by Kurgan » December 14th, 2020, 9:39 am
Actually giving the Orc Bard bagpipes and an accordion would be pretty dope (as those crazy kids in their late 40s are fond of saying).
As far as progression goes, what progression? The only progression the Heroes normally get are upgrades in terms of gear. Armor to roll more defend dice and weapons to roll more attack dice... plus the occasion ability to attack diagonally or at range. The Wizard gets less ugprades, the only thing that improves are his basic fighting stats, he gets no more spells. Yes, the new Expansions have new spell group options but he still always has nine spells, and the Elf always only gets one set of three, no matter what sets he has.
I guess the only thing that really is unique are the Artifacts you find (those that aren't single use), which give you a permanent boost or ability that you can carry from Quest to Quest.
An Orc Bard, to me, is functionally a Cleric. He's focused on boosting others. That's different from the Wizard, which has a combination of spell options that make him based on self preservation and destroying bosses (yes, he can boost others too, of course). In the upgrade system I came up with, I tried to tweak the basic abilities of each character as they complete more Quests. So the Barbarian and the Dwarf get better at scoring hits in battle (and the Dwarf gets better at disarming traps). The Wizard's survival skills (his weak attack and defense) get more efficient and his spells get little boosts. The Elf gets more magic. And so on.
I made a Paladin as an undead slayer. So he gets more efficient at killing undead as he progresses. The Ranger is all about standing back and hitting at distance (the Warlock in the Remake is basically a Ranger), so as he progresses, his ranged attacks get better, and his basic trap disarming ability improves (even while lagging behind the Dwarf). And my Mystic is a battle mage, she gets more magic as she progresses. Keeping it simple here. And as the good guys progress so do the bad guys. The bad guys get randomly better at attack and defense, making them more threatening and harder to kill.
For my own Cleric I made him/her a healer, who can still fight, but is weak healing him/herself (chance to totally fail, or only do 1 BP). The upgrade for the Cleric is more healing, and then more powerful healing and a greater chance to save him/herself. So if the Orc Bard is a Cleric, then the same would be true. The dice used would increase in number and/or change in color (Green more likely to get shields, Black more likely to get skulls) to become more efficient.
My Orc ex-Pirate Cleric is going to be an interesting character class. But that's me making lemonade out of lemons. Still, it will be interesting to see what they come up with in a year for the character. Then again if he has no backstory and is a generic class like the Classic Heroes, you have the same problem (or opportunity for your imagination) that we have right now. Either you care enough to make him fit, or you don't and that's that. Could still use him as an NPC, good or bad...
You see Zargon is patrolling his waters with these Orc corsairs... and its a common phenomenon that they'll go off on their own and either become free merchants, or try to loot other Orcs (and have to be hunted down), and a few of them have seen TH' LITE! and formed a rather sizable community of monasteries on various islands across the waters. The Empire has taken great interest in recruiting these Chaos ex-patriots to the cause. Some of them are content to go on their way selling and transporting goods while others maintain simple lives of penance for their past evil deeds. Others have become zealous for the fight against their former masters and such is this one you pull out of the box and plunk on the board...
