High Powered Magic 

In some S&S universe, magic appears very high powered indeed. In Michael Moorcock’s books for example, the gods themselves often intervene, and all sorts of potent magical artefacts are encountered.

If you look closely, you will notice that all of this mighty magic usually fulfils the role of a plot enabler, that is to say a thing that advances the storyline and swiftly vanishes to be forgotten about when this purpose is achieved. All of those ships that sail over land and sea, and direct divine interventions are usually simply a means of kick-starting plots or of getting our heroes where they need to go. Once this is achieved they are swiftly put on the back burner as the real low magic business of the plot begins. 

The stars must be right. This is another good example of a plot enabler. If you want to explain why the heroes cannot constantly be invoking a powerful entity once they rest the artefact that controls it from the hands of the villain, tell them that it can only be used when the proper conjunction of planes, planets and stars are in alignment and this only happens once ever 1003 years. Its also not a bad way of writing those spells and devices you have found to be overpowered for your campaign out of the script. Obviously they only functioned when the stars were right and now the stars have drifted into a different alignment.

Level Limits 

It has to be said that compared to many D&D characters, the heroes of S&S are not all that powerful. You may want to consider imposing a maximum level on the characters in your campaign. Level ten is a good one. Once the PCs reach this level, they can progress no further. They may retire to rule their fiefdoms or contemplate their long careers. Or they may continue in play, not progressing any further.

Why? This simulates the way most series work. Usually characters in books reach a plateau of power (one considerably less than a 20th level D&D character in many cases) and seem to stay there for adventure after adventure. This can be frustrating for players used to open ended progression but it does have the merit of allowing you to freeze the level of power where you want it to be and limiting the potentially catastrophic impact of god-like PC’s on an ostensibly realistic campaign. 

Styles 

There are various styles of Sword and Sorcery fiction which seem to model different levels of realism. Sometimes you can even find them within the same series or even story. There are times when Conan appears to be grittily realistic and there are times when he hews his way through small armies and ends up bleeding only from a few cuts and scratches. As mentioned above this is because writers are creating works of fiction and aren’t really bound by the constraints of a rule system. They can change their model of reality to suit what they want to achieve in their story. If truth be told so can you, but in general, for games, players usually do better with a clear set of guidelines about what they can and cannot do, how the world works and what they can expect to do in a combat and so on. 

When setting up your S&S campaign you should give some thought to what sort of world you are trying to create and the style of play you are trying to achieve. The various styles I can think of are:

Sword and Sorcery 

This is the default style for these rules. Players are tough, competent and powerful in the context of their world. Combat is dangerous but not as much as in the real world. Magic is available although not common. Use defence bonus and quick healing rules for combat. Taint levels are zero or below. You can mix and match whatever other rules you like. All monsters should have fearsome presence at the first encounter.