To go with the Races as Classes series, I have built one for the Gnome.
This is my first attempt at building a whole class on this sort of level. Laying this thing out alone has left me burned out.
I apologize if I made it too powerful. I didn’t put as much thought into balance as I did to filling out the theme and including enough options.
First of all I love it.
Both the magicians secrets and small but nimble are purely mechanical. They don’t really add anything. Try to make moves that will allow them to do things others can’t.
The 7-9 on master of illusions, in my opinion makes it fail essentially, its like knowing the the wizard is behind the curtain. I do something like on a 10+ the illusion will be sustained until you cast another. on a 7-9 you must focus to sustain the illusion.
And I haven’t read through all of the advanced moves but Hard to swat is too specific is could be +1 armor against opponents much larger than yourself. Potion brewer could take a different path I think. t the moment its very generic and doesnt really scream gnome. Maybe make it so the gnome can create potions that when ingested will begin na illusion. and it can be put on food or drinks. just an idea take it or leave it
Anyway it still needs a lot of work and a bit more focus but I think it could be really great when its done.
Shadi Alhusary Well, I can look to see if I can switch a move around with Magician’s Secrets. But the advantage of being small needs to be a core move since all Gnomes are small and suffer the disadvantages of being small.
I am sorry you feel that Master of Illusions isn’t fun, but other than cleaning the language up, it works like intended. Basically you get to expend a move to have a greater than 50% chance of severely restricting any target’s actions. It is only fair then that most of the time they and their friends know precisely who is causing all the trouble if they see you doing it. Or you can vanish into thin air at will, but chances are they see you do it and know you haven’t run off far. This all ought to lead to more roleplaying opportunities. Sure, you can disguise yourself or turn invisible, but you can’t do it right in front of people. If you make an object disappear, it won’t leave the room and people will know you did it and begin interrogating you about it. And you only have 2 minutes to get it out of there before it reappears.
If you want to maintain the effects, you just need to use the move against on the next turn and roll once more. The function and drawback here is almost precisely like the Bard, just without the chance of affecting unwanted targets… maybe I should include that drawback?
I don’t want the +1 bonus to affect humans, hobgoblins or bugbears– just creatures that would be considered Large, Huge or Gargantuan in D&D 3e terms. I felt Ogres and Trolls were good examples of Large creatures to set as the minimum creature size to start being hindered by the affect. More vague language would probably not help.
The potions… sure, there could be more possibilities. Invisibility potions and illusional “polymorph” potions could be additional options. It is the other really unique thing I created for them.
Alex Leabrook That is good thinking! Why not both the ability to craft them and a +1 to volley when using them.
Trolls and Ogres have the “large” tag, so that’s absolutley definitive.
On the other hand, nothing but player characters are definitively evil, so one of your moves is almost useless. That is, the game doesn’t say any monster is evil, which is a good thing, and rather different to DND.
Actually lots of things in the game are definitely evil, a quick look at the paladin class shows this.
Shadi Alhusary The Paladin is another problem, sure. In my game, unless the target is the servitor of an evil God, or a PC, I say “Nothin here is Evil”, every time. That includes, say, Dragons, Orcs and Goblins. You may do something different. Neither of us would be wrong; the game doesn’t define it, so it’s not definitive.
/edit I now notice you think I said nothing is “definitely” evil. I didn’t.
Adrian Brooks Hmm.. well, using the large tag would simplify what I wrote. That helps.
Maybe the idea of evil small humanoids need revision. I didn’t want to leave it at merely Kobolds and Goblins. But maybe the bonus needs to be triggered by the PC’s motivation rather than the PC’s target.
andrew ferris Hey for the pet move maybe just say that it will not harm enemies directly. consider you can talk to animals, giving an order shouldnt be out of the question, because even humans can order other humans around why not a rabbit?
I replaced the file with a new revision taking into account all the comments I have received so far. Do you think I need a front page explaining what Gnomes look like and generally act like and the three subraces the document covers?
andrew ferris Let the player define his enemy, sure. Maybe his Gnomish people are engaged in a genocidal war with Halflings, or oppressed by Dwarves, or whoever. Maybe pick a list up front, during character creation, so every gnome is a loveable ball of pathological fear and psychopathic hatred.
Adrian Brooks I appreciate the idea, but the Dwarf already got the ‘pick your hated enemy from this list’ move, so I think giving the Gnome the cause ‘protect small animals and peoples!’ might be more inline with why they were fighting with kobolds and goblins those times anyhow.
Check out the new version and you’ll see the revisions I did.
andrew ferris Hey if you want to add some info on a cover sheet or something about what gnomes are in stuff that would be great , you should go for it, but only after yyou finalise the moves.
Well, tell me if there are any more mechanics to clean up. My fonts need to be cleaned up, but I am feel reasonably confident about the mechanics.
andrew ferris If I may be frank,I dont think the mechanics are quite ready yet. I would remove the 24 hour limit on the animals. I would make the illusions more free form, just add some limits on what you can do that can be expanded with advanced moves for the potions just make the health potion heal 10 like a normal health potion and make the invisibility work like an invisibility potion, functioning until you take a violent action, or make yourself known.
It still needs some work but its getting there.
Another day, another revision. I guess this first one is really good practice on how to do these. I guess even when one has enough ideas to generate powers, it is hard to get it just right.
“⃞Hard to Swat
When y ou are attacked by an opponet with the large or huge tag, they take a -1 penalty on their attacks against you.”
YOU and OPPONENT are written wrongly.
However, usually monsters (i.e. the GM) doesn’t roll dice in D.W. system. You should rephrase it, something like “when you defy danger vs. large or huge opponents…etc.etc.”
Andrea Parducci Thank you. I realize I had totally misread the combat rules based on your comment.
I had to read Apocalypse World trice, before I started to understand how those wonderful systems work! It was a shock, at that time.