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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 8095325" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/NhiUFoD.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Knave: You may be wondering what’s so big about this class that it has an entry of its own in this Let’s Read. Well it’s because it is effectively four classes in one. The Knave is basically a scoundrel who lives life on the edge, but what separates them from other garden-variety roguish ne'er-do-wells is that they worship a pantheon of deities known as the Arcana. Said pantheon lives in a castle at the end of time, warring among themselves as well as their enemies, and their wild whims are divined through games of chance. Such prophecies can take the form of card and dice games to doing any uncertain activity with an element of risk.The core Knave hews close to the Thief, with a d6 hit die, a similar array of weapon proficiencies, and can burn and spend Luck like the aforementioned class but can also be used to reduce the die results of foes on a 1 for 1 basis. However, your thief skills are slightly different: you cannot cast spells from scrolls and instead must burn such documents as sacrifices to your patron in exchange for unlocking Major Arcana. Furthermore, not all Knaves can use all Thief skills. There are four subclasses known as Suites which give one or more bonus Thief skills in addition to other boons, which is why the Knave has its own entry for this Let’s Read. You also have a potentially annoying role-play restriction where you’re a compulsive liar, and must be dishonest about the identity and intentions of yourself and your allies whenever meeting a new NPC or group of NPCs. If you are truthful “too often or too easily,” you risk punishment from the Arcana pantheon via deity disapproval.The class’ universal features are known as Major and Minor Arcana respectively, reflecting your magical connection to the gods of chance. Major Arcana can only be invoked with the sacrifice of a spell scroll, and you either roll a Trump Die (whose value increases in level and which you add your Luck modifier to) or draw from a deck of real tarot cards whose deck is ‘filled to completion’ in a similar manner to see which god’s attention you bring. There are 22 results with appropriately miraculous effects albeit usually with a limited duration. For example, the Magician can let you counter a spell and enter a spell duel, the Hierophant sends a living chess piece to act as a long-term servant for you with its own stats based on the piece in question, Justice deals a Trump Die worth of damage to any successful attacker (on both sides) in the Knave’s presence, and the Star summons falling stars as an AoE attack which can grant 1 temporary Luck or even a wish to those able to avoid them.Minor Arcana are more reliable yet not as powerful, and depend on a Knaves’ suite. You start out with a basic ability that all Knaves of your suite automatically know, but in order to learn others you need to complete quests or tasks with rather open definitions. Said Minor Arcana have 3 sample quests which tend to be a challenge thematic from myth and legend (steal a legendary food or beverage, climb an impassable mountain), or has a simpler task but requires performing a cruel or otherwise anti-social action such as serving poison to a trusted friend or ally or executing an innocent person at the request of the law. This is obviously plot fodder for the GM to draw upon, although some tasks have more immediate results than others. Minor Arcana do not have a per-day limit, although you risk deity disapproval if you get a low result (and on spells too if your suite grants them), with more failed checks increasing the chance. Everyone’s luck runs out sometime!Knaves of Clubs are an oxymoron: they are lazy and want the finer things in life, but prefer to live away from people in the great outdoors. They loathe the idea of labor, but have few qualms in planning heists of guarded estates upon hearing the rumor of a rare morsel being served in the lord’s hall. You not only know how to disarm traps as a Thief skill, you can create your own traps and set them for others. Your free Minor Arcana is the ability to spontaneously set a target on fire, while the two learnable ones teach you to cause nearby targets to critically Fumble (and even open a pit under them if they ever roll a natural 20) and the ability to conjure a swarm of blackbirds to fight on your behalf and who can remove small digits and disfigure foes on a critical hit. Furthermore, you also gain minor spellcasting capabilities, with spells related to nature and subterfuge.The ability to craft and set traps is a pretty cool spin on the traditional Thief, and although subject a bit to GM Fiat it can play well into the scout concept of a PC mapping out routes to confound unaware opponents. The spells further enhance this playstyle, too. The Minor Arcana feel a bit meh to me; being able to set opponents on fire doesn’t feel all that impressive when most adventurers have torches. You can summon a lot of blackbirds (20+ depending on Trump Die result), but they’re individually weak. The ability to provoke Critical Fumbles in opponents is perhaps the most versatile and useful Arcana of the suite.Knaves of Diamonds are greed incarnate. They seek to take from others, be it in games of chance or more droll forms of theft and white-collar crime. Their risky lives mean that they spend lavishly, and thus continually throw themselves into the next big score instead of settling down for an early retirement. You can Backstab like a Thief, but cannot use Luck to increase your own rolls, although you have a greater chance of inflicting misfortune upon others via rolling Trump Die per Luck burnt as a penalty to a target’s roll as opposed to a 1 for 1 basis. Your free Minor Arcana lets you toss coins in the air which can enlarge and fall down upon opponents to inflict damage (ones which miss a target cannot be recovered as currency). Your two learnable ones include the ability to summon a giant floating slot machine with thrown coins entering them, which deals a wider range of area and damage depending on the Slot Die representing the reel results (higher trump die results allow you to have more Slot Die to pick the best rolls). The other Minor Arcana allows you to bet thrown coins which can transform enemies into coins of varying value, meaning that not only do you effectively kill your target, you may lose or gain more money for your trouble!You’re basically a Final Fantasy/JRPG Gambler, and I love this. Your Minor Arcana are a bit samey in that while the learnable ones are clearly better the one with the slot machine more or less does the same thing as the coin toss albeit with much greater damage potential. The ability to inflict massive penalties on an enemy roll via Luck expenditure is also pretty powerful, and a PC with a high enough score will almost certainly find opportunities to use it frequently. Given that it’s not a spell or minor arcana, there’s no worry about deity disapproval.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/Gr3mo0A.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Knaves of Hearts are in it for the pizzazz and the flair. They are the most sociable knaves, enjoying good company and the reputation earned from their deeds more than the rewards themselves. Your Thief skill includes the ability to read and decipher languages and codes, and your free Minor Arcana allows you to steal an item from an enemy when you hit them with a weapon attack. Said items can include small tools, pouches, and the like, but higher results on the Trump Die can steal larger weapons, armor, and even an animal companion or wizard’s familiar who is effectively muzzled and taken out of combat unless directly attacked. The two learnable arcana includes the ability to inflict a stun attack upon enemies when making a bludgeoning attack. This can make them act last in initiative, be unable to act for one round, or even falling unconscious based on the Trump Die results. The other learnable Arcana gives you the ability to enter a blind rage as you attack a plant or plantlike creature, dealing anywhere from 3 to 7 dice worth of bonus damage with your weapon attacks against them. Furthermore, you have spellcasting capability similar to the Knave of Clubs, although your spells are more classically “Illusionist/Enchantment” albeit with a few transmutation-related faire at higher levels.The Knave of Hearts leaves me with mixed feelings, in that its free Minor Arcana looks the most useful to me. The bonus damage against plant creatures is highly situational, and the stun attack seems more appropriate to the following Knave of Spades. The spells are broadly useful and perhaps the most optimized for a Thief-type character, which helps save the subclass.Knaves of Spades do not care for the subtle manipulations of Hearts nor the earthly pleasures of Clubs and Diamonds. They are thugs, tyrants, and sadists whose greatest treasure is the power to bend others to their will. They are the most martial of the subclasses, receiving a better base attack bonus progression and increased critical threat range as they gain levels. They are unable to forge documents, but they can deal backstab damage and find, disable, and reset traps. Their free Minor Arcana includes the ability to cause bleeding with a bladed weapon that deals damage over time until properly treated, while their two learnable abilities include being able to to perform acrobatic flips and charges to damage multiple enemies with a single Action Die, and a beheading attack which can instantly slay an opponent anywhere from 3 to 7 Hit Die depending on the Trump Die result.The Knave of Spades gains quite a bit more Thief abilities than the other subclasses, although they are more of a one-trick pony in that all of their Minor Arcana revolves around violence. They don’t have the staying power of a proper Warrior or other martial class, given their low Hit Die and that armor imposes penalties on their Thief skills, so they’re more of a gimmicky martial who can either do death by a thousand cuts or do a single risky attack to instantly take out an enemy.Thoughts so far: The Knave has a very “Video Game Thief” feel to its subclasses, which may not be to everyone’s taste but to a 90s kid like me I love it. The Tarot card theme is a rather cool one, and while it may be the Savage Worlds fan in me, the idea of using a card deck as an optional mechanic seems quite flavorful. The sacrificing of spell scrolls for Major Arcana results is not a huge loss in and of itself, as like in typical D&D they’re single-use items anyway. The knave subclasses and their Minor Arcana are perhaps the most controversial aspect of the class for me. While Knaves overall play quite similarly, each suite reflects a different aspect of a Thief archetype, and some of their abilities feel more situational than others. Perhaps the more problematic aspects are the knaves’ role-playing mandates in the sense that they’re sort of a “reverse Paladin:” the compulsive lying and some of the “evil” Minor Arcana requirements require a bit of group in-put ahead of time to avoid inter-party conflict.Join us next time as we get back into the multi-class format, from the pulpy Lemurian to the creepy Puppet Master!</blockquote>

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