I was a huge kickstarter supporter and have been thrilled with this game from the start but still have issues figuring out Doom and Momentum. Its seems the rules are scattered around and difficult to grasp. Im still not sure if some expenditures are ok with just Momentum or Doom or both and which can be used before a roll, after a roll, more than once during a roll and so on.
Ive played a bit of Star Trek Adventures and its seems much more clear there. Is there a thread or discussion somewhere that can clear this up in Conan? Even the GM screen seems a little confusing in this regard.
On the player side, only those Momentum spends, that are designated as “Immediate” or often short “I”, can be substituted by generating Doom for the GM.
All other Momentum spends by players have to be made from Momentum generated by the current skill test or out of the Group Momentum pool.
I recommend joining a game (maybe online) of Conan 2d20 to see how it works in actual play. It gets much clearer than trying to figure it out by reading the rules book.
Moment is generated and spendable by PC and their allies (NPCs on their side).
Doom is a GM but doesn’t include allies of the players. A GM can use Doom to do must of the things momentum does and a lot more.
The thing on if an NPC use/generates doom as a PC ally got answered in a Modcon video or one of the other Modiphious videos when that question was asked.
If you can’t join a game online of Conan try watching some of the videos of it being run. They also have a few short videos that just showcase combat. Watching a playthrough of an actual game is how I learned how moment works and then running some sample combat.
Seth Skorkowsky did cheat sheet to help with moment spends that you can get here as the info isn’t all in one spot.
If Doom and Momentum spends give you some difficulty, I recommend a study of Ancient Ruins and Cursed Cities. Within you shall find examples of Doom and Momentum spends for different locales from which you can extrapolate further uses of them. There are also stats for Traps in that book.
I also suggest a read-through of the Decks pdfs you should have gotten. The rules in there are concise and well-written.
On a similar note, since you’re a Kickstarter backer, in Horrors of the Hyborian Age, study Mutations chapter to make your npcs unique.