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There have been several capsule reviews of Conan so far, but I thought a play-test review would be a useful addition.
I recently ran a session of Conan for 6 players. We set the game at 12th level, so that we could try to use most of the special combat maneuvers, magic spells and special class abilities unique to the game. I will discuss the reactions we had to various features, focusing on how the game plays differently than a standard D&D 3.X game.
1. Class There are 8 classes in the game, of which four are similar to ones found in D&D: Barbarian, Thief (=Rogue), Borderer (=Ranger), and Soldier (=Fighter). The other four are a quite different: Noble, Pirate, Nomad and Scholar. I made up 9 pre-generated characters, one form each class and one spare soldier, since there was a possibility of up to 9 players showing up. 6 players actually did arrive, playing a Thief, Borderer, Noble, Pirate, Nomad and Scholar. Since they, for some bizarre reason, avoided the Barbarian and the 2 Soldiers (the three super-combat monsters), I allowed the noble to run one of the soldiers as an NPC retainer.
I cannot comment on the Barbarian class, but the Soldier class plays just like the D&D fighter, with the classic Power-Attack and Cleave combination making life difficult for the hordes of 4 HD enemies I threw at them. The NPC soldier in the party was really the heavy combat stalwart, and none could match him for dishing out hurting on a consistent basis. When he was paralyzed by a demon near the end of the adventure, the rest of the party was starting to sweat.
The Thief plays just like a D&D Rogue, except that with certain weapons, which he chooses at certain levels, his Sneak Attack bonus increases to d8’s instead of d6’s. The party thief was a bit hesitant about jumping into the fray, and so we didn’t see his combat potential to the degree we might have. When he did get into position for a Sneak Attack, the d8’s really started to pile up the damage. Out of combat, the trap sensing and deactivation works just like standard D&D.
The Borderer also plays a lot like a D&D ranger, our Border went for the archery combat style and was really a first rate combatant. Our Borderer was in his element. He was specialized for the forest and we were in the Pictish wilderness, doing battle with the savage woodland Picts. The Border was able to hunt down the Picts and do ferocious damage with his longbow. He was also able to elude the lower-level Picts and spy upon them undetected.
It does bear mentioning that very many of the classes in Conan have Two-Weapon fighting as a class ability, and it is even better in Conan than in D&D. If one uses a Light Weapon, then there is no penalty at all to attacks when one uses 2 weapons. This makes the two-weapon option for Borderers less appealing than the archery option.
The Pirate is Rogue-like in combat, relying on Sneak Attack to make his presence felt. But he has some additional abilities, like the gloriously named “Sail the Road of Blood and Slaughter” which allows him to make a coup de grace as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. He also has a ferocity attack that can be useful in making a quick kill and scaring the Jeepers out of your enemies. The pirate also gains the ability at high levels to move about, ignoring all attacks of opportunity. Coupling this maneuvering with his Sneak Attack, the pirate becomes a first rate combatant despite having a lesser BAB and smaller HD than a Soldier or Barbarian. Our Pirate player played his advantages to the hilt, jumping all around the battlefield, stabbing filthy landlubbers in the back.
The Nomad is like a ranger variant adapted to horsemanship on the deserts and plains. He gains an advantage in charging and generally can hold his own. In his element he should have some key edges, but even in the forest setting where we were, our Nomad player did just fine, cutting the head off a demon at one point to the roar of the crowds and the amusement of the children.
The Noble Class is a real keeper. His BAB is on par with the Thief and Pirate, not at the higher rate of the Soldier, Barbarian, Nomad and Borderer. Likewise he has d8 hit die instead of the better d10 of the brute squad. But, he is proficient in a wide variety of weaponry, and his wealth and family connections make it more likely for him to be wearing Plate Armor than most other classes. Plate Armor is very, very good (much better than in D&D) and only the Noble and Soldier can get away with wearing it without spending a feat on proficiency and without having to give up any of their neat class abilities—which for most classes require you to be wearing medium, light or no armor. So, our Noble, in plate armor, was able to wade into a horde of 4th level Pict barbarians and to emerge virtually unscathed (they might have grappled him down eventually, but it didn’t happen this night). But even better than the armor, are the various Social Abilities nobles get. We didn’t get to use “Smear Others” or “Savior Faire” that night, but the “Do You Know Who I Am?” came in mighty handy to browbeat a city gate guard when the party emerged filthy and ragged from a long trek overland.
The Scholar is a class that covers all magic-using types in the Conan world. He uses a Spell Point system (called Power Points) rather than a memorization system. The spells he knows come in groups, and acquiring them is more like acquiring chains of Feats than D&D spells. You need to learn the Basic Spell of a Sorcery Style before you learn the advanced spells, all of which have certain extra requirements. The thing about the Power Points is that you have a basic amount, but can temporarily gain 2 or 3 times that many, but to do so almost always involves sacrificing people. During our game the Nomad picked up an NPC girlfriend, and every few minutes, the Scholar would mention that he might need to sacrifice her if things got hairy. Of course we would remind the scholar about what happens whenever anyone tried to sacrifice the girlfriend in a Conan story…something about one foot of steel protruding from said sorcerer’s back…and he would calm down again. In short, the Scholar plays absolutely nothing like a D&D spell caster in any way whatsoever.
Our scholar really only cast 3 successful spells during the session. The first two were Mass Hypnosis, which caused 25 Picts to flee (for about an hour) and drained most of his power, and Raise Corpse, which he used to create 3 zombies to fight the Picts on their return. The third, the Incantation of Amalric’s Witchman, was the key to the whole adventure. At the climax of the session, the players were fighting the Monkey-God Hublux and were surely going to lose. They gave him their best shot and only did 5 points of damage (out of 200 HP for the creature). The spell, which he failed on his first attempt, turns a demon or god into a mortal creature, getting rid of its DR and making it subject to critical hits and sneak attacks. One the spell took hold; the Pirate burned a Fate Point on a Sneak Attack (allowing Maximum Damage) and killed the beast through Massive Damage save. But, imagine a D&D wizard going through several battles and casting only 3 spells and you begin to see the difference.
In Sum, I think everyone was well pleased by the classes. Nobody was saying, “man, my class just stinks, I wish I was one of those dudes.” The Borderer especially is looking forward to playing a borderer in our upcoming long-term campaign, where we start from first level. Judging by how many people say “rangers suck” in D&D, I’d say the Borderer must be an improvement.
2. Combat
There are several important changes in Combat in Conan. First of all, there are the Combat Maneuvers. These are such delightful things such as “Decapitating Slash” which allows you to cut off someone’s head on a critical, during an opportunity attack. This is really cool; our Nomad had Improved Critical with the Scimitar giving him a crit threat of 15-20. He managed to cut the head off of a demon during play, which was just great. Another Maneuver is “To the Hilt” which gives you a chance to drive your weapon into your opponent’s body and leave it there for lingering damage. Our noble did this to the Monkey God, and there was much rejoicing. I won’t go through them all, but they are a really beautiful part of the game and really spice things up. Whenever anyone got to use one, he was pleased as punch.
Armor is changed quite a bit. It provides DR vs. attacks instead of improving AC. “AC” is replaced with “DV” which goes up based on class rather than armor worn. This system is not without a problem or two. For one, Pictish hatchets and clubs were completely useless vs. plate armor. That may be okay, but those same weapons were also nearly useless vs. the noble’s horse. Horses have a DR of 6, and when your club and axe are doing 1d6’s and d8’s for damage, horsey has no worries. There seems to be some dispute as to whether there is a minimum of 1 point of damage after DR is subtracted or not. This dispute really needs to be cleared up in a hurry, as it makes a huge difference.
There are two ways to get around armor DR. The first is to bash through it, weapons can ignore one half of DR if the Armor Piercing factor of the weapon plus the character’s strength bonus are greater than the DR. We didn’t see much testing of this rule, since the Picts were unarmored, and the demons they fought later had high enough DR not to be threatened by the AP factors of the characters. Likewise the Picts’ weapons were unable to invoke AP vs. the players. The other way around armor is to Finesse it. Some weapons allow for DEX to be used instead of Strength for to hit bonus. If you exceed the DV of the target by a number equal to the DR of his armor, you manage to slip your blade into a crack, hole or open area of the armor and ignore the DR. We did see this used many times. The Picts were still unable to Finesse past the Noble’s plate armor, but they did manage to finesse past the Horse’s DR quite a few times. On the whole I don’t see the Armor changes as being too cumbersome, you will quickly recognize where one or the other method will apply and go from there.
One rule I liked a lot was the piling on rule. After the first person attacks a given target in a round, each subsequent attacker gets a cumulative +1 to hit (in addition to any flanking bonuses that may or may not apply). This made is possible for the Picts to get several Finesse hits vs. the Noble’s horse they might not otherwise have gotten. This in general will help the hordes of losers take on tougher guys to better effect.
