#5evo

GM Binder: https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-Ln6tg_DetmwTRZ49GNY PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TJBtFde6dyRPQxhiNL7sqBktyBVS4p9j/view?usp=sharing

Well, finally got this thing in a state that feels okay to share. 13 character archetypes (and more if you count the different specialties of the Expert), along with a common item price list and animal references. Does anything seem unclear? Poorly designed? What’s something you’d like to see that isn’t there?

The classic snake-oil seller, this was definitely one of the more difficult archetypes to balance against. They have great utility in social situations and can quickly gain the party allies in a new town, but they will definitely need protection and aid when the bullets start flying. Still, I imagine there is a great deal of amazing roleplaying potential with the shenanigans the swindler might stumble into.

Hopping back on the wagon! My image editing capabilities are pretty limited at the moment, but from here on out we’ve got the full statblock and advancement options for these Wild West archetypes.

Here’s a first look at something I’m working on, and expect to see more of them over the next few weeks. I have a soft spot for westerns and cowboys, so I’ve decided to make a set of my own character archetypes for a wild west/frontier themed game I hope to run someday. I’ve taken a big page out from Limitless Adventures and their 5th Evolution system, so definitely check their stuff out if this kinda thing interests you at all.

Starting things off, we have the humble Farmhand. I wanted to stay gender-neutral for all of the archetypes, and went back and forth between Farmhand and Ranchhand for quite a while before deciding that “farm” felt more versatile and broadly applied. Regardless, this is your classic cattle rustler and drifting laborer. While they may not be the quickest or the sharpest of the bunch, they get things done when things need doing, and in that old fashioned country style.

As we move into the less combat-focused Wild West archetypes, you may find they have way more and better skills than their counterparts. This is intentional, as the idea is that I want to keep all the classes feeling somewhat balanced against each other. While a detective is never going to outperform a pistolier in a shootout, they offer much better options for tracking down the right guy to have a shootout with, or to avoid a shootout altogether.

Healer classes are tricky if you’re going for a non-magical or realistic setting. On one hand, yes, hit points don’t exactly represent your literal health, so just hand-waving any medical treatment as hit point recovery is a non-issue. On the other hand, most people still conceptualize the total sum of HP as a character’s actual health and wellness metric, so taking someone from the brink of death to fighting fit in the span of 30 seconds can definitely break the immersion of the narrative. I hope I hit a good balance here, where a doctor is still able to provide limited healing in the heat of battle, but is unable to perform outright miracles round after round.

Coming up with archetypes for the Constitution stat was surprisingly difficult, but for one of them I eventually settled on the idea of just a rugged frontier pioneer. Kind of between a combat class and a support class, the idea for this one is to tank damage and consistently provide help to other team members, either with damage of their own or with the Helping Hands ability.

Our third wild west archetype, the Pistolier. This is your quintessential gunslinger, the lonely wandering shootist without a name, always chasing bounties for a few dollars more. I spent a bit of time trying to figure out what this one’s dump stat would be, since in fiction they’re often portrayed as being pretty good at everything. Seeing as they’re often the heroes (or arch-villains) of the story, it’s not that surprising. In the end, however, I decided that running and gunning in the frontier territories really isn’t a very logical way to earn a living or keep breathing, so Intelligence it was. For folks like Mr. Paladin, I think another archetype might fit better, which we’ll touch on when we get there.