Little Red Goblin Games’ “Simple Classes” line is one that I’ve been interested in for a while now. Being old enough to remember back when “class features” were the exception rather than the rule (e.g. it used to be your fighter’s only abilities were that they had more hit points, better saving throws, and a better to-hit bonus than other characters), I was curious as to how LRGG would affect a return to form for Pathfinder 1st Edition. Obviously, there wouldn’t be a lack of class features entirely, but the promise of simplicity without reducing effectiveness was one I wanted to see.

To that end, I elected to go with the Beastspeaker as my entry point for this particular line. The idea of a “master of beasts” in the style of the old Beastmaster movies was one that I couldn’t resist taking a look at. So how did it hold up? Let’s take a closer look…

At seven pages long, the class itself takes up just under three pages, with the rest being given over to the cover, credits, introduction, and OGL. I will say that I liked the introductory text about what a “simple class” is supposed to be. While normal classes are meant to represent a profession or a particular field that one can be trained in, simple classes are far more individualized. In a modern setting, these would be similar to superheroes; individuals with powers and abilities unique to them (even if other characters can achieve similar results with different methods).

I personally find that idea both flavorful and evocative, as it’s a quick way to communicate a clear niche for not just the class presented here, but all of the classes in this line. While you’ll be able to find paladins and wizards and similar classes all over, it makes sense that – in how high-magic most PF1E worlds are – you’ll get misfits whose personal progression is outside the scope of the typical paths other characters follow.

The other takeaway here is that simple classes live up to their designation. The introduction makes it clear that these don’t have “talents,” which are the name for a pool of variable class abilities that characters can pick as they level up, such as a barbarian’s rage powers or an arcanist’s exploits. Instead, simple classes get lots of bonus feats, playing up the theme of individuality.

An extension of that is that this class (and, I strongly suspect, all of the others in the line) have no supporting materials. Don’t expect any archetypes, favored class listings, or feats designed to expand on the class’s abilities here. It’s just the table and the description of the class features.

So with that overview out of the way, what does the beastspeaker look like as a class? Well, the basics are very much taken from the fighter, albeit with some improvements. It has a d10 Hit Die, full BAB progression, generous weapon and armor proficiencies, good Ref and Will saves, and 4 skill points per level (for which I’m very glad, as I’ve long regarded 2 skill points per level for any class as being a mistake) with a fairly broad list of class skills, and no alignment restrictions. The class notes that, despite its martial nature, you’ll want to keep your Charisma moderately high, as several of your abilities rely on it.

Then we come to the class abilities themselves, and this is where the problems start.

Take the 1st level ability, speak with beasts. You’d think this was basically an improved version of the Speak With Animals spell, and yet that spell is never mentioned here. Instead, we’re told that the beastspeaker can communicate with animals as if they shared a language, but that this doesn’t work on animals with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2.

Er, what?

ALL animals have an Intelligence score of only 1 or 2; that’s literally part of their creature type description. How this line got in there I have no idea, but it’s crying out for editing, by which I mean it should be deleted. Nor is that the only problem, as it further cut-and-pastes some of the text from the druid’s wild empathy ability; you know it’s cut-and-pasted because it not only outlines how this functions like a Diplomacy check in terms of adjusting the animal’s attitude but also outlines the mechanics as being 1d20 + beastspeaker class level + the beastspeaker’s Charisma bonus “to determine the wild empathy check result.” That makes it sound like this power IS wild empathy, even though it’s folded into the Speak With Beasts ability. Oh, and then it says this counts as being wild empathy for the purposes of qualifying for feats and other prerequisites.

The intent is very clear here, in that this is meant to be a function of Speak With Beasts that mimics wild empathy (to the point of being wild empathy as far as prerequisites are concerned), but the text needs to be cleaned up. It’s not as bad as saying that the ability to actually talk to animals doesn’t work on animals with animal-level intelligence, but it’s still needlessly messy.

Oh, and it also includes the note about how you can influence the attitude of magical beasts with an Intelligence of 1 or 2 (apparently you can speak to them just fine) with a -4 penalty…and then says that at 3rd level, the beastspeaker can use Speak With Beasts on magical beasts, vermin, and dragons. So does the -4 penalty still apply to magical beasts then? What about the fact that creatures with the vermin type are mindless by nature (i.e. their Intelligence score is “—“)? Does that come into play at all?

So many errors and unclear aspects of this power, even if they’re not hard for a competent GM to fix, is disheartening. The introduction said that simple classes are supposed to be easy for new players to use, but when there are this many errors, that premise is undercut. Nor do things get better as we go on.

Take, for example, the 2nd level ability, which is that you gain a bonus feat. The text says “At 2nd level, the beastspeaker gains a bonus feat in addition to those gained from normal advancement. They must meet all prerequisites for these feats.” That’s the full text; notice how the second sentence switches to plural after the first one is singular? That’s because, according to the class table, the beastspeaker is supposed to gain a bonus feat at every even-numbered level (i.e. 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, etc.), but you’d never know that from reading the text, which makes it sound like they ONLY gain one at 2nd level. It’s another issue with imprecise language.

Command Beast is gained at 3rd level, and lets a beastspeaker use Dominate Animal a number of times per day equal to their Charisma modifier, using the same modifier to adjust the DC and their class level as their caster level. While it can only target a particular creature with this ability once per day, limiting the daily uses as per their Charisma modifier seems kind of pointless, since they gain the ability to use it at will at 5th level, which is also when they can also use it on magical beasts, dragons, and vermin, with the text flat-out saying this overrides vermin creature’s immunity to mind-affecting effects. I’d say there should probably be an exception in there, saying that this doesn’t work against creatures with the swarm subtype, but that’s just me. As it is, this power has quite a bit of potential for abuse if the beastspeaker starts using this on every qualifying creature in sight; the “only once on each particular creature per day” limitation keeps this from getting out of hand, especially given that Dominate Animal only lasts for 1 round/level (and is only going to have a DC of 13 + Cha. mod…but see below), but be prepared for this to be an encounter-changer if the party is facing a lot of monsters that are vulnerable to this power (e.g. an ancient dragon and its magical beast minions for a boss battle).

Beasthunter, gained at 7th level, gives the beastspeaker a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls against animals, going up by +1 at every 4 levels, with it expanding to magical beasts, dragons, and vermin at 11th level. You can see the theme emerging here. I’d personally have liked to see this also applied to things like skill checks involving qualifying creatures, similar to a ranger’s favored enemy, but I can live without that. But the ability tag shouldn't be (Sp) here; (Ex) would be more appropriate (and should have a space between the tag and the ability name).

Beast Breaker, gained at 9th level, offers a +1 bonus to Diplomacy and Intimidate checks against animals, and also to the DC of Command Beast. It goes up every four levels, and as you probably guessed, also applies against magical beasts, dragons, and vermin starting at 13th level. This one is a bit awkward because it means the DC of Command Beast will be slightly higher against animals than against those other creatures for a few levels. It’s also a bit unwieldy because, as written, this power DOESN’T help with the “wild empathy” ability of Speak With Beasts. That’s got to be an error…another one, I mean. Oh, and this is also tagged as being a spell-like ability when it should almost certainly be Extraordinary.

The final power is Grand Hunter, gained at 20th level, which allows the beastspeaker to auto-confirm critical threats against animals, dragons, magical beasts, and vermin, as well as bumping up their damage multiplier by 1. I suppose I could nitpick the language as to whether or not this power’s damage multiplier is applies only to those creature types or to all critical hits, but here, at least, that seems parsimonious, since it’s clearly meant to apply only to those four creature types. I'll also note the lack of an ability tag (which should probably be extraordinary) here as well.

Taken in total, the beastspeaker is a good idea which had several flaws creep into its execution. This is a shame because all of these could have been easily avoided; how does this book have three editors listed when no one caught all of these errors? The good news is that a capable GM can fix these without any undue difficulty. These are mistakes related to rules-precision, not problems with the underlying ideas, so a few minutes of common-sense examination can easily put this class back on track. I just wish that wasn’t necessary to begin with.

So how to rate this product? Well, the idea is certainly one that deserves five stars, but the pervasive errors, though not crippling, drag this down to a three-star product, though the easily-fixed nature of them mitigates this down to three-and-a-half. That’s enough that I’ll round up, for a final score of four stars overall. If LRGG comes back in and fixes the problems outlined above, I’d be happy to go put that last star back in.