Classes

[Harlequin Jones]

Hats off to Mongoose for making a fine game. Conan does everything that I liked about old-school D&D with little of what I dislike about D&D 3E. As I told my gaming group earlier, "D&D is DEAD to me! THIS is the real third edition." *smirk*

I love the way characters are encouraged to multiclass rather than discouraged. Yet, I still find myself running up against the age-old problem of class restrictions. I'll describe my trouble; perhaps someone can offer an easy solution that I don't see due to my unfamiliarity with the rules.

The trouble is this: I want to play fighter/thief type characters. Sometimes more fighter than thief, sometimes the opposite - the important part is that their combat style is based on wearing little or no armor and dodging a lot.

The obvious trick is to combine thief with barbarian or borderer. Thing is, I often don't care about the barbarian and borderer class abilities like Diehard and Hide in Plain Sight. I'd rather take things like Fleet Footed and Iron WIll - or something else. I would rather have free choice of feats than have them handed to me, even if it makes the character less powerful overall.

I've wound up taking levels of soldier just to get the free-choice feats. That's fine and good, but kind of works at cross-purposes to my desires since soldiers focus on Parry rather than Dodge.

Any suggestions?


Harley

 

[Belkregos]

A thief advances in parry and dodge at the same rate, a thief- soldier combination works great, one of the deadlies characters in our gaming group has a Zingarian fighter thief, takes advantage of the zingarian charisma modifier with the intricate sword play feat (it adds the charisma modifier to parry) and the zingarian +1d6 sneak attack adds to the thief’s sneak attack

 

[VincentDarlage]

You might consider picking up Hyboria's Fiercest, Hyboria's Finest and Hyboria's Fallen, which has variant abilities that can be substituted for class abilities that do not fit the desired archetype.

Or just switch out some of the class abilities for different feats.

 

[High Lord Dee]

I have been trying to keep an open mind on this but I have to vent a bit. I love all of the classes in the core book. But I must admit, I have a problem with the "Soldier" class. To me, a soldier is a formally trained and disciplined warrior. Their skills are better suited to the field of battle than the seedy, dim lit Hyborian taverns. Fighters learn how to fight based on real world experiences. The School of hard knocks so to speak. There could be formal training but it is not necessary to become a good fighter. The explanation that eventually all good fighters become mercenaries or soldiers does not work for me because that simply is not feasible. They need a true fighter class. I agree with you that Barbarian is close but you are not quite there. I may modify my campaign and re-name the Soldier class to Fighter, add a new Soldier class to better reflect the difference in those skills and modify them to taste.

Anyone else have ideas on this?

HLD

 

[Harlequin Jones]

I have no trouble with the Soldier class per se. I think my problem is this: aside from things like magic and sorcery, d20 characters can generally be broken down into skills, feats, and combat ability. By having classes that focus on one or two of these three, multiclassing allows one to gain much of the flexibility of a point-based system while using classes and levels.

In Conan, the division is imperfect. It's easy to make a character with solid fighting and lots of feats - that's just a soldier. To make one with solid fighting and lots of skill requires multiclassing thief with borderer or barbarian; but then you're neither as tough as the soldier nor as skilled as the pure thief. To make one with lots of skills and feats, but not much combat ability, is more difficult.

It would be cool to have three types of "open" classes - combat + feats, combat + skill, and feats + skill. The first is just a soldier, though it would be nice if one could choose Dodge over Parry.

I briefly considered running the numbers on the given classes to see just how much BaB, dodge, parry, saves, skills, and feats were worth relative to one another - thinking, in the back of my mind, of making some sort of points-based level advancement out of it - but I realized that it would be a humongous linear equation (with no guarentee of an answer in Realspace) and thought better of it. *smirk*


Harley
(9 terms per equation, and a number of equations equal to the number of classes.)

 

[VincentDarlage]

To make one with lots of skills and feats, but not much combat ability, is more difficult.

Not at all. Scholar class (non-sorcerous). Each new Sorcery style can be foregone in favour of a feat and each new Advanced spell can be forgone for +2 skill points.

Non-sorcerous scholar = class with lots of skills and feats but not much combat ability.

 

[Harlequin Jones]

Really? Huh. I was under the impression that the bonus feats had to be sorcery-related in some way. Guess that comes from not owning the books, neh?

How does the Rule of Obsession come into play? Does it?


Harley

 

[VincentDarlage]

How does the Rule of Obsession come into play? Does it?

It doesn't. The Rule of Obsession only affects sorcerers, so a non-sorcerous scholar is definitionally out of its scope - not that a non-sorcerous scholar needs his power points anyway.

 

[urdinaran]

Yeah, I've considered the non-sorcerous scholar. A scholar's advancements compare better than a core d20 Wizard, for example. Add to that a racial weapon proficiency and you get some nice possibilities ...

Just got Hyboria's Finest, so, I'll have to give that a look.

 

[Voltumna]

Thing is, I often don't care about the barbarian and borderer class abilities like Diehard and Hide in Plain Sight. I'd rather take things like Fleet Footed and Iron WIll - or something else. I would rather have free choice of feats than have them handed to me, even if it makes the character less powerful overall.

The Hyboria's Fiercest, Finest and Fallen have a lot of Variant rules for multiclassing characters. They sometimes have a class level prereq, but as Vincent said before, they are intended as gidelines, you could make your own.

We got Hyboria's Finest last week. Haven't really got a chance to read it, but have been perusing through. It has nice Variant rules and feats. The core book has rules as to what feats can be taken instead of new sorcery styles, but there are others that could be taken as well, depending on the character's concept, as long as you don't wander off that. For instance, if a thief/scholar can give up a sorcery stile for Skill Focus - hide or move silently, why couldn't he take Blind Fighting? Thieves are prowlers, as could scholars. Sleep Mastery as well, say for a cultist that pores thorugh dark tomes through nights on end, or for a lenghty ritual.

Hyboria's Finest have these 2 kick butt feats: Analyst and Combat Master among others. They are combat oriented, but because of their nature, I'd say they could be taken by a scholar in lieu of a new sorcery, because they are based on inteligence and wisdom. They open new possibilities for character concepts.

In addition to Howard's great milieu and things proper to the game like multiclassing, the low massive damage threshold, deadlier weapons, DR, AP, finesse fighting, etc., these 3 books define what the Conan RPG game really is, mainly by expanding on the concept of multiclassing with optional and variant rules. That's my humble opinion of course. This is a great game!

 

[taylor]

Hyboria's Finest have these 2 kick butt feats: Analyst and Combat Master among others

My copy is very slowly making its way to north east Australia, could you elaborate on these 2 a bit? Reqs and a basic description would be great. Cheers mate.

 

[Voltumna]

Analyst (General)
Prereq: Int 13, Combat Expertise.
Benefit: after 1 round of combat, you can designate 1 opponent and try to figure out his fighting style. You use a move action and make an intelligence check DC (15) with a bonus equal to half your level. If the check succeds for the rest of combat you add your Intelligence modifier to all attack rolls against that opponent as you nottice weaknesses in his fighting style.

 

[Voltumna]

Combat Master (General)
Prereq: Wis 13, spot 5, listen 5, sense motive 5, Alertness.
Benefit: As a full-round action, you observe the combat around you and make a Wisdom check (DC20) with a bonus equal to half your character level. If the check succedds, for the rest of combat, you add your Wisdom modifier to all attacks rolls for the duration of the encounter. You can attune to combat a number of times per day equal to your Wisdom modifier.

 

[taylor]

Wow, they are pretty good, especially if you wanted to make a combat viable scholar. I'm guessing they stack too? And with your idea of putting them as new sorcery style feats, would the scholar still have to meet the normal reqs, or ignore them like the expanded rules for the borderer in Hyboria's Fiercest?

 

[Voltumna]

Scholars need to meet the prerequisites to take those feats.

 

[urdinaran]

Can you say Khitaian monk?

 

[Voltumna]

Can you say Parangutirimicuaro?

 

[argo]

In Conan, the division is imperfect. It's easy to make a character with solid fighting and lots of feats - that's just a soldier. To make one with solid fighting and lots of skill requires multiclassing thief with borderer or barbarian; but then you're neither as tough as the soldier nor as skilled as the pure thief.

And to me that sounds like the multiclassing system doing its job. You are getting a more versatile character who is less capable in any one given area. If you could make a multi-class character who is as tough as a soldier and as skilled as a thief then the system would be seriously broken.

To make one with lots of skills and feats, but not much combat ability, is more difficult.

Vincent already beat me to it... it is a non-magical scholar you are describing here.

Later.

 

[Harlequin Jones]

In Conan, the division is imperfect. It's easy to make a character with solid fighting and lots of feats - that's just a soldier. To make one with solid fighting and lots of skill requires multiclassing thief with borderer or barbarian; but then you're neither as tough as the soldier nor as skilled as the pure thief.

And to me that sounds like the multiclassing system doing its job. You are getting a more versatile character who is less capable in any one given area. If you could make a multi-class character who is as tough as a soldier and as skilled as a thief then the system would be seriously broken.

I suppose that's true if you consider combat skill and feats to naturally go together - but not all feats are combat-related. I was just thinking it would be nice to have the option of a combat/skill character in place of a combat/feat character. Now that I know about the skill/feat non-sorcerous Scholar...*smirk*

Still, Conan has one of the better class systems I've seen.


Harley

 

[taylor]

We got Hyboria's Finest last week. Haven't really got a chance to read it, but have been perusing through. It has nice Variant rules and feats. The core book has rules as to what feats can be taken instead of new sorcery styles, but there are others that could be taken as well, depending on the character's concept, as long as you don't wander off that. For instance, if a thief/scholar can give up a sorcery stile for Skill Focus - hide or move silently, why couldn't he take Blind Fighting? Thieves are prowlers, as could scholars. Sleep Mastery as well, say for a cultist that pores thorugh dark tomes through nights on end, or for a lenghty ritual.

Mate, I just got Finest, but cant find the part discussing taking alternative feats as new sorcery styles. Could you give me a page number please? Cheers!