Classes on Plains of Sedia - D20 Documentary

Headhunter

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Headhunter#

Anyone can be paid to kill. A headhunter gets paid to bring back the head, and the rest of the crew with it.

Ruk Tamaro, who trains headhunters

Mercenary captains: the best fighters money can hire, and the only ones who come with a crew. A headhunter masters every weapon, shouts a line into order and takes contracts the way other people take breakfast.

LeadsSTR BacksCHA Health1d6+13 Willpower2 CastsNo ArmorHeavy

How it plays#

Headhunters use every weapon and every armor from level 0, and swing a sixth attack from level 82, tied with the plainsman for the most of any class. Strength leads. Charisma backs it, because a headhunter’s shouts and commands lift the whole party: rallying it, marking a target everyone hits harder, ordering a formation that adds damage to every blow.

Page

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Page#

A knight is a wall that chose to be one.

Dame Corisande Vael, who trains pages

Knights in the making, whose job is to be hit in someone else's place. A page wears any armor, carries a shield, fights with a polearm and lays healing hands on the people behind them.

LeadsCON BacksSTR Health1d6+11 Willpower4 CastsYes ArmorAny

How it plays#

Constitution leads, and the page is the only class built on it. Strength backs it. A page wears every armor and shield from level 0, and their knightly expertise and shield techniques are about standing in the way: taking blows meant for an ally, reflecting them, walls, interrupts and counters.

Plainsman

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Plainsman#

Magic is for people who have time to think. In a charge, nobody has time.

Bey Ashara Tolun, who trains plainsmen

Barbarians of the open plains who fight with rage and distrust magic on principle. A plainsman hits as hard as any class on Sedia, swings as often as any, and at heroic levels learns to tear spells apart.

LeadsSTR BacksDEX Health1d6+13 Willpower2 CastsNo ArmorMedium

How it plays#

A plainsman uses nearly every weapon from level 0, two-handed or one in each hand, and swings a sixth attack from level 82, tied with the headhunter. Strength leads and dexterity backs it. Rage builds as the plainsman fights, turning the blows they take into retaliation and, at level 100, something they can finally control.

Pickpocket

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Pickpocket#

Everyone has something they'd pay to get back. Our trade is making sure they have to.

Mother Sable, who trains pickpockets

Thieves, rogues and assassins, quick with their hands and quicker to leave. A pickpocket opens locks, walks in shadows and kills from behind, and has more ways to stay out of a fight than most classes have to win one.

LeadsDEX BacksLUC Health1d6+8 Willpower3 CastsNo ArmorLight

How it plays#

Thievery is the heart of the class: seventeen skills from level 0 to 100, from peeking into a pack and picking locks to walking through shadows and bending light. Dexterity leads. Luck backs it, and a pickpocket leans on luck harder than anyone.

Scout

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Scout#

The monks taught me the forms. The north taught me they're faster with a blade.

Brother Ennis Calder, who trains scouts

Monks who took up the blade: fast, light fighters who chain weapon strikes into finishers the way monks chain blows. A scout learns the monastery's stances and forms and fights with whatever is to hand.

LeadsDEX BacksCHA Health1d6+10 Willpower3 CastsYes ArmorMedium

How it plays#

Scouts learn the monk’s stances and forms with weapons instead of fists: a new battle method every two levels, slashing first, then piercing, bashing and the bare hand, ending in strikes named for the tiger, cobra, crane, monkey and bear. Each stance holds the scout to one form, and they know seven finishers. Dexterity leads and charisma backs it.

Woodsman

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Woodsman#

The forest isn't trying to kill you. It isn't thinking about you at all. Learn that and you'll live.

Maela of the canopy, who trains woodsmen

Hunters, trackers and druids who need nothing from civilization. A woodsman reads the wild, heals with its magic, sets traps and shoots any bow, and grows into a druid who calls down the storm.

LeadsWIS BacksCON Health1d6+11 Willpower4 CastsYes ArmorMedium

How it plays#

Wisdom leads and constitution backs it, so a woodsman lasts. Their hunting skills track, set traps of every kind and catch backstabbers in the act, and their ranged arrows carry fire, ice, earth and poison. Adaptation is the woodsman’s healing: regrowing broken limbs, rejuvenating, and bringing back the dead, themselves included.

Mageling

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Mageling#

A mageling who can light a candle is a curiosity. One who can light the same candle a thousand times is a mage.

Provost Aldric Venn, who trains magelings

Students of the Mage Spire who see the weaves as colored threads and lay them one on another with a trained will. A mageling knows more spells than any other class, and has the least health of any class, tied with the gravedigger.

Elementalist

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Elementalist#

The mages spend ten years learning to light a candle. I lit a barn the night my father died, and I've spent every year since learning to stop.

Oriel Vask, who trains elementalists

Battle mages whose magic comes to them unasked, in fear and fury, and hits harder than a mage's with far less control. An elementalist wraps themselves in burning auras and wades into the fight they were supposed to cast from.

Runescribe

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Runescribe#

A mage reads the weave. We read the knots in it, the way the dragons did.

Vharek Stoneglass, who trains runescribes

Rune-singers who work the tiny, quick seams between the threads, the way the draconians of a forgotten age did. A runescribe whispers spells, breathes them like a dragon, and carves runes into blades that hold magic until it's called.

LeadsWIS BacksCHA Health1d6+11 Willpower4 CastsYes ArmorAny

How it plays#

A runescribe’s spells come in three voices that follow their ranks: whispers from level 0, draconian breaths from 50, and the enveloping spells of the paek’oth, which fill a room. Wisdom leads and charisma backs it. Runescribes wear any armor and fight with exotic weapons, so they stand closer to a fight than any other caster.

Gravedigger

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Gravedigger#

Everybody's afraid of the dead. I'm afraid of whoever buried them badly.

Corvin Ashe, who trains gravediggers

Necromancers who start with a shovel. A gravedigger works spirit, poison and rot, raises the dead to fight beside them and keeps the souls of the fallen to spend, which the Mage Spire forbids and most temples preach against.

LeadsINT BacksCHA Health1d6+6 Willpower8 CastsYes ArmorMedium

How it plays#

A gravedigger rarely fights alone. From level 0 they raise corpses and summon a zombie, and every ten levels the summons add a new servant, up to a flesh golem at level 100. Intelligence leads. Charisma backs it, because the dead have to be told what to do and the living have to be talked out of burning you.

Priest

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Priest#

The gods are missing. The sick aren't. Start with the sick.

Jonathan, who trains priests

Healers and keepers of the faith in an age when all three gods are missing. A priest heals, cures, raises the fallen and wards the party in gold light, and speaks the seams whole in the old words.

LeadsCHA BacksINT Health1d6+7 Willpower8 CastsYes ArmorLight

How it plays#

No class heals like a priest. Healing grows every twenty levels into a wave that heals the whole party, curing lifts curses, blindness, poison and disease, and from level 20 a priest can resurrect the dead, and later whole parties at once. Charisma leads. Intelligence backs it and keeps a heal working for rounds after it lands.

Monk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Monk#

The best fight is the one you walk away from. The second best is over before they've finished drawing.

Abbess Teodra Vay, who trains monks

Peaceful warriors who fight without weapons and would rather not fight at all. Monks don't see magic, but they move it by mantra and stance, and their stances carry the old names of the seams.

LeadsWIS BacksDEX Health1d6+10 Willpower3 CastsYes ArmorMedium

How it plays#

A monk fights with fists and feet, learning a new battle method every two levels, from punch and kick at level 0 to the rebound kick at 48. Methods come in five forms, and each stance holds the monk to one: tiger to the first, dragon to the fifth. Hawk at level 50 holds them to nothing, and so does combat expertise. Wisdom leads and dexterity backs it.

Hermit

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hermit#

I came up the mountain to get away from people. They keep following me up here with questions, so I started charging.

Ostin, who trains hermits

Seekers who leave everyone behind to find what holds magic together. A hermit sees every weave, speaks the seams whole like a priest, and answers every blow before it lands.

LeadsWIS BacksINT Health1d6+7 Willpower8 CastsYes ArmorLight

How it plays#

Hermits fight from balance: ten structures, one every five levels from 5 to 50, each a surer counterattack than the last, until a hermit answers every blow twice and every spell as well. Wisdom leads and intelligence backs it. The methods of balance are the spells that come out of it: bending distance, detouring, magnifying or negating energy, and at the top, ripping time and bonding energy.

Minstrel

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Minstrel#

A sword ends an argument. A song ends it before it starts, and you get paid either way.

Seline Aubret, who trains minstrels

Singers and blade dancers who work magic through celestial tunes, an art lost for ages and found again only in the Age of Man. A minstrel lifts the whole party with song and, later, dances through a fight with a blade in each hand.