Subclasses?

[otiv]

I know there are only two classes in Carcosa (fighting-men and sorcerers) but do you guys ever use sub-classes?

What would rangers look like in Carcosa? 

Here's what I'm thinking:

Carcosan fighters with a constitution score of 15+, lawful alignment, and no mutations may choose to become members of the Clandestine Order of the Black Patrol otherwise known as rangers.
Carcosan rangers substitute their damage bonus against giant-class enemies for a bonus against the spawn of shub-niggurath, byakhee, and other related creatures.

Long ago, the black men of Carcosa built great walls and castles to maintain the division between worlds. The warrior-priests of the black men patrolled these walls and made regular sacrifices to their god in order to defend the wall against extra-planetary incursions. This continued for thousands of years, but over time the black men's numbers dwindled, the walls fell into disrepair, and they lost knowledge of their ancient ways. 
One day, a tribe of strange men arrived and interrupted the black men's ritual. The strange men slew many black men, then opened the gates and transgressed the boundary between worlds. The strange men captured the god of the black men and later slew it. With that, the gates were open and undefended, and the rest is history.

The men of the Black Patrol are the inheritors of the ancient ways. They stalk the lands where the fabric of reality is thin. They fight to repell any creatures attempting to come into the world and slay any men that aid them.

I also think it would be cool to have a Tomb Robber class with reskinned dwarven abilities and a damage bonus against the undead.

[Malcadon]

Baz Blatt made a Paladin-like subclass called the Brotherhood of the Skull, who are driven to fight anyone who would try to call forth eldritch forces, including the eldritch beings themselves! The end of the document also notes other "pseudo-monastic orders" (Followers of Nyarlathotep, Psionic Monks of the Cephalic and Adjudicators of the Norm) with some overriding goal, but not much detail on them. You can find it in The Carcosin Grimoire.

In the same book, you can also find an NPC class for Witches (by Cameron DuBeers). They are more "Medicine-Woman" than the old "Hags on flying broomsticks." It might take a slight bit of work to make it a playable subclass. They have the issue of making the party powerful, as they can brew-up a wide range of useful potions with effects similar to low-level D&D spells. This can be balanced-out by making the brewing much like Sorcerer's spells, where one would have to scrounge in odd places to find the right ingredients.

[premmy]

Some sort of slaver/manhunter would be appropriate for the setting.

[geoffrey]

The forthcoming Carcosa book includes clerics and magic-users.

"What? Heresy!"

When I published my first Carcosa book in 2008, I hadn't yet figured out a way for clerics or Vancian magic-users to fit with Carcosa. I have since figured it out. Trust me. They feel right.

"I will NEVER allow clerics or magic-users in my Carcosa!"

They're easy to ignore. They both have a small presence on Carcosa. It's not like standard D&D worlds in which you knock clerics and magic-users over every time you swing a cat.

[Lorgalis]

In my current pbp game, I offered characters subclasses as proposed by Dyson Logos. We have an archer, and a berserker. I do not allow sorcerers to subclass - they can cast spells using esoteric systems. The spells are very rare and tend to be very odd.
There is not a single way to cast spells in my Carcosa.

The subclasses are found in the character section of Dyson's website I believe.

[burningtorso]

I had tried a version of Clerics in my game. Just relabeled them Cultists and their power was not actually directly from the god itself (in most cases) but a collective manipulation of ambient psychic energies of the world being directed by the beliefs of the cultists. That way even followers of a Dolm Worm, Mutant Dinosaur, Idols or Statue would have abilities. Even though they were not true mental psychic powers (and had different affects), they would find the hard way that anything that nullified psychic powers seemed to work on them as well.

[Red Baron]

Oct 21, 2014 13:16:20 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

 I have since figured it out. Trust me. They feel right.

I really really want to believe this is true, but I'll have to see it to believe it.

I'm exited for your new book, though. I've been a bit out of the loop recently, so this is the first I'm hearing of it.

[geoffrey]

Oct 21, 2014 21:26:40 GMT -6 Red Baron said:

Oct 21, 2014 13:16:20 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

 I have since figured it out. Trust me. They feel right.

I really really want to believe this is true, but I'll have to see it to believe it.

I'm exited for your new book, though. I've been a bit out of the loop recently, so this is the first I'm hearing of it.

You can read some about the forthcoming book in this thread:
odd74.proboards.com/thread/10359/humble-service-announcement-regarding-carcosa

[otiv]

Oct 21, 2014 13:16:20 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

The forthcoming Carcosa book includes clerics and magic-users.

"What? Heresy!"

When I published my first Carcosa book in 2008, I hadn't yet figured out a way for clerics or Vancian magic-users to fit with Carcosa. I have since figured it out. Trust me. They feel right.

"I will NEVER allow clerics or magic-users in my Carcosa!"

They're easy to ignore. They both have a small presence on Carcosa. It's not like standard D&D worlds in which you knock clerics and magic-users over every time you swing a cat.

That's pretty cool! 
I'm excited. 
I had a monk in one of my Carcosa one-shots I ran a while back. Talking to dinosaurs, punching out spawn of shub-niggurath. Pretty fun.

[jcstephens]

I brought over Mi-Go Fungus Druids from a Terminal Space campaign that never quite came together, and they worked out OK.

[tkdco2]

How about a guild of assassins and enforcers? It would be more of a society rather than a subclass, as the guild would accept fighting men and sorcerers alike. But few sorcerers if any would join, since the activities of the guild would take away too much time from research and performing rituals.

While in public, members would wear voluminous hooded robes with heavy gloves and boots, all fuligin (the shade darker than black) in color. Underneath the robes, they would wear leather armor. Over this, they wear a full face mask, which muffles the voice of the wearer. All this is meant to obscure any details of the guild member, including the race and sex.

The face mask is itself bone white. Apprentices wear them unadorned, but journeymen may paint distinctive patterns in order to identify one another. As a general rule, the more seniority a member has, the more colorful his mask will be. Painting the mask with metallic colors is forbidden until the member becomes a master. The masters meet once a year in their mountain stronghold to discuss policy and other pressing matters.

[burningtorso]

Oct 22, 2014 9:43:11 GMT -6 jcstephens said:

I brought over Mi-Go Fungus Druids from a Terminal Space campaign that never quite came together, and they worked out OK.

That is beautiful! I might have to borrow that for my campaign.

[otiv]

Oct 22, 2014 14:59:04 GMT -6 tkdco2 said:

How about a guild of assassins and enforcers? It would be more of a society rather than a subclass, as the guild would accept fighting men and sorcerers alike. But few sorcerers if any would join, since the activities of the guild would take away too much time from research and performing rituals.

While in public, members would wear voluminous hooded robes with heavy gloves and boots, all fuligin (the shade darker than black) in color. Underneath the robes, they would wear leather armor. Over this, they wear a full face mask, which muffles the voice of the wearer. All this is meant to obscure any details of the guild member, including the race and sex.

The face mask is itself bone white. Apprentices wear them unadorned, but journeymen may paint distinctive patterns in order to identify one another. As a general rule, the more seniority a member has, the more colorful his mask will be. Painting the mask with metallic colors is forbidden until the member becomes a master. The masters meet once a year in their mountain stronghold to discuss policy and other pressing matters.

For a surprise twist, the masks are not really masks!
The assassins perform a ritual that allows them to change their faces. They can use this to disguise themselves as others but they can also use this to harden their faces into a carapace death-mask. Higher ranking assassins can transform their entire bodies in this way to grow armor plating and extrude body weaponry.
This ability is a psionic ability. The ritual required to awaken it entails drinking a drug brewed from the peculiar juices of an insect native to the dream lands. 

[Malcadon]

One of the simple beauties of Carcosa is how the Fighting-man is the heart of character progression -- where "Fighter" is a broad category than an archetype into itself. Instead of taking the D&D approach of making ½ Hit Dice Magic-Users with highly limited armaments, Carcosain Sorcerers have the same ability to fight as a Fighting-man at equal levels (this is great if one is playing with the Chainmail rules, where Hit Dice equals tactical man-power). What separates a Sorcerer from a Fighting-man are: 1) the knowledge and means to cast spells; and 2) 150% the EXP requirement needed to gain levels. I like this approach, as it is Fighter-centric, and the higher EXP requirements is a simple game-balance element that is justified to account for the greater time and effort needed to become more powerful in that field.

I can see this being used as a basis for making new classes, if it makes sense to do so. That is, I would stop short of making dedicated "classes" for Acrobats, Assassins, Thieves, etc., as they can be handled with character backgrounds or archetypes. The use of archetypes/backgrounds is a good way to round-out a character and to grant advantages with certain tasks or actions, without having to use some tacked-on rule set, or to have a whole class built around it. For example, you could establish your character as a "Thief", but instead of noting a list of Thieves' Abilities with percentile ranges, the character can do things like pick-pockets and pick locks as they are fairly normal actions (resolved with Ability tests or whatever), and all while using one's normal Fighting-man class. Much like Barbarians of Lemuria's Heroic Career system, each archetype/background have a list of skills and abilities (with some downsides) that are based on what players and Refs assume that such an archetype can or cant do.

How does that sound?