Class Struggles: The Beastmaster

Class Struggles: The Beastmaster

Rewind to 33 years ago today, the latest movie in the early 80s flirtation with Swords & Sorcery hits the late summer movie theatres.  Everyone was going to see the dearing-do of Marc Singer as Dar "The Beastmaster"!
ok. Not everyone really. The movie didn't do that hot.  Plus, lets be honest here just as many of my friends went to see it for Tanya Roberts as much as the sword & sorcery content. But The Beastmaster left a solid dent in the game playing of many of my peers for years.  I remember seeing tons of "Beastmaster" classes.  I even helped make one of my own.

The idea is a compelling one really.  A barbarian (of sorts) but has the magical ability to communicate with all animals. Maybe even he (it's almost always a he, but I have a few great exceptions to that rule) has the abilities to fight like an animal.  Fiction is replete with such characters. The aforementioned Marc Singer role, Tarzan, Sheena Queen of the Jungle, Vixen from DC Comics, Mowgli, even various "wolf boys" or "wild childs" that appeared in true and fictionalized accounts of children left in wilderness.

+Jonathan Becker must have had these in mind when he created his Beastmaster class for his The Complete B/X Adventurer.

The Beastmaster of this book is an interesting class.  It is actually closer to a monster in terms of play. For example it uses a 1d8 for hit points (like fighters and monsters) and it uses the monster attack matrix using it's level as HD.  This makes it a very good fighter.  It's saving throws are from the cleric list (good choice) so it will feel different than playing a fighter.
The beastmaster's prime ability is Strength.  This makes it slightly different than say your typical barbarian and their reliance on Constitution.  The reason given is that nature respects strength. This is true, but I think nature respects survival more than anything.  So Constitution would have been a good choice too in my mind.   The beastmaster also needs a better than average Charisma.

Becker's beastmasters have a number of abilities that set them apart. First is their ability to learn the languages of animals.  This is quite a nice skill because it is a gateway to other abilities the beastmaster has such as Calling, Befriending and Mastering.   These are really the key elements of any beastmaster archetype.  Think of Tarzan and his trademarked call. Ok, think of the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan.

In many ways the closest AD&D class to the beastmaster is the Ranger and not the Druid.  In fact I would have upped the XP per level for the beastmaster a bit and given him some Ranger like abilities including a starting animal companion (though you can get one with Mastering) and maybe some beast-like fighting styles.  But I see why that was not done here since it would make the beastmaster more like a reskinned ranger than something unique.

The beastmaster is hardly ever surprised, can't wear man made armor and has a limited number of weapons to choose from.  All of this works with the character concept really.

But don't just take my word on this.  Jonathan did a series of posts himself on his beastmaster.  Our opinions differ a bit; but only as creator vs user.

• The Compleat [sic] Adventurer
• A Barbarian Alternative
• B/X Beastmaster

It is an interesting read combined with the final Beastmaster in the book.

Other Beastmasters of Note
The big one is the beastmaster of the Compleat Adventurer book from Bard Games written by Stephan Sechi.  As Becker claims this is the obvious inspiration for his beastmaster class. This class also adds animal Turning to their skills.  Not like undead turning, but the opposite of friendship.

If you want an idea of what this beastmaster was like, +Richard LeBlanc put one together about a year ago and it captures a lot of the same notes.
http://savevsdragon.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-beastmaster-and-thoughts-on-it-as.html

The next one is the Beastmaster kit for the Ranger for 2n Ed AD&D found in the Complete Ranger Handbook.  As with many of the kits this one was fairly over powered in my mind, giving the beastmaster telepathic communication with their animals at a low level.  Though the same feel is here, all three could exist in a room together without breaking the laws of the universe.

Finally, though by no means the only, there is the beastmaster archetype from the new 5th Edition of D&D.  It is in many ways a spiritual successor to the Bard Games beastmaster and if you are looking for cross system compatibility it makes for a good translation of Becker's beastmaster. This one is more animal companion focused. But in truth you can easily take one of these beastmasters and use them to emulate the others with good roleplaying.

The final question always is "would I play this class?" Well. yes. In fact like I mentioned above we had done our own beastmaster back in the day and I played the hell out of that class.

From 1986 or so.

Absom Sark
Level 7, Beastmaster ("Wild Guardian"), Male
Neutral

Strength: 18
Dexterity: 17
Constitution: 14
Intelligence: 14
Wisdom: 18
Charisma: 16

Hit Points:  46
AC: 6 (Cave Bear pelt armor)

Languages: Canine, Ursine, Feline, Mustelid, Saurian.

Absom Sark was the child of a prince and his wealthy wife until their caravan was attacked on route to a diplomatic mission.  Everyone was killed in the ensuing battle save for little Absom, who was only a baby.  Wolves came to feast on the remains and found the crying baby. A large she-wolf fostered the child, recognizing a kindred spirit in him.
Absom grew into the protector of the wild and he vowed that no one would use his wild to murder others.

--
Our beastmaster had a limited selection of various druid spells. I don't think it added much to the class to be honest, but maybe even a more restricted list focusing on animals might be nice.  Summon Animal I, II, and III would be good.  Limit the beastmaster to 3rd level spells or something.

The class is really fine as is. I just have a thing for spell-casting classes.

How effective is this class?  Well in the dungeon it might end up like a fighter. But in the wild they shine.

Here is video documentation of one beastmaster (though she might have some levels in bard) attacking two treants.  She speaks avian, mustelid, rodent, and ungulate.


Easily a class I would play.

Class Struggles & PWWO: The Blood Witch

Yesterday I reviewed the newest book from +Johua De Santo New Class Options.  One of the classes in the book, the Blood Witch, struck me as familiar.  I remembered I had seen an earlier version of it in Dungeon Crawl #3.  Today I want to go into a bit more detail about this class.

Class Struggles

The class is an old archetype of a blood mage or a blood witch going all the way back to ... well forever really.  Right up into the Enlightenment people believed that there were magical properties to blood.   This is why "witches" signed contracts with the devil in their own blood.

There have been other blood witches in the past. Notablly the Blood Witch Prestige class from Relics & Rituals and from Mongoose's Ultimate Prestige Classes vol. 1. Both books have the same class.  Blood Witches used whatever spells they gained from their previous spell casting class.

The Blood Witch in New Class Options is a bit similar. It uses magic-user spells.  This is perfectly fine really, but some new spells would add some more flavor.

I was looking forward to this class the most and I still think it works well, but I have some issues with it.  Let's start at the top.

The Blood Witch uses Constitution as her main stat.  Very, very appropriate.
She needs a Con of 13 or higher. Again appropriate.  Constitution scores above 16 also grant an additional +1 to hit points.  Nice. She is going to need that.

Then we get to the next bit, quoting from the text.

Shattered Soul: Every day the Blood Witch has a 60% chance of losing herself in the song of magic. If this occurs the Witch  will be able to cast 1 level above her level, however, she cannot know what is real or delusion.

Ok. A neat bit a of flavor.  But 60% every day? That seems a bit high and then she can cast as a level higher?  Well sometimes that helps.  But who makes this roll the GM or the player?  Personally I would have it at 25% myself.  Or tie it to the phases of the moon or time of day.   THEN also a 25% where she can cast as a level lower.  I GET what is trying to be done here, but I would need to play it over a few sessions to see.

Here is the part I am not crazy about.  The Blood Witch needs to roll against her Constitution in order to cast spells.  So the high her Con score, the less of chance she has of success.  Again, from the text.

The first is that the Blood Witch must roll her constitution score + the spell level or higher in order to cast her spells. If the Blood Witch fails her spell roll the spell is swept away in the song of the magic and will not return to her for a day. The second is that for every spell cast the Blood Witch must sacrifice 1 + spell level of her health in order for the spell to be effective. If the Blood Witch refuses to make the sacrifice the spell and 1d4 other spells will be swept away in the song of magic for a two day period.

Ok. So mechanically I get what Johua is trying to do here. I also spoke with him. It is to limit the amount of spells a witch can use. Since a witch can use theoretically ANY spell once she gets to the right level.   In some ways her spell casting is more similar to the witch in +Jonathan Becker's The Complete B/X Adventurer than it is to anything else.
So a witch with a 16 Constitution could only cast spells up to 4th level, unless of course a 20 allways means a success.

I think what might work better here is limit the number of spells known.  The blood witch might be able to cast this she completely out of blood (not advised) but maybe she only knows X per level.  Like the 3rd Edition Sorcerer.  This would impose a limiting factor.
Then give her a bonus to her roll equal to her level.

So our Blood Witch with 16 Con and 5th level would need a 15 or better to cast a 4th level spell (16 + 4 -5 =15).   That seems to work well.

The experience levels for Blood Witch seem a bit high, granted this class has the potential for a lot of power.  I'd still like to play one sometime just to be sure.

Somethings you see in the the myths and stories of blood magic is sacrifice (which is covered here as personal sacrifice) and proxies.  So could this blood witch use an animal sacrifice for some spells?  I think where appropriate yes.  Proxies could be things like the animal but also proxies for blood itself, like purified water (possibly for healing spells if you use one of the witch spell lists) or even wine (blood of the vine).  Personally I would allow such proxies for some of the more benign or even mundane spells.

The Blood Witch is any interesting type of character and something that could add a air of different to a game. A Blood Witch doesn't have to be an evil character, but it not likely she is going to be trusted by a party and certainly looked down on by other casters especially proper wizards.

Plays Well With Others

The best thing about the Blood Witch is that fits a great niche in any gaming group or campaign. It also works with a number of great OSR books.  Obviously the blood witch will work mechanically with 99% of all the OSR and old-school books out there, the real question is will it work thematically.  For example, the blood witch would work fantastic with Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but thematically it might be a bit redundant since all magic-users are assumed to have some sort of dark(-ish) pact.

I already mentioned The Complete B/X Adventurer. The witch class as presented in that book works as a great base for the Blood Witch.  Combine the two classes into one works rather nicely.  The B/X Witch has spells up to 10th level which is nice, but the New Class Options Witch only goes to 7.

I mentioned that the Blood Witch is really missing some really cool spells. The Vivimancer from +Gavin Norman's Theorems & Thaumaturgy and Complete Vivimancer offer some really nice choices.   I created  a few for both my witch and the vivimancer here.  In particular I would suggest Blood Augury, Feel My Pain, Share My Pain, Stay Death's Hand, and of course Hell Hath No Fury because every witch needs that spell.

A while back I made some suggestions about witch spells for the vivimancer and vivimancer spells for the with.  The nice thing is the blood witch is perfect cross section of both classes and can use all these spells.

The blood witch also works great with +Jeff Talanian's Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.  The style and type of magic used by the blood witch would be very much in tune with AS&SH.  Sacrificing blood for magical effects...yeah very much in tune.  There are also plenty of great witch spells in that book as well.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention my own book, The Witch: A sourcebook for Basic Edition fantasy games.  I am going to have to play a Blood Witch sometime, but I also think I want to try her out as Blood Witch "Tradition" using my own rules and see how well they work together.  Maybe twins...same level but one is a DeSanto Blood Witch while the other is a Brannan one.  Interesting idea really.

If you are in the mind to some conversions, there is a great set of blood magic rules and spells in +Owen Stephens' magnum opus Deep Magic for Pathfinder.  The blood magic system in that book could work nicely for a blood witch as well as a blood mage.

Again this passes the most basic test for a class for me.  Can I think of a character for it and would I play it.

Kimbra & Kelleigh

Kimbra and Kelleigh are twin sisters with magic deep in their blood.  They often have said to each other that it is because they have shared blood that their ties to each other and magic was so strong.
Though in their darker moments they felt their connection to magic and to blood came from the moment they were born. Kelleigh was first.  Right after her birth their mother died. Kimbra was born when the midwife noticed that there was still someone in the lifeless body.  To this day Kelleigh has had a great connection to blood and Kimbra to death.  Kelleigh acts as the older sister.  The sisters only trust each other.

Luis-Salas

These are two characters I have had for a while now.  They began as modern characters for a WitchCraft RPG game and then morphed in a life-span development project I never quite finished.
Yes, the names are based on Kim and Kelley Deal. But also an homage to Kim Harrison and Kelley Armstrong, two of my favorite authors in the modern supernatural genre.

Kelleigh 
5th level Blood Witch, Female
Neutral

Strength: 11
Dexterity: 12
Constitution: 16
Intelligence: 15
Wisdom: 12
Charisma: 16

Hit Points:  24
AC: 9
Saves: 12,  +2 vs. Magic
To Hit: +1  / THAC0: 19

Spells:
Kimbra can cast the follow spell levels.  Will choose spells based on the official list.
First: all
Second: 4
Third: 6
Fourth: 3
Fifth: 6
Sixth*: 1


Kimbra
5th level Witch, Blood Witch Tradition, Female
Neutral

Strength: 11
Dexterity: 12
Constitution: 16
Intelligence: 15
Wisdom: 12
Charisma: 16

Hit Points:  16
AC: 7

Occult Powers
Familiar: Blood Spirit of her dead mother (treat as a ghost, neutrally aligned)

Spells 
Cantrips: (5) Analyze Fertility, Detect Poison, Inflict Minor Wounds, Object Reading, Warm
First: (2+2) Bad Luck, Bewitch I, Cause Fear, Tattoo
Second: (2+2) Agony, ESP, Fever, Hold Person
Third: (1+1)  Bestow Curse, Lifeblood

I like these two. I like that they are twins and really mostly the same but have classes that are different takes on the same thing.

I would not make these two part of the Witches' Nest.  I feel their back story is too tragic and their personalities are not one to take advantage of others.   Though they will have a place in my new WIP "West Haven", mentioned briefly here.

When I try this class out more I will let you all know.

Class Struggles: The Mystic

No. Not the fight between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, but something far more important.

"Class Struggle" is a new feature where I take a class from a D&D, OSR or related product and do a deep dive into it. I am going to focus on unique classes to each product, sometimes going back to the same product even to look at other classes.  In some cases I am going to look into a class and different representations in different products.  I am also going to mostly focus on classes that interest me. So heavy on the magic using classes.

I also want to start this feature with the Mystic, found in +Joseph Bloch's Adventures Dark & Deep.

Back in October of 2013 I spent some time doing a deep dive into Bloch's magnum opus and dedication to a game that never was.  If you have not had a chance to read over Adventures Dark & Deep I suggest that check it out.  It really is something interesting, even beyond the purely academic question of what would a 2nd Edition AD&D look like if Gygax had never left TSR.  It is also a very playable game and a fun one in it's own right.  It captures the feel of AD&D better than say OSRIC does.

If you want to just check out the new classes then BRW's first product, A Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore has the new classes and few other rules.

The Mystic is one of those new classes featured in the book that was also talked about by Gygax in the pages of Dragon magazine.

Here is what Gygax said about the Mystic in Dragon #65 (from Bloch's own Greyhawk Grognard blog):

Mystic: This subclass of clerics is concerned more with prediction and detection than are other sorts of clerics. All mystics are of Good alignment, although they can be chaotic, neutral, or lawful within the Good alignment. As with other sorts of clerics, mystics would have seven levels of spells, but most would be of the sort to divine or detect. However, some new spells, and some very powerful upper-level spells, are planned.

I read this commentary from Grognardia on the same issue which got me thinking about the Mentzer BECMI sets and how they might have influenced the Gygax 2nd Edition.  To this end I will briefly mention the D&D Master Set / Rules Cyclopedia mystics.

The Bloch Mystic (for simplicity) is described as:

The mystic is a sub-class of cleric, and an initiate of an inner mystery tradition that seeks direct communion with the multiverse in order to achieve enlightenment. Insight, awareness, and a deep connection with ultimate reality are the hallmarks and ultimate goals of the mystic. Most good-aligned faiths have such mystery traditions within them, even if they are not enthusiastically promoted by the hierarchy or followed by masses of people.
The spells available to the mystic are centered on knowledge and defense, and his connection with the multiverse gives him special insights into the workings of the planes. He cannot craft magical items, but objects particularly associated with him in life, and even parts of his body, often become relics after his death.

This seems more inline with what is described as Mysticism.  I am currently reading "The Terror of History: On the Uncertainties of Life in Western Civilization" by Teofilo "Teo" F. Ruiz and this description is very much inline with Prof. Ruiz's description of Christian Mystics.

I think it is fair to say from the start that the Bloch Mystic is at least close to spirit, if not the letter of intent, of the Gygax Mystic.

Looking into the Mystic there are some "clerical" like powers and spells here, much in the same matter the druid has some too.   Interestingly, as noted above, they can't make magic items.  They can scribe scrolls which makes sense.  They also have pain management and meditations as skills/powers.
The mystic learns spells due to their "inner awareness". They have some spells they share with clerics and some new ones that really feature their differences. "Awaken First Chakra" is one such spell, Besides being able to glow under a blacklight, kidding...you radiate ultra violet light, you can also reduce falling damage and improve your dex score, at least temporarily with this spell.  There are seven chakras in total.  Also it is nice to see that for the mystic at least Astral Spell is 6th level.

Level progression is slightly greater than the cleric in most cases, but not up to the level of a wizard/magic-user.

As the mystic levels up their minds become stronger so that powers like ESP no longer work on them.  They also focus their attention on more planar issues.  This gives a party with a mystic a good hook to the outer planes.

The mystic has a certain "monk" feel about it to be certain, but only the asceticism and divine aspects; not the fighting.
Speaking of asceticism the mystic can also take a Vow of Silence.  He can cast his spells where speech is impossible and gain a 10% bonus to xp earned, but the PLAYER also needs to keep their speech to a minimum.

There are plenty of uses for a mystic in a party especially a party that plans to hit the outer planes at any point.  Also if the idea of playing a cleric is not appealing the mystic makes for a good change up.  Though to be honest the things people normally dislike about clerics and paladins is amplified in the mystic.

Other Mystics

The Mystic of the D&D Master's Set or the Rules Cyclopedia is nothing more than the AD&D Monk for the BECMI system.  Though the connection between the mystic and the cleric is made more overt.

There is also a Mystic in Fantastic Heroes and Witchery.  This mystic is somewhere between the monk/mystic of BECMI and the Bloch Mystic.  They do not gain spells, but rather a Prayer ability introduced in this game.

Finally there is a mystic in the 3.x Dragonlance Campaign Setting book.  This mystic is more like a cleric without gods.  The mystic gains their divine power from within.  In many ways it shares the same relationship with the cleric as does the sorcerer to the wizard.   This mystic is also very tied up in the myths and history of Krynn.

Final Thoughts

The mystic as presented by BRW is a solid class and one with enough flavor to make playing one an interesting challenge.  I would like to try one out to be honest, maybe using 1st Edition rules or one of the many clones.  Of course it shines the best under Adventures Dark & Deep.

The class is interesting enough that I also think it would work well for Castles & Crusades or even D&D 5.  I think some more spells might be in order to give it a little more flavor.   If I were building one for just a home game I would also borrow some idea from Mage's Akashic Brotherhood.

Also if I were going to add mystics to a game I would remove monks, or more to the point, return monks to the pseudo-Eastern parts of the world.  There are traditions of both Eastern and Western mysticism, but for ease I might use the Monk and Mystic as each respective traditions mystics.