2025 Character Creation Challenge, Day 31: Selina Kai, Tiefling Acrobat

It's thirty-first and final day of the challenge! Making thirty-one characters in a month is, indeed, a challenge. However, I'll discuss that in a follow up post. For today's post, I'll return to Old School Essentials and make a tiefling acrobat.

All Old School Essentials characters generated for this challenge use the Advanced Fantasy rules and the Advanced Method of character creation. Rules for tieflings were published in Carrion Crawler #3. A list of optional and house rules I use are provided in my day two post.

Selina Kai, Tiefling Acrobat, 1 of 2

Comparing the AD&D Thief-Acrobat and the OSE Acrobat

The AD&D thief-acrobat first appeared in Unearthed Arcana. The thief-acrobat, along with the barbarian and cavalier classes introduced in the same book, was inspired by the Dungeons & Dragons animated series (TV, 1983-1985). This was at the beginning of the whole "plop kids in front of episode after episode of thirty minute advertisements" thing. Those children would then pressure their parents to buy the products featured in those shows. Mechanically, the AD&D thief-acrobat was not a completely separate class, but something a fifth level thief could transition into. After making the change, the former thief would retain their skills at opening locks, picking pockets, and countering traps, but could never improve them further. Instead, the new thief-acrobat focused on mobility. They could leap, tumble, jump, and tightrope walk like the cat buglers they were modeled on.

The OSE acrobat, in contrast, is an independent class from the OSE thief. The OSE acrobat lacks any lock picking, pocket pilfering, or trap countering skills. They are able to use shadows to hide and move stealthily like a thief. Their focus is on using mobility to bypass obstacles. An open window or unguarded balcony is an open invitation to an acrobat. Their mobility also extends to combat with acrobats being able to evade and execute tumbling attacks. This all comes with a limitation - an encumbered acrobat loses many of their abilities.


Character Generation

My dice results for ability scores were all over the place. I put the lowest result in WIS, which the modifier for being a tiefling made even lower. An 18 in DEX is nice, though. A pretty good STR and CHA made sense for the character.

Tiefling characters roll on a couple of charts for the fiendish influence on their appearance and gift they receive from their heritage. Kai has small horns on her temples. She can also cast darkness once per day. Which is probably useful in her line of work.

If it is possible for somebody to get there by climbing, walking on a tightrope, or jumping, an acrobat has a chance of doing it. They also get damage reduction for falling damage. Their big move in combat is making a tumbling attack while jumping or falling. Which seems like one of those things that depends on how generous the GM happens to be.

I made my option on the hit dice that rogue-types get in OSE known in my day 28 post. Thieves, assassins, and acrobats really want to stay on the edges of a fight. d4 hit points per level just doesn't cut it.

Rolling jeweler for a secondary skill was an incredible coincidence.

Selina Kai, Tiefling Acrobat, 2 of 2

Background

She's Catwoman, but in OSE and tiefling instead of human.


Resources

Rules for OSE tiefling player characters were published by Necrotic Gnome in Carrion Crawler issue #3.

The character sheet is by William Braidis Lee and is available on itch.io. It has its limitations, but otherwise works fine.