40 Not classy – a satire of heroes

D&D with commentary & illustrations by Luka Rejec of @stratometaship and the WTF Patreon, etc.

Fighter

Requirements: you suck at everything else, so here’s a spear and a shield. Stand in front and get hit.
They said you’d play Conan. A reaver. A raider. A dragon slayer. A king. Some jazz like that.
What you got was a schlub in heavy armor, with no charisma, no skills, no talent, no magic, no special abilities. If you’re lucky and don’t die, you get a shitty fort, peasants to feed and more men-at-arms.
You’re not He-man. You’re the boring guy with the moustache. Whatsisname. Man-at-arms?

Cleric

Requirements: religious zealot willing to twist every situation and rule to not suck completely.
The idea was you’d be playing some Undead Hunter or Knight Templar. Instead you get a shitty, tomb-robbing heal-bot.
Charisma? Hah! You’ll pump up your wisdom and like it. Or cry. You can cry, too.
Just remember – your god and your Referee permit everything, so long as you rationalize it properly.
Also, the tomb-robbing. Seriously? WTF?

Wizard

Requirements: you’re smart and are willing to reanimate the dead, break the laws of reality and summon arcane horrors to attain ultimate power.
Merlin? Screw Merlin.
You’re gonna become a god. Or at least a lich. Or a dragon king. Or some kind of time-and-space lord.
Seriously, you’re gonna be the boss. But like a sea turtle, you have to survive that first mad rush down the beach to the cool waters of deeply disturbing arcane magics.
You know that shitty alignment system? If you’re a wizard and anywhere on the lawful and good spectrum, you’re missing the point. Gandalf is boring. Saruman. That’s where it’s at.

RogueThief

Requirements: you’re nimble and desperate. You have no friends. You have no sword. You have no magic. Basically, you suck, but you’re too scrawny to get armor.
And there you thought you’d be a charming, dashing debonaire rogue or some sort of ninja assassin or a back-stabbing beast or anything else?
No. You’re a shitty, dirt-poor, snot-picking nitwit that can barely climb and can occasionally disable a trap or pick a lock.
Oh, and everybody else in the party also wants to steal stuff from the tomb, so no, you’re not special either.

Warlock

Requirements: you’re a shitty wizard who needs a demon patron to attain ultimate power. Also, you’re too much of a bitch to call yourself a witch. Weak.
You have a pact and a few crappy spells and you sold your soul. Was it worth it? Was it?
Because it looks really boring from here. You get eldritch bolts? Ooooo. So eldritch. And tentacles and squigees.
You will never attain ultimate power so long as you need a patron, so you’re basically a crippled wizard. Good choice. Oh, also, nobody can ever tell you’re not a wizard.

Sorcerer

Requirements: you’re a shitty wizard who can’t control their own power and pretends that makes them cool and charismatic.
It doesn’t. Think you’re a fountain of magic? That you have the blood of dragons? That there is wild magic coursing through your veins?
You’re a lazy dilettante, that’s what. And your chosen class is a lazy wizard class for lazy wizards. Go to wizarding school again.
Oh, you can metamagic? Meta-hipster more like it. Flexible magic. Pshaw! Heathen nonsense.

Ranger

Requirements: you’re fast and strong and pretend to be mysterious.
Let’s face it. You want to be Drizz’t Aragon Stalker.
You won’t be.
You will be a pansy with a bow and crappy leather armor and a weird mono-maniacal obsession with hunting and killing members of the single most common humanoid group in your Referee’s world. Probably Orcs. Everybody knows they’re evil, so if you’re out to genocide the hell out of them, everybody will just say you’re chaotic good, right? Right?

Paladin

Requirements: you rolled magic unbelievable stats, so you decide to be the most boring insane religious fanatic soldier possible. Also, no sense of humour.
Seriously.
You rolled fantastic stats. You could be anyone. But I guess the freedom was too much for you, huh? So you went with the shitty code of conduct and the fanaticism and zealotry.
Just call yourself Lord Boring and be done with it. At least that’ll be a running gag as you Detect Evil one more time and then just impale the whole Half-goblin village. Asshole.
For reals. You know who is the biggest asshole in Camelot? Lancelot. Everyone hates him. That’s the Golden Boy. Do not be that asshole. The paladin is like the prize jock of the team. No surprise your only dump stat is Intelligence.

Monk

Requirements: you’re wise and fast and tough and boring. Like a paladin in a loincloth, but zen.
Admit it. You watched 1980s martial arts movies and wanted to be a damned ninja monk zen Bruce Lee knock off. Because you won’t have any of that classic Buddhist or Christian or any other monkery.
No, you want to slap fools with your hands. Sigh. Of course you’ll fit right in with all the other fake medieval bums, won’t you? Mendicant friar with a death club or something.
Just drop all the religious mumbo and go full fighter, please. It’ll be more fun. And don’t call yourself a monk. That is boring as balls.

Druid

Requirements: you’re a religious fanatic like the cleric, but liked Panoramix and Getafix a bit too much.
Oh, god. A twee religious fanatic druid shape-shifting holy person obsessed with balance and sacrificing people. And adding a smidgeon of Celtic frosting to your vanilla pop rock medieval fantasy setting.
Why? Oh, god why. Either be a shape-shifting horrible wizard, or be a crazy holy person. But don’t call yourself a damned druid.
Ok, I guess shapeshifting into woodland creatures is fun, I’ll grant that. But call yourself a shifter and ditch the balance nonsense, please.

Barbarian

Requirements: you’re Conan.
Finally. A decent class.
You’re tough and deadly and sneaky and rough and ready and don’t need a damned tin suit to survive.
Go for it. Barbarians are cool.
Let your inner rage roll and smash hulk smash. And get a bard and wizard sidekick.
Damnit, should have called the blog BarbarianBardWizard.
Er. Maybe not. WTF will do.

Bard

Requirements: you’re a charismatic rogue.
You could have been so metal. A charlatan, a spinner of tales, a master of forbidden knowledge, a rogue, a devious … No. Caco-fucking-phonix. Again with the Asterix celtic intrusion. Just like the druid.
This class pisses me off. It has so much going for it, and then you dress it in tweed and bagpipes and and lyre and bad singing and praising some worthless get instead of realising that you get to be Loki and Anansi the Spider and Coyote and every damn Trickster in mythology with this class.

Oh, you read all this way? Y’know, to be honest, all this started with a Twitter poll that got all of four responses and a layout test. You can get the full doc here. It looks nice.

As for the art: pencil sketch + Sakura Micron Pigma 05, 01 and 005. Bit of eraser. Dash of level adjustment. In National Museum of Korea notebook. Nice stuff.