New Class: Modron Mathmatician

This is what happens when a human child is raised by modrons.

They want to get a nice accountant job or something, but no one will hire them because they are weird and sleep standing up, with their eyes open, humming The Calibration Tone (to show the pentadrones that they are healthy).

Mathematicians often become adventurers because they're too autistic for any other medieval career.  If nothing makes sense, they might as well go try to impose order on the least orderly places possible: dungeons.  

Map them out, make them straight, kill all demons, correct all illogical people.

Modron mathematicians are very dutiful, and most of them will constantly be writing letters home.  They'll write a letter full of the details of their new life among their fellow humans, give it to someone who looks Lawful*, pay them some money, and tell them to carry the letter to Primus, the One and the Prime.

Most of these letters are opened by the person who "looked Lawful", read, mocked, and fed to a goat.  DMs should give an insultingly small amount of XP when a mathematician spends money sending letters to Primus.  Like 10xp or something.  This is because mathematicians cannot carouse.

Primus never responds to these letters, but mathematicians are comforted knowing that Primus's behavior and responses are standardized and well-characterized.  They imagine what Primus would say if he were to read their letter, and they are usually correct.

If they ever somehow make it to level 9, they start attracting modrons and other lawfully minded folk, and they invariably found an ultra-rational town somewhere, in imitation of Mechanus.

However, some human mathematicians are more than just modron-level OCD sufferers.  Sometimes, they freak out upon experiencing the non-modron world**, and revel in their new-found freedom (which was previously more than unattainable--it was literally inconceivable).  These mathematicians are dreaded by modrons everywhere, and are known as Chaos Theorists.

This class is also appropriate for people who want to play a modron.

*There are no alignments in Centerra.  Hilariously enough, though, modrons seem to think that there are.

**Modrons are the inventors of mathematics.  They are also it's only real practitioners, and a few humans (architects, siege engineers) study under them to master their potent maths.  So, yeah, if someone knows math, it's because they apprenticed to a modron.  In fact, people often don't call it mathematics; they call it the "modron art".

This is a class about math and fiddly numbers.  Not just for the character, but for the player, too.

I was talking to +Chris McDowall about the desirability of having a complex class for people who like complex classes.  I ventured that I (sometimes) like fiddly little subsystems for classes, because then the class feels very different from other classes.  And that's diversity.  That's the freshness.  I like playing a quirky little subsystem long enough to figure out how to best utilize it.  Unravel its mysteries, so to speak.

Yes, fighters are simple and easy to understand, and I love playing fighters.  (I'm playing one right now.)  But there are people that thrive on complexity.  So, here is a complex class for people that like complex classes.  At the beginning of every turn, you have an incredibly complex little question to consider: which number should I put into my matrix?  And in the middle of each of your turns, you have another incredibly complex little question to answer: what spell or ability should I use?

It's a funky little optimization problem.  I suggest that the DM give a mathematician player a hard time limit of 30 seconds to decide those things, once its their turn.

It's a potentially powerful class, but it needs to be played like a chess game.  And more perversely: it's a very unreliable one, because it depends on getting the right numbers in your matrix at the right times.

Modron mathematicians are always watching the invisible algebra at work in the universe.  You can see the numbers behind everything.  You can see the matrix.

Think of your matrix as a bag full of scrabble tiles.  Except instead of letters on those tiles, they're numbers from 1-20.  The maximum capacity of your matrix (how many tiles the bag can hold) is equal to 7 + level + Int bonus.  If you want to gain a number but don't have room for it, you can overwrite an old number at any time.

The mathematician player will probably need a piece of scratch paper to keep track of this.

Alternatively, you could just download the mathematician tracker I made and print it out.

Just as a modron mathematician is constantly watching the universe and discerning the underlying mathematics, so are you (the player) watching the game for any numbers that pop out.  Whenever one of your fellow players rolls a d20, ask them to tell you the natural number (what is actually showing on the die).  At the beginning of your character's turn, you can add one of those numbers that you heard about since the beginning of your last turn.  Of course, any d20 number that you roll on your turn can be added to your matrix at the beginning of your next turn.

Keep track of this.  You'll probably be adding a number to your matrix every turn.  Modrons must be ever-vigilant against the forces of chaos!

There are two ways to lose numbers from your matrix.

There are three ways to use the numbers in your matrix.  Your character cannot use any of them unless they have their math book open in front of them (usually held in one of their hands).

Attack vectors are your primary method of damaging enemies with math.  You have two kinds.