I agree with you that the creatures and NPCs in the books are barely a challenge for starting PCs (as long as they are combat optimized) while being laughable as a challenge to experienced PCs.
Hence I cooked up some homebrew rules to “level up” NPCs on the fly and put those in this thread.
Also, Talking to your players helps, as FrankF said above. After all, spending doom lets them have fun because they get to roll more dice and have better success levels while also ensuring that the fights will be a challenge… otoh you should assure them that you will be using this doom to make the game more challenging and not kill them outright. It would be easy to spend all the doom in the pile to incapacitate a PC on the first hit, provided he is unarmored, but don’t do that. I usually use doom only to “round up” vigor loss so a single wound is inflicted if it wouldn’t be otherwise.
In addition, use tactics and terrain as much as possible to give the PCs penalties. Defending at D 2 against an attack is bad, but defending at D 3 is almost guaranteed to fail against an opponent of similar strength.
And feel free to fiddle around with the Special abilities of creatures. It’s a way of giving them talents they lack that feel thematically appropriate without having to “climb” skill trees. Basically, every talent is open to them.
Make Threaten attacks. There is no Talent that saves the Doom for resisting Threaten attacks, so those will always generate Doom.
Use Complications or Doom spends to Disarm the character with the parrying weapon.
Break guard, set them against knife fighters after breaking Guard.
Most of those stats are - so my impression - more geared towards starting PCs, non-optimized ones (so no “combat monsters” with the Intense build or assassins with the stealth build).
Use more of them, make some more Minions to Toughened, give them a parrying weapon or shield so that they may be able to make a reaction. Give them weapons with qualities that limit or direct the follow up actions of the PCs like grappling or incendiary.
Have important fights going on in very cramped locations, where every weapon Reach over 1 will impose a +1 Difficulty on the attack (like inside of a ship, in a narrow sewer tunnel, etc.).
Give them a Toughened leader to form a Squad rolling 6d20, buy 3 additional d20s for Doom to roll 9d20. Make that as a second or third attack, starting with a Ranged attack by some other NPCs, then a Threaten attack by another one, and then rushing the combat monster with the 9d20 Squad for a third Reaction on the side of the PC, which will cost Doom as well as the Threaten attack defense.
That high TN means high Coordination and many skill ranks put into a single ability. So the characters will be weak in many, if not most, other skills. Put them into challenges where only being smart, having Lore, Craft or Linguistics will get them out alive. See how they squirm, hear the lamentation of the min-maxers.
If they have next to no Skills in other fields besides combat, then provide lots of challenges for those Skills. They will have to roll many unskilled, so 19 and 20 are Complications.
As above, stack up on Doom, attack decisively, use the Penetration spend for Doom or Momentum to ignore the Armor soak, give the NPCs Intense weapons. Kill your PCs.
If you apply Stun or Knockdown on a Mob or a Squad, you can simply declare one of their number as defeated, dead, running away, unconscious, and proceed with one fewer characters in the mob.
That is quite the contrast to my experiences. Minions are cheap, numerous, the most dangerous opponents for the attack. Yes, some PCs manage to dispatch mobs of Minions quite quickly, but don’t discount mobs with some armor, Intense, Piercing, grappling weapons etc. Minions are supposed to be threatening on the offense, but will and should go down quickly.
How many XP do your PCs in your group have?
What are their best Skills?
Where are their (probably broad) gaps in competency?
Thanks again for the advice, I will try to set up encounters following them, at least we are still testing.
How many XP do your PCs in your group have?
0. They are all starting PCs built with the character builder.
What are their best Skills?
Melee / Parry for most of them, Persuasion / Discipline for one of them
The attribute is 14, Focus 4 or 5. (Totaling to 18 or 19 as the Target Value).
Where are their (probably broad) gaps in competency?
Social Skills, Craft, Sailing, Thievery (in a thief campaign), basically Awareness and Intelligence Skills.
But if I look at their sheets, I can see that most of the secondary skills not important for combat at least have a focus of 1.
I already tried of course to put the challenge into other parts of the game and they also try to find other solutions than fighting. But with this almighty power in combat, they just question why they should use any other means but combat? Why level Thievery and Acrobatics if you can just march to the front gate of the Elephant Tower, kill every city guard alerted, every monster patrolling the gardens, and stare every wise old wizard to death before he can make a spell?
Why engage in discussions and social activity when they can simply call the mightiest king names, wait until his army shows up, and then spend an afternoon slaughtering every soldier in his service?
Why barter for anything if you simply can burn down the whole town and annihilate a tribe in a single night of fun and laughter and take what you want?
Why craft anything or sail a boat or ride an animal if you can simply force or persuade everyone in your surrounding to simply do what you want or be killed with no chance to defend?
I built a nice little cult for my campaign, set up an encounter with dozens of Minions, cult leaders, bolstered by unnatural forces. They simply sliced up the whole cult. No survivors. I think the whole fight took like 2 rounds until it got boring because it became only a question of how many minions can be slaughtered per round and pure mathematics so I skipped that part.
Yes, I could have brought in reinforcements, but I had no doom for that.
I could have brought in reinforcement by GM decision, but in a town where 1000 people live in total, by killing 100 cultists, you mathematically eradicated 10% of the whole population and even more, townfolks being cult members somewhat starts to be pretty unrealistic. So somehow reinforcements start to struggle with the suspension of disbelief.
Or another example was the Treasure House of Jaizin Kaa, this introductory adventure. There is a master thief called Bortae with Bodyguards and the ability to quickly get reinforcement. But even using the bodyguard from the Core manual and her stats from the adventure plus minion reinforcements, a single character could take them out while the others were holding his beer. It becomes unrealistic if a master thief in some shady pub has an army of 250 guys as reinforcement available.
Somehow I miss this feeling of having a realistic encounter, one really strong opponent that has the ability to at least win a duel. The fence in the back of the shady tavern, that has just two badass muscles by his side that can easily wipe you out of his turf. But being forced to have every single merchant guarding his wealth by a whole roman legion just to have the player characters take at least a weak to kill them all, is somewhat disturbing the balance.
Of course, they try to use other skills too, but as soon, as they fail: battle!
Well, the first thing to ask the players in this case, would be, imho, if they really want to play a n RPG or if they wouldn’t rather play Warhammer Fantasy Battles.
Also, Conan is at the same time the right system for continued comat encounters and absolutely the wrong system.Fortune points give players the option to move the story in the direction that they want. Fail in talking to one NPC? Spend a fortune point to find one more sympathetic to the cause… the storytelling options that gives me as a player makes me love this system.
Otoh, it is ridiculously easy to just slaughter your way through everything. The question is, is that what I want to do as a player? Normally that kinf of playing style gets kinda boring after a few encounters. But if it is what floats their boat, just string together combat encounter after combat encounter and let em wade through rivers of blood without more than a baseline of a story and see how long they enjoy it. And maybe afterward start a new campaing.
But there is also a drawback… If you as GM don’t want to run this sort of encounter, someone else has to step up and put up with this nonsense.
RPG are a cooperative experience, so just talk to your characters what they expect out of the game experiece. If it’s senseless slaughter, maybe ask them if one of them wants to take the helm because you obviously don’t.
And if they don’t want that, ask them why they are playing this way, then. It works sometimes.
The next question is, what is a realistic encounter and what kind of game are you playing. In my opinion, NPCs as presented are more or less all just cannon fodder (with a very few exceptions).
Conan is mostly presented as heroic fantasy. I take that to mean that one on one, very little is a realy challenge for the players, but they should feel threatened at worse odds against realistically similar opponents.
The fence in the backside of the shady tavern against the equivalent of of experienced warriors from all kinds of warrior cultures? Not realistic, unless he hired good muscle. Why should he do that? Because everyone has good muscle and he doens’t want to be on the receiving end of a spear. So, either the PCs are the big fish, or they are the same size as everyone else… again, it comes down to gaming preference. Talk it out beforehand.
The city guard on the other hand should have people that can make the PCs feel worried; city guard squads in my game are led by people with Attribute/skill combinations a little worse than the PCs, but backed up by their minions and reinforcements. The best knights in the land should still be able to wipe the floor with the PCs for a while after creation, with attribute/skill combinations just a bit higher and their retainers as minions.
Yes, I already asked them if we should switch to a mercenary campaign. There it makes sense if they slaughter whole armies.
The problem: combats are super boring for me. It degrades me to be a “ballistics calculator app” and just doing boring administrative stuff to find out if they need 5 or 6 rounds to slaughter the army is super boring. So I personally am not interested in such a campaign.
We come from D&D 5e and played it up to level 10. We all had a lot of fun because, on one hand, we had a very story-driven campaign with a lot of good roleplaying but on the other hand, we also enjoyed combat very much as it was an interesting tactics microgame within the roleplaying experience. The rules matched the suspension of disbelief of the gaming world very well and the rules emphasized the power and abilities of the characters a lot and so supported great roleplaying moments.
Plunging with a head start into Conan 2d20 now, maybe we applied our D&D experience to the game too much and thought that the rules would guide us through what this world allows characters to do and what not. But when we found out that without pulling a lot of tricks out of the hat, the characters can simply do everything they want with combat, we somewhat lost our guidance.
Regarding your second question about realistic encounters: at least Conan had some moments of hesitation and excitement before battles as he of course was confident but always had a sense of risk and danger to his fights. He was never sure he would not die and acted like this. Meanwhile the players are aware they are immortal and act like it. That is a difference. A hero is only a hero if he does something that could have consequences.
About the strongest knight in the kingdom: I did not find a single foe in the official sources that would represent this knight. And the city guards and sergeant presented in the materials can rush in in batallion strength and would stand no chance.
It was almost the same for my group when we started playing. As I said, it helps to talk stuff over.
While you can play exciting combat with Conan, it takes a bit more work for the GM to set it up beforehand, but it is easier to adjust on the fly than D&D. Also, I’ve grown to hat the sheer amount of stuff you need to keep in mind in D&D as a player and a gamemaster (amount of buffs, time till various buffs run out, number of special abilities, which stack nd which don’t and so on). You don’t have all that in Conan.
But you need to think more and faster on your feet. At its most boiled down, it is a storytelling system with better mechanics than most storytelling systems. It is not a miniature wargame disguised as an rpg.
So, if you cannot sell your players on the storytelling aspect, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, maybd D&D is the game for them.
OK, that is where you as the GM come in.
Take the knight from the p. 318 of the core book.
Use the Elite template from the rules I posted above and give him +3 to agility and +2 to coordination as well as +3 to combat and +2 to fortitude.
Without a lot of work, he now has an attack value of 17 with a crit range of 5 and a defensive value of 16 with a crit range of five.
Give him a few melee talents as suggested under the template.
Now, as he is the strongest knight in the kingdom, give him the following special abilities:
Stout: The best knight in the kingdom increases his armor value by 2. In addition, the amount of physical damage he needs to take to suffer a wound is 7 vigor
Swordmaster: The best knight in the kingdom is the absolute best sword in the kingdom. Whenever he rolls a crit, add three successes instead of 2
Reputation: the best knight in the kingdom has an absolutely terrifying reputation. all who face him in combat must make a Discipline check against a DC 4 or have their attack and defense difficulties raised by 2.
Stunning blow: all attacks by the best knight in the jingdom gain the stunning, vicious (2) and intense qualities.
Improved Defense: the best knight in the kingdom may make ripostes as per the talent; the first three reactions used for this do not cost doom. He never pays doom for defensive reactions.
And if it’s a real fight, he’ll bring his retainers, meaning 4 or 5 toughened knights using the veteran or elite templates (just without his special abilities), each squadded up with 4 minion men-at-arms (also veteran templates), one or two squads or mobs of ranged men-at-arms and his court-bard who provides morale soak.
Thank you.
Now I have a lot of input to try out for the next session.
Probably my approach to playing this game just as written in the books was wrong. It seems to need a lot of work from GM side to get it in the right direction. D&D probably spoiled us.
Having been a long-time player of D&D, I know the feeling. But, as I said, the freedom the domm and fortune mechanics offer the players and the GM alike make it worth the effort.
Besides, I like thinking up special abilities. And the system makes it easy. It basically all comes down to situationally either lower or raise difficulties, add dice, reroll dice or add more momentum or doom. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes really intuitive… and you don’t have to memorize as much as in D&D, which is a blessing 
But also, as I said, it’s my play style, so not necessarily for everybody.
I love to adopt new play styles. Just the books lack a little of making it easily accessible. But good there is a forum!
I try to find some actual play videos on YouTube to get an even better understanding of how it is meant to be played.
Just be careful with that — a lot of the ones I have seen have very “weak” interpretations of the rules and cut a lot of corners. Thing wrong with that of course, if that is what you want; I’m just saying that it may not necessarily be “how it is meant to be played”.
Also light entertainment 
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Robin…
That is quite a challenge in itself.
Many livestreaming GMs tend to provide an entertaining to watch or listen to session, not one that is solidly adhering to the rules.
And that is the case with Modiphius’ own livestreamed 2d20 sessions, too.
Usually, the less entertaining the setup of an actual play video is, the better the chances you might find all the - often boring or at least time consuming - rules chatter there.
If you are playing roleplaying games for an outside audience, such rules talk is not entertaining at all for anyone besides the actual players, while their characters’ lives are at stake.
Maybe it would be an idea for some Youtube or Twitch channel not to produce some story-oriented livestream entertainment, but some in depth rules explanation videos - in the form of a roleplaying session, but one where the rules mechanics are presented clearly each time they are applied. There are some rules explanation videos, but they only present the bare bones mechanics, so that you don’t see how they actually work during a session and how they effect the gameplay.
My recommendation, tough, would be to eschew those videos and participate as a player in one or several one-shot games other GMs, who are already well versed in this type of rules, run.
Every GM will, of course, use their own interpretation of the rules, put emphasis on certain elements, but you will learn a lot more this way how to run your own games, than be watching videos that run as long as your one-shot game would run.
I do that for most games I am not clear about the rules. I try to find a game to join, get acquainted with the game from the player’s perspective, and then run it myself.
Just throwing numbers at the group is going to result in combat monsters sweeping everything away which is fun for them sometimes.
There are numerous methods available to you:
- Bait and Switch: Wait, this is not the BBEG! THAT’S the BBEG!!!
- Cowardly horror who only strikes at the most inopportune time. (Like the Predator)
- Ambushes: Eg. Fodder → Ranged → Mounted
- Soldiers: Phalanx and tactical advances / retreats
- An experienced group of rival adventurers / mercenaries who are trying to get at the same thing the players are.
- Terrain ambushes.
A bait and switch is simple… Have a toughened draw the ire of your combat monsters, but then have an assassin sneak up and start decimating the group with some poisoned stabs on the healer / sorcerer / ranged player.
Cowardly horror: It attacks in a flurry of death and then attempts to escape as fast as it appeared if it doesn’t get the kill. Even worse, it will attack when the players engage other enemies, stealing away with its prey and requiring the players and maybe their on again, off again enemies to chase after it. When found, it will drop its prey and flee. This horror is insanely strong, but like a great white, it’s not interested in fighting it out.
Ambushes: Mercenaries create traps and the like. They then oipen up with ranged attacks. Combat monsters charge them and fall into the traps. Or, the mercenaries send in their fodder, before raining arrows down on both minion and player alike. They then attempt to finish the players off with their light cavalry. Etc etc. Mercenaries are often in direct opposition to the players and they are able to interdict in a feasible way.
Soldiers: If your players don’t flee at the sign of a well organized militia or trained soldiers, you’re doing something wrong, unless of course your players have 12000+ xp. Soldiers are never on their own and they assist each other with everything. Tactical retreats or advances. Phalanx tactics with cross bows. Large shield cover, etc etc. Soldiers are not savages. They are well trained, organized and decently equipped.
Rival adventurers: These groups are composed of characters that play to each other’s strengths. All of your players have halberds? Have this group shape the battlefield with well placed spells and hazards, and then have them work together to take a player down. One baddie with a shield and flail can break a player’s guard or knock them prone. His companion with the smaller weapons (dual wielding) can rush in with his bonus (1 or 2)d20 to attacks and lay on the pain.
If your baddies are not minions, have them use the terrain to funnel the players. Or have them retreat, and lure the players into a second ambush that has JUST been set up.
So many possibilities. Think logically about how decent combatants might think if they were not berserkers or picts of course. They would hit and run, hide, defend, ambush, etc. They could lure players into a house, close and barricade the doors and set the house on fire. Any players try to escape they could spear them as they came out one at a time.
Obviously if baddies are caught with their pants down and ambushed by the players, it’s a total wash. But yah… anyway.
Fascinating discussion here. I have felt the same way at times and I sympathise with Synapscape.
Here’s my two cents worth:
In a game I ran, one player optimised for combat and it made a HUGE difference. If 3 of your PCs are like that, its going to be a different experience because of that.
You say you played a lot of D and D before (as did we) and that suggests your players may have brought a bit of D and D mentality with them. Try starting a new campaign, now you all know how it works.
Have a chat with your players about this, if you haven’t already. We had quite a few such discussions in our group, as well as playing a few one-offs with different PCs ( to learn the rules) and ultimately, I was lucky my players decided that they wanted A FUN GAME and wouldn’t all try to just power-game. Ultimately, you need a bit of buy-in from your players.
My player suggested that Toughened NPCs should get 3 Wounds, not 2. This is because one of them uses a Battle-axe, which turns out to be a bit OP. That combo of Vicious and Intense is a big deal. So Toughened become close to Minions for him. I did what he suggested and it means those encounters last just long enough for the NPC to get in maybe a hit before they buy it.
Once you put a wound on a PC, they begin the ‘death-spiral’ as they take penalties, and everything gets harder. So do it early on.
Use SPIDERS. Their poison is very effective as it sticks around and continues after the bite. Use Doom on their attack for the Momentum, which they makes it last longer.
Don’t spend Doom for traps (as FrankF says) if they’re part of the build - only if you add them to spice up the combat. I feel this is in the spirit of the game. I use it to collapse floors or ceilings during combats. I apply the same rule to ambushes - technically, there isn’t a combat until the ambush takes place, so PCs get a chance to spot them (opposed) and if they fail, the NPCs go first.
Give locations Doom pools of their own.
Darkness is effective. Use Doom to smash those lanterns.
Water is deadly. PCs can drown much more easily in Conan than in D and D: I almost caused a TPK with a shipwreck.
Use the same rules for NPCs as the players use for PCs. Especially use Exploit.
I sowed NPCs into my campaign early on, to develop as the PCs did. I did it for my own training, at the time, but as I advance the local sorcerer’s bodyguard in time with the PCs, I have learned quite a bit. And I now have at least one NPC who IS a match for the PC combat monster and I will make others in his image. Use a stat block from the Core book and then advance them using Talents. Such combats are very satisfying, because the PCs can SEE the rules behind the actions: they know what the threat is and it makes a nice climactic scene - especially with an established NPC.
I like the ‘Horrors of Hyboria’ book for creating more advanced monsters of your own.
Don’t give up.
One thing that I have attempted from time to time for major NPC’s was to give a talent for each rank in the stat block. This was usually wasted time for social ones early on but I have enjoyed that level up process to develop the character in my head prior to the session.
fun fact, i translated original conan the barbarian series and tried o sell on amazon. nobody buying 
