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The evil-aligned PC. The very phrase stirs many emotions: fear by the Dungeon Master, of players indulging in repressed fantasies; frustration from players, suffering from inter-party conflict; curiosity in all, of trying a subversion of the typical RPG story, where the PCs are the dungeon-dwelling monsters raiding the countryside or the evil overlord building their empire. Although a concept and playstyle that is justifiably difficult to incorporate into typical sessions, there is both interest and demand in playable options and campaigns catering to such interests.
In the case of this product, Oh My Lost Darklords gives us 13 classes based off of popular fantasy archetypes in line with antiheroic and villainous roles. Written primarily for Old-School Essentials, they’re broadly compatible with most B/X rulesets and retroclones. In doing so, the book uses the threefold alignment axis of Law/Neutrality/Chaos, and thus the term “Chaotic” is more or less equated with antagonistic cosmic forces and selfish, dishonorable behavior. The introductory section talks about advice for handling “chaotic campaigns,” which in comparison to other evil campaigns/adventure paths on the market is quite bare-bones and brief in consisting of eight bullet-points for players and DMs. Stuff like not acting Chaotic Stupid and betraying fellow PCs at the drop of a hat, that Chaotic characters can still have genuine friendships and social bonds with others while still being fundamentally immoral people, and for DMs to not rely on adventure hooks that appeal primarily to altruistic causes.
All in all it’s pretty decent advice, but one bullet point jumped out at me which said that Chaotic PCs are more prone to splitting the party “when it serves their interests,” which makes me wonder under what contexts this stuff happens. Splitting the party is generally not a good idea, especially during dungeon crawls, and just because you worship demons or something doesn’t necessarily mean that PCs are going to be more prone to going off and doing their own things. Well maybe if it involves something like concealing your imp familiar from the Cleric PC who worships the God of Valour and Justice, or going off to the graveyard by yourself to dig up corpses to reanimate. Well in that case I can see it, but not while in unknown dungeons full of monsters! That’s just common sense!
We then get an overview of each class in this book, explaining what core classes they’re primarily inspired by or a variant of, their general spellcasting tradition (full or partial, arcane or divine or unique), and what role they’re supposed to fill in an adventuring party. In total, we have 5 classes that are martial in the vein of Fighter/Paladin/Ranger, 6 that rely on Thief or thief-like cloak and dagger tactics, 2 of which are explicitly divine magic, 5 that are explicitly arcane magic, 1 which has a unique kind of magic, and 1 of which is a demihuman. These all add up to more than 13, for quite a few classes are hybrid in having a primary role or skill-set but with lesser expertise in another field.
Most of the classes in Oh My Lost Darklords are alignment-restricted. 7 of them must be Chaotic, 5 can be Chaotic or Neutral, and 1 can be any alignment but is predisposed towards non-Lawful ethics. Alignment changes typically cause a character to immediately convert to a core class nearest in theme, losing their unique class abilities. The Chaotic-only classes invariably have supernatural patrons which give them their abilities or require exposure to foul magic, while the Chaotic or Neutral classes are typically noncasters or ones whose magical traditions are more nebulous in their origins.
In keeping with the old-school level cap on nonhumans, rulesets that separate race and class also highlight what races can take what classes and up to what level. The results are quite lop-sided in favor of the elven options: drow get access to 7 of the classes, elves 6, and half-elves 10. The Half-Orc gets access to 3, and a smattering of other races only 1 or 2. The poor dwarves, gnomes, and halflings only get access to the Jester class, and can only progress to 3rd level in it at that! The Svirfniblin gets no options at all, and when it comes to races in supplemental sourcebooks only the Gargantua* from Carcass Crawler magazine gets the Bandit, but only up to 6th level. The Drow and Half-Elves get the overall best deals, with a multitude of options letting them go up to 11th level.
*For those new-school aficionados, they’re basically Goliaths.
Additionally, the various supernatural classes can use magic items with classes of similar thematics. For instance, a Demonist can use magic scrolls with Cleric spells, and the Red Wizard can use items that can only be used by arcane casters provided said items don’t have cold-based spells. Each class also has domain-level play features that kick in at 9th to 11th level (8th for Dark Creeper) where they can attract loyal followers. In some cases the classes can recruit monsters instead of or in addition to leveled humans and demihumans, where mentions of level are replaced with Hit Die. The Avenger, Cultist, and Demonist recruit these kinds of monsters, with the remaining classes recruiting more followers of their own or related classes, like a Duellist recruiting Fighters as well as Duellists or Bandits recruiting other Bandits, Fighters, Thieves, Gargantuas, and Half-Orcs. The Houri is an exception in that they can recruit followers of any class and alignment.
The Avenger is our first class covered, our “antipaladin” in being an unholy champion for wicked deities. They have the same Hit Dice, THAC0 progression, saves, and weapon/armor proficiencies as a paladin, albeit their ability score requirement is to have anything other than an average Charisma (must be 7 or less, or at least 13). They can turn and control undead like an evil cleric, once per day deal damage to touched creatures, gain a bonus on hit and damage when attacking from behind like a Thief, can have their alignment detect as Lawful for 10 minutes once per day, gain a warhorse at 4th level, and eventually cast cleric spells once they hit 9th level. Unlike fearless paladins, Avengers are craven individuals, and must save vs spells or be compelled to flee for 2 turns (20 minutes) when going into battle against Lawful creatures who are equal or higher level than they are.
Thoughts: The base Paladin is one of the stronger classes in Old School Essentials, for it has pretty much all the features of the Fighter but with various supernatural holy powers. In exchange it is saddled with restrictions such as a slower experience progression, their limitations on owned magical items and required tithing their income, and a minimum Charisma of 9. The Avenger is also strong, but has a more loose prerequisite of “don’t be charismatically average.” It doesn’t have healing or disease immunity like the standard paladin which works against it, but it trades that in for being able to command undead minions, deal a damaging touch attack, and has the potential to do even more damage via backstabbing. Overall it is a good option for your generic evil knight archetype.
Beyond my coverage of its playability, there is one other thing I want to cover: the official Old School Essentials line had an Antipaladin-style class published in their exclusive inaugural issue of Carcass Crawler, and when comparing the two I did notice quite a bit of similarities. In particular the Chaos Knight’s Life Drain was renamed Withering Touch (the damaging touch feature mentioned above) but otherwise the text was the same. I should note that the Chaos Knight also copies a lot of base Paladin abilities word for word but changes around certain terms, like the warhorse going from a “holy charger” to an “unholy charger,” and the Avenger’s is an “infernal steed.” While the Avenger does have several original features like being able to Cause Disease via touch and Back-Stab, I do find it a bit distasteful to heavily borrow the concept and mechanics of a class that is exclusive content.
Bandit is pretty self-explanatory: you’re a warrior of the wilds, but instead of defending the innocent and Lawful like a Ranger does you take what you can and are feared and loathed by those traveling the roads and living behind the walls. Overall you’re a sneaky martial not unlike the Assassin, where you rely on ambushes, traps, and evading pursuit in order to get an edge on enemies. You have the same Hit Dice, THAC0 progression, saves, and weapon/armor proficiencies as a Ranger, but you don’t gain access to spells at higher level, your party doesn’t get increased rates of success when foraging and hunting, and you can keep excess wealth beyond what you can carry on your person.
Your ability score requirement is merely a Constitution of 9 rather than both Constitution and Wisdom being at least 9. Additionally, while it’s one of the “non-Lawful alignment” classes, the book does note that in certain campaigns Lawful Robin Hood-type Bandits may exist at the DM’s discretion, and thus in such a case the class may be capable of being any alignment.
In giving up Ranger spells and forage/hunting bonuses, you have a better chance of surprising opponents (4 in 6 chance vs the Ranger’s 3 in 6), your party has a 10% better chance of evading pursuit while being tracked in the wilderness, and you gain a limited set of Bandit Skills which function similar to Thief Skills. You can Climb Sheer Surfaces as a Thief, can also Cover Tracks and pursue Tracks which use the Ranger's Tracking Modifiers for success rates, and while in the wilderness you have a 3 in 6 chance of successfully Hiding or Moving Silently.* You can also Find and Remove Snares & Pits, which is akin to a Thief’s Finding/Removing Traps but can only be used outdoors and only for those kinds of traps. You also have the same Awareness as a Ranger for reducing the chances of being surprised.
*This is distinct from the Thief and Assassin’s percentile-based skills of similar names; the Bandit begins with a much better success rate, but at 5th and 9th level respectively those two classes begin to eclipse the Bandit.
Thoughts: A lot of gamers like the idea of a non-spellcasting Ranger, and not just in the OSR. The Bandit fills this function quite nicely for this purpose. It’s more stealth-oriented than the Ranger, with the Thief-like skills and being able to cover the party’s passage in the wilds. As it doesn’t really give up much beyond some situational abilities and spells that only come in at higher levels, it too is a decent class.
Bounty Hunter represents a character who specializes in using stealth and trickery in stalking and ambushing targets to take them in, dead or alive. They’re the only class in this book that can be of any alignment, but notes that Lawful Bounty Hunters are quite rare.
Bounty Hunters have the level and THAC0 progression of a Fighter, a d6 Hit Die, the Saving Throws of an Assassin, are proficient in all weapons and armor save plate armor, and their ability score requirements are at least 9 in every physical ability. For special class features they’re masters of disguise and more or less use the same rules as an Assassin, they’re able to Hide in Shadows like them as well, and have a percentile Tracking ability like a Bandit/Ranger. Additionally they can Set Traps as a unique percentile skill which takes 1 turn (10 minutes) to do, and can either entangle, deal damage, or poison a target depending on the nature of the trap and what equipment the bounty hunter has to supplement said trap. They can also deliver a non-damaging Knockout blow to an unaware human/demihuman/humanoid from behind, forcing them to save vs Death or be knocked unconscious for 2d6 rounds. It’s more or less the same in terms of mechanics as the Assassinate ability, save in being non-lethal.
Thoughts: The Bounty Hunter has quite a bit of overlap with the Assassin, albeit can equip better armor and is harder to qualify for in terms of ability scores. They aren’t as good at being sneaky given that they lack the skill to Move Silently, but what they do have that Assassins don’t is the ability to wear chainmail, track people, and set up traps. The latter in particular is quite advantageous to parties who can control when and where they fight or ambush opponents, even if their traps are single-target. Unfortunately the Set Trap relies upon a percentile roll that starts out low and takes a while to get good: 10% at 1st level, 50% at 7th level, maxing out at 99% at 14th level. While the trap doesn’t allow a save for the target to resist, with RAW it’s not something most Bounty Hunters can rely on until the middle to high levels of play.
As for the Knockout Blow, it takes a certain kind of campaign style and ethos to prioritize taking in targets alive vs the more broadly useful “save or die” of the Assassin. One could say that Chaotic-aligned parties would be less likely to pull their punches, but then again it’s a common plot element of a well-to-do NPC being kidnapped and ransomed by the bad guys. Or living souls being needed for a human sacrifice or to fulfill a dark prophecy. It is for similar reasons I also don’t feel the “rarely Lawful” justification for Bounty Hunters as an alignment restriction.
Cultists are those who worship foul entities in secret, relying upon remaining unseen and unknown to better carry out their dreadful missions. As you can imagine they are a lot like the default Cleric, having divine spells and being able to turn and control undead. However, they are more fragile when it comes to physical combat, having a d4 instead of a d6 Hit Die, can’t equip armor heavier than leather, and their divine spellcasting also tops out at 4th level spells vs the Cleric’s 5th.
So what does the Cultist get in exchange? Well they can Climb, Move Silently, and Hide like an Assassin/Thief, but they progress even more slowly in terms of percentages than either class. They also treat sacrificial daggers as +1 magic weapons when wielded in combat, and can turn any sash or rope into a magical weapon known as a sacrificial cord. The cord only deals damage when attacking an unaware opponent from behind, and basically acts as a garrote where it deals 1d8 damage on the initial attack and for every round thereafter they keep the target pinned via suffocation.
The text is a bit unclear in one instance, in that it mentions that the back-stab attack with a cord doubles any damage dealt when attacking from behind, which I presume means that the first bout of damage is 2d8 and then 1d8 every round afterward. I presume that a target being choked becomes quite aware of their attacker! The text also doesn’t note if a sacrificial dagger is a special kind of dagger or any such weapon can do. Additionally, the Cultist’s weapon proficiencies are contradictory:
In the initial blurb said:
In the detailed entry said:
You might notice that shortswords are only in the first description but not the second. And the cord weapon is referred to by two different names: Strangling Cord and Sacrificial Cord.
Thoughts: The idea of a sneaky evil Cleric who fights well with knives and can garrote/choke enemies from behind sounds pretty cool. However, their capabilities are quite limited in that their chances of sneaking up on unaware targets is incredibly low. Their Move Silently only reaches 50% at 8th level, while Hide in Shadows reaches that same value at 10th. I understand the need for Thieves and Assassins to be undisputed champions of stealth, but when you look at the fact that the Cultist is really fragile in comparison to a base Cleric this doesn’t really make up for it. And while having a magic dagger is nifty, that d4 Hit Die and leather armor is going to see them drop pretty fast when using it.
Dark Creeper is our sole demihuman class in this book, representing light-hating humanoids living underground who prize collecting magic items and treasure. In other words, the perfect adventurer! Unfortunately there’s no Advanced variant where they’re available as their own race separate from class. Being demihumans, dark creepers have a level cap unlike the other classes in this book, topping out at 8 instead of 14, and have a minimum Dexterity of 9 and maximum Strength of 13. The class is a variant Thief, having the same progression in Hit Die, THAC0, saves, and thief skills, but with the slower experience growth equivalent to that of an Assassin’s. However, dark creepers can only use daggers as weapons, and shortswords at 6th level when they transform into a taller human-sized form. A Dark Stalker, albeit the book doesn’t call them this and that Dark Ones subrace isn’t statted up in Old-School Essentials.
What Dark Creepers get that traditional Thieves don’t include a penalty on attack rolls and Armor Class when in bright light, infravision out to 120 feet, can detect magical items within 15 feet which they view as glowing objects, can cast the Darkness spell once per day that also prevents light sources from being re-lit for one hour, and upon their death they explode in a radius of blinding light. This explosion destroys all non-metal gear on their person, while magical non-metal gear has a 50% chance of remaining unscathed. With their 6th level Dark Stalker form they can use shortswords, can cast Wall of Fog once per day, and their death burst also deals fire damage in addition to the blinding ability.
Thoughts: When it comes to the sneaky classes of old-school D&D, Thieves and Halflings are in a rather tricky spot on account that neither had the ability to see in the dark. In Old-School Essentials both dwarves and elves have equal capability of seeing in the dark, but in some rulesets elves could see in anything but complete darkness, and dwarves could see even in pitch black. So unless you use a “race and class are separate” rule, your Basic-era D&D sneaks and scouts needed either a light source or some magical means of seeing in the dark in order to go about their business. The Dark Creeper has a pretty substantial edge up on the Thief in this regard. Unfortunately, I do not think that the rest of their features make up for this: for one, they’re still fragile at a d4 Hit Die, and they lack the ability to use missile weapons such as slings, bows, and crossbows, with a bandolier of daggers being their best means of ranged attacks. Their Death Burst won’t destroy any coins or metal weapons, but it will tear up other valuables such as paintings, books, parchment, bottles, rations, and basically anything else that is non-metal and non-magical. As though the death of a PC wasn’t a big enough loss for a party! The creeper’s once-per-day Darkness and Wall of Fog are neat tricks, but in being so limited in use they aren’t really things which the character can consistently rely on.
Thoughts So Far: The Avenger, Bandit, and Bounty Hunter stand out as the most appealing of the new classes covered so far, having specific niches at which they do well. The Cultist and Dark Creeper are pretty weak tradeoffs in comparison to the classes that the book says they’re explicit variants of. In fact, one can see a recurring weakness in the aping of Thief-esque percentile rolls for skills, which is often one of the more commonly houseruled aspects of old-school play. The Cultist in particular can use both a polishing up and editing pass for clearing up inconsistent class features.
Join us next time as we cover the life-absorbing Dark Mage, the martial lich Death Knight, the monster-summoning Demonist, and the nimble Duellist!
