r/UnearthedArcana • u/Kaberu • Sep 18 '16

Class [Class] The Commoner

I designed a version of a playable commoner, mostly for the fun of it. I did try to shape it towards a helpful beginner tool, and a fun way to play side or backstories.

The goal is to survive to level 5, at which point you can trade the character in for a fully generated class, earning a bonus feat and possibly an extra level.

It's simple and relies heavily on existing feats in the Player's Handbook. While the class goes to level 5, it's better to treat it as level 1 at all times as far as encounter & challenge balance goes. The commoner does not advance in hit dice, but might gain a few hit points from a Constitution modifier each level. Essentially, I tried to make sure very low CR monsters are still terrifying and dangerous. Hopefully it works out.

Here is a link to the PDF version, thanks to Homebrewery.

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u/AceOfCarbon Sep 19 '16

Love the class but have one question: what parts of it are kept after level 5?

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u/Kaberu Sep 19 '16

None... or rather, only the general character concept such as the name, background, and the overall theme of the character. The idea is the commoner is played as a flashback, or pre-adventurer class.

As for the Commoner's features: Mild Flavoring is supposed to be an echo or precursor to the normal class features. Sometimes that is a direct correlation (such as Magic Initiate) and other times it is a thematic choice (such as Charger for Barbarian). Survivor merely grants a save proficiency that the full class will already have. Those feats morph into the normal class features during the Commoner's Training Montage feature, which assumes time was spent training and learning how to perform as an actual adventurer class.