Sunday, March 5, 2017

Magic-User & Priest write-ups for "Into the Unknown" (B/X-5e hack)

I've already shared write-ups for the Halfling [Race-as-class]Fighter & Rogue classes and Book 2: Playing the Game for my B/X-inspired 5e hack, Into the Unknown. Without further ado, here are write-ups for the last two core classes.


Here, I am making use of the categorisation employed from OD&D all the way to 2nd edition - of later classes, such as druids, being sub-classes of the four main classes. Except, I've simplified the distinction even more and not even made them sub-classes but different class features.



So sorcerers, warlocks and wizards are all the same class. The magic-user class feature only shows up at 1st and 2nd lvl and basically just defines how a magic-user learns spells. I feel each feature is still very thematically distinct without needing to be separate classes.

With the priest class, I am stretching this a lot more - as druid/cleric as class feature shows up on a lot of levels and they could work just as well as separate classes.

Still, I think there is merit in doing it this way - it gives a good framework for designing new class features as a way of expanding the core classes (mystics and anti-clerics, for example. Psionicist should be simple enough to adapt from magic-user/sorcerer as well). Considering how difficult it is to build a class from scratch in 5e, having this simple framework to refer to is one of the big strengths of Into the Unknown for creating new class concept.

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