[Labyrinth Lord] Berserker character class by Kookko Jaskinen

BERSERKER

by: +Kookko Jaskinen, created for his campaign

"In the core of Black Iron Imperium's civil war a band of warriors was born, which battled against the King's army. They were called Berserkers, and they were known as warriors who didn't compete with skill but with tremendous rage. Nowadays they are mercenaries or guerillas opposing the King".

Requirements: None

Prime Requisite: CON

Hit Points: 1d10

Experience table:

Level | HD | Experience points
1 | 1 | 0 exp
2 | 2 | 2,060 exp
3 | 3 | 4,120 exp
4 | 4 | 8,240 exp
5 | 5 | 16,480 exp
6 | 6 | 32,960 exp
7 | 7 | 65,920 exp
8 | 8 | 128,750 exp
9 | 9 | 257,500 exp
10 | 9 +2 HP | 386,250
11 | 9 +4 HP | 590,000
12 | 9 +6 HP | 737,500

Weapons and armor: Only Axes and Leather armor, no shields

Attacking: As Fighter

Magic items: Unable to use any magic items

Saves: As Dwarf

Rage: Damage bonus and resistance (halve incoming damage) until next turn.

Level | Uses per day | Dmg bonus
1 | 1 use | +2
2 | 1 use | +2
3 | 1 use | +2
4 | 2 uses | +4
5 | 2 uses | +4
6 | 2 uses | +4
7 | 3 uses | +6
8 | 3 uses | +6
9 | 3 uses | +6
10 | 4 uses | +8
11 | 4 uses | +8
12 | 4 uses | +8

[LotFP] Witchfinders, Demonhunters and Inquisitors

In the world where weird monsters and horrors are reality lurking behind the veils of everyday life, some brave and determined men and women have dedicated their lives to seek out and destroy these things. They are marked with a sacred brand on their forehead to grand special powers against the infernal and cosmic forces of evil.

Any new character from any class from the beginning of the campaign can be branded to gain a special power, which you determine rolling 1d6 from the table. Also roll for a disadvantage of the devotion. A character might later on a campaign become one going through a sacred ritual of branding. They must devote their adventuring life for the cause they have chosen.

WITCHFINDER

They are professionals that seek out those who have powers beyond the man for selling their soul to the forces of evil. They know how to deal with witches and protect themselves against their malicious spells.

Advantages

1. Immune to any charm or mind affecting powers of witches.

2. Can make a special balsam against witches powers. The balsam costs 100 GP of protection per level of witch's HD. The balsam, when applied to the skin, protects against one direct spell of the witch except charm and mind affecting spells.

3. Can sense a presence of a witch within 100 feet per their level.

4. When making a finishing blow against a witch, they can absorb one random power of her if they will. They must success a save versus Magic or be corrupted of the witchtanic power and lose their special ability for 1d6 levels.

5. Specialist in long-distance murder and take advantage on technology. +2 using gunpowder weapons. Also all maintenance work for gunpowder weapons are halved.

6. Resistant to poisons, but must drink a dose of poison daily or die, if doesn't save versus poison.

Disadvantages

1. Every witch she kills reminds her of her own mother for a reason or another. She must save against paralyze or be depressed the next adventure suffering a -1 penalty to any roll.

2. She is hypersensitive for witch's body. Any time witch inflicts unarmed damage, she suffer extra 1d4 damage per witch's HD.

3. Her ancestor was a witch, and in her blood thin witchtanic trace. If she comes in touch with witch's blood, there is 1-in-6 chance that the witch within is invoked. Her alignment changes to chaotic and as she loses her advantage, she gains witchtanic powers.

4. All potions and alchemical fluids have double effect on her. Both helpful and harmful.

5. Has saved someone from witch's claws and now her responsibility is to protect him.

6. Is permanently ill, thanks to witch's curse. Needs medicine once every 2d4 days. Ingredients for one dose costs 10 GP per level and needs one special incredient to produce. With a successful Intelligence roll (under), can produce the medicine herself. Even though she doesn't success, the GP used for the ingredients is lost. If she buys the medicine prepared, one dose costs 25 GP per her level.

DEMONHUNTER

Infernal, demonic, monstrous and otherworldly beings are their enemies. Their mind is strong against the temptations and body resistant of their corruption. Their blade cuts precise and deep.

Advantages

1. Against demonic creatures they deal extra 1d6 damage.

2. Can roll two dices to save against demonic powers and corruption.

3. Can learn from the demons they destroy, giving them +1 to attack rolls, damage rolls and saves against same types.

4. Has 5% chance per their level to learn a spell cast against them. They can use it once, until learned again.

5. Has one special weapon you have used to kill your first monster. With this weapon you get +2 to damage, to-hit and armor class. Without that weapon you suffer severe effects of fright and self-esteem problems causing you to be extremely insecure and undetermined also suffering -1 to all actions you take.

6. Can brand others. In exchange of permanent bonus of 1 to saves versus demonic and monstrous powers they suffer 1d4 permanent damage to HP.

Disadvantages

1. The lure of demonic powers is strong against her. Every time she encounters a demon she must success in save against magic. If she fails six times in her life, her soul is lost and possessed by a demon (roll summon spell chart to see what abomination she will become).

2. There is a 1-in-6 chance a day that she will mistake something ordinary (a peon, a goat, a windmill) for a demon and she will try to destroy. It is possible to stop her and talk sense to her, but it is not an easy task.

3. She is like a magnet for the demons. Demons can sense her from a distance and from beyond the curtains of dimensions. Every week there is a 1-in-6 chance that a demon finds her and tries to destroy her.

4. All the evil she has seen and conquered has tainted her soul, and no clerical magic works on her.

5. Has had a taste of blood of her enemies and must drink demonic or monstrous blood at least once per week or die if doesn't save against poison.

6. Has hunted creatures of darkness so long, that suffers from sunlight. It burns her skin and she cannot see well. -2 to all eyesight related tasks and 1 HP damage per hour when exposed to direct sunlight.

INQUISITOR

Not necessarily the forces of evil are always witches or demons. Also ordinary people are capable of horrible things and crimes against humanity. You are the one who weeds the evil from the hoi polloi. Your actions might be horrible or brutal, but it is for the good of the humanity.

Advantages

1. Knows how to torture and get information or confessions out of anyone. It takes one hour and 1d4 damage per HD of the victim to squeeze out whatever the inquisitor wants to know. Unfortunately, there is a 50% chance that the victim just says what inquisitor wants to hear, so he can get a release from the pains and horrors of torture.

2. Knows how to hurt people. When your attack roll is 19 or 20, you can aim your opponent and cause him severe pain with extra 1d4 +1 per level damage.

3. Gets +2 bonus to your Charisma every time you intimidate someone.

4. No pain, no gain. They have caused so much suffering, they almost live out of it. As a bonus action inquisitor can wound himself to gain half of that damage to next attack as a to-hit bonus.

5. Harsh training has made her tougher. She needs half the amount of rations and can resist harsh weather effects with doubled efficiency.

6. Can prevent evil spells from harming her and her group if will sacrifice as many people as the spell level in 12 hours. If doesn't, all the spell effects will fire on her with double effect.

Disadvantages

1. Has seen so much blood and suffering you have inflicted, that you cannot feel empathy anymore. Every action you take is aggressive against normal people and you can only see the worst in them.

2. Is scarred from the burning firebrands and self-inflicted wounds and need to hide your monstrous skin under a hood not to scare people. You look like a monster yourself.

3. Is haunted by ghosts of innocent people she has killed in torture. In the beginning of game there are 1d4 souls to haunt her, and every time an innocent person is dead by her hands she must save against magic or suffer of another haunt. Naturally, there are psychological effects to this every day there is 2% chance per haunting soul that her conscience is making her question her cause and her advantage doesn't work that day.

4. Is twisted and bloodlusty and will always kill if there is a chance. No enemy or victim of her should remain alive.

5. Must daily repent her own sins or lose her advantage for a day. Repenting sins demands two hours of prayer and self whipping.

6. There is something holy in her, god knows what twisted god thinks so. She has stigmata that bleeds constantly. Lose 1d2 HP daily from bleeding palms. Also handling weapons is harder without gloves or straps as blood soaked hands are slick.

You can download the pdf, with slightly revised text, from my Patreon page!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/witchfinder-and-6535360

New Cleric variant, Martyr

Instead of "Turn Undead" these Clerics have an unique power they invoke when they suffer. When someone purposely hurts them (monster attack, no. Friend whipping, yes) or they wound themselves, they immediately regain one spell and can cast it as memorized. By suffer they might even memorize more spells than they normally could!

One Hit-die (1d6) worth of damage allows them to chose one spell level. If the martyr whips himself dealing 3d6 damage, he can chose three one level spells, one first and one second or one third level spell to memorize immediately.

Martyrs are willing to suffer for their cause, and by suffering they gain great power.

They are not restricted to blunt weapons, but can also use daggers and knives to harm themselves.

Adventurer goes to dangerous dungeons, because...

Sometimes you just want to roll a character and go explore the dungeon your Game Master has prepared for the evening. No stories or drama, just some simple and fun exploration where your character is an avatar for you to survive the dangers to get to the treasure. But maybe this game, after a dungeon or two, will develop into a full campaign? Or is this just a snack you play sometimes when not all of your group manage to play the campaign the game night?

Here is a table to make a quick background why your 1st level adventurer wants to risk his life for treasures. Obviously, for one-shots he wants to risk his life so you can have fun, but there is always something behind that.

RalfHuels (photographer), Anja Arenz, Chris Kunz, Dossmo, Niamh, Paolo Tratzky, Svenja Schoenmackers / , via Wikimedia Commons

1d4:

1. DEBT. You owe money. And couldn't get it together. Only way out of this trouble is adventuring, because you have heard rumors of this dungeon where loot awaits for those who take the challenge.

• You or your family (50/50) owes money for (1d6): 1. Tax collector. | 2. Dowry | 3. Landlord | 4. Kidnappers | 5. Wizard who helped with magic | 6. College fees
• The amount of your dept (1d4): 1. 10 x 1d8 GP | 2. 100 x 1d6 GP | 3. 1,000 x 1d4 GP | 4. 10,000 GP (UH-OH!)

2. FAMILY IN TROUBLE. Someone in your family needs the money, or what you can get with it, desparately. Only you are courageous, or stupid, enough to go to "that" dungeon for treasures.

• Some possibilities are, that (1d6): 1. Your family member is sick, and 500 - 1,000 GP is needed for magimedical attention. | 2. Crop this year was awful, need to compensate. | 3. You just want a better life for your family. | 4. You want proper education for your siblings, and that is not cheap! | 5. No more peon life, but freedom of your family costs. | 6. A family member of yours went to trade to far-away Realm and is now in trouble. Maybe he got robbed, or the ship sank. She desperately needs money to get back home safe.

3. MY LIFE IS BORING. There always are those individuals who don't have any proper reason for adventuring, they just go into dungeons and give some hasty reasons why they do so.

• They might be (1d6): 1. Lazy son or daughter who thinks that housework and farmwork are dull and real life is out there. Dungeons is a good start, right? | 2. Noble or highborn, who is sick of too secure environment. Don't run the stairs, that wooden sword is too sharp, all those restrictions. Now it is time to go! | 3. You already have an adventure or two under your belt. Just enough that you opened your barbershop or some other business what you always dreamed of. But that is quite boring in the end and adventuring was more fun. | 4. Orcs, puddings, skeletons, dragons? I want to see all those creatures. | 5. With money I could do so much more - everything. Earning money is slow and hard work because I didn't born silver spoon in my mouth. A dungeon or two should earn me enough to have fun, and it can't be that bad, right? | 6. No one notices me, especially that guy. Maybe if I'd go for an adventure into a dangerous dungeon, he would finally notice me?

4. SOMETIMES REASON IS JUST RANDOM! Do you need a reason? NO! You say. But there is always a reason. Let's ask few adventurers, why they want to go into that smelly dark dungeon with old traps, weird monsters and loot (1d6):

1. I am just curious what the dungeons are like and what's inside.
2. Sun is too bright and I get sunburns easily. Dungeons, cool and dark, would be perfect for me.
3. Being a guild apprentice is so boring. Real experience and education is out there.
4. I want to kick ass! Monster ass! Because sheriff said, next time I kick ass in a town it'll be the last time I kicked ass for a while.
5. There might be hope with monsters and maybe I could convert them to The Right Religion.
6. I lost my special item, and I cannot find it anywhere. I am sure it is in that dungeon.

__________________________________________________________

You can find better version in PDF from my Patreon page! Go download it and check out my other creations!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/adventurers-go-5451394

[LL] The Forgotten Legend Lives character (with a multiclassing draft! Alternative Elf casting!)

The Forgotten Legend Lives is a Labyrinth Lord campaign I am running for a single player. Here in my blog I already wrote an overview of rules I planned to use. Some have changed for example not at this point using Advanced Edition Characters for player character. Instead the game starts with race-as-class (as in LL core book) and later there are options to multiclass.

Character Creation

Abilities were rolled 4d6 assign as you want as this is a single player game and I wanted the character to be a little more special than just a basic 3d6 in order. Also I wanted player to have some power on the results to create a character she wants to play.

Starting Hit Points equal to Constitution score. This is for a simple reason that this is going to be a campaign of a character and her story, not a survival of the fittest (or cunningest!). Hit Points advance as the original class.

There will be a multiclassing option but I am not still sure how to make it work easily. The experience progression chart is as Fighters for a simple reason. Less numbers to track than with Elf (almost 4x needed compared to Fighter) and it doesn't really matter, as this is with one player.

MULTICLASSING DRAFT: The idea of multiclassing is that all class levels together is character level. The exp needed for next level is character level and Fighter exp chart. At the beginning when advancing a level player can choose (for Elf character) does she take the best benefices from Elf class, Fighter class or Magic-User class (as Elven are Fighter-M-U's anyways). What ever are the highest numbers compared to current are marked as new numbers. Some may have worse saves but get better to-hit or more spells. Some hit better but don't get spells etc. This should be simple enough but at this point is only a draft. I think it'll be finished during the gameplay.
Also other classes are available when character meets some requirements; for Clerics joining an order, Thieves need a quild etc. Race cannot be changed naturally!

Also Elven magic works differently from Magic-Users. As Magic-Users need to learn the spells Elven magic is natural and innate. As Elf levels (her Elf class) she gains new spells as powers. She can cast as many spells levels as her Elf level + WIS bonus per day.

Example: A 3rd level Elf with +2 WIS bonus can cast has 5 spell points. She can cast 5 1st level spells, two second level spells and one 1st level spells, one 3rd level spell and two 1st levels or one 2nd level spell etc. The spell points are re-gained after a rest.

If all the spells points are used for a day Elf can try to spontaneously cast a spell. Save versus Spells or Spell-like Devices - spell level. If successful, the spell is cast as normal. If a failure, spell level damage to hit points is suffered as a system shock.

If the Elf multiclasses to Magic-User the Elven innate spells and learned Magic-User spells are kept separate from each other, as other are innate powers, other learned and memorized.

Other things were by the book.

The character didn't have any starting gold so her starting equipment was just slave's/prisoner's rag. But she did have two magical items randomly rolled from Labyrinth Lord's random magic items charts.

Other item is a weapon player could choose to roll from the three charts; Rods, staves and wands, or swords or miscellaneous weapons. She chose a sword to be rolled.

Also a random magic item was to be rolled.

Also because player chose to be an Elf and when her legendary destiny is to be revealed (in game) I'll let her roll for a subclass from Dyson's d12 elven subclasses. But that is to become later.

Character Background

The character doesn't remember her past etc. For this there are two reasons. The player is not familiar with the setting so as the setting is revealed for the character as she adventures there also the player learns about the setting. The Elves are extremely rare in the setting to make things more logical why this particular "hero" Elf doesn't know much. Also she's from another place than this so this is all new to her. There is a story behind why she doesn't remember anything (generic vanilla fantasy - that's the point in this!), but the plot story doesn't belong here at all.

Second reason is that I've toyed a lot with a campaign similar to Elder Scrolls (particularly Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim) and all those games start with the player character imported to the adventure location without a clue what is going on. And in all those game the player is destined (a legend) to not only save the day but the whole adventure area!

So yeah, this is nothing innovative, but I haven't ran games like this for like 15 years or so, so this is what and how I want to do it.

Only hints to the characters past and who she is are the two magic items she holds.

These things are revealed in game reports I am planning to post here as the game advances (3rd session done, 0 posted here!)

Character Sheet

Character Name: Amaro Utharo
Class/Race: Elf
Alignment: Good
Level: 1
Age: ?

Hit Points: 12 (as CON)
Armor Class: 8 (-1 from DEX)

ABILITIES:
STR: 8
DEX: 13
CON: 12
INT: 15
WIS: 14
CHA: 10

OTHER ABILITIES: Lorimer (I have no idea what this is and when I asked the player wasn't sure either. So if anyone know what Lorimer (or Iomirer) is please let me know...

CLASS ABILITIES AND SPELLS:
60ft. infravision
- search 2/6
-immunity to paralysis
- spell: Magic Missile

WEAPONS AND EQUIPMENT:
- Sword +2 (+3 against giants) with a dragon headed handle (this is not only a weapon but also a plot-item!!!)
- Tome of stealth (xp-boost for Thief and Assassin)

[OSR] Barbarian berzerker, a Fighter variant

Inspiration and concept by +Venger Satanis Three Swordsmen.

This is a revised 1.1. version. Thanks for JJKM for ideas. Also +Brett Slocum that morale is written with an "e".

Barbarian Berzerker

The men and women who have battle running through their veins as from their birth they learn the ways of their tribe and culture. Endless wars between rival tribes and pillaging expeditions to far away lands make barbarians tough and ruthless. From deepest rainforests and their amazonian woman tribes to northern vikings barbarians all share a common feature: fearlessness of death.

Alignment: Neutral

All barbarian abilities need him to wield two-handed magic weapon.

Rage

Once a day per 4 levels a Barbarian Berzerker can fall into a rage. In rage his bloodthirst makes him a killing machine of deadly blows but makes him an easier target. In a rage Barbarian Berzerger gains damage bonus equal to his level but suffers 4 penalty to AC.

Taunt

As fierce warriors barbarians also have intimidating gestures to make their opponents to flee. Once per day for every 3 experience levels barbarian can taunt as many opponents in HD as his level is. Taunted opponents must success a *moral roll or they flee.

Example: A 5th level barbarian has two taunts per day (one from levels 1 to 3 and second from levels 4 and 5). He has opponents varying from 1HD to 3HD and he decides to taunt the 3HD and two 1HD's. Two fail the moral check and flee.

Additional Attack (from Three Swordsmen)

At 3rd level, barbarians may attack two times a round using a two-handed weapon, but this secondary swing is granted only once per day. At 6th level, barbarians may use this ability twice per day, and thrice at 9th level. Upon reaching 12th level, they receive two attacks every round.

________________________________

*Moral check. If your game doesn't have morality rules it's a simple rule to apply. Monsters have morality values of 2-12 (where 2 is worst) and when taunted (or badly wounded, half of the enemies are fallen etc.) 2d6 is rolled. If the roll result is higher compared to the morality score the enemy flees.

Peasants might have a morality of 4, seasoned thugs 8 and demonic entities 12. Mindless, controlled, constructed etc. monsters might not have moral at all thus cannot fail the test.

Original Rage:
When a barbarian has suffered more damage in total than half of his HP he may choose to fall into a rage. He has an option to gain bonus to hit and to damage maximum of his level - or less if he chooses to - in equal cost of his AC. The rage lasts as long as the barbarian is alive, the fight is over or his HP is restored over half of the maximum.

Example: A 5th level Barbarian has suffered enough damage to fall in rage. He can gain a +1 to +5 bonus to hit and damage and decides to go full-out with +5. Because blinded by rage and recklessly attacking his opponents he suffers a penalty of 5 to his Armor Class. As unarmored his (descending) AC 9 is now 14.