Development #3: Class' Peek, Stray Man

Stray Man (Thief)

Prime Attribute:						Readiness
Hit Die:	1d6 at 1st level, +1d6 every Milestone Level
Life Points:			3 + Muscle Modifier, +1 additional LP every 4 levels (starting from 4th level)
Good THER0:					Talent, Readiness
Standard THER0:							Curse TS, Combat
Poor THER0:				Everything Else
Starting Title:				Rascal
Race Allowed:					All
Qualities:		Thievery (T), Stealth (R)

Streets have no name, but a Stray Man knows them very well: grown up in narrow and unhealthy alleys he learned very soon how to survive in the real world, becoming a master of many skills. Stray Men move like cats on the city roofs, sneak unseen in the dark and know how and where to find the things they need; and they’re ready to steal them if they really want to.

Although not a talented fighter as a Brave Man is, a Stray Man can be very deadly in close range; living long enough to enlarge his experience, he can also try to use magic items usually crafted for Erudite Men like staves, scrolls or wands.

All the following are class features of the Stray Man.

Weapons and Armors: because a Stray Man needs to be agile, he can use no shield and wear no armor heavier than leather; he has a pretty wide selection of melee and ranged weapons, as long as they can be wielded with a single hand.

Thievery (Talent): a Stray Man owns an extraordinary manual ability and is very streetwise, thus a player can call a Talent Test whenever he wants his character to perform particular actions (like gathering gossips, deciphering secret codes, handling locks and mechanisms, acting in disguise, picking someone’s pockets and so on).

Stealth (Readiness): thanks to years spent as an outcast a Stray Man displays an incredible agility and awareness, so he can perform exclusive actions (like climbing sheer surfaces, slinking in the crowd, hiding in shadows while followed, sliding behind an enemy) others cannot do with a successful Readiness Test.

Play Judas: a Stray Man has a deep knowledge of anatomy, so whenever he stands behind an enemy he adds his Talent Modifier on his Combat roll, dealing the standard weapon damage and decreasing directly enemy’s Life Points by a specific amount (equal to 1 plus Stray Man’s HD).

Rascal (1^st level Title): as Rascal a Stray Man can target with a Play Judas only creatures having a humanoid anatomy (humans, goblins, orcs, elves, dwarves and so on).

Knave (2^nd level Title): as Knave anytime a Stray Man reaches a new populated place he becomes automatically richer by 5 gold pieces (plus 5 times the place’s Entity Rating in gold pieces).

Snatcher (4^th level Title): as Snatcher a Stray Man can choose another creature type to be affected by his Play Judas.

Outlaw (8^th level Title): as Outlaw a Stray Man can choose another creature type to be affected by his Play Judas; he can also understand magical scripts and use magic devices or scrolls (fixing the Entity Rating) with a successful Talent Test.

Master Thief (12^th level Title): as Master Thief a Stray Man can choose another creature type to be affected by his Play Judas, and Life Points damage increases by an additional 1; in addition, he can found a Rogue Guild and attract a group of thugs and thieves working for him from now on.

P.S.: the artwork is a courtesy of the dwarvish friend Daryoon X.

Development #0: Foreword

Foreword is something a reader usually skips, so I won't whine if it happens; by the way, I'd like to start talking about me.

As far as I can remember (I think I was 5 years old), I've always been fascinated by 2 big genres: japanese robots and Sword&Sorcery (meaning the coexistence of fighters and wizards, not only the literary genre close to Robert E. Howard).

During the 80s, I spent my childhood watching Arthurian Myth adaptations like Boorman's Excalibur or King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (by Toei Animation), or movies like Deodato's The Barbarians, Milius' Conan the Barbarian and Fleischer's Conan the Destroyer, Reiner's The Princess Bride, Coscarelli's The Beastmaster, the infamous D&D Animated Series and so on.

In few words, that was my childhood's Video Appendix N.

By the way, my first contact with fantasy gaming happened only in 1991, when my parents bought HeroQuest Board Game: that was a dream coming true, allowing me and my friends to play - although in a miniature game - fantasy characters in an imaginary world expanded by my teen mind.

The real turning point was in 1994, when I bought - with my savings - 1991's D&D Classic Black Boxed Set and I started roleplaying the world's most famous Tabletop RPG with my friends: we spent our summer adventuring in an imaginary dimension, with its own city and nations, having great fun.

Despite the rules covered character advancement up to level 5, we kept on playing using a customized advancement and our first set of House Rules: that was the first time I showed some intention to create my own set of rules.

My first attempt was Legend of Arkanya (1998, during high-school and with no Internet connection), an openly D&D-inspired game using the typical d100 resolution (roll under value) but applied on a d20 scale and with a limited amount of Hit Points (scaled by Size).

After LoA, I've tried for years to create a new set of rules, drawing inspiration from the different free game systems gathered around the Net or other mainstream games (GURPS, Rolemaster, Chaosium's d100, etc..) but every single project remained unfinished or covering only part of the entire game (either magic system or combat system).

Recently - also thanks to OGL and the so called Old School Renaissance Movement - I've decided to bring some old ideas back blending them with some new gaming concepts, in order to realize my own RPG Game and to make the DM's creative burden a lil lighter, sharing that burden with all the players.

That's the story so far.

P.S.: the artwork is a courtesy of the dwarvish friend Daryoon X.