Wednesday, August 3, 2016

The Adept: Revisited (A Class for Lamentations of the Flame Princess and other Old School Fantasy Games)

A while back I propose an adept class that was ripped off from inspired by force-users from the star wars canon. I've been tinkering with an update, so I figured I'd just repost the whole thing. 

The Adept

Nazgul by Martawadman
XP and Saves as Magic-User, d6 HP per level. Same combat options as Fighters, Dwarves, and Elves. Must choose to be either Chaotic OR Lawful.

Where others search outwardly for answers, the adept looks within. Through secret rituals, rigorous discipline, mind-altering drugs and intense medication, they walk the wyrding way giving them preternatural abilities and influence on those around them.

The Wyrding Way:
Adepts can channel the wyrd and use it to add an extra die to any ability, save, attack, or damage roll they must make, or can be rolled and added to their AC for a single combat round (from the beginning of their turn to the beginning of their next turn). At first level, this begins as a d4 and goes up by one die-size every four levels. d6 at 4, d8 at 8, d10 at 12, d12 at 16. This can be used on any roll as often as the adept wishes, but every time a 1 appears on either die rolled, their Wyrd goes down one die size. If it is reduced to less than a d4, their will is depleted and they can summon it no further until they've had time to rest and perform the proper meditations (treat the same as a magic-user regaining their spells).

Reaching Out:
No power is without temptation.Though different sects and philosophies will argue as to where originates the wyrd, they can all agree on one thing - it is a power that comes from beyond the adept. The mind is a but a focusing lens, the body an empty vessel. Particularly ambitious (or foolhardy) adepts can attempt to drink deeply of the wyrd -- and at their own peril. On any single roll, the adept may attempt to roll equal to or under their Wisdom on a d20. On a success, they increase their Wyrd die for any checks made that round, including giving them a d4 even after they have spent their powers. If their die is already at d12, the die becomes a d20. However, doing this is not without terrible price. If the Wisdom roll fails roll the die they would have received. The number on the face is temporarily subtracted from their Constitution. If this would adjust their HP, remove any lost hit points from their current HP first. If either their HP would be reduced to zero, or their Constitution would be reduced to zero, the character is slain. If the character survives, their constitution will recover at a rate of one point per day but cannot be restored any other means (including magical).


6 comments:

  1. That is excellent flavor and execution of a class. I'm working it into my campaign immediately.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks. Let me know how it played for you!

      Delete
  2. Alternate power boost: Roll WIS. If WIS or less, they gain nothing. If greater than WIS, they boost the die, but subtract 1 from WIS permanently. When WIS hits 0, they become a berserking NPC murderbeast with a permanent boost of 1 die level. That's sort of a "the Dark Side can make you powerful, but at the cost of your soul" way of doing things.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Or else, if the die rolled as a bonus is greater than their new WIS, they become a berserking etc.

      Delete
    2. I like that quite a bit. I was working on an alternate direction for them as well to fit the kind of "dark side" mechanic of the source material. Some kind of thing where they could reach out for forbidden power, but risk of corruption.

      What I haven't quite decided is what form that corruption would take. Mutations table seems just a little too obvious, but I can see it being something like that. The real key would be to set it up in such a way that once they had already begun the corruption, it had the risk of accelerating. In game terms, the benefits should in some way increase so that as the character becomes more corrupt, the -player- has more incentive to take part in their own character's destruction.

      Delete
    3. That's why I like the bonus happening on the failure of the WIS roll - which becomes more likely as their WIS drops due to gaining bonuses! But there's that clock on it, where the low WIS means that they will eventually leave play. Maybe add something where they increasingly have to rely on it instead of getting normal bonus wyrd dice, but I'm not sure how to make that work. Require a regular WIS roll for normal use, requiring a success to get the regular bonus, and failure dropping the dice type instead of a roll of 1 on the wyrd die? That isn't aesthetically (or game-flow, for that matter, since it requires another roll) ideal, though.

      Delete