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Classless 5e by DiBastet

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V2.0 is here!

It took us a long time to update these rules, but here they are. These updates are the fruit of multiple feedbacks and we playing three more campaigns with these rules. I'm gonna admit right here that I "kinda" completly forgot to update the rules here on the DM's Guild once they were finished, but hey, "better late than never" right?


If you like this product, click here to check out others by the same team!


"I want to be a barbarian, but I want to trade Rage for something cool..."

There was a time that I would laugh (more) at that, but as the years passed I learned that I don't exactly like classes. You see, I understand they help new players and such, but I much prefer classes like the d20 modern ones, just a framework that you use to build your own hero.

So we created our own rules to play a classless rpg. It took us a lot of time and effort, specially playtest, going from an originally complex ruleset to something much simpler after some iterations, until we found something that we enjoyed and kept with 5e's spirit. But in the end we were pretty satisfied with the final result, so here it is for others to peruse.

Inside you'll find our rules for classless D&D 5th edition, composed of:

-Features and Quirks from all PHB classes.

-Archetypes that you can choose from any class, be it official or homebrew.

-Abilities that were changed to fit the new paradigm.

-Guidelines to allow homebrewed subclasses.

We hope these rules enrich your games as much as it did to ours.

Art by my player, LichGodlike.

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Reviews (3)
Discussions (28)
Customer avatar
Giancarlo W June 20, 2021 11:56 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Foregoing Quirks House Rule (because some official classes can't be made with the classless "class"):

Upon reaching level 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18, and once at level 1, you may choose to forego taking a Quirk. For every Quirk you do not take, you get 1 "Skipped Quirk Point." You may spend 2 "Skipped Quirk Points" to gain a Feat. You may also spend 3 "Skipped Quirk Points" to gain a Class Feature.
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Damian S November 03, 2021 4:41 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I was thinking about how some official classes can't be made with this, which is why I just allow official classes to still be chosen. If a player wants to make a full Paladin or full caster, they probably don't need a system like this anyway. This is mostly useful for doing multiclassing type builds.
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Giancarlo W June 20, 2021 10:56 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Blood Hunter (by Matthew Mercer) features not in the book (unofficially added by me):

Hunter's Bane, Class Feature: You have survived the Hunter's Bane, a dangerous, long-guarded ritual that alters your life's blood, forever binding you to the darkness and honing your senses against it. You have advantage on Wisdom (Survival) checks to track fey, fiends, or undead, as well as on Intelligence ability checks to recall information about them. The Hunter's Bane also empowers your body to control and shape hemocraft magic, using your own blood and life essence to fuel your abilities. Some hemocraft Features require your target to make a saving throw to resist the Feature's effects. The saving throw DC is calculated as follows: Hemocraft save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier.

Blood Maledict, Class Feature: (Prerequisite: Hunter's Bane) You gain the ability to channel, and sometimes sacrifice, a part of your vital essence to curse and manipulate creatures through...See more
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Giancarlo W June 20, 2021 10:51 pm UTC
PURCHASER
My Toughness fix for characters who don't have nearly as much of a use for Warrior Training or Unarmored Defense as others, such as races with natural armor, like Tortles:

Toughness, Class Feature: Your Hit Dice becomes d8. If you have the Warrior Training quirk it instead becomes d10. If you have both the Warrior Training quirk and the Unarmored Defense Feature, it becomes d12. Alternatively, if you have 13 Constitution at level 1, your hit dice becomes d10. If you have 13 Constitution at level 1 and have natural armor, or if you have 15 Constitution at level 1, it becomes d12. Note: This Feature can only be taken at 1st level.
Customer avatar
Giancarlo W June 20, 2021 8:25 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Artificer features not in the book (unofficially added by me):

Artificer Casting, Subset of Spellcasting: Your spellcasting is similar to an Artificer's. You prepare the list of spells that are available for you to cast, from the Artificer Class List, and add the level 6 through 9 Wizard spells to your List, once you have a level 6 spell slot. When you do so, choose a number of spells equal to 2x the number of times you took the Spellcasting feature + your Spellcasting Ability modifier (minimum of one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots. You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. You also gain the following abilities: Ritual Casting: You can cast a spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag and you have it prepared. Spellcasting Focus: You produce your spell effects through your tools. You must have a spellcasting focus-specifically thieves' tools or some kind of artisan's tool-in hand when you cast any spell with this Spellcasting...See more
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Giancarlo W June 20, 2021 8:41 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I split Magic Item Adept, Savant, and Master into 2 Features (Adept and Master) since if they were only 1 Feature, you'd have 4 extra Quirks and all Artificer Features (Including Cantrips and 5 Spellcasting) if you only took Artificer Features using this. So if you want to take all the of Artificer Features, you'd have to only take 4 Spellcasting, or no Cantrips, but you'd have 4 extra Quirks. I'm going to do Blood Hunter now.
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Customer avatar
Giancarlo W June 20, 2021 10:39 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Actually I completely forgot about Toughness, so I fixed it:

Magic Item Affinity, Greater Class Feature: When you gain this Feature, you achieve a profound understanding of how to use and make magic items. You can attune to up to four magic items at once. If you craft a magic item with a rarity of common or uncommon, it takes you a quarter of the normal time, and it costs you half as much of the usual gold. At level 14, Your skill with magic items deepens more. You can attune to up to five magic items at once. You ignore all class, race, spell, and level requirements on attuning to or using a magic item. At level 18, you can attune to up to six magic items at once.

Soul of Artifice, Final Class Feature: (Prerequisites: Magic Item Affinity, Infuse Item) You develop a mystical connection to your magic items, which you can draw on for protection. You gain a +1 bonus to all saving throws per magic item you are currently attuned to. If you're reduced to 0 hit points but not killed out-right,...See more
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Giancarlo W June 20, 2021 11:14 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Even with Magic Item Adept, Savant, and Master as one level scaled Feature, you will have 1 less Class Feature available to make an Artificer (as close as possible at least) using the Classless "class," but instead you will have 3 left over Quirks (After Magical Tinkering, The Right Tool for the Job, Tool Expertise, and Warrior Training (which also gives martial weapon proficiency which Artificers don't have normally). It seems to me that there are too many quirks, but I didn't test it thoroughly like the author did, so idk for sure. I know that if you try to build some normal classes in the classless "class," they can't get all of their spell slots, but I do like how easy it is to remember that for each time you take the spellcasting Feature, you get access to spell slots 1 level higher. This might be getting into complicated territory but maybe you should be able to forego 2-3 Quirks in order to get another Class Feature (not Greater).
Customer avatar
Giancarlo W June 19, 2021 4:10 am UTC
PURCHASER
Oh and when you update please allow an alternative prerequisite for increasing hit dice with toughness at level 1. Characters with natural armor, or other types of protection, could also be tanks then without requiring taking warrior training and unarmored defense, for example a tortle. So maybe require either warrior training or constitution 13 for a d10 hit die, and unarmored defense, natural armor, or constitution 15 for a d12 hit die. Using standard array, you'd have to choose constitution as your primary stat to get a d12 hit die, or choose it as your secondary or tertiary stat and be a race with natural armor. This would open up very cool tank builds for classless and make toughness worth it for natural armor users like tortles.
Customer avatar
Giancarlo W June 18, 2021 1:09 pm UTC
PURCHASER
It looks very cool, and I'm showing my friends now, but I'd also very much like to see Tasha's content in this. Is that coming soon?
Customer avatar
John Mark G March 12, 2021 11:58 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Love this product! Any plans to adapt tashas content soon?
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Customer avatar
Diego E March 23, 2021 11:21 pm UTC
CREATOR
That is an excellent idea, John. I might need to adjust the numbers of quirks around to accomodate the extra features some of the minor features that a few classes received for free, but the alternative ones should be a straight port! Expect an update soon-ish!
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Customer avatar
John Mark G April 17, 2021 5:20 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Awesome TY!
Customer avatar
Matt K October 11, 2020 10:47 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Love this system. Can't wait to tailor it to my players and give it a go.

One thing I'd like to note though. There's a major typo in the spellcasting table on page 3. No 7th level spells. Looks like the column might've gotten deleted. Hope it helps to have it pointed out! (I know editing in a document like this one is always super hard.)
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Customer avatar
Diego E October 22, 2020 2:44 pm UTC
CREATOR
Thanks for that Matt! I squashed that typo on this revision!
Customer avatar
Tuukka K August 10, 2020 10:56 am UTC
PURCHASER
How do you feel about including "Martial Arts" as alternative prerequisite for "Extra Attack"? I feel like Monk characters are penalized by Class Feature tax if Fighting Style is the only way to get extra attacks.
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Customer avatar
Dave M August 19, 2020 8:06 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I was here to ask the same thing. I think it should be Fighting Style OR Martial Arts.
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Customer avatar
Diego E September 08, 2020 5:55 pm UTC
CREATOR
Thanks for the suggestion Tuukka. That is actually a great idea that makes a lot of sense. The only martial artist we had while playtesting was a kensei-type using dueling style, so we never though of that! That's gonna be added on the next update!
Customer avatar
Dave M May 30, 2020 3:41 am UTC
PURCHASER
I love this so much -- it scratches itches I didn't even know I had.

Do you have any plans to declassify the Artificer and/or Blood Hunter?
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Customer avatar
Diego E June 01, 2020 8:22 pm UTC
CREATOR
Oh yes I do. I'm currently running a playtest where a character has some powered armorer artificer stuff sprinkled in, and it was great feedback to "hammer some stuff into shape" so to speak. As soon as we're mostly happy with the results we'll update the document with artificer (plus some new goodies!)
Customer avatar
no U April 24, 2020 1:01 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Its impossible to play a kensai in this system, since you have to have the prereqs the moment you select your archetype and not when you receive the features from it. I would also suggest characters get a 'resource' at second level in addition to the quirk, something like rage, second wind, ki points, sorcery points, so they're not gimped having to select their resource and having it eat up a full class feature. Another dumb thing is that its impossible to play as a monk type-or any extra attack class that doesn't have a fighting style since for some reason you need a fighting style for an extra attack.
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Customer avatar
Dave M August 19, 2020 8:09 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Bard and Druid both suffer from not having enough Features to keep up with their PHB class.
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Customer avatar
Giancarlo W June 20, 2021 8:28 pm UTC
PURCHASER
I think that's intentional since if you wanted everything in the class you should have to take it.
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Customer avatar
Damian S August 20, 2021 1:30 pm UTC
PURCHASER
One of the houserules I'm using is, "You can select an archetype you don't meet the prerequisites for as long as you do meet them by the time you get your first features from the archetype. For example, you don't need Rage for a Barbarian Archetype until level 3, when you get your first archetype feature.
Customer avatar
Darren P March 08, 2020 9:54 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Diego E, I truly enjoyed what you have done here. The free-form style allowed me to create a front line martial artist instead of the hit and run, glass canon monk of the standard rules. The same goes for a peaceful wandering healing mystic. These are classes I have wanted to play for 40 years. For that a huge thank you. The only "concern" is Dark Vigor unbalanced? It seems like it was based off of "Fiendish Vigor" which allows you to continuously use False Life. If I am reading it correctly, you can continuously use higher-level spells also. Even with the caveat of self or touch and it only affecting the PC it seems like it may be a potential game-breaker. How did it work out in your playtest? What were your design thoughts on this ability?

Thanks,
Darren
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Customer avatar
Diego E April 17, 2020 8:28 pm UTC
CREATOR
So this is actually a good question man, and I'm sorry for the late reply. This was meant to emulate at will false life and mage armor, and allow self-buffing and detection-machine types, with stuff like smites, armor of agathys, and other egoist-type powers.

Back when we created this one we found most of the self-only spells were ok, and the few beneficial touch spells there were that might be a problem were greater invisibility and a few others. There was the fact that greater invisibility was basically darkness-devilsight without shafting your friends (you can see opponents, they can't see you, allies aren't affected) and since warlocks could be using darkness devilsight waaaay before that we didn't find it to affect our games that much.

Of course originally there was also the caveat that it must be a non-instant spell (thus negating Cure spells as an option) and *also of course* I forgot to add that to the text.

I hope this sheds some light into the issue.
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Customer avatar
Darren P April 18, 2020 4:01 am UTC
PURCHASER
Thanks for your reply
Customer avatar
November 11, 2019 2:30 pm UTC
PURCHASER
it seems spell casters get kinda shafted, they have to spend every class option on spell casting, while every other feature you do not need to, such as inspiration and sneak attack. for example a bard would have 7 class features by level 3, a class less would have 4. With 2 of those features for each going to spellcasting.
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Customer avatar
Damian S August 20, 2021 1:31 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Full casters are generally better off just being the normal class. I find this system to work great for multiclassing, more-so than the normal multiclassing rules.
Customer avatar
Garm B August 20, 2019 11:56 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Hi! Gonna be using this on a stream soon and I have a quick question about Toughness. It says that if you have the Warrior Training quirk it steps your HD up to d10, but the Warrior Training quirk itself says nothing about modifying your HD. Is that correct?
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Customer avatar
Diego E August 29, 2019 4:18 am UTC
CREATOR
Hi Garm.

That is correct. Warrior Training has its own effect: weapon and armor proficiency. Taken by itself, that's all it does, a discrete, specific effect.

Toughness has its own discrete effect as well: it changes your HD from d6 to d8. However it also has two conditional pluses; *if* you happen to have warrior training when you acquire this feature, you increase your die to d10 *instead*. If, on the other hand, you have both warrior training and unarmored defense, it changes to d12 *instead*.

So yes, by itself warrior training is just proficiency, but toughness has an extra effect if you have it.
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Customer avatar
Garm B August 29, 2019 4:34 am UTC
PURCHASER
Awesome, thank you very much! Also, we all really enjoyed your classless system.
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Customer avatar
Diego E September 02, 2019 8:09 am UTC
CREATOR
I'm glad to know man. If you can leave us a review. It helps a lot to show people our product!
Customer avatar
Isabel B October 20, 2018 2:52 am UTC
PURCHASER
Ive recently looked over this again, and found i really liked the current version. Didnt stop me from making a lot of changes and additions for my game. But the groundwork you've laid here is phenomenal.

In case you're curious, the changes i made include the following:

Restricted spellcasting to traditions based on the various caster classes (so spell list, casting ability score, prepared vs spontaneous, and extras like sorcery points) so that players have to basically pick a "canonical" magic tradition.

Progressing spellcasting by caster level. Each instance of spellcasting now gives two caster levels, which cant exceed the character level.

Broke up a lot of feats (almost all of them) into parts that can be taken as either class features or quirks.

Removed light armor proficiency from base and instead introduced a focus mechanic that replaces one of the 1st level class features. When choosing a focus, the character gets one class feature...See more
Customer avatar
Carlos M September 25, 2018 11:28 am UTC
PURCHASER
I am Spanish. Sorry for my bad English. Differences between Class Character and Quirk? I Don´t understand "quirk". What is Quirk?
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Customer avatar
Carlos M May 23, 2019 10:49 am UTC
PURCHASER
I understand the meaning, but I do not understand the difference. Both are "rasgos." For a Spanish "feature" is also a "peculidaridad o rasgo" .... Different words, same meaning. What is the difference between "feature" and "quirk" for practical purposes?
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Customer avatar
Giancarlo W June 20, 2021 8:29 pm UTC
PURCHASER
Quirks are just less powerful or more minor Features.
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This title was added to our catalog on January 17, 2016.