Classes

Cerberus plays perfectly well without classes. A character is defined by concept, six attributes, and feats; the general charts in Character Creation and Progression can sustain an entire campaign.

This book describes an optional layer. A class is a complete set of charts that replaces general progression: action reserves, base HP, dodges, and Save quality. The GM uses it to deliberately widen the differences between profiles—most often to contain casters, the most powerful characters in the game (see Magic).

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What a Class Replaces

A class first replaces lines from the general progression chart. Each replaced line is an axis of differentiation. A class may also define a signature mechanic inseparable from its identity—the Ranger's companion and terrain, for example—but must clearly identify the weaker curves that pay for it. A signature mechanic grants no feat for free.

Set by the Class	Replaces
Action reserve per round	action-economy chart in Character Creation and Progression
Base HP per point of Strength	general chart's base 10
Dedicated dodge progression	general chart's 1 → 3 progression
Quality of the three Saves	universal “+ level” from Base Resolution
Speed progression	fixed 30 ft per tick from Movement, Space, and Ranges
Charisma-to-Caster-Level conversion	½ CHA from Character Creation and Progression
Optional signature mechanic	no general equivalent; unique to the class

Everything else remains unchanged. Attributes, feats, path of power, organic progression, ranges, and DR stay the same. Reflex duels always use the character's Reflex Save, and therefore the Save quality set by the class. A signature mechanic is fully described in its class and never grants implicit access to another chart's advantages.

All or nothing. If the table uses classes, every character has one. Each chart is designed to be markedly better than general progression on one or two axes and markedly worse on the others. Mixing them lets a player take advantages without their costs.

Four Conventions of the Class Layer

1. Save quality. The general rule adds full level to all three Saves. With classes, each Save is good or standard:

Quality	Formula
Good Save	1d20 + attribute + level
Standard Save	1d20 + attribute + ½ level, rounded down

This is the main axis of defensive differentiation between classes. It is why a wizard remains vulnerable to poison and a rogue gullible before an illusion. Reflex Save quality also applies to attacks, parries, dodges, and priority duels. There is no second Reflex calculation reserved for combat.

Example. A Level 1 Cleric of Archon with DEX +3 has a standard Reflex Save of 1d20 +3: half their level, rounded down, is 0. They use 1d20 +3 to dodge, parry, attack, and determine priority. They never replace this bonus with DEX + level in a duel.

2. Speed becomes a curve. Without classes, speed is fixed at 30 ft per tick unless changed by race, size, a feat, or a spell. With classes, every archetype has a speed grade, and the grade decides how fast the curve climbs.

Grade	1	3	5	7	9	10	Archetypes
Measured	30	30	35	40	45	90	Wizard, Cleric of Archon
Trained	30	35	45	55	65	130	Fighter, Ranger, Psychic
Swift	40	50	60	75	90	180	Rogue, Barbarian
Granitefist	30	60	90	120	150	300	Monk of Kaz'Nakaram

Every grade doubles at Level 10, as Hit Points, weapon damage, and access to Level 10 spells all do. Level 10 is where the game stops being about people.

The grades matter more than they look, because 9 leaves full Speed to a character who attacks and only half to one who casts. A Level 9 Wizard shows 45 ft and travels 22 while working; a Monk shows 150 and travels 150. Three times on the chart is seven times at the table, and that gap is deliberate.

Speed feats stack with the grade rather than replacing it.

3. A class grants no feats. Gaining a level never grants a feat, with or without classes. Feats remain rewards for play, awarded by the GM for what a character has lived through, studied, or accomplished (see Character Creation and Progression). The feat lists on the following pages are predilections—what members of a class naturally pursue—never a talent tree with points to spend.

4. Class feats remain available one level later. A feat's category identifies the tradition that teaches it earliest, not an absolute monopoly. When a feat requires a class at Level N, a character from another class may take it at Level N + 1 if they meet every other prerequisite and truly learned the technique in play.

Example. A feat available to a Level 5 Rogue becomes available to a Level 6 Fighter, Barbarian, or Wizard. In a progression limited to ten levels, this single level already represents a meaningful gap.

This rule changes neither the feat's category nor its identity: the character learned a rogue technique but did not become a Rogue. A feat reserved for its class at Level 10 remains exclusive because Level 11 does not exist. When prerequisites explicitly name several classes, each receives the listed level and all others wait until the next.

In a classless campaign, the GM uses the delayed level by default. The normal level may be granted when a character's concept, training, and actions clearly match the feat's tradition.

These conventions make the class layer sharper than general progression: every archetype is both better and worse than a classless character. This is intentional.

The Eight Archetypes at a Glance

Values show Level 1 followed by Level 9.

	Fighter	Barbarian of Brazzant	Rogue	Ranger	Cleric of Archon	Psychic	Monk	Wizard
Attacks per Round	3 → 9	3 → 12	5 → 15	3 → 9	3 → 6	2 → 3	4 → 11	2 → 4
Spells per Round	2	2	2	2 → 3	2 → 4	3 → 4	2	2 → 4
General Actions	3 → 9	3 → 5	4 → 12	3 → 7	3 → 5	3 → 4	3 → 8	3 → 5
Dedicated Dodges	1 → 3	1 → 3	2 → 4	2 → 3	1 → 2	1 → 2	1	1
HP per Strength Point	base 10	base 12	base 8	base 8	base 8	base 8	base 10	base 6
Good Saves	all three	all three	Reflex, Fortitude	Reflex, Fortitude	Will, Fortitude	Will, Fortitude	all three	Reflex, Will
Standard Save	—	—	Will	Will	Reflex	Reflex	—	Fortitude
Speed per Tick	30 → 65 ft	40 → 90 ft	40 → 90 ft	30 → 65 ft	30 → 45 ft	30 → 65 ft	30 → 150 ft	30 → 45 ft
Caster level from CHA	½ CHA	½ CHA	½ CHA	½ CHA	—	½ CHA	—	½ CHA

Rogue, Ranger, Cleric of Archon, Psychic, and wizard each have two good Saves and one gap. Rogue and Ranger endure poison but fall for illusions; the wizard sees through illusions but dies from poison. Cleric of Archon and Psychic resist both, but poor Reflex makes them slower to answer sudden attacks and spells. Fighter, Barbarian, and Monk have all three.

Every character begins play at caster level 1. What a character adds comes from race and power path rather than from class: a human on red mana gains 1 CL per 2 points of Charisma (5). The last row shows only what each class does with that racial rate—none of the eight alters it—and a dash marks a class that does not run on Charisma at all. Raising the ratio belongs to innate casters and to the epic layer (10). A GM can still open a character higher when the story has already paid for it, but that is a ruling about one character's history, not the default a sheet is built from.

The Board, Class by Class

8 establishes that a character's largest reserve sets the width of their Action Board—one slot per three actions, rounded up. Every reserve point is a token of that category, and all slots are generic. A small reserve is not rigid: its tokens fit anywhere, but there are few of them.

One rule follows for this entire layer: the largest reserve fills its own board to within two slots over the whole round, because it set that board's width. A class never buys space; it buys volume, and space follows. The eight charts account for this mechanism, each producing a different temperament:

• Fighter advances attacks and general actions together. Both reserves supply the same number of tokens, and neither is secondary. From Level 3 onward, a Fighter can strike and manipulate something in the same instant.
• Barbarian pays for volume in full. Attacks periodically open a new slot, then provide enough tokens to occupy all the space gained: the same motion creates and consumes it.
• Rogue advances two large reserves at once. No archetype composes a tick more freely: almost every attack can become a manipulation without exhausting general actions.
• Ranger has the Fighter's martial board, but fewer general actions. Sparse spell tokens fit anywhere, though casting a Standard spell costs two potential attacks. At Level 8, the third magical action unlocks Swift effects without granting a second Standard spell.
• Cleric of Archon opens the board with weapons before magic catches up. The class has fewer formulas than a wizard, but simple divine liturgies are quick to pronounce and combine naturally with an attack or manipulation.
• Psychic opens the board with powers. It casts earlier than a wizard but never exceeds four spell actions: its advantage is early access, not volume. Attacks lag throughout the class's career.
• Monk of Kaz'Nakaram opens the board with fists and speed. Psychic power grows slowly; attacks and movement remain its first tools.
• Wizard alone keeps spells aligned with attacks from beginning to end. Its reserves are tiny: it lacks width, not flexibility.

Writing a New Class

A GM designing a new archetype sets six curves in this order:

1. Attacks per round at Level 1 and Level 9. This is the class's identity: between 2 and 5 at the start, between 4 and 15 at the end.
2. Base HP per point of Strength. Between 6 and 12. It doubles every two levels, as elsewhere in the game (Health, Injury, Death, and Conditions).
3. Two good Saves, or three. Three good Saves are a physical-class privilege paid for elsewhere. An archetype with two must have a named gap: poison or illusion.
4. Dodges. From 1 to 4 by the end of progression.
5. Speed grade. Measured, Trained, Swift, or a curve of its own when movement is the class's identity.
6. What the class does well besides striking—general actions for a manipulator, or spells per round and Charisma-to-Caster-Level conversion for a caster.

Then inspect the board those curves produce. The largest reserve alone decides the slots per tick and therefore the round's total: three, six, nine, twelve, fifteen. Nothing caps it—a class reaching eighteen attacks would open a sixth slot per tick—but nothing helps it either, since that reserve alone fills the space it created. The true tuning point is the gap between the largest reserve and the others. A narrow gap creates an archetype that composes each tick; a wide one creates a specialist for whom every off-category action costs a professional action (see 8).

The Charisma-to-Caster-Level ratio is reserved for innate casters. The default is ½ CHA for everyone, including wizards, whose power comes from study rather than blood. A class with innate rather than learned magic—a blood sorcerer or bard—is precisely where the ratio rises to 1 CL per Charisma point, paid for with a shorter spell list.

Epic Classes

The eight archetypes hold together: each is better than general progression on one or two axes and worse on the others. An epic class breaks this compact. It excels on several axes at once, changes lines ordinary charts never touch—slot reserves, for example—and pays a narrative rather than arithmetic price.

An epic class is not written to balance a table. It belongs to a character whose story has already set them apart: a king, a founder, or the author of a world-changing event. The GM does not grant it during character creation, but recognizes it after the fact.

The Lazy Wizard is this book's worked example. A table using ordinary classes can ignore it entirely without losing anything.

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Portrait

The Fighter is the complete warrior: trained, disciplined, and equipped. It has neither the Barbarian's fury nor the Rogue's speed, but it is the only archetype with no structural weakness—three good Saves, a solid HP base, and no reserve left behind.

This is also the shield class, and shields are the game's best defense (see Martial Combat and Defenses). A parry converts an attack and a tick slot into defense, while dodging has its own reserve. This offsets a dodge reserve that begins at 1 without granting free actions.

Action Reserves

Level	1	3	5	7	9
Attacks	3	4	6	7	9
Spells	2	2	2	2	2
General Actions	3	4	6	7	9
Dedicated Dodges	1	1	2	2	3

Attacks and general actions advance together: both reserves grant the same number of tokens, and neither is secondary. At Level 1, a single slot per tick still forces the Fighter to do one thing at a time. From Level 3 onward, two slots allow the Fighter to drink a potion without ceasing to strike, open a door while holding the line, or raise an ally amid the melee. This is the class's mechanical signature.

The board stops at three slots per tick—nine over the round—but at Level 9 the Fighter has nine attacks and nine general actions: twice as many tokens as spaces. A Fighter never endures the composition of a round, but chooses it.

The two spell actions fit in any slot, including beside an attack, but finance only one Standard spell per round: casting, then release. A Fighter with a path of power therefore casts at most one spell per round without Quicken Spell.

Hit Points

Base 10 per point of Strength, doubled every two levels.

Level	1	3	5	7	9	10
HP per Strength Point	10	20	40	80	160	320

Saves and Speed

• Reflex, Will, and Fortitude: good. All three use 1d20 + attribute + level. Fighter is the only archetype with no named defensive gap.
• Speed: Trained. 30 ft at Level 1, rising to 65 ft at Level 9 and 130 at Level 10. Fighter keeps pace without ever leading, which is the price of versatility and why a horse still matters to the class; see Skilled Rider.

Level	1	3	5	7	9	10
Speed per Tick	30 ft	35 ft	45 ft	55 ft	65 ft	130 ft

Martial Experience

A character of this class becomes substantially more effective in martial combat through experience. They should develop a fighting style appropriate to their weapons, body, and history through organic progression. Basic Fighting Style provides a reliable benchmark when designing that style; it is not granted automatically.

Predilection Feats

Defense and battlefield control: Deflect Projectiles · Fortress · Shield Guard · Shield Bash · Greater Fortitude · Iron Will

Disciplined offense: Cleave · Brute Force Precision · Combat Tactics · Lightning Reload · Empty the Cylinder

Maneuvering: Skilled Rider · Heroic Reflex · Additional Time

Playing a Fighter

• Take a shield early and enchant it before your weapon. A shield can parry a spell up to two levels higher and then blocks half its damage.
• Your dodge reserve is short; attacks are your true defense. Any unspent attack can become a parry if your board still has an open slot.
• Compose your board. Your two main reserves provide equal tokens and exceed the available slots. Where others must choose, you can strike and act in the same instant. Objects, levers, and fallen allies are your terrain.

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Portrait

The Barbarian is Cerberus's ultimate specialist: the best HP curve in the game, the largest volume of attacks, three good Saves—and nothing else. General actions remain at novice levels throughout the class's career, while attacks open an ever-wider board and occupy every slot. The Barbarian strikes.

This is the class of Osseur from Brazzant's Feather Clan and the model for most martial feats in the known world.

Action Reserves

Level	1	3	5	7	9
Attacks	3	6	8	10	12
Spells	2	2	2	2	2
General Actions	3	3	4	4	5
Dedicated Dodges	1	2	2	3	3

Twelve attacks per round at Level 9. This reserve alone opens four slots per tick and exactly fills all twelve spaces in the round: four blows per tick for three consecutive ticks. No other archetype concentrates so much damage into one instant.

The cost follows from the same arithmetic. Twelve tokens for twelve spaces: anything a Barbarian places other than an attack removes one blow from the round. General actions fit anywhere, but there is no shortage of attack tokens to fill those slots, so every potion drunk replaces a blow. The class lacks no freedom; it lacks space. A thirteenth attack would open a fifth slot per tick and immediately occupy it.

Hit Points

Base 12 per point of Strength—the best in the game.

Level	1	3	5	7	9	10
HP per Strength Point	12	24	48	96	192	384

With +10 Strength at Level 9, a Barbarian exceeds 1,900 HP. This is the wall against which a campaign calibrates itself.

Saves

Reflex, Will, and Fortitude: good. The Barbarian shares this resilience with the Fighter, trading away the latter's tactical breadth.

Speed and Leaps

Barbarian carries the Swift grade. Brazzant meat and the plants that change a body put it ahead of a Fighter from the first level.

Level	1	3	5	7	9	10
Speed per Tick	40 ft	50 ft	60 ft	75 ft	90 ft	180 ft
Long Jump	40 ft	50 ft	60 ft	75 ft	90 ft	180 ft
High Jump	10 ft	12 ft	15 ft	18 ft	22 ft	45 ft

Jump distance follows speed: 1× horizontally and ¼ vertically (see Movement, Space, and Ranges). Because movement is spent during an action, these values describe a Barbarian striking while crossing the battlefield—150 ft per round at Level 9 without surrendering one attack.

Muscular Speed can add Strength to this speed.

Martial Experience

A character of this class becomes substantially more effective in martial combat through experience. They should develop a fighting style appropriate to their weapons, body, and history through organic progression. Basic Fighting Style provides a reliable benchmark when designing that style; it is not granted automatically.

Predilection Feats

Raw damage: Brute Force Precision · Osseur's Fighting Style · Whirlwind of Blows · Einar's Wrath · Rising Fun

Melee control: I Love to Fight · Opportunity Attack · Headbutt

Body and clan spirit: Mental Stability · Keen Nose · Better Sleep · Sky Attack

Playing a Barbarian

• Strength is your sole multiplier. It fuels both HP and damage, and is the easiest attribute to increase in play (see Character Creation and Progression). Every point pays twice.
• Your board is full before you begin. Attacks occupy every slot in the round; anything else you add replaces a blow. Your round is an avalanche, not a combination.
• Size suits you. Any effect that increases your size category multiplies what you already do best.

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Portrait

The Rogue is the archetype of speed and action volume. It begins with five attacks per round—more than anyone else—and alone has a serious reserve of general actions: twelve at Level 9, enough to juggle potions, objects, locks, and ropes as quickly as others strike.

The class pays with a middling HP base and standard Will. A Rogue who gets hit dies; a Rogue who strikes first wins.

Action Reserves

Level	1	3	5	7	9
Attacks	5	8	10	12	15
Spells	2	2	2	2	2
General Actions	4	7	10	12	12
Dedicated Dodges	2	2	3	3	4

Two large reserves advance together: the Rogue drinks a potion while attacking, draws while striking, and throws an alchemical projectile in the middle of an exchange. From Level 5 onward, the board has four slots per tick and either reserve can fill any of them. No archetype composes a tick more freely.

At Level 9, fifteen attacks open five slots per tick and can fill all fifteen spaces in the round. Twelve general actions can replace almost any of those attacks, but each takes a space the Rogue could have filled with a blow. The accomplished Rogue thus joins the Barbarian in saturation, with an even wider board.

Where a novice Fighter has one slot per tick and places three blows, the Rogue has two and places five smaller blows, adding Dexterity to damage instead of Strength (see Martial Combat and Defenses).

Hit Points

Base 8 per point of Strength.

Level	1	3	5	7	9	10
HP per Strength Point	8	16	32	64	128	256

Saves

• Good Saves: Reflex and Fortitude. 1d20 + attribute + level. The Rogue lives in sewers, tastes stolen goods, and handles personal poisons; the body has learned.
• Standard Save: Will. 1d20 + WIS + ½ level. This deliberate gap reflects an opportunist, not an ascetic. Illusion, fear, and domination find their mark. Avoid them: a Rogue who fails a Will Save at the wrong moment becomes the enemy's weapon.

Speed

The Rogue carries the Swift grade, shared with the Barbarian. Only a Monk of Kaz'Nakaram moves faster, and only because a piece of Valerium is doing it for him.

Level	1	3	5	7	9	10
Speed per Tick	40 ft	50 ft	60 ft	75 ft	90 ft	180 ft
Long Jump	40 ft	50 ft	60 ft	75 ft	90 ft	180 ft
High Jump	10 ft	12 ft	15 ft	18 ft	22 ft	45 ft

That is 180 ft per round at Level 9 while attacking. Against a slower opponent, a chase is no longer a roll but subtraction the Rogue wins in advance (see Movement, Space, and Ranges).

Martial Experience

A character of this class becomes substantially more effective in martial combat through experience. They should develop a fighting style appropriate to their weapons, body, and history through organic progression. Basic Fighting Style provides a reliable benchmark when designing that style; it is not granted automatically.

Predilection Feats

Opening attacks: Assassination · Sneak Attack · Shara's Style

Attack volume: Double Arrow · Combat Tactics · Lightning Reload · Empty the Cylinder

Survival and mobility: Lightning Reflexes · Deflect Projectiles · Heroic Reflex · Chain Dodge · No Challenge · Dodge and Knives · Slip Behind · Potion Glutton

Infiltration: Quick Disguise

Poisons and combat alchemy: Quick Application · Acquired Resistance

For a drow Rogue, racial powers naturally extend the profession: Drow Darkvision · Levitate · Darkness · Telekinesis

Playing a Rogue

• Dexterity is your master attribute. It governs the Reflex duel and therefore who acts first. A sufficient lead when emerging from hiding turns your attacks into automatic criticals (see Perception and Stealth).
• Your general-action reserve is a weapon. Other classes must sacrifice a tick to drink, pick up, or trigger an item; you do not. Potions and alchemical projectiles are to you what spells are to a mage.
• Will is your Achilles' heel. Illusion, fear, and domination are how an enemy turns you against your group. An item granting Wisdom is worth more to you than a weapon one tier higher.
• Four dedicated dodges at Level 9 is the game's maximum. Against a legendary weapon no one can parry, you alone can simply cease to be there.

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Portrait

The Ranger is an armed hunter, tracker, and instinctive caster of red mana. The class fights as naturally with a bow, two weapons, or a melee weapon. Its specialty is not a weapon, but a relationship—with territory it can read and a true animal that chooses to live at its side.

This magic bears no resemblance to a wizard's architecture. It overflows into muscle, claw, wood, wind, and earth. The spell list is short and rough, and each formula is learned one at a time, in the field rather than in a library.

Action Reserves

Level	1	3	5	7	8	9
Attacks	3	4	6	7	7	9
Spells	2	2	2	2	3	3
General Actions	3	4	5	6	6	7
Dedicated Dodges	2	2	2	3	3	3

Through Level 7, the Ranger has two spell actions: exactly enough to cast and then release one Standard spell. At Level 8, it gains a third. This additional action can add a Swift spell, maintain an effect, or prepare a magical step, but two Standard spells would require four actions and remain beyond reach.

Attacks set the board's width. At Level 9, nine attacks open nine slots over the round, three per tick. The three spell actions can go anywhere, but every one used replaces an attack. Learning magic never stops the Ranger from being a fighter.

Hit Points

Base 8 per point of Strength, like the Rogue.

Level	1	3	5	7	9	10
HP per Strength Point	8	16	32	64	128	256

Saves, Speed, and caster level

• Good Saves: Reflex and Fortitude. The Ranger survives through reflexes, endurance, and familiarity with hostile climates.
• Standard Save: Will. Its magic is instinctive rather than contemplative; illusion and domination remain openings.
• Speed: Trained. 30 ft at Level 1 to 65 ft at Level 9, 130 at Level 10. Natural obstacles do not slow the Ranger in favored terrain.
• Caster level: ½ CHA, the human rate. The Ranger's magic is instinctive in its expression, not in its acquisition: every formula is still learned, one at a time, from a restricted list.
• Slots: 4 per spell level + ½ CHA. Each spell level has its own reserve.

Animal Companion

The companion is a living animal, not a creature made by Summon. It has its own temperament, acts with the attacks listed in its template, and obeys commands an animal of its intelligence can understand. Giving a learned command is free; improvising complex behavior may require a general action or prescribed chance roll.

The Ranger chooses a creature with which a genuine bond has formed: dog, wolf, cat, raven, owl, snake, or another animal approved by the GM. The Ranger's red mana continually overflows into this companion, granting +25% maximum HP and damage after every other calculation in its profile.

As the Ranger advances, the companion uses the corresponding column of its Polymorph template. CL-dependent values use the Ranger's caster level. The animal retains its species and size: a dog using Column 9 remains a Medium dog rather than becoming Gargantuan.

Ranger Level	Companion Profile
1–2	animal's natural profile
3–4	Polymorph Column 2
5–6	Polymorph Column 4
7–8	Polymorph Column 6
9	Polymorph Column 8
10	Polymorph Column 10

The companion truly dies if its body dies. The class neither turns it into particles nor grants the aegis of Polymorph. To form a new bond, the Ranger must meet another beast, earn its trust, and live beside it. The Pack's Rest feat allows a surviving companion to recover with supernatural speed while sleeping beside its master.

In combat, Ranger and companion form a coordinated group. They can act and react in the same instant using the Ranger's Reflex roll, while retaining separate actions, reactions, HP, and targets (see 8).

Favored Terrain

The Ranger has a native terrain chosen with the GM: forest, mountain, swamp, desert, tundra, underground, urban, or another region defined enough to have an identity. In this terrain:

• weapon and natural attacks deal additional damage from the table below; this bonus applies to neither spells nor the companion;
• prescribed chance rolls for stealth have advantage;
• ordinary tracks are followed automatically, and concealed trails receive better odds;
• natural difficult terrain causes no slowdown;
• the GM treats the Ranger's experience as a major factor in survival, preparing an ambush, building an improvised trap, or finding a passage.

Level	Damage Bonus
1	+10 %
3	+20 %
5	+30 %
7	+40 %
9	+50 %

Native terrain never disappears. After three true rests spent traveling, hunting, and sleeping in a new region, the Ranger can acclimate to it. Only one acclimated terrain may be retained at a time; studying another replaces the previous one without affecting the native terrain.

Spell List

Ranger tradition gathers physical and elemental formulas, or those directly useful to the hunt. None are known automatically; each formula must be learned in play.

Mobility and adaptation: Jump · Speed · Feather Fall · Air Walk · Walk on Water · Fish Lung · Arcane Body · Elusive Nature

Terrain and concealment: Obscuring Mist · Bramble Maze · Smoke Sight · Darkness · Whispering Wind · Ironwood

Poison and survival: Detect Poison · Poison · Remove Poison

Offensive red magic: Burning Hands · Ray of Frost · Hurl Rock · Tempest Gale · Elemental Wall · Sound Assault · Stormblood

Martial Experience

A character of this class becomes substantially more effective in martial combat through experience. They should develop a fighting style appropriate to their weapons, body, and history through organic progression. Basic Fighting Style provides a reliable benchmark when designing that style; it is not granted automatically.

Predilection Feats

Archery and weapons: Double Arrow · Combat Tactics · Deflect Projectiles · Lightning Reload · Empty the Cylinder

Hunting and movement: Opportunity Attack · Heroic Reflex · Lightning Reflexes

Animal bond: Pack's Rest · One Predator

Playing a Ranger

• Your terrain transforms combat. Outdoors, you choose lines of fire, ignore obstacles that slow others, and strike up to 50% harder.
• Your companion is alive. It can die, learn, or disobey an incomprehensible command. Protect it like an ally.
• Your magic replaces attacks. A Standard spell consumes two spell actions and occupies two slots. Choose one that truly changes the situation.
• Charisma feeds two bodies. It sets your caster level, strengthens your few spells, and calculates variable values in the companion's template.

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Portrait

The Cleric of Archon is a scholar of the Partage, trained to receive, stabilize, and wield the divine mana Archon grants. Clerics study religion, laws, genealogies, rites, and the countless texts describing the Partage. They work with words all day: reading, copying, interpreting, pronouncing, and negotiating with them. Clerics of Archon are therefore typically better writers and diplomats than the casters of Cerberus, though both disciplines have exceptions.

Divine magic is more stable than red mana. Its formulas require none of the complex visualizations taught in Cerberus; they take the form of precise liturgies, learned and intelligently reproduced. This ease does not give the Cleric access to every form of magic. Its catalog is narrower than the Wizard's and favors conjuration, water, and the various operations of the Partage.

The Cleric of Archon is not merely a scholar. Training includes weapons, shields, and armor. Clerics can travel with soldiers, protect consecrated ground, and survive among those to whom they administer rites. They cannot rival the martial progression of a Fighter or Ranger, but begin far better armed than a Wizard and continue to improve in combat.

The Trident-Staff

The trident-staff is the Cleric's ceremonial weapon: a two-handed, three-pronged shaft carried at rites and processions. It deals 1d8 and reaches like a spear (see 10).

Most Clerics fight with other weapons. The trident-staff is made for metamagic enchantments such as Quicken, Long, and Delay.

Its enchantments reveal how much mana its bearer receives. A heavily enchanted trident-staff publicly marks a priest whose grace is rising.

The Two Eras of the Partage

The Cleric's role changes with the infrastructure of the Partage, while the nature of divine magic remains the same.

The First Partage. A Cleric of Archon harvests mana directly from a person. The mana and some of the source's blood are trapped in water, then this bloodied water is sent to Archon. The rite requires officiants, vessels, and a way to carry the water to Archon or one of the Partage's consecrated centers.

The harvested source's ordeal. A properly performed harvest leaves its source with no spell slots and no caster level for 24 hours, along with minor damage and fatigue far beyond the blood loss. The believer rises emptied of something they cannot name, and some temperaments retain a sadness for days. The officiating Cleric knows this: it is the first act of the office, and what exiled families in Cerberus call slavery.

The Global Partage. The spell acts across the Ark. Its waters enter bodies directly, extract mana, and return on their own to Archon or the center where the Partage is maintained. Harvesting is automated; Clerics no longer need to visit each believer. They remain necessary to study doctrine, administer local rites, and stabilize the divine mana redistributed by the system.

In both eras, an ordinary Cleric of Archon uses the Partage but does not master it. Remote transformations, physical investitures, and miracles fueled by a victim are specific spells, limited by available mana, connection to the Partage, and what Archon chooses to grant.

A Catalog That Grows with the Partage

Before mastering the Partage, Archon already ranked among the Ark's greatest casters. Conjuration was his specialty, but not the limit of his personal repertoire. Formulas such as Light, along with protections and movement magic, were among his tools.

The first divine catalog nevertheless remained narrow. It contained mostly Archon's conjurations, healing formulas, and the first spells required to harvest mana. As the Global Partage developed, Archon and his Censors gradually adapted other spells to stable divine mana. Modern tradition therefore includes abjurations, evocations, transmutations, and dimensional movement absent from the original teaching.

By default, the game uses this modern catalog. A spell marked Divine can be learned by a Cleric of Archon if the GM determines that the formula exists in the campaign's era. A table strictly portraying the Partage's beginnings may limit Clerics to Conjuration and healing spells, then introduce other formulas as Archon and the Censors adapt them. This early restriction includes Dimension Door and other Conjuration movement, but excludes formulas such as Polymorph, Enchant, Dominate, Hold, and Dispel Magic. There is no need to maintain two complete lists.

Spells unique to the Partage sort themselves under this rule. Harvest and Basin are conjurations: they belong to the first teaching and an early Cleric knows them. Census is a divination and Sealed Oath an enchantment: later adaptations by the Censors that arrived with the administration of the Global Partage.

Like the Wizard, the Cleric of Archon has no maximum number of known spells. Learning an existing divine formula is faster than learning an arcane one. Transforming an arcane spell into a divine liturgy is an entirely different undertaking, potentially demanding months or years of work.

Necromancy is never converted. An undead produces no mana, so the Censors treat each raised corpse as theft from the Partage and send paladins after necromancers such as Scipion. Clerics instead wield positive energy: a high-level Heal burns every undead in its radius (see 3).

Liturgies of the Partage

Some formulas belong directly to the Cleric's profession and institutions. Harvest performs the manual mana harvest; Census lets Censors recognize believers and distributed powers; Sealed Oath gives deadly force to consensual contracts. Basin consecrates the place where all this occurs: the temple, its trenches, and the water that protects and serves the faithful.

In motion, Transfer moves slots voluntarily between believers, while I Take for My Master tears them from a wounded enemy. Well Teleport links the Ark's consecrated wells, fountains, and waystations.

Water Telekinesis

Every Cleric of Archon learns to use Telekinesis on existing water only. Use the highest Telekinesis version no higher than the Cleric's class level, or choose a lower version. It takes the normal two spell actions but spends no spell slot.

The highest available version can be used once per day. Lower versions share a pool of half Intelligence uses per day, rounded down, minimum one. The Cleric uses their divine caster level and Spell DC.

The feature never creates water. Controlled water can take any shape—wall, bridge, rope, hand, weapon, or another temporary form—and collapses when Telekinesis ends. A Water Blade remains water and can be controlled by this feature.

Action Reserves

Level	1	3	5	7	9
Attacks	3	3	4	5	6
Spells	2	2	2	3	4
General Actions	3	3	4	4	5
Dedicated Dodges	1	1	1	2	2

Weapons open the Cleric's board for most of the class's career. At Level 1, three attacks grant one slot per tick, so pronouncing a liturgy directly replaces a blow. At Levels 7 and 9, the magical reserve gradually catches up with martial training. Four spell actions at Level 9 can finance two Standard spells in one round, or several Swift liturgies when their descriptions allow it.

Divine magic is not Swift by default. Every spell states its timing. Archon's simple formulas may be faster than their red-mana equivalents, while great conjurations and operations of the Partage still demand a full casting, a source of water, or a prolonged rite.

Hit Points

Base 8 per point of Strength, like the Rogue and Ranger.

Level	1	3	5	7	9	10
HP per Strength Point	8	16	32	64	128	256

Saves, Speed, and caster level

• Good Saves: Will and Fortitude. A Cleric of Archon trains the mind through study and the body through rites, fasting, travel, and repeated contact with consecrated water.
• Standard Save: Reflex. Stable magic and prepared protections leave the Cleric less able to answer an immediate surprise.
• Speed: Measured. 30 ft per tick through Level 3, then 35, 40, 45, and 90 at Level 10. The Cleric travels with soldiers; it does not outrun them.
• Divine caster level is granted by the Partage, not drawn from an attribute. This is not a personal mana reserve. It measures how much power received from the Partage the Cleric can stabilize and use correctly.

The Partage increases this caster level according to study, religious rank, and Archon's favor. The Cleric still has an absolute personal limit:

Maximum divine caster level = 7 × CHA.

A Cleric of Archon with +5 Charisma can therefore never stabilize a divine caster level above 35, even if the Partage tries to grant more. Intelligence opens access and enables the gift; Charisma determines how much power the Cleric's mind can bear without ceasing to be itself.

Ranks of the Partage

A Cleric's rank does not state their worth, but what they answer for. Each step is an entrusted office and can therefore be withdrawn.

Rank	Responsibility
Bearer	Carries bloodied water to the center. Does not yet officiate; only transports.
Pourer	Conducts the rite: their hand pours and their voice pronounces.
Fountaineer	Keeps a well, fountain, or waystation—a network node and its dependent faithful.
Curator of Waters	Answers for a basin, its trenches, and the officiants who serve there.
Network Steward	Answers for an entire city's waters and everything they carry back.
Censor	Administers the Partage in Archon's name, grants distributions, and adapts liturgies.

Censor is the only title the cult took from the Republic. The office predates the god: it counted citizens and judged their morals. Today it does the same to a population that surrenders its blood.

Rank determines office, office determines proximity to the central basin, and proximity determines the density of received mana. This is how divine caster level rises. A Bearer receives almost nothing; a Curator of Waters lives beside dense water and receives much. None of this is a chart: rank is earned in play, and the personal ceiling of 7 × CHA always remains.

Common speech. Among themselves, believers do not speak of offices. A priest is thirsty while the Partage grants nothing, watered upon receiving a portion, irrigated when it is comfortable, a confluence when redistributing it nearby, and a source when the network feeds them densely enough that others come as they would to a well. These words appear in no document, are readily spoken behind people's backs, and often describe a temple's reality better than its list of offices.

Slots of the Partage

The Partage grants a Cleric of Archon an especially stable reserve of divine mana:

Slots = 6 per spell level + ½ INT.

Each mastered spell level has its own reserve. Minimum caster level remains necessary but never teaches a formula by itself. A Cleric created directly at Level N can normally be assumed to have learned spells through Level N, but not the next level. Their history may leave them behind this progression.

Unless a spell of the Partage says otherwise, these slots recover under ordinary rest rules. The larger reserve reflects divine mana's stability: a Cleric of Archon need not constantly prevent this power from dispersing or changing form like red mana.

Working with Words

Clerics of Archon devote much of their training to texts, laws, and rites. When a prescribed chance roll concerns drafting a document, formal negotiation, interpreting law, conducting a ceremony, or religious debate, the GM treats Intelligence, Charisma, and Cleric level as favorable factors. This experience neither ensures success nor replaces roleplay; it describes a field in which the Cleric truly works every day.

The Office

The Cleric of Archon is the Partage's agent among the population: the person people see and through whom the network touches them. Clerics heal the faithful, carry Archon's word, conduct neighborhood rites, and return what they harvest to the network. A believer meets their priest far more often than a soldier.

The Cleric also holds a legal role. Important transactions pass before the priest, who states their terms, ensures both parties understand them, and attests what was agreed. For the gravest affairs—an inheritance, an alliance between houses, a treaty—the Cleric seals the agreement with a Sealed Oath, whose breach attempts to tear water and blood from the offender. In a society where perjury carries such punishment, a lie is not a fault but a monstrosity.

In practice, priests almost never need to go that far. People do not lie to them. Respect does most of the work, while the oath remains a solemn exception reserved for what truly matters.

Finally, the Cleric celebrates marriages, which take place in temples. A temple of Archon is a Basin: a place to speak of difficulties, entrust secrets to the water, and leave lighter. Many faithful eventually venerate this listening water in itself—it is what they see of Archon; it heals, carries, protects, and takes their blood.

Martial Experience

A character of this class becomes substantially more effective in martial combat through experience. They should develop a fighting style appropriate to their weapons, body, and history through organic progression. Basic Fighting Style provides a reliable benchmark when designing that style; it is not granted automatically.

Predilection Feats

Water, the heart of the profession: Water Affinity

Rite and liturgy: Cooperative Caster · Spell Focus · Evocation Damage

Metamagic, supported by its slots: Quicken Spell · Long Spell · Delay Spell · Suspend Spell · Mobile Caster

The armored priest: Magus Casting · Shield Guard · Iron Will · Greater Fortitude

Playing a Cleric of Archon

• Your power is not yours. It is lent, rises through favor, and can be severed by abjuration, isolation, destruction of the water accompanying you, or an aqueduct broken three countries away. Prepare for the day you are disconnected: sealed vials, a weapon at your side, and warned allies.
• Set defenses before the danger, not during it. Reflex is your poor Save; you are among the slowest to answer what suddenly appears. This is why a Basin's Barrier is programmed, protections are prepared, and rites conducted in advance. You do not win the instant; you win the terrain before it arrives.
• Repeat. Half as many formulas as a Wizard, half again as many slots. Your strength is not an answer to everything, but casting the same answer long after others empty their reserves. The fight you win is the one that lasts.
• Choose wet ground. Your profession assumes water within reach. A prudent priest carries it as an archer carries arrows and arranges encounters near a bridge, cistern, or flooded cellar.
• Arm others. One water blade per caster level, a Barrier placed on an ally, vials distributed before departure. Redistribution is more than the Partage's theme; it is how you play a round. A Cleric trying to win alone plays a poor Wizard.
• Target the flow, not the bearer. You do not stop an invested person by striking them, but by isolating the one they are draining. Against a harvest or a believer fed from afar, a Barrier on the right person beats any attack.
• Weapons open your board. Three attacks at Level 1, armor, shield, and only two spell actions. You begin as a soldier who prays and end as a priest who still fights. Do not be ashamed of early levels: striking is your first liturgy.
• You carry a political order. Outside the Ark, your identity is evidence. A blessed vial in your bag, a Basin you maintain, a rite you administer: in Cerberus, all are judged before a council of mages. Away from home, a Cleric is a spy or heretic, never merely a healer.

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Portrait

The Psychics of Cerberus are humans created by Marcin Sobiesansky's Psychic Project. Aboleth cerebriles implanted in their brains take red mana and convert it into blue mana, the natural power of monsters.

A Psychic neither recites a formula nor constructs a visualization like a Wizard. The Psychic thinks, the cerebriles convert mana, and power appears. This art acts directly on bodies, objects, and minds. Telekinesis is the first power and remains the class's best tool throughout its career.

This power is not free. Project subjects survived alchemical preparation, brain surgery, and the presence of an inhuman organ. Few remain, and Sobiesansky arranged to kill them with Property if they cease to obey.

Blue Conversion

A Psychic still possesses red mana. Spell slots represent this reserve before conversion: cerebriles create no power and have no second reserve. A Psychic deprived of red mana can no longer use powers.

Conversion does not change recovery. A Psychic recovers slots through active and true rest at exactly the same rate as any other human using red mana; meditation is not required (see 4).

Psychics call this reserve spell slots. The Monks of Kaz'Nakaram call the same units Ki points; one Ki point equals one spell slot.

A Psychic power normally requires neither speech nor gesture. Silence, bound hands, and armor do not prevent its use. A material component remains necessary when it truly forms part of the power.

Conversion still demands concentration. A Standard power retains its two ordinary steps, and a wound dealing more than 35% of maximum HP during casting can cause failure. Blue mana remains magic: it can meet a Barrier, be dispelled, or be stopped by any effect that names Psychic powers.

Action Reserves

Level	1	3	5	7	9
Attacks	2	2	2	3	3
Spells	3	3	3	4	4
General Actions	3	3	3	4	4
Dedicated Dodges	1	1	1	1	2

The Psychic has three spell actions from Level 1. It can cast one Standard power and keep a token for a Swift power, but the board still has only one slot per tick.

At Level 7, four spell actions open a second slot per tick and allow two Standard powers in one round. Wizard does not reach this pace until Level 9. Psychic never exceeds four spell actions: it was created to become useful quickly, not to cast more than everyone else.

Hit Points

Base 8 per point of Strength. Project subjects are selected from children capable of surviving Sobiesansky's preparations and operations.

Level	1	3	5	7	9	10
HP per Strength Point	8	16	32	64	128	256

Saves, Speed, and caster level

• Good Saves: Will and Fortitude. Cerebriles strengthen the mind, while the body was selected to survive the project.
• Standard Save: Reflex. Thought acts faster than the body. A sudden attack remains the best way to catch a Psychic unprepared.
• Speed: Trained. 30 ft at Level 1 to 65 ft at Level 9, 130 at Level 10. The body was selected to survive the project, and it kept that much.
• Caster level: ½ CHA, the human rate. A Psychic still runs on red mana, and red mana answers to Charisma (5).

Intelligence sets no caster level. It measures how much blue mana the brain can organize without losing control of the power. Cerebrile Preparation normally raises its subjects to at least +12 INT, so a Psychic can direct far more power than their years should allow.

Slots and Known Powers

Slots = 4 per power level + ½ CHA.

Charisma measures the available red-mana reserve; Intelligence decides what the cerebriles can do once that mana is converted.

Psychics have no maximum number of known powers, but can learn only spells marked Psychic. They learn a power by training a new pathway in their cerebriles, often under another Psychic or Sobiesansky, or by studying a psychic creature. Adapting an arcane spell to blue mana is a research project in itself.

Telekinesis is learned automatically at Level 1. Other central powers include Mind Blast, Charm, Suggestion, Hold, Fear, Mental Fog, Illusion, Barrier, and Escape Reality.

The Psychic catalog focuses on mind, perception, illusion, force, and movement. It also contains a few very simple applications of Telekinesis, such as Ink Weaver. Elemental attacks and arcane transformations belong to other traditions, even when a Psychic might reproduce one through exceptional training.

Telepathy

A Psychic can communicate silently with a willing creature at Close range. This requires no action. It conveys words, images, and sensations participants choose to share, but reads no hidden thoughts.

Martial Experience

A character of this class becomes substantially more effective in martial combat through experience. They should develop a fighting style appropriate to their weapons, body, and history through organic progression. Basic Fighting Style provides a reliable benchmark when designing that style; it is not granted automatically.

Predilection Feats

Shared mind: Silent Network · Parallel Thought

Psychic power: Spell Focus · Mana Strength · Additional Target · Power Blend · Parallel Telekinesis

Metamagic: Quicken Spell · Long Spell · Delay Spell · Suspend Spell

Playing a Psychic

• Telekinesis is your weapon. A room full of objects serves you better than a sword. Move, disarm, hurl, and destroy before seeking another power.
• Your mind is faster than your body. You resist poison and mental attacks, but poor Reflex and a single dodge punish you when surprised.
• Your powers are magical. You need neither speech nor movement, but abjuration, a Barrier, or the loss of red mana can still stop you.
• You were manufactured. Your power comes from a captive creature, your brain bears Sobiesansky's work, and your creator still considers himself your owner.

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Portrait

A Monk of Kaz'Nakaram is a dwarven martial artist carrying one of Portin's Psychic implants. A trace of Valerium inside the implant produces blue mana. The Monk calls its spell slots Ki points; one Ki point equals one spell slot.

The class exists only in the Free Era and is available only to dwarves. A Monk imports the two dwarven racial feats onto the character sheet: Dwarven Darkvision and Dwarven Endurance. These feats come from ancestry, not from the class.

Action Reserves

Level	1	3	5	7	9	10
Attacks	4	6	8	10	11	12
Spells	2	2	2	2	2	3
General Actions	3	4	5	6	8	9
Dedicated Dodges	1	1	1	1	1	2

The Monk begins with four attacks, enough to open two Action Board slots per tick. Its Psychic casting remains limited to one Standard power per round until Level 10, when the third spell action can also support a Swift power.

Hit Points

Base 10 per point of Strength.

Level	1	3	5	7	9	10
HP per Strength Point	10	20	40	80	160	320

Saves, Speed, and caster level

• Reflex, Will, and Fortitude: good. All three use 1d20 + attribute + level.
• Caster level: no attribute route. It rises through experience and the story alone (5). Wisdom feeds the Ki reserve, not the power behind it.
• Speed: Granitefist, a grade of its own. The Monk starts no faster than a Wizard and ends three times ahead of anything else alive, because the Valerium is doing the running.

Level	1	3	5	7	9	10
Speed per Tick	30 ft	60 ft	90 ft	120 ft	150 ft	300 ft
Long Jump	30 ft	60 ft	90 ft	120 ft	150 ft	300 ft
High Jump	7 ft	15 ft	22 ft	30 ft	37 ft	75 ft

The implant joins discipline to instinct. Wisdom determines both how much blue mana the implant holds and how much of it the Monk can direct without losing control. Nothing here runs on the dwarf's own blood: a Psychic's reserve is measured by Charisma because the red mana is his, while a Monk's is measured by the Valerium in his skull.

GM Note. A Monk's caster level is meant to progress more slowly than that of other casters. New powers and increases to Wisdom should remain deliberate rewards of play.

Ki and the Psychic Implant

Ki points = 4 per power level + ½ WIS.

The implant contains a small quantity of Valerium. It converts the metal's power into blue mana at one quarter the resting rate of a Cerberus human. Meditation is faster: one hour restores 50% of the Monk's maximum Ki at each power level.

Rest and meditation together can never restore more than 50% of maximum Ki per day. The Monk tracks no second reserve.

The Monk uses Psychic powers. They require neither speech nor gesture and must be learned individually, like the powers of a Psychic.

Ki also buys techniques rather than powers. Ki Powers sets the ceiling for all of them—2 Ki points per round—and Ki Strike and Stoneskin each additionally cost one of the Monk's two spell tokens, so no round is ever spent both untouchable and unstoppable.

Martial Experience

A character of this class becomes substantially more effective in martial combat through experience. They should develop a fighting style appropriate to their weapons, body, and history through organic progression. Basic Fighting Style provides a reliable benchmark when designing that style; it is not granted automatically.

Predilection Feats

Dwarven ancestry: Dwarven Darkvision · Dwarven Endurance

Unarmed combat and movement: I Love to Fight · Whirlwind of Blows · Deflect Projectiles · Arrow Catch · Defend and Disarm · Opportunity Attack · Additional Time

Ki: Ki Powers · Ki Strike · Stoneskin · Multiple Action · Walking Meditation · Ki Master

Psychic discipline: Spell Focus · Mana Strength · Parallel Thought · Power Blend

Playing a Monk of Kaz'Nakaram

• Fight first. Attacks and speed define the class; Psychic powers support them.
• Meditate every day. One hour reaches the daily Ki recovery limit.
• Your implant is Valerium. The blue power in your skull is dwarven technology, not inherited magic.

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Portrait

The Wizard is the most powerful character in Cerberus and the reason this optional layer exists. Its charts are therefore deliberately poor wherever magic is absent: at most four attacks per round, a single dedicated dodge throughout its career, the lowest HP base in the game, and standard Fortitude.

Everything lost in the body returns through Magic: caster level, slots, metamagic, and area spells remain untouched by the class.

Action Reserves

Level	1	3	5	7	9
Attacks	2	2	3	3	4
Spells	2	2	3	3	4
General Actions	3	3	4	4	5
Dedicated Dodges	1	1	1	1	1

Spells and attacks advance in exact parallel: Wizard is the only archetype whose spells track attacks across the entire chart. Its reserves are short; the class lacks width, not flexibility. General actions open a second slot per tick at Level 5, and the board goes no farther: two slots per tick, six per round, for the rest of the career.

Before Level 5, one slot per tick means a Standard casting consumes two of three ticks, leaving an attack only on the third. Two slots enable the class's signature combination: one attack and one spell step in the same tick.

A Standard spell requires two spell actions, one to cast and one to release, and each needs a board slot. A capacity of 2 spells per round therefore promises only one released spell. At Level 9, four spell actions release two in the same round: cast the first on Tick 1; release the first and cast the second on Tick 2; release the second on Tick 3. Ticks 1 and 3 each retain a free slot for two attacks. This is the chart's summit (see 8).

Hit Points

Base 6 per point of Strength—the lowest in the game.

Level	1	3	5	7	9	10
HP per Strength Point	6	12	24	48	96	192

This base matters twice because it also sets the interruption threshold: an attack dealing more than 25% of maximum HP during casting causes the spell to fail (see Magic). A fragile Wizard is one prevented from casting.

Saves, Speed, and caster level

• Good Saves: Reflex and Will. A trained mind sees through illusion.
• Standard Save: Fortitude. 1d20 + CON + ½ level—poison, disease, and transformation always find their mark. This is the class's gap and the opening for any opponent unable to win head-on.
• Speed: Measured—30 ft per tick through Level 3, then 35, 40, 45, and 90 at Level 10, the slowest grade in the game. Moving under one's own power halves it during casting without Mobile Caster. Being carried by a mount does not limit spells (see 9).
• Caster level: ½ CHA, the human racial rate. Wizard does not improve it, and that is no oversight: its power comes from study, not blood. An innate caster archetype—a blood sorcerer or bard—is where this ratio increases (Using Classes).

Martial Experience

A character of this class becomes substantially more effective in martial combat through experience. They should develop a fighting style appropriate to their weapons, body, and history through organic progression. Basic Fighting Style provides a reliable benchmark when designing that style; it is not granted automatically.

Predilection Feats

Raw power: Overcast · Spell Focus · Evocation Damage · Mana Strength · Additional Target

Metamagic: Quicken Spell · Long Spell · Delay Spell · Suspend Spell

Caster survival: Energy Barrier · Multiple Barrier · Total Barrier · Mobile Caster

The workshop: Efficient Enchantment · Personal Enchantment · Twofold Elixir · Cooperative Caster · Magus Casting

Playing a Wizard

• One dodge per round, forever. Your defense is not in your reserve, but in total cover, Barriers, and action order won through Reflex duels.
• Intelligence sets your DCs, Charisma your reserve, and Dexterity your tempo. None can replace another.
• caster level is your true progression. The GM can raise it without raising your level: spells hit harder, reach farther, and last longer without changing this chart.

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Portrait

The Lazy Wizard is inventive, powerful, and allergic to method. A Wizard studies; a Lazy Wizard has never studied anything. The magic simply happens, and it works.

This is the epic class of Aldor the Infernal, who erased a god and now repels extraplanar invasions. A GM who grants it creates a central character.

Its entire engine fits in one sentence: wherever others count half Charisma, the Lazy Wizard counts full Charisma.

Action Reserves

Level	1	3	5	7	9
Attacks	2	3	4	5	6
Spells	3	3	4	4	5
General Actions	3	3	3	3	3
Dedicated Dodges	1	1	1	2	2

The Lazy Wizard has one more spell action than Wizard at every step.

Level	1	3	5	7	9
Standard Spells Released per Round	1	1	2	2	2
For comparison, Wizard	1	1	1	1	2

For Aldor, attacks are fire thrown by hand. From Level 7 onward they set the Action Board's width; at Level 9, fourteen tokens compete for six spaces. The Lazy Wizard lacks no options, only room.

Its three general actions never improve. Lazy Wizard does not pick up, draw, or prepare. There is a spell for that.

Spell Slots

The Lazy Wizard counts full Charisma for its reserve:

Slots = 4 per spell level + CHA, instead of 4 + ½ CHA.

With +10 Charisma, it has 14 slots per spell level instead of a Wizard's 9. It can maintain its pace through the day and spend metamagic without rationing every spell.

Hit Points

Base 8 per point of Strength.

Level	1	3	5	7	9	10
HP per Strength Point	8	16	32	64	128	256

This also raises the 25% interruption threshold (see 12). A Lazy Wizard is not easily interrupted.

Saves, Speed, and caster level

• Good Saves: Reflex and Will. Like Wizard.
• Standard Save: Fortitude. 1d20 + CON + ½ level. Poison remains the opening.
• Speed: Measured, the same grade as the Wizard—30 ft per tick through Level 3, then 35, 40, 45, and 90 at Level 10. In theory the class can run. In theory. In practice it casts Barrier and is winded by the attempt.
• Caster level: 1 CL per Charisma point, double the human rate. True Talent raises it to 2 × CHA at Level 10.

Stupid Elsewhere

Lazy Wizard has disadvantage on prescribed chance rolls involving patient, methodical work: craftsmanship, a trade, library research, identifying an unknown effect, and the enchantment ritual in 15.

The class therefore cannot equip itself. Everything it carries was made by someone else, which for a character of this power is the world's only remaining leverage.

Martial Experience

A character of this class becomes substantially more effective in martial combat through experience. They should develop a fighting style appropriate to their weapons, body, and history through organic progression. Basic Fighting Style provides a reliable benchmark when designing that style; it is not granted automatically.

Predilection Feats

These feats require the class and do not exist outside it: Word of Power · Effortless Maintenance

From Level 5: Arcane Fusion · Spell Absorption

At Level 10, the epic horizon: True Talent

None are automatic. A Lazy Wizard who has lived through nothing has only a good chart.

The rest of the Wizard's library also fits: Overcast · Spell Focus · Mana Strength · Additional Target · Mobile Caster

Playing a Lazy Wizard

• Charisma pays twice. It sets caster level and the slot reserve.
• Your strength appears over the day. One more spell action than Wizard and a deeper reserve matter most after several battles.
• Strike. At Level 9, six attacks mix with magic and preserve spells for worthy targets.
• You will never equip yourself. Find someone who will. That is a relationship, not a purchase, and the class's true constraint.