HELP!

HELP!

HELP! In writing Plundergrounds 4 I realize I want a character that throws bombs – exploding/flammable alchemical potions. Is there a (free) playbook or compendium class out there somewhere that is suitable? I would like it to be free because I would like to reference it from the zine and I don’t want to make people buy stuff (in addition to my zine). But I’ll take “cheap” ($2-3) playbook suggestions, but ONLY if you personally have played/tested it and recommend it.

31 thoughts on “HELP!”

  2. May want to check this out: reddit.com – Complete List of Dungeon World Classes • r/DungeonWorld From that, I see the “bombardier” might fit the bill, but it’s one of those $2 playbooks, but I haven’t even read it, let alone played it.

    The Artificer or Alchemist could probably work for what you’re looking for… there’s a PWYW playbook here: http://drivethrurpg.com/product/132900/The-Alchemist–Dungeon-World-Playbook A “free” (draft?) can be found linked from here: https://plus.google.com/+JamesMyers0/posts/Y6NRxaUtuA8

    Good luck, and looking forward to another Plundergrounds!

  3. Camilo Suñer Kind of sooner rather than later, but let’s say if you polished it up in the next week it might be something I could use.

  4. Charles Gatz Thanks. I have played and like the Artificer, but it’s not a good fit for what I want. It feels more like gnome steampunk. 🙂 The Alchemist looks promising.

  8. Please believe that I do not mean ill will. But what you posted, Lester Ward​ has not that many moves and the same issue I encountered while trying to make an alchemist- too easy to fall into + and – and everything that isn’t DW.

  13. Camilo Suñer, what I posted is a Class Warfare “specialty”, which is closer to a compendium class. (In Class Warfare, you make a custom playbook by mixing three “specialties” together, so what I wrote is around one third of a play book.)

    As for the mechanics, rereading it, I think it is worse than you say. In addition to the problems you mention, it also relies on some “roll to find degree of success” moves, which are generally terrible in play, because what happens on failure is non-obvious and/or uninteresting.

    A further problem is that the intent was to reproduce a character from a Pathfinder game, so some moves sacrifice quality in favor of “genre emulation”. I probably shouldn’t have done that. The mutagenic move suffers from this, in particular. It’s the main “just a +1” problem in the specialty (other +1 type effects in it are ancillary to a more interesting narrative effect, e.g. making invisible things visible). I’d probably change it to something that awards hold to make monster moves, more of a Jeckyl & Hyde thing.

    Maybe I’ll rewrite it.

  14. Wynand Louw do you have experience with it? I’m tired of dropping $2 on playbooks that suck. Unless you or someone else can speak up for it from experience,, I’ll prob pass and maybe write my own compendium class.

  16. Maybe better as a compendium class?

    I was going to say this. I think we need more Compendium Classes and fewer Playbooks anyway.

    I’ve been listening to the Total Party Thrill podcast lately and they have a theory crafting segment for character creation each episodes. It’s 5e focused, but still interesting.

    One thing I have noticed is that they always mukticlass and bounce back and forth between a few standard classes.

    It seems like DW’s compendium classes solve this issue in a much better way.

    Want a more potion based Alchemist? Then start with a Wizard and add an Alchemist compendium class.

    Want a more demolitions based Alchemist? Perhaps a Theif as the base class.

    Want a bomb chucking Alchemist? Maybe a Fighter or a Ranger?

    I have been thinking of an idea about template classes for DW recently. They would kind of be like compendium classes but would be a way to change the direction of specific classes.

    I think they would be helpful to morph or change the base classes along specific interpretations of that classes.

    For instance, the Pamphleteer Bard would be the Bard, but with move related to political agitation and writing, political oration.

    The Motivation Bard, would be the Tony Robbins / life coach bard.

    The Art Bard uses drawings, paintings, and sculpture to channel his magic.

    You can already do this with the playbooks as written as many of the moves are open to interpretation, but I think there may be something in applying a template if for no other reason than to help players see the potential in the archetypes that are presented.

  25. Wow. Sorry Camilo Suñer. I just now saw that. I don’t have any notifications turned on for Hangouts, it’s not something I usually use as a text messaging/collaboration tool. I read through your thoughts, which were pretty copious and energetic. 🙂 I responded in kind with some explanation of my feedback that might be helpful.

  26. Jim Jones and Lester Ward. Yeah, generally the compendium class idea gets short shrift in the DW book and is a bit more explored in Class Warfare. But I gotta say that I don’t really get the latter book. I mean, I understand it, but it somehow doesn’t feel like DW to me. It feels more like the mix-and-match world of D&D 3.x multiclassing and whatever they called their premier class (that isn’t the word but I keep thinking it started with p). Anyway, I do think there’s room for an archer type playbook, and then one that maybe throws bombs instead of shooting arrows. Imagine it’s a bit like the fighter’s signature weapon move, but it goes for a missile fire thing and has other basic/advanced moves that support the Legolas style badass ranged weapon expert.

  28. My Fourth World hack has a full playbook for archers/ranged guys. As you say, it is built around a variation of the fighter’s signature weapon. May be more Earthdawn-like than you are after.

    As for Class Warfare, my Alchemist was written precisely to convert 3.x/Pathfinder class/prestige class mashups to a DW game, and Class Warfare was really useful for that purpose, so I can’t disagree on the feeling. Worked very well for Ptolus, but that’s about as 3.5 as you can get. In play, though, I think the Class Warfare approach comes together more DW-like than you expect.

    It’s also super useful for the way it groups spells, as they can be referenced in great ways by magic items/custom moves. (I made use of this in my DW deck of many things “tribute”, the Whispering Deck).

  30. Wynand Louw ha. Hope you don’t mind the light criticism. I did learn things from the book. I think I just didn’t connect with it.

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