Classes Revised

My last post was a revision of skill points for Explore, which means a slight revision of the class system is needed. I described the class system here - it is basically the same skill system but with less bookkeeping.

In short a class is a pre-selected set of starting skills (worth 10pts) and then every time your XP doubles you go up a level (100XP is level 1, 200XP is level 2 etc) and go up one level in every skill.

The rule change has no effect on the non-spell using classes, for example:

Fighter
Melee: Char Level+2
Parry, Athletics: Char Level+1
Unarmed, Thrown: Char Level

At level 1 that's Melee 3 (4pts), Parry 2 (2pts), Athletics 2 (2pts), Unarmed 1 (1pt), Thrown 1 (1pt) - so 10 points in total (100XP). (You can see for yourself that at level 2,3,4 the pts required are 20,40,80).

But most of the spell using classes are like this:

Elementalist
Air, Earth, Fire, Water: Char Level
Any two magic skills: Char Level +1
Melee, Parry: Char Level

Which is Air 1 (1pt), Earth 1 (1pt), Fire 1 (1pt), Water 1 (1pt), leaving only 1pt for fighting skills (as a spell caster they only have 5 points to spend). Note the magic skills (e.g. Runes) are free - but they are also liable to be dumped from the rules.

Hence with 1/2/4 pts to spend I'd choose the following fighting skills:
@ Level 1: Parry 1.
@ Level 2: Parry 1, Melee 1
@ Levels 2+: Parry, Melee: Char Level-1

So I might write this as:

Elementalist
Air, Earth, Fire, Water: Char Level
Any two magic skills: Char Level +1
Parry: Char Level-1 (min 1)
Melee: Char Level-1 (min 0)

This change covers all the sample magic using classes except the Healer which now becomes:

Healer
Healer: Char Level+1
Body Control: Char Level+1
Parry: Char Level-1 (min 1)
Melee: Char Level-1 (min 0)

Note that Athletics (which gives half the level as a bonus to kill) could also be a useful skill for occasional fights for spellcasters, but in general parry and melee are better so that skill isn't included for spellcasters. If you want to break with convention and have a muscly wizard you can at any point switch to using the full skill system.

Apologies for the technical nature of this post - it takes a lot of play testing and tweaking to iron out issues with rules but I think it's worth it in the end - and the journey is fun.