Building A New Class

[Punkrabbitt]

My older daughter has a whole new character concept, having refined her vision of a transdimensional being into something totally new. She wants her new character to "be telekinetic" and attack by creating a blast of crystal shards, either as a melee or ranged attack.

It took me about five minutes to put the whole thing together in my head and write down some quick notes. This is what I love about Old School rules-light systems, you can create things on the fly and make adjustments if you need to as you go along. I imagine if I tried to do this for 3.x or 4.0 it would have taken several days.

I will post the details of the class sometime Monday.

[Finarvyn]

If you're using the oldest version of OD&D, every attack does 1d6 damage. At that point, it really doesn't matter if the attack is telekinetic or thermonuclear.

What I would do (and it will be interesting to see how yours compares to my on-the-fly thought) is to decide how combat oriented the class ought to be, compared to how spell-casting. Then I'd use either Fighting Man, Magic-user, or Cleric (if it's in between) as my template. Tweak the powers and you're done.

As you said, easy to do this in five minutes or so.

[Punkrabbitt]

This is what i came up with... it owes a lot to the psionics rules in Eldritch Wizardry, but was written with Swords and Wizardry in mind. But this is literally a case of it taking longer to write it down and format it than actually come up with some workable rules. And if it is not working out right it will take anther five minutes to adjust.

The Crystal Gem Telekinetic: the Crystal Gem Telekinetic racial class uses Fighter table for experience, saving throw, and attacks; however, they use d6 for hit points instead of d8. They my not use armor or weapons, instead using their natural abilities. They may use any magical items not specifically restricted to Clerics.

Telekinesis Points: the character starts with 1-100 Telekinesis Points at first level, and then gains points equal to level as they are advanced (thus 2 points at 2nd level, 5 points at 5th, etc.)

Crystal Gem Melee Attack: the character forms a crystal weapon and attacks for d6 damage on a hit. This ability costs 3 Telekinesis Points to use. Upon reaching 5th level, damage is increased to d8, and upon reaching 10th level, damage is increased to d10.

Crystal Gem Ranged Attack: The character creates a burst of crystal shards to attack up to 60' away, causing d6 damage on a hit with a rate of fire of once per round. This ability costs 3 Telekinesis Points to use. Upon reaching 5th level, damage is increased to d8, and upon reaching 10th level, damage is increased to d10.

Levitation: Similar to the magical levitation, this ability allows the individual to levitate for one turn multiplied by the character's experience level. This ability costs 2 Telekinesis Points to use.

Telekinesis: The ability to move objects by mental power, the possessor is able to telekinese 5 pounds weight per two levels of experience, so at third level of experience he could move 10 pounds weight (maximum) and at fifth 15 pounds weight and so on. This ability costs 3 Telekinesis Points per turn to use.