Slowly rolling out my fantasy heartbreaker: The Warrior

I've given enough lip service to the idea of creating my own fantasy heartbreaker on this blog that it's time I finally start to to officially chip away at it.  I don't want to go to my grave thinking, "One day I'll get the Monstrous Heartbreaker put together, and from that point on, I'll have my default RPG ruleset...!"  Heck, why not go to my grave with a copy of the Monstrous Heartbreaker in my hands??  And...did I just channel a prophecy?  (Anyone who reads this and sees me going to my grave, please take note of what's in my hands, just in case I've been a seer this whole time.  It'll be a bit late to capitalize on it, but cool nonetheless.)

Okay...I'm already off topic.

Hrm.

So, my fantasy heartbreaker...

No, this one isn't mine, but it's one of the first games designated as such (cover image from the Fifth Cycle Wikipedia page)

First, if you're unfamiliar with what I mean by that (and it is a fairly loose term), you might want to read this essay by Ron Edwards on The Forge.  I'm not sure if the term originated there, but I'm pretty certain that this specific essay is why the term is so widely used today.  Now...it's been a while since I've read anything substantial from that work, and I can't say for sure that I've ever actually read the whole thing.  I know that Ron Edwards is a bit of a divisive voice in the RPG hobby...but I also don't know if most manifestations of that divisiveness have been in the words of those for whom divisiveness is a key element of their presence in the community.  I guess that if you know any of the specifics I might be alluding to...cool, hopefully I'm making sense...but in general, I'm just saying that I'm not necessarily vouching for Edwards or any of his views.  But that term...fantasy heartbreaker.  It's a good one.  And while it's intended to be pejorative, I think it's time for all of us to claim it as a decidedly positive approach to the hobby.

To me, a fantasy heartbreaker is simply one individual's personally houseruled D&D.  It represents what its creator looks for in a fantasy RPG, and thus, to an extent, it represents its creator.  But it's also representative of that creator's specific takeaways from the meta-experience of D&D...the circumstances that have led to their likes, dislikes, and quirks.  It's about both the personality of the individual AND the ways in which they have been shaped by the community.  Is it innovative?  Maybe.  If its creator wants it to be.  But it doesn't NEED to be...D&D has been "good" from the moment it was created, and it's all about shaping it to individual tastes and needs at this point.  And so, by calling one's own take a fantasy heartbreaker, you're acknowledging that it's simultaneously a window into the soul of a single creator AND that it's not to be taken too seriously.  And personally...I like that.

I'll get into some of the details of what I want out of my own take in future posts.  For now, I'm just gonna start at the most basic point I can think of:  a fighting class.  The fighting class.  But not a fighter.  In the Monstrous Heartbreaker, it is...

Artwork for the MTG card Ghor-Clan Wrecker (taken from the wallpaper art at its Cards Realm page)

The Warrior

Hit Die: d10

Proficiencies
Armor: All armor, shields
Weapons: All simple and martial weapons
Saving Throws: Strength, Constitution
Skills: Athletics, Intimidation

What are your character’s interests and hobbies? What have they done with their life up until this point? Choose one additional Skill and one Talent to represent these.  (Talents basically work like Tools in 5E...I just think the term Tool is more limiting than it should be for what it represents...)

Equipment
Begin with a set of campaign-appropriate equipment (per DM).

Beginning Warrior Bonuses
At 1st level, you get a +1 Class Bonus to all attack and damage rolls.

Weapon Expertise
At 2nd level, you choose unarmed combat OR one class of weapon (e.g. Swords, Bows, Handguns) and gain Expertise with all attacks that fit that category. This provides an additional Expertise Bonus of +2 on all attack rolls. (This stacks with the Class Bonus.)

Self-Preservation
Starting at 3rd level, you become better at defending yourself in the heat of the action. You get a +1 Class Bonus to AC.

Ability Score Increase
When you reach 4th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1.

Extra Attack
Beginning at 5th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

----------

Hopefully I'll be back to stat out one or two class representatives before the week closes out...!

A Monstrous Heartbreaker, Part III...keepin' it classy...

Fair warning:  There's a lot of thinking out loud in this post as I muddle through the details of putting together my own fantasy heartbreaker.  Please read on only if that's your bag...!

 First things first for this post:  It's time I decide what classes to include in this fantasy RPG that's all been done before that I'm putting together.  I'm definitely going with the "big four," as seen in games like Swords & Wizardry Light by one name or another - Wizard, Cleric, Warrior, Rogue.  (Side note:  I'm pretty sure I'm especially drawn to that nomenclature because those are the classes used in Magic: The Gathering's "party" mechanic...)  So...what else?

I mean...this is MY heartbreaker, so I can put in whatever ridiculous niche class I want to just because it makes me happy to think about having it at the core of the game.  At the same time, this whole exercise has grown out of a desire to have a very basic fantasy RPG structure to build my other projects around.  I do want to keep things simple.

The problem is that once I take the simple step in my mind of "allowing" one class or another to creep into the lineup, it becomes too easy to think, "Well, if I include a Warlock, surely a Shaman fits.  And then it would be ridiculous to not include the even more iconic Druid, and if there are Druids, why not Rangers, and then of course Paladins, and then...and then...and then..."

Back in 2017, my humble offering to the gaming world on Swords & Wizardry Appreciation Day was a set of alternate classes for Swords & Wizardry Light (which you can download HERE if you're so inclined).  They were streamlined a bit (yeah, even more than the usual!) in order to fit the Dungeonstack card game project that was the focus of my attempt at the A to Z Blogging Challenge that year; I'm noting them now because I picked out five basic roles, going with the names Warrior, Mage, Priest, Rogue, and Scout to differentiate them from the standard classes.  Scout was the "nature class," intended to make sure some bits of Druid and Ranger found their way into the game, as I've always been drawn to classes of that type...although the Scout is really just a Ranger stand-in without any real hint of Druid.

Lately, some form of Scout has seemed appealing as a single addition to the "big four" noted above.  An additional bonus is that Scout is the label that has long been given to Rangers in MTG, satisfying my inclination to defer to the naming conventions found on the magical cards.  However, with the coming Adventures in the Forgotten Realms expansion for MTG, Magic is making the Ranger creature type an official part of the game, SO...

Well, I'm dancing around it while thinking out loud, but I think my choice is becoming obvious:  The five classes of the Monstrous Heartbreaker shall be Warrior, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue, and Ranger.

Now...to nail down the specifics.  I covered the Warrior in my last post on the Heartbreaker and think I'll keep the ball rolling with the non-spellcasting classes.  Because the Ranger, while essentially a variant Warrior, can also fill the roll of "skill gal/guy" in a party, I think I should look at the Rogue first to get a baseline of what skillful characters look like in the game.  So, let's try statting up this guy...

He was the first (and only, so far, although maybe I'll get back to it at some point...?) Dungeonstack Rogue.  Because the mechanics for the Heartbreaker differ a bit from what I was planning with the 'Stack, I can't quite use him verbatim, but I bet I can get something very close that can also be a model for writing up the Rogue class as a whole...

--------------------

Xenos the Wanderer

Human Rogue 4

AC 13 (leather armor)    HD 3d6 (11 HP)

Saving throw: 12

Move 30 ft.

Languages:  Common, Goblin, Thieves' Cant

STR 11    DEX 16(+1)    CON 14    INT 2    WIS 7    CHA 10

Attack:  Dagger +2, 1d6-1 damage (thrown +3, range 20 ft., 1d6-1 damage)

Sneak Attack: Xenos gets an additional +4 attack bonus on and deals double damage to a surprised enemy.

Skill/tool proficiencies:  Climb (expert), sleight of hand (expert), traps (expert), cooking

--------------------

I think I may be doing the math properly in my head, but now I need to work backwards and make sure this fits the Heartbreaker as a whole...!

A Monstrous Heartbreaker, Part II: The Warrior

 Now that I've started pondering the goals and structure of my own highly derivative "core" rules for fantasy roleplaying, it's time to start getting the details down.  (Yep, this is just my way of taking notes...)

The first class I'm set on is the Warrior.  I'm keeping this one simple...just using the one I presented for Glaciers & Glyptodons, extended upward a couple of levels.  It's a pretty noncontroversial take, I'd think, and should serve me well across genres and time periods.

Warrior

You are skilled in combat and tough enough to withstand the hardships of battle.

You can use any weapons or shields and wear any sort of clothing or armor.

If you drop a foe with a melee attack, you may immediately make another melee attack.  (EDIT: I'm gonna have to make this scale with the Warrior's level, I think...)

Level    HD    Attack    Save

   1       1+1      +1         16

   2         2        +2         15

   3         3        +3         14

   4         4        +4         13

   5         5        +5         12

And just like that, I have a working document!

As for an example Warrior...those are probably pretty obvious, but I think I'll simply stat out a miniature I'm hoping to work into some tabletop playtime (not even a fantasy-based one)...

Dewey Shaw, Checkmate Knight

Level 2 Warrior
Checkmate's first appearance:  Action Comics #598 (1988)

STR 15(+1)     DEX 17(+1)     CON 16(+1)     INT 13     WIS 9     CHA 11
2+2 HD (9 HP)     Saving Throw 15
AC 14 (Checkmate armor)

Attack:  Checkmate lance (telescoping) +3, 1d6+1 damage; bodysuit strike +3, 1d6 damage

If Shaw drops a foe with a melee attack, he may immediately make another melee attack.

EDIT:  I realized there may be some WTF reactions to the "bodysuit strike" attack...it's from this scene (from Checkmate #1) really registering with me as a kid for whatever reason...

(I thought the knights of the DC Comics intelligence agency Checkmate looked pretty freakin awesome from the first time I saw them in comic book ads, which must have been back in 1987.  While I didn't keep up with the comic very well, I do remember picking up a couple of issues and definitely enjoyed seeing their introduction in Action Comics, which I did follow at the time.  The look of the Checkmate knight definitely invokes a certain nostalgia for me, which means I was also happy to see that the "retro" appearance made its way to HeroClix years later - Dewey up there is actually a Checkmate Medic figure.  Oh!  And his name came from the great generators over at Masterpiece Generator...I think that's what it's called, anyway...)

And I guess because the universe loves a little chuckle, here's a song that just came on my YouTube mix while I'm writing this post...

I do really like this song.

Next up:  I figure out which, if any, classes to include beyond the "big four"...and maybe go ahead and steal 'em/write 'em up...

A Monstrous Heartbreaker! Part I

 Alright...I think it's time to start constructing my own little fantasy heartbreaker.

I suppose I could be a bit kinder to the effort and think of it more like my friend Tim's "Frankengame," the goal of his long quest to piece together his ultimate fantasy RPG system, and which he has seemingly chiseled into a thing of beauty with his own big personal stamp on it.  (It looks like the Frankengame is politely stepping aside to give Tim room to dive into his superhero universe with the rules of the new Amazing Heroes, but I'm betting all of the effort to shape his perfect fantasy game is going to keep giving fruit as time goes on...)

I'm not sure that I have that sort of focus and discernment in me, though.  So I'm just gonna call it what it'll probably turn out to be:  A big ol' fantasy heartbreaker.  A monstrous one, in fact.  The goals?  I'd like this game to:

1.  Be a little more proof of concept for an RPG built upon classes that fit OSR games derived from Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox, along with races built for fifth edition D&D.

2.  Serve as the "core" system upon which I can base a variety of gaming projects I'd like to one day bring to a state of public presentability.

3.  Comfortably represent the set of mechanics, assumptions, and quirks that I could call my own personal baseline for a fantasy RPG.

4.  Give me an excuse to explore an original fantasy setting in some amount of detail.  (I'm not completely sure what that setting will be, nor if this is actually the route I should take vs. keeping everything within the framework of a generic fantasy world...but I do think I'd like to have a specific setting to accompany the ruleset.)

Snagged this image from HERE...

So here's step one.  I ask myself the question:  What classes should my fantasy heartbreaker include?  And then I answer...that clearly the place to start here is with the four classic roles of a D&D adventuring party: the Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric.  This is pretty convenient, as it's basically the four we get (using a slightly different naming scheme) in the excellent Swords & Wizardry Light.  So...cut, paste, done!

Eh...not quite done.  I'll have to make a few changes.  The Fighter shall become a Warrior, taking care to ensure that there are no rules that tie it to a fantasy setting.  I know this seems like a ridiculous move considering the premise of the project, but I have a real affection for the idea of a time- and place-less Warrior archetype that can cover everything from dungeoneering fighters, to Paleolithic scrappers, to battle-minded folks of the modern day and beyond.  I guess it's mostly just a name change.

Now, for the Rogue.  I'd say that much of the exact same sentiment applies here, so if I take that last paragraph and make just a few edits...

The Thief shall become a Rogue, taking care to ensure that there are no rules that tie it to a fantasy setting.  I know this seems like a ridiculous move considering the premise of the project, but I have a real affection for the idea of a time- and place-less Rogue archetype that can cover everything from dungeoneering thieves, to Paleolithic sneaks, to subterfuge-minded folks of the modern day and beyond.  I guess it's mostly just a name change (and really not even that except relative to old school games that still call this character a thief).

And so we move on to the spellcasters.  It would be very tempting to fold these two into a single class that can cover any variety of magic, whether arcane, divine, or of whatever other origin a setting allows.  I definitely see the elegant beauty in the triangular approach to character abilities seen in games like True20 or Warrior, Rogue & Mage.  Related to this...in Magic: The Gathering, we have recently seen a slight shift in the designation of creature types such that each of the game's five colors has a spellcasting class most closely associated with it:  Clerics in white, Wizards in blue, Warlocks in black, Shamans in red, and Druids in green.  I really like the symmetry of this arrangement, and it has a lot of value in the game's newest set, Strixhaven: School of Mages, which features tons of magic-users from all around the color wheel.  A bit ironically, this division points to the unity of all of these creature types under the title of mage (as we see in the name of the set).  And wasn't that maybe even the point of wizards in Original D&D getting the generic appellation of "Magic-User"?  To give players the freedom to imagine their mages with whatever sort of background they wanted, while still tying them all together with the same set of spell rules?

Ultimately, though, I'm just not sure I can have my own core of a D&D-type ruleset without giving the religious spellcasters at least one class of their own.  It's a trope that's just so strongly bound to the heart of the game at this point that I think the whole thing would feel incomplete without having archetypes for both divine and arcane (or at least other) magic.  I'm not completely sold yet; the implication that all magic comes from the same source, whether it's prayed for or learned from books, is still tempting to strive for.  I'll see where it goes from here, but for now, I'll work on the assumption that the Monstrous Heartbreaker will separate Wizards and Clerics...perhaps even with those class names.

Alright...any more classes to add?  A nature type, perhaps, to work in some Druid and Ranger tropes?  Surely I'll want animal companions, right?  Do I want a Monk, or can Warriors and Clerics cover everything I'd really like to see in it?  I do love music...should I go ahead and codify a Bard?  And why does some sort of Artificer keep popping into my head as a potentially strong choice as a base class?  (Seriously, I don't know that I've ever even played in an adventuring party that included an Artificer, let alone played one myself.)

I have a feeling this decision could be influenced by whether or not I include a specific fantasy setting in this little work...so there's a bit more thinking to do on this.  More to come in Part II...