Aha! I did it! I finished a thing!
The Essential Classes for 5E PDF is just for you 5E players out there. I have created four (4) original character classes for you guys: the Mercenary, the Necromancer, the Occultist, and the Spyder.
The Classes
I created these four classes because they reflect some of my favorite characters and archetypes from mythology, literature, comics, film, and games.
- MERCENARY, a skilled fighter, dirty brawler, and deft thief who would fit in right alongside warriors like Robert E. Howard’s iconic barbarian Conan the Cimmerian.
- NECROMANCER, a conduit for Death itself, commanding corpses and spirits, creating hideous tools and structures from dead matter, who could walk the same paths as Michael Moorcock’s Elric of Melnibone or the dark sorcerers of Clark Ashton Smith’s Zothique.
- OCCULTIST, a grim scholar and supernatural investigator armed with countless holy (and unholy) trinkets who combines elements of the heroes in Dracula, Hellboy, Hellblazer, and Castlevania.
- SPYDER, an assassin with superhuman skills who could easily be a ninja from the book The Kouga Ninja Scrolls or the anime Ninja Scroll.
Design Note
These classes feature some original mechanics that make the classes more thematic and cinematic. Features tend to be very situational. Some abilities work automatically without a roll. None of these classes use traditional spells.
These classes were not designed to be balanced with other classes (although they are very effective when they are in their element!). They were designed to evoke specific fantasy roles and heroic abilities from mythology, history, literature, and film. They were designed to be fun!
But these classes may not be for everyone, and that’s okay too!
That’s it!
I hope you’ll check out the Essential Classes for 5E on DriveThruRPG. It’s only $4 for 4 classes, which is pretty good. Plus it has outstanding art by Oleg Khachkovskiy (instagram)!
Bought it and read it. Seems fun and entertaining! I’ll try to playtest it sometime.
I have one question: Mercenary, Crude Medic – Do you limit the number of uses on this?
Hey Tyler, the answer is no, there is no limit to the number of uses for any ability. That’s why Crude Medic is a full Action, you would be forgoing an attack to use it (which is a big tradeoff for a fighter). Plus the ability scales weakly, so it becomes a less desirable tradeoff as you level up. That’s by intent. I wanted the Mercenary to have a little healing, but not be very good at it. Thanks for checking it out!
Well, I guess I meant some sort of limit outside of combat.
Oh I see. Maybe the limit should be on the recipient? Any given creature can only be treated with Crude Medic once per day?