Joining a Character Class

Joining a character class is the turning point of a zero- level character’s life. Every apprentice dreams of graduation, of becoming a real first-level adventurer. To become first level, characters must first fulfill the minimum requirements of a class and then prove to the world that they are worthy of their new titles. PCs may attempt this whenever they wish. Nothing ever forces characters to enter a character class, but once PCs have no more AP, their only other alternative is to stagnate, with no way to improve skills or rise in level. Wise PCs will choose a class early and start preparing for it while they have plenty of AP to concentrate on the skills they need. The more powers that a class offers, the more the PCs must study to qualify for it.

To actually become first level, characters must learn the last secrets of their class from some patron. This final teacher always tests the novice with a special initiation. Rangers undergo nature rites, clerics must be ordained, knights must be dubbed, and other characters have similar graduation rituals. Some graduation procedures may be less formal. Apprentice thieves might be exploited and humiliated for several months to see if they will become audacious enough to rob their own masters. Fighters would be likely to meet their final test on the battlefield.

Once zero-level characters receive their final counsel, they receive first-level modifications to their abilities:

• Alignment tendency solidifies into a fixed alignment.
• Hit points are rolled for in the normal fashion.
• Ability scores become frozen at their current level.
• Proficiencies and languages do not change. Characters who have fewer proficiencies or languages than they are entitled to may learn new ones normally.
• Any remaining AP are converted into experience points, at the rate of 10 experience points per AP.
• The character begins receiving experience points normally.
• The character gains all the abilities due a first-level member of his or her class. Professional spellcasters no longer must make ability checks for spell failure.
• When characters advance in level, they lose all skills which are not used by their main character class unless they make a special effort to study them, as described below.

Skills From Other Character Classes

Zero-level characters experiment with many professions. Naturally, they hope to remember their old skills and thus obtain the benefits of several classes at once, even after joining one class. They can do so, but unfortunately, different character classes have little in common, and the more one studies one field, the less time one has for others. Characters must practice auxiliary skills, and pay experience points for them. The XP prices are shown on the table below.

Experience Price For Auxiliary Abilities

Type of Skill

Character's Class	Cleric	Fighter	Magic-User	Thief	Monk
Cleric	5%*	10%	25%	25%	10%
Fighter	25%	5%*	50%	10%	25%
Magic-user	25%	50%	5%*	10%	25%
Thief	25%	10%	25%	5%*	25%
Monk	25%	50%	50%	50%	5%*

*Subclasses are included with their main class (a ranger would be found under fighter), and paladins can be treated as fighters. Characters pay only a five percent penalty for using skills restricted to a different subclass of their own general character type, as opposed to greater penalties for out-of-class skills.

Characters must also practice their skills at least once per level, or lose them when they rise to the next level. The abilities must be used in crucial situations during actual adventures. The DM should keep a list of the times when characters use old skills from classes other than their own. If players advance in level without practicing a skill, the DM does not remind them. If the player cannot remember to use a skill, then the character certainly does not. When the PC finally does attempt the skill, he discovers that it has been lost forever.

Each time PCs advance in level, they lose all neglected extraneous skills. This includes 12th-level skills which the character gained through “great insight.” Naturally, forgotten skills no longer impose experience penalties on the character. Maintaining certain skill combinations involve other restrictions, which are described below.

Cleric and Druid Skills: All characters who use divine abilities must obey the gods. The DM should deny clerical magic to characters who violate their alignments or fail to behave piously. Clerics and druids themselves may never use forbidden weapons or other items, even by retaining a proficiency from some other class. Members of other classes cannot use clerical abilities on the same day that they wield edged weapons or, in the case of druid spells, wear metal armor. Characters who are not clerics may never cast more than one clerical spell per day (or two with a high wisdom score), and non-clergy must always make a wisdom check to avoid spell failure.

Fighter Skills: Few other pursuits interfere with fighting, so only rangers and paladins must avoid other class skills. No ranger or paladin would ever use the abilities of a thief. These inhibitions do not apply in reverse. Members of any other character class may use ranger and paladin abilities. The magical powers of paladins should be treated as clerical spells, both for experience prices and limitations. No character can use a paladin’s powers without following the paladin’s restrictions.

Magic-Users: No one can cast spells in armor, or without a spellbook. Furthermore, all characters except mages must make intelligence checks or fail their spells, as described in the section on learning skills. Even true mages must make this check if they have used a forbidden weapon within the past 24 hours. Therefore, low-level mages often resort to forbidden weapons, but more powerful magic-users prefer daggers, because failure with their powerful magic can ruin kingdoms. Members of other classes can never cast more than one mage spell per day.

Thieves: The only restriction to thief skills is that they cannot be used in most forms of armor. At the DMs option, leather or padded armor can be worn, but causes penalties. Characters of lawful and good alignments must be careful not to violate their principles with thieving skills.

Monks: A monk’s skills cannot be performed in armor. Any character may remember how to run like a monk, use monkish thief abilities, gain bonuses on weapon damage, or strike with the open hand. However, only a real monk can remember mental or magical skills. Monks never use the skills of other character classes. These are remnants of more worldly times, which monks have chosen to abandon.

NPCs

These rules are intended to show how beginning PCs become experienced adventurers, not to alter the zero-level NPCs who populate every fantasy world.

Ordinary peasants and citizens usually exhaust their AP at an early age, competing with peers, surviving childhood hazards and learning to work. Furthermore, many people are not adventurous and do not begin with a full 90 AP. The DM may always choose to give NPCs AP. Adventuring parties will treat ordinary people with far more respect after attacking a helpless beggar who makes a luck roll and strikes back like a 12th-level fighter. Many zero-level NPCs use aptitude points to excel in their trades. For example, a blacksmith might do research until he has enough study points to qualify for “great insight” in casting the spell enchant an item. This is one way dwarves, who are not mages, might enchant hammers +3 and dwarven throwers.