Swords & Wizardry: the Commoner

My favorite “fantasy” scenarios are those where the protagonists come from humble beginnings and, through many trials and tribulations, rise to the level of well-known and powerful heroes. I once played in a D&D 3E game which simulated this concept – quite well, I thought – by starting each PC in an NPC class. The NPC class was considered a “favored class” for purposes of multi-classing and, when the time was right, the PCs switched to a different class.

With that in mind I present the Commoner, a new Swords & Wizardry: WhiteBox PC class for starting characters.

The remainder of this post is designated Open Game Content as outlined in section 1(d) of the Open Game License.

The Commoner
Commoners are those people in your campaign who have the potential to become something more than they are, and teeter on the precipice of doing exactly that.  They work the fields, ply their trade, and go about their normal day-to-day routine until something happens which ignites the spark that slumbers deep within them and sends them spiraling off into wild heroics.

Commoner Advancement
Level	Exp. Points	Hit Dice (d6)	Saving Throw
1	0	1	15
2	1,000	1	15
3	2,000	2	14

Commoner Class Abilities
Weapon and Armor Restrictions: Because commoners are not trained to fight, they are proficient in one simple weapon only (axe, club, spear, or dagger). Further, being completely untrained in the finer points of heavy armor, commoners may only wear leather armor and may not use shields.
Level Limit: Commoners may never rise above the third level of experience.

Class Switching: Upon reaching second or third level, a commoner is able to switch to either the Fighting-man, Magic-user, or Cleric class. The commoner keeps his current hit points (unless the roll for hit points in his new class exceeds his current hit points), but is otherwise identical to a first level character of his new class.

Kismet: Once per game session, a commoner may use a single, minor class ability of another class as if he or she were a first level member of that class. This ability should come from the class to which the commoner is likely to switch.  This could be a saving throw bonus, use of a weapon or magic item not normally allowed, or the like.

Experience Bonus: The commoner receives no experience point bonuses.

Sample Commoner
Bill the Blacksmith
Strength: 11
Intelligence: 10
Wisdom: 11
Constitution: 10
Dexterity: 12
Charisma: 9

Race: human
Class:  commoner
Level/Current XP: 1/90
XP Bonus: 0%
Saving Throw: 15
Hit Points: 4
Weapon: hammer (1d6-1)
Armor Class: 8 [10] (leather apron)
Gold: 131

For most of Bill’s younger years, his entire village thought he would grow up to take over his father’s trade, find a willing woman to marry, and rear lots of children.  Bill seemed on-track to do exactly that until a trio of goblins began terrorizing the village.  The young apprentice smith took it upon himself to go after the goblins and much to everyone’s surprise, he systematically isolated and killed each of the goblins.

What the villagers didn’t know, however, was that the goblins had done this before and had collected up quite a bit of treasure, somewhere in the area of 60 gold pieces in value; almost double that of Bill’s life’s savings.  Bill hid the loot and has not spoken of it to this.

The days of Bill’s heroics have passed and life in the village has largely returned to normal, but Bill’s thoughts often return to his goblin-slaying excursion and his just rewards, and he secretly longs for another adventure to come his way.