Other Classes in Carcosa?

[doc]

Has anybody been experimenting with other classes besides fighting man and sorcerer? I'm going to be allowing the use of the thief in my campaign, and possibly a couple of others. I want to keep it very simple and not let the whole class thing get out of hand, but I want to add a little bit of variety as well.

One idea I had was making other classes be sublasses of fighting men. keeping new rules to a minumum while still allowing some different abilities for thieves, assassins, gladiators, huntsmen, etc. Just enough to differentiate one subclass from another.

Doc

[bert]

The subclass of Fighter idea would be a good one, but why shouldn't Sorcerers have access to some of these skills as well? What, after all, does a Sorcerer do for a living when he's not consorting with demons?

I also like the idea of Carcosa being different from trad D&D in as many possible ways, which is why when I wrote the bit on The Brothers of the Skull in the Grimoire I abandoned all idea of merely adapting the conventional Monk or Paladin and went for something completely different.

Thieves and Assassins
Depends whether your version of Carcosa has enough for people like this to do. I envisage it being pretty desolate with cities where a thief could be anonymous and have wealthy houses to burgle being few and far between. And why have assassins when you can summon demons to off your enemies?

Gladiators, rangers, barbarians, huntsmen
All fighters, but if the player has defined such a role in their background let them role play accordingly, or allow a 'skill' system.

Clerics
I do see a role for these - not using magic as per the D&D cleric, but as comparatively educated people with abilities such as reading obscure languages, putting the wind up others with scary sermons on the Old Ones, not running away gibbering when faced by mummies and 'orrible slimy things from beyond as they see them every day in their temples etc.

I suppose I ought to come up with a PC character class suggestion or two at this point, but inspiration fails me for the moment.

And since the only current difference between Sorcerer and Fighter is XP to level up, why not abandon class differences full stop and adopt a system of XP penalties per ritual known? Everyone starts as a fighter and uses that XP table, but for each ritual they learn they have a 5% XP penalty thereafter, becoming sorcerers by degrees as it were.

[Deleted]

Concerning assassins, there is some room for development here. Taking a clue from the sorcerer class, make the assassin similar to the fighter, but with slower progression and a few nifty abilities warriors don't have.

Thus, while an assassin on assignment may prefer light armor, or none at all, an assassin in an adventure would be wearing the best armor and carrying the meanest weapons he could find.

On Carcosa, Assassins are esteemed members of society who provide a valuable service. The Guild carefully watches over the activities of its members and ruthlessly eliminates any freelancers. The finest house in town probably belongs to an assassin, and nobody in his right mind is discourteous to a member of this profession.

Though they keep their exact activities secret, and though their customers can rely upon the strict confidence of the guild of assassins; they otherwise are very open about who they are and what they do.

Just a few random thoughts.

[geoffrey]

In my imagination, the thief as a character class does not exist on Carcosa for much the same reason that it doesn't exist on Tekumel, the world of the Petal Throne: "...stealing is punished by harsh and painful means: impalement, maiming, long imprisonment, or enslavement...Only a very foolish individual would thus adopt thievery as a profession...Professional thieves are very rare--and have short life expectancies--within the Five Empires..." (from pp. 47-48 of M. A. R. Barker's masterpiece, Swords & Glory, Vol. 1: Tekumel Source Book: The World of the Petal Throne).

The small, isolated settlements of humans on Carcosa I consider to be primarily totalitarian. Democracy, egalitarianism, etc. are simply unknown. Imagine the society on Skull Island in Peter Jackson's King Kong, and you will have an approximation of how I imagine a "typical" village on Carcosa. With a population of only 250 or so, everybody knows everybody, and there would be very little chance of being able to practice regular thievery and not get caught in short order. "Hey! We caught a thief. Wasn't the village sorcerer looking for a sacrifice? I think this thief will do nicely..."

Assassins I treat as specialists as per p. 22 of The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. In short, they are fighting-men or sorcerers (or even a 0-level type) who make money by performing assassinations.

Of course, the only right way is what works for each Judge's own campaign.

[cleverkobold]

In the Carcosa game I will be running in a few weeks, I have added two classes; the Savage and the Tradesman.

The Savage: Cave Men, Nomads, Wilderness Survivalists, etc.
This class advances and saves as a fighter, has dark-vision, some stat adjustments to make them a bit tougher, and is very fond of flint weaponry.

The Tradesman: This is a very flexible class that I created that allows the player to play a thief just as easily as a blacksmith, cook, animal trainer, scholar, or tradesman any other occupation by using a proficiency system similar to the NWPs from AD&D 2e.

[vito]

See, the way I see it, the Carcosan word for thief comes with an extra layer of meaning that doesn't translate to English.
'Thief' is not synonymous with bandit, robber, or burglar; common human crimes are far to pedestrian for true thieves.

Thieves are men who dare to steal from gods and aliens.
I imagine them as a technologist or gadgeteer class.

Detect/Disarm Traps pertains to the automated weaponry of alien structures including robots. Thieves that successfully sneak up on a robot can use disarm traps to disable it.
Open Locks can open electronic locks and hack computer terminals.
Other skills may be functions of various small high-tech devices that thieves can pick up.

[Malcadon]

I like the concept of the OD&D Fighting-man, as its generalized, and the levels represent exponential growth in power (beyond just getting more hit points). And the Sorcerer class is beautiful in it's flavor and simplicity. Given the nature of the setting, I cannot see any other class or sub-class doing it any justice. Although, if one manifests that contradicts this notion, then I would be vary interested.