Class Struggles: B/X Classes

The last few weeks I have been focussing on various classes and it dawns on me that I need something along the lines of a B/X Class Compendium for myself.  Not to publish or anything, but just my own use.   I also have to admit that I have been following (but commenting as much as I would like) +Jonathan Becker's analysis of the Holmes classes and subclasses.  If you have not read it, please do, it is great stuff.  Yeah it might be nostalgia and navel-gazing, but who cares, it is fun stuff.

Like Becker I am a fan of B/X, aka Moldvay/Cook/March era D&D.  So my class choices will be ones that are largely compatible with that.  It's also no big surprise that most of the classes I like also tend to be magic ones.

Lets see what I have.

Witch
Covered many times and many places here.  Yes, I am partial to my own witch, but I am also rather fond of the witches from other designers. While some have this class as a sub-class of the Magic-User but I have the Witch as her own thing.
Warlocks have always been problematic for me.  It was not till I started working on for Pathfinder. I looked a few of these as well.  I am still not 100% certain which is my favorite to be honest.  Maybe the one from Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.
But if I am going to have witches and warlocks then I am going to need a witch hunter.  I looked at a few, but I think I will have to go with the one from Jonathan Becker's The Complete B/X Adventurer.

Fighters
I have maybe played two fighters, proper fighters, in the last 36 years.  But I really enjoy rangers and paladins.
Knights/Cavaliers.  I have not covered these guys yet, but I am rather fond of the Castle & Crusades Knights.
Beastmasters. I rather like these guys and my favorite is from The Complete B/X Adventurer.
If I am going to have a paladin then I am going to want an Anti-Paladin. My favorite is the one from the ACKS Player's Companion.

Rogue
Covered yesterday, the B/X Rouge could be a replacement for the normal thief class.  With this class I can make a thief, a bard, an arcane-trickster, or any other thief like class. There some templates though I can look at.
The Bard is of particular interest to me really.  A really good bard would be great.
The Occultist is a class from Fantastic Heroes & Witchery is another rogue-like class that I could build using the rogue.

Magic-Users
I would opt for the Wizard alternate I have in my Witch book.
For Illusionists I am going with the Basic Illusionist  from +Nathan Irving. I think it is the best choice.
For Necromancers there are so many choices, I might have to make my own.

Psionics
For psychic classes, +Richard LeBlanc has me covered with his Basic Psionics Handbook. That gives me a Mystic and a Monk.

Clerics
I have always been fond of clerics. They were the first class I ever played.  I would keep them as is, with the additional rule that they can use the same weapon as their god.
I will also keep Druids and add in a Healer class I made back in the early 80s.

Class Struggles: Mara Witch Tradition

Witch by ivangod

Today's Class Struggles is going to be a total cheat.  After two weeks of psychic classes, I have read a bunch of psychic and occult material which, of course, gets me thinking about witches.  Since I spent a lot of time yesterday with Wee Jas and to a much smaller degree Hecate, I wanted to talk about the witches of Wee Jas as influenced by the witches of Hecate I have used in the past.

The Mara Witch Tradition

The Mara is a witch tradition that is very, very old.  They share more than just a little relationship with Night Hags, which some scholars believe may have been some of the first Mara Witches.
The Mara understand, maybe more so than most, the life is a constant struggle not against death, but towards it.  This struggle of competing forces is what the Mara seek out. Life and Death in a constant struggle to the inevitable end.

Role: These witches most often serve gods or goddesses of Death, Transition, Change or even Destruction.  There tend to be two basic archetypes of Mara detailed below, the chaotic Mara and the lawful Mara.

Joining this Tradition: To join this tradition the witch must realize that life if nothing but a transitory period between oblivions.  Even if there is life after death in the form of reincarnation the witch is not aware of it on this plane now.So the witch chooses not to be apart of this charade anymore and embrace the death in all of us.

Leaving this Tradition: Typically the witch has such conviction that the only way out is her death.

Occult Powers: The occult powers of the Mara are derived by the struggle of life and death.  There is magic in both life and in death.  There is magic and power in the transition.  While evil Mara are often accused (and rightly so) of killing newborn babies, good Mara also are there to wish children pleasant dreams and act as guardians.

Least, 1st Level: Familiar. The Mara witch gains a familiar.  The familiar is often a floating skull, a ghost or some other omen of death made real (a banshee, a barghest, a black dog). The witch can communicate with this familiar regardless of the form it takes.

Lesser, 7th Level: Dream Invasion. Once per day, the Mara Witch can invade the dreams, the so-called deaths of every day, of others.  She can use this invasion to gather information, learn about various targets or even drain the victim's on life force for herself.  She can drain a total of 1 point of Constitution per night for three nights (3 points total).  This draining she can add to her own pool of hitpoints. Each point of Constitution grants her 3 hp over and above what she normally has.  After the third day, she forfeits her ill-gained health and her victim will recover at the rate of 1 con point per week.

Minor, 13th Level: Nightmare Shape. Once per day, the Mara witch can polymorph herself into any type of undead creature and back. The creature in question must be of comparable size. The witch gains the powers of the creature and retains her ability to cast spells, but she also suffers from that creature’s associated weaknesses. She retains her own hit points and level.  If she is "turned" by a cleric then she is forced back into her "human" form and can not switch back till the next new moon.

Once the mara witch reaches this level, she gains the undead's intolerance of silver. Any silvered weapon will do an additional 1d6 points of damage to the witch if touched, similar in the way Holy Water damages undead. Unless a weapon is specifically listed as being silvered iron, then assume it is not.  The witch is vulnerable to silver in any form she takes.

Greater, 19th Level: Witch’s Curse. The witch can place a powerful Curse on one creature once per day. The curse can be of any sort, but will usually bestow a -4 to all to hit rolls and -2 to any saving throw rolls. Witch curses are quite powerful and require the use of two (2) remove curse spells to be fully removed.

Major, 25th Level: Dead Zone Mind. The mara witch has become so accustomed to turning into a nearly undead creature and moving closer and closer to death herself that her mind is no longer that of a living breathing person.  She becomes immune to charm and hold spells. Her mind can't not be probed or read via telepathy, ESP or similar powers.

Superior, 31th Level: Kiss of Death. The witch gains a Kiss of Death. When the witch wishes, she
can give a target a Kiss of Death. If the person has 9 or fewer hit die he dies, if he is over 9 hit die he must save vs. death or die. This may not be used in battle, only in a non-combat situations.

Special Benefits and Restrictions: Mara witches can use spells normally reserved for necromancers.  They are though barred from using any spell that could return a person back to life such as Raise Dead, Resurrection or Reincarnate.

Equipment:  Nothing special.

Preferred/Barred Covens: Typically evil covens.  There are usually a Night Hag or two present in their covens as well.

Relationship to the Patron: For chaotic Mara the Patron is usually the Bringer of Death. This is usually a bloodthirsty god or goddess that revels in death and destruction.  Lawful Mara have a Patron that is the Protector or Steward of the Dead.
The greatest Patron of the Mara is an ancient Hag named  Marzanna (in Polish), Morė (in Lithuanian), Morana (in Czech and Slovene), or Morena (in Slovak and Russian). She is an ancient creature associated with Winter and Death, but also the rebirth of the seasons.  Other Mara patrons include Hecate, Lilith, and Wee Jas.  The Aztec Goddess of vice, Tlazolteol, also has many Mara followers.

Source/Views of Magic: Magic comes from the struggle of Life against Death. People live and they die and this creates powerful magic in the world.  While the chaotic Mara might focus on just the death magic, the lawful Mara also know there is magic in life and in the celebration of life.  Especially the celebration of life in the face of certain death.

Archetypes: There are two basic archetypes of Mara.  The "evil" Chaotic Mara. These witches revel in death and destruction.  The more death they are around, whether they cause it or not, grants them power.  The Lawful Mara could be considered "good", but in truth they also see the need for death.  Everything must die to allow new things to live and grow which in turn must die. Neutral Mara, generally speaking, do not exist as there is no middle ground between life and death.

The Mara for Other Witches

For Adventurer Conquer King's Player Companion from +Alexander Macris and +Tavis Allison the witch is limited to 14th level.  The 6 occult powers can be spread out over these levels.  I would remove the Witch's Curse and then evenly spread out the remaining five.

Similar plan for +Jeff Talanian's Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea's witch.  Though in this case I would also remove the option for "Lawful" Mara.  Mara in this world setting are nothing but evil.

For +Joseph Bloch's Adventures Dark & Deep, The Witch the BEST thing is adding spells from his Necromancer class.  Spread out the powers, replacing the ones listed for the Witch.

+Jonathan Becker's Complete B/X Adventurer also has a witch class. His witch lacks outright powers, but has plenty of spells.   So if you want to convert ANY of my witches to one of his make the Occult Powers into Witch Spells only that kind of witch can use.  Here is a quick anf dirty guide.

Basic Witch Occult Power	B/X Witch Spell Level
Least, 1st Level	1st level Witch Spell, 1st level witch
Lesser, 7th Level	3rd level Witch Spell, 6th level witch
Minor, 13th Level	5th level Witch Spell, 12th level witch
Greater, 19th Level	7th level Witch Spell, 21st level witch
Major, 25th Level	8th level Witch Spell, 25th level witch
Superior, 31th Level	9th level Witch Spell, 30th level witch

For his 10th level spells you would have to come up with something appropriately cool.
Heck I might grab his 10th level spells for my own witch games!

Becker also spends some time with a Holmes-style witch, but I am not sure these sorts of powers would work for that.

So now regardless of what OSR Witch you use noe you can unleash the Mara on your players!

Class Struggles: Psionics, Part 2

Last week I went over the various Psionic systems that have appeared in print or digital for the D&D game.  This week I want to look at the classes.

One thing that you first discover that psionics were always something that was added on to the game later.  Often there are powers, but no classes to speak of really.  This is certainly true for AD&D1st ed and OD&D.  Interestingly enough (compared to my discussion last week) that in Eldritch Wizardry it is stated rather plainly that Monks (and Druids) can not be psychic.

1991 was a good year for psionics.  We saw the release of the official Complete Psionics Handbook from TSR for 2nd ed and the unofficial Psionics from Mayfair Games Role Aids line.
Both books changed psionics from it's added on system and made something that seemed to fit into the game a little better.  They sacrificed a little of what made the psionics system so alien and different for playability.
The Complete Psionics Handbook introduces the Psionist class.  This class has access to all the powers in the book.  Psionic powers are divided into six groups with major powers, called sciences, and minor powers, called devotions.  Just like AD&D1, but now they are sorted and there are more powers.   The attack and defense powers, for example, are now part of Telepathy.  The system works well and while the psionists has less overall powers than say a wizard has spells the psionist is not limited to how many times they can use their powers, save by PSPs.

Mayfair's Psionics takes a slightly different approach.  In this there is a Psionist class with five different traditions or schools of psionics, Sonimancers, Telepaths, Telekineticists, Pyromancers, and Empaths. So...every Stephen King psychic ever. The psionist usually stays in that tradition.  Powers are categorized by school and then divided by power level, similar to spell level. There are six levels of powers.  Largely it plays the same as the TSR book, but this one feels more like a spell system.  Getting these two books to work together would be a feat to be honest.  There are so many differences between the levels of the powers, the assumptions of the psionist class and even the PSP vs MP power point costs.  Best to choose one system and adapt the other as needed.

I want to give brief mention to the Deryni in Mayfair's Witch book.  While presented as a witch class the are obviously better suited for Psionic use.  Converting them to Mayfair's psionic system would be easier than converting TSR Psionic to Mayfair's.

3e and the OGL comes around and we get a ton of new psionics options including three new classes (and a spell like system).  This in turn gives birth to Pathfinder and the OSR.  One of the first 3rd party books to support psionics was The Quintessential Psychic Warrior from Mongoose. But like most of Mongoose's products from this time it's not very good.
Pretty much everything for 3.x era psionics can be found in the d20 SRD.  Pathfinder, as a system, had not used psionics or psychic powers till this year with the release of the Occult Adventures book.  I am still going throuhg my copy from Gen Con.  Other companies though built off of the SRD and came up with their own books.
Ultimate Psionics is by far the largest at 450+ pages.  This takes the three basic psionic classes from the SRD and expands it to 10 (7 new).  Not to mention pages and pages of powers. I am hard pressed to think of a more complete book.

But sometimes you don't want a 500 page tome.  Sometimes you just want a couple of pages.  Well if the OSR is about nothing else it is about "less is more".  These books are designed for your old school games and are much smaller.

If you are playing Castles & Crusades then the Mentalist class from Amazing Adventures! would port over with hardly an issue at all.  In fact I have done it before and it works so good that Troll Lords should really consider doing it offically.

White Box Options: Psychic Talents [Swords & Wizardry]
At 10 pages this book really exemplifies what people love about S&W.  Quick and easy rules that slot in nicely with the game they are playing.  This is more of a psychic wild talent add on. Feels similar to the wild talent powers in AD&D1 or even OD&D.  Random table of powers and descriptions of all the powers. Not a bad deal for just under 2 bucks.

Old-School Psionics
Designed to be a new psionics system for OSRIC this book introduces the Mentalist class.  Powers are divided out among disciplines going to 7th level.  Powers are treated mostly like spells, but that works well for adding into OSRIC.  Also some psionic monsters are detailed including my favorite (and worth the price of the book) the Doppleganger as a proper psionic monster.  22 pages including cover and OGL.  Very nicely done.

OSRIC Psionic Combat
This book has a lot of charm. A quick look at the author, artist and contributors leads me to believe this was something a whole family put together and then played.  I can relate and honestly the book gets an extra star just for that.  The books covers a very simple psionic combat system and a psionist class.  Nothing more really.  But that is all it set out to do, so great.  I might not play as written, but the detail here is great and would convert nicely to any of the other systems I have used.

Crypts & Creatures Psionics Handbook
At 12 pages for 50 cents this looks like a deal.  But what we have here is a stripped down version of the psionic classes from the d20 SRD for the OSR crowd.  I would have liked to see some more to be honest.  There are classes and powers listed, but not really detailed.  Now for someone this will be just perfect, but most people I think will want some more.

Psionics
This book is designed for the White Star game.Though it can be ported over to Swords & Wizardry with no issues. The psionist is introduced and powers are detailed.  The psionist chooses a focus power area and sticks with that in the game. A nice, simple system with some useful powers.  11 pages with cover and OGL.

There is a psionic system in Realms of Crawling Chaos as well, but I well detail that one on a later date.

And of course the Basic Psionics Handbook.

So if you love psionics and psionic classes there are plenty of choices out there.

Class Struggles: Psionics

I might be splitting this into two parts. I have a lot I want to say, not a lot of time to say it all and one of the books I really wanted to talk about is missing from my shelves.

Obviously one of the reasons I wanted to cover this topic this week was the release of the Basic Psionics Handbook.  It is not the first psionics book out there for old school gaming, but more on that later.

Psionics was always an interesting addition to D&D/AD&D.  Back in my AD&D1 days I loved it. Nearly every character had a psionic wild talent or five.  We used and abused the hell out of the rules in the AD&D Player's Handbook.  I know a lot of people at the time hated them, but my group loved them.  Probability Travel became a big deal when traveling between worlds and being Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fans, Improbability Travel became a thing too. We even created more powers (including a third tier past Sciences) and built our own psionic classes, The Riddlemaster, Shadowmaster and the Beastmaster.

During this time between AD&D1 and AD&D2 I started playing with a group that was using the OD&D rules and a heavily modded set of psionic rules from Eldritch Wizardry.  We all played Deryni characters.  I have to admit these games really got me to rethink how to structure various psionic powers in a game.  On a side note I just picked up a bunch of the old Deryni books at my Library's recent book sale and looking forward to delving into those again.

When I got to college and then AD&D2 I dropped psionics from my games.  I had decided that magic and psionics just don't mix and should not be part of the same world.  I did pick up The Complete Psionics Handbook for 2e because I really wanted to know how they were going to revamp the psionic powers and of course see the first psionic classes.  While I never used the Psioinc rules when running 2e I enjoyed the book.  I even converted my group's old Riddlemaster to a more balanced Adept class.

D&D 3 came around and again Psionics were not part of the corebook, but seemed to be designed with the core rules in mind a little more.  The first book out was the Psionics Handbook.  Psionics for this version are more akin to spells mechanically than any other version.  This was updated for 3.5 in the Expanded Psionics Handbook and the Complete Psionic.

There is something going on here that I will get to in a bit.

We come up to more modern times and D&D 4.  Player's Handbook 3 and Psionic Power introduce us to yet another psionic system.  Now in this edition the Monk is a psionic based character class, which I like.

The interesting thing here is that between all four major editions of D&D, the psionic systems are all different and for the most part largely incompatible with each other. There are really only a few classes they have in common. Each edition has their fans.  I personally like the AD&D1 system the best, but that is largely because that is the one I used the most.  D&D3 and D&D4 have some great points about them, mostly how well the psionics system fits in with the main game systems.  D&D 3's "Spell like" system appeals to my sense of game design, even if they lack a certain level "differentness" that I like in my psionics.

There is a new psionic class coming out eventually for D&D 5. It is called the Awakened Mystic and it looks really cool to be honest. It's also different.

Which system do you like?  Which classes?

Next week I want to look over some of the classes in detail.

Class Struggles: The Warlock

There have been a number of warlock classes, but unlike the wizard, fighter, cleric or even thief, everyone has had their own take on what a warlock should be.
I have talked about the warlock as a class, distinct from the witch, in the past.

• What *is* a Warlock?
• W is for Warlock
• Warlocks, part 2

I do like keeping my warlocks separate from my witches in terms of class.  In my mind they are just too different. Similar yes, but still very different.  I would allow any warlock to use the same spell list as a witch unless there was a good reason not to do it.

I think the first ever warlock class I ever saw was the "Warlocks: A New Magic-User Sub Class" by Anthony Barnstone in The Dungeoneer #16.  It had some great spells, "Pentacle of Fire", "Aura of the Occult", "Curse of the Bloody Revenge" to name a few.  This was certainly meant to be an evil character class to play, not just as an NPC.  Interestingly enough this the same issue that featured the mystic class.  I have to admit it was one of the things that made me like the Dungeoneer magazine.  It didn't treat it's audience like little kids.

To my knowledge, there has never been a warlock class in the pages of Dragon magazine.  I know there was not one in the pages of White Dwarf.

The Arcanum and Bard Games had a witch/warlock class, making them the same thing.  I am not a fan of that really.

In my mind the witch and the warlock began as the same class, but the warlocks broke off from the witches  sometime in the ancient past.  Either warlocks wanted to become more like wizards and mages OR they were responsible for the first wizards.

Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea has a great Warlock class. It is a sub-class of the fighter but calls upon dark powers to give them some magical power and spells.  Mor to the point I like how the warlock and the witch are very different sorts of classes.

The AS&SH warlock is something more akin to a swordmage.  We see something similar in D&D4 Essentials Hexblade.  In general I liked the D&D4 Warlock.  They were a class that wanted quick access to power and none of the work that Wizards had to do.  That was a fine role-playing excuse, but not something that played out in the rules.  Warlocks gained powers just like the Wizards did and had no more or no less requirements.

There is a Warlock I created in Eldritch Witchery. It is a type of Wizard really. I liken it to "Wizard Grad School" to be honest.  They use the same spells as the witch and gain a few extra powers.

The Warlocks in Fantastic Heroes & Witchery are another sort.  It is a chaos aligned wizard and has a lot of the same features really.  It uses the same xp per level tables, same HD and same spell progressions.  The FHW Warlock does gain some power, similar in many ways to my own witch, but at a cost.  On the surface this doesn't make it much different than a wizard, with a different selection of spells.  What makes this class, and really this book, different are the selection of spells (the book has 666) and the additional rules for acquiring magic and casting spells.  Adding this material makes the Warlock a much more interesting character.

The Pact-Bound in Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts is another warlock-like class.  Again the idea here is a class that takes a quick path to power for a price, usually to an other-worldly power.

There is a similar one in the pages of the ACKS Player's Companion.  Again the nice thing with this book is that the witch and warlock are separated.

In the 3e era we have a couple of "warlocks".  There is a warlock in the Complete Arcane and the witch in Pathfinder, which always felt more like a warlock to me.  Just staying focused on 3e we have a warlock class from WotC and a witch class for Pathfinder.  For 4e there were also very different witch and warlock classes.  5e only has a warlock.

In the case of the official D&D warlock, he is less of a spell caster and more a raw magical power wielder.  His pacts give him this power.

The question becomes one of whether the warlock should have spells or just weid raw magical power and thus have "blasts".  I am torn myself.  I like the warlock to have access to spells to be honest, the idea is these guys have sold their souls for power, but the "blasty" warlock really isn't all that powerful compared to a "spelly" warlock or wizard.

A good example of what I call a "blasty warlock" is Jeremy Reaban's The OSR Warlock.  Like his Witch Hunter book this book has a number of nice features in addition to the class. The class does not cast spells, it does have lot of special powers. This is by design and owning to the stated OGC and pulp sources.  The warlock here does get some spell like abilities in place of powers.  It actually works rather nicely   What I think makes this book special is the level advancement tables for "First Edition", "Original Edition", "Basic/Expert" and "Cyclopedic Edition".   Plus the author has a section of notes on the class.

I have to admit one of my favorite "warlock" books and one that  captures the Pulp Era warlock well is Green Ronin's "Warriors & Warlocks" book.  Yes it is for their superhero game Mutants and Masterminds (2.0 version) but it was my goto guide for a proper pulp warlock will AS&SH came out, and it is still a lot of fun.

I am certain I have missed some here.  Let me know in the comments below!

Class Struggles: The Witch Hunter

You have to appreciate the fact that Vin Disel is so geeky that not only was his character named Melkor, he was a Witch hunter from the Arcanum book, but now he has a movie more or less based on his character.

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/s/werent-vin-diesels-d-d-230400569.html

http://screenrant.com/last-witch-hunter-elijah-wood-rose-leslie-interview/

Geek and Sundry has also produced a new Witch Hunter class for D&D 5 that you can get here:
http://geekandsundry.com/vin-diesel-brings-matthew-mercers-new-class-to-life-the-witch-hunter-class-for-dd/

So what exactly is a "With Hunter"?  Well I have been fairly quiet on the whole concept myself.  But before that, let's talk about what has been done first.

I should begin with the Witch Hunter that Vin Disel used and the one that I think of as first anyway, the Witch Hunter from the Arcanum.

All the classes in the Arcanum and the Bard Games "Compleat" books before it were all very thin in nature. Some guidelines, some flavor, but a ton of imagination! The class is described as a dual classed hunter/mystic with "highly trained" combat abilities. They read a lot like Rangers to be honest, save with a focus on hunting down spell casting classes. They get training in two weapons (Weapon Proficiencies) and gain two more over the course of their career. They gain the skills of tracking, reading magic, stealth and spell casting.   As spell casters they can't wear armor.
Advancement by level is detailed later in the book (they are on the high end) and they take spells from the Mysticism list, which are similar to Clerics. (Note: I should have covered these Mystics back when I did mystics for my first Class Struggles).
The witch-hunter gets a maximum of 3 attacks per round when they reach level 13 (remember this is 1st-2nd ed-ish). They also gain a +1 to hit every other level.

There are hunter-like kits for 2nd ed. AD&D, but no witch-hunter really.

3rd Edition and the OGL brought out a number of various witch hunter classes.  Many though not till Pathfinder came out.

Super Genius Games had a bunch of books out for OGL/Pathfinder for Witch Hunters. The Genius Guide to the Witch Hunter and With a Bullet Point 9 Witch Hunter Feats.  With these two there is plenty to run your witch hunter in Pathfinder.  Unlike the Arcanum, this one does not use spells but instead has a number of special powers each level.  Both methods are fine with me really.

Not to be outdone there is the Player Paraphernalia #11 The Witch Hunter from The Knotty-Works.  This class also gets good combat ability and some powers, but it also gets spells to 4th level.  This puts it on par with the Ranger.  It has a couple of new feats, but no new spells.  Though you are getting a lot here for a buck and half.
So between these three books there are even more choices.

On the OSR/Retro Clone side we have only one product I know of, PC3 - The OSR Witch Hunter by Jeremy Reaban.  This book has a number of nice features in addition to the class.  The class does not cast spells, nor does it have a lot of special powers. This is by design and owning to the stated literary source. It does have some skills such as read magic and turn undead.  What I think makes this special is the level advancement tables for "First Edition", "Original Edition", "Basic/Expert" and "Cyclopedic Edition".  Nice feature if you ask me.

What Should A Witch-Hunter Do?
One question not always addressed is what exactly does a witch hunter do? That's for the player. The question to ask the GMs is what do Witch Hunters hunt when there are no witches (as a class) in the game?  The Arcanum version tends to focus on all spell casters. The Pathfinder ones tend to focus on the witch class.

Allow me to toss this one back to you all.  Would you or do you use "Witch Hunters"?  If so, who do they hunt? What do they do once they have one?

Class Struggles: The Necromancer

Very, very few classes or class concepts have been gone over more than the Necromancer.  For a class that was never part of the original game, and never actually a proper class in it's own right, a lot of ink and pixels have been spent on this class.  So much that I am sure to miss things and might even need a part 2.  Where do we start?

Well to begin with what exactly is a necromancer and what is it that appears in so many games?
Taken from the Greek a necromancer is someone that communes with the dead. So spells like Speak to Dead are a good example.  Historical necromancers, like for example John Dee, spoke to the dead to get advice. or foretell the future.   In modern parlance and certainly in games (maybe one caused the other) necromancy has come to mean a wizard that controls or manipulates the forces of death and unlife.

The easiest Necromancer is simple.  Play a Wizard/Magic-User and then only choose necromancy spells.  Wear a lot of black and hang out with undead.  This is also a very satisfying necromancer since all the trappings have to be role-played.  Alternately one could play a cleric of a god of death, take only reversed necromancy spells and command instead of turn undead.
I think though as time wore on people wanted something that wa little bit of both.

The first, or at least one of the first was from White Dwarf Magazine #22 from December 1980/January 1981.  Lew Pulsipher gives us an article about evil priests, the "Black Priests".  While these are more cultist, there is a lot of necromancy being thrown around.  This is followed by a true necromancer class also by Pulsipher in issue #35 from November 1982.  Either of these classes is fine and represent the design philosophy of the times.  Namely take and rearrange already familiar elements.  The Black Priest and this Necromancer have the same shortcomings though; a reliance of human sacrifice.

The Necromancer is turned up to 11 with the publication of Dragon #76 in August 1983 and Len Lakofka's death master class.  Designed to be an "NPC Class only" I remember seeing it first in the pages of Best of Dragon Magazine Vol. 3.  I admit, I rolled up a death master right away.  He became a major antagonist in my games for many years to come.

In AD&D1 the example of the Illusionist gave birth to the speciality wizards of 2nd Ed.  One of those speciality wizards was the Necromancer.  This continues in practice to the most current version.  Though unlike the Illusionist, the Transmuter or even the Evoker, the Necromancer got it's own book.  The Complete Book of Necromancers was one of those books that everyone seemed to want.  I remember picking it up back when it was first published. I paid $15 for it.  Later the cover price jumped to $18 and soon it became very rare. No idea why.  The aftermarket price jumped considerably and I ended up selling mine on eBay back in 2000 for $81. Not a bad deal really.   I recently picked up a copy at Half-Price Books for $9.  The PDF just about the same price.  Though the book is crammed full of necromancer goodies. Spells, magic items, undead familiars.

Moving out into the world of Fantasy Heartbreakers there is the near-compatible Quest of the Ancients.  This necromancer reads like the Death Master, but has some interesting spells and some powers.  The Arcanum/Bard Games also has a necromancer class.

3.x had, at the last time I looked, at least 3 different kinds of official Necromancer classes.  The two best are from Libris Mortis: The Book of Undead and Heroes of Horror.  Heroes of Horror featured the rather popular Dread Necromancer class.  There is also the Death Master class from Dragon updated to 3.0e.  The Crypt Lord from the aptly named Necromancer Games. Not to mention dozens of others from other third party publishers.  Most take the same elements and reorganize them, but every so often something new is produced.

4e had necromancers as well. It was a type of wizard (much like the witch was) and was introduced in the Player's Option: Heroes of Shadow book.  It had some rather neat features to it as well.

For the OSR things are really no different, dozens of different types and sorts of necromancers. I am only going to talk about a few.

One of the simplest also belongs to one of the simplest OSR games.  Basic Fantasy has a necromancer class on their downloads page for free.  It has a lot of spells and weighs in at an appropriate 13 pages.

I would have to say one of my favorites, at least in terms of style, is the one from Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.  The necromancer here is cut from the "evil cultist" mold like their warlock and has a lot of great spells and powers.

Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts also has a great necromancer and the big feature of this class (and this book) is the number of spells.  While this book as more spells, the AS&SH class is slightly better in terms of what I want. Right along with that is the necromancer from the great Theorems & Thaumaturgy. A basic class, but some really nice spells.

Another really cool one in terms of how the necromancer is presented is the one from Adventures Dark & Deep.  Darker Paths 1: The Necromancer is certainly in the vein of the "this is an evil class" but +Joseph Bloch makes no bones about the fact that players will be playing these as evil characters.  It's sort of the point of his "Darker Paths" series. In that respect this is a good one to pick up just to get some ideas on how to play an evil character.  Plus it has some unique spells.

Back at home I have most of these printed out and put into a folder.  I also have a number of character sheets of all the different types of necromancers.  Basically I have six characters with two sheets each; a 3.x sheet and an OSR compatible one (the five above and an old fashioned MU with necromancy spells).  This gives me 12 different sorts of necromancers for 6 characters.  I call them the Order of Six based on a group I introduced in my Buffy games.  I am planning on using them as my bad guys in my games, but right now I am only playing 5e! So I can't really judge how well they all work.  Similar to what I did with the Witch's Nest.  Sounds like a plan to me.

By the way. My son has a 5e game he is in charge of.  He has a 15th level necromancer in that game and it is wicked.

I feel like there is alot more to say but I have only scratched the surface.

What is your favorite necromancer class?

Class Struggles: The Anti-Paladin

For the month of October I want to focus on classes that have a certain amount of evil or horror associated with them.  So first up is a class that may have been one of the classes that got me thinking about doing a witch in the first place.  The Anti-Paladin.

The Anti-Paladin
Really, if you think about it the Anti-Paladin was a no brainer.  If there is a hero in white or shinning armor, then there is a dastardly foe in black, twirling his moustache and laughing evilly.  My first experience with the Anti-Paladin was finding him in the pages of The Best of Dragon Magazine Vol. 2.  It would have been somewhere in the summer of 1982.  I remember laying on the floor of my parents van reading while we drove to some family function in Southern Illinois.  I had that and the Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.    The Anti-Paladin fascinated me because he was so evil and the class was so detailed.  Several pages in fact. This issue also had other classes; the healer, the ninja (2 versions), the samurai and the berserker.  But this was the one that captured my attention the most.

I could tell even then the class was way over-powered for normal play.  Basically he was a paladin AND an assassin all in one.  I did have an anti-paladin character for a while.  I would use him as an NPC at times too. I played him more or less like I imagined then how Gilles de Rais was; aristocratic, maybe a bit of a fop, and evil to the freaking core.

I still liked the idea of the anti-paladin.  Something so antithetical to good as to be it's own dark reflection.  Something who's mere existence should cause the paladin to either quake in his shiny metal boots or fill him with enough steely resolve to destroy the beast.

Unlike some classes that get reimaged or redone every so often (the witch, necromancer and ninja are prime examples) the Dragon article pretty much became the definitive word on the anti-paladin for many, many years.   Even (maybe especially) during the 2e years that avoided any sign of "evil".
There was a follow-up, the very popular "Plethora of Paladins" article in Dragon #106, over five and half years after the anti-paladin appeared.  Even the Complete Paladin's Handbook for 2e claimed there was no such thing as an anti-paladin.  In fact we would not see an official anti-paladin till the WotC years.

The release of the D&D 3.0 Dungeon Master's Guide saw the return of the "evil" classes the Assassin and the anti-paladin in the form of the Blackguard.  Both were now "Prestige Classes".  The Blackguard was something akin to anti-paladin if he had begun as a paladin and then fell.  As an experiment with the new D&D 3.0 conversion guide I tried to rebuild my old anti-paladin as a new blackguard.  Of course my character never began as a paladin, so a multiclassed fighter/cleric/blackguard was the way to go.  Nice, but not really who that character was.
But the OGL meant the flood gates were now open and we got a number of paladins, alt-paladins and anti-paladins.  The Pathfinder rules might have one of the best "Antipaladins" since it is an "alternate" class of the Paladin.

In the OSR world one of the better Anti-Paladins comes from the ACKS Player's Companion book.  It captures the feel of the Dragon article quite well I think.  It is also given enough reason to exist without being grossly overpowered.   There is also the Barrel Rider Games Player's Companion that presents a number of new class features and, appropriately enough on page 13, the Anti-Paladin.
This class is not as detailed as the Dragon article (but to be fair, little is) but it covers all the basics.

In my mind the idea of the Anti-Paladin was an obvious one, but it seems to me that Baron Meliadus, the Wolf-helmeted villain of the Hawkmoon series by Micheal Moorcock was a good archetypical anti-paladin.  He was part of the nobility, but amoral and debase (some would say those are not as mutually exclusive as we are led to believe).  But he shared a number of qualities with the the hero of our tale, Dorian Hawkmoon.  Hawkmoon was the closest thing Moorcock ever wrote to a paladin in my mind.

How about you all?
Ever play one of these?

Class Struggles: The Invoker (4e)

Taking an odd turn today and looking at a 4th Edition class.

One of the nice things about 4e was the number of class choices. There were dozens, if not not scores, of classes.  4e popularized the notion that each class has a role; Leader, Controller, Defender and Striker to roughly correspond to the classic four classes of Cleric, Wizard, Fighter and Thief respectively.  There are also areas of power, Divine, Arcane, Martial, Primal and Psychic.  For the game it worked well and there was a lot of interesting class choices that were based on role and power choice.

The Invoker has no precedent and no update (so far).  It first appeared in Player's Handbook 2 for the 4th edition and it is described as a Divine controller than channels raw divine power.  In a way this makes them the divine counterpart to the Wizard; an arcane controller.
It could be described as the "Fist of the Gods".

What makes the Invoker an interesting choice is not just it's role, but the fluff text that goes along with it.  So an Invoker would worship or honor a god as part of the whole pantheon.  The examples given state an Invoker of Bahamut would also likely honor Tiamat.  Invokers are all shown worshipping older gods; not Old Gods or even Old Ones...but the first gods that are still worshipped today.

In fact most invokers would be the tireless enemy of any "Old Ones".  In the 4e fluff they are described as the human/mortal agents of the Godswar vs the Primordials.  Replace that with Titans, or Old Ones or even demons and you get the idea.

What strikes me most about this class is how well it could be added to any old-school or 5e game.
In 1st/2nd Ed it would be a sub-class of the cleric.  The invoker can turn/rebuke undead like a cleric and it also has access to divine spells.  Of course you could make an invoker easy enough with good role-playing and a conscious choice to take damage dealing spells and limit yourself on the healing magic.  Since invokers are much more of a "kill them all and let the gods sort them out" type of holy warrior I would also say that Raise Dead, Resurrection and Reincarnate are out of the question.

For their spell lists. Well the powers/spells in the 4e PHB2 are very colorful; Blades of Astral Fire, Glyph of Imprisonment, Cascade of Five Suns.  Most do damage based on Wisdom modifiers (which in 4e includes level).  If I were to create an old-school Invoker I would give them some invocation spells from the wizard's list.  Not more than 1 or 2 per level though.  I would make sure they had plenty of damage causing spells they can do from a distance.   Plus the spells all need to have very grandiose names, such as "Righteous Fury of 10000 Blazing Suns" or "Wrathful Vengeance of the Plough God" (Plough god?  Yeah, think about how important agriculture, growing and food was/is to people).  These are not hippy clerics of the "God is Love" type, these are the Old Testament, destroying people in a genocidal flood types.

The closest thing Pathfinder has to this concept is the Inquisitor. While their missions are the same, the invoker is believed to have a piece of divine power instilled in them while the inquisitor is all too mortal.  Still though there are some good ideas for some more spells on the inquisitor spell lists.

I think the reason I like the invoker so much is that it really is how I always liked to play to some clerics.  I have played several clerics over the years. First first character was a cleric of the "investigate and destroy evil" type.  I have played a number of paladins as well.  In fact my 3.x edition one was known as "The Fist of Pelor".
This class appeals to me as another sort of cleric. One that is more action and dealing damage than one that is contemplative and healing damage.

Plus I forgot how much fun some of the 4e stuff really is.  There is a lot going on in this game and it is a shame it will be tossed aside as a failed experiment.

BTW +Jonathan Becker has been running a series of posts on his thoughts of 4e. If you have played the game it is interesting to see it through the eyes of someone experiencing it for the first time.  If you have never played it then it is worth your time.  He has not gotten around to the invoker yet, but I am curious to see what he has to say.

Class Struggles: The Bard

Spend any time here and you will know I am very fond of music.  So it should also come as no shock that one of my favorite classes is the Bard.   I loved the old 1st Edition Bard. It's wonky class structure and having to be a fighter then a thief (or was it the other way around).  Then finally top it all of with druid magic.

The Bard was the class I was also looking most forward to in 2nd Edition.  It also was one of the biggest disappointments of 2nd edition for me.  The class seemed to have lost some of it's charm, sure it was still fun to play but not the same.  I doubt that I was alone in that feeling, the Bard seems to be the one class that keeps coming up in various OSR games in one form or another.

So many in fact that I am not going to try to tackle them all.  But here is a glimpse of what I know has been done.  Let's start with +Richard LeBlanc who has had a lot to say on Bards recently.

Richard LeBlanc, over at Save vs. Dragon
http://savevsdragon.blogspot.com/2015/08/new-bx-character-class-bard-version-i.html
http://savevsdragon.blogspot.com/2015/08/new-bx-character-class-bard-version-ii.html
http://savevsdragon.blogspot.com/search/label/bard
and to be featured in the Character Class Codex.
http://savevsdragon.blogspot.com/2015/08/cx1-character-class-codex-update.html

Richard LeBlanc has given this class a lot of thought and energy.  His Version I has more thief skills, his version II has more magic.  I think in the end I prefer his version II Bard.  I tend to like a magical flair in my Bards.
This bard switches between lead, rhythm and bass guitar.

Adventurer Conqueror King System
A Basic-era sort of Bard. This is a "campaign class" or something beyond the "Basic 4".  This particular bard takes advantage of ACKs skill system, but lacks any spell power.  It's a good class, but I would see it a more of a wandering Loremaster.

Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea
Quick note. I love the spiral bound AS&SH books.  Makes it very to have the book open and lay it flat.
The Bard of Hyperborea is a subclass of the Thief and has a number of interesting things going for it.  For example like LeBlanc's Version II, it can cast both Druid and Illusionist spells. A really nice touch.  It has the countersong of 3.x's Bard. Like most bards it also has a folklore ability.  What might be the neatest addition to the bard is it's ability to Mesmerize.  So there is you Pied Piper and Erich Zahn right there.  The bard of ACKS plays a well crafted lute. The Hyperborean bard plays a flute carved from the legbone of his former master.  He didn't kill his master, but he was there when he died.

Barrel Rider Games
James over at BRG has given us a number of Bard-like classes.
The Bard - This Bard is a full 20 level class. Like the Bards in other games they have the ability to perform with musical instruments and they have some thief abilities as well. These bards though do not have magical spell abilities. This bard plays acoustic guitar.
The War Chanter - What the Bard is to humans and the Greensinger is to Elves the War Chanter is to Dwarves. In addition to being fighters the war chanter also has some powers "Songs" that they can use to aid others. If you are playing a Basic-era game and have more than one player that wants to play a dwarf, have one choose this. It is a pretty interesting class and one that would make good use out a larger group of characters.  This one obviously plays the drums.
The Greensinger - The Greensinger is something akin to an elvish Bard/Druid. Greensingers get some special abilities and can cast spells like that of a cleric/druid. The idea is a rather cool one and frankly I wanted more. This is the lead singer of the group.

The Complete B/X Adventurer
This Bard is of the "loremaster" type with some magical effects to his music.  This bard is interesting since it also allows for the bard to learn more languages as part of his leveling up.  I rather like that.  This bard plays second hand string instrument that he bought with the first few coppers he ever saved.  He can now afford better instruments, but there is too much love in that old one for him to ever let it go.

A Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore
Again, this might be the closest we will ever know of an official Gygaxian 2nd Ed Bard.  Having reread a lot of material on the Bard from Dragon magazine back issues I am confident that this is very much like what we would have gotten.  These bards use their own spell lists and have their skills in addition to Verbal Patter.  They also have a Lore ability.  So this one covers all the bases pretty well.
This bard plays a complicated 12 string guitar; hard to master but beautiful to listen to.

Fantastic Heroes & Witchery
This is a Loremaster type of bard with plenty of skills and the ability to play a counter song to disrupt magic.  With their legend-lore, gather information, persuasion and stealth skills this bard also makes for an excellent spy.  This bard can also inspire allie and bolster troops.  No spells, but the ability to read scrolls is nice. This bard plays a violin, viola, or a lyre.  Actually this bard plays them all.

Spellcraft & Swordplay: Monstrous Mayhem
While for the Spellcraft & Swordplay game this Bard will work with any rules that also has a thief class.  The bard is an "elite path" of the thief. Something like a subclass.  This bard has singing/performing ability that has some magic associated with it. Thief skills and lore.
This bard plays the bass.

In any case whatever bard you choose for your games they need to be cool. They are the face  of the party. The sly silver tongued devil that gets the party the best room in the inn, the best food and finds out where the real adventures are.

Conceivably you could run a party with nothing but bards. Load up on heal potions, some scrolls and send them on their way.  Hopefully they don't end up looking like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96A0uyFWQHs

And just because I have a lame excuse to post a Lindsey Stirling video.

Class Struggles: Class Compendium Books

RPGNow has a big sale going on on various d20 books.

I am not done with the class analysis I wanted to do today so I thought maybe I would highlight some of the books with new classes for your OSR games.  Some of these I have reviewed in the past.  I am sure there must be others, but these are the ones I am most familiar with.  Not all these books are on sale.

A Curious Volume of Forgotten Lore
One of the first, this is the book that launched BRW games and Adventures Dark & Deep. Part of +Joseph Bloch's "What If" experiment of a hypothetical Gary helmed 2nd Edition.  I recently went back and reread some of the articles from Gary about the 2nd Ed. game of AD&D that never was.  Interestingly he made comments about a 3rd and 4th edition game too!  This book covers the Bard, Jester, Mystic, Savant, and Mountebank classes.  The mystic was the first class I looked at for the Class Struggles series.

The Complete B/X Adventurer
This is the second book of the B/X Companion series by +Jonathan Becker.  Where Adventures Dark & Deep gave us a hypothetical AD&D 2nd Ed, Becker gives us a Companion set that never was.    This book gives us some extra rules but the main feature are the classes.  The classes are Acrobat, Archer, Barbarian, Bard, Beastmaster, Bounty Hunter, Centaur, Duelist, Gnome, Mountebank, Mystic, Ogre-Kin, Scout, Summoner, Tattoo Mage, Witch, and Witch Hunter. 17 new classes.  New classes in B/X and BECMI related games are a bit more varied since races are also classes.  But there are a lot of great classes here.

Basic Arcana
+Tom Doolan published his first work, Basic Arcana all the way back in 2013!  This is also a "Basic Era" product.  It starts with some "Class Variants"; Dwarf Priest, Dwarf Scout, Elf Sorcerer, and Elf Warrior. For humans we have the Martialist (like a monk) and the Barbarian. All of this and some extra rules on combat and a page of spells.

Magical Theorems & Dark Pacts
A favorite of mine, this book introduces a baker's dozen of new magic using classes and their spells. +Dyson Logos gives us the:  Cleric, Wizard, Elven Swordmage, Elven Warder, Enchanter, Fleshcrafter, Healer, Inquisitor, Merchant Prince, Necromancer, Pact-Bound, Theurge, and the Unseen.

ACKS Player's Companion
ACKS is still one of the slickest look games around.  +Alexander Macris gives us 19 new character classes, including the Anti-paladin, Barbarian, Dwarven Delver, Dwarven Fury, Dwarven Machinist, Elven Courtier, Elven Enchanter, Elven Ranger, Gnomish Trickster, Mystic, Nobiran Wonderworker, Paladin, Priestess, Shaman, Thrassian Gladiator, Venturer, Warlock, Witch, and Zaharan Ruinguard.  So a good collection really. That takes up about 44 pages of the book's 160.  New classes have new spells as well. Best of all is a character class creation guide. It look like a similar idea that appeared in Dragon years ago.  Basically it reduces any class to a set of points and you point buy a new class just like you would in say GURPS or Unisystem.  Maybe one day I'll check out a bunch of classes using this.

Theorems & Thaumaturgy
This is part a class book and of course all the new spells.  It's not part of the sale, but +Gavin Norman offers it as Pay What You Want, so make this worth his while.  The new Classes are the Elementalist, Necromancer and Vivimancer. The Vivimancer later gets his own book, but these are three very solid class choices.

Class Compendium
+James Spahn has been delivering solid classes since the dawn of his Barrel Rider Games.  This is a collection, edit of some of his best selling and favorite classes. The first 166 or pages are dedicated to a Basic Era/Labyrinth Lord compatible class.   Well this book is huge and we are given 52 classes, divided by category.
Arcane Allies: Alienist, Familiar, Thopian Gnome, Wild Wizard
Doughty Dwarves: Raging Slayer, Rune-Smith, Warchanter
Enchanting Elves: Dark Elf, Greensinger, Half-Elf, Sylvan Elf
Heroic Halflings: Burglar, Feast Master, Huckster, Lucky Fool, Tavern Singer
Holy Rollers: Angel, Friar, Inquisitor, Undead Slayer
In Shining Armor: Commander, Dragon Slayer, Knight
Martial Masters: Barbarian, Berserker, Gladiator, Samurai, Sword Master
Monstrous Marauders: Dragon, Goblin,  Half-Ogre, Half-Orc, Treant
Second Star to the Right: Fairy, Lost Boy, Pirate
Traveling Trouble-Makers: Acrobat, Explorer, Fortune Teller, Wanderer
Unhallowed Heroes: Cultist, Damphir, Death Knight. Eidolon
Urban Adventurers: Bandit, Bard, Bounty Hunter, Watchman
Virtuous Victorians: Automation, Investigator, Metaphysician, Shootist

New Class Options
One of the most recent one this comes from Genus Loci Games and +Johua De Santo.  The classes included here are the: Blood Witch, Chesh, Forrester, Highlander, Mermaid of the In-Land Sea, Mythwood Elf, Pixie, Prodigal, Ruca and the Draken-Knight.  I covered the Blood Witch in some detail a while back.

So. Over 120 (give or take) new classes.  Not to bad really.

Class Struggles: The Dark Druid

I am have a great time here planning out my "War of the Witch Queens" adventures.  My 5th Ed game is running like a well oiled machine and there is nothing I need to plan for it for many more months (I need a high level adventure to cap it off).

This week I finally got a copy of an adventure I have been wanting forever; Dark Druids by Robert J. Kuntz.  It is a real treat and worth the wait and money I paid for it.

I had been researching Irish myths and legends and read about how Liath, Bodhmall, and Finn defeated an enemy known as the Dark Druid. It was quite a fascinating tale and I loved the idea of an evil druid.
I want to talk today about the Dark Druid class, but first a little background.
Many years ago I wrote an adventure for the Buffy RPG called The Dark Druid. Actually it was the first ever published Buffy adventure.   The adventure was a Willow and Tara focused adventure dealing with their past lives, Liath and Bodhmall, Finn MacCool and the Dark Druid "Fer Dorich".

The idea was compelling enough that Irish author Brian O'Sullivan took the same characters and same myths and put his own spin on them in his books the Fionn MacCumhail series.   Like I did he has Liath and Bodhmall as lovers and he even has a Dark Druid, a "Tainted One".  I bring this up because HIS Dark Druid is much cooler than mine.  Mine is simply evil.  His is a perversion of nature.  In gamer circles we might want to describe this in terms of undeath or even Cthulhoid like nastiness.   O'Sullivan is better than that.  His Tainted One radiates a level of "wrongness" that it is noticed my Ban-drui Bodhmall from miles away and even puts fear into the legendarily fearless Liath.
(BTW get his books. They are great!)

Back to my Dark Druid for a bit. The adventure was designed to be a modern tale (thus the Buffy) system.  Part 2 took place in Victorian times as Ghosts of Albion: Blight.  The main enemy was an unnamed necromancer that is imprisoned in a faerie ring.  In publishing it was the necromancer, Lord of Dragons from Ghosts of Albion: Embers.  In my personal games it was the same Dark Druid.
Part 3 was supposed to take place back in Mythic Éire and deal with Liath, Bodhmall, and Finn defeating the Dark Druid for the first time.  Three parts separated by time.   Part 3 was going to be called "All Souls Night" (after the Loreena McKennitt song).   It would have been for *D&D-ish and included the new classes the Dark Druid and the Green Knight.  I did write bits of of it for 3.0 and the Dark Druid and Green Knight live on as Prestige Classes (but I am not going to talk about those today).
I was going to release it, but now I don't have too.
Brian Young gave us the wonderful Codex Celtarum and the adventure Night of the Spirits for Castles & Crusades.  Night of the Spirits does pretty EVERYTHING I wanted to do with All Souls Night.  It even has a Dark Druid.

Dark Druids is a similar adventure. I am not reviewing the adventure yet, but I do want to talk about the class it offers; The Dark Druid.

The class is like the Druid of AD&D source; only this time OSRIC.  It can be any evil alignment or Chaotic Neutral.  This has some logic to it.  The book includes the Dark Druid class and two different sects of Dark Druids.  Dark Druids eschew hierarchies  so there are no "high priests" but many that might claim that title. There are "Dread Hierophants", but that really can be more about power than actual religious hierarchies.   Advancement wise they are like Druids. The only thing I didn't care for was that the Dark Druids are controlled by a demon.  I would think that they are controlled by something older and more evil.  An Eodemon or Urdemon or even some other horror from beyond; something outside of reality.  The book also comes with 42 new spells.  I did not see an OGL statement with any of this.
Given all this The Dark Druid would also make for a great class in Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea.

I would avoid giving the Dark Druid too many necromantic spells. Sure he can have some, but that is not their role.  Some of the vivimancer spells from the Complete Vivimancer are a good choice.  Obviously there are some good witch spells as well.

There is a lot of potential for a class concept like this.

Class Struggles: The Halfling Classes

Welcome back to Class Struggles.  Today I wanted to do something a little different. Instead of focusing on one class or product I wanted to focus on a general theme of classes.
The theme this time is halflings.

I often find that halflings don't get a lot of respect. Maybe it is the size or the fact that they are all universally depicted as home-bodies.  In any case a lot of us owe our gaming career to halflings, or at least one in particular; Bilbo.

If you were like me you discovered Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit around the same time as D&D and RPGs. I think we owe the humble halfling a little better.  Thankfully I am not the only one.

To start with lets look over to +Richard LeBlanc at Save Vs. Dragon and a product that is not even out yet.   The Halfling Warslinger is a D&D Basic/Expert class that will appear in his CX1 Character Class Codex.  The Warslinger is an alteration of the basic halfling class.  This one focuses more on the halfling weapon of choice, the sling.   Now while there are some very obvious David-and-Goliath imagery going on here there is also plenty of flavor text to really make this class it's own thing.  Not only that but it also makes sense with a community of halflings.  The sling taking the place of the yew bow and arrow of Medieval England. The art that accompanies the write up makes it very easy to imagine an army of halflings all armed with slings.  It makes for a compelling picture.

I have also spent a lot of time with Fantastic Heroes & Witchery.  This book includes a couple of different halfling classes.  The Folk-Champion and the Scout.   The Folk-Champion is described as something akin to the halfling knight in shinning armor.  Like the Warslinger, this class gets benefits from using slings, but this class is also more than that.  They also can boost the morale (and some rolls) of their allies and have a bit of luck on their sides.   Folk Hero would be another good way to describe them.   The Scout is the halfling ranger and thief mixed into one.  Though more ranger than thief.   They also have some proficiencies with the sling, but they are also adept to hiding in shadows.
These characters, like all the characters in FH&W can advanced to 14th level.  The scout also has a Legend Lore ability as well, which I thought was very cool.  It makes it difficult not to imagine the Shire being patrolled by scouts but the villages protected by Folk-Champions and Warslingers.

Next we have not only the archetype treasure finder but also from a guy that I think might be a hobbit himself.  The Burglar from +James Spahn's Barrel Rider Games should invoke images of halflings stealing treasure from dragons.  Personally, James is my go to guy when it comes to hobbits/halflings.  Not only does he have this but he is doing some work with Cubicle 7 on the One Ring game.  That is pretty close to being an expert in this field as you can get.  So it goes without saying that his burglar class (more so than any of his other classes) really captures the feel of a new class. Yes..yes you can argue it is nothing more than a reskinned thief, but there is more here than that. I refered to this class as BRG's signature class.  I still stand behind that.  Plus you have to like a class where the artwork looks like John Belushi with mutton-chops.
There are few more in his Class Compendium book as well, but this one is my favorite.

There have been others books of course, the old 2nd Ed The Complete Book of Gnomes & Halflings had the kits.  In that my favorite was easily the Halfling Whistler, a Bard  kit that could be reskinned as a Basic/LL class.

I also presented rules/guidelines for the Halfling Herb Woman, their version of the Witch class.

It is great to see so many choices for halflings.  I think someone now needs to come up with a magic system that is unique to them.  Maybe something associated with singing or music.

Class Struggles: The Occultist & Skylla

Fantastic Heroes & Witchery has crazy number of classes. There were  so many to choose from and this is even given the fact that there is no "cleric" class to speak of.    I wanted to address this and talk about the Wiseman/Wisewoman and maybe I still will, later down the road.  But today I want to focus on the Occultist.

The Occultist is a magic-using character that ends up having a lot of dealings with various fiendish creatures.  The class is one of the "Weird Tales" era classes presented in the book, but there is no reason it could not be used with other dungeon crawling types of classes.  It is not the strongest character on the block and it's spell selection and use is a little limited, but it has some nice features.

To begin with the Occultist will be the undeniable expert on anything fiendish.  Demons, Devils, whatever your world has, they will know about it.  They can add their level to any skill check involving demonic/fiendish lore.  This applies to any skill. The example given are survival checks when crossing a hellish-plane or a charisma check when dealing with demons.  Not too shabby really.
At third level then even get secret knowledge of the demon slayers to aid them.
As the occultist gets higher levels they can even banish a demonic creature al together. Much like a cleric turning undead.

But all of this comes at a price.  The occultist is tainted by corruption.   The abyss staring back at you.
As they earn higher levels they have to make a Wisdom save vs. corruption or move closer and closer to chaos.  A nice idea really.

Occultists learn spells from books or other occultists.  But unlike wizards they do not have a number of spells per level they know, but rather a total number of spells and the highest level they can learn.  So a 7th level Occultist knows 7 spells and the maximum spell level of 4th.  Of those seven spells all can be 1st level or some other mix. It depends what the occultist can find in their travels.
Personally I would modify that up based on Intelligence, but that is me. The Occultist uses "Black Magic" spells, but I wonder if starting occultists could get away with using Grey magic too.  At least until they fail more saves and become chaotic.

In many ways this spell casting system is the same as what you see in the Witch from The Complete B/X Adventurer.  There are in fact many similarities in tone and the manner in which they get spells.  I can see some overlap in these classes.

Which gives me an idea.

Skylla, 7th Level Occultist

Strength: 9
Dexterity: 11
Constitution: 10
Intelligence: 12
Wisdom: 14
Charisma: 13

Hit Points:  20 (d4)
Alignment: Chaotic
AC: 4 (Ring of Protection +1)

Special Abilities
1st: Dark Lore (+7 to fiend-based/related skill checks)
3rd: Secret knowledge of demonslayers
6th: banish fiend 1/day

Spells
Maximum Spell Level: 3rd
Number of Spells known: 6
1st Level: Read Magic, Cause Fear, Chill Touch, Find Familar
2nd Level: Black Lightning
3rd Level:  Bestow Curse

Not bad, I only gave her the minimum spells, but she would likely have more secreted away in a tome for later learning.