Warrior Vocations

A new system is always a time of anxiety and tension as everyone waits to see how their favored concepts become twisted and warped. Well, in this case quite a bit has changed for warriors. HERO was a true classless and non-level based system. It cost the same amount of points to buy any skill from 31 to 32 as it does from 16 to 17. No matter your background or level of proficiency.

On the other hand, C&S3 is more of a throwback to a modified class based system. Unlike a true class system (see AD&D 1st Edition) a character has far more ways to customize the way they spend their experience points to advance their characters; however, unlike a true point-based system you can't just buy anything willy-nilly. C&S3 falls somewhere in the middle, but leaning towards a class system.

Vocations

Enough background, lets get to the meat for warriors. C&S3 divides warriors into 3 subsets called vocations. There are your base Warriors, Knights, and Foresters. Other than the names you can consider them your old favorites of Fighters, Paladins, and Rangers; however, they are the same only in style of name. The biggest difference is between Knights trading in Noble skills for a Paladin's Holy powers.

A men of arms vocation will provide someone with a primary skill list of weapons and a few supporting skills. The secondary list will be supporting skills. This tight focus gives the warriors an edge over the other vocations, which tend to have a more level list. However this can also pigeon somebody into just being a muscle wielding a weapon. Therefore, it is always good to examine the secondary skills you have been offered as a way to flesh out your character.

Warriors

The most common of warriors and probably most flexible. This flexibility comes mostly from the fact that warriors have access to just about any weapon skill and all of the supporting skills. By tweaking your mastery slots a character can subclass themselves as archers, swordsmen, barbarian warriors, or the every popular jack of all-master of none. The biggest thing to remember is to look over the armor and weapons chart and try to plot out where you want to be as you expand your character — then build to that goal.

The reason this must be done early is the same reason that dozens of people that take the Warrior vocation all look different — masteries. By tweaking where your masteries are placed a warrior can specialize in one area at the expense of another. If you take Slashing Swords, Great Swords, Dagger and Knife fighting, and Throwing Daggers as your masteries you will be very good with just about any blade; however, the growth of your skill at archery will be only passable.

Knights

Unlike the AD&D counterpart, a knight is not a paladin by any means other than they are both warriors subtypes and usually serve someone else. The C&S3 knights are noble warriors skilled in lance, flail, horsemanship, and skills of the court. This is probably the vocation with the biggest mental jump as few warriors I have seen come through my game have skill with poetry, composition, musical instruments, and chess. However, in reality and my world these are the skills necessary to not just achieving noble rank — but being accepted by your peers.

As an example, since Chess is seen as both a game of the noble-class and often given the belief that it is an abstract way of looking at battle. Then is would be bad for someone that claims to be a great general not be able to succeed at Chess. While Chess itself is so abstract that a good chess player is not a good general and vice versa, a skilled general that is not good at chess will probably be looked down upon by their fellow nobles.

Foresters

Think of a ranger without magical ability, but instead a true understanding of the forest like a druid. Weaker in the selection of weapons skills than either the Knight or Warrior, a Forester makes up for that with Stealth and the ability to live off the land for extensive amounts of time. With a high enough skill a single forester can forage for food and berries enough to keep an entire party in the field for more time. More time in the field means more time slaying evil and gathering loot — for those motivated by such things.

As their secondary ability, foresters make good sneaky fighters and scouts. While nothing stops them from using heavier armor and fighting on the line as warriors — they are worth their weight as scouts. Far from the main base of resupply a Forester can operate without any reduction in their abilities. This is not to be confused with a thief's ability in breaking and entering, but instead looked up as a chance to let loose the barbarian lurking inside.

Parting Shots

As you can see, the systems are quite different but you can still stand out in this partial point and partial class system from others that have taken the same vocation. There are still plenty of traps laying about that I have yet found, but as I learn more about the system I will take time out of the normal schedule and discuss those issues.