A Dungeon World class based on World of Warcraft, the Warrior:
DEFENSE
Mighty warriors depend on their heavy armor, shields, and battle prowess to defend themselves and ensure enemies don’t focus on their softer-skinned allies.
When you carry a shield take +1 Armor
When you wear full armor take +1 Armor
While wearing a shield and full armor with at least 1 Rage hold +1 when Standing in Defense.
MELEE DAMAGE
Weapon mastery is a staple of warrior training, and they are capable of delivering high damage with enormous two-handed weapons or by wielding two weapons.
When you hit with a two handed weapon or with duel wielded weapons roll your damage die twice, taking the highest value.
Your strikes are so vicious that they deal +1 Damage.
Your strikes are so deft that they are +piercing.
RAGE
As warriors deal or take damage, their rage grows, allowing them to deliver truly crushing attacks in the heat of battle.
When you take or deal damage take +1 Rage forward until you make camp.
When you have Rage you have +1 Armor and deal +1 Damage.
You may remove all of your Rage to deal +Rage damage.
STANCES
By changing their stance during battle, warriors can adjust their focus in combat, dealing greater damage, defending more carefully against enemy attacks, or striking a balance between the two.
When you take an Offensive stance take +1 to Hack and Slash and +1 to Damage.
When you take a Defensive stance take +1 to Stand in Defense and +1 to Armor.
To switch stances you need to spend 5 Rage.
You get the first move in each section to start. All the rest may be taken as advances.
Nice coverage. Balance isn’t really a thing, but this seems like a lot of armour would start to stack up. Rage really makes me want to mine Iron Heroes for more similar mechanics.
That was the idea. A WoW Warrior stands toe to toe with demons on a regular basis, part of that, in DW terms, is having high armor.
I hear you, but I could easily see character s with 8 Armour running around in these rules. Against creatures with d6 or d8 you’d basically be invulnerable, with only a minor chance of damage from a small group. I like this idea, but I wonder if it would be too much in play.
There’s some cool escalating defence that Mike Mearls did for the Armiger in Iron Heroes that I want to check out to do something on top of your Warrior idea. Let me know if you’re interested.
Sure, I think my copy is in my attic somewhere or I would read along.
This is different to your Warrior concept, as I’ve never actually played WoW, but it has a similar focus on armour. In Iron Heroes as well as a minor armour boost (say +1 in DW terms) the Armiger gets an Armour Pool when his armour takes damage which he can use for other abilities. These abilities he can use this Pool on vary, but are pretty similar to the options of the DW Defend move. Here is something similar to the Armiger, but simpler for DW and borrowing from your ideas above:
Armoured: You ignore the clumsy tag on armour you wear.
Like a Glove: You have customised a suit of heavy armour which fits you perfectly (3 armour, worn, clumsy, weight 3). (Customise like a signature weapon?)
Intelligent Defence: When you take damage from an attack gain one Armour Pool which lasts until you camp. Spend your Armour Pool one for one as if it was hold you gained by using the Defend move to standing in defence of something. (ie: take attacks to you, halve damage, -1 forward for an ally, deal Level damage.)
Advanced moves:
– Defensive Master: When you make the Defend move successfully, take +1 hold.
– Sustained Defence: The Defend move generates (lasting) Armour Pool for you instead of (short-term) hold.
– The Best Defence: When you deal damage with the Defend move, deal +1d4 damage.
– Hand-crafted Perfection: Increase the protection of you armour by 1.
– A Debt of Iron Repaid: Spend your Armour Pool one for one to take +1 damage forward to Hack and Slash.
– Armourer: Combine the effects of magic armour our clothing into your custom armour.
– Field Armourer: Repair your armour by one when you make camp.
– Armour Mastery (Fighter) – but the armour is just damaged, never destroyed.
– Armoured Perfection (Fighter) – as above.
Two notes:
– From a quick read Iron Heroes is chock full of good (non-magic) mechanics that could be turned to suit DW. I will be looking through it further.
– I never really liked the Defend move dealing Level damage, but I’ve assumed other haven’t house-ruled that away.
I really like the Armor Pool and the idea of custom armor.
Giovanni Lanza