The tavern

Choose your four

Eight classes wait in the tavern. Four go down the stairs. Who you leave behind is your backup party, and you may need them sooner than you think.

Fighter

The wall between the party and the dark.

  • Second Wind to patch themselves up mid-fight
  • Action Surge for a second action when it counts
  • Champion: lands critical hits more often

Cleric

Keeps the party standing, and the dead lying down.

  • Turn Undead, and later Destroy Undead
  • Life Domain: every healing spell heals more
  • Revivify brings back a fallen friend on the spot

Sacred Flame · Cure Wounds · Bless · Guiding Bolt · Spiritual Weapon · Spirit Guardians

Mage

Fragile, and the reason whole rooms go quiet.

  • Arcane Recovery wins back spell slots once between rests
  • Potent Cantrip: even a dodged cantrip still burns
  • Every spell slot counts: they only refill in town or a safe room

Magic Missile · Burning Hands · Sleep · Web · Fireball · Lightning Bolt · Wall of Fire

Rogue

Finds the trap before the trap finds you.

  • Expertise in searching and lockpicking
  • Fast Hands: drinks a potion or reads a scroll and still attacks
  • Uncanny Dodge and Evasion to survive the worst

Barbarian

Rage first. Questions later.

  • Rage: hits harder and shrugs off blows
  • Berserker: a frenzy of extra attacks
  • Reckless Attack when the fight must end now

Joins the tavern once you reach floor 3.

Ranger

A hunter whose favoured prey is the dead.

  • Favoured Enemy: extra damage against undead
  • Hunter's Mark on the one that matters
  • Colossus Slayer to finish the wounded

Hunter's Mark · Cure Wounds · Lesser Restoration

Paladin

Holy steel, and a light the whole party stands in.

  • Divine Smite: spends a spell on a blow that burns the undead
  • Lay on Hands to heal a friend in need
  • Aura of Protection shields the party's saves

Bless · Cure Wounds · Lesser Restoration

Druid

Brings the storm, and the forest, underground.

  • Wild Shape: becomes a clawed beast whose hide takes the blows first
  • Heals, entangles, and calls lightning down a stairwell

Healing Word · Entangle · Thunderwave · Moonbeam · Call Lightning · Ice Storm

Joins the tavern once you reach floor 5.

What waits below

The dead are restless

The Necromancer's cultists haunt the first floors, with skeletons and the shambling dead at their call. Deeper down, things wait that are better met than described.

A hooded cultist with a dagger
Cultist
A horned skeleton with glowing eyes, a sword and a shield
Skeleton
A zombie with a skull face and a spiked mace
Zombie

And at the bottom, the Necromancer, who has plans for your fallen.