Grim Tales of Conan - alternate sorcery system

[UncleBear]

I love the Conan RPG and appreciate the intentions of the sorcery system and its negative effects of Corruption. Unfortunately the system’s a bit clunky for my taste, with the bookkeeping involved in figuring out Power Point costs and so forth. I also wanted to be able to use spells from other D20 and OGL games because I’ve adapted many D20 fantasy adventures for use in my campaign to compensate for the lack of published Conan adventures. Having to rewrite every spellcasting NPC as a Scholar and figure out new spell lists based on those available in the Conan RPG core book and the Scrolls of Skelos was getting to be a drag, and several attempts at devising a method for converting spell levels to PP costs were giving me a headache.

Grim Tales is a gritty, low magic D20 core book published by Bad Axe Games. It has a magic system that’s intended to be dark and dangerous in the same way as the Conan RPG’s sorcery system, but is a lot more straightforward. It also uses standard D20/OGL spells. With minimal tweaking the two fit together pretty seamlessly. The link below is to my kitbashed adaptation of the Grim Tales magic system for use with the Conan RPG. PDF format. Link

 

[bolen]

I love it Is there more in Grim tales which can be converted?

 

[sbarrie]

Did you consider using the caster's Wisdom Bonus instead of Charisma when casting a spell? Or using Wisdom to reduce Spell Burn?

What stat does a spell's save DC depend on? What level is the caster for a spell's range, duration and other effects?

So the first level of Scholar allows you to take Str spell burn instead of Con. After that, it just gives you superior Magic Attack Bonus and lots of skill points, right?

Suppose a character with a Chr of 15 and a Magic Attack Bonus of +2 casts a 3rd level spell and they roll a 3, 1 and 6. Do they take 4 points of burn or 2?

What, other than a sense of style, prevents a caster from sacrificing squirrels and dogs instead of nubile slavegirls?

You system looks interesting, but I suspect it would take a lot of effort to trim away the less appropriate DnD spells. (E.g. Magic Missile)

 

[UncleBear]

I love it Is there more in Grim tales which can be converted?

Yes, and I'm working on it. I like some of what they do with Action Points.

Did you consider using the caster's Wisdom Bonus instead of Charisma when casting a spell? Or using Wisdom to reduce Spell Burn?

I went with CHA because it's what sorcery is based off of in Conan. It could just as easily be WIS.

What stat does a spell's save DC depend on? What level is the caster for a spell's range, duration and other effects?

Good questions, giving me stuff to revise and improve here, I like it.

I'm gonna say if you're saving vs. a spell cast at you, the DC will be 10 + caster's Magic Attack + caster's CHA modifier.

For a Scholar, caster level is level in Scholar (there's another bonus besides skill points and MA, below). If a character has the Dabbler feat, I'd say 1/2 character level. If they're untrained, they're caster level 1.

So the first level of Scholar allows you to take Str spell burn instead of Con. After that, it just gives you superior Magic Attack Bonus and lots of skill points, right?

Yup. Plus all Scholar levels count toward caster level.

Suppose a character with a Chr of 15 and a Magic Attack Bonus of +2 casts a 3rd level spell and they roll a 3, 1 and 6. Do they take 4 points of burn or 2?

CHA 15 gives DR/2 per die of spell burn, so the 3 becomes a 1, the 1 remains a 1 (because it's aways a minimum 1 per die) and the 6 becomes a 4, for a total of 6 points of Spell Burn. MAB then reduces the overall total, taking total Spell Burn from 6 to 4.

What, other than a sense of style, prevents a caster from sacrificing squirrels and dogs instead of nubile slavegirls?

Excellent question, and I'll have to add this in: any excess Spell Burn not absorbed by the sacrifice victim is taken by the caster. Sacrificing a squirrel would work fine if you're doing a 1st level spell, but to cast something higher you'd want a strong, healthy victim. What keeps you from sacrificing an elephant, then, rather than a human? Elephants are hard to tie down to the obligatory altar slab... :wink:

You system looks interesting, but I suspect it would take a lot of effort to trim away the less appropriate DnD spells. (E.g. Magic Missile)

But it gives me, as a gamemaster, options. When I'm converting a D&D or othr D20 fantasy adventure for use in Conan and I see that Evil Wizard knows this list of spells, I don't have to rewrite Evil Wizard as a Scholar and assign him Conan sorcery spells. That's more work than trimming away less apropos spells. I can ignore Magic Missile if I want and use what has the best "flavor".

The same goes for PC spellcasters; they need to find a scroll or spellbook to learn a spell from, and I, as GM, can insure they only find "appropriate" spells. [/quote][/code]

 

[UncleBear]

The updated, spellchecked, expanded PDF with material from the above posts is available, same file name, same link as in the first post: http://unclebear.com/downloads/grimcon.pdf

 

[bolen]

So is there enough in Grim Tales to warrent buying it for Conan or Is it mostly an expansion for D20 modern?

 

[UncleBear]

I think what I've mined and adapted in my PDF is about all anyone will get out of it, Conan-wise.

It is a great book for generic pulp-feeling D20, though.

 

[sbarrie]

As far as I can tell, Grim Tales does about the same thing to d20 as Conan does. It doesn't have a sensible armor system, so I don't see any point in switching.

I downloaded the Grim Tales Insanity rules from RPGNow, and they're more complicated than Conan's Save-or-flee horror rules. They're missing rules for madness caused by witnessing terrible sorcery or learning about man's insignificance in the universe. They also use a roll-under-the-stat resolution, which I find awkward.

On one hand, I'd like to find a way to link them to Corruption and other Conan terms. On the other, Conan doesn't go insane, so why bother?

The product has a nice long list of insanities, and associated d20 effects.

 

[UncleBear]

I downloaded the Grim Tales Insanity rules from RPGNow, and they're more complicated than Conan's Save-or-flee horror rules.

Yeah, I don't like the Grim Tales Horror & Insanity rules either. They violate the whole D20 precept of "high is always good". The one thing I DO like is the optional Fight! or Flight! rule, where the player can basically voluntarily fail the check and run away, but get a lesser penalty for retreating than if they stayed and failed the roll. It makes sense for Conan, too; our Cimmerian often (and wisely) chose to just leave the scene rather than battle the unspeakable terror.

The best horror & insanity I've seen for D20 are the fear saves in OGL Horror (another Mongoose product, coincidentally), but even they aren't right for Conan. The Corruption system is perfect for the setting.

Again, the main thing I like about Grim Tales for Conan is the low magic system but even that I tweaked to take Corruption into account.

 

[UncleBear]

I downloaded the Grim Tales Insanity rules from RPGNow, and they're more complicated than Conan's Save-or-flee horror rules. They're missing rules for madness caused by witnessing terrible sorcery or learning about man's insignificance in the universe.

I keep tinkering with adapting the Madness Meters from Unknown Armies into D20, but I'm not sure they'd work so well in Conan. With exposure to certain things (including Violence and the Unknown) you become jaded by it, hardened against it, but that also acts like Corruption because the more accepting you become of these things, the more you lose your humanity. While I completely see experienced characters being unphased by seeing lopped-off limbs, decapitations, human sacrifices, abominations and demons to the point they don't even roll against (or at least save easily), Conan retained that sort of purity in the face of it, accepted those things as grim realities but didn't succumb to them, which is what makes him such a noble hero figure.

Okay, I have an idea, but I think it needs its own thread.

 

[sbarrie]

Unknown Armies is great, but too realistic, especially for Conan. Who wants to play a Cimmerian undergoing a crisis of Isolation while he's living alone in Shadizar?

 

[sbarrie]

The updated, spellchecked, expanded PDF with material from the above posts is available, same file name, same link as in the first post: http://unclebear.com/downloads/grimcon.pdf

I think using Wisdom to soak spell burn instead of Charisma better reflects Wisdon's role in Conan of providing spell points.

If I buy the Slavelords campaign, I'm definitely using these rules to run it. What DnD setting are you using them in?

 

[UncleBear]

If I buy the Slavelords campaign, I'm definitely using these rules to run it. What DnD setting are you using them in?

When I run it (probably not until later this year) I'm going to start in a modern setting with "normal" people. Slavelords of Cydonia is basically a John Carter of Mars riff, so having some ordinary folks transported to an alien world to become heroes appeals to me more than pulling them out of a world with existing opportunities for adventure and heroism.