I have seen a couple of videos on creating Conan and was wondering other peoples thoughts on the matter.

I do agree it would be a multi-class of Barbarian, Rogue, and Fighter but, what would be the level splits and sub-classes be? Also, are you using the original movie or the books or both as inspiration? 

Whether you use movies or books, it’s safe to go with rogue/Barbarian multiclass.  Expertise in stealth and athletics are a must.  Maybe a homebrew rule about allowing a sneak attack with a two-handed weapon, perhaps sacrificing your second attack for using sneak attack with a 2h?

Gladiator background.

I was thinking 2 levels of Barbarian,7 or 8 levels of Rogue (Thief) 7 to get evasion or 8 to get ASI, the rest Fighter (Champion). I guess the splits could be different depending if you use the movie (kidnapped as a child= less Barbarian levels & more Fighter - Thief). I guess that is the way my splits work.

Thanks for the reply.

1 level barbarian for the AC

3 levels rogue 

rest in fighter champion 

I think duplicating an invincible sword fighter is the easy part.  The part that 5e is built NOT to do is to have a character be a one-man show, as Conan is.  Conan would pretty much have expertise in at least seven skills, he’s a proficient sailor of everything from canoes to warships, he speaks 10 languages, he has an unexpected facility for manipulation.  I mean, he steals stuff, but the only reason he needs Rogue levels at all is for the skills. So let’s say three levels of rogue just to get the Scout package.  He’s going to need the Skilled, Prodigy, and Linguist feats or else we’ll just have to fake it and say he picked those up during his downtime.

Well, clearly, but are we just throwing whatever numbers we like at a character sheet, or are we trying to use the 5e rules to replicate a non-5e character?  Because if we’re doing that, we have to put the puzzle pieces together in a certain order.

Thanks everyone. I know there is no way to replicate Conan exactly I just thought I would get some opinions how others would make a close copy.

Another question: What about race? V.Human or Goliath? To tell the truth I'm leaning to Goliath.

I guess my build is a combination of the movies and books

Barbarian 2 levels = unarmored defense, rage, reckless, and danger sense

Rogue (Thief) 7 or 8 levels = expertise(4 skills), climbing speed, uncanny dodge, evasion, and you may as well take it to level 8 so you don't loose a ASI or feat

Fighter (champion) the rest of the way. represents all the other skills he learned and improves chances of crits.

My thoughts on race...in the books his people are from the frozen North descendants of Atlantis. Goliaths have a few abilities that would replicate some of Conan's ..... stones endurance, ability to move heavy objects, etc.  V.Human gets another skill & language, also start with a feat (maybe mage slayer?)

It's Conan the Barbarian, so BARBARIAN of course.

I just finished a Conan build for a game where I finally can be a player in and not the DM

I went Half Orc

barbarian 1

rogue 3 

fighter Brute 11

two weapon fighting for sneaks and extra damage 

Conan and Elric are always my staring points when I get to actually be a player 

Most important is have fun, there’s so much entertainment in just running up attacking and dealing damage , pick whatever race you like and go sir, and when you kill the first enemy just yell your name! Then throw dice and pound your chest like a gorilla! 

Not necessarily. Barbarian is a cultural thing, not a class thing. Same for Rogue. Yes, Conan stole, but he didn't pick locks or disarm traps. All his rogue abilities came from skills and possibly the athlete feat. Same is true with the "barbarian" label. He is mostly a fighter. maybe a first level in barbarian for unarmored defense (he fights in a loin cloth often), but I won't bother with too many. Rogue levels mean sneak attack. Barbarian levels mean reckless attack and raging every combat. While he does rage sometimes, most of the time he is just fighting. Fighter levels mean ASIs and feats (although GWM and maybe Skilled are the only ones you need).  

My attempt at building Conan in D&D 5E:

Background - Far Traveler
Skill Proficiencies (Insight, Perception), Tool (Dice Set), Language* (Leave blank and manually add Chuchian on char sheet - Chuchian was a language spoken by the tribes of the Plain of Horses in the Hordelands)
Alignment (Neutral or Chaotic Good)

Abilities - Standard Array
STR (13), DEX (14), CON (15), INT (8), WIS (10), CHA (12)

Race - Variant Human
Language* (see Background), Feat (Alert), Ability (+1 STR, +1 CON), Skill (Athletics)

Class - Rogue, one level
Proficiencies (Acrobatics, Intimidation, Performance, Stealth)
Expertise (Athletics, Stealth)

Class - Barbarian, four levels
Primal Knowledge (Survival)
Primal Path (Totem Warrior, Bear)
Feat (Resilient Constitution)

Equipment
Armor (none), Weapons (Dagger, Handaxes, Javelins, Shortsword, GreatSword or GreatAxe)

Level 5

Rogue 1 / Barbarian 4

===

Planned Advancement
- One Level in Barbarian for 2nd attack (Level 5 Barbarian)
- Three Levels in Rogue for Feat or stat increase Str/Con (Level 4 Rogue)
- Eight Levels in Fighter (Champion) for Feats and stat increases in Str and Con (Level 8 Fighter)
- Three Level in Barbarian for Advantage on Initiative and Feat (Level 8 Barbarian)

Level 20
Rogue 4 / Barbarian 8 / Fighter 8

I think you get a 3rd +1 with varient human or choice of +2/+1, no?  You can have a +1 in dex or wis too, or a +2 to strength.  

One thing, just to throw my penny in... Conan was a great natural leader. Any build for him should have at least a 15 Charisma score. imho

I'm a bit late to this but if anyone is interested, there was an AD&D adventure called Conan Unleashed published in the 80's and it had Conan as the following:

Classes: Fighter 13, Thief 7

Ability scores: Str 18, Dex 18, Cons 18, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 17.

Hit points: 100.

Weapon Proficiencies: sword (all types), bow (all types), axe (all types), club, mace, dagger.

Secondary Skills: fletcher, forester, gambler, hunter, sailor, trapper.

Special: Conan is only surprised on a 1 in 8.

Equipment; leather armor, broad sword, dagger, 50 gp.

**

So you can port a lot of this over to 5e, ability scores are very high so would need an accomadating DM to let you run those, base class would be Fighter (likely Champion or Battlemaster) with a multiclass to Rogue (Thief), secondary skills could be the Outlander background with the Skilled feat picking up some tool proficiencies, he's likely also got the Alert feat but most surprisingly of all has almost no money and no magical items and weapon of choice would be a Longsword, given he's only got leather armour then he's got an AC of 15. I can't recall how HP was calculated way back when but based on the published module in 5e Conans hit point rolls were awful as 80 of those 100 hp would be from his Cons bonus meaning he would have rolled a 1 on every one of his 20 character level ups.

Quote from Rob76 >>

I can't recall how HP was calculated way back when but based on the published module in 5e Conans hit point rolls were awful as 80 of those 100 hp would be from his Cons bonus meaning he would have rolled a 1 on every one of his 20 character level ups.

 It was substantially different from now.

In 1E, you rolled your HP at first level, which given he was a Fighter 13/Thief 7 meant that he probably started as a thief and dual classed to fighter.  So that was seven levels of thief, which were 1d6+2 each because of the wonky way that Con bonuses were applied: Con of 15 gave +1 HP per level, 16 gave +2.  And only a fighter gained a benefit from a higher Con than that, +3 for a 17 and +4 for an 18.  And hit dice maxed out at 9th level.  That means he had 7d6+14 HP for being a thief, got no HP fro levels 1-7 as a fighter, then got 2d10+8 HP for fighter levels 8 and 9.  After that, he got a flat +3 HP per level for fighter levels 10-13.

Quote from 6thLyranGuard >>

Quote from Rob76 >>

I can't recall how HP was calculated way back when but based on the published module in 5e Conans hit point rolls were awful as 80 of those 100 hp would be from his Cons bonus meaning he would have rolled a 1 on every one of his 20 character level ups.

 It was substantially different from now.

In 1E, you rolled your HP at first level, which given he was a Fighter 13/Thief 7 meant that he probably started as a thief and dual classed to fighter.  So that was seven levels of thief, which were 1d6+2 each because of the wonky way that Con bonuses were applied: Con of 15 gave +1 HP per level, 16 gave +2.  And only a fighter gained a benefit from a higher Con than that, +3 for a 17 and +4 for an 18.  And hit dice maxed out at 9th level.  That means he had 7d6+14 HP for being a thief, got no HP fro levels 1-7 as a fighter, then got 2d10+4 HP for fighter levels 8 and 9.  After that, he got a flat +3 HP per level for fighter levels 10-13.

 Ah thats makes a bit more sense, it gives you a certain appreciation for how deadly the first couple of editions could be.

Yeah, especially given that 0 HP meant you were simply dead.  No death saves, no negative HP, you were just rolling up a new character.