In a reply to a post last month in this group about making or finding a soldier class, Sage replied that for the current draft of the war supplement they’re planning on adding a soldier “race” that could replace the standard race move for your class (sort of like the Barbarian “outsider” race). Then if you have that you can choose from a couple extra advacned moves as you gain levels. Basically it’s like a compendium class you can take at character creation.
Similarly, the “Dungeon Frost Hell World” hack of the Hellfrost setting into DW by Antinomian Tendencies (which is great and well worth a read) has “Professions” that look like compendium classes that you take at character creation that refine your character (e.g. Anari Legionnaire, Elven Bladedancer, Iron Guild Mercenary, etc. for fighters, or High Wizard, Convocationist, Unaffiliated Elementalist, etc. for Wizards). Here’s the link to the Dungeon Frost Hell World blog entires: http://antinomiantendencies.blogspot.ca/2012/09/dungeon-frost-hell-world-part-one-races.html.
I really like this approach of compendium classes that you take at first level. It seems like a neat way to add a lot of very specific setting details to classes and races without having to write a ton of new base classes. Mind you, I really like new base classes (and can’t seem to help backing every DW Kickstarter), but I don’t have much time these days to prepare for campaigns, so less work is helpful.
Has anyone else used this approach or something similar? How well did it work?
(The Wicked Fantasy DW conversion also does something somewhat similar. Some of the races modify classes, such as swapping out a few moves, adding extra choices for advanced moves, and/or changing spell lists.)
I did this in a way by adding Fighting Style moves to the fighter where they could take 1 “opening” move at level 1 for free. Once you had the opening move of the fighting style you could take additional moves for it as you level up.
Other then that not really. There are some CCs that you can more or less qualify in by backstory and then start taking things from second level on but already have the flavour of it from the beginning. looking at the idea now
This approach is almost exactly how I’ve planned the #PirateWorld character creation, main classes will be the core of the character, while you get an adjective class (silvertongue, swashbuckling etc) that defines the character’s background and a few more mundane skills.
+Tim Franzke, I looked up your fighting style moves. Very cool. That’s definitely an example of the kind of thing I was thinking.
+James Hawthorne, very interesting. So every character has both a base class and an adjective class? Is the adjective class required? Are they separate from the base classes or linked? E.g. can the Swashbuckling adjective class be combined with any base class, or just some? (I’m looking forward to your Pirate World KS in a couple months. )
The adjective is required, but some are written specifically to fit together into a traditional DW style class. e.g. the player could choose to be a Swashbuckling Pirate, the Pirateworld equivalent class of a DW pirate, or go with something like an Armoured Pirate or a Necromantic Pirate instead!
I did some work on an alt chargen system made entirely out of compendium classes. It was a bit too ambitious and it’s been sitting around for a while, but the idea’s got legs for sure.
Johnstone Metzger, that sounds intriguing. I’d be very interested what you’ve done so far and if you pick it up again in the future.
Also, I was reading through Lair of the Unknown and noticed you added options for your three CC to be taken at first level in exchange for switching out a base move (specified in the CC), as well as some alternate race move options if you take the CC at first level. That’s an interesting approach, too. One thing I was thinking about CCs at first level is that you get a “free” move. So it almost works better if everyone takes a CC (which seems to be the Dungeon Frost Hell World hack approach, I think). Swapping out for another starting move is another way to handle that. Lots of food for thought.
Yeah, Lair lays some of the seeds of my idea. Like I built the Dungeoneer class by constructing 3 relevant compendium classes and combining them, which was my method for the alt-chargen. Essentially, I deconstructed (most of) the basic classes into three ccs each, but kept these ccs in categories (warrior, rogue, wizard, etc) and worked out some weirdo math stuff so you could mostly replicate the damage and hp differences of the base classes.
I keep meaning to release an alpha with the good bits, but haven’t done enough work on the spell lists for them to work yet. Plus, there’s a few other books that are higher priority right now, for various reasons.
John Bogart Here, try this: http://redboxvancouver.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/class_warfare_201309.pdf
Johnstone Metzger, thanks for sharing that! I’ve only skim read it so far, but I like it a lot. Once I have a chance to read more closely I’ll give more feedback.