Sunday, November 29, 2009

Great Classes From Older White Dwarfs

I managed to access a bunch of old issues of White Dwarf, and I found them chock full of great D&D content: monsters from science fiction; AD&D space travel rules; and some truly inspired character classes based on pulp fantasy archetypes.

The Houri (issue #13) and the Black Priest (issue #22) are both straight out of the pages of REH/CAS. The Houri is a subclass of the magic-user with powers of seduction and supernatural manipulation (especially males), as well as a grab bag of assorted appropriate powers such as impotence curses.

The Black Priest is an evil cleric subclass without the plate mail and holiness. They have the abilities to move silently, hide in shadows, garrote unsuspecting victims. They can use any one-handed melee weapon, but have penalties with swords and bonuses with daggers. They have penalties with any ranged attack aside from the one throwing knife they carry. They can call on their supernatural patrons and summon monsters, the effectiveness dependent upon their history of tithes/sacrifices to the evil powers they serve.

I find both classes exceptional attempts at genre emulation, and will be using both in my Planet Algol campaign. I am especially motivated to use the Houri as a PC class due to the Wilderlands Houri race and the Doxy of Encounter Critical, never mind the hilarity of a male player using a supernatural hoochie-mama character.

2 comments:

  1. Yes, those old issues of White Dwarf truly contain not a few gems... quite a lot you can use in a game

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  2. Scribd has tons of White Dwarfs. Issue #1 had the unforgettable "Pervert" class. It could have used some additional rules, as achieving the rank of "Groper" at 7th level demands a special power or two...

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