Some combination of watching Final Fantasy V challenge runs, listening to the Dice Exploder episode on prestige classes (recommended by Idle Cartulary), and reading this old post from The Manse about the 100-class pyramid has melted my brain. This post is the meltwater that resulted.
One of the characteristic Gygaxisms of early D&D were titles by level. They looked like this (fighter, magic-user, and cleric from the original brown books, with thief following soon after in Supplement I: Greyhawk):
Fighter Magic-User Cleric Thief
1 Veteran Medium Acolyte Apprentice
2 Warrior Seer Adept Footpad
3 Swordsman Conjurer Village Priest Robber
4 Hero Theurgist Vicar Burglar
5 Swashbuckler Magician Curate Cutpurse
6 Myrmidon Enchanter Bishop Sharper
7 Champion Warlock Lama Pilferer
8 Superhero Sorcerer Patriarch Master Pilferer
9 Lord Necromancer Patriarch, 9th Thief
10 Lord, 10th Wizard Patriarch, 10th Master Thief
These titles are just for flavor. There is no mechanical significance to them. A magic-user moving from level 8 to level 9 does not gain specific necromancy powers; they just become a more powerful magic-user. Some old-school games (e.g., Knave) have copied titles-per-level, again as flavor rather than mechanic. But most games gave them up long ago.
Can we create something interesting if we try to use them more literally? What does a job tree with these entries look like? We’re mostly going to try to roll with these as-is, but let's start by cutting out a few of the synonymous, duplicative, or uninteresting titles to get this down to a tight eight by four grid.
Fighter Magic-User Cleric Thief
1 Veteran Medium Acolyte Apprentice
2 Warrior Seer Adept Footpad
3 Swordsman Conjurer Village Priest Robber
4 Hero Theurgist Vicar Burglar
5 Swashbuckler Enchanter Curate Cutpurse
6 Myrmidon Warlock Bishop Sharper
7 Champion Necromancer Lama Pilferer
8 Lord Wizard Patriarch Thief
It could look like this:
I’ll provide a few ideas for mechanics, but where not otherwise stated, moving between job columns should blend abilities in a fashion similar to multiclassing. I'm not making any real attempt to balance these against each other. As in the linked Manse post, every class needs to be distilled down to just one or two abilities. There is no in-class leveling up. You are either a swordsman or you are not; you’re not going to get incrementally better at it.
Commoner. All PCs start as Commoners. These are level 0 characters with no abilities or training. This is what a PC is at the start of a funnel adventure (this idea doesn’t require a funnel, but it would be a good fit for it). A commoner who finishes a funnel (or a single session, in a non-funnel game) can choose any of the four first-level-equivalent jobs.
Acolyte. Makes sense as a starting point. An acolyte can turn low-level undead but can’t cast spells, just like first-level clerics in many old-school games.
Veteran. Like some other aspects of 1974 D&D, this feels like a first draft that needed another pass. Why is the junior-most fighter a “veteran”? But rather than reordering this to “make sense,” let’s challenge ourselves to interpret what the campaign might look like to make sense of "veteran" as the junior-most fighter. Perhaps becoming a veteran is about toughening you up. The average grunt in a fantasy army is probably distinguished by their ability to complete long marches and survive on limited food and sleep rather than their offensive expertise. A veteran is proficient in most weapons and armor.
Apprentice. Another self-explanatory category. An apprentice gets the basic first-level thief skills. I like the idea that PCs gain these skills whether they're an apprentice of a thieves guild or in some more quotidian line of work. Hearing noises and climbing walls comes in handy in a lot of trades.
Medium. Isn’t it interesting that medium is the first level title? Not “apprentice mage” or “arcane student” or “hedge wizard” or something else, but medium, in the “in contact with the spirits of the dead” sense. I like the idea that the path to wizardly magic begins with opening oneself up to the voices from beyond the grave. A medium gets a spell just like a first level magic-user. Roll randomly to reflect the idea that they are more of a conduit for magic than a master of it.
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