In the meanwhile, I thought I'd do a quick post on the (more or less) final form that the character class chapter has taken. Just a few notes and hints and things that I consider relevant or fun.
The 1st version of Engines & Empires was out-in-the-open-covertly Rules Cyclopedia based. All of the class tables went up to 36th level. All of the demi-humans existed as racial classes (though none of them were ever dual-classed: the original E&E elf was explicitly just a cleric with elf racial abilities, for example, in the same way that a BECMI dwarf is a fighter with dwarf abilities).
In the 2nd version of E&E, I kind of halfheartedly broke this up by treating all human characters as single-classed but able to pick any class and take it up to 10th level; and all demi-human characters as automatically dual-classed and able to take both classes up to 8th level, with one of their classes fixed by the choice of race (e.g. elves had to be mage/something and you couldn't dual mage with tech, so elves were either mage/fighters or mage/experts).
In the latest version of E&E, I've abandoned any pretense to race-as-class. It's a little more complicated, but in the end I think most players prefer to have the options. So here's how it works now:
• After players roll stats, they select one of five kindreds: human, elf, dwarf, goblin, or ogre.
• As in the 2nd version of the game, each kindred other than human has a favored and a disfavored attribute score, and if the disfavored score is the higher of the two, you swap them. That hasn't changed.
• But now, any kindred can pick any class (but only one—there's no more dual-classing). The classes are fighter, rogue, magician, inventor, and scholar. (The scholar serves as a kind of fighter/magician or cleric).
• There are no level limits, but non-human kindreds do have favored and disfavored classes. Humans favor all five classes and advance in them normally. Everyone else has two favored classes in which they advance normally (e.g. fighter and magician for elves, or rogue and inventor for goblins), and the other three classes are "disfavored" for that kindred and take a −10% XP penalty. If your prime requisite is high enough, your prime XP bonus will cancel out this penalty, but if the prime for that class also happens to be a disfavored attribute for your kindred, that can really mess you up. In short, there won't be a lot of elvish inventors or goblin magicians running around without an XP penalty (but you can certainly play them if you want to).
And that's pretty much it. Any character can take any one class up to level 10, but if it happens that your favored class lines up with your favored attribute, you're more likely to have a high prime requisite and advance a little faster; and if you try to play against type, you might wind up advancing a little slower. But it will never be more drastic than ±10% of earned XP.
In fact, standing back and looking at the race-and-class system like this, it resembles Basic Fantasy RPG more than any other edition or retro-clone.
But I do limit levels to 10th, for a few reasons. Some of my main sources of inspiration (Beyond the Wall, Dragon Fist) at least stop their tables at 10th, even if they don't explicitly limit character advancement. And I find that a campaign is only really fun up to that level. But stopping there also means that 9th level doesn't have to be some special cutoff like it is in Basic, where suddenly there are no more level titles or hit dice and the XP table kinks linear. I've dropped all of that for E&E3 by making the last experience level "just another level," like so:
Rogue XP
|
Inventor XP
|
Fighter XP
|
Scholar XP
|
Magician XP
|
|
1
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
2
|
1,500
|
1,750
|
2,000
|
2,250
|
2,500
|
3
|
3,000
|
3,500
|
4,000
|
4,500
|
5,000
|
4
|
6,000
|
7,000
|
8,000
|
9,000
|
10,000
|
5
|
12,000
|
14,000
|
16,000
|
18,000
|
20,000
|
6
|
25,000
|
28,000
|
32,000
|
36,000
|
40,000
|
7
|
50,000
|
56,000
|
64,000
|
72,000
|
80,000
|
8
|
100,000
|
112,000
|
125,000
|
140,000
|
150,000
|
9
|
200,000
|
225,000
|
250,000
|
280,000
|
300,000
|
10
|
400,000
|
450,000
|
500,000
|
550,000
|
600,000
|
Level
|
Rogue Titles
|
Inventor Titles
|
Fighter Titles
|
Scholar Titles
|
Magician Titles
|
1
|
Apprentice
|
Tinker
|
Veteran
|
Collegiate
|
Medium
|
2
|
Journeyman
|
Wright
|
Swordsman
|
Baccalaureate
|
Seer
|
3
|
Tradesman
|
Craftsman
|
Duelist
|
Master
|
Conjurer
|
4
|
Expert
|
Machinist
|
Hero
|
Doctor
|
Wizard
|
5
|
Specialist
|
Mechanic
|
Swashbuckler
|
Fellow
|
Enchanter
|
6
|
Agent
|
Technician
|
Knight
|
Professor
|
Warlock
|
7
|
Operative
|
Technologist
|
Champion
|
Emeritus
|
Sorcerer
|
8
|
Professional
|
Engineer
|
Superhero
|
Philosopher
|
Archmage
|
9
|
Maverick
|
Chief Engineer
|
Paladin
|
Sage
|
Magus
|
10
|
Top Gun
|
Master Chief
|
Lord Paladin
|
Great Sage
|
High Magus
|
Doubling the XP at 10th level holds the endgame off for just a bit longer, and it puts those 10th level spells and inventions a little bit further out of reach for a while. But I do really like how elegantly the five XP tables line up with one another when arranged like so. As for the level titles, I'd already posted those here before, so no real surprises there.
Regarding attacks and saves, I decided to "de-granularize" them and make them work pretty much exactly as in B/X, including the "3-point kink" on the second step up the table that went away between B/X and BECMI. That is, the attack levels for all classes are now:
To-Hit Bonus; Class & Level
+1 ; Fighter 1–3, Rogue and Scholar 1–4, Magician and Inventor 1–5
+3 ; Fighter 4–6, Rogue and Scholar 5–8, Magician and Inventor 6–10
+6 ; Fighter 7–9, Rogue and Scholar 9–10
+8 ; Fighter 10
Saving throws follow a similar pattern, except that these are now the same for all classes, as they were in E&E1. After doing an analysis on all the save tables in B/X and BECMI, it turns out that if I wanted to average all the saves together to make a single saving throw number, the differences between the classes really do disappear, and the fighter doesn't have "the best saves" compared to the other classes, not really. (In E&E2, I made saves improve at the same rate as attacks to give fighters an advantage in this category, but in actually, that advantage shouldn't be there for a single save number. It turns out that Swords & Wizardry basically had that part exactly right all along.)
But I did want to keep to B/X-style simple, chunky steps. So saving throws now divide all of the characters into three clear tiers:
ST 7-in-20 (35%): Levels 1–4
ST 9-in-20 (45%): Levels 5–8
ST 12-in-20 (60%): Levels 9–10
Finally, regarding the character classes' actual special abilities:
One thing I definitely wanted to keep from the previous two versions of E&E was the absence of weapon and armor restrictions by class. Any class can equip anything. I just like it better that way. So to preserve the fighter's niche of damage output and tanking, they have two special abilities: they can attack twice in melee if the player accepts a to-hit penalty on both attack rolls (the penalty starts out at −5 and gradually dwindles down to −1 at high levels: in other words, in this B/X based game of mine that only goes up to level 10, the fighter never actually quite reaches the point where he can just freely make two attacks per round at no penalty, like a 13th level AD&D fighter or a 15th level B/X fighter); and fighters have a reserve hp pool of 2 hp per level that they can use to heal themselves between encounters (like a paladin's lay on hands, but it only works on the fighter himself; I don't think it's too unbalanced if it's based on the ability of a fighter sub-class).
Rogues (called "experts" no longer, except as their 4th level title) have their traditional bonus skill points, plus two class perks: whenever initiative is simultaneous, rogues act as if they've won the initiative and go first anyway (although enemy rogues on opposing sides still tie); and once per day per two levels, a rogue can "gamble" on a die roll (attack, save, or skill check), rolling twice and keeping the better roll, and if he happens to roll doubles (meaning, no benefit from the use of the ability), that daily use of the ability is retained rather than used up. (This also serves to push rogues into saving their limited uses of this ability for skill checks, rather than combat, since skill checks in E&E3 work as they did in E&E1, rolled on a d6 against a skill rank, rather than under an attribute on d20 as in E&E2).
The magicians and inventors work as mages and techs did in E&E2, with magicians having magic and inventors having technology. Scholars are like magicians that give up all the wizardry and druid magic (keeping only the really priestly-feeling magic) in exchange for better combat stats.
* * *
Oh, and I almost forgot about alignment! Yeah, so… after E&E2 had alignment more or less "fixed" by your choice of race and class (I hear tell that LotFP does a similar thing), I was all ready to keep that pretty much the same going into E&E3… when I decided, there really wasn't a point, it's not a mechanic that ever affects anything except the occasional interaction with a sapient weapon (and I hate sapient weapons and try to avoid them where possible). So (again, making the final product resemble BFRPG even more strongly), I've all but eliminated alignment as a player-facing mechanic.
It still exists in the game: a couple of magical effects target Chaotic creatures. But as things stand now:
• Alignment is a Big Fat Cosmic Deal that mortals barely comprehend. If you're not a magician, your character may not even know that alignment is a Thing that Exists in-universe.
• The three alignments are now called Chaos, Balance, and Order. Mortals never have a permanent alignment, though they certainly may find themselves allied with forces of Chaos, Balance, or Order at a given time, according to circumstances.
• Most creatures, in fact, do not have a permanent alignment. The exceptions are weird-ass aliens and cosmic, planar beings. Abominations and Demons are always of Chaos. Fae and Angels are always of Order. (Yes, Fae are of Order. The realm of Faerie is all about stagnant, unchanging preservation. A place where a mortal can dance away ninety years at an elfin dinner party and never notice the passage of time, then crumble to dust the moment he returns to the material plane. Remember, kids, that Rip Van Winkle shit is horrifying.) Elementals and Nature Spirits are of Balance. And practically nothing else in the game has an alignment.
• The only mechanics that actually interact with alignment are the occasional spell, like a Protection Circle vs. Chaos (which will ward off abominations and demons but do jack-all against anything else, no mater how evil or psychotic or undead or lol-randumb), and the very occasional magical item, like the Holy Avenger sword (double damage to Chaotics). But stuff like this is rare.
So… yeah, that's pretty much all I wanted to talk about. Maybe soon I'll make some progress in the monster department. Still taking suggestions there, if anyone's seen any kickass, really compact bestiaries lately. Until next time, slán go fóill.