Mining Goblins, Race As Class, and Multiclassing in Kalak-Nur
Kalak-Nur is a Lamentations of the Flame Princess based setting, with some exceptions.
For Instance, Races and Classes have the following ADVANCEMENT TO FIGHTING SKILLS:
Fighters: +level to hit
Clerics, Specialists, Bastards, Mining Goblins, Droids: +half level (+1 at level 2, +2 at level 4, etc)
Bug People, Niebelungen, Magic Users, other scholarly types: +1/3 level (+1 at level 3, +2 at level 6, etc)
You may have noticed no Elves, Dwarves, or Halflings above. These races are not native to Kalak-Nur, and advance as per their home system when visiting.
Bastards are detailed here, Droids here, Bug People here, Niebelungen here. (Bug People coming soon).
MINING GOBLINS are mechanically identically to LotFP Dwarves (except as noted above), but their starting saves are one worse.
In addition, they can attract a small creature (1/2 the Goblin's own HD) of the swamp or underground as a companion. This creature and the Mining Goblin can communicate simple ideas within line of sight of each other. The companion creature can gain XP and advance in the same manner as a henchman, and from GP spent on it (maintenance and care, tiny belts, a horned hat, I dunno...).
If a Mining Goblin PC multiclasses according to the rules below, and the new class has a familiar or other animal companion ability, they can be one and the same or either/or; the Goblin would not have two bonded companions.
Note the companion creature's HD cannot exceed half Mining Goblin's level in the Mining Goblin Raceclass. A Mining Goblin/Cleric of levels 2/6 would have a 1 HD companion.
Physically Mining Goblins are squat humanoids with faces and features that resemble lizards, but skin that resembles toads. They range from green to brown to ochre in color. Culturally they are cheerful and value sharing, work, and collective living; they must always have a project or become restless and depressed, however. Politically they organize themselves into autonomous socialist collectives. Economically, they prefer barter and labor exchange, and despise currency.
RACE AS CLASS AND MULTICLASSING
If a player wants to play a non-human PC, they begin as that Race and must gain at least one level. Upon reaching level 2, they may declare their XP going to any other Class, and begin gaining levels in that Class. They become 1st level in that Class upon gaining 10% of the XP required for level 2 (in the new class), but do not get more HP until actually gaining level 2 in the new class. PCs must advance to level 2 in the new class before thinking about Multiclassing again.
Humans of one Class may change to another in the same fashion.
Members of one Race may never gain the abilities or benefits of another Race except through odd game events like mutations and teleportation accidents. One cannot “Multiclass” into another race.
Examples:
Shagwyn the Mining Goblin sets out to see the world. He joins up with a group of scum, and has many adventures. He has been studying magic along the way, and upon gaining level 2 as a Mining Goblin, the person playing Shagwyn decides his XP are now going to go to the Magic-User class. He gains another 225 XP, and becomes a 1st level Magic-User in addition to being a 2nd level Mining Goblin. He does not gain more HP at this point, however.
At this point, Shagwyn has 2,425 XP. When he gets another 2,025 XP, (total XP of 4,450) he’ll be a 2nd Level Magic-User as well as a 2nd Level Mining Goblin and finally gain some more HP. At that point he could decide to take a level in yet another Class, go back to devoting his XP to advancement as a Mining Goblin, or continue advancing as a Magic-User.
(Note that since starting to adventure, the player has taken time to indicate that Shagwyn reads any scrolls or spell books the party has come across, and has spoken with local witches during some down time.)
A HUMAN who started as one of the Classes could advance in another in much the same way.
For example:
On the way to Level 2, Terral the Growler, a Fighter, has converted to a new religion. Terral’s player thinks he’d be pretty devout, since the NPC followers of Sharia the Glittery saved Terral’s life when they could have run. Upon gaining 2nd Level, Terral’s player decides he’s devoting XP to the Cleric Class now (worshipping Sharia the Glittery of course). When Terral has 2175 XP, he’s a 1st level Cleric (the 175 XP) in addition to being a 2nd Level Fighter (2000 XP). When he has 3750 XP total, he’ll be 2nd level in both classes, and could choose to advance as a Fighter again or continue advancing as a Cleric (or begin advancing as a third Class).
Terral’s HP advancement looks like this:
(Character Creation): 1d8 HP as a 1st level Fighter
(Gains 2nd Level): 2d8 as a 2nd Level Fighter
(Becomes 1st level Cleric): no change, still the same 2d8 he had before.
(Gains 2nd level as Cleric): adds 1d6 as a 2nd level Cleric, for a total of 2d8+1d6 HP.