Character Classes and Subtypes in Labyrinth Lord

I recently had my players make back-up characters.  They had a few chuckles at that, and wondered aloud if I was planning on throwing more yellow molds at them, but I reassured them that I just wanted some new characters in case we want to do a parallel campaign or if somebody croaks naturally.

My players are awesome, especially in respect to creating interesting characters and backgrounds for me to pull storylines from, so I presented them with the following inexhaustive list of character subtypes.  The idea is for them to approach their character generation in reverse—rather than picking a class and then trying to trick out the character, come up with the character first and fit it into the class most appropriate.  We’re not talking about modifying the mechanics of the class, really, but more about not being influenced from the get-go by a preconceived notion of the class.  Though I encouraged them to come up with their own “subtype”, I offered them these as examples:

Fighter: Barbarian, Gladiator, Knight, Paladin, Ranger, Soldier, Swashbuckler.

Cleric: Priest, Witchhunter, Shaman, Druid, Witch, Warlock, Avatar.

Magic-User: Wizard, Sage, Sorcerer, Illusionist, Summoner, Alchemist, Soothsayer.

Thief: Bandit, Burglar, Scout, Ninja, Bounty Hunter, Treasure Hunter.

The subtype chosen mostly affects the way they would equip, clothe, and roleplay a character, but some subtypes would also involve modifying the class mechanics a bit.  I don’t do multi-classing, because I think it’s sort of unrealistic and clumsy.  I think each class requires one’s full attention.  Therefore, if you’re a fighter/thief, something is going to suffer; you don’t have time in life to dedicate yourself completely to thieving skills and lifestyle and extensive combat skills and training.  And I don’t really buy the “it just takes a bit longer to progress” mechanic.  If you want to be a fighter/thief in our campaign, you need to work out a mechanic and storyline in which you will have some skills of each class.  For example, the bounty hunter (or treasure hunter, for that matter) takes his base abilities from the thief class, but is a bit more rough and tumble by necessity.  Therefore, he loses Pick Pockets, Hear Noises, Climb Walls, and Hide in Shadows, but gains a fighter’s combat matrix and d6 for HD.  This way he has something of both classes, but not all.  (In our campaign there are also “fighting styles” that only pure Fighters can specialize in.)

So far, this house rule system is working pretty well, but I realize there are many ways to skin this cat.  We’ll keep fooling with it, I’m sure.  In the meantime, however, the players chose to make a Druid (mostly according the LL Advanced Edition) and a Ranger (lost fighting style specialty in return for some outdoorsy skills).

Character Backgrounds and Skill Bundles

The following are some of the backgrounds that can be chosen for a PC.  Basically, rather than note down slavishly every skill you have, you will be generally good at things that are associated with your background.  If you were an academic and you want to find a book in a strange library, you’ll be twice as likely to pull it off.  You needn’t note at the outset that “Find Books in Weird Libraries” is a skill you have, it is assumed.  In play, you merely state a case to the Labyrinth Lord as to why you should be able to do something, and he or she will make a ruling.  The skills should not translate to combat bonuses, but might be useful in combat for creative players. 

All backgrounds are assumed to be “light”—you were an apprentice to the trade, or spent a good deal of your childhood practicing—rather than a full-on professional.  Obviously, at some point in time you focused on the vocation of adventurer, and the specific character class to which you belong.  That’s why these are backgrounds and not foregrounds. J

Academic

Acrobat

Alchemist

Animal Trainer

Artist

Barber

Bard

Blacksmith

Brewer

Butcher

Construction

Cook

Engineer

Fisherman

Gardener/Farmer

Gemcutter

Hobo

Hunter

Jeweler

Lumberjack

Merchant

Miner

Sage

Sailor

Specific Lore (e.g. religious history)

Fiddling with Character Classes

For the Labyrinth Lord campaign I've been running I've presented the character classes as archetypes, the essential representation of a particular way of overcoming obstacles, achieving goals, etc.  This begs the question of whether there are other archetypes--one that's not easy to answer.  I see perfectly valid reasons for allowing the negotiation of lots of other classes, and for restricting characters to one of the basic ones.

I'll give an example.  One of my players wanted to play a character along the lines of Han Solo, so we started him as a thief.  We figured that Shawn Solo (yes, that's his name) was sort of a shady guy who outsmarted enemies more often than whacking them with something.  That went well for a while, and the player (being a newbie to RPGs) did an excellent job of roleplaying Shawn Solo.  In other words, rather than conforming his character to the stats and mechanics of the thief class, he played him the way he thought that character would act and behave.  This is where the thief class became a bit cumbersome.  We realized that Shawn Solo was no more likely to pick someone's pocket than the fighter, and that he would actually be conking somebody on the head almost as often, especially if that someone was a nasty creature. He just happened to want to use a combination of stealth, trickery, and combat.

So...I broke my own rule a bit and we made a Bounty Hunter class.  I don't feel that it fits the "archetype" explanation of what a character class should be, but I realize also that there's no reason why that has to be the only explanation.  The Bounty Hunter we created is basically the thief class (saving throws, hit dice and 4/7 of the skills; no heavy armor, etc.), except he uses the fighter attack matrix.  This seemed to fit with my player's understanding of his character, and was a fair trade-off, in my mind.

Now another dilemma has struck, though.  I just read and loved Trey's description of the exterminators on his excellent blog--loved it so much I cut and pasted that bad-boy and read it to one of my players (he works on the other side of the wall from me).  We both loved it and thought about how that would work as a PC.  The character would need some special skills, but could really be of any class.  The dilemma may not be completely apparent here, so let me explain.  I HATE SKILL SYSTEMS.  I've played a bunch of games with 'em, from Call of Cthulhu to TMNT, but I still hate 'em.  I hate picking them during  char gen; I hate watching players scour their character sheet for a skill instead of just describing how they're going to pull off an action, and I certainly hate updating skills as you level up.  I know this animosity is disproportionate, but hey, I never said I was normal.  So the fact that I'm getting close to coming up with another skill bundle makes me very unhappy.

Anyone got an idea for me?  How do you modify character classes, or create new ones?  Do you even mess with them at all?  I'd love to hear more on this.