The Scholar Class: PC or NPC only?

[Mark Dunder]

From The Hour of the Dragon,

"A fierce cry rang out as a priest leaped with a flicker of steel. Before he could strike, a scaly staff licked out and touched his breast, and he fell as a dead man falls. In an instant the mummies were staring down on a scene of blood and horror. Curved knives flashed and crimsoned, snaky staffs licked in and out, and whenever they touched a man, that man screamed and died.
At the first stroke Conan had bounded up and was racing down the stairs. He caught only glimpses of that brief, fiendish fight--saw men swaying, locked in battle and streaming blood; saw on Khitan, fairly hacked to pieces, yet still on his feet and dealing death, when Thutothmes smote him on the breast with his open empty hand, and he dropped dead, though naked steel had not been enough to destroy his unbcanny vitality."

If the Scholar is what is used to create a Priest, he had better know something about fighting, is all I can say about that.
[/quote]

 

[Damien]

Scholars crop up frequency as both NPCs and PCs in my games. Since the Scholar doesn't have to use sorcery - it's open to being used to create a variety of different characters, rather than just the typical bad-guy.

One of my more recent games had a player with a Scholar character that was a lesser noble/merchant type of character, thrust into a world of terror and blood rather suddenly. That was fun.


All told I think I've GMed 20 or so Scholars, though I think only 5 of them were sorcerers.

My major 'house rule' is that you have to understand a class in order to play it. If you want to play a scholar that uses magic - you need to understand how that 'role' is filled in Hyboria (as opposed to, say, how it's filled in D&D). So long as you know what you're doing - play whatever you want, within reason and the guidelines of the particular session.

 

[Decurio]

Damien, you bring up a good point; almost without exception, my PC scholars have been sorcerers; noone has ever run a non-sorcerous scholar, although that would be interesting...how did they work out in your campaign?

Zul Daire, the players in my campaign who like playing sorcerous scholars quickly picked up on the Stygian racial bonus with the stygian bow, so I've had a stygian sorceress running around pincushioning people. :twisted:

Now, the idea of running a Conan campaign as an all-scholar sorcerous coven just ROCKS ON TOAST! I'd love to play in that...too bad I always seem to GM.

 

[Damien]

Damien, you bring up a good point; almost without exception, my PC scholars have been sorcerers; noone has ever run a non-sorcerous scholar, although that would be interesting...how did they work out in your campaign?

They worked out extremely well. It's very important that a non-Sorcerer Scholar player to understand exactly what he's getting himself into, as he won't be a superior combatant. His role will be more of a strictly roleplaying one - a sage and wiseman, or cunning noble, rather than as a war-hardened psychopath. And it's just as important that the GM make sure that he gets a chance to shine as much as the Barbarian and Soldier do while they're splitting people's skulls in two.

But, in my experience, non-sorcerer Scholars make really interesting characters, and those who have chosen to play such characters have mostly said they enjoyed the experience.

 

[Zul Daire]

Here out I am discouraging the scholar class for new characters unless someone really really wants to play one.

I guess I spoke to soon as I did not think of the non magical routes a player may want to take with the scholar class. No one has shown any interest yet either but we have still been using our first generation characters.

Some cool possibilities

 

[Zul Daire]

Now, the idea of running a Conan campaign as an all-scholar sorcerous coven just ROCKS ON TOAST! I'd love to play in that...too bad I always seem to GM.

The Khitian's in Hour of the Dragon are a perfect example. Hell players could invent their God of belief system. This would be a blast.

 

[GimpCowKing]

i remember one of the groups i was with, over half of us were sorcerous scholars. we managed to pull off being a troupe of wandering bards (two flutists, a violinist, a "dancer" and two women) which went over pretty well, so long as you didnt talk with my character personaly, who was actualy the only one in the group who had seen darkness and made the decision to persue its research.

ive seen a lot of magical non corrupt scholars as well, even in the conan universe; or good to the point the society allows. the theives guild and their diviners; the barbarian tribes and their shamans, druids, and hermits;even mitrans, who hate sorcery have their exorcists, witch hunters, and some magicaly tuned priests; i mean to hate sorcery, one has to know it right?

the only destructive sorcerous scholars ive ever been in a game with have been stygians, (and two kothians but thats irrelivant)even then, no one formed a demonic pact with anyone, or at any time tried to summon anything

 

[Damien]

I take it your games are seriously outside the realm of 'conventional Hyboria?'

 

[Mark Dunder]

I can only see a priest of Set as an NPC. I've never had anyone wanting to play a priest. None of the adventures I've used called for one.

Maybe a solo adventure for a priest of Set trying to get the Heart of Ahriman! Make a temple with a labyrinth underneath?

Worth a try.

 

[Damien]

I can think of quite a few Conan-esque adventure ideas that could/would involve a priest.

 

[Mark Dunder]

I like having priests available or involved in the background at least. I would like to see more players being priests, but Conan being Conan, they just want to hack and slash and steal things. I wonder about which stories they've read. I know they've seen the movies, and those sucked, IMO.

Do you know if there is an adventure base on The Hour of the Dragon? There are at least three priestly orders and one infered through Zelata.

Anyway, I plan to build an adventure around a temple with lots of priests involved, and I mean for a least one player to be a priest. But that may be a month away.

 

[Damien]

I like having priests available or involved in the background at least. I would like to see more players being priests, but Conan being Conan, they just want to hack and slash and steal things.

1.) How can you decide what you'd like to see more players playing if you don't even own the books - haven't even played the game? Do you have spies all over the world reporting to you on what people are playing?

2.) Of the 20-some-odd Scholars that have been Player Characters in my games, at least 6 or 7 of them were Priests. I've had more Priests than Pirates.

 

[Mark Dunder]

Watcha on about Damien? I'm speaking of my games. I'm glad you are so prolific in players, cudos for you.

 

[Damien]

Your games? You don't even the books yet! Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.


Besides the fact that what I said refutes, directly, your claim that all Conan players just want to 'hack and slash and steal things.'

 

[Mark Dunder]

I love you Damien, you are worth lots of laughs, you know that don'tcha?

I play TSR's Conan and the old AD&D. I realize I'm a bit dated, but do plan to catch up. D20 is D&D revised, updated, corrected, republished many times, pretends to be the epitome of RPGs, and has some virtue in creating good background material. But it has a legacy of a lot of rules and exceptions to those rules, and you have to be a Scholar to follow all that! Ha, I made a funny. IMO.

I own a lot of RPGs (in the hundreds), and I can tell you, there are a lot of excellent systems out there. I love Paranoia, and wouldn't change it, and am trying to buy all the books published. I have the original game, with it's skill trees, which I liked and miss. But they got it handle just fine.

You have an obsession that anyone that doesn't have the "latest" thing, hasn't a clue as to what's going on. I've played RPGs since 1977, I know a thing or two about them. So go wipe yourself off, and hope I don't have an incurable desease.

 

[Damien]

I play TSR's Conan and the old AD&D.

That might explain why no one in your game is playing Mongoose Publishing's Conan Scholars as priests, now wouldn't it?

I seriously can't believe you have the gall to base your opinion of a system on your experiences with a completely different system. That's.. painfully absurd.

I own a lot of RPGs (in the hundreds),

Hundreds? I think you're exaggerating, unless you're referring to RPG BOOKS and not SYSTEMS. I'm pretty sure there really -aren't- hundreds of systems.

You have an obsession that anyone that doesn't have the "latest" thing, hasn't a clue as to what's going on.

Hardly. I just have this funny little opposition to people whining about a game they have never played, and complaining about the name of a class they have never used, and then saying that they're justified because they play a completely different game and own many more. :roll:

 

[Mark Dunder]

Hundreds? I think you're exaggerating, unless you're referring to RPG BOOKS and not SYSTEMS. I'm pretty sure there really -aren't- hundreds of systems.

Wouldn't lie to you, my wife has the list on her computer. No, I rarely collect modules, I like to make them up myself. And no, I'm not counting all the books that fill one box up with everything I have on Traveller. I am talking about individual RPG systems. I'm not the only one who owns hundreds of RPGs. There's a few people on the web that make my collection look paltry by comparison. If you had been collecting games since 1971, you would have a lot too. My collection of board games number over 300 (these numbers may be more by now). I have one shed totally dedicated to my game collection. You can see my list (which is several year out of date) at:

http://www.dunder.com/gamers.html

 

[Mark Dunder]

Sheesh, I just took a look at that site myself. I need to really clean it up, and add more to it. But take a look at my Continent of Legend, talk about a hodgepodge of likely sounding names. Not too original.

 

[Damien]

I certainly don't have time to peruse the entire list right now, but just on a cursory glance there are quite a few on that list that aren't there own system. The "Fiend Folio" for example, is a D&D book, not a system unto itself.

That isn't to discredit your claim. Just to say that even just at a glance, that list could definitely be hundreds of books without being hundreds of systems.

 

[Raven Blackwell]

Don't mind Damien. He's appearently off his medication lately.

Back to the point- Scholars fill the role of Priests in the standard Conan game. If you check in the core rulebook you'll see that a first level Scholar has to pick one of four backgrounds. One of the four is a 'lay priest'- that is a person who serves a holy [or unholy] order but has not yet been fully ordained. There is a Priest Feat that represents someone who has been ordained but it provides only pay and benefits from the temple they work for and a bonus to social skills for those who respect the faith. It is one of the main sticking points of Howard's fiction that there may or may not be a supernatural force behind man's religions and thus no concrete supernatural benefits are given for serving a faith. Even the religious benefit of Faith provides a morale as opposed to supernatural bonus. In fact most priests in Howard's fiction are corrupt and use their religion to manipulate others to thier benefit though there are exceptions.