SOCIAL CLASS

Nearly every culture divides its populace into three broad financial and social classes:

• The lower class, consisting of the relatively poor.
• The middle class, representing those who are doing reasonably well for themselves, but still hold little true wealth or power.
• The upper class, made up of the royalty, nobility, and those so powerfully wealthy that they are capable of influencing the course of society.

In some cities, these divisions are far more complex, with such distinctions as lower middle class and upper middle class. In others, the middle class does not exist at all; everyone who is not rich and powerful is destitute. Select cultures formalize these divisions into strict castes, perhaps declaring the poorest of the poor “unclean” or “untouchable.” In such societies, you can never earn your way into a higher status; the caste you are born into is the one in which you will die.

In most regions, however, social class is an informal, and sometimes even unrecognized, demarcation. If a poor person becomes successful enough, he can often move up in class. It takes far more than just wealth to become a noble, but the nobility does not make up the entirety of the upper class, at least in most cultures.

This section provides general defi nitions and a list of sample members for each social class. These examples refer only to the average members of the given professions; a particularly successful farmer might rise above the lower class, while a the master of a major guild might, if his guild is particularly poor or out of favor, belong to the middle class.

The Lower Class: Members of the lower class range from the homeless or tenement-dwellers to a few lucky individuals who own a small, ramshackle house. They live meager lifestyles (see the Variant: Upkeep rules, DMG 130). Even the most productive and hard-working members of a city’s lower class earn only a handful of gold per month—5 gp or less—and some earn only a few coppers a day. Most are poorly educated at best and have few prospects of making their lives any better. Members of the lower class include actors, beggars, farmers, groundskeepers, money-changers, prostitutes, serfs, shepherds, street-corner entertainers, street thieves, thugs, laborers, and vagabonds.

The Middle Class: Middle-class citizens live comfortably, if not richly. They boast a small amount of discretionary income. They aren’t capable of purchasing extravagant luxuries, but they do not live a hand-to-mouth existence, and might spend some time drinking and dining with friends, or might buy the occasional bauble or fancy outfi t. Most live in apartments—either in a nice building or above their own store or workshop—or in a comfortable home. They have a wide range of incomes, and their lifestyles range from poor to the lower end of common (DMG 130). Although the income gap between the lower and middle classes is smaller than that between middle and upper, it is far more common for a middle-class citizen to rise to the upper classes than for a poor person to rise to middle class. This is true because the impoverished have no opportunity to save up or invest in opportunities that might make them wealthier, and because the nobility sometimes allows merchant families to marry into its ranks. Members of the middle class include artisans, butlers, craftsmen, merchants, military offi cers, minor guild-masters, petty or landless nobles, priests, and successful shopkeepers and innkeepers.

The Upper Class: These citizens are society’s most rich and powerful, its true movers and shakers. Some are born into noble families, others inherit fortunes from powerful parents, while a very select few work their way up from the lower echelons through sweat and blood. In many areas, the “newly rich” are never as well respected as those born into the upper class, but they are still treated with far more respect than the other social classes are. Upper-class citizens often have suffi cient income for lavish lifestyles, personal servants, large houses, and many hobbies and luxuries. They live lifestyles ranging from the upper end of common, through good, and into extravagant (DMG 130). Many earn more in a week or even a day than the poor see in years. Members of the upper class include ambassadors, city aldermen, high priests, knights, magic-item vendors, magistrates, major guildmasters, military generals, nobles, powerful merchants, powerful spellcasters-for-hire, respected sages, royalty, and successful high-level adventurers.

VARIANT: SOCIAL CLASSES FOR ADVENTURERS AND CAREER SKILLS

For the most part, social class has little impact on character creation or abilities. Choosing your social class is like everything else in a character’s background; it might come into play in her backstory, and it should certainly impact the way the character acts, but it has no mechanical effect.

Some people, however, feel that a character’s upbringing should impact her abilities, at least to a minor extent. Similarly, many people think that a character—particularly in an urban environment—should have some abilities to represent her life and training from before she became an adventurer. After all, few people grow up planning to become adventurers; they are caught up in events bigger than they, or find no other means of achieving their goals, or simply see mundane life as too boring. Still, they had a life and education prior to picking up sword or spellbook, and might even have a career on which they fall back when no monster threatens and treasure is scarce.

To that end, consider the following optional rule. Each character is permitted to select three skills from a list determined by her social class. These skills represent a period of training, a career, or a hobby that is not directly linked to her life as an adventurer. They become permanent class skills for the character; that is, no matter what classes she advances in, these are always considered class skills. If she chooses a skill that is a class skill for her current class, she also gains a +1 competence bonus on those skill checks. (She can only gain this bonus once per skill, even if it appears on more than one of her classes’ skill lists.)

None of these advantages should particularly unbalance a character when compared to those created without this optional system. Nevertheless, if a campaign involves both urban and nonurban characters, the Dungeon Master is encouraged to either refrain from using this variant, or to allow its benefits even to nonurban characters. Characters from nonurban areas are usually considered to be lower-class citizens.

Lower-Class Skills: Craft, Gather Information, Handle Animal, Knowledge (local), Profession.

Middle-Class Skills: Appraise, Craft, Profession, Knowledge (local), Knowledge (nobility and royalty).

Upper-Class Skills: Diplomacy, Knowledge (history), Knowledge (nobility and royalty), Ride, Speak Language.

RANDOM DETERMINATION

When using this variant, some people might prefer the opportunity to determine their character’s social class randomly, just as they can height, weight, and age. If so, simply roll percentile dice after determining your base stats. On a roll of 01–60, you are lower class; 61–90, middle class; and 91–100, upper class.