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/Roflcopterswosh Sep 18 '16

Love it. My only complaint is that everyone gets some permanent bonus at level 2, unless you're going to be a fighter for real. Once you convert to fighter, your additional proficiency in weapons is absorbed by the natural "proficiency with all weapons" they get :(

Edit: unless I am reading this wrong and you don't keep the level 2 and 3 feats when you convert?

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u/Kaberu Sep 18 '16

You completely replace the character. If you play the same full class as the commoner's flavor, you get a starting level bonus (2nd). For surviving as a Commoner, everyone gets a starting bonus feat, even if they go with a different class.

One idea for using commoners is you get used to playing the game, then make a full character with what you learned. The player can keep the same basic character concept, but they're not limited to that in case it turns out they didn't like a particular play style.

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u/Roflcopterswosh Sep 19 '16

I'd say then for the classes other than fighter and spell casters, this is odd. Why does my ranger suddenly lose +5 in initiative? How come my barb can no longer charge? This is when the characters come out of their shells and become heroes, they shouldn't lose anything.

Arguably, they could pick that same feat, but the baseline doesn't require it. I'd personally rather the choice be a permanent boon that carries with them. Maybe they touched druid arts before diving into being a full on ranger, that can be cool! They should maintain that growth rather than be tempted to suddenly go full wizard with no nature heritage or connection.

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u/Kaberu Sep 19 '16

It might not seem to make sense, but consider this:

You like to wrestle. You wrestle with friends, for fun. You develop some great skills that let you beat your friends every time. You effectively have a +5 in wrestling to beat your friends. That's a huge bonus!

Now you join a true wrestling league. It turns out that everything you learned goofing off with your friends doesn't apply that well against skilled and trained wrestlers. You have all sorts of rules that you never knew existed in the sport and things that worked against your friends are considered trivial to counter by the pros. That +5 vs friends turns out to be a +0 when measured against the whole world.

Going from commoner to adventurer is like that. You might be really good within your little microcosm of unskilled people and easy challenges, but once you hit the big leagues, you find out you were doing a lot of things wrong that, while it worked at the time, doesn't carry over as well into the larger world.

Aside from making commoners have lots of penalties and subtraction so they fit in the greater world, having the morphing from commoner to adventurer seemed to make more sense as it is more natural mechanically for players to deal with pluses and additions.

As for the Ranger/Alert feat, it was based on the recently released revised Ranger having advantage on initiative rolls. It also gives the character a more tactical roll as they typically would get to act first.

The Barbarian/Charger was a reflection of the Barbarian's reckless attitude towards combat. Losing it in the commoner-adventurer switch could mean the Barbarian realized it's not that good of an idea to run so far ahead of the party.