Out With the Old, Part 4: Classes In Mor-ladron

Classes are some of the most exciting parts of any class-based RPG. You want to play the game, and the class tells you how you are going to interact with it. Classes don’t just tell you about the game but the world as well. They tell you what kind of magic exists and how it works. Classes tell you what kind of guilds or groups there are and, of course, the nature of warfare and how people fight. 

This post provides an overview of how I employed classes in previous iterations of Skies. I’m not sure how restrictive I want to be going forward, but this is where we begin. 

Banned Classes 

I banned multiple classes from play, starting with clerics and bards. Clerics were banned because the gods were gone; there was nothing for clerics to pray to. Although the celestials could grant some sort of power to their followers, they couldn't answer prayers or give a cleric enough power to get to level 20. The first games I ran also featured a strong pirate theme that I felt clerics didn’t fit into well. 

On the other hand, bards were banned mostly because of how magic works in this world. I didn't feel like song was a tool of magic. (There is probably a whole post there about how I love song/chanting magic in fiction, but feel it doesn't really translate well in RPGs—stay tuned, no pun intended.) So, bards were banned. I did end up tweaking the arcane trickster rogue subclass to be able to use charisma or intelligence so people could still get a bard-like feel without interfering with the setting. 

I also banned druids, sorcerers, and warlocks because I wanted to showcase the power of the wizard compared to the non-full casters. I ended up allowing druids and warlocks in the second play-through. Sorcerers got stuck in the homebrew mire of the storm scarred and didn’t make it into play. 

Those were the banned classes. Among the permitted classes, however, some had restricted subclasses. We’ll turn to those next, starting with druids.

Restricted Classes 

Although I eventually allowed druids, druidic magic, in its more well-known form, didn’t seem to fit well in the world of Skies. Druids are all about nature, and there wasn’t much nature around. Players mostly encountered sky, cities, and ruins. So, I allowed the druid subclasses that I thought made sense in the world.

• Circle of Spores. A player could use this subclass if they were a fungorian or learned from one.
• Circle of Stars. A player with a nomad background could take this subclass.  
• Circle of Land (Artic). A player who lived in or on Mount Ancora could use this subclass. 

I also messed around with a homebrew subclass that focused on sky magic and turning into flying animals but never found a good balance. 

Paladins were also restricted. An aasimar paladin could play any subclass; other races had to either follow a celestial or be part of some knightly order. For example, the Order of the Watchers guarded and tried to close rifts that opened near cities and towns. Paladins could also use charisma or wisdom if they wanted a cleric-styled character. I felt that if someone wanted to go a more divine route, then either a celestial could give them enough of the power, or they found some lost relic of a god that granted them power. Since paladins only go up to 5th-level spells, that seemed fair.

Fungorians are a psychic race and the only race that can take a class or subclass with psionic abilities. 

Wizards and warlocks had some background restrictions but otherwise could play any of the subclasses. Wizards, in particular, had to have learned from a Magi and were now on the run with a bounty on their heads. (Most of the world was restricted to level three spells and below, so a wizard was pretty powerful compared to most of the people you would meet, especially since we started at level five.)  

A bunch of the other classes had subclass restrictions based on magic use, but those restrictions only survived the first round of play. It's better to allow a player to play something rather than try to fit it into the world and remove too many choices.

The Rest

I left most of the other classes untouched for the original rounds of play, with some minor modifications. I tried to buff some of the subclasses that I felt were underpowered, like the berserker barbarian and beast master ranger (MCDM’s Beastheart would have been great for this!). 

I also focused on artificers in the lore, so those were also allowed, even though I think the game started before the official one came out. We used a version by a Reddit user named KibbleTasty, who I believe is still going strong on 5e homebrew. Both this version and the official version of the artificer were allowed when it came out. 

The warsmith subclass basically created an Iron Man suit. Mulling on this concept, I thought it would be awesome to have goblins driving small mechas around. So, I will definitely be looking into MCDM’s Operator class if they end up coming out with it. (If Skies stays as magitech as it currently is, anyway.) 

What’s Next?

Now you know a bit more about how the classes acted in the first few revisions of Skies of Mor-ladron. With that background in place, it’s time to blow it out of the sky and start from scratch! 

Next, we will discuss first principles and the foundations of the world. We’ll explore what I want from it as a DM/Director and what my players want. From there, we build! Once we have more concrete information from the next MCDM RPg playtest, we will start looking at what needs to be homebrewed and how much.