Conan RPG in 1e AD&D terms...

[FailedSpotCheck]

Hi there. I've been away for a while with RL stuff.
I was wondering if anyone on these boards has attempted a detailed, thorough rewriting of the Conan RPG from 3.x to 1st ed. AD&D.

Yours, in Crom,

8)

FSC

 

[Auggie]

Not I....why would anyone want to?

 

[FailedSpotCheck]

Let's confine replies to constructive comments only, please! :wink:

 

[FailedSpotCheck]

I'll ask around at the Dragonsfoot forums. They should be able to help.

 

[Harlock]

There are those, myself included who do like the older editions of AD&D. Believe it or not there are more than a few gamers who have a preference for some older games, but thats another story. Having just got conan a month or so ago and having played 1st ed. for years I can say it cant be too difficult to do. Myself I do 1st ed. for greyhawk stuff and I'll keep conan in v3.5 for now. if I did convert it I'd go to the early 80's D&D (boxed set version).

 

[FailedSpotCheck]

Thanks for the feedback, & welcome to the boards. 8)

 

[kintire]

I was wondering if anyone on these boards has attempted a detailed, thorough rewriting of the Conan RPG from 3.x to 1st ed. AD&D.

I would be strongly inclined to not bother with a rules rewrite. It would be a huge amount of work for little gain. I would suggest that you just use 1st edition as the system and amend the flavour text. With all the expansions and magazine material there are actually quite a lot of classes for 1st ed, and it should be easy to fit one to any given character. You can use the adventures with only basic rewrites (ie character stats mostly). You might have to allow multiclassing to humans to cover the sort of variety of abilities some characters have, and you might want to prune the magic system, but apart from that it should be fine.

 

[FailedSpotCheck]

My biggest gripe about 1e is the magic system. I always hated the "cast 'n' forget" of the older days. In this regard the 3e Conan system is far superior. I may simply drag-&-drop the present magic system back into a 1e context.

 

[Etepete]

I'd say that, some class rewrites (there are no paladins in Hyboria ) and some rewrite of the damage system (faster natural healing, massive damage, no potions and the delciious flaggon of wine rule)

 

[Harlock]

I dont mind 1st ed much, is good for certain types of games, but again for conan the magic system needs some alteration for the setting, so no more +5 vorpal freezing heat seeking AI weightless high speed sword of infinite healing. Of course I'm overstating it (if just a bit) but the early treasure & magic setup was definately polar opposite to the conan settin

 

[Clovenhoof]

Before I came across Conan OGL, I tried to set up a barbaric low-magic setting with D&D 3E rules. It was a hack:

- disallowed the Monk and Paladin classes
- Full spellcaster classes cut down to Bard spell progression (so maximum spell grade was 6). Some spells weeded out.
- only Evil clerics were allowed (because Good deities were not actively involved in the world)
- experimented with Defense, first with Active Parry, then with the Defense progression as seen on Wheel of Time rpg.
- introduced Wound/Vitality system with very fast VP recovery.

All in all it was rather half-baked, and even the nerfed spellcasters were still too powerful for the magic level I had in mind.

 

[sidkfjjteidlkkf]

It is do-able in 1st edition (of which I still have the books).

Here are a few guidelines: GET RID OF ALIGNMENT.

1) Get the Road of Kings supplement. Give details fo the lands.

2) Get Faith and ferver for the gods.

3) all classes would be available (but Paladin), with the exception that only clerics and wizards gain spells. ABSOLUTELY NO HEALING or restorative spells. Barbarians, Monks, Cavaliers fit in nicely here. DRUIDS are debatable... Spells would not be as accessible, and they would not gain as many. Limit spells use

-- special abilities of some classes are not appropriate.

4) Make the spells take longer to cast, boosting casting times to the next time frame (1 seg becomes 1 round etc...)... They are not as free to be found/learned, etc...) Certain spells would not exist (use with discretion) ... Spells such as Divinations would be common, creation spells would be limited, etc.... Invocation, Evocation, Illusions, etc. would exist but be monitored. Necromancy is in. Alteration would be limited.

5) Come up with some kind of disadvantage to casting spells (Corruption)

6) Give them Fate Points, allowing 1 point to alter some form of the game (stops them from dying, success on a failure, escaping the gaurds in a nick ot time etc...)

7) Wounds and healing (Natural) would occur at a faster rate.

8) Magic Items are VERY VERY RARE. A +1 Sword would be Rare item.

9) Misc. Magic Items would probably not exists, or be even rarer.

10) Alot of the monsters and Races would not exist. No demi-humans. Demons are there..

That is what I would do...

Just get the feel of the setting using the rules that you have...

 

[FailedSpotCheck]

Thanks, koski.

 

[sidkfjjteidlkkf]

Thanks, koski.

Failedspotcheck you are welcome. Somewhere at home, I have done this on a ms word. If I can find it, I will send it to you.

I even listed all the spells that would be acceptable.

Give me a while, and hope that I still have it..

Hope it helped though...

 

[Spectator]

Hmmm 1st ADD?
My first question is why, but it is pretty simple, you don't have to worry about 5' steps or combat maneuvers, it does allow the GM to take mor ein his hands when combat is involved since there are less rules.
I would ditch the AC concept and stick with the DR, I never liked the fact that someone was 'harder to hit' just cause he had a chainmail shirt on.

Obviously the spell sysytem has to be re-worked, the old saving throw system was something I never cared for, but hey that's just me.

the lack of skills and feats make your character less of an individual and more of a 8th level fighter, again, this is where the player and GM can shine.

 

[Yogah of Yag]

I don't think Old Skool AC necessarily meant harder to hit, but harder to hit AND WOUND.

As always, YMMV.

 

[Aholibamah]

I never had a problem with the ac rules. It simply meant that the person was harder to hit effectively. The hit point system similarly, it was really mean to be equivalent to your experience and all that. All rules systems have flaws.

Anyway I think that another element would be this: monsters should be rare or strange except perhaps in unusual places. For instance you should never run into one who is a shopkeeper unless they are magically disguised...and then it should be part of some strange plot. Magic should still require rituals and secret strange knowledge to do. It's fully possible to have a Conan type D&D campaign provided you are very selective about what elements are in it.

Consider: Vincent Darlage's writing of the Shadizar setting contains monsters and strange locations--there's no reason why you couldn't adapt this to D&D provided you kept the low magic human-centered aspects of the setting. The Shadizar set contains: a dragon, lizard-men, giants, semi human pgymies, elementals and other odd creatures. There are giant spiders, demons and weird creatures from other worlds in Zamora both according to Howard and the pastiches, so why not?

 

[sidkfjjteidlkkf]

Monsters are not necessarily rare, it depends on how you want to run the campaign. the world has monsters, but it seems one would have to look for them. That can be a campaign itself.

The book limits monsters over D&D, but it limits the types, not the amounts.

I use quite a few in my campaign.

As far as AD&D, I would not allow: Orcs, Ogres, Trolls, goblins, and those kind of monsters. I would allow more on the lines of giant species, animals, demons, devils, and those on the lines of Uncommon, rare, and very rare. (Harpy's, Naga's, etc...) Of course, we have the UNDEAD... Even lycanthropes.

A campaign can be run any way you want it, not necessarily keeping the style of Howard....

 

[Axerules]

Consider: Vincent Darlage's writing of the Shadizar setting contains monsters and strange locations--there's no reason why you couldn't adapt this to D&D provided you kept the low magic human-centered aspects of the setting. The Shadizar set contains: a dragon, lizard-men, giants, semi human pgymies, elementals and other odd creatures. There are giant spiders, demons and weird creatures from other worlds in Zamora both according to Howard and the pastiches, so why not?

I own the boxed set too, but knowing that a lot of this monsters come from some very bad pastiches like the awful crap written by S. Perry, I would certainly not include those creatures in my games.

I don't want to start another "pastiche vs REH" argument. I just have the feeling, IMHO, that most of this creatures have nothing to do in Hyboria.

And, of course, I don't have any problem with giant spiders, sorcerers and demons in Zamora...

 

[Hervé]

The old AD&D modules contained some rules to adapt the AD&D rules to the Hyborian setting (fear factor, luck points, healing, equipment, spellcasting and magical items).

CB1 Conan Unchained (TSR9123)
CB2 Conan Against Darkness(TSR9124)
RS1 Red Sonja Unconquered(TSR9183)

CB1 is quite good and quite enjoyable to play. The two others are crap.