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Bucky
2017-03-15, 01:35 PM
The Commoner class is a mainstay of many campaign worlds. But it doesn't deserve to be; its only perk is that it requires only the basic character-building decisions plus a single extra one (weapon proficiency). In all other ways, Experts are better.

I would like to take the low-decision strength further by adding actual class features to support it.

Design goals
(1) Have level appropriate benefits to being a Commoner instead of an Expert
(2) Minimize the amount of effort required to generate a high level Commoner character.
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Hit Die: D3
BAB: 1/2 Ultimate Commoner level
Saves: 3 slow (1/3 Ultimate Commoner level)

Starting Gold: 50 gp
Proficiencies: Ultimate Commoners are proficient with all simple weapons but not with any type of armor or shield.
Class Skills: Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Knowledge: Local (Int), Perception (Wis), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), and Swim (Str)
Skill Ranks: Int mod - 3 per level*

(TABLE GOES HERE)


(Level 1)
Skilled Worker - Ultimate Commoners gain a bonus skill rank in each of their Ultimate Commoner class skills when they gain a level. These skill ranks replace the normal skill ranks for gaining a level in Ultimate Commoner.

Hardy - Ultimate Commoners gain Hit Points from NPC classes as though they rolled the maximum value on their hit die.

(Level 2)
Evasion
At level 2, an Ultimate Commoner gains Evasion as the Rogue class feature.

(Level 3)
Floating Feat
At level 3, and every 2 levels afterwards, the Commoner may select one of their non-Combat feats that they gained from advancement as a Commoner. With 1 minute of preparation, they may swap that feat for any other non-Combat feat they could have taken instead. Once a feat has been swapped, it cannot be swapped again for 7 days.

(Level 4)
Bag of Tricks
At 4th level, an Ultimate Commoner may bond with a container, investing money into it up to the NPC Basic wealth in Table: Character Advancement and Level-Dependent Bonuses. They may at any time pull a non-magical item out of that container with 1d6 rounds of searching, deducting its price from the invested money, as long as the object could plausibly have been in that container. They may refill the container at any marketplace by investing the same amount of wealth.

An Ultimate Commoner may also bond with a building to the same effect, except that a building takes 1d6 minutes to search.

(Level 6)
Common Grace
At 6th level, an Ultimate Commoner may substitute +3 for any of their attribute modifiers whenever they are relevant. This bonus increases by +1 for every two levels to a maximum of +10 at level 20.

(Level 8)
Common Sense
At 8th level, an Ultimate Commoner may use Knowledge:Local in place of any other Knowledge skill. At 16th level, they may use Perception in place of any other Wisdom-based skill.

(Level 12)
Improved Bag of Tricks
At 12th Level, an Ultimate Commoner can use their Bag of Tricks ability to retrieve Wondrous Items and Potions of level 1 spells. At 18th level, an Ultimate Commoner can use their Bag of Tricks ability to retrieve any type of Potion.

(Level 14)
Improved Saves
At 14th level, an Ultimate Commoner replaces their save bonus from Ultimate Commoner Levels with their Common Grace bonus. Additionally, they gain a +2 bonus on all saving throws.

(Level 20)
Ultimate Survivor
By 20th Level an Ultimate Commoner has learned all there is to know about survival as a noncombatant. While they are conscious, they treat all damage received as nonlethal. Furthermore, they are immune to ability damage.

noob
2017-03-16, 12:33 PM
Is it supposed to be used by a npc or a player?
Skilled Worker according to the description gives an unknown amount of bonus to all his class skills which is at least 2 because it says
"gain bonus skill ranks in each of their Ultimate Commoner class skills"

Bucky
2017-03-16, 12:52 PM
Typo corrected.

Is it supposed to be used by a npc or a player?

It's for minimal effort NPCs. Its class features are arranged to discourage dips.

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I've changed Improved Saves to effectively give them the same saves as a Monk at level 14+.

noob
2017-03-16, 01:45 PM
Well what is the point to make class features for commoners: it will make building them more complicated and commoners are usually there for being victims or for walking in streets now you have to put 8 text bubbles in each commoner character sheet and think "does he gets his save bonuses at this level I forgot ah I also forgot that I had to add his commoner grave to his skills so I wonder is it higher or lower than his main stat? of at that level it is lower but at next level it will be higher and so I will have to change that value after level 7".
For building a smith you are much faster saying "I take an expert and pick up the skill craft X and profession smith and use the standard distribution then all the stats are just guessed by simple arithmetic and not pick up feats anyway since what would he pick as a smith?"
Simplicity was a main selling point in commoner and expert as npcs.

You could make it simpler than commoner by removing all the class features other than skilled worker and hardy.

Bucky
2017-03-16, 02:25 PM
The main class features each replace one of the main decisions you need to make when building a high level NPC.

At first level, you don't need to worry about rolling hit points or assigning skill points.
At third level, you stop needing to worry about assigning feats. You just select their first-level feat and their further feat choices don't matter unless they're combat feats.
At fourth level, you don't need to worry about their equipment. The answer to "do they have X" is generally "Yes, as long as they want to have one."
At sixth level, you don't even need to worry about assigning attribute scores (assuming the standard NPC array).

Their higher level class features are mostly for dealing with consequences of low-level ones. For example, Common Sense expands their skill capabilities to compensate for not being able to assign skill points.

noob
2017-03-17, 01:05 PM
Except that when building a high level npc he usually not have the commoner role and if he have then you pretty only have to worry about how much damage to deal to kill him and his defense(and then having 10 all stats and not choosing any feat(allowed) and not placing any stat bonus and simply not having any item allows to have a character sheet that can be found only with a few multiplications and additions).