Valinard's Tower

Fighters in the Black Hack have a pool of d6 equal to their level they can add to attacks each round or use to make additional attacks; making the class almost a walking fireball.

Thieves can sneak attack to auto-hit for 2d6+Level damage. Which is nice, but not as impressive a xd6 damage with no set-up.

Following the principle that classes don’t need to be balanced but that everyone should have something fun and useful to do in combat, I wanted to emphasise the Fighter as the martial AoE class and the Thief as the single-target DPS.

There’s precedent for this in both backstab mechanics and the old D&D rule of “Fighters can attack a number of 1HD foes equal to their level.” Initially I made the fighter bonus dice a kind of cleave mechanic, only usable against multiple foes.

When I introduced reactions I was able to build the class abilities around them: Fighters get a lot of reactions, Thieves just get the one, but it hits hard.

Thief reaction attacks can be made with DEX and deal bonus double damage plus one per odd-numbered level attained. If the opponent is unaware, the bonus damage is triple plus a full one per level. So the thief ideally wants to hide and backstab, or attack with surprise, but once in melee can still be effective by flanking.

Fighters still had the problem of having to wait for their opponents to give them an opening to use their attacks, so I introduced Techniques to provide additional openings or simply consume reactions as a resource.

Here we’re veering into very modern territory, with a kind of “fighter spell list” of abilities.

A fighter picks one to start with and another every third level. They may only take each word in parentheses once (e.g. a character cannot have both Riposte and Vengeance.)

• Cleave (Brutalize) – When you incapacitate a foe with a melee attack, gain an opening on another foe in range.
• Scourge (Brutalize) – When a foe within reach is bloodied, gain an opening on them.
• Riposte (Retaliate) – Gain an opening against anyone who misses you in melee.
• Vengeance (Retaliate) – Gain an opening against anyone who hits you in melee.
• Charge (Manuever) – Gain one opening against one opponent when you move Close to one or more new opponents.
• Stand (Manuever) – If you don't move this round, gain an opening against anyone who moves close to you.
• Parry (Rebutt) – Spend a reaction to reroll a defence test using STR.
• Frenzy (Rebutt) – Make a reaction attack instead of a defence test against your attacker. You take their damage automatically, and take a critical if you roll 1 on your reaction attack.
• The Archer – For every attack you make with a shortbow or longbow, fire twice and roll each attack separately.
• Suppression – Spend a reaction attack and an arrow. NPC targets in your line of fire must roll within their morale on 2d6 to fire on you, or take any other action that would give you an opening.
• Return Fire – Gain an opening against anyone making a ranged attack against you, even from cover.
• Snipe – When attacking spend all of your remaining reaction attacks. Make an additional attack roll for each one, but only count 20s on these extra attacks. If you score a 20, you deal a critical hit. For every additional 20, add your base damage die (with no bonuses of any kind) to the total damage.
• Rapid Fire – Gain an opening for a ranged attack against every target in sight and out of cover or melee. Any unused reaction attacks remaining after you have taken these openings are lost.
• Pointblank Shot – Spend a reaction to make your attacks in melee with a ranged weapon this round not give your target an opening.
• Thread the Needle – Spend a reaction. Your next ranged attack may fire into melee with no risk of hitting any other target.
• Agility – Use your DEX as AC, as long as you are wearing no armour or light armour, and you can move freely (not encumbered, paralysed, slowed, prone, rooted to the spot, grappled, bound, unaware etc.)

Fighters also get the d10 hit die from AD&D 1E and increase their base damage die by one step.

In addition to exploit and sneak attack, thieves get a lot of passive bonuses. They have +1 to the d6 roll to listen at doors; and while they have the same chance as any other PC of triggering a trap (1-2 on d6) if they roll a 5-6 they detect it, so there’s a reason to put the thief first.

They get a reroll on attempts to know languages, if the second roll succeeds they only know the written form. They can use scrolls and magical items with an INT test.

The classic thief skills such as open locks, move silently, climb sheer walls are all ability tests with a base difficulty of 7.

• Picking Pockets
• Picking Locks
• Climbing Sheer Walls
• Hiding in Shadows & Moving Silently
• Detecting and Disarming Treasure Traps
• Identifying Treasures & Magical Items

Thieves alone get a discount equal to their level. From level 7-12, after the difficulty has been eliminated, they can pick one skill to specialise in and gain advantage on the roll, leading to Nuth-like expertise at the level cap.