Delvers in Dàrkmesa - Campaign Rules 2.0

First post in over a year, and it is an updated version of the ruleset I posted as my magnum opus in February of 2019.

I can't say precisely what drives me to forever re-write these rules, though part of it is certainly a lack of play. This is a problem I hope to amend soon, if only virtually. Given that my play group has spread itself over much of the state now, that would appear to be our only viable option even without Covid-19 running amok.

Despite the dearth of play, I have, in the past year and change, had ample time to contemplate what makes a robust and flexible ruleset. I have not been posting my ideas here, mostly for lack of time or motivation, but I also find some guiding priciple in what Stephen King has said on several occassions about writing notebooks and journals, "They're a great way to immortalize bad ideas."

Now that these ideas have stewed for a while, I feel imbued with just enough confidence to put them on here.

Some of the things you may find interesting in these new rules:

• No ability modifiers. I want treasure that provides bonuses to be the most important modifier.
• Two "defenses" cover everything: Armor Class, and 4th Edition-style "save-on-10+" d20 rolls.
• The most available healing has a kind of "cap" mediated by a 4th Edition-style "bloodied" status.
• Four classes available, one per "pillar" of fantasy dungeoneering: Outlanders (wilderness travel), Sages (literacy and healing), Thieves (getting into places you aren't supposed to be), and Warriors (killin' sh*t). No race-classes so that the rules don't require changes if elves, dwarves, or halflings aren't featured in your game.
• The rules don't include a rigid magic system. Rather, they provide examples of how to make magic self-limiting. GM discretion is paramount. Sages can be the de facto "magic user" if that is a player's aim.
• Monsters have very simple stats, and are not meant to be "balanced" for groups of any particular level or size. Like spells and magic, example monsters are provided in a wandering monster table.
• 1d6 weapon damage. 1 damage for unarmed strikes or hits with torches. 2d6 (or 2) for critical hits.

D&D Classes without Math: Magic-user

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Wizard, Magic-user, arcanist, etc. It is a staple of D&D, and perhaps the single most interesting class, based solely on their capabilities. Spells are essentially the only common thread (mechanically speaking) through all the iterations of D&D, and wizards are the undisputed masters of spells.

But what does that mean when you take out the math?

Well, that question has perplexed me for months. This post was supposed to go out with the rest of the "without Math" posts. Clearly, it did not...

Because I can't really say what a math-less magic-user would look like. It has a kind of backwards quality about it that the other classes do not. Every fighter can do the same things, as far as the game is concerned. The details about how they do it, i.e. what weapons they use, how much armor they wear, whether they focus on Dexterity or Strength...none of it really matters. They are still a fighter because they do fighter stuff. Hit things with weapons, absorb some damage, protect the less combative party members, run into the danger.

But...what is magic-user stuff? Fireball? Magic missile? Scribe Scroll? Reading magic? There is an argument to be made that, yes, that is magic-user stuff. If you can do those things, you are a wizard. But not every magic-user ever learns magic missile or fireball, or how to scribe scrolls, or even how to read magic. As more and more spells are printed, and the boundaries of what magic can and cannot do (and how easily it can or cannot do it) has expanded, we have found that very specific types of casters are now viable. Casters that don't use spellbooks. Casters that even change the very idea of how mortals can access magic.

Also, "fireball" and "protecting the squishy guys" are not the same level of abstraction. "Fireball" would be better described as "AoE damage." "Magic Missile" is best described as "unavoidable magic damage that's cheap." Of the four core classes, none but the magic-user can do those things. But is an illusionist, who knows no damaging spells at all, a magic-user then?

Must we abstract further and higher? Maybe the magic-user is the class that makes sweeping changes to the environment the party is in, either clearing obstructions or creating them. This definition would then include things like knock and illusory terrain, which are yet more staples of the D&D wizard. Looking over the wizard spell list from 3.5, I think this definition is rather complete. But it is so general that it could take any in-game form whatsoever. Wizard, sorcerer, illusionist, evoker, swordmage, abjurer, warlock...even divine casters could fit within this definition comfortably.

And yet, this definition leaves us with nothing but "casts spell" as the 'math-less' portion of a magic-user. Essentially, we're back where we started.

We don't want to have to write up all these different classes, because we would never be done. If we want to be able to write up a coherent set of rules for all magic-users (math-free, of course), we have two options:

1. Make it wizards only. If you can cast arcane spells without a spellbook, it's because you are a monster or demon or dragon and not a PC. Humanoid races have only one way to learn and use magic, and that's spells and spellbooks. If you take D&D as written, remove every non-wizard arcane casting class, you have this system. There is still a lot of room here. Every type of wizard specialist is available. Spell selection is wide open and creates meaningful differences between all wizards.

OR

2. Make it up as it becomes relevant. Have no written rules in your system for spells and magic. Instead, make magic entirely an in-game discovery and learning process. If you want to have the PCs fight a dark mage, write up the basics of how that guy knows/can use magic. This could be any micro-system of your choosing. The most obvious is a spellbook with a finite number of spells. What system you use to prevent characters from casting these spells endlessly each day is up to you. Then, if the PCs decide to investigate this dude's magic (presumably after turning him into a fresh corpse), they can pursue it, and you'll know exactly how it works and how powerful it is.

Why the ranger class sucks these days...

To understand the fall of the modern ranger, it is helpful to study the rise of the modern bard. When I first started playing RPGs over a decade ago, the bard looked like this:

Now I first want to say that I mean no disrespect to the artist that worked hard on this piece. I think it is a great piece of art, but a bard this is not. The musical instrument is a hardly visible afterthought (he's wearing a lute on his back) and his outfit doesn't scream "storyteller" or "poet" but rather "rogue" or "eccentric."

And this perfectly describes the bard class (D&D 3E) that this picture was used to represent: a mixed bag of uncertain purpose. It has middling attack bonuses, a middling spellcasting ability, mediocre spell selection, and its class-specific features were so situational and odd as to be laughable.

Hence, this comical representation of the bard throughout 3rd edition's reign.

But now! NOW the bard looks like THIS:

Holy moly! Look at that badass fantasy character! A sweet guitar that sticks out like a sore thumb (in the best way) the subtle wood flute hanging around the neck, the lack of any weapons or aggressive garb. This bard is something unique unto itself. The colors are bright and stylish. Even the character's haircut is edgy and cool. This is a socialite. This is a world-traveler.

And just like the picture, the 5e bard is the king of classes. Highly versatile, interesting, and competent. A skilled magic-user, a healer, and combatant, and even a battlefield inspiration.

It is admittedly a bit overpowered, but at least it's playable in an unironic way.

So what has the ranger done in this same timeframe?

Well, the first ranger I ever saw in a D&D book looked like this:

This is someone I can picture roaming the wilderness for months on end. The armor might be a little overdone, but it also looks rugged and that is important. The weapons are sharp and deadly, there are torches on his back next to his bow, and he is wearing a green, elvish-camouflage cape. He's ready to face the wilds. And he even looks like he has, given his bronzed skin tone (for an elf).

This 3rd edition ranger was not as playable as it seemed, but it was playable nonetheless. Favored Enemy is a very tricky feature to make work in a standard D&D campaign, and that was the main draw of the class. Worst case scenario: your 3E ranger had the high attack bonuses, decent hit points, some fun combat perks to start with, and nice skill points and spells to fill out the weaker areas of the character. If your party needed to track anything, or survive in the wilds, you needed a ranger, no question.

What about the ranger now? Well........

She's either a drow, or a purple elf. Neither of those scream "wanderer of the forests" to me like the tanned elf from before. She is also wearing a bright blue cape and puffy white sleeves. Not exactly camouflage. 

Something tells me that this piece was just supposed to be a warrior-type drow, and when time came to put a ranger picture in the 5e Player's Handbook, somebody grabbed this one, drew a bird onto the bow, and called it a day. Not cool.

And worst of all, the 5e ranger is by-far the least popular class. Only three skills? Someone that survives on their own in the wild with no help only gets three skills from their class? Favored Enemy gets nerfed, even though it was already mediocre at best. And don't even get me started on the current state of the animal companion... what a joke. It's so unpopular, in fact, that WOTC has made it a point to update it completely. Are the updates enough? Eh. I'm on the fence.

The Upswing

So what is wrong with the ranger? Why does it blow nowadays? Why is it "weak"?

Because it doesn't do anything. Sure, it can do all the normal character stuff fine. In fact, it can do all the normal character stuff (moving, hiding, fighting, seeing, hearing, etc.) more reliably than any other class. Move through brambles unhindered, fight invisible things, not lose its way in the woods, etc.

But those things aren't exciting. If a rogue could only hide, and not sneak attack, it would suck (by modern standards). Well, the ranger is exactly that. Sure, he or she can run through a field of pricker bushes without getting slowed down or hurt, but once on the other side of the field, they will put you to sleep with their lack of unique proactive choices.

Doing things was the focus of my Ranger Class without Math from a few months back. If you don't wanna read that through, here is the lowdown.

I give them two major weapon choices in combat: bows and knives. They get to choose whether to engage from afar or close up in each fight, not as a one-time character feature. No more melee OR ranged rangers. Each ranger is both.

I give them an awesome and totally independent animal companion to control, which is just one more sweet and proactive choice they get to make each turn. Every ranger gets one.

I give them the ability to make natural traps, and search for natural traps. Boom. Interesting choices in non-combat time other than tracking.

I give them herbalism and bush medicine to make them healers because if rangers don't know that isht then they die all alone in the woods. Just makes sense, and is uber useful for the party.

See how easy that is? But just like the bard became more capable and proactive between 3rd and 5th editions, the ranger fell from grace. How ironic that the tracker and wayfinder class has lost its way.

But hey, now you know how to fix it.

Stories Better Told In-Game

I took the cleric and paladin classes out of my game because I felt that a character turning toward a religion was something that should happen during play. That moment that a warrior defends a temple and holy light shines down on them and they receive Pelor's blessing is too good to be passed up as mere "backstory." That's the meat and potatoes right there, not the appetizer!

A mortally wounded adventurer is carried into the hut of an old hermit woman, and as she prays over him, he sees a vision of Elhonna calling to him, telling him she needs him to spread her teachings. It's his destiny, which if not achieved, would yield terrible consequences. Boom, cleric (or missionary) origin. It has a sense of urgency and reality, rather than the distant and ephemeral relationship most cleric class members have with their deities.

This game decision was extremely freeing, because now religion didn't have to be part of the campaign if I didn't want it to be. Sure, characters could be religious, but unless I chose so, no divine powers (and thus near-direct deity involvement) would be required. Pantheons take a long time to make, man. Sometimes I just want murder-hobos fighting dragons in a godless hell-hole, but as soon as any divine class is allowed, there is an entirely new dimension to my world that I need to fill out, whether it will be used a lot or hardly ever.

Not to mention, NPC members of religions also got toned WAY down, so that they are nearly all mundane people with regular reasons for being religious, rather than magically gifted healers who can be the deus in your deus ex machina plot problem. AND a great corollary to this is: magic healing is much rarer, therefore the game feels more dangerous. May not be your thing, but it is so my thing.

This train of thought led me to arcane magic-users, M-Us, or "moos" for short. A moo is basically in the same boat as a cleric or paladin: they have some supernatural ability that everyone wants to know more about, but the narrative drive it creates is crippled by the game always beginning en media res of their development. A moo's first experience with magic is a defining and contextualizing moment of unprecedented importance in the story, but when it is resigned to the backstory, it matters not at all.

So, you can take moos out too, and make magic exactly like religion: you get it during play, if at all. Again, the freedom this offers is immeasurable. Now, if I don't want to incorporate pact magic and patrons in my game, I don't have to worry about a player choosing the warlock class. It also means magic (and religion) can be totally mysterious and not balanced, because it's all in-game development. It puts the risk-reward balance in player character choices, rather than character creation. No need for spell slots, no need for domains and specialization rules. Just cause and effect story.

Each spell or magical power is its own rule module with its own limits and costs and risks. If you want a bigger/better/cooler/flashier version of what you have, you can't just kill stuff until you level-up, you have to go out in search of the better version and learn how to do that. But be warned, it may have costs you are not willing to pay, or be on the other side of a challenge you are not ready to face.

Not having any set rules for how magic functions allows you to try different things for each moo, like magic atrophy, crude magic, modified vancian magic, wizard garment restrictions, a panoply, i.e. collection of magic foci, or the spell components you've been ignoring your whole life.... And so much more!

But wait! Won't these magic systems spin wildly out of control? Won't my moos either become gods among men, or slump over and give up because the costs of magic are too high and not balanced with the real classes?

It's all in how well you DM, of course. But rest assured, your moo isn't just a moo, he is also a warrior, or a dwarf, or a scoundrel, or some other mundane/race class first. Not all D&D characters live beyond their first couple adventures, and not all moos ever get to cast fireball before blowing themselves to smithereens in a magical mishap. All game systems have edge cases that screw things up. You deal with them as they come along. But at least with in-game magic only, your players (and you, to some extent) get the excitement and mystery of magic back in your campaign.

Players now have to actually choose whether gaining magical power is worth the risk. Parties now have to gather information on their sorcerous enemies before charging in, or risk death by unanticipated magic abilities. Playing a moo well now requires learning and exploring above all else, and especially above choosing the best spells at each level.

This fantasy RPG hobby of ours is about three things. First is being with friends, and what system you play should have no effect on that. Second is exploration of a magical world. If gaining magic is part of exploring, rather than part of the rulebook, then that's just more exploring to do. Win-win. Third, tabletop is about problem solving in a more dynamic and complex environment than any video game or board game can model. If you make magic a problem to be solved, and a challenge to be overcome, rather than something characters are just handed from the get-go, then you have all the more material to work with as a DM.

Until next time.

Fantasy Archetypes as Chronology, and the Expanding Magician

There is some great blog literature about the cleric as a misfit in the fantasy world, and I suggest that you all read it if you get the chance. A good place to start is Delta's discussions of the cleric and how it bothered him throughout the years (scroll down to the bottom of the post).

This excommunication of the cleric would then leave us with three archetypes: the warrior, the scoundrel, and the magician. Three is a nice number. It lends itself well to overthinking and false analogies. The following may or may not be one of those.

Warrior, Scoundrel, Magician = Present, Future, and Past

The warrior is living for the glory, the thrill, the power. But the warrior's glory does not come after the fight, it comes during the fight, as he (or she) is flaying the dragon, beheading the minotaur, or stabbing the orc general. His strength and potency comes from what he can do right now. A general without an army to command right now is not really a general.

Warriors are typically depicted as men, in the real world, and even in fantasy. There are a host of stereotypes that explain this, but perhaps one of the least examined is the correlation between the male brain and mental focus: paying attention deeply to one thing is emphasized, but planning ahead and multi-tasking are underutilized.

I would argue that the warrior archetype is inherently uninterested in planning ahead and multi-tasking. It doesn't mean a warrior can't plan, or multi-task. But there is something about the warrior culture and warrior mindset that implies addressing problems as they arise with whatever strengths and strategies become available in real time.

In game terms, this means the warrior excels after combat starts. Once each combatant must begin making decisions and acting on them, the warrior is most in control. This means being reactionary. But very effectively so. "He does A, so I respond with B. She does C, so I respond with D." That kind of cause-effect reality means warriors are inherently focused on the present in order to be effective.


The Scoundrel, on the other hand, is most effective when they can predict what challenges lay before them. This can be boiled down to the mind-numbing mundanity of "I search for traps," but it also exists at all the other levels of interesting play. Cat burglars and art thieves stake out their targets to better predict what they will be up against. They set up road-side robberies as chests of gold are being transported from the royal coffers.

Even combat oriented scoundrels are focused on setting up a future opportunity to strike for maximum effect.

Scoundrels are the ones that walk away with the gold, avoid consequences, disappear into anonymity, etc. That doesn't happen on the fly, it happens because these archetypical characters are constantly planning. "If he does X, I will do Y. But, if he does W, I will do Z." A scoundrel's mind must always be playing with possible future worlds, and planning not just the next move, but the next three moves like a chess grandmaster.


The magician exists in the past. A magician's influence depends on what archaic secrets of the old world they can master, and what incredible shifts of reality they have accomplished. The magician is potent not based on how they can react to what their enemies are doing, nor how well they have planned to deal with their opponents' strategy. A magician is powerful based solely on what they are independently capable of. If you can incinerate a man at the flick of a wand, the most important part of your development as a magician was not the moment of incineration, nor the plan you concocted to find and incinerate that person. It was the moment you figured out how to incinerate someone. The sheer unpredictability of your powers is, in itself, dangerous.

"I have amassed this power," the magician says. "Try and stop me if you wish."

This makes the magician sound like an evil archetype. And it sure as hell works for evil characters. But it can also be a force for good. Unless you live in a world that has entirely collapsed to evil, then evil must have been defeated or staunched in some way before, but you can only find out what those methods were by looking to the past.
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This tripartite comparison creates its own rock-paper-scissors relationship as well. Warrior is reaction, magician is unpredictability, and scoundrel is prediction. The warrior beats the magician, because the only way to beat something that's unpredictable is to react efficiently and effectively at a moment's notice. The magician beats the scoundrel, because if the scoundrel cannot predict their opponent's capabilities, their advantage is lost. And lastly, the scoundrel beats the warrior, because it is trivial to predict something that works on a basic cause-effect, action-reaction formula, and it is therefore easy to counter.
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Yet another insight from this comparison is what it has to say about the magician and "game balance." I'm not talking about balance in the sense of "the magician shouldn't deal more damage than the warrior" or "shouldn't roll higher stealth checks than the scoundrel." Rather, I'm talking about giving your players and their characters roughly equal time to shine in any given game. Warriors are best at reacting to sudden events, and scoundrels are best at planning how to circumvent the better part of the challenges they can predict. The magician should be pure, raw magical effect.

But if you let the magician prepare too accordingly for the challenges they will face, then it begins to overshadow the scoundrel. Who needs to sneak around the frost giants and set their fortress on fire if the magician has a dozen fire spells prepared?

By the same token, if you allow spells to become too utilitarian, and give the magician too many of them, then they start to overshadow the warrior. Oh, the demon has summoned two fire beasts? Well, my wall of iron will keep them at bay. Now the demon is trying to disintegrate my wall? I cast arcane transference and absorb his spell, then use the spell slot I gain from that to cast sonic boom against the crystal golems, which is an auto-critical.

See what I mean? Old school magicians, with their tiny spell lists and laughable number of spells per day were like a shotgun: effective when used for its intended purpose, somewhat effective if used for a well-thought-out improvised purpose, and disastrous if used for anything else. Sure, you can shoot an enemy with a shotgun, and you can even blow open a locked door with a shotgun, but you can't put out a house fire with a shotgun, and you can't create an anti-venom with a shot gun. During those times, other characters get to shine.

But the trend in magicians has been to transform them into a Swiss-army knife/multi-tool/Skeleton key archetype, where they can steal the spotlight entirely, so long as they do their research and prepare the right spells. Not only is this unfair to the players who want to make characters that aren't magicians, but it also is opposite the original feel of the magician. Archaic and arcane secrets aren't a dime a dozen. In the LOTR movies, Gandalf was away for over a year doing research and hunting gollum just to learn about the history and tell-tale signs of the One Ring.

In the books, that quest takes him exactly seventeen years. I don't think that much time should be necessary to discover some arcane secrets, but you get the drift.

D&D Classes Without Math: Rogue

When I think of the fighter, the first word that comes to my head is "reliability." The fighter's play style, from a mechanical perspective, is about reliable class features. Multiple attacks per round, higher chance to hit, higher AC, etc. These make the fighter solid and, although less than flashy, you can count on them when the situation becomes FUBAR.

Back when rogues were thieves, they were reliable too. The party could count on them to climb walls, hide in shadows, hear things, etc. Backstabbing almost seemed to be an afterthought. But as the class progressed, things changed. The thief become an agent of luck and disorder. The thief was meant to thrive in a chaotic environment, which they often helped make ever more unpredictable. This transformation seemed to be completed by 3rd Edition D&D, when it became the "rogue" and was now focused less on some special set of technical skills and more on the ability to slip from danger and create danger at the blink of an eye.

Personally, I prefer the scoundrel rogue to the simple thief. Not only does the idea of a rogue easy subsume the thief concept, if desired, but it also helps avoid the horrible abomination that is Bad Trap Syndrome, since the thief has ever been the "bad trap disarmer."

So on that note, here we go.
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D&D Classes Without Math: The Rogue

Rogues are about big risk and bigger reward. It is hard to think of a better character for a fantasy game based around rolling dice. With that in mind, here are my core rogue features in no particular order:

1. Lady Luck's Re-roll

All rogues should have some ability to reroll a die during the day. This does a lot of ground work to establishing the kind of character a rogue is, but it also helps the player. You are much more likely to try something risky if you know you've got a lucky break in your back pocket. As a matter of taste, I would say that the player MUST take the second roll, even if it is worse. Hey, lady luck works both ways....

2. Surprisingly Dangerous

Backstab is great is theory, tough to do in practice. I'd give rogues a loosened up version where so long as the enemy is unsuspecting, the rogue does a buttload more damage. I'd also play hardball and say that once you engage an enemy, you must completely lose them to get the bonus damage again. Simply ducking behind a tree or flanking with a buddy is not enough. Skirmishing rogues are good, swashbuckling rogues are good, but I despise the "bonus damage every round for barely any work" shtick that is seen in 3E, 4E, and 5E D&D. Lazy rogues are a no-go.

3. How'd He DO That?

The quintessential rogue, getting a magic item to work.

Something that has been lost to time in D&D is a rogue's ability to fumble around with a magic thing until he either: breaks it, blows up, or makes it work. I think this is 100% pure rogue character. They are tinkerers in the most fantasy sense. As far as feature wording goes, I'd say "a rogue may attempt to use any magical item normally reserved for spell casters, such as a magic staff, wand, rod, etc., and had X in Y probability (e.g. 4 in 6 probability) to make it work on any given attempt." What is more chaotic than a sudden bolt of lightning from the rogue's direction? Not much, I would think.

4. Cover Your Rear End

Rogues are not stupid. They may be foolish, but they know how likely it is they will die if they make a serious misstep. But that being said, someone has to try and parley with the dragon, and it's probably gonna be the rogue. So, best that they know how to cover their butt. For my tastes, this is simply an option to forgo some attack bonus for extra AC, a la the Expertise feat in 3.5 D&D. Or perhaps rogues could receive an AC bonus on turns when they use their action to run. Pretty much anything that helps them get the hell out of dodge in one piece is gonna hit the sweet spot.

5. Grab Bag

Unlike the other grab bags so far in this series, this one is a literal grab-bag type class feature. Rogues are a varied group, even more so than fighters, rangers, etc. Where a fighter's unique personality comes through in his or her choice of arms and armor, and a ranger's comes through in his or her choice of animal companion, a rogue's personality should come through by selecting one feature from a list of three or four. These features might include a special secret thief language a la Thieves' Cant in 5E, it could be a "get out of jail free card" type dodge where the rogue can reduce damage they take by half from one attack a day, it could be a second reroll for the day, but only usable on charisma checks, and so on. Part of the charm and flavor of rogues is never knowing what they are hiding. This is the mystery icing on the scoundrel cake.

D&D Classes Without Math: Ranger

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Thanks to Tolkien, our fantasy forests have been filled with longswords and breastplate armor for years, and it's time that stopped. The ranger is being totally screwed out of all its coolness thanks to the decision that it needs to be a fighter that likes the woods. No more I say! If you want the ranger to be good (read: fun and interesting), then let it be its own thing.

That means not being a KILLER, because that is what a fighter is. A ranger is a SURVIVOR. That involves killing, of course. And running away, too. And keeping friends who have your back. It means knowing your environment and gathering knowledge before you act. In war, being brash might make you a hero, but in the wilds, it just gets you killed.
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D&D Classes Without Math: The Ranger

Here are my core features (without math) for the ranger class, in no particular order:

1. A ranger is best equipped with leather armor, a bow, and some knives.

Lugging a 5 pound longsword through the woods is both exhausting and stupid. Bringing a matching shortsword along with it is downright lunacy. The ranger has two modes of battle: safely from afar, or up close and personal. Ideally, a few arrows in an unsuspecting target ends things before they begin. However, if a wild animal or monster gets the jump on you, your best bet is always a knife: easy to carry, easy to conceal, easy to draw, and easy to use. Not to mention it has about 1 billion different uses when surviving in the bush. I could hear an argument for a light axe, but again, it's a matter of weight vs. utility. Of course, I would never tell my player "You can't wield that" but giving the ranger a nice bonus to bow and knife attacks certainly implies "Why aren't you wielding that?"

2. An animal companion is a must.

This is perhaps the worst aspect of the 5e ranger. The fact that animal companions are so downplayed as to be near useless is super disappointing to me. A ranger's companion is the best tool in their arsenal, and also the thing that keeps them sane. It is impossible to have any serious human relationships in the wild....alone....all the time. Your animal is your best friend. I don't care what you have to cut, feature-wise, from your ranger class. Just get a good animal companion in there. Let it act freely as a pseudo-second character that goes when the ranger does. There is just about nothing more unique to any D&D class than a ranger and its companion. (P.S. I'm very much against druid animal companions, for various reasons, not the least of which is that they can already shapeshift into nearly any animal they want.)

3. IT'S A TRAP!

Traps, man. They have been disabled for years by characters, but never set by them. Why? Rangers need certain kinds of traps (mostly snares) to eat. As the wardens of the woods, they would clearly also know how to set traps for larger (read: humanoid) trespassers. Digging a big pit trap might be a bit much, but I think a ranger should be able to make a rudimentary branch-spear trap given an hour in a suitable natural environment. And noise traps! Noise traps would be huge for any ranger leading a group through an area where they will have to make camp and sleep. If you don't know, a noise trap is something like a bag full of empty tin cans falling from a tree when someone trips a trap wire. It isn't meant to harm anything, just make a bunch of noise. The noise will alert you as to the creature's presence, and also its direction and relative distance. Traps allow the ranger to be creative during downtime. Always a plus. Rangers should also be able to spot such wilderness traps, if they are careful.

4. Bush medicine.

Rangers get nasty wounds out in the wild and there is no one around to help them. If they didn't sew it up and clean it themselves, they would surely die of blood-loss, infection, or both. Just so, rangers should be one of the most, if not the most capable healers in the party. This can be as simple as being able to stabilize a dying creature without needing to make a check. It could be a scaling ability that eventually includes treating poisons and diseases. You chose. Point is, a ranger that knows nothing about basic first-aid is a dead ranger (and even worse, a boring ranger).

5. The little things.

This is another grab-bag category where you might want to fill stuff in. Tracking, for instance. If you don't let non-rangers make tracking checks, then rangers are automatically that much cooler and more useful. Maybe rangers should be immune to surprise? Those wild instincts are one reason why he/she is still alive, after all. Camouflage and hiding abilities could also be useful, though I think just being silent is more the ranger style. The great outdoors provides plenty of easy cover and hiding spots. Hiding in an open area that is being observed and such is a thief/rogue tactic, if anything.

D&D Classes Without Math: Fighter

I enjoy 5th Edition D&D. And I am overjoyed that Wizards has put out an SRD and the Dungeon Master's Guild for members of the community to add their creativity to the hobby and share it with everyone.

However, I find myself unsatisfied with several of the classes as they are presented in the PHB. At first I thought my grievances were unique to each class and unrelated. But as I continued to think about it and play the game, I found my disappointment grew out of one central idea: the classes I don't like are the ones which have lost their core meaning.

So, that gave me the idea for a series here on the blog, which I am calling "D&D Classes without Math," because I don't intend to deal with numbers and such, so that you can apply this to any tabletop RPG you would like. Also, I plan to cover every class I can, not just the lack-luster 5e ones.

Ultimately, the goal is to put into words what each class from our beloved game really is, down to brass tacks. Clearly, a +1 damage bonus doesn't define a character. There is something implied by the term "fighter" or "rogue" or "wizard" that, in my opinion, must be reached through the class's mechanics to make a successful and fulfilling piece of the game. (Much work is done by the players and how they chose to role play their character, of course, but I am still a staunch believer in the theory that mechanics inform player behavior, even in areas where the mechanics are silent.)

So, without further delay, here is the first installment.
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D&D Classes Without Math: The Fighter

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A fighter knows how to fight. They know how to go all-out, or hold back in a defensive stance. They know how to identify an enemy's style and react to it. They know how to exert themselves for a last push to victory. They know how to tangle with multiple opponents at once, if necessary.

Most of all, they know the tools of their trade. They know that you can attack with every inch of a greatsword. They know you can grapple with a quarterstaff. They know carrying a shield increases their chance of surviving a battle in open fields, and decreases their odds of surviving a skirmish in the woods.

How does each fighter know all this? Beats me. Years of training? Killer instinct? Blessed by the god of war? Doesn't matter.

All that matters is that the fighter is the combatant extraordinaire.

Aside: what does that mean for the barbarian, ranger, paladin, etc? Should they just be worse at fighting? Simple answer: yes. Complex answer: their primary job should not be fighting, because if it is, then they are fighters. You want to make a 5e-style barbarian? Make a fighter that wears animal furs and fights with utter abandon. Not every minor stylistic choice deserves a new class. Only new roles in the game deserve new classes. This is more flexible than it sounds, but also much more rigid than late editions of D&D have been. You'll see as this post series develops.

Anyway, back to the fighter. How do we pack all of that awesome combat-know-how into a class, and scale it a bit with level so that fighters aren't done with all their training by first session? What class features embody the soul of the fighter? In my opinion, they are (in no particular order):

1. Fighters should have multiple attacks per turn, though not necessarily from the get-go.

This is not to represent the many, many weapon swings the fighter makes each round of combat. This is so that a fighter can attempt to hit multiple targets each round, thus making him/her one of the few (if not only) character-types that isn't quickly overwhelmed by throwing down with a few foes at once. This also easily translates into the fighter's higher damage output and accuracy. If you just want to deal a lot of damage to one enemy, attack it three times. You aren't guaranteed more damage or hits, but you certainly have a good chance of it. Last but not least, you can add a simple trade-off between using attack rolls and maintaining a solid defense. Something like "for each attack a fighter does not expend in a round, they get +1 to Armor Class" or maybe "they can roll to parry one attack." Or, you could just include a simple attack bonus-AC trade off choice that the fighter can make once per round.

2. Fighters should be able to exert themselves to do more on their combat turn.

A la the 5e action surge, giving the fighter a bonus something to do in combat is a good idea, but I would focus it more. I would say "the fighter can (x number of times per unit time, you decide) get an additional attack on their turn, even if they have not made any other attacks that turn." So, the fighter could choose to attack on his turn, and then get an extra attack on top of the previous ones. Or, the fighter could use their turn to do something other than attack, but still get in a quick swipe at an enemy while they do so.

3. Fighters should get a small bonus to hit against creatures they have defeated before.

Pretty self-explanatory. Fighter's owe their survival to remembering how to win fights. If they don't improve from each bout with a creature, they aren't long for this world. This wouldn't be cumulative, of course. So killing three goblins over three days does not grant +3 vs. goblins. It would be +0 agains the first, and then +1 against the goblins on days 2 and 3 (as well as all subsequent goblins). It's the DM's job to decide how broad or specific each bonus is. Is any goblin good for "+1 vs. goblins" or would it be "+1 vs. goblin stabbers" and then "+1 vs. goblin slingers," etc....

4. Fighters should be able to accomplish feats of strength.

All fighters are athletes, though some may be more akin to dancers and others to football players. They are all powerful, in that they can focus their bodily strength to accomplish physical tasks with great success. This should be represented with well-rounded Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution scores, of course, but throwing in a class feature for fun is a good idea, in my opinion. Simply put, this feature would be "(x number of times per unit time) the fighter can attempt a feat of strength, significantly increasing their chance of succeeding on a strength-based test." This could be done in a number of ways. It could be a large bonus or advantage, but one that must be applied before the roll. Or, it could be a moderate advantage, but one that can be applied retro-actively, therefore doubling as a fail-safe. I love the image of a burly or physical character busting down a door or lifting a portcullis because they are desperate and the party is in dire-straights. It gives the fighter some unskilled, but non-combat niche to fill.

5. The basics: fighters should have higher HP, and access to all weapons, armors, shields, etc.

Again, self-explanatory. I only include it as a footnote, really. This allows fighters to confidently wade into battle, and look forward to many, many usable goodies after the fact. This also represents where you might have stuff in your system that you think fighters should also get. Bonuses to hit. Bonus to initiative, perhaps? You get the idea.

Class Systems: Springboards or Boxes?

Picture a class feature like a plank of wood.

If you put two or three planks of wood together, you can make a pretty kick-ass springboard to jump off from. You might not soar through the heavens, but you'll go somewhere.

If you put several planks of wood together, they start to look a lot like a box. A box that closes you in. A box that forces you to by new books just so you can open up a little door that leads...

...to another box.

I found myself trapped in these boxes for years, ecstatic whenever game developers would release a new splat book with a fighter variant or non-spell paladin build.

Now, the boxes aren't all bad. They keep you grounded so that you can come to understand that not everything you think up is a good or game-appropriate idea for a character. They are kinds like guard-rails at the bowling alley.

But now you're an adult, and it's time to take the training wheels off and achieve your full pen & paper RPG potential! YEAH BABY! WOOOOH!


So here's how you should set up your class system for your kick-ass RPG:

Step 1: Don't split hairs

Barbarians? Yeah, are they really all that different from fighters that have a temper problem and eschew heavier armor? The answer is no, they aren't. They still just hit stuff with big metal things and get hit with other big metal things. They both fall solidly into the category of "Warrior" as far as I'm concerned.

Step 2: Hit all the right notes (hint, there aren't that many)

Great, now you've got your main classes, like Warrior, specified. Next, give it what every member of that category must have, and then stop. Uses big weapons? Sounds right to me. Good at fighting with those weapons? You betcha. Especially strong and athletic? Now you're talking. You've got a sweet little, WIDELY INTERPRETABLE class now. That's good. Stop. Don't add anything else. Really. Stop. Please.

Step 3: Keep things simple, even if that means adding more classes

Paladins. They could be a special warrior variant, or prestige class, or paragon path, or special feat-tree style multiclass variant option splat nonsense. OR...

You can just make a paladin class. So it uses weapons like a warrior. No big deal, the fact that it can stitch peoples' wounds up by laying on hands is awesome and unique. As is their immunity to disease. Fantastic. Stop. No more. What? A divine mount? Shut up. Take that fluff out of my sight and let the DM give horses to whomever he/she goddam pleases.

Step 4: Fill in the blanks

Now, make any other classes that your system calls for. This requires you to have the rest of your system done. You need to know it inside and out, and you need to know what mechanics you are willing to let classes specialize in, and which you are not. For example: letting Fighters specialize (a.k.a. have a monopoly on) feats in 3.5 was a mistake. It slowly made feats a combat-centric, fighter-only mechanic. Not good. Rouges as skill monkeys? Also not good. Why can't my fighter be a great mason? [some mumbled jargon about balance and such]. Bull. Fighters can't have great skills, not even in masonry and blacksmithing, because you gave rogues a monopoly on ALL skills, and you know it.


The point is: to have unique, solid, simple classes you need to draw some serious lines in the sand between your mechanics. Skills need to be entirely devoid of combat-related things. Yes, your knowledge of demons may help in a fight, but if the main purpose of any skill is to help you fight better, it might as well be a new class, because CLASSES should be about COMBAT. And feats? scrap em. As soon as you add a mechanic to your game that literally covers all the other mechanics and more, you've broken your own game. It has become a mockery unto itself. Spells? Spells are feats for Wizards. They get all the best ones, and all the other Wizard-wannabe classes get the scraps left over. Not cool. Magic should be available to every class, and your magic-users should just get MORE magic each sessions/day, not SPECIAL SECRET magic.

Let me return to that comment about classes and combat. Consider this: a leader class. Bard, Warlord, etc. Once you make a class that is designed to be a leader, every other class is, by definition, not a leader. Players will immediately hone in on that, and if someone is playing a barbarian and they want to lead the hordes on conquest, they will believe that they need levels of warlord to do so effectively. "What? How can I lead the hordes? I don't have Inspiring Word or Wolf Pack Tactics. The other leaders will run circles around me." When you stop making classes about what you did during the fight with the goblins and instead focus on what you did leading up to the fight with the goblins, you are telling the players that their character can shine only in combat, or only not in combat.  

Every class should give you something to do in combat, and every character should be able to pursue any talents outside of combat, regardless of class. Bam. Game balanced.

See what I'm getting at? In a word:

Adding a class to your game should give that class a MONOPOLY on one part of your game, plus a couple other, MINOR, THEMATICALLY GENERAL bonuses. Everything else should be one-size-fits-all.

For example: When I added paladins to my game, and their main class feature was being able to heal peoples' wounds, I promised that I would never allow a healing spell or class feature anywhere else. If I did, it would disenfranchise the paladin class. I also promised not to try and make paladins as good at fighting as warriors. Yes, even against demons and whatnot.

Okay, phew. That's good for today.