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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lancelot" data-source="post: 7059527" data-attributes="member: 30022">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 warriorsDexterity 18Constitution 20Intelligence 12 - I think 15 is way too high; he's well-traveled and smart, but he's not a top scholarWisdom 16Charisma 18Curiously, 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.</blockquote>

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