Hacking 2e: Class

Class is the beating heart of D&D. You could ditch almost everything from the game – many editions have, in one form or another – but as long as you have distinct classes which differentiate themselves through unique powers and abilities, you still have the essence. Without them, you’re playing something else.

Admittedly, this is why I’ve spent the better part of a year finding anything else to write about: it’s a big slice of work, and an important one for the purposes of this hack, so I’ve put off making a mess of it. However, playtesting is fast approaching, so it’s time to crack this open.

 

1. Mechanics

All classes (and groups, see below) have a shared set of mechanics which help to characterize that class. Let’s look at a few.

 

1.1. Hit Dice

These are fine. I think it works well that each group moves up one die on the scale, from d4 to d10, as it exemplifies each archetype. It keeps Fighters tough and Wizards squishy. Solid keep.

 

1.2. XP and Prime Requisites

The XP tracks could use some condensing within the groups, but the numbers are serviceable. However, the 10% bonus to XP for having 16+ in the class’s prime requisites is an extra bit of math that I cannot stand. Why not just have two XP tracks, one standard and one with the bonus built-in? I like this approach and will attempt to implement it.

 

1.3. Alignment Requirements

I like these quite a lot. They keep the classes in their lanes, and they offer another mechanical function of the alignment system. As they stand, I see no reason to alter them.

 

1.4. Ability Requirements

I’m somewhat on the fence with requiring a certain score or scores to choose a class. On the one hand, they gate certain classes through sheer probability, using an established system to ensure that you don’t have a party of bards. On the other hand, what’s wrong with a party of bards?

It’s also a bit galling that classes such as the Paladin have large Ability Score hurdles. One of the requirements of this class is to abide by a roleplay restriction or face demotion to the Fighter class. You’re going to gate this class, giving me only a chance to earn the privilege of meeting the expectations of the class’s built-in requirements?

Regardless of my initial concern, I think these requirements should remain. I like that it bakes in a certain competence, ensuring that all Paladins and Bards will have Charisma-based advantages and all Rangers will be adept at a range of abilities. Beyond this, I’ve already scrapped Ability Score requirements for the demihumans, so also removing them here seems a bridge too far. Without good cause beyond my minor quibble, they avoid the chopping block.

 

1.5. Allowed Weapons and Armor

Barring classes from accessing certain weapons and armor is one way to lock in a class’s expected behavior, but I think it’s an ill-chosen one.

For weapons, it just has no real benefit. Beyond attempting to restrict the maximum damage available for some classes, the only reason to implement this restriction is for roleplay purposes, and I don’t think it’s a good enough reason to implement the rule.

Why not allow the buff Wizard to use a longsword? Yeah, it’s not on theme, but the class is also not progressing along the THAC0 table at the same rate as the other classes, so it’s not like they’re threatening the Fighter’s dominance with the blade. Why can’t the Rogue carry a mace? They can use a club, but if you make the weapon metal, it’s now somehow mysterious to this class? The weapon restrictions don’t do anything but put up arbitrary boundaries for the sake of the ‘look’ of a class, and they don’t even do that well. They’re gone.

For armor, there’s a reasonable argument for keeping the restriction: squishy Rogues and Wizards shouldn’t be kitted out in heavy gear, because it provides an AC bump to a character that really shouldn’t have one. If the class is going to be talented but susceptible to attack, you should not be able to circumvent this through plate mail. However, I don’t think you need to put up a wall within the class description, as there’s already a mechanism for keeping these classes out of the good stuff.

Wizards, by the book, can’t use armor because it restricts their spellcasting. I can just make this rule explicit, and the player can choose if they want to keep their emergency chain mail with them for special non-magic casting occasions. The same holds for the Rogue’s thieving skills penalty when wearing armor heavier than leather. I can extend the penalty to armor above the leather derivatives, making it ever more costly as we approach plate; if the Rogue wants to be a tin can, they’re going to be a terrible thief.

 

2. Groups, or The Mega-Class System

With the minor mechanics out of the way, let’s pull back and look at the group system in 2e.

There are nine classes in 2e, broken into four primary groups:

Warrior	Wizard	Priest	Rogue
Fighter	Mage	Cleric	Thief
Paladin	Specialist Wizard*	Druid**	Bard
Ranger

 

Technically, there are many more options in the asterisked entries. Specialist Wizards can specialize in any of the schools (such as the provided Illusionist), equaling eight subclasses. Druids are just an example of using the “Priests of Specific Mythoi” rules, which allow the creation of an unlimited variety of ‘Specialist Priests’.

Zeb Cook introduced the idea of grouped classes in Dragon #121, which he called a “mega-class system.”

Grouping the classes like this means that rules can apply to multiple related classes at once, including proficiencies, THAC0, and saving throws. Zeb noted the advantages of the system: it orders the classes, cuts down on confusion between them, and provides a guideline for the creation of home ruled character classes.

It was a brilliant solution to address a cluttered field. The final product hewed fairly close to this original 1987 concept, aside from the name swap. It did succeed in ordering the classes, though I’m unsure of how well it accomplished its other goals. I think it has a few problems.

 

2.1. Problems

The names ‘Warrior’ and ‘Priest’ are both terrible. They bury iconic classes into a subcategory, making the Fighter and Cleric into subclasses on par with the Paladin and Druid. If these are two of your ‘Big Four’, then they shouldn’t be squirreled away like this. Of course, this was also done for magic-users (who become the ‘mage’ class) and thieves, but they have the advantage of getting much better group titles that would be adopted ever after for the classes themselves: Wizards and Rogues.

The groups themselves aren’t consistent in their use. The Wizard group effectively is the class, as all the class rules live within the group and the classes are just variations of those rules. Meanwhile, the Priest group contains the Cleric, then notes that every other class is just a modified Cleric.

Why do Fighters have a different XP track than Paladins and Rangers? Why does the Druid, a class noted as an example of the ‘Specific Mythoi’ rules, have a separate XP track from the Cleric? If you’re trying to simplify things by grouping the classes together, such elementary differences work against the goal.

Granted, these are minor issues, but I think they’re examples of where 2e’s group design fails to remove confusion between the classes. It also fails to give you “a tool and guideline for creating your own character classes,” as only the Priest truly offers a way to do this. The DMG provides a guide to making your own classes, but the group system itself doesn't provide an intuitive template for this process; you need instructions, and you could do that with any system.

 

2.2. Solution

All that said, the ‘mega-class system’ is still worth retaining for its clear advantages of simplicity and clarity. I believe the solution is to lean into it further, by throwing out the concept of ‘groups’ and establishing Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, and Rogue as the only classes, and making everything else a subclass.

In this suggested system, the Fighter gets its prior group rulesets (Hit Dice, multi-attack, etc), along with its class features (magical restrictions, specialization, followers), under the single entry of “Fighter”. The Paladin and the Ranger, instead of being unique classes with their own marquee entry, become just modified versions of the Fighter by removing and adding specific rules from the Fighter to make them Paladins and Rangers. Similar to 2e, all system-level rules which affect the Fighter are thereby applied to the subclasses, but now under the iconic class name.

This works extremely well for the Wizard and Cleric, who already worked this way in the original rules. The advantages for the Rogue parallel that of the Fighter: a clearer main class off of which its subclass builds.

I’m toying with calling these subclasses ‘kits’, in a nod to the kit-system that arose within 2e’s splatbook free-for-all. The original kits are slight modifications to the class, offering roleplay guidance, a free nonweapon proficiency, listed recommend proficiencies, and maybe a unique power or two. It’s literally ‘the class but with some changes’, so the name fits for the mechanics I’m proposing here. Since I’ll not be using this lightly broken subsystem within the hack, the name is up for use. My only concern is that this could be confusing for those familiar with 2e, but I don’t think it’s a major hurdle.

 

3. Conclusion and Next Steps

I’ve established that, aside from the removal of weapon restrictions and a retooling of armor restrictions, the universal mechanics of the classes remain the same. Where I’ve suggested a major change is to the grouping system used by 2e: instead of groups that only include the ‘Big Four’ of the Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, and Rogue, I’ll make those classes stand on their own and stick the other classes into them as optional kits.

From here, my need is to build each class, focusing on clarity and archetype. I’ll try to work in the order presented in the books, so we’ll start with the Fighter, then move to the Paladin kit, and so on.