits with the fiendish wizards of the stories - a brand-new magic system manages to capture the feel perfectly.

To all RPG fans,

This game will transport you to the unique lands of Hyboria, Earth circa 10,000 years ago. You will find brand-new alternate classes, new interpertations of rules that might just have to cross over into your other d20 games! A large selection of feats await you if that interests you ... check out Carouser, Steely Gaze and Menacing Aura!

The most interesting changes are in combat, as instead of armor = defense, each class provides defense bonuses, with armor providing DR. A whole slew of options await your new fighter. Combat Maneuvers will likely come over to my other games. These are basically actions that you can take if you meet certain feat and ability prerequisites and an opponent does action X (for example, if flanked, you could use Pantherish Twist to have your opponents skewer each other). Mongoose also interestingly changed some of the more "standard" mechanics (Armor as DR isn't a new concept after all) - I especially love the change to initiative (Dex + Feats + Reflex save!!!). This way, at 20th level you will be much faster on the draw than you were at 1st level - realism shines throughout the product.

To all,

Few to none typos. Interesting rule changes appropriate to the world. New classes, new feats, new weapons and a slew of enemies to hew through all equal a great buy!

So come, discover the world of yesterday, alive with pulp and heroism! Buy this book today!

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Edit: more information:
OGL, so take what you like and enjoy!

Variant ability score boosts to counteract loss of magic item boosters (that's a teaser for ya!)

New races (all human, all different):
14 major races
14 associated variant races

Change in Favored classes:
No longer do favored classes penalize! ('nother teaser for ya)
Brand-new classes:

Change in HD:
To get some of the gritty feeling, HPs are done a bit differently from other d20 games. Level 10+ follows a 1e/2e type progression of static HPs instead of additional dice. This keeps PCs on their toes.

New classes
8 new core classes, all balanced against each other. They may be a bit too tough to port over whole-sale, though it is attractive.

No alignment! Codes of Honour and Allegiances cover this aspect of the RPG.

New feats, new skills, a variant weapon list (more damage on average per weapon).

There are no PrCs, though the line may develop some with other books.

New magic system, which suits the setting, I'll let someone else tackle this.

Monsters are rather scant, but with these there's enough to get everyone started.

Fluff:
Great descriptions of the Hyborian world, good use of REH quotes and text throughout.

Please let me know if you would like any more information. All in all, I still count this one as a 5!

 

[MDSnowman]

Welcome ladies and gentlemen, to the world of Conan... and when I say Conan I'm not talking about the esteemed Governor of California ^_^

The Conan RPG is a weighty hardcover tome weighing in at over 350 pages. Art is everywhere in this book, and I mean everywhere, every page has an intricately styled border in full color. One of these pictures, a bare chested woman, with some of the bloody pictures assures that this book will not carry the d20 Emblem, instead simply sold as an OGL product.

By and large I really enjoyed the art, but with more than 10 different artists I liked some styles more than others. For example while the border art harkens back to the old Conan stories of the 1930's some art, such as the female archer on page 115 seems like they stepped right out of a planescape adventure. Personally I preferred a balance between the two; the best example is the picture of the sorcerer and his gal-pal on page 192. It strikes a balance between the old style in the Robert E. Howard books and modern artistic techniques.

Chapter I: Introduction
I've done a lot of whining about introductions in my previous reviews, but in this case I think it's required. Conan's world is so divorced from Tolkien concepts of Fantasy that a transition from those expectations to the ones in Conan's Hyborian Age is useful. We even get a nice side bar addressing the idea of Conan as a "Low Magic" world. While they try to say otherwise it quickly becomes apparent that to the average D&D player Conan is a "low magic" world and the players get all sorts of perks to combat that fact.

Chapter II: Overview
This is the basic, and this is what will prevent someone buying Conan from needing to buy the Player's Handbook. They go over all the basics here, as well as some of the differences to normal d20 D&D, which I will go over here.

Multi-Classing: You don't get penalties for multiclassing, instead you get bonus feats for using, and staying with your favored class.
Bonus Skill ranks: Based on your Racial/Ethnic background you get two free ranks in a small (usually 2 or 3) skills, even if they aren't class skills.
Three New Statistics: Base Parry and Base Dodge, these take the place of armor in padding your defense, and every round in combat you need to decide if you're going to try to parry oncoming attacks or dodge them (some classes are better than others at each of these), and Magic Attack Bonus, many spells require a separate attack roll to set the DC for their effects, that's where the Magic Attack Bonus comes in.
Heroic Character Generation: On top of standard character generation GMs are given the option to simply have their players start with ability scores of 08, and then add +1d10 to that score. This assures stronger than average characters, but once you realize how lethal this world is you'll understand.

Chapter III: Characters
This is where you go to actually build your character. I could literally spend days talking about the nuances of races and sub-races but I'll address only the basics here. There are major races, somewhat generic, and members of over arching ethnic groups, and one can elect to get bonuses on top of those bonuses by taking a sub-race. Lists of the Major races (and their sub-races) are as Follows.

Cimmerian
Himelan Tribesmen: Wazuli
Hyborian: Argossean/Barachan, Bossonian, Gunderman, Hyperborean, and Tauran
Hyrkanian or Turanian
Khitan
Kushite/ Northern Black Kingdoms: Chaga, Ghanata
Nordheimer
Pict
Shemite: Aphaki, Pelishtim, and Meadow Shemite
Southern Islander/ Southern Black Kingdoms: Darfari
Stygian: Tlazitlan
Vendhyan
Zamorian
Zingaran
(What frightens me more than anything is that all of these racial names are on my Word's dictionary!)
...Needless to say you won't be stuck playing a Conan clone.

Character Classes: before I give you the run down on character classes you need to know a few very important differences.

Hit Dice Beyond Level 10: In a very 2nd Edition Style move one gains a fixed amount of hit points dependant on the kinds of hit dice they used before then. Needless to say this curtails huge Hit Point totals at high levels.
Ability Bonuses: One gets their normal single ability point to distribute at levels 4, 8, 12, etc. But at 6th level and every four levels there after you get +1 to every single ability score!!! One hell of a trade off for the fact that you're not likely to find anything that boosts your ability scores magically.

Okay now that we've had a chance to calm down, the classes...

Barbarian: Not your Dungeon Master's barbarian these warriors eventually gain proficiency with all Exotic weapons, and the ability to enter a blinding rage when they overcome will saves to try to put fear into their hearts... okay maybe it's not too different, but it's different enough to be memorable.
Borderer: These are men and women charged with pushing back the frontier through exporlation. They have many ranger-like abilities, but by and large they trade in being tough, reliable, and able to thrive in any environment.
Noble: "But MDSnowman, there is already an aristocrat class!" And guess what, it sucks... the Noble is the Aristocrat made mean enough to be a PC class. They're masters of social interaction, and so well connected that tangling with one rivals trying to spook a barbarian in pure stupidity.
Nomad: Or as I like to call it, Barbarian and Borderer of the Desert and hills. This class takes enough of each class to gain bite and mixes in enough flavor of its own to stand on its own.
Pirate: ::covers eye:: Arr!! You got it, the pirate gives you sea going abilities on top of the ability to attack, effectively, without the heavy armor other classes may rely on. This is the closest to a swashbuckler class I've ever seen and I like it.
Scholar: So you want magic eh? Well the scholar is the only game in town! As such it's a very versatile class, you can make scholars tied to a religion, demons, covens, or just plain independents. And if you're the type who likes to stay home your scholar doesn't even need to be able to cast spells.
Soldier: This is the Conan RPG answer to the fighter, the human feat machine, but to reflect his vast military training he also learns how to fight in formation with other, similarly trained soldiers.
Thief: Ah the eternal thief, as long as there are valuables there will be Players willing to take them. To aid them in their journey for gold they gain a viciously powerful new sneak attack, and special thief abilities starting at level 6.

This chapter rounds out with fate points, codes of honor (as opposed to alignment), and reputation rules (which appear to be the same ones that appear in The Quintessential Rogue).

Chapter IV: Skills
...Because it's impossible to do a book that's entirely stand alone without them, skills. You get the basic run down; I can't pick out any new skills or any major shifts, so I'll consider this topic closed.

Chapter V: Feats
Again you get a lot of ground already covered in the core rulebooks. But you also get a lot of feats that are all brand spanking new (to me at least), including armored stealth which reduces armor check penalties to move silently and hide checks as long as you're in light armor. You also get a wide variety of feats that take advantage of the new magic system. They're too numerous to mention, needless to say they'll give your scholars, and especially NPC scholars a frightening number of macabre options.

Chapter VI: Equipment
Here we find that they have scrapped the normal d20 equipment list in favor of something a bit more.... Bloody (and I do mean bloody all the weapons are illustrated with pieces of their last victim on them.) Weapons in the Conan RPG do massive amounts of damage, your basic hatchet does 1d6 points of damage, while Greatsword does a whopping 2d10! Furthermore every weapon is listed with an Armor Piercing score, more about piercing armor in the next section. Every weapon has their hardness and hit points listed right there for you, and despite these items damage scores you'll be breaking them often, even the might Greatsword only has 10 hardness and 10 hit points (therefore a solid hit from another Greatsword can shred yours).
Armor is likewise different. Instead of adding to your defense they simply give you a damage reduction value, and thank the lords of D&D... helmets actually help! One things that did surprise me however is how they handled shields they do increase your defense bonus... but they only effect your parry score when you're in melee and only effect your dodge bonus when defending against ranged attacks.

Chapter VII: Combat
Oh combat... a lot of the stuff that you know and love is still there, so let's deal with the different stuff.
Initiative checks: 1d20 + Reflex Save + Dex + Any feats = The fastest Bad A$$ you have ever seen.
Armor Piercing: So you want to crush your foe's armor and them in it? No problem, take your weapon's Armor piercing score, add your strength modifier and if it's over the armor's Damage reduction then it only has half it's normal damage reduction. What's that you say? You want to do more damage? All right if you do more than 20 points of damage (after Damage reduction for armor) said armor loses 1d4 from its Damage reduction and if it drops to 0, your foe is wearing scrap metal.
Weapon Finesse and Finesse piercing: Some weapons allow you to apply your Dex modifier to the attack and not strength. Nothing new right? Well you don't need a feat to do it, and finesse weapons are potentially more deadly that strength driven weapons. If, while wielding a finesse weapon, you beat the target's defense by more than the Damage Reduction value of his armor, you bypass the armor all together!!
Maneuvers: Finally we have combat maneuvers, tricks that anyone can pull off given they have the right combination of feats. My personal favorite is decapitating slash, if your foe provokes an attack of opportunity you have the option of slicing his head clean off of his neck!

Chapter VIII: Sorcery
Ah what would Conan be without scary wizards to decapitate. This chapter deals with everything magical in Conan. I couldn't explain it all in one review so simply let me assure you that it is an advanced, and intricate system. I cannot wait for the forthcoming Book of Skelos for more spells to add to the mix.

Chapter IX: The Hyborian Age
This is a long description of the history of Robert E. Howard's world, written by the man himself. Of course the writing style is entirely different than the other authors which makes this part of the book a little tough to read.

Chapter X: Gazetteer
Everything you need to go adventuring in the Hyborian Age. A quick run down of most of the major countries, including their military strengths, and in some cases, possible adventures for those particular areas. You need to read this section yourself to understand everything... again the wealth of information is too vast for me to lay everything on you.

Chapter XI: Religion
Because everything comes back to religion. This section details the gods and goddesses prevalent in the Conan RPG as well as what you can expect each faith to provide. Will their priests cast spells for you? Give you spiritual fortitude? And what will it cost you in tithes to stay on their good side?

Chapter XII: Bestiary
Now the majority of foes you're going to face in a Conan game are humans... but this section deals with the dudes who are less then human. Demons, Elementals, Man-apes, the works, and of course things that used to be humans, the spawn of Dagoth Hill, Vampires, Ghosts, and Were-beasts.

Chapter XIII: Campaigns
This section deals with little things that can help you run the campaign easier. This includes the basics like reoccurring themes, campaign models, and the like. But they also introduce some ideas foreign to D&D players. Between adventures, months, maybe even years could pass and the heroes' starting equipment is likely to be far different than they ended the last with. This is an intriguing idea, and it can move a campaign along quite well, not to mention explain any feats, skills, or new class levels your character picked up since the last adventure ended.

Final Verdict: This book is without a doubt awesome. It really gives you a solid alternative to the magic heavy worlds that you're used to seeing. In this world your PCs are going to need to be smart, tenacious, and downright mean to survive. The changes they made the standard d20 rule set compensate for the lack of ready to find magical gear, but at the same time drive home how deadly this setting is. In the hands of the wrong GM this book will lead to the deaths of hundreds of innocent PCs. But if its taken up by someone with some maturity and who understands just how amazing this game world can be that GM will have his player's full attention. I highly recommend this book, even if it does cost $49.95.

 

[trancejeremy]

Conan
The Roleplaying Game

This is the most expensive RPG book I've bought, and in fact, other than college textbooks, the most expensive book I've ever bought. I did buy Stargate SG-1 new, but that was from on online seller, for about $40, total. However having been burned on a couple mail order RPG purchases recently (and expensive ones, including Mongoose's OGL Horror) and not being able to buy from buy.com (they won't ship to P.O. Boxes) so I wouldn't save much anyway, I thought it was best to just bite the bullet, and buy it full price at my local game store. If they had it (they rarely get anything new that I want). And obviously they did, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this (I actually got the last copy, which apparently was being saved for someone, but the clerk didn't know for who, so sold it to me).

I'm not entirely sure why I bought this. I wanted it, obviously, but why? At the time I bought it, I hadn't read any of the original Conan stories by Howard (though I had read some of the "pastiches" by Jordan and de Camp and wasn't very impressed), and while I've seen the Conan movies several times, they don't really do all that much for me (though I do find Grace Jones strangely attractive). But somewhere, deep in my head, there was a little voice "Buy Conan. Buy Conan. Buy Conan. You know it looks cool. Buy Conan". Rather than fight it, I gave in. Still, I was also very impressed by the "Slaine" RPG, also from Mongoose and one of the authors of Conan, so it seemed better to spend a lot of money on something like this, then on a lot of junk. All in all, I feel no buyer's remorse, and feel mostly satisfied for my money. It also inspired me to go out and buy "The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian" which is a collection of Howard's first Conan stories. Which has helped my apreciation of the game in a lot of ways (and lessened it in others), causing me to re-write this review a bit (which was originally posted on my site and RPG.net)

Conan is a d20 game, largely based on D&D, though it was released using just the Open Gaming License (OGL), not the d20 System Trademark License (d20 STL), so it's a stand alone game (except for the steady stream of supplements sure to come).

It is however, a heavily modified D&D game. It still feels like D&D, but it doesn't feel like d20 all that much. It reminds me of someone's house rules for 1st edition D&D.

Like normal d20, you roll up your character's stats (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma) using either the fairly standard, roll 4 d6s, drop the lowest, or the more heroic 8 + a 1d10

Then you pick a race and class.

In Conan though, all the races are humans (I could have sworn "Conan the TV Show" had a dwarf in it. Not the talk show, the other one), just different cultures or ethnic types. Most have real world analogs, which could have been a touchy issue (especially given Mongoose's track record of insulting various groups, which rivals my own), but it's handled well.

Conan's world is our own, only before recorded history takes place. The people that inhabit it are very much like humans of recorded history culturely, which really makes no sense, but actually works pretty well. It's very easy to visual what a "Aesir" or "Vanir" are, because chances are good, somewhere in your head, you know something about Norse myths (where those words come from), and hearing their name, you think Viking/Norse guys.

Also mixed in are mythological or famous old places, like Ophir, Punt, Kush. Which might drive a history major nuts, but adds a lot of flavor. Apparently all this was done deliberately by Howard, to help give a sense of familiarity to people and places in his novels, without having to explain everything (a problem he had run into with his "Kull" series).

This doesn't always work for the best, like "Corinthia", every time I read it, I keep hearing Ricardo Montalban saying "Corinthian Leather" (he used to do some car commercials which had it in it). But for the most part it works well.

It also pretty much has a tie in with H.P. Lovecraft's stuff. HPL was a friend of Howard's, and while I'm not sure Howard's setting for Conan was meant to fit into HPL's universe, they do share a lot of common names and the same tone. Some of the things match up, like the "Outer Dark", out in space where nasty critters live, but some, like "Dagon" seem quite different (HPL's Dagon being a Deep One, Howard's Dagon being a fertility god). Still, if you have Call of Cthulhu d20, you'll be itching to borrow from it for your Conan game.

Anyhow, the culture of the character replace race, and while there aren't that many cases of ability score adjustments (there are a few), each culture has very elaborate racial abilities or modifiers. Some cultures are good at bows, some cultures are good at magic, etc. They seem pretty balanced.

Classes in Conan follow the same basic archetypes of the classes of regular d20 (that is, D&D), only slightly modified and often with a different name. Barbarian = Barbarian, Thief = Rogue, Soldier = Fighter, Borderer = Ranger, etc. While Borderer does sound a bit dorky to my ear, apparently Howard did use that word to describe some people in his stories, so it's fitting (though he apparently also had Rangers).

There are some additions to the standard D&D Archetypes. Like the Pirate, Nomad, and Noble.

The Noble is largely based on the Mongoose "Power Class" Noble (one of those mini-books for $3). It draws heavily from Fading Suns d20, specifically the social feats (which are converted to a Noble's "Social Ability" power), going as far as using the exact same text in some cases, yet Fading Suns d20 is not mentioned in the copy of the OGL in the back of the book, nor is there any mention of a different license. (The Power Class noble did cite Fading Suns d20 in its OGL). So get your Conan book before the inevitable lawsuit! (joke, sort of, if every d20 book on the market with improper OGLs were recalled, there would be like 15 d20 books on the market. But they should know better...)

The Pirate is kind of a Fighter/Thief. Or rather, a sneaky fighter.

The Nomad is a master of archery on horseback.

On the down side, some of the classes have special abilities tied into "Attack of Opportunity" (AoO), something I really hate (basically, when something does something in combat, it may or may not give their opponent a free attack, but it requires you to keep exact track of who is where and remember what actions trigger one and not, all of which is a pain), and drop from my d20 game. Because these special abilities deal with AoO, if you drop that from your game, those classes are underpowered. (Though you can just offer the Player a feat of their choice instead. And actually, the game itself mentions this, which is nice.)

Gone are the traditional D&D spell casting classes. They have been combined somewhat, into the "Scholar" class, which is meant to represent anything from a wizard, to an actual scholar, to a priest. I think perhaps this was a mistake, and there should have been a class for scholars, a class for priests, and a class for wizards, and a class for witches. I mean, if there are several different types of fighting classes, why only one spell casting class?

Anyway, with that exception, the mixture of classes and races work wonderfully - when I first read it, my mind was racing with ideas of characters I wanted to play. A Stygian Priest of Ibis, a Vanir Barbarian. Too bad I'll probably end up GMing.

Characters work mostly the same as in D&D, that is, they have hit points, and get so many skill points per level, but these are modified somewhat. First of all, characters now get background skills. I like this a lot (and do it in my own game) - basically, characters automatically get 2 ranks in 3 or 4 different skills, according to their culture.

Skills apparently seem the same, though there is a confusing note on a chart which I think you need to ignore, it tells you to use really weird skill rules. Most of the text seems to say that you mostly use it like regular d20, that is, class skills cost 1 skill point per rank, and cross class skills cost 2 skill points per rank. With the addition that bonus skill points due to intelligence can be spent on any skill for 1 skill point per rank. (But like I said, there's a line on a chart which says something completely different and very weird, which I think was probably an error on Mongoose's part, something from an early draft they didn't remove complete, since they apparently didn't hire an editor or proofreader or anything)

Next, and this reminds me of 1st edition D&D, characters only get 10 hit dice, that is, they stop rolling for more hit points at 10th level. After that, they either get 1,2, or 3 hit points per level. While this does make the game more lethal, it also makes what order you level up in more important. (Though frankly, the range of hit dice isn't great, most have d10 or d8, only the scholar has a d6)

Combat is pretty much similar to regular d20/D&D, in that a character rolls a d20 and adds his attack bonus and checks the opponents defensive number to see if he "hits", and then rolls points of damage. With the big exception that armor absorbs damage, it doesn't improve the armor class. Spycraft does something similar, as do several other d20 variations, so it's not that new to me, but Conan complicates this.

Characters now basically have 3 different defensive values (or armor classes), one when they are dodging, one when they are parrying, and one when they are just standing around scratching themselves.

Frankly, I'm not sure I grok the reason for having a parry defensive value and dodge defensive value. Yeah, they are different, but in sword fights, I imagine you would use both at same time. The biggest difference is the bonus for parry comes from a character's Strength, while the bonus for dodge comes from a character's Dexterity. (Still, in regular 20, you also have "Touch Armor Class" which in Conan, is the same as the Dodge Defense Value)

Anyway, weapons now have an penetration rating (which d20 Weird Wars did), called "Armour Piercing". But rather than eliminating the defensive value on a 1 per one rating, it's kinda tricky. If the "Armour Piercing" total (the weapon's value plus the strength modifier of the character) is greater than the DR score of the armor, then the DR value of the armor is halved. Intuitive, huh? (That's sarcasm, BTW)

Furthermore, if you fight using the "finesse" style, then you completely ignore the rules for armor, and if you hit by a margin larger than the DR value of the armor, you completely ignore the DR value of the armor. That is, say the DR of the armor is 4. If you need a 10 to hit, if you end up with a 14 or better, you ignore the armor.

Another major change is the massive damage threshold. This is basically a rule that gives really powerful blows (or any type of damage) a chance to kill someone outright. This exists in D&D (and d20) but is set very high. It was set very low in Call of Cthulhu d20 (at 10 points). Conan sets it at 20 damage points, but modifies the target number needed to save so it is 10+ 1/2 the damage received.

So, while it's not like you have to look up charts or do, it's fairly complicated. Once you get the hang of it, it's not bad, but it can be confusing at first. Another minor change is that when you roll initiative, characters add their reflex save bonus to the roll. So high level characters will usually get the jump on lower ones. At least for one round.

There's also a variety of new special manuevers that characters can perform in combat (they're easy to overlook as they are only on a couple of pages). Basically they work like things like “Bull's Rush” or “Sunder”, only they don't need feats devoted to them per se, they have requirements, but not generally a specific feat. Some of these maneuvers are potentially powerful. For instance, "Decapitating Slash" could literally cut an opponent's head off. Still, these do go a long way towards modeling the action scenes of the Conan stories.

To make combat even grittier, you might look into using Bastion Press's "Torn Asunder" which is a critical hit and damage system for d20 (it's also simple enough that it won't complicate combat much).

On the plus side, much of what complicates D&D combat is magic. Conan has an entirely new magic system, which is fairly limited in use in combat. Although the chapter on it is about 50 pages long, it's not complete, a $25, 128 page book on the magic system is coming out soon, so this easing of combat might be only temporary, until that book comes out.

Still, you get the basics of the magic system. Basically, it's a spell point system. Each character has "Power Points", which they use to cast spells, as well as a "Magic Attack Bonus", which generally determines the target number the victim must beat when they make a saving throw against the spell (like a combat attack, the caster rolls a d20 and adds the bonus). The "Slaine" RPG from Mongoose also used this system, more or less. Characters don't get many spell points (4 plus their wisdom bonus to start out with, and +1 for every 4 levels of Scholar they take), and more elaborate and powerful spells need to be fueled by ceremonies or sacrifices.

One thing that strikes me as unbalanced is spell casting characters have the option to expend all their spell points as a defensive attack, doing 1d6 per spell point to everyone in a 10' radius. A 1st level scholar with an 18 wisdom would have 8 spell points (4 as the base, plus 4 due to the wisdom bonus) and so do a total of 8d6 that way. I think that's a bit too much. But the spells themselves seem balanced. If sparse.

It includes a small (10 page) essay on the Hyborian age by Robert E. Howard himself. It's interesting, but vaguely weird, because back then, there was something of an obsession with races and eugenics and such. While Mr. Howard doesn't seem to be prejudiced, the strong emphasis on race and racial purity is a bit weird to modern readers (though in a nice twist, the least evolved and most savage of the human races are the Nordic/Aryan types).

40 pages or so are devoted to a Gazetteer. Like in much of the book, much of the details of Conan's world are not given definitely. "Apparently" and "It seems" is used a lot to describe cultures and customs.

Some countries are given several paragraphs, and include estimates of their armed strength. Other countries merit only a single paragraph.

There are no stats or even descriptions of major characters from the stories. Apparently you will have to buy a book for that ("The Road of Kings" priced at $40!). (If you are interested in running a Conan game not using this rules, and are looking for just source material then you would want to skip this book, and just get that one.)

There are no stats or anything for generic NPCs. Given that d20 features very complicated characters, this is a huge gaffe - if you're going to run Conan, you're going to have to spend a lot of time making NPCs. (There is something on the website, but that really doesn't count, as not everyone has access to it).

There is a section on monsters and such. A lot seem awfully close to regular D&D monsters, especially the vampire and were-critters. Just a handful, I guess they are saving the best for a Conan monster manual (not yet announced but undoubtedly in the works).

The art is generally nice, but none of it is especially remarkable. Kind of odd considering that you often associate Conan with good art (or good cheesecake style art). The art is also surprisingly sparse - usually one very small piece every 4 pages or so (though just about every creature in the bestiary in the back is illustrated.) Also, the border art for each page isn't so great. While I don't mind a topless woman every other page, I do mind it when it's poorly drawn (apparently in crayon), and when her bosom defies the laws of gravity (or perhaps the artist used a blow up doll as a model? Er, not that I know anything about those). I also think Conan in the book (especially on the cover) looks more like a polynesian, somewhat more like that wrestler who did the Scorpion King, than what the Cimmerians are supposed to be like. Still, in "The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian", which is also illustrated, Conan looks like a bigger, longer haired version of Prince Valiant, which is even worse.

The layout is generally good, but as I have mentioned a few times, the editing and proofreading need work. Lots of typos, lots of weird errors, places where they must have copy and pasted from the SRD but didn't update correctly. Yes, you never do expect much from an 1st edition RPG, but this is pretty bad. The last part of the book, the bestiary, seems to be the worst. Apparently Were-Hyenas don't turn into Hyenas, but into wolves. (Obviously they just copied from the SRD twice, and forget to change all the references from "Wolf" to "Hyena").

Another problem, is that while the book quotes a lot from Howard's original stories, it does so in boxes that are hard to read. The background color is similar to the text color, and for some odd reason (maybe it's a European thing), it uses periods in place of commas. It all adds up to a headache to read.

Also, amusingly, sort of, they must have done a search and replace of "lb" with "lb.". Not as funny was the some of the results when TSR change all the from "mage" to "wizard" (causing words like "dawizard"), but even more obvious. How the proofreader missed this, I don't know.

Is it worth $50? Barely. For a $50 I really expect better (and more) art, editing, and proofreading, as well as overall completeness (not having to buy a $25 magic book and a $40 book with stats for prominent NPCs, at least the guy the game is named after). But the coolness factor of it far outweighs the shoddiness and incomplete factors, and the underlying rules system is pretty spiffy.

B--

(What's a B--? Well, it's a good book with lots of problems that keep it down. Ordinarily I give products that I score a B- here a 4, but it's really not a 4. Over on RPG.net, I gave it the more accurate 4 out of 5 for substance, and 2 out of 5 for style, which would result in a 6 out of 10 overall (or 3 out of 5). Which is the numerical score I'm giving here. But if all the editing problems were fixed, it would be a 4 in my book)

 

[lwmarti]

Ah, Conan! There's perhaps no single character that has fired the imagination of more gamers across the planet. And now Mongoose has managed to create an OGL game that lets us enter the world of Conan and see if we can somehow win a Hyborean kingdom of our own. It certainly sounds promising, doesn't it?

A first glance at the book tells you that your $50 has bought you a hefty book, although one with one of those annoyingly cheap bindings that game books tend to have. So let's open the cover and see what's inside...

The first thing we see is map of the world. It doesn't agree in all details with the world as understood by Conan purists, but that's OK with me. The scale of the map is huge: it covers all of what are Europe, Asia and Africa today, so there's not room for much detail. There are often hundreds of miles between cities, so you can tell that this world is fairly sparsely inhabited, just like in the Conan stories, so we're off to a good start.

After a brief introduction and overview, the book hops right into characters, and the skills and feats that they need. The usual d20 classes are replaced by ones that fit better with the world that we're trying to game in, and that's another good sign: barbarians, borderers, nobles, nomads, pirates, scholars (someone has to use magic, you know), soldiers and thieves. And the races that feature so prominently in the Conan stories are all here, each with their own particular strengths. If your character can survive long enough, he can become very powerful as his stats increase and he picks up more feats than, well, whatever the appropriate cliché is for lots and lots of feats.

Next comes equipment, combat and sorcery, or how those characters that we just created can go out and slay their foes, and here we find that the OGL mechanics are used in a fitting and appropriate way to model Conan's world. Combat is quick and violent and magic use is serious stuff that shouldn't be done casually.

Then it's on to the Hyborean age and a gazetteer, where we learn about the world of Conan, and then to sections on religion, a bestiary and then tips on running a Conan campaign. Everything seems to nicely fit together to create an excellent game world where you can follow Conan's footsteps across his world. Everything looks good so far.

Then you start trying to get into the details of actually creating a character and running an encounter and things start to look a bit worse. That's when the signs of the sloppy editing reveal themselves. How much damage does that weapon do? It says 1d8 on this page but 1d6 on that page. What exactly is that feat? It's referred to but never described. What's that reference to a half-orc doing there? And so on. Plus there are a quite few typographical errors. The typos I can understand. They're maddeningly difficult to catch, but if the author and editor were running a spell checker, most of these errors should have been discovered at some stage of the production process. The other errors are somewhat more difficult to explain.

It looks like the first draft of the Conan manuscript might have been the latest SRD that was then modified to create the Conan rules, and I'm guessing that the pressures of getting the book out on schedule overwhelmed the editors who, in all fairness, are probably doing their best to catch problems like these. The result was a finished product that looks fairly amateurish and cries out for a corrected second printing. There are rumors that the second printing is already planned, but as I'm writing this there's been nothing definite announced.

To summarize, the Conan game has the right elements all pulled together to let you do a fairly good job of entering Conan's world, but the less-than-adequate editing job makes actually using the rules rather frustrating. When the corrected printing is available, this could easily become one of the best games on the market. The rating that I've given this book reflects a significant drop from what it could have had if the editing were better. If the editing were better, this book would be an extremely solid 5.

 

[John Cooper]

Conan: The Roleplaying Game
By Paul Tucker and Ian Sturrock
Mongoose Publishing product number MGP 7701
352 pages, $49.95

Conan: The Roleplaying Game is the long-awaited book bringing the Robert E. Howard Hyborian world into the realms of OGL gaming. It manages to be both a fabulous success and a puzzling failure.

The cover is a simply outstanding piece by Chris Quilliams. Chris is my all-time favorite Mongoose artist, and I was glad to see they brought in their "big gun" to do a work of this magnitude. Chris, as always, hits the mark spot-on with his portrayal of a sword-wielding Conan standing over the bodies of his most recent foes, with a buxom young woman at his side. Several things make this a bit more than the typical "savage barbarian" stereotypical pose: Conan's clothing is a rather intricate, Celtic-looking kilt rather than the furry loincloth so common to the barbarian genre; and the buxom young woman at his side is not some helpless floozy he just rescued, but rather a gifted swordswoman in her own right. (No doubt the popularity of "Xena: Warrior Princess" helped with this image, although in the REH stories Conan met up with more than a few capable fighting women - Bêlit comes immediately to mind.) I was also a bit surprised to see a large hoop earring in his right ear. The color scheme is a good one, with yellowy skies and dry lands in the background and a slate-gray cliffside behind the two figures. The name "Conan" in the title is made to look as if it's been worked in metal, making for a very distinguished appearance.

The inside front and back covers are identical, each being a full-color, two-page spread of a map of Conan's world, with nations and prominent cities labeled plainly. I can think of no better use for the inside covers, and the world map is very nicely done. (I suppose I shouldn't call it a "world map," though, as it only covers the land masses that would eventually become Africa, Asia, and Europe. Antarctica and the Americas are not part of the established "Hyborian World" of the Conan stories, and are thus understandably left off of the map.)

Inside, there are 103 illustrations by 10 different artists, 7 maps, and even all-new border art. The border art is noticeable in that it is not merely a reflection (that is, the odd pages are not merely a mirror image of the even pages), although there is some duplication along the top of the page. The bottom halves, however, are quite different, featuring a reclining, topless woman on the left side and a couple of bestial half-men on the right. The artwork is for the most part quite good, although I have to admit I was quite surprised at the general lack of nudity: I know WotC's new d20 artwork standards forbid even toplessness, but as this is an OGL book (as opposed to a d20 one), those standards don't apply, and half-naked women are a staple in most Conan books. In any case, besides the "border art babe" on every even page in the book, there are only two examples of nudity present in the artwork for this book, both done quite tastefully. Up until the bestiary section the artwork is in full color, with a lot of nice touches like having all of the weapons in the equipment section dripping blood. Most of the artwork is not signed, but the Quilliams pieces are (they tend to be the race/class images of PCs), and I can tell just from the style that Chad Sergesketter did most of the monsters in the bestiary section (where we also get the few black-and-white pieces of the whole book, including, unfortunately, the simply terrible picture of the saber-toothed tiger from Mongoose's Ultimate Monsters Volume 1, the only noticeable "rerun" artwork in the whole book).

Another artwork-related thing I wanted to point out was the placement of the fiction blurbs throughout the book. Nearly every page has a quote from some Conan story or other, and these are superimposed over the picture (one of two different types) of an animal skin stretched on a wooden rack, with a skull hanging from the corner. This is a very appropriate gimmick, one that fits in perfectly with Conan's barbaric world (and that sets the fiction blurbs off nicely from the rest of the book's text).

The book itself is broken down into the following sections:

• Introduction - Welcome to the Hyborian Age: A brief introduction to the world of Conan
• Overview - The Foundation of All Things: briefly explaining ability scores, carrying capacity, movement, vision, and lighting conditions
• Characters - Heroes of the Hyborian Age: PC races and classes, fate points, starting money and equipment, codes of honor, allegiance, corruption, reputation, and aliases
• Skills - The Difference Between life and Death: a listing of all the available skills
• Feats - Tricks of Sword and Sorcery: a listing of all the available feats
• Equipment - Loot, Coin and Spoils of War: wealth, currency, weapons, armor, and various goods and services
• Combat - Steel, Flesh, Blood and Bone: the combat mechanisms in the Conan game, including defense value (in place of Armor Class), dodging and parrying (two different things you can do to avoid damage), and all the usual stuff like initiative, saving throws, etc., plus a slew of combat maneuvers: special moves that are rather like something you'd expect to be able to do in D&D if you had the appropriate feat, only these are available to anyone who meets the prerequisites
• Sorcery - Knowledge and Power: how spellcasting works in the Conan game, power points, power rituals, and the various rules of sorcery, sorcery styles, and a list of spells
• The Hyborian Age, by Robert E. Howard: a section reprinted by the author of the Conan books, describing the history of the Hyborian Age
• Gazetteer - A Guide to Conan's World: descriptions of the geographical areas of the Hyborian Age
• Religion - Prayer and Sacrifice in the Hyborian Age: the game benefits of worshipping a deity (or pantheon), plus a look at the various deities in the Hyborian Age
• Bestiary - Creatures of the Hyborian Age: one NPC race, one NPC class (commoner), three human types (Black Corsairs, Picts, and Turanian Light Cavalry), 33 animals, and 17 monsters
• Campaigns - Gamesmastering the Hyborian Age: adventures, pacing, running combat, experience, using canonical (and non-canonical) Conan books as idea generators, pirate codes (odd that this material is here, rather than with the pirate class write-up), and types of campaigns
• Conan Player Character Sheet: a two-page character sheet specially designed for the game
• Index: a 5-page index of the material found in the book

I have to give credit to Paul Tucker and Ian Sturrock: they have done a simply phenomenal job of tweaking the existing d20 rules just right to create a game world that is just about perfect as far as capturing the Hyborian Age "feel" of the Conan stories. You really can't run an accurate Conan game using the D&D rules, since so much is different between the standard D&D campaign world and the Hyborian Age. In Conan's world, magic tends to lean much more into the black magic, "things Man was not meant to know" camp, with one of the surest ways of learning to cast spells being to sell your soul to a demon! The Vancian "fire and forget" magic system, while so intrinsic to the "D&D feel," just wouldn't cut it in a Conan game.

Fortunately, Paul and Ian knew just what changes needed to be made, and made them. The D&D alignment system is gone, replaced with two possible (and completely optional, on a PC-by-PC basis) codes of honor. There are 8 character classes in Conan, and all but one of them are fighting men of one type of another (the other is the Scholar, the only magic-wielding class to show up in the game; after all, in Conan's world, spellcasters are few and far between). Between the Barbarian, Borderer (Ranger-type), Noble (practically identical to the one from Power Classes: Noble, by the way), Nomad, Pirate, Scholar, Soldier, and Thief, they've managed to capture every possible character to show up in the Conan books. Plus, I like the fact that multiclassing is not only expected, it's actively encouraged! Whereas D&D uses "the stick" approach - punishing PCs who multiclass too freely, although they're allowed to advance in a racial-based favored class without penalty - in Conan the authors use "the carrot" approach - granting a PC bonus feats if he sticks to the favored class for his race. I also like the fact that not only does each class have its class skills, but that PCs automatically gain bonus skills in their classes just by leveling up. Furthermore, I think it was a great idea to start every PC out with a host of skills that he gained even before gaining his initial class level. This really goes a long way to ensuring that PCs will have the expected "basic" skills that it makes sense that they would have, but which players historically don't want to spend their valuable skill points on. In addition, since there are hardly any magic items floating around in the Hyborian Age (and thus no ability-boosting items like gauntlets of ogre power or gloves of Dexterity), all PCs gain automatic boosts to their ability scores at regular intervals. (At 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th level, a Conan PC gets a boost to all six of his ability scores!) Thus, by the time your PC's reached high level, he's got one impressive array of stats!

Combat in Conan is gritty and downright dangerous! After 10th level, additional levels stop gaining Hit Dice, but rather give out hit points (1, 2, or 3, depending upon the Hit Dice normal for that class: d6, d8, or d10), so hit point totals don't reach outlandish heights. Lower the "death by massive damage" threshold, throw in a slew of combat maneuvers available to everyone - some of them quite dangerous, such as allowing a decapitating blow to sever your enemy's head - and you've got a lethal game on your hands: again, perfectly suited for the Hyborian Age as depicted in Howard's works. I can really find no fault in the decisions the authors made to capture the "Conan feel" - in fact, I think Conan is one of the absolute best jobs I've seen at converting a fictional world into an RPG campaign.

I also like quite a few of the decisions that the authors came up with that don't really have any bearing on the overall "Hyborian Age feel" of the game - things like giving the NPC Commoner class only 10 levels overall. (I've always wondered what a 20th-level commoner was supposed to be like.) Several of the classes give you options as to which class abilities you pick up; it's always good to see a way to make each PC of a given class unique. (This especially holds true if there are multiple PCs of a given class - in Conan, for example, it would be easy to have an entire adventuring party of all soldiers, or all pirates, or all barbarians or nomads.)

However, that being said, Conan does have its faults. Quite a few of them, in fact, and they can all be lumped into the same main category: atrociously bad attention to detail in the proofreading and editing departments. Anyone who's read a few of my previous reviews knows I'm one of those anal types who gets his nose all in a snit when confronted with numerous misspellings, typos, improper punctuation usage, and the like. I've even been known to lay out all of the mistakes I've found in a given work, blow by blow. Well, fortunately, I'm not going to do that here, but I will point out the biggest problem area in Conan: improper usage of the spellchecker. There is quite a bit of evidence that in at least some of the chapters a spellchecker was used. However, it's quite obvious that it was used in a hurry, without a whole lot of attention or thought put into it. At some point during the transition from manuscript to printed product, somebody - I'm not sure who - decided to change "lb" to "lb." Okay, fine, if all you're doing is changing the individual abbreviations. However, the spellchecker user failed to click the little button for "whole words only," and as a result every word that has "lb" in it somewhere now has a period in the middle of it as well. Examples abound: "Galb.ro" and "Valb.roso" (two Zingaran names), "alb.eit," "spellb.ook" and "spellb.ooks," "Countess Alb.iona," "camelb.ack," "Ilb.ars River," ""Valb.roso Castle," and even "lb.s" for the plural of "lb." In another related fiasco, he apparently didn't like the contraction "You're" and decided to global-replace that with "You are" - but must have typed a space immediately after the "e" in "You're" because he ended up with such notable phrases as "You arebeing," "You areattempting," "You aresqueezing," "You areonly," "You arenot," "You arewriting," "You aremoving," "You aretalking," "You areskilled," "You arehardier," "You arefast," "You arevery," "You arefar," "You areadept," and "You aremaintaining." The Bestiary section also has a problem with a global replace of the word "creature's" with "creature " (note the space after "creature" - everywhere the word "creature" shows up in the Bestiary chapter, there are two spaces immediately following).

Okay, I will grant that none of the above errors make the book any less usable; you can, in each case, figure out what was meant with little effort. However, I still marvel at the fact that nobody caught these obvious mistakes before publication! There are other problems, too: much of the Skills and Feats chapters were ported over directly from the d20 SRD; as a result, there are references to such D&Disms as the spells rope trick, acid arrow, alter self, disguise self, polymorph, shapechange, veil, simulacrum, true seeing, animate rope, command plants, control plants, entangle, and dispel magic, plus half-orcs, familiars, locked gauntlets, the DM, and pipe organs (although admittedly that last one isn't so much a D&Dism as an anachronism), none of which have any place in a Conan game.
Finally, there are the rules gaffes, things like having different amounts of damage given for a weapon depending upon whether you're reading the weapons chart or the weapon description/example (the warspear, for instance, deals either 2d4 points of damage [p. 134], 1d8 points of damage [p. 141], or 1d10 points of damage [p. 142], take your pick). Many of the animals in the Bestiary are missing feats. Apparently at one point the spell telekinesis was named advanced prestidigitation, because it's referred to by both names. (Likewise, greater telekinesis was apparently originally named advanced prestidigitation II; good call on the rename!) There are calls for "parrying rolls" that were apparently dropped from the game (or the mechanic reworked). There are two different costs for lotus greensmoke, but none for lotus blacksmoke. Despite being referred to on numerous occasions, there are no game stats for elephants. "Ghanatan" is listed as both an automatic language and a bonus language for a PC from Ghanata. Then there's the "picky stuff," like having the same fiction blurbs show up multiple times (pages 252 and 255, and also pages 326 and 345). Many of the page numbers given in the text for a given subject ("see page 210" or whatever) are off by one or more pages. (Fortunately, there's an index in the back.) Tables 6-5, 6-6, and 6-7 are labeled Tables 6-3, 6-4, and 6-5, which makes it really confusing because those tables already exist! The list goes on and on, and while none of it is critical to the ability to play the game, it does make for a bit more work for the Games Master. Furthermore, it's appalling to see such little attention to detail given to a much-anticipated book that Mongoose expects people to shell out nearly $50.00 for. I don't recognize the name of Bridette Kirwen - listed as Conan's proofreader - but I can honestly say I hope to never see her name on any future Mongoose books until and unless she decides to buckle down and actually do the job she's being paid to do.

Fortunately, almost immediately after the quality complaints started rolling in, Mongoose head Matthew Sprange stood up and acknowledged Conan's many faults, outlined a multipronged attack to ensure better quality control on future Mongoose gaming books, and even developed a "Sons of Cimmeria" club where those who had shelled out the money for this flawed first printing would not only get free electronic updates, but a whopping 60% off of the updated (read: "corrected") copy. (For details, check out the Mongoose messageboards at www.mongoosepublishing.com - go to the messageboard section of the website; Conan has its own boards, where you can also read threads on the corrections as the Mongoose folks figure them out. The messageboard community also has quite a few interesting ideas for Conan campaigns. While you're perusing the Mongoose website, be sure to check out the "Free Material" section, too, where you can download Conan character sheets, the Hyborian Age world map, mass combat rules, and the FAQ.) I have to say, while it's disappointing that Conan has all of these problems to begin with, it's heartening to know that Mongoose is actually doing something about them, and in a timely manner, too.

If you're not picky about your spelling and grammar, and don't mind having to check a website to figure out which of several conflicting rules is the intended one, then you can easily consider Conan to be an unqualified success. Personally, I think Conan deserves a "5" rating based solely on its perfect capture of the "Hyborian Age feel" in the game mechanics, but I feel the massive "ball dropping" in the proofreading and editing departments drag the score down to the "high 3/low 4" area. Fortunately, I'm more impressed with the things the authors did right with this game than I'm disappointed in the various foul-ups, so I end up with a low "4 (Good)" rating. I'm sure once the updated book gets published it'll be an unqualified "5 (Superb)."

 

[JoeGKushner]

I bought the Conan game when it first came out. When I did, it seemed like, and still does, that the old barbarian is undergoing some type of renaissance. He has a new version of the original Robert E. Howard work out, the old Marvel comics have been updated in the color department and collected and reprinted by Dark Horse and now, a role playing game. More recently, I received a copy for judging. I figure well, since I’ve got a copy for the judging, might as well share some of my thoughts of the thing eh? This is another one of those dreaded “unofficial” reviews that I’m just tossing out to see what sticks.

Physically, it’s a fantastic looking book. One thing that surprised me about the Quintessential Temptress was the art. Well, a lot of that art apparently came from this book. Some top grade material here. I was a little disappointed with the cover. I know I’m not the only person who remembers seeing the mock up cover, “The Barbarian” a Frank Frazetta cover. Not saying that Quilliams work is bad by any means but come on, Frazetta!

The layout is also nice on the eyes. Almost as nice as some of the Forgotten Realms books. The full page, full color borders show various parts of the Conan milieu. About the only thing that’s annoying about the section is the bottom. See, on the left side, we have a near naked female leaning against something and on the right side, some ghouls charging forward. This cuts into the page and into the text. In some occasions, it splits a table or makes things difficult to read.

Some of the sections look better than their Player’s Handbook equivalents. For example, the weapon and armor section here, much like the Everquest Player’s Handbook, is top notch. A heavy mace and Warspear look fairly vicious. One thing that I think the Player’s Handbook could learn, is using the interior covers to provide a map of the Greyhawk region. Here, the interior covers are used to provide a view of the lands of Hyperborea. It’s a nice two page fold and does a good job of being readable and nice to look at.

One clever use, perhaps overdone a touch, is the use of quotes from the Conan fiction. This helps to illustrate various points or changes in the game system. The writing itself could use another pass from an editor for clarity. I’m not the master of the English language that fellow reviewer John Cooper is, but I’ve read William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White’s The Elements of Style enough to know that you should omit needless words whenever possible for clarity. Take the sentience from the Feat, Fighting-Madness; “Up to once per day, you can enter a fighting-madness” as opposed to “Once per day you can enter a fighting madness.”

In terms of editing errors, at first read, I didn’t see that many. Upon a closer examination, they’re no worse than some other products I own. I think the problem, is that despite this book being printed in China, it’s $50 price tag demands close care be taken with it. Add to the fact that this is the core book, and people are going to want perfection. I know, Mongoose stepped up and claimed responsibility, but this isn’t the first book that’s had these editing issues so I’ll wait and see what their products look like over the long term.

In game mechanics, the book reminds me a bit of Monte Cook’s Arcana Unearthed in that it’s fairly familiar to anyone who knows how to play D&D, but has its own take on things. For example, there are numerous new classes; barbarian, borderer, noble, nomad, pirate, scholar, soldier, and thief. As you’ll notice from the list, this is a martial game for the most part. Social skills and the lure of knowledge are for but a few of these classes. Instead it seems better to gather your swords and skills about you and prepare for adventure.

Keeping with that martial theme, some elements come through. Characters in a Conan game can be much more self efficient than characters in a standard game. They gain the standard bonuses, one feat every three levels, and one stat increase every four levels. However, they also gain a stat bonus to all attributes at 6th level and then every four levels afterwards.

In terms of race, this is old fantasy fiction here so we have no dwarves or elves. Instead we have human cultures and variant subcultures under them. These range from Conan’s people, the Cimmerians, to the Hyborian’s and their variants like the Gunderman and Khaurans. It’s here that these greater abilities also come through in the archetypes of each race. If you follow your race’s favored class, you gain bonus feats. This encourages you to be what you’re people are. You gain bonus feats at 1st, 5th, and 10th level. Some races have more than one favored race and those levels stack with each other.

Another interesting variant is prohibited classes. There are no starting Cimmerian nobles for example. After character creation, with the GM’s approval, you can change classes into a prohibited class.

Little things like this are scattered throughout the text. Take for example, your skill points from your intelligence bonus. These points can be spent on any skill. Hit dice max out at 10th level and you gain bonus hit points based on the hit die type. Very old school and keeps the characters more mortal than those in standard d20 games. How about the old silver standard instead of gold? It’s here. How about the healing benefits of strong drink? Yup, that’s right. If you have a strong drink when at 0 hit points, you actually gain a hit point.

Alignment is dropped from the game system, and with good reason. Most characters in such a setting would bounce between chaotic neutral and chaotic evil according to standard alignment rules, especially as illustrated by the fiction. In place of alignment, we have honor. Honor is broken into two wide groups, barbaric and civilized and each has rules that must be followed. In exchange for following these rules, you gain bonuses to Will saving throws and Reputation.

Because of the bleak nature of the setting, characters also have to worry about Corruption. When facing supernatural evil, characters may accrue corruption points. As the character gains more corruption points, they suffer more negative effects. At 1-2 you start off with nightmares or even drinking. At 10+, you’re permanently possessed by some demonic entity and begin to inflict corruption onto those around you.

To help character live in this dangerous world, you have Fate Points. These are very similar to those found in the Warhammer FRPG in that when you’re supposed to die, you’re instead assumed to be dead and left for dead.

Overall the changes to the d20 system look to be in keeping with the feel of the fiction. There are numerous changes, such as armor providing damage reduction, and experience points being awarded on an ad hoc basis instead of a per challenge rating basis, but overall, it looks to work in the system’s favor as opposed to against it. In many ways, I can see the engine here becoming another standard by which other low fantasy games may be judged.

Another important factor for some, is how well supported a game line is. In that we have no fear as there are already several Conan supplements out and look to be numerous other supplements coming down the pipeline.

Because of the numerous little touches, like the chapter, The Hyborian Age by Robert E. Howard, and the obvious respect that authors have for the source work, I’d recommend this book for anyone looking not only for a Conan game, but for a game engine that can help you emulate something like Warhammer FRPG.

 

[MonsterMash]

Conan the Roleplaying Game
Mongoose Publishing MGP7701
Paul Tucker and Ian Sturrock $49.95 Hardback 352pp

Playtest Review. This review is based on the original release of the rules not the Atlantean edition.

Conan and the Hyborian Age
Just in case there is anyone who hasn't heard of Conan or the Hyborian Age. It all started back in the 1930s with a writer from Texas called Robert E Howard, who created the character of Conan and published stories about him in Weird Tales magazine. He did become a popular character and was still published after Howard's untimely death, with other authors completing some story outlines and writing new original stories few of which in my opinion have ever captured the verve of Howard's writing. As well as books and magazines, Marvel comics published a comic book adaptation, notable for Barry Smith's art. And of course there were the movies with the governator himself.

Design and Production
Art and Design
This is a good point of the book. Chris Quilliams cover and interior art is really good and for me captures the look of Conan. The other art is also good and in a consistent style, probably the weakest piece for me is the page borders which are acceptable, but fairly weak.
The design does not waste space on pages which are probably about 85-90% text on average.

Physical Production
This is a sewn hardbound book which looks like it will last well even with heavy use. My copy is second hand and apart from a few marks on the cover looks like it'll last for a good few years yet. The proof reading was lousy on this edition, but errata have been provided on Mongoose's web site and it is possible to ignore it and use the rules.

Content
This is a complete rule set for playing in the Hyborian Age so no further books are required; though I'm sure Mongoose would like you to buy the companion volumes which are now appearing. No other D20 or OGL books are required for playing the game.

There is an introductory section about the Hyborian age and then it goes into the rules with the Robert E Howard essay The Hyborian Age and a brief gazetteer being included in the content. A separate chapter is included on running campaigns in the Hyborian Age, noting the differences between this and conventional D&D style fantasy campaigns.

Rules
Now the most important part, how well do the rules adapt the D20 system to get the flavour of Hyborian Age role-playing?

There are no non human player characters, which is appropriate for the setting. Classes available are largely combat oriented; there is no straight equivalent of the Cleric or the arcane spell casters, just the Scholar class.

There are a large number of subraces available for humans based on the nationality and background. In total there are 14 major races and 13 variants on these so there is no lack of variety, but generally a GM will specify which are appropriate for the adventure setting, e.g. a campaign on the Pictish border of Aquilonia is unlikely to have Stygian priest characters. Racial definitions may include characteristic adjustments, favoured and prohibited classes, background skills, bonus feats and languages.

Ability increases come for single abilities at level 4 and every 4 levels after that, with an increase to all abilities at level 6 and every 4 levels after that. This will make high level characters very unlikely to have any negative ability modifiers.

Classes
The classes reflect the Hyborian world with few spell casters, but lots of varied combat types. The full list is:

• Barbarian
• Borderer
• Noble
• Nomad
• Pirate
• Scholar
• Soldier
• Thief

The only class with magic abilities is the Scholar. There are no penalties for cross-classing, but by gaining levels in favoured classes characters receive bonus feats at 1, 5 and 10 levels.

Hit points are generated by die rolls + modifiers up to level 10 and after that a fixed amount, depending on class, is received. This means that higher level characters hit points will be lower than in other OGL games. The range of dice is only between D6 and D10 so the range of hit points between classes is lower than in D&D. At first level all characters gain the maximum possible hit points and given the low amounts of healing available this is necessary.

Skills and Feats
The skills and feats are one part of the system which is closest to the standard OGL rules with there just being an adjusted list of these and many feats having names changed to give more flavour.

Equipment and Money
Compared to D&D money is scarce - characters usually only have small amounts of case and the 'High Living' rule can be used to help dispose of any extra wealth over 50sp. The only coin types are gold and silver. Magical equipment is not easy to obtain and is not normally purchased, but would be received as part of the rewards from a successful adventure.

Most characters will tend to receive a starting kit of equipment and arms based on the sets in the rulebooks or the GM's preference, but there are price lists and starting money tables if the purchase system is preferred.

Fate Points
Characters receive fate points at first level and can at later times at the GM's discretion.
These can be used for a number of purposes, probably most often to preserve a characters life as being 'left for dead', but they can also be used for a 'mighty blow' to deliver maximum damage on an attack, 'repentance' to remove corruption and 'destiny' to make minor changes to the game world.

Codes of Honour and Reputations
There is no alignment in the Conan game which reflects Howard's world, but characters can have a Code of Honour and Allegiances which affect their interaction with others.

Reputations are earned based on the characters behaviour and level, this being used to help determine interaction with NPC, reputation points will gradually decrease for inactive characters.

Combat
This is still basically D20 combat, but changed from standard D&D by there being different combat styles and rules for the effect of armour.

In combat the main differences are the use of a Defence Value rather than an Armour Class for the to hit roll, there are two types of DV, dodge based and parry based. Armour also has damage reducing qualities, with weapons having an armour piercing factor to overcome this.
Finesse fighters can bypass Damage Reduction by getting an attack roll equal to or higher than the DV +DR for the target, which can make some weapons more attractive than in the basic D&D style rules. The rules are clarified and have some minor corrections in the Atlantean edition and Pocket rules.

Magic
The magic system in Conan is substantially different from the standard D&D system to reflect how sorcery is used in Howard's stories. The limit on use is based on power points rather than spells per day.

Power points are only received by the Scholar class or characters with the Dabbler feat. The number of points received is 4 + wisdom bonus for the Scholar and 2 + wisdom bonus if the Dabbler feat has been selected. Each spell has a cost in power points, with the limit on the amount of spells determined by a mixture of power points and spells known. Additional power points can be gained through sacrifices, energy drains, or rituals. Power points used up to the characters usual base PP can be regained by rest; each Sorcerer has a maximum number of power points.

There are special rules for magic, these are: the rule of success, rule of impermanence,
rule of defence, rule of obsession, rule of the master and rule of the sorcerer’s soul. These can alter how effective magic is with the rule of success making spell casters potentially very powerful indeed.

Magic use in Conan has the risk of corruption from associating with demons, with this being treated as a cumulative risk. There are other consequences of magic, these being runaway magic and insanity.

There are nine styles of sorcery: Counterspells; Curses; Divination; Hypnotism; Natural Magic; Necromancy; Oriental Magic; Prestidigitation and Summoning.


Bestiary
A fairly restricted range of fantastic beasts are encountered in the Howard Conan stories, the main ones being Ape-men, giant snakes, and magical humanoids. This is reflected in the fairly short section of creatures, with a large proportion being wild animals rather than monsters per se.

Web support
Downloads on the Mongoose Publishing site, and forums there have rules discussion.

Positives

• A Good attempt to get a game with the feel of Hyborian rolelaying using the D20 mechanism
• Relevant quotes from Robert Howard incorporated into the layout
• Attempts to show the differences between hyborian and D&D campaigns and how to run campaigns in this world
• Web and print support - Mongoose site and Signs and Portents magazine

Negatives

• I'd have liked more examples with the rules as this is a stand alone book so doesn't have the option of saying look at the PHB for explanation
• No diagrams in the combat explantions
• Editing on this edition was poor making some rules tricky to interpret

Overall
The adjustments to the rules tend to help give a 'grim and gritty' feel to the game which is appropriate.

I give this four stars as an eight and a half out of 10. I do think it captures the flavour of the
Hyborian age as well is possible using a D20 based system. Counts against this initial
edition were the poor proof reading leading to a large number of typos and some unclear rules, but this has been dealt with in the Atlantean edition and the supporting products.