Myth Classes - Introduction

I figured I should start outlining the weird hybrid classes we use in the Lamentations of the Fallen Lords campaign, so that when I start writing about our actual adventures hopefully no one will be confused about odd details like Jarl Roots, Dwarven Grenades, and the fact that Mages can Exasperate like the Alice class from A Red & Pleasant Land.

I made these classes for a few reasons: I wanted to see what the game would be like if each individual class had more explicitly-stated variety in their options than the hyper-focused classes of default LotFP. I wanted the game to be a bit more high-powered and high-fantasy than what seems to be the default in LotFP, in order to fit the campaign setting and to ease my players and myself into the old-school style of play instead of jumping off the deep end right away - call me a coward if you'd like, but we're all used to newer-style and higher-powered D&D and fantasy in general, and this felt more comfortable to me. I wanted to make classes that fit the gameplay and fiction of the Myth computer games a bit more closely. And finally, I wanted to experiment with a bunch of rules and class features (aspects of the Alice, aspects of the demihuman classes, the skill system, saving throws, and item crafting) while keeping the total number of classes to choose from small.

It is entirely possible that I failed at some or all of these goals, or that I succeeded at the cost of unbalancing or breaking the game, or at the cost of difficulty, fear, or tension. Honestly, I don't see that as a bad thing: I think I've learned valuable things about house rules, game design, and DMing that could help me run better games in the future, and my players and I have had incredible fun. For what it's worth, my players seem to really like the class options (although my inner cynic tells me that it's just because I've made the game easier).

Here's the gist of what I did: I combined the Fighter and Specialist  to make the Warrior, the Fighter and Cleric to make the Journeyman, the Magic-User and Alice to make the Mage, and the Dwarf and Halfling to make the new Dwarf. Then I added a bunch of new, Myth-flavored stuff on top.

(One character also got turned into an Elf by a magic item in Lamentations of the Gingerbread Princess; I've been running that class more-or-less RAW.)

I'm presenting these classes as we currently use them in our game. If I could go back in time, there are definitely things I would have fixed from the beginning, but I feel obligated not to change things up too much for my players this far into the campaign, after they've gotten the hang of how their characters work. I would probably increase the experience needed for every level across the board to reflect how powerful these classes are and to counteract my tendency to be too generous with treasure/experience. I would have definitely based the Myth Mage on the Fighter and Magic-User instead of the Alice and Magic-User, in order to better match the way Avatara are presented in the Myth games. If I really wanted to include the Alice, I could have made that a separate class, maybe combined with the Halfling or Elf. Also, I might have based the Myth Dwarf on the Specialist and Dwarf instead of the Halfling and Dwarf, since there are aspects of the Halfling class that just bug me.

One last note: the experience/saving throw charts in the following posts are all unaligned and generally ugly and messed up. I gave up trying to figure out how to fix them at the time. Once I get the hang of formatting things on Blogger, I'm hoping to fix these kinds of issues later. I apologize in advance for the eyestrain/lack of professionalism. I'm trying to improve.

Classes in Lamentations of the Fallen Lords:
Warrior
Dwarf
(More rules for Dwarven explosives)
Journeyman
Mage
Elf and Goblin