The Salian Scion Class for ACKS

The next class to tackle in my conversion process to ACKS for my Averoigne campaign is my Holmesian Paladin. This class really came about as an opportunity to offer an HTH-only fighter type in the way the Holmesian Ranger is missile/thrown-only. I also took advantage of the DEX-based initiative system of Holmes by allowing the Holmesian Paladin to trade places with people on the initiative order.

Since initiative is dynamic in ACKS and a mere +1 to an individual’s initiative is considered a custom power, I am not going to try and go the initiative route. Rather, I am going to play up the original meaning of paladin which refers to a trusted military leader or imperial officer.

Since I have heavily used the history of the Merovingian Kings as a source of inspiration, I thought it apropos to allow the Salians to have a flavored version of the fighter type in the same way that I made my ACKS ranger Averni for flavor purposes. Thus, I will use the name Salian Scion to describe this conversion of the Holmesian Paladin:

The Salian Scion Class for ACKS

Prime Requisite: STR and CHA
Requirements: Must be Salian or have an approved backstory for a non-Salian
Hit Dice: 1d8
Maximum Level: 14
Although the Salians are recent interlopers in Averoigne, theirs is a Kingdom that has lasted nearly a thousand years. Thus, the noble families of the Salians are both well-established and steeped in tradition. There is also a need for those who are not first born to go out on their own and make a name for themselves, since they are not to inherent the family title or lands. Salian Scions represent these title-less noble born who seek to carve out lands of their own.

Salian Scions may wear any type of armor but their sense of honor and military tradition frowns upon any weapons other than swords, daggers, morning stars, maces, or lances. Likewise, they eschew one fighting style according to their Family Military Tradition (see below). When the player chooses a weapon, the primary way that weapon is used will determine the fighting style the character will not have available:

• If the weapon uses the two weapon fighting style than no two handed fighting style.
• If the weapon uses the two handed fighting style than no weapon and shield fighting style.
• If the weapon uses the weapon and shield fighting style than no two weapon fighting style.

In addition, Salian Scions have the following Custom Powers:

• Blood of Kings: Due to their noble lineage, Salian Scions are allowed to take one more henchmen than their CHA allows and all henchmen have their morale raised by 1.
• Family Military Tradition: Salian families are closely associated with certain weapons. For example, those who are descended from the Merovingians are known for their prowess with the Two-Handed Sword. A Salian Scion is trained starting at birth using this family weapon. Therefore, the player may select one weapon as a family weapon at character creation which cannot be changed later. The Salian Scion receives a +1 to attack rolls with this weapon. In addition, readying or sheathing this weapon counts as a free action.
• Inspire Courage: At 2nd level, Salian Scions have perfected the art of improving morale of troops. Prior to battle, the Salian Scion may spend one round encouraging those around the character (50’ r.) and these allies gain a +1 to attack throws, damage rolls, morale rolls and saving throws against fear. This bonus lasts 1 turn. This can be done to any given character once per day per class level. This does not work on characters already engaged in combat.
• Command of Voice: At 4th level, Salian Scions have earned enough of a reputation that their very words hold power. They receive a +2 bonus to reaction rolls to creatures spoken to. If the result is 12 or more, the subject acts as if charmed. Creatures with a higher WIS than the character’s CHA are immune.
• Heroic Resilience: At 9th level, the Salian Scion has established himself as a hero and a leader. As a result, when the character is required to consult the Mortal Wounds table, the player may roll twice and choose the preferred results. The character may also subtract class level from the number of days of bed rest required to recover. [This is the same as the Savage Resilience custom power.]

Salian Scions fight and save as fighters, have the same proficiencies as fighters and use the Castle rules to build a Stronghold at 9th level.

XP progression looks like this:

• Level 2: 2,600
• Level 3: 5,200
• Level 4: 10,400
• Level 5: 20,800
• Level 6: 41,600
• Level 7: 83,200
• Level 8: 164,400
• Level 9: 328,800
• Level 10: 448,800
• Level 11: 568,800
• Level 12: 688,800
• Level 13: 808,800
• Level 14: 928,800

Homles & Cook: The Paladin

Earlier this week, Stuart of Strange Magic posted a very nice version of the paladin/anti-paladin for Basic D&D. Stuart does an excellent job of delineating several of the historical problems with the class and then elegantly deals with each of them. There is one problem, however, that Stuart does not address — my main beef with the class. The holy warrior already exists. It is called the Cleric (though I really do like Stuart’s version of the anti-paladin as a stand-in for a non-druidic anti-cleric).

Still, I find Stuart’s version of the paladin really inspiring. Surprisingly, the factor that was most intriguing to me was the limitation No Ranged Weapons. I say this because this limitation is a natural companion to the limitation I placed on my Holmesian version of the Ranger, which is limited to only ranged or thrown weapons.

Thus, I’ve been fiddling with an idea for a Holmesian version of the paladin. Since I am not much interested in doing the whole holy warrior thing, I am going to fall back on the word paladin itself, which means trusted military leader from the Late Latin for courtier or imperial official. Thus, a paladin is a fighter who foregoes training with/use of ranged and thrown weapons (because they are too lowly and/or they interfere with the ability to see the whole battlefield) in order to specialize in leadership skills — Leadership, Tactics and Defender:

• Leadership. Paladins have a floating +1 bonus that may be given once per combat round to one other PC as a bonus to hit, to damage, to AC or to a saving throw. The only time the paladin can use this floating bonus on themselves is in conjunction with the Defender skill (see below). If the paladin has a Charisma of 13+ the floating bonus is +2. This then may be split between two PCs if desired.
• Tactician. Once per combat round, a paladin can interrupt the normal initiative order. Before an action is taken by another PC or opponent, the paladin may switch places with them in the initiative order.
• Defender. By forgoing an attack during a combat round, the paladin may force an opponent to attack the paladin rather than another PC. While doing this, the paladin gains +2 AC and may use the floating bonus (if it hasn’t already been used that round) to add to this AC bonus.

Note that the Tactician skill assumes the initiative rules found in Holmes, which has a static initiative order based on Dex. Note also that there is no longer an alignment restriction (although these skills do make much more sense within the context of a Lawful alignment).

Saintly Saturday: St. Ignatius the God-Bearer

Today is a secondary feast for St. Ignatius the God-Bearer, and, frankly, one of my heroes. He was the third bishop of Antioch (after Peter and Euodios) and was a disciple of both the Apostles Peter and John. At the beginning of the 2nd century, he was arrested by Roman authorities and transported all the way to Rome to be literally thrown to the lions in the arena.

The Romans figured that by making an example of St. Ignatius, they could discourage the spread of Christianity. Boy, howdy did that backfire. Instead, he got the chance to meet with, encourage and write letters to Christians all over the world. He lived his faith, which stated that if Christ came in the flesh to destroy death by death, if death has no sting, why should we be afraid to be torn apart by wild beasts? This was a guy who could not be cowed.

I say that this is a secondary feast, because today is the celebration of St. Ignatius' relics being returned to Antioch from Rome. Since death is understood to be the unnatural separation of the soul from the body, and the body is an integral part of the whole person, the various remains of a person are still that person. The saints are personally present with us through their relics. As such, ancient Christians would gather at the places where the martyrs were buried in order to pray and do various services.

When it became safe and legal for Christians to build churches, they gravitated towards those places where they naturally gathered — the tombs of the saints. This has resulted in two, now familiar, phenomena. Early churches were named for the saint whose relics they gathered around — which is why churches today are named after saints. The other is the close association of churches and graveyards, where it is not uncommon to see both on the same grounds.

Thus, in the Orthodox tradition, there are feasts which celebrate the removal, recovery and transfer of relics, because these are major events in the relationship we have with the saints.

For those of us who have ever struggled with the Paladin/Cavalier ethos of never retreat, St. Ignatius gives us a backbone for this ethos which justifies the behavior. Being afraid to die (which is at the emotional core of retreat!) is tantamount to a rejection of Christ and willingly excommunicating oneself from the Church. Thus, the next time your paladin is tempted to run away, imagine if he/she is willing to reject God in favor of living merely as a godless fighter.

The tradition of having relics closely associated with church buildings is something that I have used in my own campaign and is an interesting way to add flavor. Not only does it provide a layer of back story to the location, it also provides for an unusual NPC. Given that relics are the personal presence of a saint, those places that have them are places where saints can be personally encountered. They can provide for an interesting source of information and motivation — especially for those of us who like clerics.

However, having read enough hagiographies to know that demons will often appear in the guise of the holy, such encounters could require a good amount of discernment, depending on how much a Referee wants to mess with their players . . .

Meditating on Sub-Classes

On Tuesday, I mentioned that Hamlen's player surprised me by making an oath and playing through the struggles of keeping it — and keep it he did. In some of our post-session banter, we began to discuss paladins. Hamlen behaved very much like a paladin without actually being one. In contrast, every one of us has seen people play paladins in very un-paladin ways.

Given James's recent question about the number of classes we use in our games, his treatment of Druids and my recent perusing of Adventures Dark & Deep has got me thinking about sub-classes.

To my mind, Hamlin's paladinesque behavior proves my own axiom that What makes a Fighting Man a Barbarian, a Knight, or a Gladiator is the way it is played, not the mechanics behind it. However, in playing the game in a world where 3.5 exists with a bunch of guys who cut their teeth on 3.5, my players chomp at the bit over having only the three core classes. For myself, I have been gravitating more and more to that personal proto-version of the game I used to play that exists somewhere between Holmes, Moldvay and AD&D. This version includes some great experiences playing paladins and illusionists.

Ironically, I've been turning to 3.5 in my attempts to reconcile these two divergent impulses in the form of the prestige classes. Like most things about 3.5, I have a love/hate response to this mechanic. I love the idea of being able to grow a character into something that isn't available at character creation and that isn't hardwired into the core classes. I despise the way 3.5 handles this, however. In making skills and feats the primary way to qualify for prestige classes, it actually shackles players instead of freeing them with more options for their characters. It forces players to ignore the natural progression of their characters as they interact with the world in which they exist in favor of an arbitrary sequence of necessary mechanics. In other words, 3.5 punishes creativity and rewards homogenization (despite the appearance of the opposite).

The basic idea, though, has a lot of merit. In thinking about this, I have been playing with the idea of making sub-classes actual sub-classes. Rather than making them available at character creation as wholly formed classes, have them be a sub-set of class abilities available to players when their characters fulfill a set of requirements during play. These requirements need not be set in stone, but could be adjusted to fit the needs of each individual Referee and their world. Upon fulfilling the necessary requirements in game, the player would then be allowed to put XP towards obtaining this sub-set of character abilities.

For example, Hamlen took an oath, accepted a holy quest and managed to fulfill both. As such, when I award XP for the session, I can inform Hamlen's player that he would be allowed to set aside some of his XP for the purpose of advancing in the paladin sub-class set of abilities. Each ability could require the following (total) amount of experience (based on the difference between Fighter and Paladin XP requirements in AEC):

1st 350XP
2nd 700
3rd 1400
4th 2900
5th 4000
6th 10,000
7th 25,000
8th 50,000
9th 100,000, etc.

The following abilities are available:

• Lay on Hands: heal 2hp per character level
• Cure Disease: once per day for every 5 character levels
• Immunity to disease
• Detect Evil: 60' as per the spell when concentrating
• Protection from Evil: as per the spell, radiating 10' r. at all times
• +2 to all saving throws.

Once two abilities have been gained, the following becomes available:

• Turn Undead as a cleric 2 level lower than the current character level.

Once three abilities have been gained, the following becomes available:

• Summon a special warhorse (AC 5, HD 5+5, MV 180).

Once eight abilities have been gained the following becomes available:

• Gain the ability to cast Cleric spells.

Note: character level indicates the class level, and is not tied to the number of sub-class abilities.

I could see Bards, Berserkers, Illusionists, Rangers, Seers, etc. and even Thieves getting this kind of treatment. What I really like about this is its flexibility. One need not necessarily be a Fighter to qualify for obtaining Paladin sub-class abilities. I could very easily see a Cleric spend the XP to get some of these. It also empowers the Referee to control how much these sub-class abilities get used by determining whether or not XP rewards can be used based on play. Finally (and in a way, most importantly) it encourages and rewards player interaction with the world that the Referee brings to the table.