History of the Classes Archives - Tribality

The Barbarian Class, Part Three

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 20:54:31 +0000

Welcome back to the History of the Barbarian, this time getting into the barbarian of D&D 3.0 and 3.5. Why did they drop the A? Because they finally admitted that the Accidental Death & Dismemberment wasn’t so Accidental – especially for the Improbably Large Axe class! Do you like d12s? I hope you like d12s, because this class is very much about that die size, in particular. Part One | Part Two | Part Three After writing Part Two, Friend of the […]

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The Barbarian Class, Part Two

Brandes Stoddard — Tue, 18 Oct 2022 15:51:09 +0000

In the first article of this series, I left out an important item: the Oriental Adventures barbarian class. My plan for this article is to cover it as briefly as possible, then move on to 2e’s Barbarian kit (from the Complete Fighter’s Handbook) and the Complete Barbarian’s Handbook. Just for completeness, I’ll also touch on the Berserker and Savage kits. I’m also covering the Amazon kit, even though… yikes, in 72-point font. Part One | Part Two Oriental Adventures 1e […]

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The Barbarian Class, Part One

Brandes Stoddard — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 12:00:31 +0000

Today I realized that it’s been almost three years since my last History of the Classes article. Today I’m starting in on the Barbarian, a class that goes back to an article by E. Gary Gygax in Dragon Magazine #63, in July 1982. As a disclaimer for the whole series: “barbarian” is a culturally loaded word and is a slur from first principles. I’m not defending it. I would be fine with changing the class name to “berserker” so that […]

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The Artificer Class, Part Seven

Brandes Stoddard — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 22:20:36 +0000

Now that my review copy of Eberron: Rising from the Last War has arrived, I’m starting my breakdown of it by finishing up the History of the Artificer series. As a reminder, this class went through multiple rounds of public playtesting in Unearthed Arcana (v1, v2, v3). I’ll write this on the assumption you haven’t read all of those, but if you want some extra context, they may be interesting. Part Zero | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Part […]

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The Artificer Class, Part Six

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 12:00:36 +0000

Today I’m finishing my exploration of Rich Howard’s Alchemist class, with the Irezumi, Metamorph, Poisoner, Pyromancer, and Re-Animator subclasses. Have I mentioned that Rich created an impressive array of subclasses? The best part, though, is how none of them tread on one another, conceptually or mechanically. Part Zero | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six Irezumi Magical tattoos are one of those recurring ideas in gaming, because they’re a recurring idea in real-world legends. For that matter, […]

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The Artificer Class, Part Five

Brandes Stoddard — Wed, 21 Aug 2019 12:00:55 +0000

My text for today is a little unusual, in that I’m covering something from Tribality Publishing. One of our earliest and most successful releases is Rich Howard’s Alchemist class. It includes an Artificer tradition among its subclasses, so it belongs in this series. There are a lot of traditions for the alchemist, so I’ll try to cover all of them but there’s a chance it’ll stretch out to two articles. Part Zero | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five The […]

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The Artificer Class, Part Four

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 08 Aug 2019 12:00:39 +0000

Now that GenCon 2019 is done, I can come back to the History of the Artificer. This week we’re taking on 4e and the Eberron Player’s Guide. By coincidence this is the one version of the artificer I’ve seen in actual use at the table. (There were no artificers in the one 3.5 Eberron campaign I played.) Part Zero | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four Eberron Player’s Guide This is the second Arcane Leader class of 4e. Making the […]

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The Artificer Class, Part Three

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 18 Jul 2019 13:51:02 +0000

Thanks to several Alert Readers including Trampas Whiteman and Cam Banks, another chapter in the story of the artificer came to my attention: War of the Lance, the 3.5e Dragonlance supplement coincidentally written by Cam Banks, Trampas Whiteman, et al. Today we’re looking at the master class and the Gnomish Tinker prestige class. Part Zero | Part One | Part Two | Part Three The Master This is a strictly nonmagical conception of excellence in crafting. It doesn’t, in itself, offer a lot […]

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The Artificer Class, Part Two

Brandes Stoddard — Wed, 03 Jul 2019 14:30:29 +0000

Welcome back to the History of the Artificer. Here in the third* article, we’re finally going to see a version of the class that is called an artificer, and is 100% different from the Clockwork Mage kit and the tinker class. *sometimes we count like programmers Part Zero | Part One | Part Two Eberron Campaign Setting (3.5) The theme presented here leans all the way into replacing technology (steam, clockwork, whatever) with magic. The artificer is a technician of magic […]

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The Artificer Class, Part Zero

Brandes Stoddard — Thu, 20 Jun 2019 12:00:06 +0000

Thanks to the urging of my readers, particularly Episteme and Dave(s) 4 Goombella, I have to go earlier for the invention of the artificer. I’m looking to Official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dragonlance Adventures this time, with the tinkers, found only among the gnomes of Mt. Nevermind. I don’t necessarily plan to cover tinker gnomes of later editions, but if that’s something you want to see, let me encourage you to a) say so in the comments and b) consider […]

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