What if Conan leaves d20 for anotehr system?

[rabindranath72]

Another in-house alternative might be Dragon Warrior. If it is as light as the 80's version, it could be a good engine for a Conan game.

 

[Trantor]

... then you should use Warhammer FRP Rules 1st edition (2nd got too sloww imho) for your battles - but the fatality rate will explode

I love it 8)

EDIT: actually, WFRP2e is not much slower than 1e, and is much more streamlined.

We played both in the last months - and the battles differ in their lenght. WFRP1 is 1hit=1dead or extreml wounded most of the time. WFRP2 is more like normal frp-games.

Ah yes, forgot to mention: We stay d20 Conan in every case. No buying of new Conan books not under the d20 logo here, except for GURPS of course. I have all Conan material from Mongoose (and SJGames), I don't want another system for it.

 

[The King]

Yes!
I really appreciate Conan more because of the setting than because of the rules. But I have also to face practical money problems: whether to spend money on un-necessary stuff (as Rpg books).
There are books which, even if you like the background material, are less useful if you do not use d20.
I'm speaking of Pirates Isles or Free Companies.
About 70% of the books are useless for non-d20 players.
Every book in the Hyboria's F series is for 60% useless for non-d20 players.

Sorry for the late answer. I don't agree with you on this point. The mechanics in Pirate Isles and Free Companies are suitable for almost any gaming system with a little work.
On the contrary the Hyboria's F series is totally dedicated to the actual system and of little use for another system.
Anyway it shouldn't be hard to convert the material between Conan D20 OGL and Conan RQ because there aren't much difference between a base-20 and a base-100 gaming system.

What I also wanted to underline when I wrote Conan fan's would play in this setting whatever the system is that most of the fans playing with the actual (OGL rules) also possess the older gaming adventures made for miscealanous systems (GURPS, AD&D 1st edition and The Conan RPG released by TSR in the 1980's).
Even Thulsa modified older AD&D modules to make them playable with the actual system.

I believe a gaming system isn't a fixed matter even if it may have its fan circles. So if Mongoose offers a system which is beginners friendly as well as still keeping up with the ambiance of the Hyborian Age and of Sword & Sorcery, then I think most Conan fan's will also adopt the new system or will still buy new books to adapt and convert to the older D20 (OGL) system.

Another consideration: I hope Mongoose will not propose two systems to be used in parallel system (as AEG did for Rokugan until a few years ago). The Background material was fantastic but the books were not well sold since customers stopped buying books which contain useless material (the stat blocks in the other system).

I don't believe Mongoose will do that mistake because it would be too hard to follow but may be they'll also propose some conversion rules with the new system.
So the question is: are you satisfied with the actual system? We already know the answer to this question from the posters on this forum who write how much they love or loath the actual rules, but even the lated still play in the Hyborian Age.

 

[warzen]

I believe a gaming system isn't a fixed matter even if it may have its fan circles. So if Mongoose offers a system with is beginners friendly as well as still keeping up with the ambiance of the Hyborian Age and of Sword & Sorcery, then I think most Conan fan's will also adopt the new system or will still buy new books to adapt and convert to the older D20 (OGL) system.

I fully agree with you ! What is important is we're all fan of the Hyborian Age.

W.

 

[Style]

Well, when you read an Howard story, you are not that immersed into tactics. It is all fast-flowing imagery. Not the sort of thing you get with d20, what with calculating positions, bonuses etc. Conan decides in split-seconds what to do. If a player gets the time to look at the map, position himself, look at the others, evaluate the best course for moving etc...When a combat lasts half an hour or more, you have not reproduced the feel of an Howardian fight at all. You may feel different, but for me, it is all about the immediateness and suspension of belief. And d20 is all except immediateness. YMMV of course, but rules light is the key for me.

...

Rules for me are the means to an end. If I can use an easier way of getting to that end, I prefer it.

Well said.

 

[LucaCherstich]

Everybody could have a different opinion but, regarding my experiences, my group of experienced d20 players have no problems in dealing with the different situations of d20 combat and combat goes on quite smoothly.
They do not limit themselves to just hit-damage rolls but do also other, more creative things. But we did never notice that combat was too slow.
Maybe it is just a matter of experience.
In general terms, regarding d20, this pool can tell us how much people love Conan RPG (modified d20/ogl).
I do not know how much this poll can be statisticaly significative but clearly the number of people who will stop buying Conan books in case of a change of system (2nd answer) are about double the people who will keep on buying them.
We all love the high level of detail and background in these wonderful Conan books but we all have real lifes and do not want to spend money on things we will never use (I have too many Rpg books I bought and never used in these years...).
On the other hand I'm sure that people who appreciate Conan rpg/d20 can be found even among those who chose the first answer (keep on buying books whatever the system).
Hail to the Conan rpg!

 

[Oly]

Everybody could have a different opinion but, regarding my experiences, my group of experienced d20 players have no problems in dealing with the different situations of d20 combat and combat goes on quite smoothly.
They do not limit themselves to just hit-damage rolls but do also other, more creative things. But we did never notice that combat was too slow.
Maybe it is just a matter of experience.

I wouldn't say that D20 is "too slow", if I thought it were I wouldn't use it, but it is definitely slower than many other systems both in combat and character creation or enhancement.

I would agree that combat does go "quite smoothly", but it takes experience for that to happen and even in a four player group with three D20 GMs in it there's a lot of book checking and reference card writing going on.

However I personally feel that the above issues are a "price" worth paying for having a detailed game system, which is what I wanted for Conan.

In some ideal world perhaps Conan would be dual system, with a crunchy rules heavy version and a light slick one. That way both sides of the market could be pleased. Though dual stat books tend not to fair well, players of either mechanic resent the space "wasted" by stat blocks they don't use. Many of what I feel are the "best" Conan books have been rules light and fluff heavy, perhaps the wasted stats could be kept to a minimum and everyone would be happy.

The Delta Green supplement for Call of Cthulhu was recently reprinted in a dual stat version and it really didn't suffer for it at all. It's also a good comparison as it combines D20, rules heavy and involved, with BRP, rules light(well compared to D20 anyway) and easy, in the same book. It too is what I would call a rules light book.

 

[warzen]

Everybody could have a different opinion but, regarding my experiences, my group of experienced d20 players have no problems in dealing with the different situations of d20 combat and combat goes on quite smoothly.
They do not limit themselves to just hit-damage rolls but do also other, more creative things. But we did never notice that combat was too slow.
Maybe it is just a matter of experience.

Or you're just lucky to like it the way it is.
Remember that the system is so broken that WoC had to accept it and they streamlined a lot of things to reduce combat lenght and make sure every challenging encounter can be played at any level in an hour max (I'm just telling what is written in the DD4 DMG).

W.

 

[The King]

Or you're just lucky to like it the way it is.
Remember that the system is so broken that WoC had to accept it and they streamlined a lot of things to reduce combat lenght and make sure every challenging encounter can be played at any level in an hour max (I'm just telling what is written in the DD4 DMG).
W.

Funny that. One hour for a fight is already long enough but D&D tends to offer several fights in an adventure (especially if one plays with the old and odd encounter tables).

 

[Clovenhoof]

The length of any combat varies greatly with tactics and, ultimately, luck with the dice. Last weekend we had a D&D session where the dice were totally jinxed, everyone kept rolling 1s, including the GM.
The player characters were levels 6,5,5,3 and the opposition about 16 Orcs with 18HP each (so they were level 3 or 4) and AC18. Normally it should have been a slayfest. But everyone kept missing, and when we only had killed a quarter of the Orcs after one hour at the table, the GM had the Orcs sound retreat to put an end to this sorry excuse of a battle.
We did try to use tactical options, but since these usually mean an attack penalty, we hit even less because the dice just weren't favourable.

 

[warzen]

Or you're just lucky to like it the way it is.
Remember that the system is so broken that WoC had to accept it and they streamlined a lot of things to reduce combat lenght and make sure every challenging encounter can be played at any level in an hour max (I'm just telling what is written in the DD4 DMG).
W.

Funny that. One hour for a fight is already long enough but D&D tends to offer several fights in an adventure (especially if one plays with the old and odd encounter tables).

Yes, one hour is already quiet long but DD3.5 fight at high level can be quiet longer than that. And so DD4 was aimed to keep it at one hour max (and also up the time to resolve a fight at the lowest level to nearly one hour).

Personnaly, I'm using Reign to play Conan and the fights are shorter than that.

W.

 

[DimitriX]

What I like most about Conan is the setting and the feel of the game world. Though I do like the magic system, I think the combat system could be streamlined better. Also, I'm finding that it's actually even more difficult to create an encounter for players using the Conan rules. I haven't found a way to easily figure out how many monsters and at what level I can use for a certain party size. I don't want to throw things that are too difficult for my players because then it is frustrating for them. But, if I create encounters that are too easy, then there is no challenge and no fun.

 

[The King]

The length of any combat varies greatly with tactics and, ultimately, luck with the dice. Last weekend we had a D&D session where the dice were totally jinxed, everyone kept rolling 1s, including the GM.
The player characters were levels 6,5,5,3 and the opposition about 16 Orcs with 18HP each (so they were level 3 or 4) and AC18. Normally it should have been a slayfest. But everyone kept missing, and when we only had killed a quarter of the Orcs after one hour at the table, the GM had the Orcs sound retreat to put an end to this sorry excuse of a battle.
We did try to use tactical options, but since these usually mean an attack penalty, we hit even less because the dice just weren't favourable.

When I played AD&D, this was often the case with unending fight. At the time though I didn't care but now I expect something more that an emphasize on fights even if they seem to be unavoidable in a Conan game.
But if Howard was only remember for the violent struggles in his short stories, I don't think he would have been appreciated for so long. This is where the Runequest system may have an advantage (though the Star Wars system isn't bad either due to hero and adventure points while the battles are still deadly if you want to push it too far (West End Games also released an Hercules & Xena RPG which is a slightly modified version of Star Wars).

 

[The King]

Personnaly, I'm using Reign to play Conan and the fights are shorter than that.

W.

I fear I don't know this game. What does it propose?

 

[Ichabod]

What I like most about Conan is the setting and the feel of the game world. Though I do like the magic system, I think the combat system could be streamlined better. Also, I'm finding that it's actually even more difficult to create an encounter for players using the Conan rules. I haven't found a way to easily figure out how many monsters and at what level I can use for a certain party size. I don't want to throw things that are too difficult for my players because then it is frustrating for them. But, if I create encounters that are too easy, then there is no challenge and no fun.

Several ways you can look at it:

1. Adjust the encounter while it's happening to try to balance it better.

2. Get to know the party's abilities really well and/or playtest combats before sessions. This has a huge time problem, obviously, for most people.

3. Figure that you'll have this same problem with a lot of systems and just learn from experience.

4. Sort of like 1. but a bit different is to have follow up to an encounter that's too easy or too difficult. Too easy and something else is around the corner, too hard and running away and coming back with better tactics is sound.

To some extent, the players can help. If something is easy, they may feel it and get cocky. If something is hard, they may become less stupid during the battle or run away, come back, and be less stupid.

I do think that balancing encounters without cheating by changing what's going on during them is incredibly difficult. Even for our group, where there's virtually no thought put into how to conduct a combat by the PCs to where PC ability should be highly predictable, there may be a blue moon and someone might use an actual tactic or a crummy arrow will crit or someone will remember all of the character's feats and equipment and spells for a change or somebody will get cocky and explode into negative hit pointdom.

As always, it's not just numbers and stat block strength, it's combat intelligence, i.e. tactics, matchups (we'll bombard you with arrows while you charge us and then we'll run away before you can use Genocidal Cleave), goals, and whatnot that affect encounters, especially combats. An encounter designed to beat the party should beat the party, even if there's no comparison in stat blocks.

For the most part, I don't see Conan being all that different, but there is massive damage saves and how to make for interesting fights where one PC can mow down all adjacent enemies every round. You can make enemies immune to massive damage, ones with ridiculous Fort saves, or you can create situations where massive damage either doesn't matter (horde of 1hp threats spread 10' or so apart) or is made much more difficult (grapple, ranged, find a way to take away 2h weapons). One thing I would avoid is having too much stuff that is immune to crits (thus, can't be Sneaked), it makes the high STR PAer even better and everyone else even more useless.

 

[DimitriX]

Several ways you can look at it:

1. Adjust the encounter while it's happening to try to balance it better.

2. Get to know the party's abilities really well and/or playtest combats before sessions. This has a huge time problem, obviously, for most people.

3. Figure that you'll have this same problem with a lot of systems and just learn from experience.

4. Sort of like 1. but a bit different is to have follow up to an encounter that's too easy or too difficult. Too easy and something else is around the corner, too hard and running away and coming back with better tactics is sound.

To some extent, the players can help. If something is easy, they may feel it and get cocky. If something is hard, they may become less stupid during the battle or run away, come back, and be less stupid.

I do think that balancing encounters without cheating by changing what's going on during them is incredibly difficult. Even for our group, where there's virtually no thought put into how to conduct a combat by the PCs to where PC ability should be highly predictable, there may be a blue moon and someone might use an actual tactic or a crummy arrow will crit or someone will remember all of the character's feats and equipment and spells for a change or somebody will get cocky and explode into negative hit pointdom.

As always, it's not just numbers and stat block strength, it's combat intelligence, i.e. tactics, matchups (we'll bombard you with arrows while you charge us and then we'll run away before you can use Genocidal Cleave), goals, and whatnot that affect encounters, especially combats. An encounter designed to beat the party should beat the party, even if there's no comparison in stat blocks.

For the most part, I don't see Conan being all that different, but there is massive damage saves and how to make for interesting fights where one PC can mow down all adjacent enemies every round. You can make enemies immune to massive damage, ones with ridiculous Fort saves, or you can create situations where massive damage either doesn't matter (horde of 1hp threats spread 10' or so apart) or is made much more difficult (grapple, ranged, find a way to take away 2h weapons). One thing I would avoid is having too much stuff that is immune to crits (thus, can't be Sneaked), it makes the high STR PAer even better and everyone else even more useless.

Yeah, this is the one thing that I like about 4e DnD. It's very easy to run as a DM. I wouldn't mind running games, but I just don't have the time to do put this much thought into setting up encounters. I would rather spend my time and energy thinking about story elements, role playing possibilities, and NPC motivations. This is the main reason why I would like to see a 4e version of Conan. If there was just a way to keep the flexibility of the magic and combat system, then it would be fine.

I remember in the 3.5 DMG that there was a chart that broke down the number of monsters relative to their CRs that would work against different levels of PCs. Is there anything like that for Conan?

 

[pasuuli]

Conan isn't just for gaming in Hyboria for me. It's THE RPG baseline for ALL of my fantasy RPG gaming. Through the beauty of the OGL & d20 license, if I'm running a game outside of Hyboria, I have my OGL library to pick and choose what goes into that game.

I find myself echoing these sentiments. I am just a casual gamer, and I don't have the budget or time to learn new systems, so the systems I know are the ones I use.

So when it comes time to crack open a Conanic setting, I may use material for background, but the rules will be from the games I already know.


Frankly, I think altering the core mechanics in a RuneQuest-ish direction would benefit the game greatly -- even for current Conan lovers. At the same time, I believe there are parts of the game which should be preserved. And finally, as an innovation, I think creating a lifepath generation system would be awesome for Conan.

So my Frankensteinien preference would be a percentile Conan, with the d20 layerings of classes and skills, the magic system, feats and abilities preserved, i.e. certain distinctive rules of the game retained -- character customization is a key strategy and strength of d20 games -- and an optional lifepath character creation sequence. As a previous poster mentioned, a RQ-based system could even adapt easily to the d20 edition. I note that the magic system appears to be compatible with RQ's (well RQ3 at least... it's quite easy to graft a magic system onto RQ), though it has unique elements which must be kept and ported over.

 

[Trantor]

<snip> Also, I'm finding that it's actually even more difficult to create an encounter for players using the Conan rules. I haven't found a way to easily figure out how many monsters and at what level I can use for a certain party size. I don't want to throw things that are too difficult for my players because then it is frustrating for them. But, if I create encounters that are too easy, then there is no challenge and no fun.

One of the largest advantages of Class/Level Games is that you can adjust encounters easy, compared to classless systems like GURPS, RuneQuest or similar. I played both and a lot other classless systems a very very long time and creating fair encounters without adjusting them on the fly while playing is nearly impossible. That was the one reason that brought me to d20 / D&D / Conan - though I love(!) GURPS, RQ and the other systems.

 

[pasuuli]

One of the largest advantages of Class/Level Games is that you can adjust encounters easy, compared to classless systems like GURPS, RuneQuest or similar. I played both and a lot other classless systems a very very long time and creating fair encounters without adjusting them on the fly while playing is nearly impossible.

Largely you have to do it through the equipment and skill load-out of the player characters. That's basically what "level" is shorthand for (including hit points of course). Match equipment for equipment, skill for skill.

 

[Ichabod]

Yeah, this is the one thing that I like about 4e DnD. It's very easy to run as a DM. I wouldn't mind running games, but I just don't have the time to do put this much thought into setting up encounters. I would rather spend my time and energy thinking about story elements, role playing possibilities, and NPC motivations. This is the main reason why I would like to see a 4e version of Conan. If there was just a way to keep the flexibility of the magic and combat system, then it would be fine.

I remember in the 3.5 DMG that there was a chart that broke down the number of monsters relative to their CRs that would work against different levels of PCs. Is there anything like that for Conan?

I don't see any particular reason why there couldn't be CRs in Conan. It's still d20 we are talking about, so it's still a tactical wargame we are talking about. Now, 3.5 is more mechanical than Conan to a degree. 4E is clearly just a videogame where the whole point seems to be how to pen and paper WoW (or, I like to think, Gauntlet for those old enough to get the reference as WoW at least has some fantasy flavor), so balancing it is far easier than the norm for a RPG.

As to levels providing benchmarks, I don't see that working all that well with monsters, hordes, or in a number of other situations. Whether you give a baddie Power Attack or not has a huge impact on combat. Whether a baddie has a free grapple and 20+ STR has a huge impact. Whether you set (enough) archers at a decent range with some sort of impediment to closing and annihilating has a huge impact. How you interpret the use of sorcery has a huge impact. Etc.