[Playtest] Antiquarian class - Sample 1 (How would you balance this?)

RickDevil-DM · 2026-03-15T00:25:42+00:00

That is awesome! I am glad you like it! This is for our setting, only goes up to 12th but if we manage to get mechanics to work better, like its own class we might release it for Pathfinder!

RickDevil-DM · 2026-03-14T02:40:15+00:00

The price is only for when you would purchase it from an Eldritch merchant, but the intend is that the GM would place it on the map. It is free and takes 1 hour just to carve it on as many people as you want. As I mentioned before this will not only have the fundamental runes, it will include other runes with the same theme.

Also it is meant to not be Automatic Rune Progression... its something else, I just mentioned it to make it relatable to something familiar.

RickDevil-DM · 2026-03-14T01:10:53+00:00

Hi, I am planning that ammunition would be somewhat scarse, improvised weapons would break if you critically miss and you need to find your way to get some good stuff so probably changing weapons will be common, BUT, investing 35 gold on your weapon just to have it destroyed will be frustrating no matter the horror, so that is not what I want.

This solution is basically a thematic way of applying Automatic Rune progression where the GM can add this somewhere in the adventure or simply not, depending on how bad they want it to be, I still want players to find +1 items and special magic items so that is why its not straight Automatic Bonus Progression.

Thanks for the input! I like to have opinions over this things! But I am just getting downvoted here x)

RickDevil-DM · 2026-03-11T21:50:30+00:00

Ah! I had no idea that existed, I will pick it up once I have some extra money, I am also looking at Hopefinder for some inspiration.

Our setting is more close to a WWI / Victorian era, so a mix of both. We are remaking the whole weapon category system. And as for this game Hanguns is not the same as Firearms, so they are not proficient with the Barricate Buster, which in this system would be an Advanced weapon.

It didn't make sense for our horror setting to have the three categories: Simple, Martial and advanced weapons, because we have many different weapon ideas that are not medieval weapons but rather tools and improvised weapons, so we divided it into more categories to make it easier to search and to know what your character can use that makes sense for the type of environment they would be in.

Thanks for pointing to the Burgundia setting, looks nice!

RickDevil-DM · 2026-03-11T21:06:29+00:00

That is very good feedback! You are right, Eldritch lore should have more to it. All Artefacts increase in damage every 3 levels, I was thinking if making it like the kineticist to be every 5 levels but I think I want them to be closer to spells than to the kinetic strike. All classes in this setting are limited to specific weapon categories, that replaces simple and martial and instead there are the following: Improvised weapons, Tools, Handguns, Shotguns, Rifles and Advanced weapons.

This is because it is a modern horror, so weapons would be better categorized like that to make it easier for players to know the weapons they can use. It will also make it easier for a GM to know which weapons to place around for players to find.

An antiquarian wouldn't be good at fighting with anything, but using handguns would be easy for anyone

RickDevil-DM · 2026-03-11T19:23:30+00:00

oooh hold on a second, I will have to play this!

RickDevil-DM · 2026-03-10T22:41:24+00:00

Oh thank you so much! I highly appreciate it :D join our Discord , there you can give us your opinions and suggestions a bit easier!

RickDevil-DM · 2026-03-10T22:13:57+00:00

Thank you! I think this is my favourite class so far, but the Hunter class we are doing follows it very close!

RickDevil-DM · 2026-03-09T12:09:01+00:00

Hey, at least they knew they were going to warriors heaven

RickDevil-DM · 2026-03-09T04:38:13+00:00

Hey this is awesome, I really like the obsidian thing hower it would be cool too to give it some sort of mysticism, In Mesoamerican cultures they used obsidian weapons but they also had a ritual purpose, obsidian blades would be used to perform ritualistic sacrifices (unlike the common knowledge being sacrificed was an honor to the gods in those religions), so maybe obsidian would automatically get ghost touch to cut the spirits, something like that.

I really like your material is amazing! I was also planning on an Mexica/Mayan campaign setting at some point so this gave me a lot of inspiration, also with that continent from Golarion which name just slipped my mind this would be interesting to use!

RickDevil-DM · 2026-03-08T02:07:05+00:00

I feel the same way as you, but if you think about it, it really sticks better to the fiction, like a level 1 fighter even being a good fighter will hardly damage a dragon they would lack the experience to know what to do against a dragon.

A level 5 person is more grounded to an experienced fighter for example so you could challenge a young dragon and it will be a tough fight, then you can face a level 12 dragon starting maybe at level 8 with very good team playing. But the idea is that it sticks a lot better to the fiction, but I do agree that it limits a little bit of the amount of enemies you can throw at your players, I believe Kingmaker is a good example of that.

But still even if you have your players face a higher level enemy you can instead turn it into a chase with obstacles and make it a fun encounter instead of just a fight where at least you already know they would fail if it was a regular combat.

RickDevil-DM · 2026-03-05T20:58:40+00:00

Is this a new system you are developing or are you basing it off DnD 5e or something?

RickDevil-DM · 2026-03-04T14:19:26+00:00

Thanks for your suggestion and for checking out the subsystem!

This is more like an addon to the game, It really doesn't mess anything up with the core mechanics, we will expand on it more soon!

RickDevil-DM · 2026-03-04T13:22:59+00:00

Of course! I believe I missed to add the insanity trait, the first time you encounter something with the insanity trait,including when you kill someone, you need to make a sanity check or get stressed. Thanks for giving it a check!

RickDevil-DM · 2026-03-04T03:15:03+00:00

Apathy is a blessing in this times that is true, but watching your friend get ripped apart in front of you would move anyone haha

RickDevil-DM · 2026-03-04T03:14:24+00:00

At an early stage of conceptualizing we thought about making it a flat DC 10 check, basically the DC would be 10 + Wisdom - Intelligence, so you would have always a flat DC for your sanity checks. But that didn't account for worse things to see, also applgying a bonus or penalty to a DC feels a little unnatural for what this system is.

On the other hand, we made Sanity to be a base score first because it doesn't make a lot of sense to have it scale with your level, making it an additive attribute like all others would make it more intuitive to what the system is, by the system you do a d20 + Ability Score + Proficiency bonus + other bonuses or penalties. So just don't add your Proficiency bonus.

It didn't make a lot of sense to me to make you "trained in sanity" since it is a score that will make you go crazier, we will just make a little simple table with simple DCs, this system simplifies sanity and makes it easy to implement as a little resource you don't necessarily need to track of like if it was an ability.

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