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B/X Character Class: The Youngest Son/Daughter


Continuing my thoughts from this post, here's a second take on Innocents Abroad.

The goal is to create the sort of talented-but-inexperienced adventurer who is the protagonist of pretty much every fantasy novel and fairy tale.

Several people have directed me to Zack S.'s The Alice. This is a wonderful character concept, but a little more specific than what I'm going for here. I did steal (and water-down) one of her abilities.

And if you have a better idea for what to call this class, I'd be eager to hear it.

Catskin by Arthur Rackham
The Youngest Son/Daughter: An Untrained Adventurer
Almost always the youngest of three siblings, unless they are an orphan. They might be a Princess or a Woodchopper’s Son, but they have no formal training in adventuring skills. 


Requirements: CHR 9
Prime Requisite: WIS
Hit Points: 1d4
Save: as Thief
Weapons: Any
Armor: Shields; Any armor except Plate Mail

1          Naif                 1d4     0                      Adventurous Potential
2          Traveller        2d4     900
3          Adventurer    3d4     1800               Select Class
  
Adventurous Potential
Roll 1d4. This advantage is lost once you select a class.

1. Inspire Parental Concern: When you look like you need help people want to take care of you. So do animals, spirits, and assorted creatures. When by yourself, you receive a +3 on all reaction roles.

2. Kitchen Wisdom: You listened to your elders. Before every session, you will receive a clue about some aspect of the forthcoming adventure in the form of either a piece of advice or a story snippet. i.e. “When offered food by strangers, refuse three times before accepting,” or “There once was a girl who hid sparrow in her hair, and it taught her how to dance.” It is up to the GM’s cruel whim how relevant or decipherable the clue is. And there’s always the risk that you won’t go anywhere near the scenario the GM had in mind.

3. Lucky: Once per game day, re-roll a failed roll.

4. Wide Eyes: For each combat round spent observing a given combatant, you receive +1 to hit or +1 dmg on one attack against that individual. You can do nothing except observe during this time except non-strenuous movement. If you are interrupted, you cannot continue stacking observation bonuses, although you could start over. Bonuses only accrue for rounds during which the subject is engaged in combat.

Advancement
At level 3, an untrained adventurer has sufficient experience to select a class. They keep 3d4 for Hit Dice, and all experience points, but now proceed as a Level One Fighter, Level One Magic User, Level Two Thief, or Level Two Cleric.  

Comments

  1. This is a neat concept. I would almost lean towards limiting weapon selection. Not that anything would prevent the character from using any weapon, but the lack of training might lean towards only club, staff, dagger, etc. Perhaps a simple DM call is better than hard and fast rules on that. I still think it is a great idea.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I'd thought about not allowing two-handed weapons, but then I imagined a blacksmith's kid wanting to heft a big hammer, or something, and decided to leave it up to the individual.

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