What classes are essential? What classes are often not available that you wish were...

Essential:
>Fighter
>Rogue
>Magic-User
>Healer
These are all you need, but have them be flexible enough that each one encompasses multiple archetypes i.e. a fighter could be a knight, a brawler, or a barbarian depending on what weapon profciencies and skills they choose.

>Shadow of the Demon Lord uses "classes" (they're called "paths") but you will select 3 over the course of your career - one at level 1, one at level 3, one at level 7.

I find that really interesting. I've thought about doing progression like this before.

So, in Shadow of the Demon Lord, do the paths get more specialized as you continue down them?

I like the way Dungeon's: The Dragoning does classes.
They're a collection of skills, feats, and abilities that you have to qualify for by having certain skills and feats. Once you join a class, you're locked in until you buy certain required advances within that class. Once you've completed a class, you can choose to enter another class, go to the more advanced version of your previous class, or stay "free" for a time and use your XP on anything from any class you've been in before. There are some basic classes for every archetype that have very simple prerequisites (Or no prereqs at all) that will get you the entry level stuff for normal classes.

I pop a boner whenever there is a big smart fighter instead of a big stupid fighter. If the class has access to just a little bit of magic on top of it I jizz myself.

That's also very interesting. I like this idea a lot.

You have told us none of the information we need to give a useful answer. We don't even know if magic exists in your game.

I like minionmancers, but they're not really suitable for tabletop games unfortunately.

^This, or time period etc.

I really was just asking for any and all thoughts to glean from so I could make decisions based on them.

To answer your question, though, imagine the typical fantasy setting set in the typical not-quite-Middle Ages, not-quite-Renaissance time period. We've got magic, we've got taverns, we've got stone walls around important cities.

What are your attributes? Because "class" usually boils down to concentrating on and exploiting one of the games basic attributes: Str = Fighter, Wis = Cleric, etc. Plus there's a generalist type build for characters with more or less the same score in each attribute

>classes

Please can we just stop with the "depends on the setting" trolling? Just assume it's bog-standard faux-medieval European space opera unless the OP says otherwise.

She only has one leg, because angels evolved for flying, not walking.

"Depends on the setting" is not a troll answer.
The setting being used is such an important piece of information that leaving it out renders your question entirely meaningless.

Well, not important enough for the OP to include it, so answer the fucking question as given.

And how are we supposed to do that?
I could say gunman is essential, but what if the setting has no guns? I could list off a dozen different kinds of magic users, but what if the setting only has certain specific kinds of magic, or none at all? I could say a driving specialized class, but what if there are no vehicles?

The question as given will only get answers that are vague or useless. Depends on the setting is the only correct response when we don't know the setting.

You definitely need a cybercommando class. The more augments, the better. Modularity is key.

No classes are essential.

The essentialness of a class revolves entirely around how your game functions.

Well, the three most core classes you can have in a setting like that are.
>Weapon User
>Magic User
>Skill Monkey

If I had to expand it, I would say that the classes that most people expect to see are

>Heavily Armored Warrior
>Lightly Armored "Barbarian" type Warrior
>Wizard
>Priest
>Heavily Armored Warrior Priest
>Thief
>Jack of all Trades type class

Skill monkey is not essential. D&D itself did without a thief class for a long time, and its introduction kind of fucked things up for about two editions (Some people would say that it fucked things up to this day). Before the introduction of the skillmonkey class, any adventurer could do things that an adventurer was reasonably expected to be able to do. The wizard could pick a lock, the fighter could climb a rope, the cleric could walk quietly, and all of them could do all of that without having special skills for it.
But then the skills got codified because the thief needed more to do and then the other classes couldn't do them (Or at least not as well) because that would render the thief useless.

Incidentally, the cleric was actually introduced in an NPC to counter a certain player's OP custom vampire class (In the days when Elf was a class), which is why they've got Van Hellsing vibes in their turning abilities.

>What classes are essential?
The ones that exemplify the essential ways of interacting with your system.

>What classes are often not available that you wish were?
Something that blends swordplay and magic, if applicable.

>How many classes should there be in total?
As many as your system can make meaningfully different.

Yeah. They're Novice (level 1 chosen), Expert (level 3), and Master (Level 7)
Novice is broad stuff - Magician, Rogue, Priest, Warrior.
Expert is a bit more specialized - Cleric, Paladin, Fighter, Assassin, Thief, Swashbuckler, a ton more
Master is about a specific thing, generally - a single tradition of magic (aeromancer, pyromancer, etc), heavy armor (dreadnought), 2H weaponry (Dervish), Shield-Usage (Myrmidon), etc.
Core book has like 4 novice, 16 expert, 64 master. Most expansion books add like 1 or 2 expert classes, and then several more masters.

>D&D itself did without a thief class for a long time

D&D was released in 1974 and the thief was introduced in 1975.

Arent diviners pretty much fortune tellers though?

That's really cool. Can you swap out when you get to Expert or Master, or are there specific paths that you're locked into? So, say you pick Warrior, and then when you get to level 3, you're like, nah, fuck that, I want to be a Thief. Is that doable? Are there consequences?

I'd prefer no classes at all to be honest

So to you and anyone else that says that they don't really care for classes, how would you like to define your characters? A bidding system? Pure, imaginative choice? Something else?

Have you played anything other than D&D?

>What classes are essential?
You need a giant weapon class, a speedy weapon class, and a utility weapon class. I'm a big fan of a vocation system where your character can change class whenever for no penalty, but has completely different stats as a result of inherent class values. For example a fighter can be a mage based on the stats provided to the class, but a player who always plays as a mage then switches to a fighter, will have a weaker fighter than the guy who always plays as a fighter, but switched to a mage, if that makes sense.

>What classes are often not available that you wish were?
Chronomancer. I fucking love buffs/debuffs and fucking with everyone via time magic sounds fun.
>How many classes should there be in total?
I like hybrids and super niche specialization. That giant pyramid with like 100 classes on it is my bae, you just need a good system to determine how you can specialize. I think there should be linear paths to reach certain specializations that inherently limit you from choosing other specializations. If you're a mage, and you specialize in magic, you can be a wizard or a sorcerer, but if you specialized in faith, you could be a necromancer, but not a wizard, if that makes sense.

>Chronomancer

That's BBEG territory right there.

Is this the chart you're referring to?

Exactly! It can be the shitty power your useless plucky bard has, where he slightly speeds up and slows down things with a bitching tune, or it can be end game AoE full of temporal distortion, fucking with people's weapons, or straight up murdering people by making them turn to dust. Imagine fighting a giant demon who instantly ages all your equipment into dust, or having an anime-style swordsman who preforms superhuman feats of strength and skill by manipulating time.

My ideal Chronomancer is a half old-ass man half robot who starts out as a shitty dex class with no dex, and evolves into a time-stopping, weapon dodging, eldar god. I think it can be balanced pretty well via limitations on end-game magic directed at corporeal characters, and fast cool downs for general debuffs/speedy shenanigans. It just has so much utility, in my opinion.

That's the one. I fucking love that shit. Hopefully I roll a fancy martial class.

So there's the 3 path 'types':
-Novice, chosen at level 1 and provides benefits at levels 1, 2, 5, 8
-Expert, chosen at level 3 and provides benefits at levels 3, 6, 9
-Master, chosen at level 7 and provides benefits at levels 7 and 10
Your ancestry (race/species/whatever) provides a specific ability at level 4. At the moment the level cap is 10 but 2017 he's releasing 11-20 rules.

Novice paths provide a wide base of abilities - warriors are good at hitting shit and not dying and cleaving, rogues are decent at most things and can skirmish/backstab/whatever, magicians have the widest magic base, priests are sort of warrior-magician mixes. Expert paths focus in a tad like a Thief starts to get abilities that make him better at escaping binds, or hiding in shadows, or picking pockets, etc. Master is a focus on a specific type of thing as mentioned.

You can absolutely pick Warrior as your Novice path and then Thief as your Expert path with no downsides.
..or warrior Novice then Wizard [or witch, or paladin, or spellbinder...] Expert, or Magician Novice then Assassin [or wizard, or psychic, whatever] Expert, etc.
There's no requirements for picking a path and each one is contained within itself.
You can also take a second expert instead of a master but you only get its level 3+6 benefits (in place of master's 7/10)

You can't change the actual path you chose for each type (eg you aren't swapping from Rogue to Magician), but you can mix and match beyond that.

I'm gonna look into this game more to analyze how it does classes on an even closer level, because this really was what I've wanted to do, but was unsure on how to execute without it being convoluted.

I've been working on the world for over two years now, and since it is pretty damn close to being finalized, I'm starting to refine the mechanics. I'm a minimalist, so I like really simplistic, really streamlined, really easy to understand stuff. I'm also a turbo nerd that wants a million different combinations and possibilities because fuck yeah why not. It's a process.

Thanks. Have a cat.

Is she your cat?

No. I wish. I have two very old doggos, and they're far from where I am.

You don't happen to have a PDF? I'm curious.

This cat is trying to go where nobody should

mega.nz/#F!6MsGzDLB!4-PKuhFBY6OA1FBXIOke3g
Yeah, it'll be in the "Shadow of the Demon Lord" folder.

Fair enough, I have three cats and a hedgehog, I love those little fuckers. I like dogs too, but can't say I've ever had one.

I really like the two-part class system of Strike!.

It has you select a "class", which are usually based around some unique mechanical interaction with the system, and you choose a "role", which shows the particular specialization a character has on the battlefield and gives a bunch of universal abilities. Classes are also designed to be somewhat flexible and have ways to embrace many of those roles.

Of course, it's a very gamist approach, so it doesn't work if you want your classes to be grounded in the fluff.

I personally like systems with fewer classes, but more ways to play those classes. Pathfinder (and, to a lesser extent, 3.5) has a habit of designing entirely new classes around specific character concepts. In 2e the assumption was that you would fit your character concept into the classes that were already there: your pirate would just be a Thief or Fighter/Thief, your your ninja would just be a thief, etc. In BD&D this was even more extreme; your Paladin would just be a cleric. Since those editions afforded a lot more strategic headroom with respect to character building, this worked well.

5e took a similar but different approach with its class archetypes. The idea of classes-within-classes existed even before this: AD&D 1E had things like the assassin, which was a thief subclass; and 2E's "Complete $CLASSNAME's Handbook" splats had "kits", or slight variations on classes tailored to specific character concepts. On the whole, I think this is a much more elegant way to do it than to keep adding classes to the list as you think of new character concepts, and a much, MUCH more elegant way to do it than to make players mull over which feats are appropriate to their character concept vs. which feats will actually make their PC survivable and make their own build from scratch.

rollan

derp

Rolled 5 (1d100)

What, do dice not work on Veeky Forums anymore? Is this because of /qst/?

are you aware you have a post number you can look at as a roll

Ah, there, finally. Shieldbearer. Eh, could be worse.

Yeah, I suppose I could. Veeky Forums's barely fast enough for that, though.

>Just assume it's bog-standard faux-medieval European space opera unless the OP says otherwise.

This sounds like a new sort of trolling.

Point buy
Experience buy
Skill through use
Training time
Aspects

>What are your attributes? Because "class" usually boils down to concentrating on and exploiting one of the games basic attributes: Str = Fighter, Wis = Cleric, etc. Plus there's a generalist type build for characters with more or less the same score in each attribute

That is only true of poorly designed systems. A well designed system would have every class using every stat in such a way that no stat is dumpable.

>What classes are essential?
You could do classless and have players make their own characters. No class is essential in that manner; of course the players should spread out and cover their weaknesses, so they should have a strong guy, a fast guy, a smart guy, a magic guy (or more different magic guys), and a beautiful silver-tongue guy.

>What classes are often not available that you wish were?
A heavy-tanky guy like a Legionnaire, tower shield, heavy-ass armor, protecting others from spell and sword, can sacrifice himself to take damage/spell, big-ass spear, throwing out trips and stuns.

>How many classes should there be in total?
I like Thief, Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Elementalist (Shaman) and everything in betwixt. So I'm going with 5; with small flavors in between.
That's how my homebrew works; if you want to be a Paladin, multiclass Fighter/Cleric; if you want to be a Fire Sorcerer, multiclass Shaman/Wizard; Spellthief? Wizard/Thief. Druid? Shaman/Cleric. Conan? Thief/Wizard.

Class rarely matters.

It's how you play.

>conan
>thief/wizard
wat

Classes aren't essential.
Stop playing D&D and D&D clones.

>Using post numbers as RNG
Just kill yourself now to save us all the trouble

>Implying post numbers can't be rigged and don't rely on an easily lopsided and predictable factor.
Dice might just be a timing based algorithm, but they're far better than post numbers.

It woulda been fine for his first roll but he fucked it up several times in a row, thus ruining it.

>putting this much effort into trying to get a random number for a silly chart

I wasn't suggesting you use it for everything ever in all situations, jesus fuck.

Conan isn't a Wizard, and even hates magic in canon. What the hell are you talking about.

>What classes are essential?

The proletariat.

>What classes are often not available that you wish were?

Comrade are you implying there is need for anything else than the proletariat?
There is a place in gulag for people like you!

>How many classes should there be in total?

One, there should only be the proletariat.

>proletariat
>gulag
>conflating leninist implementation of Marxist ideology with Stalinist totalitarianism
I chuckled.

>implying Stalinist totalitarianism hasn't always existed under communism

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Terror

Oooo, a large chart I have to roll for.

As for the minimum amount of standard classes, I'd say

>Caster Master
>Fight Man
>Tool Kit
>Man of the Lord

The class I wish more games would have is the good old shape-shifter and I feel that the best number of classes is nine, but with a shit ton of variants

Defender/Tank
Leader/Healer
Striker/DPS
Controller/Support

Sorry, fucked up; Conan is Fighter/Thief.

Why must you shit /pol/ everywhere on this board?

Good taste. Classes that cover broad strokes and subclasses/kits that focus on a single identifying trick or theme is the way to go. Bonus points if kits are mandatory (5e) rather than tacked on (2e, PF), since the balance tends to be easier.

The vast majority of these posters are posting under the assumption that you want to make the standard murderhobo game. If that's the case, it's very unlikely that you'll make a game that's better than what is already available.

If you're homebrewing because you want to make a specific type of game that isn't out there yet, you have to help us answer your own question. What is unique about the system? In what way do you want it to be played?

Example: you want to set up a game centered around thievery. In that case you'd probably need a scouter, a technician, some muscle, maybe a networking guy. These are all variations of rogue, but because the system you're creating is very specific you need more specific character types. And note that even though I included "some muscle" that doesn't mean a barbarian or fighter would fit in this campaign at all. In a setting like this you'd be much better off running away than running into a fight.

That's just something I can think of off the top of my head, and you probably aren't doing that. So I reiterate: What is your homebrew geared towards?

>facts are inconvenient

KYS

Your facts need to be on /pol/. Veeky Forums isn't about fact, it's about fiction. Your facts don't matter here.

>classes

Or you could realize it's 2016.

Then why were you just talking about Lenin?

best classless systems?

I will now roll to create a full blown Steel donut from this.

Wish me luck!

Shadowrun

Classes are generally bad, but in the case you must use them, do it like Anima, where they just provide bonuses instead of restricting you to a narrow range of options. Their classes are good examples of types, as there's a variant of each: spellsword, psychic warrior, weaponmaster, pure casters/psychics, and kung fu guy, and then mixed sets of each category.

Casty, Stabby and Sneaky are the essential classes

I always want is Avenger type classes, particularly ones that get stronger the more damage they've taken.