Healing Hands - A DCC Spell for Wizards

Dungeons and Dragons, Dungeon Crawl Classics and most other systems that follow in (A)DnD's footsteps have a strong cut between arcane and divine magic. For most players, especially early on, the biggest difference will be:"wizards can't heal. Clerics can". 

Arcane healing has been a stable of fantasy literature, but is still amiss in many of my favorite role playing games. While there are many good reasons to keep wizards from healing their allies, i have changed this for my DCC games. I wanted to give the wizard a way of healing his comrades and reworked the lay on hands ability from the cleric into a level 1 spell. Go have a look at

Healing Touch

The Reasoning behind this is quite simple. I am not fond of the game feel the cleric provides. Healing is too easy and i strongly dislike how most Fantasy games deal with the restoration of hit points. This version of lay on hands discourages wizards from constantly healing their allies up to max hp and the fear of loosing the spell makes it more of a helpful tool and less of a character defining core ability

I don't want to go too deep into the details of why i dislike the clerical healing ability in it's current state. It has been in so many games and there is a good reason. It's not objectively bad, just not befitting of my personal taste. Yes. There are changes to lay on hands. The alignment reliability is gone and it gets worse with every attempt. Those are all intentional designs to better fit a more scholarly approach to healing spells.

So the final question is: "who will be interested in such a spell?". Not everyone likes the cleric and the concept of divine magic. I can't recall which episode of Spellburn discussed this topic, but a suggestion was to drop the cleric class in it's entirety and treat gods as patrons. This spell makes it easier to adapt this kind of play.

I am in the process of completely reworking my current campaign setting for DCC and i want to get rid of clerics in the process and replace them with a completely new class. Both, the rework and the class will soon make their way to this blog. Roleplaying currently takes a backseat. While i run many convention games i am not playing much within my home group. 

Not fantasy wise at least. I recently started a semi-open Traveller campaign for my local gaming meet up and am in the preparation for running the dark of hot spring island. Not sure if any of those will find their way onto this blog. 

Furthermore i got back into tabletop gaming within the last half year. I just love the system and setting of infinity and starting over with it has been a blast. This blog has never been designed to be a exclusive DCC or role playing blog, so maybe some things will find their way here. But i will keep to the style of this blog and won't post any pictures of miniatures. Maybe scenarios or the rule set i work on for a upcoming campaign (that might or might not happen). If you like miniatures though, check out A butterfly's hobby tally. This blog belongs to a close friend of mine who is one of my infinity colleagues and has been roleplaying with me since more than ten years ago.

This post has kind of dissolved into banter, but don't worry. I won't post until i have something to show for it.

A Curious Year - First Anniversary

It's been a year since i opened the gates of this small hobby project of mine. I started this blog to put some of my ideas out there. To have an outlet for creative bursts and hobby projects. Today i want to take a look at what i created and what will come this year.

But first. At new years eve i posted two new dungeon maps of mine. These curious dungeons, unlike their brethren, came not fully written out, but were only presented as bare maps. I want to change that. Here is the third curious Dungeon "The Gates of Idron"

[Note - I have not yet finished the write up, as i am stuck with other work. I will definitely finish it over the weekend and this note will be replaced by the full dungeon]

Now it's time to look back at some of my posts, series and what i have done here.

When i started this project i had some ideas but nothing to concrete. My first post was nothing more than a simple introduction to Dungeon Crawl Classics, a game which i dearly enjoy. This blog was never planned to be a DCC/OSR Thing, but all my previous posts definitely fit that description. It was no odd occurrence either, as most of my gaming through the last year fits that description. 

My second post still sits among my most popular and, to this day, remains one of my favorite creations i ever made. Rolling through Regions provides a simple to use random region generation toll. I created it on the fly back then and only slightly adjusted it after a few rounds of testing. This was not planned as a one of post but as something i still plan on making more of. Expect to see at least one post similar to this one soon. I have some ideas for a card based City generator and a dice based dungeon generator. There will be more!

My next posts were about Thireila, my DCC home Setting. They are among my most unpopular posts and among the posts i care least about. I did not think the setting through to the point of presenting it, when i first wrote those posts. But i still care about the Setting and have twisted it quite a lot since it's first inception. A lot of reworking the setting has been done and will be applied to the blog over the following moths. Once i feel comfortable with it i will give the Setting a new start and present it as something more than just a generic DCC/Fantasy backdrop.

My most popular post was the fully written DCC Funnel "Fate of the Ruthless Wizard". The feedback and exposure this one got me was huge and i am quite proud of it. The day Bryce reviewed this adventure not only meant a flood of new viewers, but also provided me with some well needed and well deserved critique. My decision to write more adventures was born that day and i have so many ideas floating around that it becomes hard to know which to write out first. But doing something like this takes huge amounts of time. And time is a resource i am starving for. I can promise you that i'll write at leas one big free adventure this year. But i can't promise when. I have begun working on something winter themed so i hope it will find a release date where it's not only thematic in Australia. 

Now let's drop some words on the Curious Dungeons. After i made my first DCC Adventure i noticed that drawing maps was quite fun and began doing more of it. I also became interested in game design from a more old-school perspective so i decided to just post what i drew. And the response was huge. Especially the, soon to be defunct, G+ Library of Gaming Maps provided tons of positive feedback to my first curious dungeon. I really don't think that my drawing skills are that great or that i am a designer who can call himself more than decent, but putting out these always makes a lot of fun. 

If i had one wish for the coming years than it would be to see some people take my maps and turn them into adventures or fill them with life in their own way. If you did something like this please let me know. I am most curious to find out what some small map can spark in you!

There is only one series left to talk about and that would be "A curious look". I don't want to call this a review series, or myself a reviewer, but the general idea was to take a look at some creations that exist and provide some opinions on them. I think that people who post things for free don't get enough feedback and while i didn't do my best of providing constructive positive feedback it is what i am aiming for if i ever do another in this series. And the Gongfarmers community provided me with enough of a response to this post to make me think, that I'm not the only one with this opinion.

I also want to look at some commercial publications from a design perspective. Not telling you that it's good, but why. I have a huge article planned for Harley Strohs "Doom of the Savage Kings" - DCC Aventure, but i am still struggling at condensing it down to an article that's not wasting your time.

Everything else i did were minor posts. DCC House rules, new Character Classes or other random tables and stuff. I am quite proud of most of those and happy about the response i got. But there is no series. I can't predict whats coming up in this regard. Only time will tell what stupid things i come up with.

So what's to say in the end? 2018 was not the best of years. Neither for this world, nor for me personally. But it was a great year for tabletop gaming and starting this blog was a great idea and sparked a lot of ideas as well as providing me with the motivation to follow through. 

There are many other RPG Blogs out there with more, bigger or better content. Most have more regular uploads as well. I'd lie if I'd claim not to be jealous of their creativity and self-discipline. But i came to see that this blog is what it is. A small hobby project by a quite curious German nerd. And i don't want it to be anything else.

So far and thanks for reading.

Until Soon

Marc

Curious Dungeon #3&4 - Let the Year End with some Dungeons

The end of 2018 is coming close. This year i started this blog and, whilst my activity slowed down in the second half of the year i am still incredibly happy about what i am doing here and keep collecting ideas for new posts. I will write a anniversary post once that day rolls around so i keep the rambling about this short.

To close up this year i have a new entry in the Curious Dungeon Series. Curious Dungeons are not only among my most popular posts. They are also quite fun to make. The series is all about exploring Dungeon Design and Adventure design from different angles and creating new things to explore. So today i will do something else. I made two new Curious Dungeons, with one placed after the other. 

There are two main modes of creation for Adventures and Dungeons for me. Starting of with a story or starting of wit ha map. Most of the time i find myself in between those and not at one of the extremes, but some of my most fun creations have tended towards those extremes. This time i started just with drawing the maps and i filled it with life later. Naturally ideas started floating even while the maps were in work.

So to encourage creativity in this blogs readers i will only upload the maps to today's curious Dungeons. I know that many people reading this blog are no strangers to creating fantasy role playing content so i challenge all of you to fill these maps with life. Withing the next two weeks, to kick of 2019, i will post my own takes, my own ideas and my own design for what lies inside those two Dungeons, as i did for the first two in this Series. But maybe someone else will post his take. If you do so, please let me know, but yes... you are free to use those maps for you own creation. 

I'd really love to see some takes at these maps. Maybe someone even knows what lies beneath Curious Dungeon 4. There exists no map to there lower level yet. Maybe i have some ideas. Maybe i don't. Maybe your ideas are way better than mine. Who knows.

Here are links to the raw files for those maps if you want to use them. 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1RBAV9vsU3E0XMyvQS3DEh2Dv8mGGlsTf

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NNKXMkzBqhljyAZHPfPkh0TZ30BtjAgd

Thank you all for reading this blogs posts. This project has been close to my heart and used up way more time than i expected but it's worth it. There will be more content next year.

Connecting your Characters

At the core of most roleplaying experiences are the characters. When playing, the characters not only bond with the world and the story they are involved in, but with each other. Those bonds form the dynamics between the group and influence most of the experience. Not all of these connections have to be of positive nature. Tension within the group can lead to great roleplaying.

But there is not always enough time to forge those connections. In a small con-game or your typical one-shot session you normally don't have any relationships between the characters. While many players will forge them quite fast or might try to impose them upon their characters and the GM to make play more intriguing. All you need is a good idea.

When starting out running DCC i was looking for a way to easily connect 0-level characters, as a simple relationship between those peasants will help players forge more roleplaying opportunities, especially if they are not comfortable with the Funnel concept. I came up with a random Table to determine relationships and i have used it many times since. Not only for DCC but for many of my one shot sessions.

Now, over a year later, i reforged this table and turned it from a d66 into a d50 Table. I also translated it from German into English and cleaned up some entries that just didn't work out. So here i present to you. Character connections.

If the link is not working try this one: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1DwxvXadzhIrC4bGIE0g8e0c9CPdM8AGo

This Table will not only help to inspire one shot parties but can also  be used in the creative process of forging new places and connecting the characters that live there. Just give it a try!

I'm working on many things currently. I posted a second elf class and will soon give the dwarf and halfling a similar treatment. Also i am currently working on two DCC adventures one of which i will try to release on this blog, maybe as a new year present. Look out for it. I might manage to make two posts a month for a while.

So far and thanks for reading.

A curious look at: "The Gongfarmer's Almanac 2018 - Issue 1" [2/2]

Let's continue our journey through the 2018 GFA by looking at the second half of the first issue. As with my last post I'll give the classes presented there a curious look and discuss some of their interesting mechanics. If you don't feel like you know what i am talking about you missed my last post and should go back to it, as this is simply a continuation of its predecessor.

Kith Of Kingspire by Aaron Clark & Ethan Miller

A Class inspired by a series of official goodman games DCC Adventure Modules, the Kith of Kingspire is a ancient descendant of the mystical Elder Kith. It's fine illustration shows a tall statue with a face, so evil it would outmatch most Disney villains. The introducing paragraphs not only detail the background of this ancient elven race, but also how the class was conceived and which modules inspired it. Look no further than DCC #88.5 and DCC #92 for the classes DCC Background

The elder Kith are a race of ancient, malevolent elves and the Kith of Kingspire are those few who survived the fall and demise. The survivors are of chaotic alignment and not conceptualized as nice elves. On the contrary. They thirst for violence and Bloodshed. The Kith of Kingspire are adept at the arcane and physical violence and train in both ways.

Mechanically the Kith of Kingspire is nothing new, but with one interesting twist. At every level they must choose between an arcane focus and a martial focus. The arcane focus enables them to cast spells and makes them act like normal elves. Casting spells, Critting on table II and having a d6 as Hit Die. The martial focus makes them warrior like by granting an improved Crit Range, mighty Deeds and a d8 as Hit Die.

While this allows a lot of variety within the class and makes the concept of running an entire group of Kiths of Kingspire less tedious than doing the same with most other classes, it is still quite limited, as level ups are rare and you can only change your focus at those points of enlightenment. I am not a fan of this restriction, as it breaks the feeling of an ancient noble warrior wizard elf who diversified his training to become the ultimate murder-machine.

In total i like the Kith of Kingspire as a class, but only within a limited scope. I would not include it in a normal party, as this class lacks the distinctive features that set it apart from the core classes or the core elf. But it has enough flavor to spice up a campaign or allow for a interesting spin off from the adventures mentioned in the intro to the class.

Lycanthrope by Marc Elsenheimer

Ok. Yeah. I wrote this one. I can't pretend i will give this an unbiased critique. So i won't. I will try to give some insight into the design of this class, but i want to get some things out of the way first.

I can't thank Maike Gerstenkorn enought for the cover illustration. I might be biased but even when i try to access this as objectively as possible... this is one hell of an illustration. The wizard-werewolf introduces the class with a humorous wink while still looking mighty and intimidating, thanks to his imposing physique. Speaking of Art. My class was honored with another awesome illustration on it's last page. If someone could tell me who drew this I'd be quite thankful, because i love the artwork.

The lycanthrope class was originally designed to be a "archetype", which could be applied to any other class, once the character gets bitten by another lycanthrope and fails some saves. After James Pozenel convinced me to approach this one more like a traditional class i shifted this from a core concept to a gimmick, introduced in the appendix. But still. This class was not designed as a core class. Not something you choose to be, but something you happen to turn into by curses or bad fortune.

This approach is still found in his abilities. He handles like a normal character most of the time, which only has some weird saves (negative will save progression) and nice regenerative abilities. He possesses no further special abilities, if he did not have a class prior, but can transform into wolf form, giving him a huge boost to his combat capabilities and making him an incredibly danger (to enemies and potentially even allies).

When enraged, by getting taunted or receiving damage, the Lycanthrope turns into a big, massive beast with stat boosts, bite attacks, monster crit table usage and a general disregard for the concept of not fighting. These abilities were mostly inspired by the (new) World of Darkness Werewolfs found in Apokalypse and Forsaken, since i do enjoy those games quite a lot. The core concept is unpredictability and savageness, as a transformed Lycanthrope can't stop fighting, even if he has only allies left. This massive drawback incentives treating lycanthropy not only as a blessing, but as a curse in many situations.

I like what i did here. It is even more campaign specific and situational than most classes present here, but it can take most campaigns in a totally new direction by applying it to an established character.

Pirate by Dieter Zimmerman

The illustration shows an older pirate with missing teeth and a "piraty" look on his face. The high contrast, line focused nature of this piece sticks out. At first i didn't like it, but the more i look at it the more i start enjoying this artwork. It's not up there with the best, but it is also not bad at all. The introduction paints a picture of the swashbucking, daring outlaw pirate and introduces him as a fighting class who lacks behind the warrior, but should outclass most others in a straight up fight.

With a d7 as Hit Die the Pirate has a hit die quite too small for someone who wants to swashbuckle fools in melee range. But a d8 would be boring and a d6 would be far to low. I sometimes wish the d8 was part of the dice chain...

There are three class abilities that define the pirate. His major ability is called swashbuckle and allows for a agility check in order to gain a bonus on his Attack equal to his level, while allowing for more mobility through free movement or free withdrawal. There are three Problems with this ability. First of all. For a core combat class with no abilities outside of combat, it is just not good enough. Yes. A flat attack bonus is nice, but it falls flat to the deed die, backstab and most other combat abilities. Maybe i am missing something. But i think there are better abilities. At least the Pirate has a good attack bonus to compensate.
Second. It relies on high agility stats. Failing the agility roll results in a fumble and if your agility is not high enough, then you just won't be able to make good usage of this class. A pirate with agility 10 is worse than a wizard with intelligence 10.
And last but not least. There are just too many rolls. What makes the deed die so elegant is that it is rolled simultaneously with the normal attack roll land there are not too many rolls in the way of a combat result.

With his second ability, buried treasure, the pirate can regenerate luck by throwing money away. I like this. Having multiple things to do with money increases the incentive to loot and plunder. Makes a simple "you want money" Hook work wonders once you really have things to do with that money. But there is no synergy with the Pirate class, as he can't use the luck in creative or special ways. He adds his luck bonus to his initiative, but that has got nothing to do with the luck spent or regained.
The third ability is a bonus to saving throws when allies are around. While this might fit the concept of some pirates it's nothing to write home about.

I am not a fan. I have to be honest here, but this one is quite lackluster. It has neither a strong theme nor good abilities. I'd rather just take a warrior or thief and give him a wooden leg. Sorry if i might seem harsh, but DCC has so much potential for great class design and this one is just bland.

Quantum Traveler by R.S. Tilton from Epic Meanderings

We just found the winner of the non existent most gonzo class. While this one might seem like a joke class to many, time and space travel have been quite popular in 1950s pulp fantasy literature and are represented in many Appendix N Books so this class fits DCC more than most might think

The illustration shows a quite modern man wearing many obscure artifacts. He has a weird smile and the twisting portal like background push home the feeling that he is not supposed to be here. Artistically this might be a weak illustration compared to some of the masterpieces here, but it just fits with the class.

A traveler through time and space with his origins in a "modern" highly educated society, who somehow got pulled in the world of your DCC campaign. There is much room for improvisation but you have to put in a little work to make the class fit, as it is nothing you'll just use without thought.

He can use luck exactly like a thief which makes him able to stand his ground in this weird world he got thrown into. Besides that, he has no real abilities to speak of. Ok. That's not true. But he is definitively not competent. His abilities allow for the use of player knowledge within the game world, which can potentially be incredibly powerful, but will most of the time be quite useless, as DCC does not rely on "your basic DnD" Monsters. In addition his doubtful, scientific nature grants him a bonus to will saves regarding the supernatural and he is as good as a neutral thief when it comes to hiding from danger.

This kit fits together to create Mr. everyday nerd to insert himself in a DCC campaign as a player character, which is actually quite a stupidly funny concept. Relying on the Thief abilities copy pasted is nothing i like design wise and the unique abilities kind of fall flat, but it sticks to his gimmick and gets away for that. Mostly because it is a class which is not designed to stick with the party for 10 levels of epic quests. At least that's how i see it.

Sage by José Luiz Tzi

 

A bearded man with traveling gear and a tired, but curious look on his face introduces the reader to this class. The illustration is fun and the clear drawing style clashes against the jagged background in a interesting way. I like this piece, although it is difficult to say why exactly. The Sage is presented as a travelling Scholar of the arcane, mundane and weird, filling the roll of a supportive knowledge based character with some tricks up his sleeve.

The Sage class is incredibly interesting from a design standpoint, but he is hard to properly access. I think i really, need to run a game with one of these in order to get a proper feeling for the class. There is just a lot going on. I'd say there are too many different abilities, but that's just my first impression as a reader.

The Sage gains an ability that depends on his alignment and they all affect the way they can interact with people. While they are all quite creative and fitting to the alignment, the neutral one relies on the judge to keep track of this ability which is something that i don't enjoy much in character classes. More on that later.

The Sage can and should have a patron and can cast his spells, like a wizard but can't access and learn normal spells. They only gain them through their patron. This turns spellcasting into a minor ability, of which they have many more. I won't talk about all of them, but will try to give a good overview. Sages can expend one point of luck to inflict a penalty on an enemy roll. The penalty itself is rolled with a dice dependant on the level of sage, mirroring the deed die progression on lower levels, but going up to a d16. Their luck also regenerates. This is cool, but the luck regeneration makes it quite strong. And adds to the list of things to remember.

His other abilities are knowledge and wisdom based.He is always trained with all Knowledge Skills and gains a bonus when dealing with his occupation. He furthermore has access to some thief skills using the thief's progression on those. His Action dice are weird. He starts out with 1d16 and 1d12, and only gains a d20 at level 4. He can use his secondary dice only to advice fellow party members, granting them this die to carry out actions. I like this ability a lot and consider it the core of the class, but i don't like him not having a d20 as an action dice. It's just a consistency thing. Even level 0's have 1d20. Why do you "downgrade" when gaining your first level? This adds to the huge pile of things to micromanage and remember

I saved the worst for last. While a bonus to his initiative is not that bad, all foes acting after the sage have to declare, but not execute their actions before he chooses his path of action. I actively dislike this. A lot. While i can see some thematic merit to it, this one just takes the breath out of every encounter. The more people are involved the messier it will get and this ability alone makes me want to not accept this class. Just because i don't want to micromanage and think this much when running DCC. Maybe it's not as bad as i imagine it. Maybe it is great. I don't know. But i can't imagine this being fun.

This class has some amazing design and amazing themes, but it just has too many of those. It is bloated with things to remember and things to make work. The class is (except for one ability) great. But i neither want to play nor run games with it. There is just too much going on. Way too much.

Scout (A Thief Variant) by José Luiz Tzi

  
This class promises to be a wilderness take on the thief, close to the well known "Ranger" from many iterations of DnD. It's competent at that. The introductory Art follows the same style as the Art for the Sage, but while the Background elevated the picture for the sage, i feel like the Background takes things away here. The scout just won't fit in right. Also i am no fan of the pose. Artistically there is not much wrong. But i just can't get behind it.

This is nothing but a small switch around for the thief. He looses some thief skills and gains new ones. Instead of backstabbing he can Ambush. This is not as versatile but way better, as you can set up an Ambush and let your peers profit as well. Hiding in the wilds is fun but not as versatile as hiding in the shadows and tracking is amazingly useful, as you would imagine.

His final ability allows him to set traps. Whenever he had time to prepare an area he can spend a point of luck to make a free "Trap attack" against anyone there. This is a great ability, but i fear the 1d6 flat damage won't scale into higher levels and this might drop off in usefulness.

While i liked the Writing in Josés other class i dislike it here. A lot of the text is just meta-references or unnecessary addressing of the audience which hides usefull information in some points. My biggest point would be the introduction to the Set Trap Ability.

This class is fine. It does nothing exciting, but i can see why you'd wanna play it. The Traps and the Ranger theme are great. But the writing hampers this one quite a bit. I get the feeling that it would be amazing if José would take this Archetype and turn it into a full class.

Now for something completly different

I promised to write more consistantly and i wanted to write this article as a direct follow up one week after the last. Here i stand, a whole month after the last article, writing this on a friday evening to get it out on my regular release day, at least two weeks to late. This one should have not taken me this long, but it did. And the worst thing is that i haven't even played a single session of DCC (or any other RPG if i remember right) since then. I will continue posting. I'm just quite busy recently.

But there are also great news. For those german speaking readers of my blog. The Project ARoMa which i am a part of, will release it's second issue next month. It's a 100 page fan-zine filled with ready to play adventures. And i wrote one of them.

Für alle Interesiierten. Man findet unsere Webpräsenz hier:

https://aroma-magazin.blogspot.com/


And while i am quite short on time, i am drowning in ideas. Some way to big to release here. Give me time and amazing things will happen. I promise.

As always. Thanks for reading!

A curious look at: "The Gongfarmer's Almanac 2018 - Issue 1" [1/2]

Writing a critical look at something free might see redundant to some. Everyone can check it out as they please so why should someone try to analyse something like the Gongfarmer's Almanac? 

The 2018 GFA is packed full with amazing, community created content for DCC RPG and every player and judge will find something interesting in there. Many people committed hours upon hours of amazing work to get this thing done and the labor and love involved in this project is hard to grasp for someone not involved in the making of the GFA. And while the GFA gets regularly praised it never get's a critical look. There is much to dig through and Ravencrowking regularly provides a great content overview. What you don't find there is critique for the writers to improve even further. So this is why i am about to dive into the 2018 GFA, starting off with "Issue 1 - New Class explosion" and want to give it a curious examination.

The Gongfarmer's Almanac is a free FanZine for DCC RPG. It is made by a big community with lots of authors, artists, editors and layout masterminds involved. This years Zine is divided into 7 Issues, with six of them providing approximately 60 pages of new content each and the seventh being the famed "Master Zine Index", providing a conclusive list of which fan creations can be found in which FanZine.The First Issue is called "New Class Explosion" and contains many new classes, which I will now examine closer.

Bias warning. I wrote a class for this Issue. I won't discuss it in this post, but yeah... i'm involved.

A quick rundown of DCC class design

Classes are a core Concept of DCC. And whilst nearly every character can be realized with the 4 core classes (and 3 races) provided in the DCC RPG Book, there are still many concepts which thrive with their own rules. A Interesting DCC class should have a nice core mechanic and should with increasing levels, only increase in quality of their abilities not quantity (except for known spells). Also every class interacts with Luck in some way. This at least is how the Core classes are designed and it works incredibly well. I will thereby look for a discernible core mechanic in each class and how their abilities scale with level. 

The quality of the class is highly dependent on how intuitive and versatile the class's mechanics are. While not every class should be able to solve every problem (quite the opposite is true), mechanics should always serve more than one purpose. The Deed die is a great example of a versatile mechanic, as it lets you execute nearly any combat maneuver you can think of and increases your combat prowess in general. The limits of this ability are often the limits of the players imagination.

Magic wielding classes are quite different. Since magic is a core mechanic in itself the class should give a theme or a special twist to the magic wielder. But let's not dive into that and get started.

Let's begin our curious look

Bardic Rocker by Jason Morgan. 

 

Illustration wise we are off to a great start. The mix of a classic fantasy tavern with an excitingly metal flying V e-guitar and a quite metal looking bard let's you immediately know whats up with this class. The introductory text paints the same picture. It's a bard with a sub tone of heavy metal and hard rock. Mechanics wise this is a bard. There is not much more to say about it.

The class table is fine. Using Crit Table III makes him martial and bad ass, when crits occur and a decent attack bonus, associated with a d8 HD causes him to be the man every rocker wants to be and stand his ground in most combat situations. I don't get why he has flat (thief) skill bonuses that don't increase with level. They just seem tagged on and for me, personally, work as a dnd Bard, but not as a crom-damned DCC Hard rock god. We don't pick locks. We kick doors in. Spellcasting is decent and relies on the disapproval mechanic, but with song requests added to it. Thematically nice but there are no real consequences except for those at judge's discretion.

There are many nice touches, like Spells working with luck as your main attribute and the iconic bardic performance working with a performance die, but in the end this is just one of many Bards, who has a Hard Rock theme associated with it. Don't get me wrong. I like it. The theme is fun, with a great selection of 80s rock artists referenced, but there are many DCC Bards out there and this one does not stand out. It is incredibly competent and the writing is evocative and top notch, but for my personal taste the Rock Theme is only suited to more light hearted rounds.

If you want a fun bard with some nice mechanics and a hard rock theme this class is for you. If you were looking for a completely new take on the bard as a class, then this might disappoint you. 

Berserker by José Luiz Tzi. 

 

I can't say how much i love the cover illustration. There are no words to describe it. The intro text offers a lot of backgrounds for such a character and paint a nice contrast to the fighter. While the fighter class allows for chaotic and wild characters, the deed die mechanic is a mechanic of calculated intend and this class is quite different.

Thankfully, unlike so many other attempts at a competent martial class, this class did not get a deed die tagged on to make him competent. The Berserker is different. There are many barabarian classes out there but this one is by far my favorite of the bunch. There are two savage mechanics at the core of the character. Cleave and Frustration. As long as the Berserker kills his target in combat he can continue attacking targets. This is brutal. The berserker can tear through weak foes completly lost in blood and rage. It's a great core mechanic. You could over think it but mostly squishing weaklings will be the way to go. 

Frustration is the other core mechanic. Everytime the Berserk misses he becomes more and more frustrated and gets a extra die (d3 and increasing) to his attacks and damage, until he hits. This is close to the deed die mechanic but it just suits the class incredibly. You want to attack and nothing else. If you hit, you wreak havoc, if you miss... you will hit sooner. In addition savage instincts help the character build anger and frustration by experiencing triggers like fighting weaklings. This mechanic is nice in concept but i don't like the execution. It's not bad, but not as stellar as everything else. The list of triggers increases with level and get's harder to keep track of. This is either challenging for the Berserker or for the judge. 

All in all this might be my favorite class from this years GFA and my favorite barbarian in DCC. The class has flaws but they are minor and nitpicky.

Faerie Class by James A. Pozenel, Jr.

 

Not only offering a new class, but also a new race, this article is just packed full of stuff. It originally appeared in Angels, Daemons & Beings Between, Vol. 2: Elfland Edition. Since i don't own this book i can't say if it was reworked or revised since it's first appearance. 

The Cover Illustration paints a malevolent picture of faeris, with a grim looking faery wielding a sharp and pointy knife. The introductory text is long and offers a detail of the faery race along with their two factions. The seelie and unseelie court. This, combined with the half letter sized format, makes for a not so easy to digest introduction, but the information in there is worth a lot. It's well written and well spaced out, but the level of detail might be too much for someone giving this a first read.

Faeries are fragile, low damage dealing, spell slinging, sneaky beasts. And they excell at this. Their abilities are quite befitting for the small folk, although they play it safe for the most part. They have their own spell list and can turn into a normal sized humanoid for a while to compensate for their martial flaws. Their most unique ability is the ability of flight, which not only makes them quite fast and mobile, but also predestined for exploring those nasty shafts in the ceiling. Their stealth abilities help to further this. Faeries have unique optical features, dependent on the court they align with, but those sadly have no impact on their abilities. One missed opportunity is their use of the luck attribute. It is simply added to their AC and Ref save. I was hoping for something more mythical, unpredictable and weird for those.

Then there are the other additions. Amazing new spells for faeries, faerie occupations, known languages and a new deed to use against fairies. This is just amazing and just fills in all the blanks for this class to be the most complete of them all. Making new DCC races is not as easy as making a new class, but James pulled it off. 

Whether you like this class or not depends on your enjoyment of fairies in general. I am not a huge fan of faeris and while i can see how well those core concepts were executed here, but this is no highlight for me. Its competent and well put together, but i think it could have gone weirder in some places.

Goat'O'War by Randy Andrews

 

Goats have been getting a good bit of love within the Gongfarmers Almanac. With two goat classes within the last few years, the aspiring bringers of chaos have more options than elves at their disposal. 

It's a goat illustration... and a quite goat one. There is a disturbing lack of intro text, which is quite sad. The introduction only outlines how to become a Goat'O'War and adds no flavor to that. But then again... it's a goat. What did you expect? This class is not meant to be taken serious but can do wonders if it is. Goats speak abyssal, naturally, and have the innate ability to headbutt the living shit out of everyone crossing their way. They can climb and bite but fail to offer anything else. 

While this class could have been a nice, fun class, it has shaved of too many words. Natural weapons, secondary attacks and the use of the deed die are all hidden within the "weapon training" section of the class and while i guess it's not the case, it is never explicitly stated that they can't perform mighty deeds of arms. But that's just one of the many problems with recycling the deed die to attack. Also some things get flat bonuses at levels, for example the charge bonus turning into a +2 at level 5. I strongly dislike this because it's a missed opportunity. One could have done more with the charge and the flat bonus increase is hidden within the text and not represented in the table.

This class has fun aspects, but i prefer the Doom Goat from a few years ago over it, as is relies on fun, new mechanics instead of putting a warrior on four legs. It's quite goat, but i hoped for more. 

Gongfarmer by Reece Carter

 

The Gongfarmer is a class now. You now have the ability to be a travelling night soil digger, solving problems with your own might, skill and the feces of others. The illustration is funny, as it perfectly depicts what the class does. This one is not meant to hang out with the cool guys. The gongfarmer is lacking an intro text and delivers all its "charm" through it's mechanics. 

The gongfarmer is not a good class. Not if good means well balanced and heroic. It's just the natural extension of the gongfarmer concept. He is not good at fighting, but can deploy some quite shitty (pun intended) tactics to deliver tons of damage to a single foe. He is not likely to ever puke or feel ill. He does that for a living. He regenerates luck. But far to few. Only a legendary gongfarmer (if something like this exists) will ever run around with a comfortable luck stat. That's it for this class. And it's fine. It's really fine the way it is. 

This one is hard to judge. It's a gongfarmer for crom's sake. He is not meant to be competent or fun to be. He is the butt of many jokes and a quite shitty companion. But he could be far, far worse. And i'd love to see him once thrown into a normal, regular group of DCC typical cutpurses.

So far and till next time.

I will spare you from the wall of text associated with me going through all the classes. I'll simply outsource the remaining ones into the next blog post. Stay tuned and feel free to discuss my curious look. It's just a opinion and observation from a biased standpoint.

The Elven Strider - A DCC Character Class

You are an outsider to most. Growing up as an elf, a long living demi-human, whose ancient civilization indulges in crafts and arts, magic and mundane, your lack of connection to the arcane world ensured, that you never quite felt at home. Traversing the thick elven forests you found your fulfillment in the martial ways, training in combat and patience alike.

Today's post is about a new character class for DCC RPG

The elven Strider

[If the link does not work try this one: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZzOxw1JOwTl2vDziYnAUycg0GN_hKXzC]

Character classes are a stable of fantasy role playing games, ever since D&D introduced them into their game along with them. DCC uses a old school line-up of character classes and with those, classes and races are indistinguishable. Being a dwarf apparently is a full time job.

This system has many perks and one of them is streamlining characters and play as well as setting expectations to judges and other players. Character and personality in DCC are not about what is written on your character sheet, but what the character experiences and how the player expresses him, anyway.

I am normally not a fan of elves. I just don't want to play them most of the time. But DCC made quite interesting elves by combining them with patrons and making them into long living vessels for some of the most powerful entities out there. While i liked that concept i felt like i wanted to give elves another option. 

In the long run i am planning on giving all races (elves, dwarfs, halflings) a second class option, just to give their players some choice and make them compensate for the "wrong" stats better. I have not settled for a second dwarven and halfling class yet, especially as there are some amazing ones out there on the Internet and in Fanzines.

The elven strider is a elf whose focus lies more on physical and martial combat and who has only small arcane capabilities, granted through his patron. His defining class feature, the Aim Die came from a Discussion on G+ on a similar class. The Outlier by Nick Baran. Check it out. It's quite cool. I just wanted to have a combat capable class who does not use the deed die in the typical fashion and wanted to give it a unique spin. 

This is not the first character class i ever created. For this years Gongfarmers Almanach i wrote a Lycanthrope class. Feel free to check it out. I am quite proud of it. It can be found in 2018 Gongfarmer's Almanac Volume #1. Huge thanks to my friend Maike Gerstenkorn who contributed the amazing Werewolf Artwork for the Front page of this class. 

Did you know that the consolidated Version is out? No? Go buy it! Its only printing and shipping costs. Literally the cheapest option possible. Gongfarmers Almanach 2018

Please feel free to leave any feedback for the classes, along with fun anecdotes that arise from playing them. I plan on writing a more general post on class systems and am even working on some exciting alternatives to use with DCC. Until then. Have a good time