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Adventuring Classes: A Fistful of Denarii (PFRPG) PDF

4.30/5 (based on 6 ratings)
Adventuring Classes: A Fistful of Denarii (PFRPG) PDF

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Tripod Machine presents an exciting bundle of new character classes for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Play a tough corsair, a powerful gladiator, or an inquisitive scholar. Eleven new classes bring classic archetypes to life.

Also available by print-on-demand from CreateSpace!

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4.30/5 (based on 6 ratings)

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5/5 —

Other reviews have detailed this very well so I'll keep this short.

This is a simple pdf with almost a dozen new classes. They're mostly mixtures of other classes making them somewhere between alternative classes and hybrid classes from the Advanced Class guide. Your milage may vary as they aren't terribly robust classes that do anything new but since none of them are spellcasters they can make nice additions to your player's options. For the most part I feel like I could recreate the general theme or mechanics with existing options; Well except for the Scholar class.

The Scholar introduces nothing truly new but it has a lot of ways it can go and works out as a jack of all trades non-caster that really works. It even has the option of getting a few spells making for the dabbler that some bards try to be but their focus on spells and performances prevent them from truly achieving. Really the pdf could have been worth the price if it were just about the scholar and some cool feats.

Oh yeah the feats. The feats range from standard support for the classes in the book to gamechanging support for non-casters. Rogue and Dex melee strikers get two feats that bring them up a notch while not being truly unbalanced. Seriously some of the feats have become staples in my games.

I was going to give this four stars because most of the classes are things I wouldn't take but the scholar class and a good chunk of the feats are good enough for the price which overcompensates for the price leaving me to put it up to five stars.

Best product out there for the money. Period.

5/5 —

This is a work of genius. 11 base classes for less than 5 dollars... all of which are exquisitely balanced, cleverly designed, and able to fill valuable roles in any campaign, PLUS several awesome feats like Martial Strike and Improved Sniping AND some brand-new weapons that'll shake up any campaign. Why this isn't one of the highest selling items on the site is beyond me. I've bought the thing 8 times in all, counting the POD copies at Lulu.com I've got for everyone at my game table. I cannot recommend this product highly enough... brilliance like this needs to be encouraged. Buy it now!

New martial base-classes for PFRPG

4/5 —

This pdf consists of 52 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page ToC, 1 page SRD and 1 page back cover. This leaves 47 pages of material.

The pdf kicks off with one page of Introduction and a how-to of using the rules.

The pdf introduces 11 new non-spellcasting base classes for PFRPG. The classes are presented with their respective tables on a separate page, bear that in mind with regards to the page numbers.
Without further ado, here are the classes:

-Beastmaster (d12, 4+INT-mod skills, good-BAB, good fort and ref saves): A light-armored barbarian-like class without rage but with animal companions and DR. Basically lets you play the savage warrior that e.g. was raised by animals. (4 pages)

-Bounty Hunter (d10, 6+INT-mod skills, good BAB, good fort and ref saves): Basically a ranger/rogueish tracker of convicts, can capture people alive, has sneak attack etc. However, one of the signature abilities, Dangerous Game, is the 10th level ability. I would have liked to see that ability earlier. (3 pages)

-Corbie (d10, 4+INT-mod skills, good BAB, good fort save): Professional, grim soldiers, survivor-mercenaries, they are get some dirty tricks (rogue fighting tricks) and some luck-based survivor-abilities. I love this class – it made me want to play it or design NPCs with the base class. (3 pages)

-Corsair (d10, 4+INT-mod skills, good BAB, good fort save): a rather unusual take on the pirate base-class, this one does not go the swashbuckling route, but rather for the brute force approach. I wouldn’t play one, but I’d use the class to design NPCs. (3 pages)

-Gladiator (d12, 2+INT-mod skills, good BAB, good fort save): This class is a rather mobile fighter with gladiatorial fighting styles à la ranger as well as some “Shrug-it-off” abilities. The class also features some information on Gladiator types and matches. Nice bonus information. I wouldn’t play it, though: 2 skills per level are not enough. (4 pages)

-Hunter (d10, 4+INT-mod skills, good BAB, good fort and ref saves): Basically the Sniperclass of the bunch – Ranger-abilities à la favored enemy, sneak attack, tracking, terrain, etc. Basically what all the elven snipers always do in literature. I like the class and I’d use it for NPCs.

-Knight (d10, 4+INT-mod skills, good BAB, good fort save): Actually a nice take on the mounted warrior, gaining some nice psychological powers and having a big selection of tricks, among others a DR against dishonorable attacks. Cool class if you want to drive the concept of the knight home. I can see myself using this class.

-Martial Artist (d10, 2+INT-mod skills, good BAB, good fort and ref saves): The Martial Artist is a mobile, but fragile heavy hitter with some monk-like ki-abilities and a ki-pool. While it’s an ok class, it didn’t excite me.

-Scholar (d8, 6+INT-mod skills, medium BAB, good ref and will saves): Easily the most versatile class in the bunch, I doubt that you’ll see two scholars that are exactly alike soon after you’ve implemented them into your campaign. You can basically pick bits and pieces of other classes like sneak attack, minor magic, proficiencies etc. and stitch them together. I really like this jack-of-all-trades class. Don’t expect a hyper-intelligent book-worm-skill-monkey, though. (5 pages)

-Scout (d8, 8+INT-mod skills, medium BAB, good ref save): The one scout behind enemy-lines character class, this one is different from the hunter in its more hit-and-run/scout approach and made me think of Rambo – probably because of the overpowered targeted strike-ability that gives you +1d6 bonus damage per 2 levels of the class whenever the scout uses the attack action. (4 pages)

-Spy (d8, 8+INT-mod skills, medium BAB, good ref and will saves): Another very versatile class, this is what you’d expect of a spy in a fantasy setting – rogue talents, nondetection, several tricks of the trade to choose from. Nice class to play. I’d also use it to design NPCs in an intrigue-heavy campaign. (4 pages)

After that, we get 34 new feats (4 pages), most of which are nothing to write home about. One kind, though, really got my attention: Minor/Major medical miracle lets you save a comrade that has just been dropped to below -10 HP with the heal-skill, which is awesome for people like me who disallow raise/resurrection spells in their home game without an epic quest to resurrect the fallen character.

Finally, we get 2 pages containing 3 new armors and 6 new weapons as well as a table of starting wealth by class. The warbow seems to be overpowered and too strong for my tastes, dealing a whopping 2d6 damage and using composite bow-rules.

The editing is ok, I didn’t notice glaring typos or the like, formatting could be more efficient, though – while one page for the character’s table makes it easy to read, it also means a lot of blank space, which is not perfectly economical and leads to a lot of blank space. We also have a lot of white space on the first and final page. The b/w artwork ranges from ok to fair and quite, frankly, I didn’t expect one picture per class for the price.

Conclusion:
You get A LOT of new material for the price of not even a bus fare. Unfortunately, not all of the classes are equally appealing – some of them just scream “cool concept, I’d go for that” like the Corbie, while others like e.g. Gladiator and Corsair left me rather unimpressed. If you are a DM and are just plain sick of building standard fighters, this file is perfect for you. If you want more versatility for your non-casting NPCs, this is a great resource for a bang-to-buck-ratio that is almost impossible to beat. If you are a player and contemplate a “different” fighter, go check it out. However, there were some rules that seemed a bit powerful and most of the feats didn’t grip me at all. The weapons seemed to be a bit more powerful than what I like to see in my campaigns.

My final verdict is 4 stars. I’m looking forward to seeing the next book by Tripod Machine.

Some non spell casting classes.

4/5 —

My review won't fit so I am posting it below as a forum post.

—

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joela wrote:
RJGrady wrote:

The races book is skeletally complete, and I'll be finalizing the final list of races after the holidays (still tinkering with some concepts). It will still take time to finish the fluff-writing, do internal playtesting, and line up artwork. But if I can catch some breaks, fairly early in the year is definitely a possibility.

I wasn't originally planning on doing A Few Denarii More right away, but some ideas have been tickling me lately, and especially having seen what Paizo did with the APG (and relevantly, what they didn't do), I can see the Courtier and some other concepts moving to the forefront as interesting PC possibilities that haven't, and likely won't, be covered by Paizo. I expect this will follow the races book closely, whenever that happens.

So, what's the latest news?

Yes, update please! I'd love to see what you've got coming next. I'd also like to see APG-style archetypes applied to some of the FFoD classes.

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
joela wrote:
RJGrady wrote:

The races book is skeletally complete, and I'll be finalizing the final list of races after the holidays (still tinkering with some concepts). It will still take time to finish the fluff-writing, do internal playtesting, and line up artwork. But if I can catch some breaks, fairly early in the year is definitely a possibility.

I wasn't originally planning on doing A Few Denarii More right away, but some ideas have been tickling me lately, and especially having seen what Paizo did with the APG (and relevantly, what they didn't do), I can see the Courtier and some other concepts moving to the forefront as interesting PC possibilities that haven't, and likely won't, be covered by Paizo. I expect this will follow the races book closely, whenever that happens.

So, what's the latest news?

The races book is in rough form and will go into playtesting soon.

Were the errors concerning the missing skills ever fixed?
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
wraithstrike wrote:
Were the errors concerning the missing skills ever fixed?

I believe so. Let me know if you see that or any other problems with the current version.

Dark Archive
RJGrady wrote:
joela wrote:
RJGrady wrote:

The races book is skeletally complete, and I'll be finalizing the final list of races after the holidays (still tinkering with some concepts). It will still take time to finish the fluff-writing, do internal playtesting, and line up artwork. But if I can catch some breaks, fairly early in the year is definitely a possibility.

I wasn't originally planning on doing A Few Denarii More right away, but some ideas have been tickling me lately, and especially having seen what Paizo did with the APG (and relevantly, what they didn't do), I can see the Courtier and some other concepts moving to the forefront as interesting PC possibilities that haven't, and likely won't, be covered by Paizo. I expect this will follow the races book closely, whenever that happens.

So, what's the latest news?
The races book is in rough form and will go into playtesting soon.

Coolio. Available by year's end / beginning of 2012?

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I don't want to overpromise. First I need to graduate with my Master's this summer, and then I have a new (non-Pathfinder) product I need to start launching. But sooner rather than later, I will say that.
Dark Archive
RJGrady wrote:
I don't want to overpromise. First I need to graduate with my Master's this summer, and then I have a new (non-Pathfinder) product I need to start launching. But sooner rather than later, I will say that.

Understood. "See" your latest Pathfinder-compatible stuff in 2012+!

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
joela wrote:
RJGrady wrote:
I don't want to overpromise. First I need to graduate with my Master's this summer, and then I have a new (non-Pathfinder) product I need to start launching. But sooner rather than later, I will say that.
Understood. "See" your latest Pathfinder-compatible stuff in 2012+!

I really hope it won't be that long. But it's going to take more than a couple of long weekends to finish up Adventuring Races and For a Few Denarii More.

RJGrady wrote:
wraithstrike wrote:
Were the errors concerning the missing skills ever fixed?
I believe so. Let me know if you see that or any other problems with the current version.

I purchased the book and skimmed through it. I will read through it in a few days. If anything pops up I will let you know.

Grand Lodge

I bought the PDF on a whim the other day. I just got around to skimming through it.

I don't remember the last time I felt as good about a book. I'm thinking a POD purchase is up next, so I can show the classes to my players.

Roaming thru the Paizo boards late at night can be dangerous. I saw this thread and just loved the classic Western reference and had to look. And then I'll be danged - you handed me a bunch of non-casters at a time I was considering paring back on caster options for a campaign setting I'm designing? There's a plus-mark. Then you used "Corbie" as a class name? Another plus. And you made a Corsair when my son is trying to figure out how to handle a non-swashbuckling build? When I read him the list of classes, he *immediately* handed over the purchase price. I guess I have to buy it now...

So what's your Master's in? I'm looking at going back to college to finish up my Bachelor's at freekin 41 years old, so good on ya and good luck!
Grand Lodge

I have to say the classes might seem a little on the powerful side. This works fine for me. I've never balked at Full BAB and full SA before.

However, I disagree with the statements about the Scout. If you thought the 3.5 Warlock was too much, you'll feel the same about this Scout. However, the Warlock could get his Eldritch Blast from outside 30ft, and attacked the touch AC. This Scout has to be within charge distance and hits regular AC. I would give more credence to the Bounty Hunter and Corsair's Full BAB/SA being unbalanced than I would the Scouts 3/4 BAB and 10d6 per round being so.

Heh - I should do fine then. A couple of my favorite 3.5 characters were a Catfolk Scout and a human gestalt Scout/Warlock.

Paid for and downloaded. Now off to the printer!
Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Can you use the Signature Weapon feat with your unarmed strike?
Dark Archive
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Having read my old review and it was one of the first I did. i would if I reviewed it today revise it. I think today I would give it a 4 instead of a 3.5 review.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Doc_Outlands wrote:


So what's your Master's in? I'm looking at going back to college to finish up my Bachelor's at freekin 41 years old, so good on ya and good luck!

Counseling, actually. And good luck to you. You have a few years on me, but not so many... it's never too late to level up. :)

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
TriOmegaZero wrote:

I have to say the classes might seem a little on the powerful side. This works fine for me. I've never balked at Full BAB and full SA before.

Going back to my experiences from D&D 3.0 days, one of the things I realized is that if you make a class too weak, you might as well not make it at all. No one's going to play it. So this kind of work is hard to write, because you have to play close to the edge. The hardest work is balancing the first two levels of a class, because you always have to look at what dipping into the class will net. If fighters start dipping in for extra feats on their way to some prestige class, things have gone awry...

So strong, yes. Hopefully every class in the book is Pathfinder strong.

Quote:


However, I disagree with the statements about the Scout. If you thought the 3.5 Warlock was too much, you'll feel the same about this Scout. However, the Warlock could get his Eldritch Blast from outside 30ft, and attacked the touch AC. This Scout has to be within charge distance and hits regular AC. I would give more credence to the Bounty Hunter and Corsair's Full BAB/SA being unbalanced than I would the Scouts 3/4 BAB and 10d6 per round being so.

The Scout was basically built inside a space I visualized between the Warlock, the Scout, and the Rogue. Numerically, they should be completely on-level with other damage-dealers, and as noted, they have 3/4 BAB. The challenge I saw was not to make the class's main strategies too convenient, so that they would overshadow other choices by being too easy.

Y'know... I really wish I could give some good commentary on this book, but I can't. Well, not yet, at least. You see, my son is monopolizing the print-out! (Yeah, I could read it on the computer, but I like to HOLD it as I read.)

He likes it a lot.

I *did* manage to wrest the material away from him long enough to discover I *LOVE* the Scholar class. I'd buy the book just for that one class! In fact, three of us were discussing the Scholar this morning and came to the conclusion that we might could play an all-Scholar party without too much trouble.
Dark Archive
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Doc_Outlands wrote:

Y'know... I really wish I could give some good commentary on this book, but I can't. Well, not yet, at least. You see, my son is monopolizing the print-out! (Yeah, I could read it on the computer, but I like to HOLD it as I read.)

He likes it a lot.

I *did* manage to wrest the material away from him long enough to discover I *LOVE* the Scholar class. I'd buy the book just for that one class! In fact, three of us were discussing the Scholar this morning and came to the conclusion that we might could play an all-Scholar party without too much trouble.

all-scholar party

Y'know- I saw where the link pointed and I just KNEW what was on the other end! :thumbsup:
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Alzrius wrote:
Can you use the Signature Weapon feat with your unarmed strike?

It's not really a weapon you own, so without a stretch, no. Arguably, a monk could benefit from it, if you view the competence bonus as an "effect" generated by the feat.

Dark Archive

RJGrady, I didn't know you wrote Unorthodox Barbarians.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
joela wrote:
RJGrady, I didn't know you wrote Unorthodox Barbarians.

That's me.

So, I'm reworking some of the concepts for Adventuring Races, so it's going on hold for a little bit. For a Few Denarii More is being moved up instead.

Note, the Hunter and Scholar classes are missing an Alignment line. I'm guessing it would be

Alignment: Any

for both

Also, the scout is missing the Alignment line as well.

The Beastmaster class lists Wild Empathy in its list of class abilities in the Table, but not in the list of abilities followed by text. Should the Beastmaster get Wild Empathy?

Woodland Stride is also listed on the class table, but not in the list of abilities with descriptions. Does the Beastmaster get Woodland Stride?

Scent is also listed on the class table, but not in the list of abilities with descriptions. Does the Beastmaster get Scent?
Caedwyr wrote:

The Beastmaster class lists Wild Empathy in its list of class abilities in the Table, but not in the list of abilities followed by text. Should the Beastmaster get Wild Empathy?

Woodland Stride is also listed on the class table, but not in the list of abilities with descriptions. Does the Beastmaster get Woodland Stride?

Scent is also listed on the class table, but not in the list of abilities with descriptions. Does the Beastmaster get Scent?

*poke*

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Beastmasters do get wild empathy, woodland stride, and scent. They work in the normal way, and were left out of the text by accident. Cut and pasting OGC text is usually the last thing I do when I compose the classes.

That and a few other minor tweaks are slated for what I hope will be the final errata for the document. Unfortunately, I lost some important master files (the ones including the most recent updates) in a computer crash a few months ago. Rather than risking re-introducing old errata, I am going to rebuild the pages as soon as I get a chance.

I am curious. How do you guys feel about stuff like the boar spear which appears in AFoD, but which was later described in a different way in the APG?

Thanks for the response. If I run into any other similar situations I'll know which way to go in the future.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Caedwyr wrote:

Thanks for the response. If I run into any other similar situations I'll know which way to go in the future.

And let me know!

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Putting out some feelers on For a Few Denarii More:

Link to discussion

Another possible errata issue.

The Gladiator lists Damage Reduction in the class table, but does not list Damage reduction in the list of class features. Should it have this ability, and if so, what is the accompanying text?
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

They have it, and it is identical to the Barbarian ability. This is one of a few cases where the chart is correct, but I neglected to reproduce the text for an existing OGL ability. Sorry about that.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

FYI, I have set aside some time to finally correct the file for errata. Be patient!
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Okay, there's a new file up. Enjoy!

As for me, I like your boar spear version, as well as the other weapons.
For some reason, Paizo doesn't seem to like making weapons more powerful than 2d6 in strength. However, as one who owns both a bastard sword *AND* Flamberge, I can tell you that a Flamberge would do significantly more damage than a d10. . . .

Anyway, great weapons, great feats ( ESPECIALLY the Signature Weapon! ), great classes. . . .hope to see Adventuring Classes soon!!

Thanks..I will download the new version. I also need to review since I have had it for over 2 years..

"Adventuring Classes" should read "Adventuring Races" in the last sentence. . nuts!
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Adventuring Races got derailed by the Advanced Race Guide coming out right when I was hashing out come concepts. Now that things have settled, I might take another stab at it.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

We are back in print:

A Fistful of Denarii on CreateSpace
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Any comments on the revisions? Most were minor, but I made a few updates that seemed appropriate. Primarily, I looked at front-loading issues, and also some cases where I was, it turns out, fairly conservative with balance compared to what has since been published.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Do you think the Bounty Hunter, Corsair, and Hunter still hold up now that we have the Slayer?
1 person marked this as a favorite.

I went ahead and reviewed up.

If I can make a suggestion; Can we have a follow up pdf about the Scholar? To me its the most interesting class and could be more interesting. the rest, I feel, are co-opted by the Hybrid classes and archetypes.
1 person marked this as a favorite.
RJGrady wrote:
Do you think the Bounty Hunter, Corsair, and Hunter still hold up now that we have the Slayer?

They hold up. The Hunter from ACG is significantly different from the Hunter in AFoD, Magically emulating animals and having an animal cohort as part.of the class. The Hunter's (AFoD) main competition is the Spell-less Ranger from Kobold press.

Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I'm experimenting with a grit-based bounty hunter.
Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber

By the way -- the Corbie class seems to have a major disconnect between the class table and the corresponding text in terms of at exactly what levels you get various class features.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Can you give me an example?
Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber

Sure.

The text says that this class gets a bonus feat at 2nd level and every 4 levels thereafter. The table shows the class as getting a bonus feat at every even level.

There used to be a discrepancy in regard to when Uncanny Dodge is granted, but you seem to have corrected that one in the latest version. That correction appears to be where the bonus feat contradiction was introduced.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Huh, what do you know? Apparently it's been that way all along. The chart, as it happens, is correct.
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