Class: The Vessel

Fast traveling is a technique used in both video games and tabletop RPGs to skip over long, uneventful periods of time. But great adventures often take place along the road - the trip from one destination to another - overcoming obstacles along the way. When the party needs to move, the Vessel steps forward and takes the wheel.

Long distance traveling in Hostargo can be done with horses, vehicles, airships, and even inter-dimensional portals. Regardless of the method, however, there are potential roadblocks or events that happen along the way. Vessels use their abilities to ensure that each trip is both safe and efficient, enabling the party to chase villains, escape monsters, and arrive just in time to save the day.

Explorer style players will enjoy playing as a Vessel. By spending Luck, they can automatically "find a new path", giving them increased mobility, escape routes, or secret entrances where there were none before. And while long-distance travel is a large portion of a Vessel's responsibility, short-distance movement can be equally important. Players who enjoy tactical maneuvering will also enjoy this class's ability to move their team around during encounters, always keeping them one step ahead of their opponents.

The Vessel class stands out as Hostargo's most innovative class. Travel has always been a big part of adventuring, yet few classes in other RPGs have abilities that focus solely on the idea of movement. Veteran RPGers will find a breath of fresh air when thinking about how to best play this role.

Class: The Warden

Silly antics, nonsensical plots, and a tendency to dive head-first into trouble describes the majority of RPG gaming sessions. While definitely fun, sometimes one voice of reason is the only thing stopping the party from imploding in on themselves. The Warden class aims to be that level-headed security that every group needs.

At face value, the Warden fulfills the classic "tank" roll, soaking up damage and having the general purpose of surviving. They can spend their Luck to gain extra health, making the Warden one of the simpler, easier classes to play (much like a fantasy Barbarian in other games). However, their skill trees allude to their true purpose. First, the "spot" skill path allows the warden to protect the party even before they are in danger. Failing that, the "block" skill path allows them to prevent harm from ever coming to themselves or their friends.

Combining the idea of a Warden with any of six callings in Hostargo is a fun design space. I've taken the normally utility or offensive special abilities and warped them, trying to answer the question of "how do we protect someone with this". You get some standard but fun things like bubble shields and living armor, but also some unique twists, such as sharing Luck, shouts that give your allies reactions, or even brief rifts in space-time in order to avoid threats.

Players who enjoy well-informed strategy and tactics will like the Warden class. They can control the chaos of a normal game by protecting their allies from threats, even when the party may have put themselves in that position in the first place.

Class: The Sage

Roleplaying "intelligence" has always been a tricky prospect, when the players themselves have either greater or possibly less intelligence than the characters they are trying to play. After digging into this issue, including reading my favorite blog post on the subject, Smarter Intelligence Checks, I've found that it's not only possible to do this well, but also to make it interesting. There is untapped potential in this area, which I hope to capture in Hostargo's newest class: the Sage.

Every character should be able to view, explore, and inspect the world they live in, giving the player a window into its detailed workings. The more alive the world, the richer, more immersive experience the player receives. But we know that some players lean towards being more "explorers" than others. The Sage aims to fulfill this player style, giving them more and better tools for digging into their world.

The class's role is defined as information acquisition. This means they get more information about the quests, characters, events, battles, mysteries, and puzzles that they encounter. To help with this, they have a general knowledge skill tree that includes topics like politics (to learn about the city's governing powers), forensics (for helping with investigation scenes), and Memory (the world's magic system, which they can know even if they do not use it themselves).

Luck is spent on class special abilities, and when the Sage does so, they have a sudden realization about something in the game. Depending on how much they've upgraded this Observer ability, the GM is forced to reveal some vulnerability, clue, or potentially even motive about a creature, character, or event. While this can be viewed as a simple "hint system", it truly is a class power that only a character like Sherlock Holmes or Doctor Strange might possess. It also encourages teamwork, since knowing is only half the battle.

I am excited to GM for players who really embrace the Sage. Not only will the class cater to their play style like no class has before it, but it will also force me as the game creator to answer a lot of highly detailed questions about the Hostargo game world.