NPC classes?

[DigitalMage]

Does Conan 2nd Ed have NPC classes of any sort? Are there any rules that help make statting up NPCs easier? Just a thought.

 

[Der Rote Baron]

Just one - The Commoner. 10 levels max. Makes much more sens ethan the npc classes in 3.5 (Warrior, Expert etc.).

If you are a common man you are a Commoner - and you can't read or write.

Looking at the Commoner Class makes it also perfectly clear why Picts and Cimmerians and Nordheimer are so damn feared by civilized people - the are Barbarians 1st level! And a barbarian of 1st level makes mince-meat of almost any Commoner up to level 5!

Enter the heroes ...

 

[DigitalMage]

Makes much more sens ethan the npc classes in 3.5 (Warrior, Expert etc.).

Hmm, I actually quite liked the 3.5 NPC classes, NPCs could be specialised in one ways (social, intellectual or combat) but still be markedly less capable than true heroes (i.e. PC classes).

 

[Ichabod]

Seems fairly common to multiclass NPCs - Commoner + standard class - when you want something between a nobody and a somebody.

I don't think GMs should even bother with stat blocking ordinary people in the first place, just put down only the numbers that might actually come up, which might be no numbers at all.

 

[Style]

I don't think GMs should even bother with stat blocking ordinary people in the first place, just put down only the numbers that might actually come up, which might be no numbers at all.

Yep. A GM shouldn't need to stat out the vast majority of NPCs. When the need does arise for a stat, the NPC has whatever the GM wants them to have.

D20 doesn't lend itself to this sort of game mastering as easy as a system like Savage Worlds, but it's still doable in D20. It's how I did NPCs back in my D20 days.

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

You do not need all these NPC-Classes (Warrior, Expert, Adept & Aristocrat), because Conan RPG has a different approach to all classes than D&D.
D&D knows four kinds of classes: Commoner, Professional (= NPC) Classes, Heroic Classes and Prestige Classes.
But in Conan there is no difference between a simple professional (who is nothing more than an inexperienced hero) or a hero. And with the different multi-class rules prestige classes are not so common (or needed) as they are in D&D.

 

[Clovenhoof]

Are there, in fact, any Prestige Classes at all in Conan? I haven't seen a single one yet -- and I don't think we need any, either.

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

I think I saw one in an issue of S&P.

 

[Diabolus]

There are a handful of PrCs actually, but none of them overpowered (and if they were, it was for the campaign's sake - i.e. the sorcerous societies in The Scrolls of Skelos like the Blaack Ring etc) and except for flavor's sake, with free multiclassing there's almost no reason to take one.

 

[sgstyrsky]

Are there, in fact, any Prestige Classes at all in Conan? I haven't seen a single one yet -- and I don't think we need any, either.

The Beastmaster from the recent Bestiary is a Prestige Class.

Signs and Portents had at least the Mercenary, Knight, Hyrkanian Skirmisher and Witchman of Hyperborea.

There's a few in Secrets of Skelos, Beyond Thunder River and the Stygia sourcebook. (I'm sure the other country sourcebooks have prestige classes, I just haven't read them.)

 

[Ichabod]

Shadizar has The Professional.

Messantia has Merchant Prince, House Agent, Agent of the Crown.

Aquilonia, Flower of the West has Gunderland Mercenary, Gunderland Pikeman, Poitainian Knight.

And, so forth.

I don't think there's a single prestige class that I've seen in any of the books that I'd want to play. If you come from a background where you learned to hate prestige classes, then this is probably something to be enthusiastic about. For me, I'd rather that instead of coming up with new classes with such limited usefulness that there was simply advice on how to advance characters to fill these specialized roles.