In the vast expanses of space, there are so many ways to call yourself an adventurer- are you a specialist, a survivor, an operative, or a heretic? A profession in MechD20 is more than a class. It’s how you function under pressure. It’s what you become when the reactor blows, the ship hull cracks, and your comms are flooded with static that whispers your name. It’s how you bring peace to a galaxy, or set it ablaze with the fires of war. Maybe its just how you earn a meager living.
These professions are reimagined from the Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Player’s Handbook, not rewritten. They follow the same mechanical framework but are infused with science, desperation, and the broken logic of a galaxy that is not defined by a pantheon of deities or imaginary borders. Below are some general rules about Professions in MechD20.
Core Powers
To add some additional flavor to MechD20, each profession includes subclass options and a unique Core Power—a persistent ability that reflects your role in the cosmos. Core Powers define how your character bends the rules of reality. Each profession gains a Core Power at first level, and some paths through the cosmos offer additional Core Powers. Regardless of how many Core Powers you acquire, you may only have one active at a time. When you end a Long Rest, you must choose which Core Power you will wish to activate. This Core Power remains active until you end another Long Rest, where you may opt to choose a different Core Power.
Magic
This is the greatest difference in our campaign, as MechD20 does not rely on traditional Arcane or Divine magical sources. There numerous types of “magic” in the cosmos, but they are rarely referred to as such. The first is “Mystic Energy”, sometimes known as “Cosmic Power”, which is drawn from collapsing stars, unstable rifts, and phenomena we were never meant to touch. Few understand the true nature of this energy, but many have found ways to shape it into practical effects. Powers channeled from this Primal energy generally create something out of nothing. The second is Tech Sorcery, born of invasive code, artifical intelligence, and machines that learn to rewrite reality by hacking its source code. Tech Mages see the universe for what is really is – a series of systems – and have learned to manipulate the code of everything to make things work in ways they should not. Whether a power flows through circuitry or surges from dark matter veins, the effect is the same—impossible outcomes made real.
Subclasses
Unless otherwise noted, all subclasses from the Player’s Handbook 2024 are fully compatible with MechD20. Mechanically, they function just as they would in any traditional campaign—but their meaning has changed. In a galaxy ruled by Mysticism, Engineering, and Madness, divine blessings become pact protocols, arcane evocations become quantum anomalies, and ancient oaths are encoded into neural firmware. Every subclass still plays by the book—but here, the book has been rewritten in blood, static, and machine code. A very nice theming note is that all sub-classes now have a new name; as an example a Life domain Cleric would be a Medical Thoerist in this new campaign.
Statistics
Hit Points, Attack Bonuses, Ability Increases, Number of Spells – anything that has a number remains the same. There will be an exception to how spells work as magic must be melded with technology. Your character build in this campign is mechanically the same as in any campaign, but with more chrome. For this reason, the MechD20 campaign should be compatible with 5e character builders, such as D&D Beyond; and virtual tabletop programs, such as Roll20.
Retheming and Renaming
MechD20 offers new names and concepts—like Mystics, Conduits, and Core Powers—not as rules, but as invitations. They’re here to help you reframe familiar mechanics in a world of starships, signal ghosts, and quantum ruins. But none of it is mandatory. If you want to call your Theorist a Cleric, your Mystic a Paladin, or ignore the rebranding entirely, you’re free to do so. This is your galaxy—we just rewrote the labels to add some new flavors.
Professions in the Cosmos
Barbarians
Brutal, unmodded, and raw, Barbarians are often survivors of failed colonies, radiation zones, or outlaw planets where biotech never reached. They channel sheer willpower and instinct, often enhanced by illegal stimulants or body-hacking rituals. When the cryo-pods fail and the ship falls apart, Barbarians break things until the universe listens.
Bards
Bards don’t sing—they broadcast. Armed with neuro-resonators, subsonic amplifiers, and memetic war scripts, they bend moods and minds with every word. Whether stirring revolution or rewiring morale, Bards are the soul-hackers of the stars.
Conduits (Sorcerers)
Conduits were born strange. Cosmic Power courses through their veins like solar flares through copper wire—unasked for, uncontainable. They don’t cast—they radiate—and reality tends to burn around them.
Disciples (Monks)
Trained in orbital monasteries and grav-void chambers, Disciples perfect their minds and bodies until they move like stabilized particles. They are walking pressure points—unarmed, unarmored, and almost impossible to stop.
Engineers (Warlocks)
Engineers make deals with things they shouldn’t understand—rogue AIs, reality-folding artifacts, and whispering code that breaks dimensional logic. They don’t pray for power—they construct it. Then it constructs them.
Fighters
Soldiers, mercs, exosuit pilots—Fighters are the backbone of every crew that survives contact. They don’t need flashy tools or reality-warping hacks. They need a weapon, a reason, and five seconds of clear line of sight.
Hunters (Rangers)
Hunters track targets across irradiated moons, corporate skyrails, and nebulae that scramble long-range scans. They rely on instinct and sensor arrays, stalking their prey across impossible terrain—until there’s nowhere left to hide.
Mages (Wizard)
Mages rewrite quantum frameworks the way others recite spells. Their power comes from understanding the logic of stars, black holes, and entropy—and then corrupting that logic for effect. If reality is a simulation, Mages are its script kiddies.
Mystics (Paladins)
Mystics are oathbound soldiers of forgotten pacts and gravitational truths. Their armor carries scripture etched in plasma burns and nano-ink, their weapons echo with resonance fields. They don’t believe in gods—but something believes in them.
Rogues
From stealth suits to silence grenades, Rogues are the void between detection and death. They breach data vaults, airlocks, and spinal columns with the same efficiency. If no one saw it happen, the job was done right.
Shepherds (Druids)
Shepherds are caretakers of bio-domes, alien ecologies, and lifeforms not meant for cataloging. They speak to beasts through neural seeds and fungal spires, and the wild listens—even in vacuum. Nature didn’t die. It adapted.
Theorists (Clerics)
Theorists believe in patterns, not miracles. Their power is drawn from gravitational wells, entropy decay, or radiant particle flows—measured, mapped, and then deployed with surgical precision. Where others see chaos, Theorists see divine algorithms.