My favorite class, fun generators, and a new direction

The Soulknife was my favorite class concept when I only knew about the 3.x games. I emphasize concept there because the actual mechanics of the class were hot garbage. It was described by some as a straightjacket that would ruin any build (I know), it was purely combat based with poor stats for combat and a core ability that neither meshes well with any other class nor outperforms the magic equipment you should technically be getting as you level, according to RAW. So I redesigned it with GLOG sensibilities, then updated that design recently with more experience and insight into RPG design, then read the latest GLOG rules and updated it again to be as fully compatible as I could manage. I probably won't be posting much in the way of classes aside from this, since it's my favorite.

Soulknife

Each level of Soulknife gives you +1 to throwing attacks.

A    |mind blade

B    |steelmind, nightmare

C    |gravitation

D    |shatter

Mind Blade

Conjure a blade of mental energy in the form of a dagger or any weapon you've used in combat. It can also imprint the form of a tool, such as a rope or shovel. It takes an action to conjure and disappears if it leaves your hand for an hour.

Steelmind

Channel your mind blade energy through a physical weapon, increasing its attack by +2, but adding a damage marker every minute it remains channeled.

Nightmare

Steal the dreams of a sleeping person, leaving them with a restless night and allowing you to imbue one mind blade attack with an additional die of damage. Cannot imbue while channeling steelmind.

Gravitate

Your mind blade can pull you to its location as long as it is within view, at two times running speed.

Shatter

Explode your mind blade on command as an action, or instantly if someone attempts to disarm or sunder it. This deals 2d6 damage to anyone within melee range excluding yourself, and you cannot summon it again until you retrieve it within your dreams.

The Beginning of the End by RAHDS

I'd also like to take a moment to outline my current philosophy when designing a GLOG class. It's pretty challenging and strict, but I think it works with the framework of 'constraint inspires creativity.' At template A you obviously have the core idea of the class, which I like to include with some level-independent progression if possible. Template B is great for multiclass synergy type abilities, so people can take 2/2 and get some cool combinations. Template C is kind of like a free space where you can flesh out or expand the core class idea, but it's unfortunately too late to really start with the progression ability. Then template D is good for the capstone ability, which I think should be cool and flashy but risky or costly to use. I've heard arguments against capstone abilities, but as long as you're good at designing the abilities leading up to it that shouldn't be a problem.

 

Generators

If you both really want to design wacky classes, but have managed to run out of ideas, this should give you some weird ones:

Fantasy tree generator. Some of the results are pretty wild, but most should be scaleable to either mundane rumors or arcane foliage of myth:

And here is a fashion trend generator. It won't give you a specific outfit, but should prompt enough broad traits to build a sense of style for a locality:

Faint Slumber by Pavel Kolomeyets

Priorities

Finally, I've decided to stop working on systems, or at least stop focusing on them, until I get some more experience running things at the table, and probably read more existing systems. The most useful things I find on other blogs are environments, characters, items, puzzles, and monsters (in descending order of usefulness), and then after that there are mechanical and philosophical considerations that can sometimes be interesting. I'll be using Arnold's most up to date GLOG rules as my basis for mechanics, but mostly using a fiction-first focus. Surely everyone is even more excited to read about this than I am to write it.

The Trees Are Dreaming

In the realm of sleep, all things are as they dream. Even the smallest stone has dreamt eons into an immense and incomprehensible palace, while the fish have only half slept, leaving faint trails of malformed light. The trees have spent their years between slumber and half awake, and the eldest have formed great realms.

Fairy tree by Lisa Parfenova

1. Sea of dirt, so full and rich that a human could live on it, so long as they can stomach the taste.
2. Roots shoot across the ground, spearing through the dream's trespassers as easily as soil.
3. Malformed lumberjack with axes for fingers and saw blades for teeth, mindlessly hacking at the trunk and biting off branches.
4. The tree is immeasurably tall, reaching branches and leaves up to grasp around the sun. The light is dim and green.
5. It is gently raining without end.
6. Razor winds tear at leaves and branches, not a leaf can sprout without being ripped away.
7. Dusty, choking sand spreads as far as the eye can see, the tree is withered and struggling.
8. The air is choked with flying termites and aphids, swirling around the bitten, scarred trunk.
9. Lightning stings and rips away at the tree frantically, storming relentlessly.
10. Little misshapen dream-people rip off chunks of wood, crafting them into strange geometries which then begin to grow, setting roots and sprouting leaves, consuming the thieves that built them.
11. Branches reach out as far from the trunk as possible, but instead of leaves they sprout only flame.
12. The sun slides across the sky in unnatural directions, the tree twisting and warping itself as it tries to catch the light.
13. The ground is bark, sprouting branches and leaves indiscriminately.
14. An earthen tunnel, moist and warm, with roots above forming protective hands.
15. A seed tumbles down an endless hill, over sharp and rough stones.
16. An immense tree travels the dreamland, roots dragging the trunk swiftly along.
17. Snow is piled up on each leaf, burying the roots as ice coats the trunk and branches.
18. Fruit swell and fall from the branches, to be carried off by small half-recognizable rodents that gently plant them far away.
19. Many fruit drift above only empty air, many of them large enough to stand on.
20. A grove of ancient trees hum a low, haunting song that echoes across fields of swaying grass.

Worm Tree by Jason Borne