Building the Ranger

Sources

These are the inspirations for the Ranger class I use. This post is about which parts I pull from these sources, which parts I don't, what else I added, and why. The completed class is available at the end - it isn't well-tested yet, even within my own game.

• Archade's Tower: DCC Ranger Class
• Ranger – Knights in the North
• Crawl! fanzine no. 6 - STRAYCOUCHES PRESS | DriveThruRPG
• Crawl! New Class Challenge: RANGER! - Goodman Games Forum

Unfortunately as I was writing this article the Goodman Games Forum links died, but they are still available via the Wayback Machine.

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Skip to the Ranger class.

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Ranger Path: From Crawl! 6 and itself based in D&D tradition, the Ranger Path class feature asks the player to choose between two abilities at 1st level: Mighty Deeds with bows, or two-weapon-fight as if their Agility was 16.

I mentioned in the previous post how bizarre I find this inclusion. Not only is it unusual to ask a class to pick and choose class abilities rather than simply granting abilities, one option merely allows the Ranger to compensate for a low Agility. A high-Agility Ranger could choose the archery path and be great at both, while a low-Agility Ranger could take two-weapon fighting and only be good at one - because it's clearly sub-optimal to take the ranged skills when you have a negative bonus to ranged attacks. This choice between two skills simply fails to achieve its goal, and since its goal is giving Rangers a split identity, I don't know that I want to try to improve it anyway.

My solution is to remove the choice, and simply grant all Rangers archery bonuses. Two-weapon-fighting has always felt strange to me as a Ranger thing, but if they're Agile enough they could choose to do it anyway I guess. I don't grant them Mighty Deeds because I don't want to dilute the Warrior's identity, so instead Rangers get reduced penalties at range and do not risk hitting allies when firing into melee.

Skills: This, to me, is the important part of the Ranger. In Archade's version of the class, skills are omitted because "naming out skills and DCs seems very 3rd edition and not very old school" yet that is exactly what DCC does for Thieves. Thief skills are named and DCs are explicitly set, and that doesn't cause the same issues in DCC thanks to its skills system where anyone can make an attempt. Personally, I want to lean into that.

Rangers will be trained in stealth, climbing and handling poison (sometimes - see the skill description), but that's the extent of their crossover with Thieves. It's important that the Ranger carve out its own identity here with a set of unique skills. As I said in the previous post, the Thief deals with man-made problems and the Ranger deals with natural ones. They'll get skills like navigation, foraging, and the Thief's Backstab will be replaced will a Called Shot mechanic to do fun things with archery using a different mechanic than Mighty Deeds. Introducing Called Shots is going to be controversial but I think I have avoided the usual pitfalls with that one - with the help of the fact that one needs to be trained in a skill to use it effectively.

The kicker is that to get their bonus in a skill, Rangers must be in their...

Favoured Wildernesses: Rangers do their best work when they're in their element. Some versions of the class have players choose biomes as their character's favoured wilderness, but I think this only serves to restrict the game. If my favoured terrain is forests, you bet I'm sticking to the forests as much as possible. Enjoy a whole campaign where we don't go anywhere else - either that or I get dragged out of the woods and lose what makes me useful!

Some versions allow the player to choose additional terrains for their bonus to apply to as they level up. This isn't a bad idea but it still seems too restrictive. Levelling up is infrequent and exploring new places should be frequent - or at least not prevented from being frequent. On top of that, I don't think the Ranger should be either trying to play catch-up with what has been explored or single-handedly determining what gets explored next. This is potentially campaign-directing, and that's a lot to be granted by a class ability.

The entire purpose of adding this class is to facilitate outdoor exploration and reward that playstyle. I think Archade gets closest to the mark, allowing wilderness bonuses for basically anywhere, but unfamiliar terrain requires one week to get acquainted with the area. This bonus could also equally apply when inside the lair of your...

Favoured Enemies: This one is simple and really makes the Ranger feel like she has a nemesis, some vile creature she is sworn to destroy. Goblinoids, undead, fiends, even just animals (don't tell the Druid) are all fine choices, but this comes with some responsibility for the Judge. A player's choice of favoured enemies is them saying "I want to fight these".

This is less of a problem than Favoured Wildernesses directing the party through the desert and only the desert. You can pepper kobolds, giants, elementals, almost anything a player might select into many different environments. You can mix them into encounters and split the focus of the party - the Ranger will be busy taking out their targets while the Warrior goes for someone else.

Using the Giant Slayer concept and giving an increased critical threat range against certain foes is an interesting possibility. I don't want to just give a flat increase to critical threat range though - much like Mighty Deeds, it's just too close to the Warrior's domain. Instead, one of a Ranger's skills will be making Called Shots, which both functions to replace the Backstab and to capitalize on the Ranger's ability to stack Favoured Wilderness and Favoured Enemy bonuses. In short, you'll be able to make a more effective attack if you can land it at a harder DC.

Healing: Another common theme and another identity crisis in the making. What makes this one even worse of an identity crisis is the sheer brilliance of co-opting the Cleric's Lay on Hands, switching around some of the dice requirements for curing ailments, and calling it Natural Medicine. I just love the idea too much not to use it. The Ranger by oncelor in the Crawl! New Class Challenge forum post appears to be where this idea originally comes from.

Despite my other complaints, I don't think there's a problem with this one. Healing being entirely restricted to Clerics kind of makes them a necessity and I think that's an issue to begin with. This gives a different method of healing which doesn't require divine intervention (thus disapproval and alignment aren't a factor) but isn't immediately useful in a combat situation and requires material resources (this matters way more if you both track inventory and keep time, which I do). If you have some time and are on the move, you're better off using natural remedies along your way rather than asking your God to step in and save your ass yet again.

Besides, Clerics have plenty of other tools in their kit to have fun with. The Warrior isn't the only one who's allowed to hit things, he's just the best at it. Same for the Cleric with healing. Herbal medicine and being able to bandage, craft splits, or set bones absolutely fits the Ranger fantasy and this is an elegant way of using existing mechanics to achieve it.

Animal Handling: Woo boy, this is a whole other can of worms. This isn't intended to be a "pet class" and that seems to be something players automatically expect when animal handling gets mentioned. I am going to avoid explicitly listing this as a skill because then interacting with animals becomes too video-gamey. Rangers should absolutely be able to make trained checks if they're attempting to interact with a wild animal in their favoured environment, but they can't just throw a Pokeball at the first wolf or bear they see - at most they could calm or scare off a beast. Actually taming something should take weeks of dedicated work and is a roleplaying opportunity rather than a simple dice roll.

Light Armor Preference: Leather or brigandine is a ubiquitous trope of the Ranger. The Crawl! version of the Ranger states that a Ranger cannot wear armor with a total penalty of -6 or worse. Why not? A peasant can! I prefer never explicitly stating that a character can't at least attempt to do something. Instead, I think Archade's approach of penalizing favoured wilderness/enemy bonuses but only for penalties worse than -3 works best, to incentivize light armor instead of banning heavy armor.

Spellcasting: Magic has always been a part of the Ranger class, going all the way back to the very first published Ranger class. I was surprised to learn this and I will be discarding it, because I think it contributes to diluting the identity of the Ranger. I mean come on, if I did give it casting, kept the Mighty Deeds for bows, some skills like a Thief, and some healing like a Cleric... it's no wonder the Ranger has an identity crisis. It was doomed from the beginning. Let's leave magic out and focus on what actually makes the Ranger a Ranger.

Luck: I liked the idea of using a Luck check to prevent surprise, but it's inconsistent with other classes as they each treat the Luck modifier as a simple bonus to be added to a certain kind of roll. I decided to keep it simple by using the initiative bonus from Archade's Ranger.

Action Dice: I came up with something of my own for this one - perhaps the first instance of an original thought on this blog (hah)! The most common progression of Action Dice in DCC is to gain a second die at level 6, beginning at d14 and increasing per level. The Warrior and Wizard get their second die a level sooner at 5, and a third at level 10 (d14 only).

For the Ranger we will be playing with this concept. They will get their second die at level 4, beginning at d10. This gives Rangers the chance to attempt multiple attacks at a low success rate at mid-levels, relying on bonuses and maybe even a Luck burn to make that quick-draw trick-shot. It will progress a die size per level as usual, reaching parity with standard progression for levels 6-8, and at level 9 they'll gain another d10, which maxes out to d20+d20+d12 at level 10. Notably, by levels 9 and 10 Rangers will absolutely have the bonuses required to make good use of a d10 or d12 - especially against favoured foes.

This follows the same standard progression as core DCC classes, but the dice chain extends 2 levels down instead of beginning 1 level earlier. The Ranger sits slightly behind the Warrior, but gets their dice earlier.

Critical Hits: It might seem sensible to give Rangers the Thief crit table, or something equally powerful. Instead, I've elected to give them the peasant and Wizard table because they don't rely on luck to make their hits. Called shots will allow players access to highly damaging special hits in a different, controlled way.

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That was a lot to cover, but I think we have all the parts we need to build this class now. Here's what I've ended up with. It won't be everyone's favourite, but I think it achieves the archetype I am aiming for.

It's worth repeating that this is largely untested - particularly the parts where I introduce skill-specific mechanics. I have been running a game with a Ranger in it but this has been iterated upon during that time. Called Shots haven't seen any use at all yet. Conveniently, the first time the Ranger attempted to use their bow they fumbled and got the "broken weapon" result. I'm likely to revisit and revise much of this in the future.

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RANGER

Most people never get to travel far from home, but you are a wanderer. You are perfectly content on your own, surviving in the natural world through knowledge and skill. You can reach and traverse places most folk don't even know exist, and have home advantage in the places nobody calls home.

The Ranger fears no predator, for she is well on her way to becoming the apex. The one who finds himself in her sights has been marked by Death, for the hunter knows their target better than the target knows themselves.

Hit Die: A Ranger gains 1d8 hit points at each level.

Alignment: Lawful Rangers work to protect civilization from nature. They are soldiers who patrol borders, sentinels who watch over townships, and wardens of the woods who keep the flora and fauna in check.

Neutral Rangers are lone wanderers, not just living in the wilderness but becoming a part of it. They take it upon themselves to maintain the balance of nature, whether that be out of their own self-interest because they choose to live apart from civilization, or due to a deeper belief in the importance of balance.

Chaotic Rangers have their own agenda. They are solitary raiders or hunters who have sworn to destroy their chosen quarry, whether they do so for profit or more personal motivations. Some chaotic Rangers might be outcasts or fugitives, left on the fringes of a society who neither wants nor cares for them.

Weapon Training: A Ranger is trained in the use of these weapons: blowgun, club, crossbow, dagger, dart, handaxe, javelin, longbow, longsword, mace, shortbow, shortsword, sling, spear. Rangers tend to use light armor, as any armor penalty worse than -3 affects their Wilderness Skills.

Luck: The Ranger adds their Luck modifier to initiative rolls.

Action Dice: A Ranger uses their Action Dice to attack. They gain a second attack die at level 4 and a third at level 9, each beginning at 1d10.

Marksman: A Ranger ignores the penalty to a medium-ranged attack, and does not have the usual 50% chance to hit an ally when firing into melee.

Favoured Enemies: At first level, a Ranger may choose a favoured enemy. This should be fairly specific but does not need to entail only one specific creature. Some examples that should generally be allowed include: goblinoids, orcs, gnolls, kobolds, giants, mundane animals, lycanthropes, undead, oozes, outlaws. It is encouraged that the Judge allow other options, but overly broad categories like "humans" should be avoided if humans are the most populous race in the setting - it is better to choose categories of human (like "cultists") or specific demihuman races. Collaborate with your Judge.

At subsequent levels, the Ranger may choose additional favoured enemies from the enemies she has encountered.

Wilderness Skills: A Ranger learns skills which turn the wilderness from a place of harsh dangers into a resource, a fortress, and a home. A Ranger can make precise shots at parts of a target, sneak silently, hide in shadows, climb sheer surfaces, handle some poisons, navigate, hunt and gather, use medicine, find shelter, track or cover their tracks, and set snares.

A Ranger's level determines the bonus they get to all Wilderness Skills. They only receive this bonus if they are in their favoured terrain. At level 1, the surrounding area known to the Ranger is their favoured terrain. Beyond this area in any new kind of environment, the Ranger must spend one week familiarizing themselves with the area before they receive their bonus.

To use a Wilderness Skill, the player rolls a d20 and adds their modifier if they are in favoured terrain. An easy task is DC 5, while an extremely difficult task is DC 20.

Called shot (+AGI): When making a ranged attack, a Ranger may choose to make a precise shot at a specific part of the target. The called shot roll and the attack roll are one singular roll, though the attack can still land if the called shot fails. For instance, if the enemy AC is 12 and the called shot DC is 17, scoring a 14 means a standard hit. A critical hit does not mean automatic success for the called shot. A called shot can be successful and critical at the same time, with both effects.

The DC of the called shot is equal to the AC of the target plus a modifier as listed below. The given DCs and effects may be adjusted if they do not make sense for the given target.

Called Shot	DC	Success
Leg	AC+3	Target's speed is lowered by 5' and cannot dash for 1d4 rounds. Can apply to each leg.
Wing	AC+4	Target's flight speed is lowered by 10' and the target falls 10' if flying. Can apply to each leg.
Weapon Arm	AC+5	Target attacks at -1d for 1d4 rounds.
Head or Vital Organ	AC+8	+1d6 damage, Fort Save (DC 10 + PC's Ranger level) to be dazed for 1d3 rounds
Eye	AC+10	Totally blind for 1d3 rounds, blind in targeted eye for the rest of the day.

It's important to note that, while a non-Ranger can make an untrained attempt at these skills, doing so means they will be using a d10 for their attack roll so landing the attack becomes less likely. Rangers get to use their full Action Die.

Sneak silently (+AGI): As Thief Skill of same name.

Hide in shadows (+AGI): As Thief Skill of same name.

Climb sheer surfaces (+AGI): As Thief Skill of same name.

Handle poison: As Thief Skill of same name but only applies to natural poisons from favoured wildernesses. Also applies to neutralizing poisons, for instance cooking a poisonous mushroom to safely eat (but not curing poison - see natural medicine).

Navigate +INT: Applies when travelling to avoid getting lost, or when using the stars to cross seas and deserts. Crossing plains is DC 5, forests or mountains DC 10, swamps and thick jungles DC 15. Travel along a path or road is trivial. Using the stars to find your heading is DC 10 on a clear night, DC 15 on a cloudy night with visible moon, and DC 20 on a cloudy night without visible moon. These DCs are for navigation checks approximately once per day of travel.

Hunt +AGI: Finding and catching a particular insect or tiny animal is DC 5. Hunting small prey to feed one for a day is DC 10. Hunting game to feed the party for a day is DC 15 (up to reasonable party sizes). This takes the better part of a day but can be done while travelling.

Gather +INT: Foraging food to feed one for a day is DC 5. Finding medicinal herbs is DC 10. Finding a rare magical ingredient is DC 20. This takes the better part of a day but can be done while travelling.

Natural medicine +INT: As Cleric's Lay on Hands with adjacent alignments. Requires at least a turn and medical supplies. Healing always requires ingredients previously gathered. Requirements for various ailments are different, as follows:

• Poison: 1 die, medicinal herb
• Paralysis: 2 dice, medicinal herb
• Disease: 2 dice, medicinal herb
• Blindness or deafness: 3 dice, rare magical ingredient
• Organ damage: 3 dice, rare magical ingredient, 1 day's rest
• Broken limbs: 4 dice, rare magical ingredient, a splint, 1 day's rest

Survive +INT: Predicting weather changes is DC 5. Constructing shelter (including instructing the party to assist) with readily available materials is DC 5 to protect from sun, DC 10 to protect from rain and DC 15 to protect from cold. Increase the DC by 10 if materials are not readily available. Finding water in the desert is DC 20.

Track +INT: Following recent tracks is DC 5. Tracking a stealthy creature is DC 15. Following intentionally obscured tracks is DC 20.

Cover tracks +AGI: Covering or brushing over footprints in the ground is generally DC 10. Crossing a river drops the DC by 5, light vegetation increases the DC by 5 and thick vegetation increases the DC by 20. The tracker must make successful a check to follow you, though the DC depends on your success (see above).

Set snare +INT: The player should describe the snare they are attempting to build and set their own DC, with a minimum DC decided by the Judge. This DC is equal to the difficulty of the save a potential victim must make to avoid the snare, i.e. well-constructed snares are more difficult but more effective. It takes at least a turn to set most snares, though something as simple as a tripwire can be set in a round. The roll should be made in secret such that the player is uncertain whether their snare was a success until it is triggered. A fumble means the character snares themselves.

Snares generally only immobilize their prey or knock them prone, though a small amount of damage is permissible if the snare is given spikes, blades or some other weapon. Intelligent creatures may find a way to break free, possibly requiring a Strength or Intelligence check depending how they escape.

Lvl	Atk	Fav. Enemy  Bonus	Crit Die/Table	Action Dice	Ref	Fort	Will	Wilderness Bonus
1	+1	+2	1d8/I	1d20	+1	+1	+0	+1
2	+2	+2	1d8/I	1d20	+1	+1	+0	+2
3	+2	+3	1d10/I	1d20	+2	+1	+1	+3
4	+3	+3	1d10/I	1d20+1d10	+2	+2	+1	+4
5	+3	+4	1d12/I	1d20+1d12	+3	+2	+1	+5
6	+4	+4	1d12/I	1d20+1d14	+4	+2	+2	+6
7	+4	+5	1d14/I	1d20+1d16	+4	+3	+2	+7
8	+5	+5	1d14/I	1d20+1d20	+5	+3	+2	+8
9	+5	+6	1d16/I	1d20+1d20+1d10	+5	+3	+3	+9
10	+6	+7	1d16/I	1d20+1d20+1d12	+6	+4	+3	+10

Do We Really Need These New Classes?

In the first part we established that I'm not really behind adding new classes for archetypes that you could already tease out of existing classes. A class is a category, a group of different types of characters, not a character's entire identity. Some people seem to get too specific with it just because they're either looking for something to add or trying to make a particular character special. That's fine - we all like creating things, we all like more. These things don't always fit into the game I'm trying to run, though.

So let's ask the question of each of these classes: what does this bring to the table? I'm not just asking what character options the class provides, but how the class changes the game. How does it change the setting? The focus of gameplay? What is the total effect of adding a new class?

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Barbarian

I'm starting with the one that had the most tenuous appeal to me. It feels like a missing niche, but not by much. I think the best thing this class brings to the game is exactly that: what it brings to the game. Its appeal to me is mostly mechanical in nature. I'm basing this on the Barbarian's stereotypical role in RPGs and the popular DCC homebrews available: big Hit Dice, rage, and a focus on unarmored melee combat.

This makes combat the Barbarian’s obvious specialization, potentially stepping on the Warrior’s toes. This wouldn’t bother me so much if it were a racial class, but as an additional human class it means combat-focused players now have to pick, “Am I a Warrior or Barbarian?”. Every player who wants to play a fighting human will be presented with this dichotomy. This is fine I guess, but it creates a weird dynamic doesn’t it? It makes it seem like the wide world of fighting is half-barbarian, half-every-other-kind-of-fighter. “Are you a Barbarian or not?” isn’t the first question I’d ask when someone tells me they want to play with a combat focus.

It’s commonly given a larger Hit Die than the Warrior (the existence of a d14 and d16 allow this without being too ridiculous) and some kind of bonus when not wearing heavy armor, to encourage unarmored combat. This allows them to take more hits, but also makes them take more hits because they have a lower DC. I haven't actually done any of the math, but ideally I think it should even out with Warriors surviving better against lower attack bonuses and Barbarians surviving better against higher attack bonuses. That’s kind of an interesting dynamic if you have one of each in the party. Alternately, the unarmored combat rules in DCC Lankhmar encourage unarmored combat but using that along with larger Hit Dice might just make Barbarians straight up better than Warriors.

I know it isn’t about balance, but when you are asking someone to choose one or the other, people will choose the better option and suddenly OOPS! All Barbarians!

Rage appears to be a controversial mechanic. I can’t quite place why. The best I can come up with is that many old-school gamers simply don’t like it. That’s fine, we’re all free to pick and choose what sort of game we play. Maybe it just hasn't been executed well in any edition of That Other RPG. However, there is an appeal to the fantasy of a character who loses control to some primal force and becomes unstoppably ferocious. If that fantasy is all a player is looking for, I wouldn’t be opposed to allowing Mighty Deeds which give boosts to support it, maybe offset with some longer-lasting downside if the Deeds are notably stronger than the usual standard. The downside needs to really matter, otherwise raging just becomes better than standard Deeds.

If that isn’t enough, we’re looking at giving them something superhuman. Now we need to justify that within the world. This is my real sticking point with adding a Barbarian class. It makes sense in a world where people regularly do draw power from a primal spirit or from the inner self, but to make that an entire class? For it to simply be one of the available options for what a character can be? It seems to imply that this is an inherent feature of humanity in the world, as much as combat, skill, magic, and divinity are. This only makes sense in some worlds - I'm not sure that the implied setting of DCC is that world. I do think we can make something very similar work in a more DCC-friendly way, though.

Patron Bond. Hear me out.

The Bear Clan are a tribe of wild warriors who believe the strong should rule. The greatest among them are granted their strength by the Great Bear Spirit. Tribesmen and tribeswomen destined to be warriors or leaders undergo a coming-of-age ritual in which the shaman binds them to the Great Bear Spirit. In times of dire need, they call upon the Spirit to grant them strength, heightened senses, or a fearsome roar. Spilling blood for the Spirit can enhance their call.

This sounds like a mostly-typical fantasy Barbarian, but it also sounds a lot like a Warrior who has had a shaman cast Patron Bond on them, granting them Invoke Patron (Great Bear Spirit). The rules aren't clear on what Patron Bond does to a non-Wizard, but they do explicitly say that it can happen. I think it's fair to rule that the bonded individual can now invoke, and that means you can grant a set of primal powers in the form of a spell table.

(EDIT: Reddit user RithKingWill actually made a demipatron for this, here)

If you’re creating a world where Barbarians are everywhere, maybe it makes sense for them to have their own class, separate from Warrior. Hell, maybe even replace Warrior if civilization is largely tribal and it’s a low-tech world. I think it only makes sense to do that if there are lots of Barbarians running around though, or they are distinctly not Warriors somehow. If you have one player who wants to play this archetype, or even want to build a society of Barbarians, DCC actually gives you plenty to work with if you want to bend it to your whims (and you should) rather than give them their own special unique class.

Bard

What even is a Bard, anyway? It’s generally agreed upon that the RPG Bard doesn’t have to be musical in nature, though it’s expected that she can be. There’s usually magic involved, but it’s probably garage magic in the same way this character is probably a garage musician: it’s improvisational and self-taught but that doesn’t mean it isn’t awesome. Finally, and maybe most importantly, the Bard is a support class whose abilities mostly revolve around being able to manipulate other people - whether that be inspiring, goading, placating, or simply distracting. This along with them being modeled after performers means they’re naturally the face of the party, too.

The general support role isn’t really a niche that is covered in DCC, which has opted to make each class specialized rather than have any class be generalized. Arguably, each class can perform supporting roles - most notably the Halfling being a Luck Battery - but none of them are a dedicated support role. Some people really do particularly like playing the support role, though there’s something to be said for only having classes where each individual has moments to shine instead of a single character who only ever gets to shine through others. Someone might end up stuck in that position, especially if the group feels like they "need" someone in that role.

There’s no class intended to be the face either. Most of that stuff can be roleplayed out and even when you do require a roll, you’ll just use whoever has the best Personality anyway. You don’t need a class for that. However, when you do have a class for that, there is a form of degenerate play that can arise when the Bard player is the player who wants to be the star of the show. This is of course more of a problem with the player than the game, but the archetype that plays into this does exist within the stereotypical Bard, so I think it's worth keeping in mind.

Being able to cast musically is not so far outside the milieu of DCC's implied setting. I don't think it's explicitly mentioned anywhere in the core book, but chants, incantations, and casting via reading are. If magic is possible through oration, magic via precisely tuned and expertly played instruments doesn't seem far-fetched at all. Something about the vibrations of the universe, that sort of nonsense. Honestly, the hard part here now becomes explaining how music isn't more magical.

Now we run into a similar yet opposite problem to the Barbarian one. Presumably, Bards actually are everywhere. Entertainers and performers are ubiquitous and can be found in all societies. Are they all magical? Is music dangerous because of this? The easiest way to explain this away is that musical magic is incredibly particular and not just any music will do. There's something exceptional involved, it may require outside influence and maybe even only one individual can do it. Perhaps you need to take on a musical Patron.

Music being dangerous sounds awesome, though it has big implications for the world. I can picture villages who ban music and angry mobs driving off wandering minstrels.

Because magic's individual (read: Mercurial) nature, you don't need to change anything about the setting to have just one caster who can do magic musically. A whole class of them though? That starts to run into the issue I had with the Illusionist, and mirrors the issue with Barbarians: a caster now asks themselves “Am I a Wizard or a Bard?”.

That works fine in something like That Popular RPG where the Wizards do magic as a science and the Bards do magic as an art (plus there's at least 2 other kinds of arcane caster), but here in DCC it seems odd to separate that when all magic is an art rather than a science, and Warlocks and Sorcerers are already in the same category as Wizards. Why wouldn't Bards be, too? They just happened to find their incantations in song, their gestures in dance, and their summoned energies are found in harmonics and rhythms.

It looks to me like another situation where we can create the fantasy we want within the existing framework rather than create an awkward class division, unless we specifically want the support role to have a dedicated class. If that's something you feel your game needs, the Bard might be for you.

Ranger

These classes have been presented in alphabetical order, but incidentally that leaves the best for last. There's plenty of argument to be had about what a Ranger even is, but we won't be doing that today. The only thing we need to know is he does stuff outside good.

This is a niche that doesn't really exist within core DCC - the best you can get is a woodcutter, navigator or similar who are skilled through their occupation, but a simple d20 roll on outdoorsy activities hardly fulfills the Ranger fantasy, unless your idea of a Ranger is a particularly accomplished medieval boy scout.

The Ranger classes available in various zines, forum posts and blogs all seem to be trying to achieve the same few things. Most of them do it almost exactly the same way - I don't think through copying each other, but rather by using the same source materials and inspirations. You probably know exactly which two characters I'm thinking of if you've consumed any fantasy media ever.

That's right, Will and Halt from the Ranger's Apprentice series.

I'm kidding, it's Aragorn and Legolas of course. In that order.

Most of the classes available give the players a choice between archery Deeds and the Halfling two-weapon-fighting ability. Frankly I find this bizarre. I get where it comes from but I don't see why we are hanging on to it so strongly that every homebrew Ranger does it. No other class in DCC gets an explicit choice between two permanent class abilities at level 1 - I'm not saying you can't do that, it just seems weirdly inconsistent as a one-off thing just for Rangers. It's like none of them wanted to commit to one specific vision, instead asking players to pick between the two.

What's weirder is that even if you only gave them a bonus to archery and no choice, a high Agility Ranger can still do both! It's purely an option for a low Agility Ranger to compensate by being almost-as-good at half the things.

But the real meat-and-potatoes of the class is skills. Rangers get a similar treatment to Thieves in the form of a bunch of defined skills and bonuses depending on level. They have favoured terrain(s) and enemy type(s), to which their bonuses are applied. This lets you carve out a specialty for your Ranger. They might not be able to disarm a trap in a dungeon, but shooting a goblin in a forest while hiding in a tree they climbed? They're good at something, and they're really good at it.

Among these skills are usually Navigate and some sort of Forage, Hunt, or Bushcraft to do while traveling. Medicinal healing (as opposed to magical) is often provided. The overarching goal of these seems to be to facilitate and encourage hexcrawling or other overland exploration, and I think that's the archetype I have personally been missing.

To be fair, this likely isn't an oversight. DCC allows any kind of travel or exploration but doesn't do much to support it. We're supposed to figure that out ourselves (or just skip it).

The way I look at it is Thieves are experts at dealing with man-made problems. Traps, locks... thievery. In a dungeon or a city you want a Thief. In the jungles, mountains, or even the rifts between worlds, you want the local Ranger. It's a nice little dichotomy, like the Wizard and Cleric specializing in totally different magicks. And similarly to Cleric’s deities, the Judge needs to do a little work to make sure that the Ranger’s favoured terrains and enemies are fleshed out in the world.

Like the core four classes, it is its own entire domain of specialty. It's one that isn't covered by any of the core classes. It's one that many of us consider a core part of the game. For some, it's as core to the game as combat or magic - both of which have their own classes.

Adding the Ranger doesn't affect the overall milieu as drastically as other class additions might, making it easy to slip in along with the others. Honestly, you'd almost have to assume this character archetype exists in any world with wild environments anyway. Why can't a player be one?

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All three of these classes have their place in a game, but probably not all games. I don’t think I will make the Bard or Barbarian playable in my games any time soon. The Ranger, however, seems like it’ll fit in very well as a fifth class. I have been running a campaign including the Ranger class for a while now and this has been the process I went through to get there.

The Ranger has its own domain of specialty and that domain is something I want to facilitate and encourage in my games. If I were to run a megadungeon campaign, or an adventure path with very little overland exploration or travel involved, I’d probably consider dropping it and limiting the choices back to the core four again. For now, since overland exploration is a strong focus for me, it’s basically going to be a mainstay. As for exactly which version of the Ranger I use, well, that's a topic for another post.

Do We Really Need All These Classes Anyway?

Cleric, Thief, Warrior, Wizard; the core classes of DCC. For the sake of this article, we will ignore racial classes - which in the core game are essentially variants of the human classes - though I have plenty to say about those another time.

What classes can we add to that list? It’s something we have all done. Who doesn’t like more variety, more choice, more options? However, the core classes were very deliberately chosen and it's no mistake that there aren't more. Should we add more options?

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The Core Four

Each of the four classes has a distinct and separate domain of stuff they're good at. They each bring something to the table, figuratively and literally. The Warrior, obviously, hits hard. The Thief does skills good. The Wizard makes magic, and the Cleric calls for divine aid.

There's absolutely an argument to be made that the Wizard and Cleric occupy similar spaces in the game (they make magic happen) and I have heard of some players even using deities as Patrons instead of having Clerics, but I think there are very good reasons for separating the two. Each of the classes brings something unique to the game. Warriors and Thieves bring the fight and the sneak - two key parts of any dungeon crawl. Wizards and Clerics bring the weird and the cosmic. DCC leans hard into this and encourages the Wizard to have crab claws for hands, and the Cleric to beg forgiveness from his god for attempting to co-opt divine power to heal the sinful crab-Wizard. From these interactions we get the fun of meddling with powers beyond our control, and the greater cosmic purpose to our adventurers’ minuscule lives. It doesn’t just give us options to play with, it informs the way the character - and the game - is intended to be played.

There are people who argue for the removal of Clerics due to their lack of representation in Appendix N. I think this is largely a result of treating Appendix N as scripture, the canon assembled by the great Gygax as if he somehow knew how significant it would be. Rather, Appendix N seems to be a broad and vague collection of some books the author found inspiring. I mean, that's exactly how it's presented by Gary “The man who put Clerics in D&D” Gygax. Clerics may be less suitable for some settings (Lankhmar obviously comes to mind, where their absence is notable in and of itself), but if you want the Gods to be involved Clerics are certainly a way to make that happen.

And then there are Thieves. This is a controversy bigger and far older than DCC. There's some merit to the arguments made against Thieves, too. I think those arguments don't apply to DCC the way they apply to some old school games. This could be a whole article on its own. I had to trim this down, so for the sake of brevity: DCC's skill system allows Thieves to get bonuses while not precluding other classes from attempting skilled tasks, and Luck gives them something that is both unique and generally useful. Thanks to DCC's mechanics, Thieves get their cool stuff without taking away from the others. Given what the Thief character brings to the fantasy, I think it has to stay. In a world with tombs, there will be tomb raiders - the Egyptians knew that thousands of years ago.

I can only imagine if we listened to both these groups and had just Warriors and Wizards - the two classes nobody seems to disagree with. Well, besides proponents of classless systems anyway. Those are cool too but that's a far cry from DCC. I'd much prefer classless over two-classes, or there'd be another post here titled “Non-binary Classes”. If you're going to use a class system to create archetypes or roles then making the choices No Magic and Yes Magic is going too far.

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Potential New Additions

It feels almost redundant to discuss the core four in the first place, but I’m setting a foundation for the process. I think a vast majority of games of DCC use all four of them. There are probably more people out there who add classes than remove them. DCC Lankhmar cutting out Clerics does raise the point, however, that if you want to steer your game toward a certain feel or focus then it might be completely reasonable to cut a class out entirely. I can imagine games which cut out Warriors and only have various kinds of magic-user (the Thief totally counts) in a world where magic is more common and swashbuckling is not. I can imagine games that cut out the Thief and go more Original-flavoured. I can imagine games that cut out Wizards because the only source for magic in the world is divinity.

As for my games, I keep all four, and next I will be considering potential candidates for further additions. The way I'm going to tackle this is by looking at which classes people add and assessing each individually to see whether they add something to the game that can't already be achieved with the core four. And then in the next post, I'm going to look at it in reverse: analyse what those classes provide, essentially checking my work.

Let's go back to a time when RPGs only had the four classes we see in DCC today and begin with some of the earliest additions. It's worth noting that these come from a time when the rulebook told you there's no reason to stop someone from playing anything, the given example being a literal dragon, so people wanted classes for everything. This doesn't fly so easily these days, so we tend to use classes as broad archetypal groups that we personalize our characters within. As for things that fit in the spaces between - Wizardy Warriors and Warriory Wizards - I figure that if you want to combine classes, what you actually want is multiclassing rules rather than new classes. I use these rules for my game.

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Paladin

The Paladin fantasy is basically already covered by the Cleric. Some deities that were expanded by the DCC Annual (Justicia especially) lean into this. Disapproval even works like an oath. Alternately, it is suggested Warriors become part of a Militant Order which allows easy Questing For It for holy abilities.

Monk

The Monk fantasy generally leans further into kung fu movie martial artist than spiritual priest. As such, I feel this archetype fits within the Warrior class with some creative use of Mighty Deeds. Judge-allowing, some of these Mighty Deeds might even be able to be mystical in nature without breaking anything. Alternately, I could see a well-flavoured Cleric fitting the bill if you do want to go a more explicitly spiritual route.

Assassin

This character archetype is explicitly named under the Chaotic Alignment section for Thieves. Sneaking, backstabbing, disguising and poisoning are all among the Thief skills so I see no need for a new class or any new mechanics at all here. There's nothing an Assassin does that isn't supported already, and any extra special unique Assassin abilities can fall under Quest For It.

Druid

The Druid is another archetype explicitly named, this time under Neutral Clerics. At a few other points, the rulebook even hints at how to treat Druids differently from other Clerics. Here is a fantastic article about making that work.

Ranger

The Warrior gets to use Mighty Deeds with a bow, but that’s not what a Ranger is, is it? I think this is the first one that really stands out from the crowd. There are a lot of great third party and homebrew resources for Rangers out there, and these occupy a niche that actually seems closer to Thief than anything else. They're largely skill-based with specific combat bonuses - that sounds like the Thief. However, their domain of expertise doesn't have much crossover. It could be said that Ranger is to Thief as Cleric is to Wizard.

Illusionist

This one has always seemed absurdly specific to me. This being an entire class distinct from Wizards (or at the time of its origin, Magic-Users) has significant implications about the world - namely that there are enough Illusionists running around to be considered a distinct class, rather than specialized individuals. Furthermore, it begs the question: why aren’t other types of Wizard their own classes? Illusionists use illusions, who uses enchantments? Enchanters? No, Wizards.

Anyway, DCC suggests using custom Mercurial Magic tables to create schools of magic, so one can easily do this, but there's also a lot to be said for catering spell selections and manifestations to create certain types of casters. Codifying schools seems to go against the unpredictable and mysterious nature of magic in DCC, so I think it works better to theme individual Wizards than to create classes for them. This way there also doesn't have to be a preset school to choose - collaborate with the Judge to create something you like. An Evoker, Pyromancer and Elementalist can all exist in the same world and cast Fireball differently.

Bard

This is a bit of a tough one. Its heavy focus on being a support role is sprinkled among the other classes - Warriors who use rallying cries as their Mighty Deeds, Clerics who buff and heal, Wizards who cast utility spells, Halflings who provide Luck. If the important thing about Bards is musical magic, why not just have an improvisational Wizard who uses an instrument as their focus? The rules don’t say you can do that, but they especially don’t say you can’t. If the important thing is general support, Halfling Luck fits the bill very well and can easily be converted to a human class (Judge-allowing). If the important thing is that the Bard is the face of the party, all you need is a high Personality. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that this doesn’t get you all the way to a Bard.

Barbarian

It hurts to say this because I love Barbarians and the third-party/homebrew classes available but… they’re mostly just warriors. The core book describes, under Warrior, a “wild, bear-skinned wanderer”, or a “wild warrior, native of the barren steppes”. It’s clear which archetype is being alluded to and I have to agree. But the mechanics that come with a Barbarian class are just so damn cool, right? There are rules in DCC Lankhmar to help with unarmored fighting and even non-magic healing, and if you want some sort of berserker rage I’d suggest Questing For It if using Mighty Deeds or the critical hit rage doesn't quite get you there.

Mystic, Psion, Warlock, Sorcerer, Shaman, Witch, Artificer, Necromancer…

They’re flavours of Wizard. Unless magic works differently in your world and it’s strictly necessary to give it separate mechanics with alternate classes - Dying Earth Magicians, for instance. But in those cases, I'd replace or modify Wizards entirely instead of adding a competing class. 

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After going through some of the common and classic additional classes, it becomes clear that the core four cover most of your bases fairly well and, in my opinion, there's no need to create entire new classes when you can fit your archetype neatly into existing categories without stretching the definitions of the class titles in the slightest. There are a few archetypes I'm not entirely satisfied with though, and those are the ones I'm going to be checking out in the next article.

Those will be the Ranger, Bard, and Barbarian.

Non-binary Alignment - Neutrality as a third party in the cosmic struggle

This might be something that plenty of people have covered before me, but I had a hard time finding it. Discussion of the Neutral Alignment of the Law-Chaos axis is very much buried somewhere between people arguing over what Law and Chaos are exactly, and people arguing about True Neutral in the 3x3 matrix most modern gamers use. My idea of Neutral doesn't quite make sense with a Good-Evil axis.

Two Sides to the Struggle

I know Alignment isn't binary. In DCC it is one axis with three points. One might go so far as to call it a spectrum - that makes sense conceptually, but I can't think of a good gameplay or narrative reason to define someone as "38% Lawful", as you could if it were a complete spectrum. Three options is simple and provides a nice overarching categorization of factions and ideals. In this article, I don't intend to make it any more complicated than that. There are still the same three options by the end of it.

The DCC RPG book presents, in no uncertain terms, a simple choice between Law and Chaos - two fundamental forces of the universe. It then presents Neutrality as a balance between the two or an indifference toward the two. This is where the "binary" part comes in. If Alignments are fundamental forces then there are two: Law and Chaos. Balance isn't a force in itself, nor is "indifferent". It's the space between. It's a lack of force.

If Law and Chaos were real-world forces, neutrality would exist right in the midpoint of their fields (where there is no force - balance) or in something chargeless like a neutron (which does not emit a force - indifferent).

Warning, subjective opinion ahead: having a grand cosmic war between Law and Chaos going on and a majority of the inhabitants of the universe simply falling under Neutral, the "nothing" category, simply by default - well that’s just kind of boring! Humans are mostly Neutral. Animals are basically all Neutral. Great Old Ones are Neutral. All of these Neutral beings are fighting for… nothing. There’s no Primal Servants of Neutrality because there’s nothing for them to fight for. They emit no force.

What if that wasn't the case?

Not just a Middle Ground

Rather than viewing Neutral as the middle-ground, I prefer to think of it as a third party in the aforementioned grand cosmic war. A disparate party nonetheless fighting toward the same end - a vast majority unwittingly so. It isn’t something both Lawful and Chaotic, nor exactly a middle-ground, but instead something that pulls at both. One standing between Law and Chaos does not want either side to win. Neutrality is a force that prolongs the cosmic war, never allowing the extremes to truly take hold. Entropy is often associated with Chaos, but Neutrality could be considered a sort of entropy within the forces of Alignment itself. Some think of Neutrality as the middle path between Yin and Yang, but it also creates the seeds of Yin within Yang and Yang within Yin.

For a while I thought there should be more than just Neutral to represent this. Perhaps Balance and Unaligned, splitting Neutral into its two common representations for a total of four. Now we’re left with that boring non-participating faction again. Perhaps Nature is its own Alignment, the Alignment of the universe itself and what it brings into being just by existing. Not to mention the incomprehensible motivations of the Great Old Ones in the Void that came before even Law and Chaos - it's easy for this to balloon out of control, so what is it that makes all these parts a whole?

What Neutrality Fights For

The reality of the matter is that each of these forms of Neutrality feeds into the same cosmic cause. Agents of Balance enforce Law and inflict Chaos where they feel there isn’t enough. Forces of Nature act as they will, responding to and counteracting Law and Chaos simply to survive. Indifferent idiots create Law and Chaos at their whimsy. The Old Ones' purposes are unknown, but they are believed to have willed both Law and Chaos into existence - the greatest possible act of Neutrality. If one extreme was to win over the other and reign the cosmos, any of these forces of Neutrality could topple the tower and plunge the multiverse back into conflict.

Law is the force of Order. Chaos is the force of Entropy. Either one of these forces will destroy the universe as we know it if left unchecked. Neutrality is the force of Survival, the sheer desire to be that keeps the war going. Forever.

All this to say I think of it more like a triangle than a line.

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