Conan classes replacing core classes in D&D

[Anonymous]

Although I'm still poring through the Conan RPG, I've already decided to incorporate its combat mechanics, equipment, money system, and at least the non-sorcery related feats into my upcoming Kalamar campaign. I tend to run rarer-magic campaigns where magic items aren't a dime a dozen and these rules are just want I've been waiting for. I'm so impressed with the Conan book that I'm thinking that the campaign would be better served by combining the classes of D&D with Conan. Some of the classes will port over to D&D without modification: Nomad, Pirate, and Noble (finally, a noble class worth playing!).

I'm still undecided on how far to take this concept with regards to the other classes. Several of the Conan classes are direct parallels of D&D core classes:
Barbarian (D&D) vs. Barbarian (Conan) - HD shifts to d10, better feat progression (IMO), and slightly different class skills. The Conan version appears to be more flavorful that the D&D version.
Fighter vs. Soldier - Essentially the same, but some additional "fighting in formation" feats for the Soldier.
Rogue vs. Thief - Again, mostly the same. However, HD shifts to d8, backstab is somewhat improved upon.
Ranger vs. Borderer - A viable non-spellcastiing wilderness warrior. As with the Barbarian class, the Borderer seems more evocative of the rangers/woodsmen found in fantasy literature.

Here's the dilema: assuming the Conan counterparts are used in favor of the D&D original classes, should I leave the Bard, Cleric, Druid, Sorceror, and Wizard classes intact? To be on par with their Conan counterparts, I'm wondering if I should bump the Bard HD to d8 and the Sorceror and Wizard HD to d6. I don't really see the need to increase the Cleric and Druid's HD. Obviously, I need to develop Parry, Dodge, etc. values for the D&D classes but that's easy enough to do using the other classes as examples.

Has anyone tried this or been thinking along similar lines?

Thanks,

Azgulor

 

[Phil]

It would certainly be nice to see however I think the Conan Classes are more powerful (in general) than the standard D&D classes so you may need to do some tweaking to make them fit better - perhaps the increased HD you suggested and 2 more skill points per level?

Phil.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll take another look at the skill points, but when I did a stare-n-compare of Conan vs. D&D the classes had the same number of skill points. Fighter's = Soldier's skill points, etc. The Scholar is obviously the odd man out. The biggest power boost I saw was that the combat-focused classes (Barbarian, Nomad, Pirate, Soldier, Borderer) all had two-weapon fighting as a core feat - which I would probably drop anyway unless I was running a true Conan campaign.

Azgulor

 

[Iron_Chef]

I would use the Scholar class from Conan and cut the traditional D&D spellcasters. The Scholar functions as priest, sorcerer, wizard or sage. The bard can be mimicked with my Skald feat chain, if necessary. See my Lankhmar thread for details:
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=78506