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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 8094603" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/AZ8MFt9.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Flesh-Forged: You’re basically Frankenstein’s monster, a soul put into a haphazard skin-stitched golem. You are pretty much a melee fighter, with a d12 hit die, a Vitality Die which is added to damage rolls and to tasks reliant upon physical strength that begins at d4 and goes up to d16+2, and an amazing Fortitude save: +1 per level which is the best progression in this entire book (only the Goblin Gang can possibly eclipse it).The Flesh-Forged’s other class features are more ho-hum: you can see in the dark and spot invisible creatures, you take half damage from cold attacks and are immune to electrical attacks, and can effectively cast the Wizard spell Scare due to your horrific appearance albeit at the expense of penalties in all social interactions. Like the cyber-zombie you have randomly-assigned past life memories: depending on the race of your corpse’s brain, you may be able to move silently or recharge Luck like a halfling (but not bestow upon others), gain longsword and bow proficiency or sleep/charm/paralysis immunity if you were an elf, and can either shield bash or smell gold and gems like a dwarf. There are even two results for humans, where you roll for a secondary occupation (level 0 funnel) to determine additional skills, or you can lay on hands heal like a cleric (albeit at d16 instead of d20 roll) as some god takes pity upon you being denied an afterlife.Barring an interesting result on the brain owner race table, the Flesh-Forged is even more one-note than the Ape Ascendant. The class can deal more damage in melee, but doesn’t have psychic brain powers or a bonus to “smart skills,” and most of its features are more reactive in defense and utility (can see things, are not hurt by things) than being something done on the player’s part. The class is effective at what it does, though, and that’s to smash things.Goblin Gang: Although you use the technical stats of a single character, you are actually a horde of goblins! You have a d6 hit die, are proficient in all non-two handed melee weapons (you roll damage for the best weapon in the group, but magic weapons cause goblins to kill each other in infighting), and every hit point you have represents a goblin. The number of goblins determines your Mob Level, which is 1 for every 3 hit points you have rounded down. A Mob Level effects just about every major core feature of your class, adding 1 per Mob level to your base attack bonus, your initiative bonus, how many Action Die you have, your saving throw bonuses, your penalty on Sneak Silently and Hide in Shadows skills as a thief (goblins are sneaky, but a lot are more noticeable), and determines what critical hit table you roll on. Besides this, your horde can regain its numbers 1/day via a super-sonic cry which restores a number of hit points via a Recruitment Die based upon your location and the time of day (woodland area, underground, etc).The class’ major utility feature involves the goblins putting their heads together to collectively solve a problem by rolling a skill check, adding their Intelligence modifier and Mob Level vs a GM-assigned DC. Success allows them to come up with a solution to the task at hand, but failure causes the mob to adopt a dangerously stupid plan that will kill one goblin (1 HP) per round until a Will save is made to get the group to realize the error of their ways.As you can imagine, the Goblin Gang’s major strength is action economy. Unlike any other class they can gain a crazy amount of Action Dice, and as a “character” is quite resilient and dangerous when fighting at its best. However, you become weaker across the board as you take damage, which can have a bit of a “death spiral” effect. Still, I like the class both for its comedic value and its rather novel concept.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/kew6eXc.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Hellfont: You’re an edgy warrior who made a bargain with an entity of supernatural evil. You are proficient in all weapons but typically add accessories and accoutrements to your gear that make you look like a biker shopping at Hot Topic. You’re a bit fragile for a fighter with a 1d8 hit die and have to sacrifice a predetermined amount of gold and/or hit points worth of captured victims in order to gain levels on top of experience progression. But on the plus side you gain a Warrior’s Mighty Deed of Arms (albeit at a smaller value), add your level to rolls involving threats and intimidation, and you threaten critical hits on a 19 and then an 18 as you increase in level. The rest of your class features are more mercurial, reflecting supernatural corruption as you gain power. You roll on a table determining vestigial traits representing a Corrupted Appearance at level 1, but roll on a d24 Abilities and Powers table for every level you have. The latter has a healthy assortment of features, ranging from natural attacks to being able to cast a hell-themed spell to miscellaneous interesting features such as gaining an Imp servant or being able to communicate with a species of vermin.I like this class. It has a cool theme and a versatile array of options which ensures that no two Hellfonts will be exactly alike.Intelligent Weapon: You are a magical weapon (usually a sword) crafted by dark magic, and can take over the minds of those who wield you to act as an extension of your will. You have the hit die, saving throws, action die, and critical hit table of a Warrior, and at 1st level your physical ability scores represent that of your mind-controlled thrall. Every time you gain a level your thrall takes 2d6 permanent Stamina damage and when it dips below 3 the thrall dissolves into dust; thus you must find a suitable new thrall before this happens, and their physical ability scores are rolled as though a new PC (but +1d3 to a physical score of your choice representing your malign influence). Thralls lose all special abilities and knowledge they once had before possession, so you can’t really game the results by getting some crazy-powerful wielder. Beyond the thrall’s abilities, you as a weapon have the traits of a mundane version of your type and deal base damage plus your level when wielded in combat,* can burn your thrall’s physical scores to regain luck, can roll Luck to call on the memories of a thrall for skills, gain a +5 bonus on skill checks involving the lore of Hell, and can bodilessly speak or speak through the mouth of your thrall. You also roll a 1d12 at 1st and every odd-numbered level to gain a special magical weapon property: several results allow you to cast a spell (animate dead, lightning bolt, etc) although some options include the ability to drain hit points of a struck target to your thrall, gaining a ‘phantom reach’ of 20 feet, and dealing bonus damage of an energy type among other such features.*doesn’t specify if the thrall adds their Strength modifier in the case of you being a melee weapon.There’s also a bit of a mini-game for finding new thralls, representing you casting out your influence by making a thrall-to-be fail its Will save and ‘steal’ you from the current owner along with a battle of wills against the current thrall.Another interesting class, although I feel that the constant quest to find new ‘owners’ can be a bit of a hindrance. On the other hand, it’s a rather good way to covertly “kill” an NPC if you play your cards right. Mechanically speaking you’re pretty much a Warrior but without a Mighty Deed of Arms, but with a range of utility and interesting magical weapon abilities. If a GM rules that the thrall’s strength adds on top of your weapon and level damage, this can make the Intelligent Weapon class a rather good damage-dealer. How much of a trade-off all of these things are worth may depend upon the roll of the die for new thralls and the aforementioned magical weapon abilities.Jockey: This is a single-page class which takes the form of a rather fancy character sheet. I debated whether or not to screenshot it, but in the interest of not copy-pasting an entire class I’ll just paraphrase it here.You’re a tamer of beasts who rides creatures into combat. You have a d7 hit die, are proficient in a few whipping/bludgeoning style weapons (flailas, whips, axes, lances, etc), and have an attack progression, action die, critical hit table as a Thief but have the saves of a Wizard. You begin play at level one with a 2 (d6) Hit Die Mount and can ‘tame’ other beasts by jumping on the back of a sufficiently injured monster at half total HP or less. Your chances of success for taming the beast are percentile-based and dependent upon your Luck, Personality, and level. Should you fail this roll the monster gets a free attack on you. When riding a monster you can direct it to body-slam as an attack which can use either your own or its critical hit table, but a mount’s special abilities can only be used if it’s intelligent and/or trained. You can train a monster to be loyal to you after you earn 4 experience* while riding it, or spend 1d7 days during downtime). There’s no mention of how many mounts that you can have loyal to you at once.*Experience in DCC is much more simplified and uniform in comparison to other OSR games. You gain XP via encounters, ranging from 0 to 4 depending on said encounter’s level of relative difficulty for your party’s capabilities. As 2 XP is for a “typical encounter” and 3-4 are for difficult and extremely deadly encounters, it shouldn’t take very long for a Jockey to bend a beast to their will.A rather neat idea for a class, but its overall usefulness is highly dependent on what monsters you face. As Dungeon Crawl Classics has a rather minimalist bestiary and instead focuses on tools for GM’s to make their own creatures, it’s really hard to gauge the overall power level of this class.Thoughts so far: I definitely feel that the classes are getting more creative the further I read into this book. It could be coincidental, but there’s more of a “dark” vibe with the classes in this section in comparison to the more whimsical classes that made up our first 5 entries. That may be part of why I like these ones more.Join us next time as we cover the scurrilous Knave, the lengthiest class in the book!</blockquote>

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