They are especially good if you like to play a low-fantasy, gritty game.
I guess they can all serve also as a great starting point for some special characters to emerge, if they survive, through various adventures.
In the first example, the key concept is to play a group of low-skilled, nameless characters, forming a mob. The instructions about the class provided by Joseph Manola include options to see a few of them emerge as regular characters.
The thing I like a lot about this class is how the various "extras" most of the times act as a mob of nameless characters, without any special advantage for their number. But sometimes one of them will emerge, get a name, a few additional actions... and with that and through the death of the others, they might become a real character.
B/X Class: The Extras
by Joseph Manola
I was reading through issue three of Brave the Labyrinth (get it! It's free!) when I came across the Grimp character class. The idea behind the class is that, rather than playing one character, you play a whole group of tiny imps [...] Now, I really liked this idea, but it made me think: could the idea of one player playing a group of characters, all of whom collectively act as one character, be taken further? And then my eye fell upon my Pirates of the Carribean DVDs, and I came up with this:
B/X Class: The Extras
You aren't one person at all: instead, you are playing an indeterminate mob of nameless minor characters who follow the other PCs around. You might be a pirate crew, a band of Merry Men, a bunch of faceless stormtroopers, or anything else, but two facts remain constant: there are a lot of you (although exactly how many seems to vary from scene to scene) and, despite your numbers, collectively you only manage to achieve about as much as each of the main characters does individually. At best.
[...]
Safety In Numbers: Apart from named characters (see below), The Extras always go around in a single big mob. If you use a battle grid or similar, assume that this mob of extras takes up an area 20' square whenever possible. (In a 5' wide tunnel, they'd form a single line 5' wide and 80' long.) They always move as a single mass, and can attack or be attacked by anything within 5' of the mob.
Inverse Ninja Rule: Even though there are so many of them, The Extras only get a single action per round: so a whole mob of Extras attacking a monster is resolved with a single attack roll, and so on. (The exception is Named Characters - see below.)
Many Hands Make Light Work: Whenever they're performing some kind of unskilled labour - e.g. standing watches, digging ditches, carrying treasure, rowing oars, etc - The Extras can accomplish the work of ten men. Even though there are more of them than that. Probably. Most of the time.
[...]
Die All, Die Merrily: If The Extras are ever reduced to 0 HP, describe them all dying in some suitably tragi-comic fashion. The only survivors of this massacre will be the Named Characters. The person playing The Extras can immediately continue play as Sarge, who can be assumed to be a Fighter of one level lower than The Extras; the other Named Characters will be fighters of half the level of The Extras, rounded down, who will instantly become Sarge's henchmen (or someone else's, if this would take Sarge above their limit.) Each of these characters emerges from the general massacre with only (1d6x10)% of their maximum HP.
[...]
http://udan-adan.blogspot.com/2016/09/bx-class-extras.htmlThe Urchin by Goblin's Henchman, instead, is a young adventurer, a street kid that has learnt to survive. As such, it has different stats and skills than regular characters (some at their advantage, other less so...).
Again, by surviving long enough the Urchin becomes a real, adult character - in quite an elegant way, by changing the stats, little by little, from child to adult.
Again, the best feature of this class is that it brings to life a real character, but already with some history, with some background.
Class – Urchin
[...] This character class is a street kid that has learnt to survive. This class is blessed with intuition, insight and pluck.
You can’t be a kid forever, so at some stage the PC must dual class to their true calling (but hopefully picking up some grifter-like urchin skills on the way).
[...]
Ability scores are linked to growing up
Urchins grow up. The mechanism for growing up is linked to their ability scores (i.e. stats). In Step (1) determine the stats the urchin will have when they grow up, and in Step (2), the stats they have now as the urchin.
Step (1) Roll up the adult ability scores in the normal manner e.g. 3D6 or 4D6 and drop the lowest etc.
Step (2) With the above rolls in hand, now work out the (child) urchin’s stats:
(a) STR, CON and WIZ – select and add the the highest two dice rolls. The Urchin is not fully developed physically and emotionally yet.
(b) DEX, INT and CHA add +D4 to each of the adult stats (but not exceeding 18). The urchin is small, limber and willing; their imagination/thoughts are flexible and free, they have great empathy.
Keep a note of both the adult and child stats.
[...]
Stats on levelling & growing up & dual classing
Each time the urchin gains a level, the child stats move one unit nearer the adult stats (more adult like).
[...]
When ALL the urchin’s stats are the same as the adult stats [...], the child has fully matured as much as they ever will, and this class essentially ends. Thereafter the character must dual class to grow further.
[...]
Design notes:
- "The Extras" is a nice class to play every now and then for variety: it presents a mob of nameless characters strong in number but weak in skills and initiative
- Some of them emerge in play and gain a name and somehow build up to a real character
- It plays well with low-magic, gritty settings
- "The Urchin" is a different alternative: it could be played by a single player or even by all players as a build-up to the real characters
- It features a nice system where you level-up and gain some points in some stats while you lose points in other stats, until you reach the point where you become a "regular" character
- Some of them emerge in play and gain a name and somehow build up to a real character
- It plays well with low-magic, gritty settings
- "The Urchin" is a different alternative: it could be played by a single player or even by all players as a build-up to the real characters
- It features a nice system where you level-up and gain some points in some stats while you lose points in other stats, until you reach the point where you become a "regular" character
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