Player Character Base Classes

Posted by EarthDragon on 11th October 2015.

Base classes are adapted into 3.5 terms from various sources and ideas both within D&D and external to that game.

Work on this campaign is still in progress, and classes are being released in stages.

There are a number of career paths open to adventurers within The Unification, with twenty-nine base character classes. There are also currently twenty-four accepted prestige classes, and eight known "paths to power" (something akin to Pathfinder's mythic paths, but different) though more may appear in coming weeks as classes are reviewed and adapted.

Each of the entries below gives a brief description of the base class under each heading, and contains a link that brings up the more specific information on each class.

Draetha

Draetha, or "nature walkers" gain their power by working with nature.

Fedaykin

Fedaykin are holy warriors dedicated to an endless jihad against the Fallen.

Forreska

Forreska, or forresters, are warriors that work well in the wilds and work closely with nature, though not as closely as draetha.

Freth-yarl

Freth-yarl, or "house soldiers" are warriors, often in the service of the noble houses of Citizens (hence the name) or wealthy Civilians, though they also serve merchant houses, other organisations or act as mercenaries.

Ghul-na

Ghul-na, or "mind-benders" are the most dedicated of the wielders of the powers of the mind, and rumoured to be the most ruthless.

Ghul-yarl

Ghul-yarl, or "mind-soldiers" (or warriors), are warriors who also make use of the mental arts, though with less dedication and zeal than the ghul-na and a more martial focus.

Hekhmani

Hekhmani, "cursed beings" or "cursed warriors", are warriors that have talents in both combat and spells, and an ability to curse their enemies.

Illumanis

Illumanis, also known as "Warriors of the Still Mind" are "holy warriors who combine the psychic powers of the mind with the martial prowess of noh-li and freth-yarl".

Karamatsu-toh

Karamatsu-toh are "Noble" or "Honourable" warriors or "lords" - Citizens of noble houses (or, at least, delusions of nobility) who train in the arts of war.

Karath-nulah

Karath-nulah, literally "weapon of the heart", are warriors who create weapons using their minds alone and drive these blades and bolts of mental energy into the bodies of their foes with the same vigour and verve as more traditional warriors use swords and arrows.

Noh-li

Noh-li are ascetic monks who train in the physical arts of combat and mental discipline, gaining superior control of mind and body compared to others.

Phaedim

Phaedim are travelling performers and artists. It sounds innocent enough, but it is commonly held that most of them are also assassins, though it has never been conclusively proven.

Ravenna

Ravenna are the barbarians of the deep deserts, though there are similar (much rarer) barbarians from other climate types.

Remen-kara

Remen-kara, literally "stealers of time" are a strange lot, to say the least. They are reputed to be able to steal boring, unneeded bits of time from their future to use in their present to get them out of the scrapes they invariably find themselves in. What effect, if any, that has on their life span is anyone's guess.

Rendathi

Rendathi are the battle dancers, martial artists who dance the blades with grace and agility, capable of moving in ways that other warriors can only imagine.

Rokagu

Rokagu, meaning "light-fingers", are the rogues and thieves of The Unification. Rumour has it that they are Organised, in a big way. But again, as with the Phaedim, this has never been conclusively proven.

San-li

San-li, literally meaning "spell-thrower", are the main magic users of The Unification, able to toss spells off without having to prepare them as it is believed spell casters of other worlds do, though there is a limit to how many they can cast in a single day, a limit that rapidly grows as they increase in power.

Savant

A Savant, in polite company, is referred to as a "Knower of All" or an "All-Knower". In less-polite company, they're simply "Know-It-Alls" who practice a little of almost every class skill, being a little bit priest, a little bit mage, a little bit warrior and a little bit rogue, all in one. They can be handy, but they do have their limits.

Selusid

Seulsid is a word that has no translation and no real accepted meaning, which is a fitting word to use as a name for these people. What they do is not magic, but it is not psionics either. It is somewhere in between, it comes from the mind and the will, but also from the world around, and the selusid shapes and controls it like a san-li would shape a spell, but gathers the poower more like a ghul-na as there is no spell being used, merely the Will and a Word.

Shokatsu

Shokatsu are priests of the elemental powers. They do not serve the gods of The Unification, in fact, they serve no gods or individual entities, merely the raw essence of the elements drawn straight from the elemental planes.

Sul-maht

A sul-maht is a binder of the souls of ancient, long-dead Powers (their name literally means "soul binder"). They use mystical seals drawn on the ground to draw power from long-forgotten and dead Powers and somehow channel these energies to their benefit.

Svarti

Svarti are channellers of an unusual form of magical energy. They claim the power they channel drives the multiverse, but few believe them, and there are dangers associated with what they do.

Terran-rah

Terran-rah, or "ardent followers", are a variation on the ghul-na. They focus the powers of the mind, but they use a different means of focusing and categorising the powers than the ghul-na do, and each is convinced that their was is the right way.

Veratni

Veratni, meaning "sanctified" or "favoured soul", are ordinary people who have some skill in combat but who also have the favour of one of the gods and have some measure of divine power as a result. They are not as powerful in their divine abilities as a vraedun, nor as powerful a warrior as a freth-yarl, but they make an interesting balance of the two.

Vraedun

Vraedun, or "holy ones", are the priests that serve the gods. They are typically capable in combat, but their real strength lies in the divine power they can channel from the god that they serve.

Warlock

Warlocks are those born of a supernatural bloodline who seek to master the perilous magic that suffuses their soul. They do not make use of spells, instead, they invoke powerful magic through an effort of will.

Wau-ken

Wau-ken, or "battle-casters" are spell casters somewhat similar to militant san-li. They are more capable in combat than a san-li, and their spells have a distinctly martial and combat focus, but they have less spells available to them over time as well as a narrower range of spells.

Wilder

Wilder are those who have a natural talent for powers of the mind who never seek the guidance of a ghul-na or a terran-rah to teach them the discipline necessary for one of those paths to power. Instead, they rely on their own wild control of their inner power.

Wu Jen

Wu Jen, or "spirit casters", are very similar to a cross between a san-li and a draetha in that they are casters of arcane magic like the san-li, but they are closer to nature and the spirits like the draetha. They gain certain benefits over time from accepting taboos on their behaviour that link them more closely with the spirits and the land.

Reducing Level Adjustments

When a character with a level adjustment advances in experience, the level adjustment they started with becomes more and more of a burden. Eventually, the benefits of the creature type may come to be eclipsed by those of their class features, and the player may regret their choice of race. Under this variant system, the character can pay an XP cost at certain intervals to decrease the burden of their level adjustment.

Starting Level Adjustment Number of Class Levels Necessary for Level Adjustment Reduction
1 3
2 6, 9
3 9, 15, 18
4 12, 21, 27, 30
5 15, 27, 36, 42, 45
6 18, 33, 45, 54, 60, 63

Once the total of a character's class levels (not including any Hit Dice from creature type or level adjustment) reaches three times their level adjustment, the level adjustment is eligible to be decreased by 1. For instance, a gnoll's level adjustment is +1. When a gnoll character gains their third class level (remember, the gnoll's 2 starting Hit Dice don't count), they can pay an XP cost to reduce the level adjustment to +0. If the level adjustment is greater than +1, this process repeats until the creature's level adjustment reaches +0. Each time, use the creature's current level adjustment to determine the point at which the level adjustment can go down by 1. For example, a drow (level adjustment +2) may drop to level adjustment +1 after gaining their sixth class level, and then to +0 after gaining an additional three class levels. Table: Reducing Level Adjustments gives the levels at which level adjustments are eligible to be reduced for starting level adjustments of +1 to +6.

Each time a character's level adjustment is eligible to be reduced, the character may pay an XP cost to take advantage of the reduction. The character must pay an amount of XP equal to (current ECL -1) × 1,000. This amount is immediately deducted from the character's XP total. The deduction should reduce the character's effective character level (ECL) by 1 (if this deduction would not reduce the character's ECL by 1, the character's XP total is set at the maximum of the level below their current ECL instead).

This XP cost can't be reversed in any way, and the payment must be voluntary on the part of the character. The payment must be made immediately upon becoming eligible to reduce the character's level adjustment. For instance, a 2nd-level gnoll fighter (ECL 5) who later gains a third class level has a minimum of 15,000 XP (their ECL has just gone from 5 to 6). They are eligible to reduce their level adjustment from +1 to +0. They must pay 5,000 XP, since their ECL is now 6 (2 Hit Dice plus 3 class levels plus +1 level adjustment). After they pay the XP, their level adjustment decreases by 1 to +0. They now have 10,000 XP. Their ECL falls to 5 (2 Hit Dice plus 3 class levels). Even if the XP payment would not reduce them to 5th level—for instance, if their XP total after reaching 6th level were 20,000 or more—their XP total can't remain above the maximum for 5th level, which is 10,000. Effectively, the gnoll has "paid off" their level adjustment with an XP cost, and is now a 5th-level character.

On the surface, this tradeoff may look like a bad deal. A character with a level adjustment of + 2 may pay an XP cost of 16,000 XP that puts them behind their comrades in total class levels. However, they then progress as if they had never had a level adjustment (or had a reduced level adjustment). With the self-correcting nature of the experience point system, they will soon catch up to the rest of the party. If she had not used this variant system, she would have had to amass 231,000 XP to reach their 20th class level (which is ECL 22 for a normal character with a +2 level adjustment), instead of only sacrificing 16,000XP and having to "re-earn" them.