Shadowdark Western Reaches Stretch Goal: New Classes

Scribe said:

My concern around her Psion, is the implication that it will be 'spells' and use the existing system.

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This is what made me not vote Alchemist or Psion. While I'd be extremely excited for either, if the Alchemist potion system (or psionic abilities) were mechanically identical to the way spells work for everyone else... well, at that point I'd rather just reflavor wizard.
I voted Necromancer in the hopes that it will get one undead minion as a class feature that grows in strength, rather than puppeting a horde of weaklings. I also hope that many of the class's spells will be focused on strengthening the minion and weakening enemies.
If the Necromancer's actual necromancy is entirely limited to using spells to create undead minions, I'd rather just have the Necromancer be introduced to the game in the same way the Mage, Druid, and Sorcerer will be—as thematic additions to the Wizard spell list, maybe with an alignment requirement.

For martials, I ultimately voted Paladin. Despite not being explicitly evil, the Knights of St Ygris feel Blackguard-y to me, and I'm hoping for a class with a similar concept but genuinely dedicated to good in the game—two sides of the same coin, in essence. But I'm sure Kelsey could do something a little more interesting than that if she wanted to.
Barbarian was my second choice, and a very close one. If I knew for a fact that Kelsey was going in a Conan route and not a typical TTRPG berserker route, I would have voted Barbarian.

VenerableBede said:

...I'd rather just have the Necromancer be introduced to the game in the same way the Mage, Druid, and Sorcerer will be—as thematic additions to the Wizard spell list, maybe with an alignment requirement.

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My one disappointment with that approach, which otherwise is a cool idea, is that I wish it also replaced the Wizard ability of learning extra spells with a nifty, flavorful feature. E.g., maybe Druids could have some kind of shapechange into small, 1hp creatures.

VenerableBede said:

Despite not being explicitly evil, the Knights of St Ygris feel Blackguard-y to me, and I'm hoping for a class with a similar concept but genuinely dedicated to good in the game—two sides of the same coin, in essence.

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Very much agree with that; it's what I'm hoping for, too. A little candle of hope trying to stay lit in a dark and stormy world.

VenerableBede said:

Barbarian was my second choice, and a very close one. If I knew for a fact that Kelsey was going in a Conan route and not a typical TTRPG berserker route, I would have voted Barbarian.

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Same here, too. Well...I probably would still vote for Paladin, but agree that's the kind of Barbarian I want.

That said, I could also see space for a Berserker...

Bill Zebub said:

My one disappointment with that approach, which otherwise is a cool idea, is that I wish it also replaced the Wizard ability of learning extra spells with a nifty, flavorful feature. E.g., maybe Druids could have some kind of shapechange into small, 1hp creatures.

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I was very surprised that there wasn't a level 1 Druid spell that did exactly that. True, not all sources for druid inspiration have them turning into animals, but it's still extremely iconic... At least there's a spell that turns you into a tree. And Polymorph. But those come kinda late, particularly given how easy and frequent death is in Shadowdark.

Alternatively, I think there's design space in Shadowdark for an "archetype" (or "paths"?) system that takes existing classes and swaps out one or two features for another. As an example, I'm a huge fan of 5e's Echo Fighter, so I've been playing around replacing the Fighter favored weapon feature with one that lets you create an echo a limited number of times per day. Something like this could be used to swap out the Wizard feature of turning spell scrolls into known spells and replace it with turning into animals (but only if you are already a Druid), stuff like that.

That all said, I really like how simple yet expressive the Shadowdark rules are, so I'd prefer such granularity to be introduced as a well-polished third-party expansion. Whether it were done by someone well-known in the community and given Kelsey's blessing or done by a total nobody and therefore got little attention, just having that layer of separation would feel... I dunno, best of both worlds. Keep what I think works great about Shadowdark while still having the option out there.

Bill Zebub said:

That said, I could also see space for a Berserker...

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There's a handful of classes with rage-like features. This isn't me saying there isn't space—I agree there is—but I think it would have a harder time not feeling like just another melee martial weapons guy.

Something I like about Shadowdark is how... specific(?) many of the newly announced classes are. Yeah, you've got eternal, broad archetypes in the game, like Fighter and Wizard and Bard, but Basilisk Warrior? That feels pretty uniquely Shadowdark. Camel Rider? All right, other games have mounted classes, but it still feels really grounded in the Shadowdark world—even more so now that we are getting an official campaign setting. Same goes for Knights of St Ygris.

While the more generic/universal archetypes that show up in most pseudo-medieval TTRPGs are fun, and there's definitely space for them in Shadowdark, I hope that they never totally overwhelm the truly unique, weird, specific stuff.

I say this all despite (perhaps paradoxically) being quite excited for the potential of generic/universal archetypes Paladin and Necromancer being added to the game.

Aldarc said:

My issue with a class like a "jester" is answering the question of why a jester risking their life in a dungeon?

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The lulz, obviously

I should ask what the Librarian even is..but I already voted anyway.

Scribe said:

I should ask what the Librarian even is..but I already voted anyway.

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In fitting the Mood of the game for myself, I went with Barbarian and Necromancer.

I went with what I posted earlier in the thread as wishlist classes: barbarian (with some thief/athletics skills) and alchemist (hopefully using potions with unpredictable results).

VenerableBede said:

There's a handful of classes with rage-like features. This isn't me saying there isn't space—I agree there is—but I think it would have a harder time not feeling like just another melee martial weapons guy.

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I also think there's an awful lot of room for something evocative of the Berserker archetype other than "Rage X/day".