ALOT Left Undone: Two More OSR Petty-Classes

 

SHEPHERD

 

Shepherds are sometimes tempted by poverty – or forced by circumstance – to pursue an adventuring career. By experience they are well-suited to outdoor adventures, being physically and mentally resilient and schooled in dealing with the dangers of their lonely life. They are also blessed with great humility – a product of long periods of solitary reflection and an acknowledgement of their relative insignificance in the wider scheme of things.

 

Attack Value: 0-level Human 

Saving Throws: Levels 1-4: 18 (all, except Death: 16). Levels 5-6: 17 (all, except Death: 15) 

Hit Dice: d6

Armour/Shield Permitted: leather only/no shields

Weapons Permitted: staff, sling, dagger

Weapon Proficiencies: 1 + 1 per 4 levels

Non-Proficiency Penalty: -4

Base Skills: Animal Husbandry 2, Animal Training 1, Common Knowledge 1, Local Knowledge 1, Weather Sense 1.

Free Elective Skills (choose 3 skills amongst which you may distribute 4 Competency Levels): Cook, Evade, Flee!, Folk Lore, Heal, Herb Lore, Hide, Keen Senses, Mountain Lore, Spinning & Weaving. 

 

Shepherd Level Advancement
	Base Experience			Hit Dice
Level	Points Required			(d6)	Abilities
1		0		1	Humility 1
2		500		2	Hardiness 1
3		1250		3	Humility 2
4		2250		4	Hardiness 2
5		3500		5	Humility 3
6		5000		6	Herder’s Blessing

 

Humility: Shepherds are protected by their awareness of greater things – the vastness of the natural world – and the knowledge of their own significance as a part of creation. This enables them to more readily resist outside influences, engage comfortably with others and be open to unusual insights and perceptions. At first level they may once per day choose one of the following options: re-roll a saving throw against mind-affecting magic, an Insight, Keen Senses, Charm, Encourage or Sense Motive roll. Where a re-roll is made, the Shepherd must take the second roll, even if it is worse. The required Competency Level of social skill checks to manipulate Shepherds increases by 1.

At third level, they may deploy their Humility ability twice per day. The Competency requirement to use social skills against the Shepherd increases to 2. At 5^th level, they may use the ability three times per day and the required Competency level improves to 3.

 

Hardiness:  In addition to their mental resilience, Shepherds are also physically robust. At level 2, they may once per day re-roll a saving throw against Death or Paralysis (but must take the second roll, even if the result is worse). This ability may be used twice per day from level 4. They also may add their Hardiness bonus when rolling hit points (as follows: +1 at 2^nd & 3^rd level; +2 at 4^th, 5^th and 6^th level). Finally, they may add their Hardiness bonus to the following Competencies: Climb, Fish, Herb Lore, Navigate, Weather Sense and Wilderness Lore.

 

Herder’s Blessing: At level six, the Shepherd’s mighty humility grants the ability to cast one of the following Druid or Cleric spells per day (the Shepherd may select the spell when the occasion arises, and may select a different spell each day): cure light wounds, purify food and drink, detect danger, locate plant or animal and animal friendship.

 

SAILOR

 

Sailors are very much natural adventurers: they have a wanderlust that does not abate and a set of skills that serves them well in many situations. They have also learned a thing or two in their travels – odd, disconnected pieces of information that occasionally prove of great utility.

 

Attack Value: Thief (level 1) 

Saving Throws: Levels 1-4: 18. Levels 5-6: 17 (all, except Death: 16) 

Hit Dice: d6

Armour/Shield Permitted: leather only/no shields

Weapons Permitted: staff, sling, dagger, cutlass

Weapon Proficiencies: 2 + 1 per 3 levels

Non-Proficiency Penalty: -3

Base Skills: Climb 2, Common Knowledge 2, Consume Alcohol 2, Fish 2, Folk Lore 2, Navigate 1, Sail 3, Swim 2, Weather Sense 2.

Free Elective Skills (choose 3 skills amongst which you may distribute 4 Competency Levels): Boat Building, Cartography, Haggle, Intimidation, Mock, River Lore, Row, Sleight of Hand, Story Telling, Strike Mighty Blow. 

 

Sailor Level Advancement
	Base Experience			Hit Dice
Level	Points Required			(d6)	Abilities
1		0		1	Sea Legs
2		500		2	Sea Lore
3		1250		3	Shanty
4		2250		4	Sea Legs 2
5		3500		5	Sea Lore 2
6		5000		6	Old Salt

 

Sea Legs: Sailors are experienced with keeping their feet on deck, regardless of what the sea is doing. Any penalty to combat or skill resolution incurred due to instability underfoot (at sea or otherwise) is reduced by 1, increasing to 2 at 4^th level.

 

Sea Lore:  Sailors hear all sorts of odd stories, rumours and gossip. Once per day, they may search their memories for some nugget of information that might prove useful. They have a 5% + 2%/level chance of knowing something relevant. At level 5 this chance increases to 10% + 3%/level.

 

Shanty:  Sailors know many tall tales and songs to rouse the spirit or enthral the listener. At 3^rd level, they may use either the Perform or Story Telling skill (with a required Competency Level of 4) to improve the Reaction Rolls of an audience numbering no more than half their CHA bonus (rounded up).

 

Old Salt: Veteran sailors have seen and heard a lot in the course of their seafaring. At level 6 they become very difficult to fool, adding 3 to the Competency Level required to deceive them, and treating their Keen Senses Competency Level as if 3 higher for the purposes of detecting illusion magic.

A Heartbreaker of My Very Own: Assumptions & Foundations

 As I've alluded to here and there, I get frustrated with shoehorning the New Kingdoms into different systems. OSR-type systems are a good fit in some ways, if only because they are rather more like torsos, upon which one may graft limbs, heads and other appendages. Like some demented scientist in a dark cellar, I've been building my own abomination. My tastes run to baroque complexity and sprawl, so any resemblance between OSR stuff and the system I'm building, whilst no doubt obvious, are in some ways minimal. Anyways, if one were to assume Advanced Labyrinth Lord as an approximate starting point, the changes made look something like what follows... 

Lineages (sometimes referred to as ‘non-human races’) are limited to their unique ‘lineage class’. Some lineages have one, two or three variants reflecting diversity within the lineage. They can not select ‘standard’ or ‘core’ classes.

Classes are reorganised to fall under five generic groups: Artisans, Knaves, Priests, Scholars and Warriors. Lineage classes are also grouped in this way.

Abilities have been expanded: there are seven primary abilities (the classic 6 plus Appearance), along with eleven secondary or derived abilities (Celerity, Fellowship, Guile, Judgement, Luck, Mana, Perception, Presence, Prowess, Speed, Stamina and Willpower). The secondary abilities provide the principal determinant for the use of Skills and Tests (formerly called Saving Throws). 18 Ability Scores!?!? Yup, as noted above, I like sprawl, but this is sprawl that hopefully aids in precision...and flavour.

Skills are added to the system. These function as a complete replacement for all existing skills in Advanced Labyrinth Lord. The basic mechanism for using skills is to apply the Test Number for the appropriate derived ability, which is then modified according to the degree of competency in a particular Skill and other factors (determined by the LL). The player rolls a d20, and must equal or exceed the test number (after all modifiers are applied) in order to succeed.

Feats are minor enhancements of existing skills, spells or abilities. They generally function to increase the chance of success (by adding a bonus or mitigating a penalty).

Tests replace Saving Throws. A character must roll equal or better than the test number associated with the appropriate ability. 

Combat Maneuvers combat actions are considerably diversified: in addition to attacking, moving and casting spells there are nineteen combat maneuvers such as block, feint, knockdown and stun.

Magic is a hybrid of Vancian and Spellpoint systems. Casters memorise spells as per the traditional system, but can cast memorised spells as often as they desire, assuming they have sufficient Mana to do so. However, the more one attempts the same spell in a given day (i.e., between sleeps or meditation periods), the harder it is to cast. In addition, Mana is slow to recover. One sleep is unlikely to allow higher-level casters to regain all their Mana.

Characters are built from two sources: lineage/class and backgrounds. Backgrounds represent the character's pre-adventuring trajectory (for example: Page-Squire-Rake, or Prestidigitator-Barber-Phrenologist). They yield a number of skill points (thus increasing the degree of competency in each skill) and may grant members of certain classes or lineages minor abilities or enhancements.

Alignment remains unchanged (the Nine Alignments), but characters also select a persona and temperament (from the following list: Sanguine, Choleric, Phlegmatic, Melancholy, Vivific and Inmitic). These are drawn from the classic four humours and their elemental analogues with the addition of the Vivific humour (drawn from the Positive Energy Plane) and the Inmitic humour (from the Negative Energy Plane). Persona is the face one shows the world, whilst Temperament (often, but not always the same as the Persona) is one's 'true', unmediated self. Temperament, in combination with Alignment shows the person's 'inner structures' and world view. A not unreasonable conceit would be to envisage Alignment as a philosophical and ethical orientation towards all that is, whilst the Temperament shows how that orientation is lived and manifested. A Choleric Neutral Evil Magic-User will act in rather different ways to a Phlegmatic Neutral Evil Magic-User, learning different spells, building up a different skill profile, and so forth.

Incidentally, if this sounds a lot like WOD's Nature-Demeanour system, that's an undeniable similarity, but the notion actually comes from astrology, of all places, with the idea of a 'Triad of Personality', being constructed of Rising Sign (Persona), Moon Sign (Temperament) and Sun Sign (Alignment). I find Astrology endlessly interesting as a generative symbolic system...the sort of thing Claude Levi-Strauss would call "good to think with". I don't subscribe to it as anything other than an object of contemplation, however.

I'm sure there's more I could mention about the changes, but I'll leave it here for now, and elaborate them as I go. Next stop, Abilities in greater depth.