While Conan radiates more coolness than a dead rock star and is a solid and slick implementation of the d20 system, it's marred by poor proofreading, editing, and incompleteness (not to mention high price).
Post originally by Dan Davenport at 2004-03-05 09:44:54
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Nicely done. I especially liked the disclosure of your prior experience with the Conan stories. It really helped me understand the perspective you brought to the game.
Post originally by Smon at 2004-03-05 11:54:16
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I thought this was a pretty fair review, although personally I thought the art was fine, and the book is pretty fat as it stands - I didn't see a great need for NPC stats or more monsters or spells.
Personally I think it's a brilliant work marred by abysmal proofreading - Zalb.roso, Spellb.ooks, etc...
Post originally by J Harper at 2004-03-05 13:01:12
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Characters have the same leveling requirements as in D&D (ie, 1000 xp to hit second, 3000 xp for third and so on) but there are no challenge ratings per se. Essentially, it is up to the Game Master to decide how fast he wants the players to level. The recommended rule in the book is to let them level every two sessions or so until they hit 10th level then slow it down.
Post originally by tldenmark at 2004-03-05 13:05:17
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Frazetta did his best work on Conan, and reprint rights would have been worth it on this product.
I'm not fond of the art in this book, but the production value is excellent, and it does really capture the feel of hyperborea well.
I agree the spellcasting classes should have been divided into: scholar, sorceror, witch and priest. But then you can just grab those from another d20 sourcebook and toss them in I suppose.
Post originally by ChewyGranola at 2004-03-05 14:50:14
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Exactly how bad are the editing errors? I've heard that they are really nasty. In my opinion, if Im spending $50 for a book, it damn well better be near perfect. If the rumors of the typos are how prevalent they are is true, this is completely unacceptable. Wouldn't you think the publisher would invest some money in editing considering the license alone? One thread on this site mentioned a typo on just about every page.
Post originally by KC at 2004-03-05 15:00:25
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Actually, the company has apoligized and publicly announced changes to its business -- including two editors for each product. They are embarassed and rightly so.
As to how bad the errors are: the simple truth is that they in no way make the game unplayable. Are they annoying? Yes. Are there too many? Yes. Are they mostly typos or irrelevant to the rules? Yes. Should you buy the book and play the game? YES!
On the other hand, Mongoose has also announced that a 2nd printing is months away and will correct the mistakes. So you can always wait.
Today, they released a FAQ which resolves some of the problems in advance of the expected errata.
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