Up front, let me be clear what the mechanical baseline is. I like a D&D 3.5 and PFRPG hybrid; mostly D&D 3.5, but using the classes and truncated skill list of PFRPG, plus, if it matters, the CMB/CMD, which is a lot easier than the combat maneuvers of 3.5, where it was a long-running joke that nobody knew how to do grapple, for instance, without stopping and looking it up. I'll also add The Elephant In the Room houserules and E6 as a default, which I won't link to in this post, but which I have many times in the past. That's just default for me using a d20 system these days. What really matters is the next part, which are mostly limitations, i.e., I'm cutting a bunch of stuff out to change specifically the tone, theme and feel of the game. And mostly this means races and classes. I'm not actually sure yet what to do with races, but I'm a huge fan of humano-centrism, and it's entirely possible that I'll only use humans as selectable races. If I do add some others back again, I haven't yet decided what they'll be. Maybe some of the Old Night races can be applied here, or adapted, or maybe not. I'll get to that later. Classes, however, is where the real "magic" happens in changing the game to not feel like D&D even if I'm using what are, essentially, D&D rules.
And before I talk about the specific classes that I'm OK with using, it's important to note; what is this setting like? It's going to be fantasy, and it's going to be medieval fantasy, but it's not going to really be D&D fantasy. In fact, it's going to specifically lean in to a kind of early pulp, penny dreadful, city mytery, Gothic horror and supernatural sensationalism kind of thing. It's not Victorian, but in some ways, it'll feel more Victorian than D&D-ish. Kind of a hybrid of D&D and Call of Cthulhu, or even Candela Obscura (at least as I understand that game) in tone. So, there'll be adventurous classes, but not overly magical classes.
From the core classes, only the fighter, barbarian and rogue will fly.
From the "base classes", I think I could use the alchemist and vigilante are good fits.
From the "hybrid classes" the brawler, investigator, and slayer are ones I really like. I love the concept of the swashbuckler, but there's actually a better class for it, so I'm not going to expressly disallow it, but I'm going to suggest instead that... well, see below.
I'm not very familiar with them, but if you wanted the Unchained barbarian or rogue, I'd say knock yourself out.
And then, the Occult classes are all on the table. In fact, this is specifically where the "f/x" classes will come from. But, you can't take them at 1st level; however, given that it's E6, you can take the first five levels as character levels 2-6 with an occult class. psychic, spiritualist, medium, occultist, mesmerist, and kineticist. I might reconsider and say you can't take them for your first two levels, but let me read them again more carefully first. On the other hand, all of the occult classes are "half-casters" so probably giving them five levels is fine. Maybe even all six. I'll think on that.
And then from third party stuff, you can use the noble and freebooter from Freeport.
While I'm not quite ready to assign classes to these characters, here's the iconics that I'll end up developing.
From left to right:
- Beatrice Holloway, a mesmerist who insists that she is not really a mesmerist.
- Ambrose Harrow, gentleman adventurer and monster hunter
- Lady Victoria Nightingale, society lady with an unsettling talent for communicating with the dead
- Silas Blackwood, retired surgeon and occult investigator
- Amelia Vexley, scholar of witchcraft and the occult, publishes anonymously under a pen name
- Gideon Marlowe, disgraced former clergyman and exorcist
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