Mike Myler is an Ennie Award-winning freelancer who has worked for Cubicle 7, Legendary Games, and many other publishers including EN Publishing. His list of books for D&D and Level Up: Advanced Fifth Edition is significant enough that he moonlights as a teacher providing RPG design classes at the RPG Writer Workshop. In addition, on Backerkit, he’s crowdfunding the Complete Class Compendium for Level Up A5E and D&D 2024, a book with new classes, new schools of magics, spells, monsters, radiation, and more to tempt and challenge your players. What inspired these new options, and why are they going to make your games more fun? I talked to Mike to get his thoughts on the topic as well as discuss making a Frankenstein’s monster out of a fellow PC.
QUICK DISCLAIMER
While Mike Myler is a cornerstone of EN Publishing, and this project is designed for both Level Up: Advanced Fifth Edition (A5E) as well as Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition (2024), this book is not an EN Publishing project. If you’re interested in supporting official Advanced Fifth Edition content, EN Publishing is offering its own project on Backerkit, Level Up: A5E Gate Pass Gazette Annual 2025. Now, on to the classes.
CLASSES
This book provides 12 original classes for 5e and A5E: Bloodweaver, Diabolist, Doctor, Exemplar, Feywalker, Freak, Gemini, Mad Scientist, Mechanic, Occultist, Scrapper, and Speedster. Some of these options feel high fantasy, others feel superheroic fantasy, some touch on Gothic fantasy, but all are rooted in D&D-style fantasy design. I asked Mike to pitch the book to a player: “These classes can summon a potent thrall and rely on Godzilla giving them a literal thumbs up, or become a walking ooze, or zip around like the Flash, or create their own Iron Man armor, or be gratified by the challenges they overcome while handling the inherent dichotomy of their binarily-torn fencer. I haven’t made it more than a minute or so of talking like that before someone in a seat demands that we get started.”
Drilling down to the new Gemini class – the aforementioned “binarily-torn fencer” – there’s a duality where your character embodies two options, shades of each other with subclasses that personify youth and old age, body and mind, daylight and twilight, or cowardice and courage.
When asked about the class, Mike Myler said that Gemini characters have an innate variation of the Mirror Image spell. “The higher your Gemini level the more semi-real duplicates you get, while they exist your semi-real duplicates each get an attack when you take the Attack action. Very late in the game (Tier 4 play) you do get an ability to create more substantial duplicates using Incredible Multiplication, which are much weaker than you and can’t be in your proximity for very long.”
Mike goes on to state that those proxies can be reabsorbed to gain all of the experiences and knowledge that they learned. Compare that to the Mad Scientist class, which exploits weaknesses, act as tricksters, or could stand-in for Doctor Frankenstein as they remake the flesh of the living. In gameplay, I could see a Mad Scientist character as a fantasy pulp villain going through a “good” phase of his diabolic career much like Magneto of The X-Men when he’s helping Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.
Taking these classes together while I wear my “player hat”, I think about the Gemini with their dual beings and the Mad Scientist: Fleshworker subclass, which allows for the creation of Frankenstein’s monster; could the Fleshworker remake and combine parts of the different Geminis together? Mike said, “Yeah you certainly could. Fleshworkers get features for implementing (and flat out get a few) grafting feats. That could certainly create a very fiendish (or decrepit celestial) version of Frankenstein’s monster out of a Gemini.”
I dig this idea, and it demonstrates that Mike’s new classes from the Complete Class Compendium aren’t stock standard gaming options, there’s layers to this onion that gamers can peel to gain some mileage.
MORE GAMING OPTIONS
This isn’t just a book of classes, it includes new schools of magic, new spells, and radiation. The new schools of magic relate to the new classes, but aren’t tied to them. To get a better idea of where these schools originated from, I asked Mike about the magic and any related classes.
“That’s a bigger question than you might think. For the spells proper we need to go back a decade to either 2099 Wasteland (for the radiation-centric spells) or the Book of Exalted Darkness (for the Blood and Vile schools of magic; all spells that are very violent or straight up wicked). The Mad Scientist and Scrapper make good use of the former, but the latter are for everybody! Clerics, sorcerers, warlocks—even druids have some evil and sanguine fun waiting for them.”
Radiation-centric spells, you say? Radiation has always existed, but it has only became a health risk in the last century. In Complete Class Compendium, GMs get options for using radiation in their campaign. How do you proposed to add it to your campaign?
“I’d coat the planet in [radiation], create a bunch of crazy warlords, and load up on dangerous settlement-focused hazards. There’s no A-Bomb in here or nuclear reactors or anything like that, only supporting materials (like Iodine Pills, for example). The hooks that are here are dug into the Spells appendix and Settlement rules at the back—there are tools aplenty to garner interest, cause havoc, and send a party of medieval adventurers all across the realm chasing a strange new energy source and the mage wielding it.”
COMPLETE CLASS COMPENDIUM CONCLUSION
Mike Myler’s Complete Class Compendium promises a range of new 5e and A5E player options. The question is, does this book deliver? Mike has a proven track record between EN5ider and his work for various publishers. In this article, we only touched on two of the classes, the new schools of magic, and radiation, leaving the free PDF preview, spells, magic items, feats, and the optional combat and settlement rules for you to discover on the Backerkit campaign page. Despite just a passing glance at the options, any GM and players could pull ideas from this book and make some epic characters and adventures for any fantasy setting.
When he set out to create this book, I asked Mike what type of GM/player would enjoy this content: “Me and everyone else who has been playing for years already. A brand new player might have a fun time with this book, or they could make a Dexterity-based Fighter with multiple personalities or an Artificer with an unhealthy penchant for science at all costs. In both cases those would be pale and paltry reflections that fail to deliver the cathartic play that the equivalent Gemini or Mad Scientist adventurer is keyed to provide in the hands of someone that’s been rolling dice for a while. If you’ve had the feeling that your games are getting a touch stale or could use a shot of adrenaline, drop this book on the table. Problem solved.”
That’s a fair assessment of a sourcebook with so many intriguing gaming options. If you want to add these classes and new crunch to your campaign, check out the preview of the Gemini class or back the full book on Backerkit.
Complete Class Compendium for Level Up A5E and D&D 2024 from Mike Myler
QUICK DISCLAIMER
While Mike Myler is a cornerstone of EN Publishing, and this project is designed for both Level Up: Advanced Fifth Edition (A5E) as well as Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition (2024), this book is not an EN Publishing project. If you’re interested in supporting official Advanced Fifth Edition content, EN Publishing is offering its own project on Backerkit, Level Up: A5E Gate Pass Gazette Annual 2025. Now, on to the classes.
CLASSES
This book provides 12 original classes for 5e and A5E: Bloodweaver, Diabolist, Doctor, Exemplar, Feywalker, Freak, Gemini, Mad Scientist, Mechanic, Occultist, Scrapper, and Speedster. Some of these options feel high fantasy, others feel superheroic fantasy, some touch on Gothic fantasy, but all are rooted in D&D-style fantasy design. I asked Mike to pitch the book to a player: “These classes can summon a potent thrall and rely on Godzilla giving them a literal thumbs up, or become a walking ooze, or zip around like the Flash, or create their own Iron Man armor, or be gratified by the challenges they overcome while handling the inherent dichotomy of their binarily-torn fencer. I haven’t made it more than a minute or so of talking like that before someone in a seat demands that we get started.”
Drilling down to the new Gemini class – the aforementioned “binarily-torn fencer” – there’s a duality where your character embodies two options, shades of each other with subclasses that personify youth and old age, body and mind, daylight and twilight, or cowardice and courage.
When asked about the class, Mike Myler said that Gemini characters have an innate variation of the Mirror Image spell. “The higher your Gemini level the more semi-real duplicates you get, while they exist your semi-real duplicates each get an attack when you take the Attack action. Very late in the game (Tier 4 play) you do get an ability to create more substantial duplicates using Incredible Multiplication, which are much weaker than you and can’t be in your proximity for very long.”
Mike goes on to state that those proxies can be reabsorbed to gain all of the experiences and knowledge that they learned. Compare that to the Mad Scientist class, which exploits weaknesses, act as tricksters, or could stand-in for Doctor Frankenstein as they remake the flesh of the living. In gameplay, I could see a Mad Scientist character as a fantasy pulp villain going through a “good” phase of his diabolic career much like Magneto of The X-Men when he’s helping Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.
Taking these classes together while I wear my “player hat”, I think about the Gemini with their dual beings and the Mad Scientist: Fleshworker subclass, which allows for the creation of Frankenstein’s monster; could the Fleshworker remake and combine parts of the different Geminis together? Mike said, “Yeah you certainly could. Fleshworkers get features for implementing (and flat out get a few) grafting feats. That could certainly create a very fiendish (or decrepit celestial) version of Frankenstein’s monster out of a Gemini.”
I dig this idea, and it demonstrates that Mike’s new classes from the Complete Class Compendium aren’t stock standard gaming options, there’s layers to this onion that gamers can peel to gain some mileage.
MORE GAMING OPTIONS
This isn’t just a book of classes, it includes new schools of magic, new spells, and radiation. The new schools of magic relate to the new classes, but aren’t tied to them. To get a better idea of where these schools originated from, I asked Mike about the magic and any related classes.
“That’s a bigger question than you might think. For the spells proper we need to go back a decade to either 2099 Wasteland (for the radiation-centric spells) or the Book of Exalted Darkness (for the Blood and Vile schools of magic; all spells that are very violent or straight up wicked). The Mad Scientist and Scrapper make good use of the former, but the latter are for everybody! Clerics, sorcerers, warlocks—even druids have some evil and sanguine fun waiting for them.”
Radiation-centric spells, you say? Radiation has always existed, but it has only became a health risk in the last century. In Complete Class Compendium, GMs get options for using radiation in their campaign. How do you proposed to add it to your campaign?
“I’d coat the planet in [radiation], create a bunch of crazy warlords, and load up on dangerous settlement-focused hazards. There’s no A-Bomb in here or nuclear reactors or anything like that, only supporting materials (like Iodine Pills, for example). The hooks that are here are dug into the Spells appendix and Settlement rules at the back—there are tools aplenty to garner interest, cause havoc, and send a party of medieval adventurers all across the realm chasing a strange new energy source and the mage wielding it.”
COMPLETE CLASS COMPENDIUM CONCLUSION
Mike Myler’s Complete Class Compendium promises a range of new 5e and A5E player options. The question is, does this book deliver? Mike has a proven track record between EN5ider and his work for various publishers. In this article, we only touched on two of the classes, the new schools of magic, and radiation, leaving the free PDF preview, spells, magic items, feats, and the optional combat and settlement rules for you to discover on the Backerkit campaign page. Despite just a passing glance at the options, any GM and players could pull ideas from this book and make some epic characters and adventures for any fantasy setting.
When he set out to create this book, I asked Mike what type of GM/player would enjoy this content: “Me and everyone else who has been playing for years already. A brand new player might have a fun time with this book, or they could make a Dexterity-based Fighter with multiple personalities or an Artificer with an unhealthy penchant for science at all costs. In both cases those would be pale and paltry reflections that fail to deliver the cathartic play that the equivalent Gemini or Mad Scientist adventurer is keyed to provide in the hands of someone that’s been rolling dice for a while. If you’ve had the feeling that your games are getting a touch stale or could use a shot of adrenaline, drop this book on the table. Problem solved.”
That’s a fair assessment of a sourcebook with so many intriguing gaming options. If you want to add these classes and new crunch to your campaign, check out the preview of the Gemini class or back the full book on Backerkit.
Complete Class Compendium for Level Up A5E and D&D 2024 from Mike Myler
- END DATE: Feb 13, 2026 at 11:59pm EST.
- CROWDFUNDING ON: Backerkit, where you can find a free PDF preview of the Gemini class
- DISCLAIMER: Mike Myler is a freelancer for EN Publishing, the parent company of EN World
