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| Barbarians |
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From the frozen wastes to the north and he hellish jungles of the sough come brave, even reckless, warriors. Civilized people call them barbarians or berserkers and suspect them of mayhem, impiety, and atrocities. These "barbarians," however, have proven their mettle and their value to those who would be their allies. To enemies who understand them they have proven their cunning, resourcefulness, persistence, and mercilessness.
The barbarian is an excellent warrior. Where the fighter has training and discipline, however, the barbarian has a powerful rage. While in this berserk fury,he becomes stronger and tougher, better able to defeat his foes and withstand their attacks. These rages leave him winded, and he only has the energy for a few such spectacular displays per day. |
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| Bards |
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It is said that music has a special magic, and the bard proves that saying true. Wandering across the land, gathering lore, telling stories, working magic with his music, and living on the gratitude of his audience: such is the life of a bard. When chance or opportunity draws them into a conflict, bards serve as diplomats, negotiators, messengers, scouts, and spies.
A bard brings forth magic from his soul, not from a book. He can cast only a small number of spells, but he can cast them without selecting or preparing them in advance. His magic emphasizes charms and illusions over the more dramatic evocation spells that wizards and sorcerers often use. |
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| Clerics |
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The handiwork of the gods is everywhere, in places of natural beauty and in mighty crusades, in soaring temples, and in the hearts of worshipers. Like people, gods run the gamut from benevolent to malicious, reserved to intrusive, simple to inscrutable. The gods, however, work mostly through intermediaries - their clerics. Good clerics heal, protect, and avenge. Evil clerics pillage, destroy, and sabotage. A cleric uses the power of his god to make his god's will manifest. And if a cleric uses his god's power to improve his on lot, that's to be expected, to.
Clerics are masters of divine magic. Divine magic is especially good at healing. Even an inexperienced cleric can bring people back from he brink of death, and an experienced cleric can even bring back people who have crossed over that brink. |
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| Fighters |
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The questing knight, the conquering overlord, the king's champion, the elite foot soldier, the hardened mercenary, the bandit king - all are fighters. Fighters can be stalwart defenders of those in need, cruel marauders, or gusty adventurers. Some are among the land's best souls, willing to face death for the greater good. Others are among the worst, those who have no qualms about killing for private gain, or even for sport. Fighters who are not actively adventuring may be soliders, guards, bodyguards, champions, or criminal enforcers. An adventuring fighter might call himself a warrior, a mercenary, an thug or simply an adventurer.
Of all classes, fighters have the best all around fighting capabilities (hence the name). Fighters are familiar with all the standard weapons and armors. In addition to general fighting prowess, each fighter develops particular specialties of his or her own. |
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| Paladins |
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The compassion to pursue good, the will to uphold law, and the power to defeat evil - these are the three weapons of the paladin. Few have the purity and devotion that it takes to walk the paladin's path, but those few are rewarded with the power to protect, to heal, and to smite. In a land of scheming wizards, unholy priests, bloodthirsty dragons, and infernal fiends, the paladin is the final hope that cannot be extinguished.
Divine power protects the paladin and gives her special powers. It wards off harm, protects her from disease, lets her heal herself, and guards her heart against fear. The paladin can also direct this power to help others, healing their wounds or curing diseases. Finally, the paladin can use this power to destroy evil. |
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| Rangers |
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The forests are home to fierce and cunning creatures, such as bloodthirsty owlbears and malicious displacer beasts. But more cunning and powerful than these monsters is the ranger, a skilled hunter and stalker. He knows the woods as if they were his home (as indeed they are), and he knows his prey in deadly detail.
The ranger is proficient with all simple and martial weapons and capable in combat. His skills allow him to survive in the wilderness, to find his prey and to avoid detection. He also has special knowledge of certain types of creatures. Finally, an experienced ranger has such a tie to nature that he can actually draw on natural power and cast divine spells. |
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| Rogues |
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Rogues share little in common with each other. Some are stealthy thieves. Others are silver-tongued tricksters. Still others are scouts, infiltrators, spies, diplomats, or thugs. What they share is versatility, adaptability, and resourcefulness. In general, rogues are skilled at getting what others don't want them to get: entrance into a locked treasure vault, safe passage past a deadly trap, secret battle plans, a guards's trust, or some random person's pocket money.
Rogues are highly skilled, and they can concentrate in any of several types of skills. While not equal to members of many other classes in combat, a rogue knows how to hit where it hurts, and a rogue who can hit an opponent with a sneak attack can dish out a lot of damage. |
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| Sorcerers |
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Sorcerers create magic the way a poet creates poems, with inborn talent honed by practice. They have no books, no mentors, no theories - just raw power that they direct at will.
Sorcerers cast spells through innate power rather than through carefully trained skills. Their magic is intuitive rather than logical. They know fewer spells than wizards do and acquire powerful spells more slowly than wizards, but they can cast spells more often and have no need to select and prepare them ahead of time. Nor do sorcerers specialize in certain schools of magic the way wizards may. Since sorcerers gain their powers without undergoing the years of rigorous study that wizards go through, they have more time to learn fighting skills. The are proficient with simple weapons. |
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| Wizards |
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A few unintelligible words and a fleeting gesture carry more power than a battleaxe, when they are the words and gestures of a wizard. These simple acts make magic seem easy, but they only hint at the time the wizard must spend poring over her spellbook preparing each spell for casting, and the years before that spent in apprenticeship to learn the arts of magic.
The wizard's strength is her spells. Everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition to learning new spells, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. Some wizards prefer to specialize in a certain type of magic.
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