Quasimorph Inspired Class Design

2026-08-29

In a prior article I had designed a classless character generation system for the OSR that was heavily inspired by The Elder Scrolls: Daggefall, that article can be found here. It was something of a spur of the moment design inspiration and concept that I wanted to put out there to see what people thought. This article will be similar although aimed at a different thing.

For those unaware, Quasimorph is a tactical turn-based extraction roguelike. If you want a better idea of how the game plays, its mood and themes, then I recommend just visiting the Steam Page or looking up any one of the enumerable videos or articles praising it.

What I’m mainly focused on here is how Quasimorph handled classes, and how that can be translated into the pen and paper format. To explain, classes in Quasimorph are not the typical monolithic classes in most games; instead, they are made up of Perks, which are discrete features of the class. More importantly, they level independent of one another based on certain conditions and criteria.

That was the part that was most interesting as it meant mercs were pretty different from one another up until you maxed everything out.

My Design Approach

I want to make it clear this is more a prototype or design concept; there isn’t a wholly fleshed out system behind this concept, but rather just a focus on this component and idea, thus I sort of designed the class perks with the mechanics I’ve outlined in other articles in mind, such as the Critical Injuries & Healing and Firearm Rules Compendium articles.

Classes are made up of 5 Perks, with each having its own separate XP and feature track. XP is required by fulfilling the conditions for the Perk. As an example; The Combatant perk requires that you defeat either a foe who is superior to you in power (Hit Dice) or who is superior to you in numbers (2:1 ratio). At each level you gain +1 to attack and + to damage universally.

This article outlines three example classes: Mercenary, Field Medic, and Combat Engineer. I went for a more modern or near-future sci-fi approach to their flavor and design, as opposed to fantasy, although they still roughly map to Fighter, Cleric, and Magic-User from OD&D.

I should also note that Perks gain XP cumulatively and do not have uniform XP curves. The rate at which Perks level is very much based on the frequency of which XP gain comes up and, of course, the power of the Perk itself. This means you have a few dials to play with when it comes to “balancing” them. I loosely put down what felt right for each perk, but it’s a proof of concept, so I’m allowed to be demonstrably wrong.

The Mercenary

Combatant

Combatant represents experience gained from fighting opponents who can genuinely threaten you.

XP Condition: Gain XP whenever you defeat an encounter with greater HD than your own, or face a force at least twice your size.

Feature: You gain a bonus to Attack and Damage that increases with your Tier.

Combat Reflexes

Combat Reflexes represents the instinctive reactions developed through repeated exposure to ambushes.

XP Condition: Gain XP whenever you are ambushed, regardless of whether you successfully detect the ambush.

Feature: You gain a bonus to Ambush range equal to your Tier.

Bullet Catcher:

It’s not about how you get knocked down, it’s about if you get back up.

XP Condition: Gain +1 XP anytime you are inflicted with an injury, gain +3 you are dropped to zero or incapacitated.

Feature: Anytime you’d suffer a penality from an injury it’s reduced equal to your Perk Tier.

Adrenaline Dump

The body has learned to turn imminent danger into violence.

XP Condition: Gain XP whenever your HP is reduced from above half your maximum HP to below half your maximum HP and you survive the encounter.

Feature: When your HP is reduced below half your maximum HP, you gain a number of additional attacks equal to your Tier during the current round.

Hardnose

The Mercenary has learned to keep their head when confronted with fear, violence, and the prospect of death.

XP Condition: Gain XP whenever you make a System Shock, Fear, or Intimidation save, regardless of whether the save succeeds or fails.

Feature: You gain a +2 bonus per Tier to System Shock saves and saves against Fear or Intimidation.

Field Medic

First Aid

The Field Medic knows how to stop bleeding, stabilize the dying, and get someone back on their feet with whatever is at hand.

XP Condition: Gain XP whenever you successfully use a First Aid Kit to treat yourself or another character.

Feature: Increase the amount of HP restored by First Aid kits per Tier.

Combatant

Combatant represents experience gained from fighting opponents who can genuinely threaten you.

XP Condition: Gain XP whenever you defeat an encounter with greater HD than your own, or face a force at least twice your size.

Feature: You gain a bonus to Attack and Damage that increases with your Tier.

Combat Surgeon

Some surgeons need a sterile operating room. The Field Medic needs five minutes and someone to hold the flashlight.

XP Condition: Gain XP whenever you perform surgery under dangerous or otherwise adverse conditions.

Feature: When performing surgery during combat, gain +1 AC per Tier and ignore penalties associated with performing surgery during combat.

Rejuvenate

XP Condition: Gain XP whenever you recover your max HP through only natural healing.

Feature: You naturally recover CON + Tier HP per day, rather than the normal 1 HP per day.

Therapist

Not every wound bleeds. The Field Medic knows that keeping people alive sometimes means keeping them together.

XP Condition: Gain XP whenever an NPC ally makes a Morale check.

Feature: NPC allies gain a +1 Morale bonus per Tier while under your care or leadership.

Combat Engineer

Klanker Killer

Machines don’t feel pain. Fortunately, the Combat Engineer knows exactly where to hurt them anyway.

XP Condition: Gain XP whenever you kill a robot or cyborg.

Feature: Deal +2 Damage per Tier against robots and cyborgs.

Mechanical Cannibalism

Nothing is truly broken. Some things are merely waiting to become parts.

XP Condition: Gain XP whenever you successfully repair equipment using parts scavenged from another object.

Feature: You may cannibalize mechanical parts to repair equipment. The range of compatible components expands with Tier. Repair normally takes 5 rounds, reduced by 1 round per Tier.

Jail Break

Locks are just machines that haven’t yet been convinced to open.

XP Condition: Gain XP whenever you successfully bypass a lock or security system.

Feature: You can attempt to bypass digital door locks, firearm DRM, electronic security, and mechanical locks. Roll 1d6; you succeed on a result within the range shown below.

Note: On the final tier you switch to rolling a d8

Reliable

The Combat Engineer has an almost unreasonable ability to keep machines functioning.

XP Condition: Gain XP whenever you successfully prevent, clear, or recover from a malfunction in a weapon or machine.

Feature: Add your Tier to rolls on malfunction tables. This bonus applies to firearms and any other machinery with a malfunction table.

Jury-Rig

Given enough wire, tape, and bad judgment, the Combat Engineer can make almost anything work.

XP Condition: Gain XP whenever you successfully improvise a mechanical or electronic device, or modify equipment for a purpose for which it was not designed.

Feature: You can temporarily modify or improvise mechanical and electronic equipment. The modification lasts for one use or one hour, whichever comes first. Each Tier allows increasingly ambitious modifications.

Character Level

Beyond the class perks, characters also have a Total Level which they gain XP for regardless of class or perks. Anytime a Perk reaches a new level that +1 XP for total Level, at every 4 XP a character gains a new total level.

When a player character reaches a new level they roll twice or pick once from the Level Advancement Table below:

Level Advancement Table

Design Note: The point of total level is to allow advancement for things not covered by the class, as the perks tend to be a bit narrow in scope, thus the advancement of the perks feeds into a universal advancement track for base things like HD, ability scores, saves, etc. There could be other approaches to this, but this was the one that came to mind and is similar to the Daggerfall inspired approach from before. These tables assume a couple of things, like HD size being d6 for every class, and there being presumably multiple saves, but that’s more for streamlining.

Other Approaches & Ideas

So far, this article has outlined the concept for class design built around perks; however, there are some variants of this concept that could be explored. For example, Perks as presented here replacing a typical Feats system that you see in games like 3.x D&D or some OSR games, since you could also design perks to work kind of like Quasi-Classes from Basic Fantasy, where it’s a package of features you put atop of a base class at the expense of a steeper XP curve and thus slower leveling.

Another idea could be to go classless and just have a selection of perks a player picks to build their own class, with later levels giving them more slots, though in that setup I’d probably have things like ability score prerequisites for certain perks or even, dreadful thought, have perk trees…

Regardless, I wanted to present the notion of breaking up class into constituent features and giving them separate leveling curves, and I think I at least demonstrated that idea.