A knight playbook HERE > https://www.dropbox.com/s/ptl62r3azfvf60o/The%20kight.pdf?dl=0
hey all i was surfing through the BIG LIST OF Dungeon world classes
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y-EQ1GUpnhRF6dlMugSRcQBpmVkCmFJFND6b4_TTiew/edit#gid=0
looking for something knight-ish for a player of mine who didn’t like the paladin’s holy theme. he wanted something more Arthurian and i found an unfinished knight playbook. It only had 4 advanced
moves and was in a word doc, so i finished it up as best i could and pasted it into a DW playbook template for use. I have used it for two sessions and i really like it. anyway i made most of the advanced moves and rearranged/re-worded stuff to fit the sheet format but i was useing the original author’s ideas so credit to the original creator!
Very Arthurian! You saw a need and filled it well! If I weren’t required to DM every time we play, I would use this class. He’d basically be Sir Pelinore riding a Trash Dragon (which makes me wonder: could there be a Steadfast template for your steed? Like it almost never gets tired, never backs down, etc?)
However, I have a few qualms that I’ll post in following comments:
Equipment and Level 2-5 moves:
– Your Equipment section could use a little cleaning
– Regarding the move Romantic, why would I keep the memento after the person died? I’d make up an excuse for my character moving on pretty much immediately
– Defensive Tactics seems like it would give both players extra armor, or a small healing thing. Like the two of you are unrelenting in your defense.
– Regarding Squire: love the idea, but you should let the player choose what their squire’s skills are.
– Armored: When you have a class like the Knight, that should be wearing heavy armor, but ignoring the clumsy tag is an advanced move, it’s nothing but annoying. Starting move, if you please.
– You just love d4s, don’t you?
– Regarding challenge: switch “yield” to “give up” or something of the ilk. Yield is a different move, and if I don’t have the Yield move I feel like my only options are victory or death.
– When will I use Joust? If it were just you charging any enemy I would get it but enemies won’t joust against you, they’ll just try to kill you
– Yield and Daring Escape are great
Level 6-10 moves:
– How about a breath weapon for Fantastic Animal?
– Tournament Rules is really interesting, I’d like to see how it does in play (especially like a Knight vs a Gladiator)
– For Shock and Awe doesn’t Armor Piercing mean that the attack was quick and accurate enough to ignore a bit of the armor? This seems to call more for just +1 damage.
– Why does Just Whistle replace Separation Anxiety? Just Whistle shouldn’t work if the steed is captured, comatose, or dead, and in that case Separation Anxiety would work well when you’re trying to rescue/protect/resurrect your mount.
– Dual Membership made me realize that you only have three real Knightly Orders. Have you checked the DnD 5e Paladin subclasses for inspiration yet?
– Quest is okay. I like ignoring impassible terrain and marking a debility, but I just think ignoring sleep and rations all together would make for a more solid ability to spend one of my higher levels on.
– For Commander if you’re going to make it so I choose one on a 6- shouldn’t I get two on a 7-9?
– You Shall Not Pass needs rewording. Reminds me of a move I once saw where if you stand between two objects you count as a wall made of the same substance, and only fell once one of the objects to the right or left of you falls. Even if you hit 0 HP, you continue to stand there. Maybe the move would work better as something like that?
– The Ballad of Me seems a little off to me, a little too self centered. Maybe it’s just the name of it.
– On the subject of Lands and Title why does it have to be from a relative? Why can’t I receive my fiefdom from the king? Also, why after exactly two days does each party member heals up and gets exactly three rations? Why not make your castle a little more customizable, like:
Choose two strengths:
– Prosperous (your estate has food and trade goods in ample supply)
– Battle-Ready (your estate is fortified and offers a distinct terrain advantage to those within your walls)
Choose one short-coming:
– Here Be Monsters (your estate suffers almost nightly raids from small monster hoards)
Sorry for all the text, figured you would want criticism to help build up the class.
it is all cool. feedback is great. i love moves that you dont have to roll for, but come at a built in cost. some playbooks encouradge too much rolling i think. hence this
i kept all the moves that already were in the playbook when i found it but i shuffled them around a bit. defensive tactic was one of these.
ya rewording challenge would be good.
armored was a starting move but wouldn’t fit unless i made all the text size 6 font and that was unreadable and no good. i thought of swapping it for combat tactics but again no space in advanced moves. also makeing it a starting move felt too much like fighter or paladin. and some of my favorite knights were clumsy and couldn’t get on a horse alone so i figured being a non clumsy knight would be a choice
the romantic thing is partly for flavor and partly to encourage the knight to instantly get over the last romance and then fall in love again. who wants a -1 ongoing yuk someone give me love!.
ya the squire should be changed that is a good idea.
joust i envisioned as being useful in a 7-9 result of hack and slash. you and your opponent hit each-other in that moment you can trade instant damage for a long term battle boost. a knight could ignore his strength stat and hope for 7-9’s and the move synergizes with tournament rules. and in any narrative situation where the gm says “you and the goblin strike at each-other” the player jumps in and says “and i knock him on his back!” it is fun too. i see you point though.
tournament rules is my favorite idea. my player who is a knight isn’t that high lvl yet though. a knight with tournament rules may hevily favor forceful weapons to cause more knock downs. instead of just running into a fight, the kight starts looking for oportunities to knock a bunch of people down. mud and ice become exiteing. and the gm get an interesting thing to do to the knight instead of just dealing damage.
just whistle i suppose should just require separation anxiety. i was going for “enhansed connection with steed kinda thing.
the original i worked from had 3 more orders. arcane order (couldn’t damage magic items) holy order (couldn’t desecrate any items holy to any deity) ect. i just ran out of room on the page and stuck with the most knightly orders, cutting out the magic, holy, evil ones. also was never a 5e fella
as for lands and title YA! given by the king! that is much better. again, no room to do the customization and if you want to maintain a castle i think there is a landed gentry playbook that is all about managing a castle and a city and your lands.
ya you shall not pass is a bit of a word puzzle, could use a look. but i think i will leave that until someone takes the move and i get to see how it works in play as is.
combat tactics… yes yes you should
P.S. ya i like the feedback
Feedback to your feedback:
– Thinking over it, yeah, ignoring the clumsy tag should be an advanced move.
– So are we on agreement that Joust only requires you to be on your mount and moving? Because the instance where you and an enemy are mounted and you both decide to charge each-other is far too slim to cost me a whole level.
– I see you have the spell page, there. Why not put the Knight Orders on that page?
– On that note, if you have too much space on a page you could put a land customization at the bottom of the spell page
Also, speaking of too much rolling, I made a class based on moves that never use the word “roll”. So many of the moves were based on social encounters and other things, I called it the “Traveller”.
*Though I’m probably gonna rename it to “Hero”
updated the drop box link
Feedback, round 2!
– Love all these new orders
– Order of Quests is OP, don’t you think? How about extra XP from completed tasks?
– Order of the Worm (should be spelled “Wyrm”, just so you know) is kinda boring, compared to other orders. How about instead of fighting dragons, you work for lawful dragons? This would give you a breath weapon (usable CON times per day, dWhatever damage) and tenant: Never harm the innocent.
– Backgrounds would probably work better. The elf race is OP (as always) and the dwarf race is useless (as always). How about: Risen Peasant, Soldier, and Noble Blooded for your backgrounds?
– SELL YOUR MOUNT? No. The Valuable strength is bad. “Talking” would be a better strength to be unlocked.
– I like War Steed, instead of simply a breath weapon. But… Why does it only attack once? Why not just risk your mount getting injured (or even killed, if your mount gets injured a lot?)
– Don’t forget to add that Just Whistle doesn’t work if your mount is dead or captured.
– Tilt When You Should Withdraw is awesome.
– Shock and Awe is a bit lame for a level 6-10 move. It’s almost like it and Joust should switch places. How about something like “when you are on your mount, you can treat a 10+ on Hack and Slash as a 7-9 to deal +2d6 damage.” Or something.
Can’t wait for the next update!
lol.
ya i thought about the order of quests strength… but it only applies once you have the holy grail in your hand, you still need to find it. and the GM can always pull an Indiana jones “you have the grail in your hand but your son is reaching for you and is falling down the pit. choose to drop the grail and save him… or dont this one is up to you”
the danger with war steed is that the knight gets himself an elephant or a dragon or a griffin or just a bad ass horse and starts acting like a better ranger. the steed should be useful as a buff for the knight and not as a force all its own. once a day your horse can kick the dragon in the face thats cool. The knight is still the hero. the horse just helps get him there. i mean the ranger needs to take 2 moves to ride his animal and to get a magical or fantastic animal. the knight can start out rideing an elephant. the diffrence is the steed is primaraly a vehicle not a tool or a wepon.
as for valuble. it is an option and you dont need to take it. historically, the fantastically well bred and well trained horses were the most valuable possession of most knights. when you beat a knight in a joust or dual you got his horse as ransom. kights would live off selling the horses that they won in fights. in game terms almost all of the knights abilities require him to be mounted so if he chooses to sell his horse for a potion or directions to the dragons lair that is a weighty desision. it will take the knight a week to train a new steed and he needs to acquire an animal first. and it is all optional.
i dont think that the elf is OP compared to the dwarf/halfling. after all the halfling can ride his mount into the dungeon and the elf has to leave his awesome animal at the door while the human can use his lore to lure/challange/persuade the barbarians out of their hole and into the open field of battle!
i was going to make this the final version but i have seen a ton of typos…. guss i have to copy paste all this back into the template again. i wish i saved this as a document instead of a PDF… sigh
This sounds like an awesome class, but the link is sadly broken. Any chance you have a newer link?
+Brian Douglas
this is the version i have now, spelling is crap and there are missing words here and there. dont know where my polished one went.
heads up on the following changes that i made to this in the pollished version that arn’t in this early version (encase you want to use it)
1: combat tactics: gives +2 damage, not +1d4. easier to manage. also in finished version i changed it so that on a (6-) monsters gained 1 Armour and +4 damage forward against the party. it turned out to be a very powerful ability that benefited players too much on a hit. this change made it better basically means that sometimes the knight leads an epic charge to victory! and sometimes the party runs together to there doom. works thematically. knights always charge into certain death or spectacular glory
2: health is 8+ con (dont know what that hash tag is doin there)
3: the “1d4’s” . there are three moves that call for +1d4 extra damage or healing. for simplicity i changed it to a straight +2. less swingy.
cheers, i actually played alot with this class, had players use it a bunch, well recived pretty balanced. the knight is pretty tanky so i had some player say that he should deal a d6 of damage and not a d8. i leave that to you. also remember that the knight has no move that removes the clumsy tag on armour so play that up. don Quixote and Arthurian knights are always falling over and getting stuk in mud. I had a player who didnt like that and i offered an additional mount “strength” to the list for him “comfortable”- you animal is comfortable to ride, ignore the clumsy tag on worn armour while riding your steed. it worked really well and made for plenty of interesting moments. i would likely add the option if and when i reformat this thing again.
cheers
dropbox.com – The kight.pdf
Cheers mate. Thanks for the reply. The class looks VERY flavorful. Can’t wait to try it.