1-800 Regime Change: Full of Class

That’s something you never thought you would hear about a game that attempts to replicate stuff made for the lowest common denominator.

1-800 Regime Change, however, is class based, but not in the ways one would think. The Secret World is a major inspiration for my class system, despite itself having only cosmetic classes (called Decks). 1-800 RC uses a slightly more complex system and one that has two stages; Starter Classes and Professional Classes.

Starter Classes are what characters start the game with, and typically determine what they will have more than one die in (so basically what they roll four or five dice on out of the box) and what will be cheapest for them to upgrade (class-granted skill bonuses do not count toward advancement costs). They can be built with a simple calculation and are not particularly important in the long run. They can last for as long as the player wants them to, but cannot be changed out. Starting Classes are not named, they are denoted as the two favored attributes selected. A character’s Starting Class is lost when a Professional Class is taken in its place, and may never be regained, to encourage more broad building than just racing for a class’s prerequisites.

Professional Classes, on the other hand, give a bonus to actually doing stuff. Unlike Starter Classes, which are entirely focused on helping a character get started, every Professional Class has its own benefits and rules for being used. They may be changed at the GM’s discretion (typically whenever a time would come when the mercenary can completely rearm and rest), assuming that the character has the necessary skills and attributes to select them.

For example, here’s the tentative design for a Starting Class and a Professional Class.

  • Starting Class: Agility/Toughness

Favored Abilities: Agility and Toughness

Favored Skills: Dodge, Ranged Weapons (Pistols, Throwing Knives), Guts* (Toughness-based Starting Classes only select one skill from the Toughness category)

Starting Trait: Gutsy (Gain 5/10 Guts, can be purchased twice)

Professional Class: Gunslinger

Required Attributes: Agility 3

Required Skills: Ranged Combat 2/Pistols 3

Required Traits: (appropriate pistol-based traits here)

Bonus: +Pistols Tree modifier to Ranged Combat tests with one-handed firearms which applies even when incapacitated. +10 bonus to both rolls when using two ranged weapons to attack at the same time.

Description: The Gunslinger is a master of fighting with two weapons, using weapons like revolvers or pistols to deadly efficiency by doubling their damage and using both at the same time.

The Gunslinger would probably have more prerequisites in the final game, since as is he stands to give an incredible bonus to using pistols and the like that would absolutely demolish almost everyone else. Most classes will have requirements from three attribute trees in order to prevent people from making characters around a single class, and there may be a passive bonus added in to classes that applies even when they are not active (for instance, the Gunslinger may be able to reroll rolls with Small weapons that lead to jamming). Classes basically serve as a progress indicator; someone with fewer classes will be well-rounded compared to someone with more classes at the same amount of progress on their character (this is more true when two or three classes are unlocked than when five or ten are, since trait dependencies and the like are crucial to classes but not necessarily so to a well-rounded character).

In addition, some classes may list multiple classes as their prerequisite; the Armsmaster would probably be an example who requires Gunslinger, Rifleman, and Armorer classes to be unlocked, in addition to a couple more traits, before its bonuses can be applied.

*Guts is used to reroll dice, and whenever it is used characters gain a bonus to their next roll; Guts’ handling and getting Pumped Up varies from character to character based on traits they selected. It functions on a per-die basis.

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