B/X Options: Class Builder

 Following up from yesterday this is the other option for those looking for aid in home brewing classes.

By Erin D. Smale

The Welsh Piper LLC

Premise: If you want to build your own custom classes for Old-School Essentials or any B/X based game then this supplement aims to give you all the tools you need.

What do we get here?

 Over 82 pages we get the tools to make your own custom classes as well as a whole slew of new classes and custom class variations as well as some variant rules.

 Usability/Formatting

 Laid out really well this is an easy to follow and use product. There is good use of paragraphs, columns both bold and italics. I especially like the work sheet provided it is a nice clean way to work through building your classes making sure nothing gets missed.

 My only real complaint is that some clarifications are hidden away in footnotes that might get missed or skipped over once you go back to start building your custom classes.

 Helpfully there are a good number examples, particularly in the appendix that shows the maths for all the base OSE classes. 

 I will say that between this product and the Classing Up the Joint alternative I reviewed yesterday I am still slightly confused on how saving throws for class types work. The two factors appear to be “total number of save points” and how often you improve your saves, neither document ever clarifies how this works to my satisfaction. I will be digging into blog posts later to get a better handle on this.

 There is more in terms of guidance and best practices advise here which is helpful.

 Portability

Obviously this product is tied to Basic descended games, thankfully there are a lot of them knocking about so you will get a fair amount of use out of it. Nothing in here is specific to any particular setting. 

Recommendation

 I really like this, it is a very powerful tool that comes with a lot of content. Even if you never get into class building yourself there are tons of useful new classes here. I especially like the bard alternative here but some of the new classes like the Beast-talker are really interesting options for players too!

 One thing to note is that I believe this class builder came out before the advanced version of OSE and as such includes alternative versions of classes that now have official OSE versions, the method itself may be in need of a revision in light of some of the advanced changes in OSE.

 Now the big questions is given this product is $9.99, so 20 times more expensive than the alternative is it worth it? As just a book of class options I would say this is value for money. I would recommend picking this up for sure if you have any interest in either more classes or making your own classes.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/302556/BX-Options-Class-Builder