Adventuring Classes: For a Few Denarii More (now taking requests)

[SteelDraco]

War Captain - I love it. I'd make this a full class variant though. Strong attack, good saves in willpower and fortitude. Add in class abilities, or even some bard-like spells.

*cough cough* If he's developing it as a Prestige Class and you want a base class tactician-type, you might check out the one I developed. You can check out the development cycle and see a few sample NPCs in this thread.

 

[pawsplay]

I like the concepts listed so far. It seems that something like the Sharpshooter or Trickster could be a full base class.

I think SteelDraco has a good point, that some concepts could be framed as variations of larger concepts. I had a related thought: When you wrote the original "Denarii" book, the idea of archetypes as presented in the Advanced Player's Guide had not yet been borne, but a lot of classes from that book could be repurposed that way. The beast master and bounty hunter seem like ranger archetypes, the corsair is a barbarian archetype, corbie and spy from rogue, martial artist from monk, knight from fighter, and so on. It's probably something I could retrofit on my own, but would that be something you might consider doing, either for the original Denarii classes or these new ones?

Archetypes are really just Alternate Class Features from Unearthed Arcana (3e). In fact, many of the classes in FoD are based around a similar concept, but in creating a new base class, I am free to do things like breaking up existing progressions or changing the skill list. The Corsair and its much maligned full BAB/full sneak attack combination is really just a Fighter with both sneak attack and the "Thug" option activated, then Pathfinderized by filling in the empty space with flavorful, piratical abilities. Similarly, the Beastmaster is a Barbarian with an animal companion isntead of rage, and then further tweaked until I was satisfied.

The corbie is something different. I started with a full BAB progression, then started hunting around for any rogue, bard, sorcerer, or other abilities I could find that suggested skill or luck. I love creating new things, but why reinvent the wheel? After carting off everything that wasn't bolted down, I expanded on the concept by creating new abilities and reshaped the class several times.

As far as archetypes for FoD goes... there's not much point for, say, the Spy. In fact, it would not surprise me if I found out that whoever wrote the Spy archetype in APG for the Rogue had read my work. The Spy is basically a Rogue archetype, plus a little love. I think the extra attention to making the different aspects work together makes it better than an archetype. But it would be possible, and possibly worthwhile, to make archetypes for the Beastmaster, Corbie, etc. The incentive is not strong, however.

For instance, what if I wanted to make a Beastmaster archetype that focused on a savage riding beast? I could tweak some of abilities so that they only got a single companion, change more general bonuses to riding abilities, and so forth. But the result is going to be only slightly different from the Beastmaster, and would be increasingly similar to an APG barbarian with the savage rider archetype. Which, by the way, bears more than a slight resemblance to the Wild Rider (variant barbarian class) from Unorthodox Barbarians.

 

[pawsplay]

*cough cough* If he's developing it as a Prestige Class and you want a base class tactician-type, you might check out the one I developed. You can check out the development cycle and see a few sample NPCs in this thread.

That's a good idea. If you want a full-on base class that focuses on this concept, I fully endorse SteelDraco's version. I approached the idea several times, but every time I got down to the nitty gritty, I became dissatisfied. Either the class was fairly martial, in which I would imagine you would start as a fighter, cavalier, or knight, and go into the prestige class. Or the class would focus on special maneuvers, to a great extent, which would make the class more, ah, boardgamey, than my tastes. If you really want to play a grand general, I think FaFDM can probably offer that, probably in the form of Envoy -> War Captain or Courtier -> War Captain.

But if you want lots of command effects, you should play SteelCraco's commander.

 

[pawsplay]

I prefer to call FoD, The Complete book of Uncanny Dodge.

LOL

I lent my copy to a friend, so I don't have it in front of me. If I recall correctly it featured 11 classes, eight of which had Uncanny Dodge. That's far too much use of the same class ability spread throughout the entire book. Out of the core 11 classes only two have that ability. It felt like you added Uncanny Dodge to any class that had dead levels and needed filler. Whether it fit the class or not.

I, of course, respectuflly disagree. And not every class gets Improved Uncanny Dodge, at least by default. I think the real question is: why doesn't the core monk get it? Monks are supposed to be ready for action, and if anyone should be able to avoid a flanking penalty, I think it would be the monk. Plus, you wouldn't have to make any notes under their Wis bonus to AC, because they would already keep their AC bonuses when flat-fooed. Very convenient!

The fact is, several of the classes are modifications or recombinations of classes that already had it. It would be hard to justify taking it away. If you want to nominate candidates who definitely should not have it, feel free. Won't hurt my feelings.

I disagree. I'd say if you have to ask, then you are already hesitant to re-make a class that's been done before.

There are practical reasons for asking. I can think of at least three ways to do the class, and do it well. But that's a different question than publishing it. I certainly would not publish three alternate, competing assassins in my own book!

If the Athlete and Jongleur serve similar purposes, than I'd consider combining the classes.

They are very dissimilar. Different BAB, hit dice, skill list, abilities, structure, etc. And they are both already about 60% written. So that at least is definitely not going to happen.

Sharpshooter - Can you do something with this prestige class that can't be done with the fighter, ranger, or rogue?

Combining stealth with long ranged attacks. Seriously, none of those classes do that effectively.

Trickster Adept - Sounds like the 3.0 arcane trickster.

It's not. The arcane trickster actually made the transition to Pathfinder, for one thing.

 

[Herobizkit]

Six classes, six ability scores.

Perhaps you could use d20 Modern as inspiration for your proposed classes.

Assassin - Strong Hero - STR
Athlete - Tough Hero - CON
Courtier - Seems like a Dedicated/Charismatic Mix.
Emissary - Charismatic Hero - CHA
Jongleur - seems like a Fast/Strong mix.
Musketeer - Fast Hero - DEX

Which one is the Smart/INT-based hero? You need one of those. Scientist, Pedagogue(!), whatever you want. Dedicated/WIS heroes have a lot of Wis-based abilities... maybe a Preacher (yeah, I know, the "cleric") or Templar?

I've never been a fan of Assassins, but you could call it an Infiltrator and suddenly it sounds uuuuber-cool. Someone who gets in, does the job, and gets out unseen.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I always wanted to see a wis-based, faith-based, nonmagical warrior.

 

[The Black Kestrel]

Courtier/Emissary: I'll echo the concern about the concepts might be too similar to warrant separate classes. Regarding the Courtier, how much will it resemble the Courtier base class from Rokugan/Swashbuckling Adventures?