I'm glad you find the game "brilliant", but you'll discover the drawbacks of the system very soon. Conan is mostly is "man vs. man" game where "D&D is more "man (or semi!) vs. monster". It implies you'll spend a lot of time (and often more than that!) building NPCs using this lousy D20 system when you would just have picked a monster from one of the many MMs in D&D...
I do see that building NPCs is a major flaw
Herve, our favourite Other System Evangelist, is not necessarily unbiased here :wink:
There is no problem whatsoever with creating NPCs. For 95% of all NPCs all you need to know is Attack Bonus, Defence Value, Saves, Damage and Hit Points. Maybe one or two feats for the more formidable types.
For the remaining 5% you can still omit most of the detailed looking stat blocks. Ask yourself: what is this NPC for? If the answer is, as it usually is, Epic Combat do you really give a flying toss what their Knowledge: Obscure Khitan Noodlemaking Techniques score is?
CT is a hell of a game. No wonder it's still the most popular version of Traveller--even after 30 years.
Interesting how styles differ. As far as I'm concerned, its one of the worst character generation systems in RPG history. The initial generation is completely random and with no concession to balance, and the better careers require high stats, so the initial unbalance is ruthlessly increased.
And why on earth are you randomly rolling NPCs? Random generation of NPCs? Wh..wh..what?
You are correct in saying that the way to eliminate a dump stat with an arrange-to-taste system is to make all the stat equally relevant to the player.
This just isn't the case, at least with d20 Conan.
But it is. Strength is vital for attack and damage, and some skills. Dexterity for finesse and ranged attacks and defense, and a lot of skills. Constitution for Hit Points, fortitude and concentration. Intelligence for skill points and many skills. Wisdom for Will saves and perception skills. Charisma for all social skills and Magic Attack.
If your players are using Charisma as a dump stat, that is because the games you run are not using charisma. In which case, why bother forcing the PCs to keep track of an irrelevant number? Just run the game with a stat design system and five stats. Not wishing to seem simplistic, the best way to deal with a dump stat is dump it!
Edit: Oh, one other thing:
It's damn generous...which is why I'm not too concerned about lower PC stats (and Conan 321 still gives the player a lot of choice).
Its actually not. All other iterations of DnD, including AD&D assume that you will be gaining significant bonuses from magical equipment. Conan does not. The stat bonuses go some way to replacing those magical adds. But only some way.
