Recent content by S'mon

Leaving aside realism, I'm pretty sure I read in a Howard story something along the lines of Conan noting that southern (Hyborean) women were soft and weak, unlike Cimmerian women who fought alongside the men. I think it's rather against the spirit of the setting to have women soldiers common &...

Re pirates I was thinking more re the documentary historical evidence, like those well known 18th century Caribbean female pirates or Queen Artemisia commanding a squadron at Salamis and (unlike her boss King Xerxes) leading from the front, on the deck of her command ship.

One thing I did IMC was give out extra skill ranks to reflect knowledge gained in life experience between adventures - eg a year at sea gets a rank in Profession (Sailor), a year as a noble's guard gets a rank in Knowledge (Nobility). Most of the Conan monsters as statted are a good match for...

An occasional problem with "Left for Dead" is what happens if you're felled by opponents who would naturally consume the body. An extra Fate Point for a lucky break (the ghouls are scared away by something else) sounds right, but if feeling generous I may allow a fortunate sequence of events...

Yup, I treat Fate Point to be "Left for Dead" as "You're not dead (if at all plausible)" whatever the cause, so that would include ability damage, level drain, hung from the Tree of Woe, etc. Having PC be in coma while comrades desperately seek a cure sounds genre-appropriate.

For Conan, hit dice is a better comparator of threat than Challenge Rating. ie a 5 hit die beastie is usually a good challenge for 5th level PCs. Magic powers may need to be toned down or eliminated.

Check this thread out: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=186274 When I ran Conan I gave 500-1500 XP/session with PCs level 1-3, and that worked ok, I'd have moved up to 1-2000 later. I don't think Conan's genre is well suited to a group of PCs over 10th level, so after about 5th level I...

IMC I use Commoner for Expert but usually give them d6 hit dice (sedentary d4, active d6, labouring d8, a la 1e DMG) and up to 6 skill points/level. The Commoner BAB & saves work fine.

There's plenty of archaelogical evidence for individual warrior-women; especially in the upper classes of tribal societies or as gladiators, pirates etc. You don't get many women forming regular military units though (although AIR one near-eastern king's harem also formed his army!), certainly...

I find DB Un-Conany (and totally unsuitable for PCs), so I've eliminated it in my game. It's an unfortunate inclusion in a generally very good rulebook IMO. I'd let the Scholar get an extra spell or feat instead.

For Conan I'd think taking about as many (4 hr) sessions to gain a level as that level (2 for 2nd, 3 for 3rd, 4 for 4th etc) would be about right, up to 10th. To me the game doesn't really seem structured for play beyond 10th, YMMV. Edit: with occasional XP dumps of say +1000 XP for...

Repost of the old 101 NPCs, now with handy Quick NPC form! :) 101 NPCs for the Conan RPG NPC Form Name: Allegiance: Class: Level: BAB: Details: Decent skills (rank=level): Good skills (lvl+3): Good attributes (+2): Major Feats...

Some REH public domain works including Conan stories are available here: http://www.blackmask.com/cgi-bin/newlinks/page.cgi?g=Pulp_Fiction%2FRobert_E__Howard%2Findex.html&d=1

Article on Conan etc in the Public Domain here: http://www.robert-e-howard.org/AnotherThought4ws02.html Basically very few of REH's lifetime-published works were ever copyright-registered (or registered correctly) and so are in the public domain. NB: By Berne Convention rules if REH is in...

This supports my point - fighting 4:1 (since he had his back to wall), Conan was _defeated_ by the mooks. :)