Digging for new hidden MM PC options.

[AxeMental]

The Beserker is a great find for a very old school feeling barbarian (AC 7, +2 or double attacks, unlimited fighter, no armor). This is now a regular PC choice at our table, and seems well balanced to the game.

Out of curiousity has anyone ever abstracted PC classes out of any of the other men descriptions (or perhaps one of the demi-human or monster) descriptions. I suspect there may be more gold hidden deep within this rich mine. Dig boys and tell me if you find anything.

[Gandalf Istari]

I have a berserker class in my house rules, and its a great addition to the Sword & Sorceror feel of a 1e campaign IMO. I don't have barbarians as a class in my world, but I have stolen ideas from the UA Barbarian to flesh out my (non-magic using) version of a ranger as well as my berserker. Barbarians in my world are a human race, with restrictions on alignment, class, etc., and they don't have anywhere near the number of skills and abilities the UA barbarian class does.

As to the other "men" categories in the MM beyond the berserker, they don't inspire me much in terms of making a new player class. I've toyed with the idea of having a bandit (brigand) or buccaneer (pirate) class, but honestly I don't know how well they would fit into a campaign. Bandits seem like they are just a weak fighter, and so I don't know if there is any point in having an entire new class based on the MM description. However, since I'm slowly moving to the position of eliminating multiclasses altogether, and coming up with combo classes that combine features from different core classes, I might use the term "bandit" or "brigand" or even "highwayman" to create a fighter/thief class. Perhaps a fighter-type with d8 hit dice, saves as a cleric, but is limited to light armor, and has a few thieving skills thrown in. /shrug When I think about a fighter/thief class like that though, I constantly find myself asking "What's the point of having a class like that?"

As far as buccaneers or pirates go, I think a viable class that combines aspects of the fighter and thief with a seadog sailor type might be viable in a campaign that has ALOT of sea, coastal, and island adventures. But what does a pirate or buccaneer do when the campaign goes of into "land-locked" areas? His role there would be greatly dimnished I think. Perhaps keeping the pirate as a NPC makes more sense.

The rest of the MM "men" don't do much to inspire new classes for me. As I stated, I'm looking more towards the core classes from the PHB to come up with "new" classes that replace multiclassing. I have a necromancer that is a cleric/wizard combo, but he's so powerful and evil that I will probably leave him as a NPC. I don't use bards from the PHB, but have a separate class for bards, a fighter/thief/magic user hybrid that starts as a bard. My next class project is going to be the Mountebank, a thief/illusionist. I got the name from a class that EGG mentioned in a Dragon article that he was working on to include in a 2nd edition of AD&D, not long before TSR screwed him over. Another class that I have in rough outline form at present is the shaman, a wizard/cleric combo that focuses on summoning spirits and elementals. At one point I had the class in near final draft form, but the more I thought about the class and the abilities I had given it, the more I decided I had gone in the wrong direction, so the shaman is going to go through a major rework at some point.

I am also considering a knight class as inspired by the cavalier from UA. I like the idea of the cavalier, I just don't like the class as its presented in UA.

As far as races from the MM inspiring ideas for classes, I can't say that any have come to me as yet, but I can say that I toyed with the idea of going the "races as classes" route on and off for awhile now. If I were to go that route, I'd make Elf and Dwarf a race AND a class, while keeping halflings and half orcs as separate races that can choose different classes. Gnomes I've considered removing from my game completely, but I decided in the end to make them closer to the "faerie" races (i.e., brownies, pixies, leprechauns, etc.) than to dwarves as they are presented in the PHB, and a player can choose his class if he plays a gnome. I still ponder removing the gnome altogether quite frequently however. All that being said, I have always allowed demihuman (elves and dwarves) clerics, which was originally inspired by the MM before UA came out.