02/22/2024

This time we look at the two classes in Cursed Scroll 3: Midnight Sun!

Sea Wolf Class

“

Seafaring raiders who prowl the isles for plunder in dragon-headed longboats. When the warhorn sounds, they become fierce berserkers and shield maidens who hope to please their gods with a brave death.”

Sea Wolf warriors have access to the following weapons: dagger, great axe, handaxe, longbow, longsword, spear. They may wear leather armor, chainmail, and can use shields.

Sea Wolf characters get three features: Seafarer, Old Gods, and shield wall.

Seafarer gives the Sea Wolf advantage on checks related to navigating and crewing a boat. This makes sense since the Sea Wolf is the HSadowdark version of the Viking.

Old Gods gives the Sea Wolf the option to select an Old God (Odin, Freya, or Loki) and gain a benefit. Odin is the obvious choice since you regain 1d4 HP each time you kill an enemy. There is no limit either. Freya gives a luck token, and Loki gives advantage to lie, sneak, and hide.

Shield Wall allows the Sea Wolf to use their action to take a defensive stand and raise their AC to 20 for the round.

Overall Take: While the Sea Wolf fits into a campaign for Isles of Andrik (the included setting in Midnight Sun), it doesn’t fit into a homebrew campaign at all. The Old Gods feature doesn’t work if those aren’t gods in your campaign (and the Odin selection is way overpowered compared to the Fighter).

The Seer Class

“Baleful diviners who reek of smoke and blood. They untangle the whispers of the gods by
reading the runes, the bones, and the stars. Their knowledge of fate allows them to bend it.”

The Seer gets a limited selection of weapons and armor: dagger, stave, spear, and leather armor.

The Seer also gets three features: Destined, Omen, and Spellcasting.

Destined allows the Seer to roll a 1d6 when using a Luck token (instead of the normal 1d4).

Omen allows the Seer to make a DC 9 Wisdom check up to 3 times a day. On success, the Seer gains a Luck token but can’t have more than one at a time.

The Seer gains 1 spell at 1st level and only has a maximum of 2 spells per spell tier.

Overall Take: Unless running a Viking campaign (even then I would avoid it), the Seer seems underwhelming. The Omen feature sounds cool and thematic (especially with the Destined feature), but the limited number of spells is a major penalty. The Witch from Cursed Scroll 1 is a much better choice if you want to play a folksy spellcaster. I might allow the player to include the Seer spell list in the Witch spell list (with some renaming of the Old God names). Now, that could be interesting!

Keep on gaming!