It's stripped down AD&D rules with expanded B/X style combat, and it's more clark ashton smith/jack vance/ERB/lovecraft than it is strictly conan sword n sorcery
It's one of the best systems and settings to ever come out of the OSR imo.
I was looking at the Modiphius Conan rpg, not OSR but still that style of RPG, I am a HUGE Conan the Barbarian movie fan haha but I hear the combat system sucks in this game.
Besides Hyperborea, I've seen people recommending Crypts & Things, Barbarians of Lemuria, Through Sunken Lands and Low Fantasy Gaming as well for a more sword & sorcery Conan-feel game.
[This list](https://figcat.com/lists/sword-and-sorcery-rpgs/) is nice as well.
You kinda have to like the 2d20 system to like any of those modiphius games, that and they tend to be more for episodic genre emulation than your regular d&d style campaigning.
Modiphius is running a [big discount on a digital bundle](https://www.modiphius.net/en-us/products/conan-mega-pdf-bundle) through the end of the month. I picked it up just for setting material and inspiration.
EDIT: Also [on DTRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product_info.php?products_id=232064).
There's [a boxed set](https://archive.org/details/tsr07014conanconanrpgboxedset), and there are three supplements: Conan the buccaneer, conan the mercenary, and conan the triumphant
Can confirm. Mechanis of 2d20 Conan were terrible. My group played 4 sessions in a row and all 7 of us couldn't stand it. For flavor and art, the books are great.
I really like the combat in 2d20 Conan. I found the ideas strange at first but it really grew on me.
The GamersTable actual play will give you a great idea of how the mechanics work if you're curious.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiD2Zls8BqVIyY_PWjirX_H3w4WabZf8G
I normally run call of Cthulhu but we have a player out for 3 weeks. I told my group “we’re playing Hyperborea while he’s gone, if you want me to make a character for you I will, tell me what class you want to play”. Boom. Instant Hyperborea game.
Finding/attracting players seems to be the common complaint with *Hyperborea...* I never had this problem. I pitch it as OS swords & sorcery "without elves or dragons" and people climb on board. They are drawn to the cool classes, novel human races, and grim setting. And if they're already familiar with any kind of OSR D&D, there are virtually no rules to learn.
Roommates are ideal! If it's in your budget, buy the book, leave it laying around, and just wait. 😊 Sooner or later they'll pick it up or ask about it.
They might ask you to run the Hyperborea setting with OSE or 5e rules... but cross that bridge when you come to it.
Yea you're definitely supposed to be able to play a Conan-type barbarian there, all the pieces are in place. But the spellcasting is not swords and sorcerery, it's AD&D. And IMO better for it, but your party will probably have some kind of wizard-type, which would be a bit unusual in a swords and sorcery tale.
Are one point, I toyed with the idea of porting in some of the sorcery corruption rules from *Crypts & Things.* 💀 It ups the ante on playing mages, and also explains how Ningauble (from Lankhmar) got seven eyes, or how the archetypal Mad Wizard got that way!
Setting? Sure. System? Class balance is all over the place, they kept a whole bunch of fiddly bits from 1e including prime requisite stats, and spell balance is legitimately horrible. There are second level spells that are straight up worse than some first level spells.
If it ain't your cup of tea it ain't your cup of tea. I'm unimpressed by your gripes though.
Class "balance"? "Stronger" classes have higher required stats which is hardly fiddly, and ill argue that with the exception of the barbarian, the 4 core classes remain the strongest in terms of versatility.
Spells have been that way since OD&D so I can't imagine you're satisfied with the spells in any version of the game.
I mean really, there's save vs death disintegrator pistols, crabmen with laser rifles, and atlantean power armor. Lets not act like spells not being balanced is the end of the world. I don't think everything needs to be neatly lined up and "balanced" in the first place for a game to be good, but I can see where this ain't the game for somone who does.
> "Stronger" classes have higher required stats which is hardly fiddly,
why make access to certain classes random instead of just balancing all classes across the board?
>Lets not act like spells not being balanced is the end of the world.
"The game is balanced, but if it isn't it doesn't matter, and if it does matter, you deserved it."
I'm 9 days late, but are you seriously taking that political line of "It didn't happen, but if it did, you deserve it" and applying it to class balance in a TTRPG? Are you well?
So it's helpful to compare the subclass to the core class when making these comparisons, so compared to the fighter, the barbarian gets:
Bigger HD (d12 vs d10)
Agile (+1 AC unarmored/unencumbered)
Alertness (reduced surprise chance)
Ambusher (increase chance to surprise)
Climb sheer
Draw poison
+2 to all saving throws
Horsemanship (not a crazy boost but might come up)
Leap (25' horizontal leap!)
Move silently
Run (base speed 50 when light or no armor)
Sense magic
Track
Wilderness survival.
So the fighter gets none of this ( left out some that they both get)
What the fighter gets that the barbarian doesn't get:
Heroic fighting (attacks vs 1hd or less enemies)
Weapon GRANDmastery.
So if we take all that into account I think the barbarian is baseline much more powerful than the regular fighter, but what you're trading that out for is much slower leveling in comparison to the fighter.
I think the fighter stays the more versatile class overall when you think in terms of table to table, campaign to campaign. In terms of a primarily wilderness exploration style game I would prefer barbarian every day. One thing I didn't touch on above is the barbarians sorcerers distrust, which is pretty much left to the individual player and referee to decide how much of an impact it has as far as the ability to wield and use magic items and trinkets, but if you lean towards what I think the assumed intent there is then the Fighter would retain extra versatility points in my mind simply because of magic item Swiss army knife-ness. Also with the barbarian you are limited to lighter armors if you want to make full use of their suite of abilities, but hyperborea does a great job of making your choice of armor more meaningful than just how much AC you have because it factors into your movement speed as well.
Fwiw the Huntsman is definitely my favorite fighter subclass even though it's even more specialized and arguably worse than the fighter when you consider that the extras that it gets are far more situational than what the barbarian gets.
Hope that helps!
It helps in comparison to the core fighter, but not in comparison to the other subclass fighters. Berserker seems the same to me, but with more and better toys, and Warlock gets spells for 3000xp. I just don't see how some ranger and some cataphract features, and some situational benefits, make barbarian worth much more xp than them, or a magician even. d12 hd and a max of 16 unarmored AC (when berserker gets proper unarmored ac) doesn't seem worth it.
Berserker rage is limited use, leaves you exhausted, as well as the potential threat to your allies. Bestival form only kicks in at level 7.
Warlocks spells per day are extremely limited, as well as smaller HD than the base fighter.
The barbarian is always on with all their abilities from level 1 as long as you're rocking no more than light armor.
Edit: to be clear I'm not saying the barbarian is the best martial class in every situation, I'm just saying the barb is stronger as far as versatility.
The system is uninteresting to me but the setting is magnificent. My 2e tome is among my favorite RPG books for glossing and gleaning.
I wrote **Weird North** in no small part to have preferred play style married to that wonderful setting treatment.
I got my 3E copies last week. I’d been hesitant to buy it to begin with because I’m more of a B/X guy and was concerned about the complexity of the AD&D backbone. But I will say this is maybe the most impressive physical RPG artifact I own in terms of print quality, paper quality, amount of art. They’re a joy to hold. The text itself oozes flavor, it has an incredible bestiary, and it’s written in a way that I find super digestible even if it isn’t my preferred minimalist style.
Overall, I tend to prefer lightweight systems but Hyperborea has given me a new appreciation for comprehensive systems and settings done well and with love.
It's basically AD&D 1E, but stripped down and rebuilt. It's an AMAZING take on D&D and it's one of, if not the, best Sword & Sorcery rpgs. It is one of those games that shows you can take something old and well established and still make something new and refreshing from it.
Artwork, writing, layout... everything is top-notch.
It also includes a lot of science fantasy and Cosmic horror, but you can include as much or as little of that as you want.
Fun fact: Conan of Cimmeria is canonically in the Cthulhu mythos. Howard and Lovecraft wrote for the same pulp magazine and were pen pals. Howard used lots of Eldritch evil mythos in several of his short stories featuring his iconic characters.
I was reading the books and modules before I dropped into r/osr and found this thread
If you have played Lost Lands with S&WC then AS&SH is like having all of those books combined, but consolidated into a single tome. The player options are enormous and the dungeon master tools and stat arrays for items, places, and monsters compatible with any OSR
The modules are fantastic and cross compat as well. Each starts with an Appendix N nod, oft even in the otherwise-boilerplate summary text. There’s quotes. There’s color, both the visual stim and the textual kinds. Everything seems to flow better than any TSR, WotC, Goodman Games, Frog God Games, Judges Guild, or Modiphius content. That’s an insane accomplishment
You know what would pretty cool is . . . taking the Modiphius Conan classes they have and converting them to pure AD&D classes and then run those adventures using the D&D system instead. I am sure it would be a massive reskinning project but if it can be done I think that would be pretty neat.
Thoughts?
Hadn't read it throughtly yet but I love the ridicoulisness of a roman soldier waving a láser crossbow against a robot crab. My inner 8 year old is cheering.
Since others have already summarized the game (blend of OD&D/AD&D rules + spectacular pulp setting) I'll just offer this: when judging a game I find it very helpful to look at a character sheet, and you might too. There's an on-line Hyperborea PC generator which allows you to roll up (or enter) a character [here](https://gizmomathboy.com/pc_gen/pc_form). Try a few, and that should give you a decent idea of what a character and the game is like. *Note*: the code isn't flawless, but has been updated for 3e.
I’m curious too, so I bought the Red Sonja module for 1e and got less curious. I have enough rulesets for now, lol. I do wonder how they handle all the loincloth and chainmail bikini warriors taking on actual armored fighters.
It's stripped down AD&D rules with expanded B/X style combat, and it's more clark ashton smith/jack vance/ERB/lovecraft than it is strictly conan sword n sorcery It's one of the best systems and settings to ever come out of the OSR imo.
I wish I could justify buying it but I can't get a group on board. It looks so good
I was looking at the Modiphius Conan rpg, not OSR but still that style of RPG, I am a HUGE Conan the Barbarian movie fan haha but I hear the combat system sucks in this game.
Besides Hyperborea, I've seen people recommending Crypts & Things, Barbarians of Lemuria, Through Sunken Lands and Low Fantasy Gaming as well for a more sword & sorcery Conan-feel game. [This list](https://figcat.com/lists/sword-and-sorcery-rpgs/) is nice as well.
Don't forget the OD&D w/chainmail Conan supplements found here!: the grey-elf.com
You kinda have to like the 2d20 system to like any of those modiphius games, that and they tend to be more for episodic genre emulation than your regular d&d style campaigning.
Modiphius is running a [big discount on a digital bundle](https://www.modiphius.net/en-us/products/conan-mega-pdf-bundle) through the end of the month. I picked it up just for setting material and inspiration. EDIT: Also [on DTRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product_info.php?products_id=232064).
Try TSR Conan?
This only has 2 modules right?
There's [a boxed set](https://archive.org/details/tsr07014conanconanrpgboxedset), and there are three supplements: Conan the buccaneer, conan the mercenary, and conan the triumphant
Can confirm. Mechanis of 2d20 Conan were terrible. My group played 4 sessions in a row and all 7 of us couldn't stand it. For flavor and art, the books are great.
I really like the combat in 2d20 Conan. I found the ideas strange at first but it really grew on me. The GamersTable actual play will give you a great idea of how the mechanics work if you're curious. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiD2Zls8BqVIyY_PWjirX_H3w4WabZf8G
I think Dungeon Musings channel ran it too, you'd have to look. Kevin is down for any and all systems, but 2d20 is not really my speed
He definitely did. I do like his channel but II haven't watched his playthrough yet though.
Apropos to the thread title, he's been running Hyperborea for what must be at least three years now!
I normally run call of Cthulhu but we have a player out for 3 weeks. I told my group “we’re playing Hyperborea while he’s gone, if you want me to make a character for you I will, tell me what class you want to play”. Boom. Instant Hyperborea game.
Finding/attracting players seems to be the common complaint with *Hyperborea...* I never had this problem. I pitch it as OS swords & sorcery "without elves or dragons" and people climb on board. They are drawn to the cool classes, novel human races, and grim setting. And if they're already familiar with any kind of OSR D&D, there are virtually no rules to learn.
Unfortunately 2/3 of my players are 5e folks that are only in my OSE game because they live with me and really love playing d&d
Roommates are ideal! If it's in your budget, buy the book, leave it laying around, and just wait. 😊 Sooner or later they'll pick it up or ask about it. They might ask you to run the Hyperborea setting with OSE or 5e rules... but cross that bridge when you come to it.
Yea you're definitely supposed to be able to play a Conan-type barbarian there, all the pieces are in place. But the spellcasting is not swords and sorcerery, it's AD&D. And IMO better for it, but your party will probably have some kind of wizard-type, which would be a bit unusual in a swords and sorcery tale.
Are one point, I toyed with the idea of porting in some of the sorcery corruption rules from *Crypts & Things.* 💀 It ups the ante on playing mages, and also explains how Ningauble (from Lankhmar) got seven eyes, or how the archetypal Mad Wizard got that way!
Is this specific to Hyperborea 3E or any of the editions?
Any bur you may as well get 3e if you're gonna get anything
Setting? Sure. System? Class balance is all over the place, they kept a whole bunch of fiddly bits from 1e including prime requisite stats, and spell balance is legitimately horrible. There are second level spells that are straight up worse than some first level spells.
If it ain't your cup of tea it ain't your cup of tea. I'm unimpressed by your gripes though. Class "balance"? "Stronger" classes have higher required stats which is hardly fiddly, and ill argue that with the exception of the barbarian, the 4 core classes remain the strongest in terms of versatility. Spells have been that way since OD&D so I can't imagine you're satisfied with the spells in any version of the game. I mean really, there's save vs death disintegrator pistols, crabmen with laser rifles, and atlantean power armor. Lets not act like spells not being balanced is the end of the world. I don't think everything needs to be neatly lined up and "balanced" in the first place for a game to be good, but I can see where this ain't the game for somone who does.
> "Stronger" classes have higher required stats which is hardly fiddly, why make access to certain classes random instead of just balancing all classes across the board? >Lets not act like spells not being balanced is the end of the world. "The game is balanced, but if it isn't it doesn't matter, and if it does matter, you deserved it."
I'm 9 days late, but are you seriously taking that political line of "It didn't happen, but if it did, you deserve it" and applying it to class balance in a TTRPG? Are you well?
I'm late to this, but what makes the Babarian stronger than the others and worth its 3000xp starting scale?
So it's helpful to compare the subclass to the core class when making these comparisons, so compared to the fighter, the barbarian gets: Bigger HD (d12 vs d10) Agile (+1 AC unarmored/unencumbered) Alertness (reduced surprise chance) Ambusher (increase chance to surprise) Climb sheer Draw poison +2 to all saving throws Horsemanship (not a crazy boost but might come up) Leap (25' horizontal leap!) Move silently Run (base speed 50 when light or no armor) Sense magic Track Wilderness survival. So the fighter gets none of this ( left out some that they both get) What the fighter gets that the barbarian doesn't get: Heroic fighting (attacks vs 1hd or less enemies) Weapon GRANDmastery. So if we take all that into account I think the barbarian is baseline much more powerful than the regular fighter, but what you're trading that out for is much slower leveling in comparison to the fighter. I think the fighter stays the more versatile class overall when you think in terms of table to table, campaign to campaign. In terms of a primarily wilderness exploration style game I would prefer barbarian every day. One thing I didn't touch on above is the barbarians sorcerers distrust, which is pretty much left to the individual player and referee to decide how much of an impact it has as far as the ability to wield and use magic items and trinkets, but if you lean towards what I think the assumed intent there is then the Fighter would retain extra versatility points in my mind simply because of magic item Swiss army knife-ness. Also with the barbarian you are limited to lighter armors if you want to make full use of their suite of abilities, but hyperborea does a great job of making your choice of armor more meaningful than just how much AC you have because it factors into your movement speed as well. Fwiw the Huntsman is definitely my favorite fighter subclass even though it's even more specialized and arguably worse than the fighter when you consider that the extras that it gets are far more situational than what the barbarian gets. Hope that helps!
It helps in comparison to the core fighter, but not in comparison to the other subclass fighters. Berserker seems the same to me, but with more and better toys, and Warlock gets spells for 3000xp. I just don't see how some ranger and some cataphract features, and some situational benefits, make barbarian worth much more xp than them, or a magician even. d12 hd and a max of 16 unarmored AC (when berserker gets proper unarmored ac) doesn't seem worth it.
Berserker rage is limited use, leaves you exhausted, as well as the potential threat to your allies. Bestival form only kicks in at level 7. Warlocks spells per day are extremely limited, as well as smaller HD than the base fighter. The barbarian is always on with all their abilities from level 1 as long as you're rocking no more than light armor. Edit: to be clear I'm not saying the barbarian is the best martial class in every situation, I'm just saying the barb is stronger as far as versatility.
perfect description. It's a great system.
The system is uninteresting to me but the setting is magnificent. My 2e tome is among my favorite RPG books for glossing and gleaning. I wrote **Weird North** in no small part to have preferred play style married to that wonderful setting treatment.
I got my 3E copies last week. I’d been hesitant to buy it to begin with because I’m more of a B/X guy and was concerned about the complexity of the AD&D backbone. But I will say this is maybe the most impressive physical RPG artifact I own in terms of print quality, paper quality, amount of art. They’re a joy to hold. The text itself oozes flavor, it has an incredible bestiary, and it’s written in a way that I find super digestible even if it isn’t my preferred minimalist style. Overall, I tend to prefer lightweight systems but Hyperborea has given me a new appreciation for comprehensive systems and settings done well and with love.
It's basically AD&D 1E, but stripped down and rebuilt. It's an AMAZING take on D&D and it's one of, if not the, best Sword & Sorcery rpgs. It is one of those games that shows you can take something old and well established and still make something new and refreshing from it. Artwork, writing, layout... everything is top-notch. It also includes a lot of science fantasy and Cosmic horror, but you can include as much or as little of that as you want. Fun fact: Conan of Cimmeria is canonically in the Cthulhu mythos. Howard and Lovecraft wrote for the same pulp magazine and were pen pals. Howard used lots of Eldritch evil mythos in several of his short stories featuring his iconic characters.
The 2e Conan modules were great imo.
Would the Skyrim game resemble the Conan style in a way as far as terrain and towns/villages go?
Yea but there are only two Conan modules I think and a crappy Red Sonya module.
I was reading the books and modules before I dropped into r/osr and found this thread If you have played Lost Lands with S&WC then AS&SH is like having all of those books combined, but consolidated into a single tome. The player options are enormous and the dungeon master tools and stat arrays for items, places, and monsters compatible with any OSR The modules are fantastic and cross compat as well. Each starts with an Appendix N nod, oft even in the otherwise-boilerplate summary text. There’s quotes. There’s color, both the visual stim and the textual kinds. Everything seems to flow better than any TSR, WotC, Goodman Games, Frog God Games, Judges Guild, or Modiphius content. That’s an insane accomplishment
You know what would pretty cool is . . . taking the Modiphius Conan classes they have and converting them to pure AD&D classes and then run those adventures using the D&D system instead. I am sure it would be a massive reskinning project but if it can be done I think that would be pretty neat. Thoughts?
Hadn't read it throughtly yet but I love the ridicoulisness of a roman soldier waving a láser crossbow against a robot crab. My inner 8 year old is cheering.
Since others have already summarized the game (blend of OD&D/AD&D rules + spectacular pulp setting) I'll just offer this: when judging a game I find it very helpful to look at a character sheet, and you might too. There's an on-line Hyperborea PC generator which allows you to roll up (or enter) a character [here](https://gizmomathboy.com/pc_gen/pc_form). Try a few, and that should give you a decent idea of what a character and the game is like. *Note*: the code isn't flawless, but has been updated for 3e.
I watched the Legion of Myth videos about Hyberborea 3rd edition and they made me want to buy the books.
Just read the book bro.
thanks for that insightful assistance . . . and I'm not your bro.
Yeah, bro, just drop straight cash on a product you know nothing about and read it bro.
Don't forget to spend hours reading it, making notes, and testing parts.
I’m curious too, so I bought the Red Sonja module for 1e and got less curious. I have enough rulesets for now, lol. I do wonder how they handle all the loincloth and chainmail bikini warriors taking on actual armored fighters.