AD&D Class Overviews

I wrote this up to give new players an overview of each of the AD&D classes. High level abilities aren't always included. In Segeo UI font, it fits cleanly on one page and is easily readable.

Note that the bard has been rewritten as a first level class. My games rarely make it that high, so I figured I would throw those players a bone and let them go for it right off the bat.

CHARACTER CLASSES

Bards, [ask for handout] (12 intelligence, 12 dexterity, 15 charisma) – Bards are wandering musicians and storytellers, combining combat, thievery, and magic. Bards can inspire allies and charm NPCs with their music, know a large number of languages, and have a knack for legends and lore, which may even allow them to identify certain magic items.

Cleric, pg 20 (9 wisdom; non-True Neutral alignment) - Clerics bear a certain resemblance to religious orders of knighthood of medieval times. They are skilled combatants but are forbidden by their religious codes from using edged and/or pointed weapons that shed blood. For their dedication, clerics are granted a number of protective/curative spells and the ability to turn away undead.

Druid, pg 20 (12 wisdom, 15 charisma; True Neutral alignment) – Druids are a sub-class of cleric that can be visualized as medieval cousins of what the ancient Celtic sect would have become had it survived the Roman conquest. While similar to the cleric’s, druid spells are more offensive in nature and attuned to the outdoors, but their spell casting ability power is spoiled by metal armor. They are limited to the club, dagger, dart, hammer, scimitar, sling, spear, and staff.

Fighter, pg 22 (9 strength, 7 constitution) – Fighters are the best all-around combatants, processing skill with many weapons and increasing quickly in level.

Paladin, pg 22 (12 strength, 9 intelligence, 13 wisdom, 9 constitution, 17 charisma; Lawful Good alignment) – A sub-class of fighter, paladins take on a strict code of conduct in exchange for the ability to detect evil at a distance of 60’, make all saving throws at +2, are immune to all forms of disease, may lay on hands to cure 2 hp per level each day, cure disease once per week per 5 experience levels, and emanate continuous protection from evil.

Ranger, pg 25 (13 strength, 13 intelligence, 14 wisdom, 14 constitution; any Good alignment) – Rangers are a sub-class of fighter adept at woodcraft and giant-slaying. Rangers add +1 per level to melee damage against “giant class” foes, surprise opponents 50% of the time in the wilderness and have only a 1 in 6 chance to be surprised themselves. Finally, rangers may track foes in outdoor and underground dungeon settings.

Magic-User, pg 25 (9 intelligence, 6 dexterity) – Magic-users draw upon arcane power in order to exercise powerful spells of an offensive, informational, and utilitarian nature, but are very week combatants, unable to use armor or any weapons besides the dagger, dart, or staff.

Illusionist, pg 26 (15 intelligence, 16 dexterity) – Illusionists are a sub-class of magic-user, favoring glamour and phantasm to flashy, offensive and utilitarian spells.

Thief, pg 26 (9 dexterity; any Neutral or Evil alignment) – Thieves have a number of special skills: pick pockets, open locks, find/remove traps, move silently, hide in shadows, listen at doors, climb sheer surfaces, and (at 4th level) read languages. They may wear only leather armor, but may wield clubs, daggers, darts, slings, and swords. In combat, thieves are most effective when using stealth to backstab foes for double damage. Finally all thieves know the secret ‘Thieves’ Cant’ language.

Assassin, pg 28 (12 strength, 11 intelligence, 12 dexterity; any Evil alignment) – Assassins are a sub-class of thief whose primary function is killing. With surprise, an assassin may attack on the assassination table, which gives a roughly 50% of immediately dispatching the victim. Furthermore assassins may use any weapon and are skilled in disguise, spying, and gain the use (at 3rd level) of all the thief’s special skills, albeit at a lower chance of success.

Monk, pg 30 (15 strength, 15 wisdom, 15 dexterity, 11 constitution; any Lawful alignment) – Monks are monastic ascetics and wandering eastern mystics. Monks may avoid missiles with a saving throw versus paralysis and gain increased unarmored AC, movement speed, armed/unarmed damage, and a decreased change of being surprised. Starting at 3rd level, monks also gain the use of the thief’s special skills and an odd conglomeration of seemingly unrelated special abilities of their own.

X-Plorers Psychic Characters

X-Plorers just feels like it needs an psionic class. Maybe it's just that whenever I think science fiction I think Firefly, but I feel it could just be a fun addition to  the game. Here's a rough draft of what I came up with:

Psychic (optional class)

Psychics are gifted with extremely rare cognitive abilities, the ability to see the future, move matter around with their mind, and delve in memories of other sentient creatures. The cause of which is unknown, but the result is extreme dangerous. When uncontrolled, these gifts may manifest absolute genius or insanity, often both. Psychics are often hunted down and captured by both private and government research agencies.

The psychic is an optional class in the sense that it does not universally fit into all settings. There are three basic ways to use this class: Allow Psychic characters as one would allow scientists or soldiers; remove it entirely from the game; or allow Psychic skills to be only accessed via multi-classing.

Mind Blast (Pre): A Psychic can create a surge of electrical energy in the mind of an opponent.  The damage dealt is 1d6 points plus the Psychic’s Presence bonus and temporary stuns the opponent for 1 round. Any creature brought to 0 hit points by a Mind Blast falls comatose for 1d6 hours instead of rolling on critical hit table.

Precognition (Pre): This is a Psychic’s ability to predict the future based on a specific choice, such as what would happen if the Psychic injected himself with an unknown substance or whether or not a rope bridge would snap when crossed. The precognition skill cannot discern long term long term consequences or even what would happen further than a few minutes into the future.

Telekinesis (Pre): A Psychic can move matter around with the raw mental force. The speed, mass, and distance an object can be moved is dependent on the Psychic’s level. The exact details of which are left up to the referee. A rough guideline if 20 pounds of force per level is appropriate, however. 

Telepathy (Pre): The ability to read minds, communicate through a telepathic connection, and even suggest curtain course action to another sentient creature or cause him forget vital information are all lumped under the telepathy skill. If the psychic is actually attempting to command or otherwise tamper with the memories or thoughts of another sentiment’s mind, the creature is allow a Presence saving throw to resist the Psychic’s influence.

Monster-Based Campaign Design: Characters!

After many, many hours of thinking. I've come to a few major decisions about my monster-based campaign setting. One of those is the available character types and what they represent. Another is that the character's home Kingdom, a Grecian island kingdom known Kull, has no more than bronze-age technology. But more on those later: this post is about characters.

Fighter

A Fighter is a proud and haughty noble, veteran hoplite, or expert wrestler of Kull. Due to their extensive training and coordination, two or more Fighters fighting in close proximity may form a shield wall, improving their AC by 2, but always act last in the initiative order unless all members of the group are wielding spears, in which case they always act first. If any member of the shield wall breaks or is killed, it requires a full round to reform the wall.

Cleric

A Cleric is a priest or priestess of the Olympian gods. A Cleric worships the entire Greek pantheon while also serving a patron god or goddess. Some choices include: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Dionysus, Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Athena, Area, Aphrodite, or Demeter.

Clerics have no restrictions on weapon use or Turning ability, and there is no need for a cleric to meditate, pray daily, or study to use spells. Instead, there is a cumulative 5% per day since the cleric’s last sacrifice that the cleric’s request will not be heard or simply ignored. The sacrifice must be worth at least 100 gold pieces per cleric level to be accepted, otherwise, the offering is taken as an insult.

Magic-User

A magic-User is a philosopher who studies the ancient, magical lore of Babylon, Egypt, or Atlantis. They have no restrictions on usable weapons and may wear armor, but there is a 50% chance their spells will merely fizzle and fail (no matter the type of armor worn).

Thief

A thief is a miscreant of ill repute or a criminal exiled from Kull. A Thief may wear copper scale or plate armor, but while wearing such physically taxing armor the thief’s skills are halved. In additional to its more conventional uses, the Hear Noise skill can be used to fight in darkness or against invisible creatures.

Barbarian

A Barbarian is a furious warrior from uncivilized lands. They are treated as B/X dwarves, but do not possess infraredvision nor have any particular familiarity with stonework or weapon restrictions. Instead, they have a 4 in 6 chance of spotting traps, ambushes, etc. in the wilderness. When completely unarmored (other than employing a shield), a Barbarian adds twice his strength adjustment to damage in melee.

Pygmy

A pygmy is miniature savage. They are known for their deadly slings and riding goats into battle against armies of cranes. Pygmies are treated exactly as B/X Halflings.

B/X/C Vikings: Classes

First See:
B/X/C Viking: Introduction

CHARACTER CLASSES
Characters can be Dwarves, Fighters, Half-Giants, Mages, Thieves, Skalds, and Wizards. Characters may not advance past 14th level.

Dwarves – No infravision. After reaching 9th level, dwarves may forge magical arms and armor as a magic-user.

Fighters – There are several special combat maneuvers that can only be used by fighters, such as going berserk and shield bashing.

Mages and Wizards – There are two types of magic-users: wizened old Wizards, knowledgeable but weakened with age and powerful, arrogant Mages. The first is represented by the magic-user class. The second by the “elf” class, only without infravision, additional languages, immunity to the paralyzing touch of ghouls, and have the normal chance to find secret doors.

Skalds – Skalds are warrior-poets and collectors of Nordic lore. Sitting around the firesides, Skalds inspire their comrades with tales of honor in battle, the glories of victory, and the hardships of loss. (This class is based on the Bard is JB’s B/X Companion.)

• Prime Requisite: Charisma
• HD: d6
• Experience Progression: As Clerics
• To Hit, & Save Progression: as Elves
• Weapons and Armor: Any
• A Skald’s poetry can inspire those around him or even create magical effects. Skalds learn to produce the following spell-like powers at different levels of experience.
• A skald learns one additional language for every level after first (in addition to Nodic and any languages from high intelligence).
  A bard has a chance base on level to know useful legends or lore regarding geographical regions, heroic personages, and legendary magic items. This chance is the same as a thief’s chance to pick pockets.

Skald Spell-Like Powers By Level
1st level: Bless (requires 1 turn to take affect)
2nd level: Remove Fear (requires 1 round to take affect)
3rd level: Instill Fear* (requires 1 minute to take affect)
4th level: Charm Person (requires 1 turn to take affect)
5th level: Dispel Magic (requires 1 turn to take affect)
6th level: Remove Curse (requires 1 turn to take affect)
7th level: Phantasmal Force (requires 1 turn to take affect)
8th level: Cause Fear (requires 1 minuet to take effect)
9th level: Ant-Magic Shell (requires 1 turn to take affect)
* Forces one humanoid creature per level of the Skald within earshot to make a moral roll or flee/surrender.

Thieves – Just as likely to be spies, scouts, woodsmen, and men of cunning than tomb robber or adventurous burglars. Thieves can Track as they would find/remove traps.

Half-Giants – Half-Giants stand head and shoulders above most mortals and are viewed with superstitious awe by humans. While monstrously strong, half-giants are not especially agile or clever and tend to be rude or unkempt.

• Requirements: 13 or greater strength and constitution; 12 or less dexterity; 9 or less intelligence, and charisma
• Prime Requisite: Strength
• HD: d10
• XP, To Hit, & Save Progression: as Halfling (max 8th level)
• Weapons and Armor: Any, although armor must be refit to a half-giant and costs twice the normal amount.
• Half-Giants must make a saving throw vs. spell after each around of combat to avoid going berserk.

More Thoughts on Chainmail

I'm moving away from thinking about how to use Chaimail as the OD&D combat engine. Chaimail and OD&D just have too many disparities between them to really synthesize them in a way that is true to the word of each ruleset, although the opinion of the reader may vary from my own. Instead, I've been taking aspects of Chainmail and D&D and rebuilding them from the ground up.

How did this all start? When I was working Swashbuckler! yesterday, I noticed that many of my sword fighting mechanics could be easily ported into, and were like inspired by, Chainmail. I'm not quite ready to talk too much about swashbuckler yet, so I'll discuss my Chainmail/D&D fusion experiment instead. Keep in mind, however, that I am not attempting to unitize whole (or even partial) pieces of either the Chainmail or D&D rulesets.

Basic Combat

Each character and creature fights as a number of men. Player characters, for example, fight as a number of men equal to their level. Rather than having separate attackers and defenders, creatures engaged in melee attack simultaneously. In a two person combat, each combatant rolls a number of d6s equal to his or her fighting capability (equal the number of men he or she fights as). Successful rolls are determined (depending on troop type) and the number of successes are compared. the combatant with the greater number of successful rolls is the victory and slays his or her opponent.

Depending on a combatant's troop type, he may gain certain advantages over his opponents. Take a a light footman fighting an armored footman for instance. For each single success, the light footman needs three if his attack dice to roll 6s. On the other hand, the armored footman's need to roll a 4 or higher for a roll to be considered a single success. Thus, a single light footman with a fighting capability of 1 man cannot defeat an armor footman of the fighting capability. Even three light footmen have a difficult time taking on a single armored footman.

Now, I'm considering some sort of critical hit table rather than instant death. But for the time being, this is mostly a brainstorming exercise, although it might very well turn into something more.

Fantasy Combat

The Fantasy Combat Table allows characters to take on mythical creatures with a slightly higher chance of success than when using the basic combat rules. Each combatant rolls 2d6 and compares it to the fantasy combat table. If one combatant succeeds his or her roll while the other does not, the successful combatant slays his or her foe. Otherwise the combat continues into the next round. Neither combatant's troop type is factored into the combat table. Only heroes (4th level and higher characters) may roll on the Fantasy Combat Table.

Character Classes

Fighters attack and defend as Armored. After reaching hero level, fighters always have the option of rolling on the Fantasy Combat Table.

Thieves attack and defend as Light. When attack unnoticed from behind, thieves throw 1 additional die from 1st to 3rd level. They throw 2 additional dice from 4th through 7th level, and 3 additional dice from 8th to 12th level. Only when backstabbing, does a thief have the option of rolling on the Fantasy Combat Table and only after reach hero level. (Note that thieves also possess increased chances to hide, move silently, pick locks etc.)

Wizards attack and defend as Light. Starting at 1st level, wizards are able to cast spells. The maximum [complexity or level] of a spell a wizard is able to cast is equal to half his level, rounded up. Wizards may never roll on the fantasy combat table.

Clerics attack and defend as Heavy. They are able to turn units worth of undead creatures. Starting at 2nd level, clerics are able to cast spells. The maximum [complexity or level] of a spell a cleric is able to cast is equal to half his level, rounded down. Only against undead, demons, and other unholy creatures and having reached hero level may clerics opt to roll on the fantasy combat table.