The Rake another new class for my Delving Deeper games

[bestialwarlust]

So I've had requests for swashbucker type characters. My answer is just roleplay your fighter that way. But sometimes players want some mechanical difference. After many different iterations I finally came up with this as my answer to that. The class I made does not take the place of the fighting man. The point of this class is someone who is decent in combat and can handle him/herself. But going toe to toe cannot truly match the prowess of a true fighter.

Again in OD&D spirit I try to keep it as rules light as possible. So here it is for your use, criticism, etc.....

Rake
The Rake is a lightly armored class that relies on guile, agility, and speed in his adventuring life. Rakes may employ all normal weapons and use magic daggers and swords only. They may only wear leather armor and may not employ shields. Rakes use the cleric hit dice, combat and experience table. A Rake saves as a Magic User.

Dexterity is the prime requisite for the Rake. They may use 2 points of intelligence and 1 point of wisdom to increase their dexterity score as long as it does not reduce their intelligence and wisdom scores below average.

Perceptive A Rake must be alert more so than a more heavily armored fighter, and tends to be more perceptive than most. The Rake can Hear Noise as well as Find secret doors/search as an elf (both at a 4 in 6 chance).
Panache a Rake can attempt to awe and impress foes with fancy and flashy swordplay. By taking a round dancing about and swinging his blades in fancy display the Rake causes viewing opponents to make a morale check at -2 or flee.
Fancy Footwork Against large clumsy foes like ogres and giants, Takes half damage.
Elven Blade Attunement With a magic blade does an additional pip (+1) to damage.
Light on your feet In combat, may split move (move half his movement rate, attack, and move the balance of his movement).

[scottanderson]

Hmmm.... magic swords, but not a Fighting Man type. The Cleric advancement tables and MU saves make mechanical sense though.

[bestialwarlust]

The magic sword was the only fighting man "ability" I gave it primarily for the flashy swordsman part, that I'm still up in the air about.

One thing I was considering was changing that out for pick pockets. To give it a more roguish feel to the class.

[Admin Pete]

I like it a lot, I prefer lightly armored types. I would rather have a party with a half-dozen of these instead of a half-dozen fighters in plate which has never made sense to me for a dungeon crawl.

[scottanderson]

Plate makes sense in war but chain makes more sense in a loot-and-scoot scenario like a dungeon.