ATWC Base Classes 1: The Fighter

One of my goals with ATWC is to put together a version of OSR D&D without Vancian spellcasting classes like Magic-Users and Clerics. I'd much rather have a setting where magic is much bigger and weirder than OD&D's safe, reliable spell-slot system really allows for. As a result, I've come up with some variant base classes: the Fighter, Traveller, Trickster, and Scholar. Fighter and Trickster fill the fighter and thief niches, while traveller and scholar are closer to cleric and MU, respectively.

The fighter is the one that needed least changing; I've just taken the fighter from Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and given him a tiny bit of healing to compensate for the lack of cleric magic. I've also folded all that fiddly bend-bars-lift-gates stuff into a class mechanic. Finally, as with all my classes, I've borrowed the three-fold FORT / REF / WILL saving throw model from D&D 3. There's a lot wrong with third edition D&D, but in my view the simplification of saving throws into 'tough enough', 'fast enough', and 'strong-willed enough' was one of the things that they got right.

So here it is: the ATWC Fighter.

Fighters:

• You can use any weapons, armour, or shields.
• You get 1d8 HP per level.
• You gain a bonus to all attack rolls (melee and ranged) equal to your level.
• You're an expert in battlefield first aid. Anyone in your party (including you!) who has suffered a battlefield injury in the last 24 hours recovers one extra HP per day for as long as you're helping to take care of them. Having multiple fighters in the same party does not increase this bonus.
• Your fighter training lets you perform amazing feats of strength. You can do generic tough-guy stuff – kicking down doors, smashing flimsy wooden furniture – whenever you like. To perform a more extreme feat, such as bending bars or lifting a portcullis, roll 1d20: if the result is less than or equal to your Strength, you succeed. If you fail, you strain something, take 1 HP of damage, and can’t perform any more feats of strength until you’ve had a decent rest. The GM may impose modifiers to this roll for especially demanding feats.

Fighter Summary Table

Level	Hit Points	To Hit Bonus	Fortitude save (FORT)	Reflex save (REF)	Willpower save (WILL)
1	1d8	+1	14	14	14
2	2d8	+2	13	13	13
3	3d8	+3	12	12	12
4	4d8	+4	11	11	11
5	5d8	+5	10	10	10
6	6d8	+6	9	9	9
7	7d8	+7	8	8	8
8	8d8	+8	7	7	7
9	9d8	+9	6	6	6
10	10d8	+10	5	5	5

All my classes will require a base of 2,000 XP per level. (To be honest, I don't use experience points at all; characters level when I and their players agree that they've done so much cool stuff that it's reasonable they've learned something from it.) I don't anticipate any of my games going higher than level 10.