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History of the Classes

Writer and game designer Brandes Stoddard explores the history of each of D&D’s classes, from OD&D to 5e.

Al-QadimD&D 2eHistory of the Classes

The Artificer Class, Part One

Since UA has just done two back-to-back artificer releases and the Eberron hardcover has been announced, I think it’s a good time for a history of the artificer class. The first “true” artificer class is in the Eberron Campaign Setting ...
History of the ClassesPodcastsRPGs

Edition Wars Podcast

If you’ve been reading my articles here on Tribality for more than the last week or two, you probably know that I find a lot of interest in a historical perspective on game design and the decade-over-decade growth of rules. ...
D&D 5eHistory of the ClassesReviews

The Warlord Class, Part Six

As I mentioned at the end of last week’s article, I also wanted to cover George Sutherland Howard’s Commander class, available on the DM’s Guild. Also, in Twitter, @ShareDVI suggested that the Order domain found in Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica ...
D&D 5eHistory of the Classes

The Warlord Class, Part Five

I’d been thinking this was the week for Unearthed Arcana’s artificer class. It turns out that despite living in Georgia, where it is cool, gray, and rainy, heavy snow in Washington can keep WotC folks out of their offices and ...
13th AgeHistory of the Classes

The Warlord Class, Part Four

I wound up not finding anything I wanted to pair with the 13th Age commander class for today’s article, but at the same time… there’s enough meat to justify deep coverage. If you’ll open your Book of Common Prayer System ...
D&D 4eHistory of the Classes

The Warlord Class, Part Three

Now we come to the edition in which this class’s name finally matches the title of the series. It’s not the first class to change names edition-by-edition – in fact, of the four earliest classes, only the cleric still goes ...
D&D 3.5eHistory of the ClassesPathfinder RPG

The Warlord Class, Part Two

Last week, I requisitioned more warlord variants from the general region of 3.x, to pair with Green Ronin Publishing’s The Black Company setting book. Because I still haven’t found my copy of The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game, and not ...
D&D 2eD&D 3.5eHistory of the Classes

The Warlord Class, Part One

This will be one of the shorter class histories, as the warlord only arguably exists in editions that are not 3.5 and 4e. In today’s article, I’m exploring that argument in pre-3.x with the books I have on hand; as ...
D&D 3.5eHistory of the ClassesPathfinder RPG

The Bard Class, Part Seven

After I revisited the History of the Bard a few months back, I knew I would eventually get around to covering Pathfinder, and a commenter requested that I also pull in Monte Cook’s variant in Book of Eldritch Might II. ...
13th AgeDungeon WorldHistory of the Classes

The Bard Class, Part Six

Sure, it’s been more than three years since the last article in the History of the Bard, but the tale of each class has grown in the telling and I wanted to do the same for bards, this time for ...