Monday, June 15, 2020

GLOG Class: Scavver

This is a class based around the idea of someone who is trying to maximize their wealth-to-danger ratio. The type of scoundrel out to make as much money as possible while being in as little danger as possible. It's a real rat bastard of a class; the kind of class that joins a war to loot bodies.

It draws inspiration mainly from Nobby Nobbs, but also from some of the soldiers in Monstrous RegimentArnold K's Kludger class, some Apocalypse World playbooks, orks from 40k in general, and that murder-hobo joke class I wrote for 5e a couple years ago.

GLOG Class: the Scavver (aka the Gutter Rat, the Bastard, the Second Mouse)

A: Practical Looting, Nicked It
B: Iron Rations, This Is A Knife
C: Nobody's Nobody, Survive Famous Massacres By Not Being There
D: Extremely Practical, Human Canary

Starting skills [d3]: 1 = Street Urchin, 2 = Deserter, 3 = Petty Thief

Starting equipment: roll four times on the most appropriate random NPC table. From the first NPC, take whatever they would feasibly be wearing as your clothes and armor. From the second, take whatever tools and weapons they'd have on-hand as your gear and weapons. From the third, take whatever valuables they might have on them as yours. From the fourth, take any form of identification they might have on them; if they have none, you at least know their name and hometown.

You always start with 1d4 hand-rolled cigarette butts, a rusty knife, 1d6 verdigris-y copper pieces, and someone else's half-eaten breakfast. You are missing 1d4-1 fingers, 1d6 teeth, and have 1d10 tattoos of varying size and quality. You can produce more of the above at any given time, except when doing so would be helpful or necessary.

(A) Practical Looting
When you loot a humanoid body (a relatively generic body, that is, not an assassinated noble or ancient deadking's tomb), roll twice and take both results. If somebody else has already searched the body, roll once anyway.

If you would receive money, gems, or other "direct" valuables like jewelry, the valuables take the form of something of equal value that you can immediately wear on your own person. Examples include:
  • Clothing and footwear of all varieties
  • Any weapons that can be stuffed into a bootleg or clipped onto a belt
  • Earrings, studs, and other piercings
  • Boot-laces, coat buttons, cuff links, and such accouterments
  • Gold teeth, glass eyes, wigs, and sundry prosthetics
  • Gator fangs, rabbit's feet, and other lucky or badass bits you can string onto a necklace
You have an extra 3 bonus inventory slots, which can only be filled by the above type of items.

(A) Nicked It
When a small item is left in the open and unattended, even for a moment, you have a 3-in-6 chance to steal it without being (immediately) noticed. If searched, you have a 1-in-6 chance to successfully conceal it about your person. If you elect to not nick an item in the moment, you later have a 1-in-6 chance to retroactively declare that no, actually, you did nick it, even if it looked like you didn't.

All three of these of these increase by 1-in-6 per Scavver template you have.

If you nick something belonging to a party member, they or any other party member can make a Strength or Charisma check to bully you into giving it up.

(B) Iron Rations
You have a 2-in-6 chance to find and prepare those most desperate of meals: rats, pigeons, roaches, acorn bread, dungeon fungi, cave-damp, and ditch-water. This increases by 1-in-6 per Scavver template you have.

You have no gag reflex, and can temporarily suppress your senses of taste and smell.

You have advantage on saves against eating bad food: indigestion, food poisoning (but not poisoned food), food- and water-borne disease, the runs, that kind of thing.

(B) This Is A Knife
Whenever you want, you can cause a weapon you're wielding to deal an additional 1d4 damage, immediately after which the weapon is lost or destroyed. It might split in half, lodge in the enemy's flesh, fall off a cliff, splinter into pieces, bend irrevocably, or clatter into the darkness—whatever it is, that weapon can't be used again.

Depending on how your GM's feeling, you might be able to get away with using this to deal 1d4 damage with a non-weapon item by destroying it in the process, like a broken bottle or table leg.

(C) Nobody's Nobody
Whenever in the presence of a faction or organization that you're at all familiar with—such as a military force, religious cult, political party, social club, or noble house—you can pass yourself off as a lowest-level member of that organization. You can present, fake, or excuse the proper documentation, pass-phrases, uniforms, and other necessary info and gear to do so, enough to pass basic inspection. Any greater level of scrutiny will almost certainly detect you, but ordinary observers won't.

If an authority figure ever examines the party to determine who is most important (to hit with an horrible spell, say, or to assign blame), it's never you.

(C) Survive Famous Massacres By Not Being There
When initiative is rolled, you always go first, but only if you use your first turn's movement and action to run, hide, avoid danger, cower, or otherwise do anything to get yourself out of harm's way. After the first round, you're free to do whatever you like.

(D) Extremely Practical
When you loot a body using Practical Looting, roll three times and take your two favorites (or twice and pick one, if it's already been looted). Furthermore, you can now loot non-humanoid bodies; you're just really good at finding the bits and bobs that you can somehow wear on your own body, even if they weren't originally intended to be worn in such a way.

You now have 5 bonus inventory slots for such items, instead of 3.

(D) Human Canary
When you save vs. physical danger (so spinning saw blades and petrification count, but charm and fear don't), you gain a bonus to your save equal to the number of your comrades that are physically between you and the source of the danger.

If you are forcibly volunteered (since you would never volunteer yourself) to be the first one to go into danger, you gain a bonus to your save equal to the number of your comrades that didn't go first. Those bastards.

--

As usual, this class hasn't been playtested. If you do get a chance to try it out, let me know!

1 comment: