Those are some pretty sweet swords, the cursed wounds effect is deliciously nasty. Losing bardic magic is a big loss though, does the class gain anything else to compensate it besides the expanded spell-list for item crafting?

The class was tweaked to represent calligraphamancy, which is most certainly an NPC class. I can't begin to imagine a calligramancer out adventuring if he - or she - did not have to.

And yes, the class is much weaker than Bard. Can't be helped; Rwence isn't a rogue, nor a ranger, nor even a fighter, for all that he's been trained in gnollish long-sword technique.

Rwence pretty much tricked the swords out of the goblins, playing the two sides against one another until each felt they had to 'outdo' the other. There's also the subtext of 'look how dangerous our weapons are - you don't want to screw with us'.

And thanks!

Cheers,
OT

Heh, not sure how well Rwence translates to a D&D character--I certainly wouldn't peg him at level 11 the way he's represented in the story. I'd probably either make him a straight-up PC (maybe an Archivist with some kind of homebrew class feature to represent his contracts?), or go whole hog and avoid stats altogether beyond some reasonable skill mods. That may be my 4e roots showing, though!

I chuckled a bit at the Perform (Sexual) skill. I remember the BoEF, that thing was hilarious. (Assuming that's where you got the idea from, anyway.)

Also: impressive Fly score, kid. Does he ever get to put it to use?

Bard seemed like the reasonable starting place for this kind of class, although I certainly agree it needs more work to make it more pathfindery (and original). I was just trying for quick and dirty ...

He's L11 because Rwence is the most accomplished mage in the city (well, one of three ...). His contracts are just as important to Zhaskur as his grandmother's fleet of ships.

Perform (Sexual Techniques) does come from BoEF, and seemed appropriate (very) for someone who's bloodstock (and wants to get the whole thing over with as soon as possible).

It took me a few minutes to figure out where that ridiculous Fly modifier was coming from. I probably would have figured it out eventually on my own, but OOO Writer (shameless plug!) allows for simple formula in tables, and the Fly modifier was set as <B16>, or the total for a different skill ... looking down the 16th row, I found Perform (Dance). Huh? Oh, wait, doesn't he have Versatile Performance (Dance)? Yup ... and that allows him to substitute his Dance check for either Acrobatics or Fly. Mystery solved. Now, if only I'd bothered to make a notation to that effect on the character sheet ... (fixed on my master).

Also not sure what I was smoking when I let the masterwork, circumstance, and enhancement bonuses stack for his calligraphy tools. Masterwork does not stack with circumstance, because it IS the circumstance that grants the bonus. And enhancement doesn't stack with the masterwork bonus. So I fixed that (+34 drops to +30, so he'll probably survive), too.

4E ... I tried 4E, and I'm afraid I didn't enjoy it much, either as player, GM, or scenario designer. But certainly a custom calligrancer class would be simpler to lay out as a 4E kind of endeavor.