No game with classes should have more than 6. Any character concept you want could be covered by the following...

>or to allow everyone to play what they want

classless systems

>I dare you to name a class that can't fit into one of the categories I listed

>Charisma guy
>Non-magical scholar/expert

easy there Marx

This image intrigues me. Where is it from?

Veeky Forums. some guy threw it together. it doesn't relate to a game or anything if that's what you're thinking.

there are thousands of ridiculously over specialized jobs in real life

it wouldn't be too outlandish to have a trillion classes

Classes are much broader than a job title.

Rolled 88 (1d100)

Rolling for blue mage

Also, OP's a fag

Rolled 82 (1d100)

rolling for necromancer

Rollan again for blue mage

Depends how open-ended you're making your character building. If your system allows you to take the spellcaster and then specialise from there, a six-class system works fine. If you want to have choices locked from the outset, you can split the spellcaster up into fire mage, ice mage, etc etc.

I mean, arguably those are basically just the same thing but dressed in different clothing, but hey. Classes are always going to be arbitrary, the level of arbitrariness is important, I suppose.

It also depends largely on setting nuance.

Rolled 1 (1d100)

Rolled 5 (1d10)

Rolled 34 (1d100)

Rolled 25 (1d100)

Lets see waht I get

Rolled 35 (1d100)

Gonna roll for my next character

Rolled 60 (1d100)

Rolling

25, Marksman.

Sir "Longshot" Edward Collington grew up on the edges of settled Imperial Aquilon, and spent most of his life hunting. His father was a former Royal Fusilier until a wound taken at the Battle of Red Mountain had him mustered out. James Collington kept his gun, and trained Edward in its use.

With supplies hard to get and hunting essential (as his father could not), Edward had to rapidly improve his skill with shooting. When he turned 16, he joined the Royal Army and sent his pay home. He joined the Royal Fusilars at the young age of 18, and served admirably during the Third Orc War, gaining an exagerated reputation for never missing a shot. He was at the decisive Siege of Whitmore, rapidly shooting down the Orc engineers assaulting the city's walls, taking out goblin flying machines with a single well placed shot, and gave covering fire for the desperate and doomed sally of the Imperial Cataphracts led by Prince Owain. Edward's greatest feat came as the Orc Warchief was about to kill the dazed Prince, by putting a bullet between the Warchief's eyes from the city's walls.

The death of the warchief broke the unity of the horde and the surviving Cataphracts managed to extract the Prince as the Orcs turned to infighting. Taking advantage of their confusion, the Aquilon army managed to defeat the horde piecemeal. Edward was knighted by Prince Owain as Sir Longshot.

At the age of 25, Edward mustered out of the peacetime army, seeking to ply his trade in the unstable and tumultuous Northern Marches as an adventurer, having found politics in the capital to be unpleasant for a gruff and hopelessly honest man.

---Written because I'm bored at work.

That's dumb. Those are just characteristics you can find embeded in any character.

Rolled 37 (1d100)

Let's give it a shot

alright lets see what i am today.

Druid.

Gunslinger, you say? I got this.

>that guy that is a politician and philosopher
>that guy that uses specialist crafting, tech or science skills
>that guy that is a musician and artist
>that guy that is actually undead
>that female whore
>the nature dude
>the boat guy

>No game with classes should have more than 6.
>Proceeds to name specifically D&D arch types,

Fuck.

Classless systems let you customise your character more freely but there are advantages to the more focused guidelines of class/level systems.

I think 5e's Class>Archetype system is a pretty good way of doing it, but IMO the 'classes' aren't different enough. Here's how I'd split it for 5e, personally.

>Fighter
Focus is on using weapons and martial manuevers. Archetypes include berserker/barbarian, ranger, eldritch knight, swashbuckler, anyone with a focus on single combat and damage dealing.

>Knight / Soldier / Officer
A class with a focus on leadership. Archetypes include Battlemaster/Warlord, Bard(?), Cavalier. They buff the party in some way and essentially just provide an anchor for the team.

>Channeller
A caster whose power comes from an external source such as gods or demons. Archetypes include cleric, warlock, binder, druid, and all those things like "war cleric" and "swamp druid". These guys have rules like 'can't eat meat' or 'can't hurt an innocent' on their magic from the thing that powers their spells.

>Scholar / Wizard
Those who tap into the magical powers found naturally in the world. Archetypes include your traditional magic schools, basically. These guys can't rely on divine intervention and all their spells have to be meticulously prepared in advance. (TBC)

(Continued)
So now, you have 4 different mechanical 'classes' and a toolkit to take them all sorts of different ways.

>Fighter unique mechanics are things like rages and action surges- quickly recharging resources that let them fight on and be incredibly tenacious.

>Other Martial Class gets stuff like battlemaster superiority dice, with unique mechanics letting them give specific manuever orders to trained hirelings and expose weaknesses for the party to hit.

>Channelers get powerful spontaneous spells that recharge based on your adherence to the laws of your patron. A cleric might have to pray, a warlock may need to make a blood sacrifice.

>A wizard has Vancian prepared spells, where they must use components to 'prepare' a spell and only have so many 'slots' to hold them in memory. Their unique mechanic is metamagic that lets them modify their spells when attuning them.

And because I may as well...
>Rogue
Rogues don't play by rules much. Archetypes include thief, assassin, scout, some rangers, bard(?). Their deal is indirect confrontation.

Can't think of anything cool for rogue. I'd just make them one of the other classes with skills devoted to stealth.hing is, you can multiclass right? So a 'paladin' combines battlemaster skills with channeler skills. Or maybe Paladin could be a Channeler subclass that's all about a sworn oath, I don't know.

Either way, each class adds a new playstyle. There's no shit like bard, which is just "everything the others does but worse." All classes play completely differently even if they're using the same resolution mechanics.

Very not bad. This is what these charts are meant to be used for.

Why is it scholarly vs religious that divides spellcasters?
Why is that any more valid than
>Element-controlling or blasty spellcaster
>Healer spellcaster
>Daemonbinding or summoning spellcaster
>Mindcontrolling spellcaster
>Cthulu-esque Chaos worshiping spellcaser
>Etc
For what reason should they all be lumped together?

Why do all Fighty Guys have to be lumped into one catagory?
Maybe some people would enjoy the game more if...
>Elegant skilled duelist
>Rage-filled berserker
>Chivalrous holy knight
>Hard-bitten soldier
>Shapeshifting closecombat monster
>Etc
were all different classes. Maybe trying to ram all those roles into 6 classes or less detracts from their individuality and flavour.

Rolled 98, 74, 44, 20 = 236 (4d100)

Let's have a party.

In any game system that has more complexity than a tic-tac-toe match, there will always be more than 6 classes. You know why?

Because people are more complex than you would like, they will come with ideas that don't fit within your 6 narrow categories. Sure there will be systems that do have the 6 class archetypes you speak of, and they may even be enjoyable, but people have different tastes.

Some people want to be a fighty guy who specializes in swords, some people want to be a fighty guy that uses his fists and wrestling techniques. To avoid having one 'fighty guy' class that specializes in every 'fighty' technique, or having many different options for one 'fighty guy' class to specialize in any 'fighty' technique, people make many different 'fighty guy' classes with different themes.

A fighter, a barbarian, a monk, a cavalier. These are all 'fighty guy' classes. Sure you could smush all of them back into one class, but you'd lose all the things that make them special as individuals. It's far better to have many different 'fighty guy' classes with different strengths and weaknesses than it is to have one 'fighty guy' class that'd be good or average at everything.

Boredom, user.

Anyone else care to help expand this setting? I've got a mental idea for Aquilon to be a predominatly human empire, culturally a hybrid of Welsh, English, and vaguely French.

I'm thinking they're mainly the good guys - they officially strive for Justice and Laws, chattel slavery is banned (criminals and war capitves may be enslaved), serfs are peasant vassals to a lord who work the fields and is a two-way street, etc. The Empire isn't pure mind you. Governors and Princes skim taxes for themselves and sometimes break Imperial Law on a whim. The capital is a byzantine mess of intrigue and corruption, but it's considered to be an embaressment and scandal when a plot or deal is exposed.

It claims a large portion of unsettled territory that's pretty wild and mostly uninhabited, as far as anyone knows. It's fought in at least three major wars against Orcs when some Orc manages to pull together a big enough host to do more than raid and skirmish the border towns, and I'm thinking the Battle of Red Mountain a generation or so back was an internal issue such as rebellion, inssurection, or civil war.

The Northern Marches are officially part of the Empire, but due to the distance from the heart of the Empire and other trouble spots, Imperial Law has no power there, the various lords constantly warring or intriguing with each other and various other border states - I'm thinking much the situation in Northern Italy during the Early Modern Period, with no major weights similar to the Pope or Milan.

The technology is Gunpowder Fantasy with a dash of hybrid Steampunk and Magicpunk. Firearms are in early development, primarily muzzle-loading smoothbores, and much of the fighting is still done with melee weaponry - equivalent to about ~1500CE.

>98: Sorcerer
>74: Animist
>44: Arcane Archer
>22: Inquisitor

Adelbran Mistletain was tasked by the High Council to curb the activity of a local cult. Holy symbol in one hand and thrice-blessed rapier in the other, he infiltrated their headquarters and quickly made short work of the acolytes. Entering the inner den, he found the priests guarding something - a messiah baby they believed would carry them to a new era of prosperity. His mission orders were to destroy the work of the cult, whatever it may be, and so he gripped his sword and cast his holy symbol to the ground - if the Church of Alcre demanded the death of an innocent baby, then he would forsake the Church. Taking the baby, he fled, hiding in the wilderness.

He wandered for weeks and weeks, foraging and hunting, and resorting to highway robbery, all for the sake of keeping his adopted daughter alive. Hearing chanting, he readied himself for another ambush, only to find himself accosted by a nascent dust spirit. The source of the chanting was a sagely, scholarly looking woman bearing the regalia of the Academy. Fearful of the strange man, she commanded the dust spirit to hold him to the ground, nearly suffocating him. And just as suddenly as the entity grabbed him, it faded. Running over to pick up the baby that was near Adelbran's nearly-unconscious body, she started to see what was occurring. Offering her assistance in protecting the baby, the spiritualist introduced herself as Amacia Reffe. Outcast from the walls of the Great City as well, she had been exiled from the Academy for her studying of ancient spirit magic forbidden by the Church.

(Continued)

Have you seriously never seen RPG characters who focused on something other than fighting, sneaking, or spellcasting?

Go, look at PbtA systems.

>uses class system
>makes them so broad they say nothing about the setting but instead function as skill sets

Just use a classless system, goddamn.

(Continued)

Decades passed, and Adelbran and Amacia raised the child, teaching her how to survive out in the wild, control the latent powers that the cult had sensed in her, and many general things - being her adoptive parents, of course. Merim, they called her, after the founder of the Great City, and she by the time she was teenaged, she regularly helped them in their raids on merchant caravans and Inquisition forces sent by the Church to find renegades like them.

One night, however, Adelbran woke the two and hurried them deeper into the woods than ever before. The sound of dozens and dozens of feet stepping in unison grew ever closer - the Inquisition was out in full force, in a crusade to spread Alcre's word and eliminate the heretics and nonbelivers. Deeper and deeper they ran, until they found themselves in a cave, lit by a few small lanterns. The man sitting by the firelight seemed vaguely familiar to Adelbran, and his identity was confirmed by the damaged Crest of Alcre he sat atop a tiny memorial shrine - he was the high priest of the cult that Adelbran had slaughtered. Recognizing each other, each expected the other to strike. Then, noticing Merim, the priest lay down his bow, and started to cry. He introduced himself as Gehral Worlwood, and Merim's birth father. Seeing that Merim's parents raised her well, exchanges between the four reached emotions of many kinds, until Gehral lowered his voice. He knew the crusade was coming, the Inqusition was arming themselves. His "cult" was a group of priests to the "dead god" Leream, the god of magic who helped build the Great City in the first place. Merim was a blessed child, a chosen of Leream to have the gift of magic with no strings attached, and thus their would-be savior. And there was still a chance.

Each had a reason, and each had the potential. The four joined together to stand against the Church of Alcre and liberate the Great City.

>but I dare you to name a class that can't fit into one of the categories I listed
-Bard, somewhere between scholarly spellcaster and sneaky guy, but tends to have very distinct mechanical flavor from wizard, and often not that sneaky. Still a skillmonkey, though.
-Medium, who channels different spirits for different buffs each day, capable of changing their role on the fly.

The categories you listed are also very broad, with many possible specializations within each. Mage: The Awakening is a scholarly-caster only game, and has a ton of options within it. A Barbarian feels and plays very different from a Paladin, or a Ranger. Why not have options that let players try out different concepts while still fulfilling the same basic role?

Your breakdown also doesn't really address gishes. A lot of classes cover multiple bases, making team compositions more interesting. While a Paladin is mostly a fighty guy, he can do religious caster in a pinch. Bard is somewhere between scholar and sneaky, with a dash of talky. Druid and Cleric are both religious and fighty. You have lots of possible combos.

Why not just magic guy and non-magic guy?

Where would a hacker in a cyberpunk game fit on this list? What about the ship's engineer in a space game? What about a detective, or doctor, or scientist?

>Hacker
Sneaky/scholarly
>Engineer
Items guy
>Detective
Sneaky
>Doctor
Scholarly
>Scientist
Scholarly/items

I liked how 4th Edition did it - by roles Controllers (AoE), Leaders (Healing/Buffs), Strikers (Damage), and Defenders (Tanks) - and by power sources - Arcane, Martial, Primal, and Psionic.

There was also some division between Ranged and Melee.

So choose your combat distance, your combat role, and your power source - and you've got a class you want.

We can argue about how 4th put it together, but I liked the concept - especially if the roles and sources are treated as broad inclusive groupings rather than strict borders.

Where's the book learning smarts? Toss it into Arcane.
Where's the talky talky? Sounds like a Charisma-based Leader.
Skillmonkey? Any of these combos could be a skillmonkey because they're based on what you do in combat and are far more lenient about stuff outside of that area.

"Scholarly" in the OP is actually scholarly spellcaster. None of those types of characters have powers.

>Implying hacking isn't the magic of a cyberpunk setting
>Implying medicine and advanced scientific concepts aren't mystical to the layman in a realistic setting

And in a setting that also has psionics or even literal magic should those be covered by the same class as hackers and scientists?

>autism

>I dare you to name a class that can't fit into one of the categories I listed
Warlock.

>Those are just characteristics you can find embeded in any character.
And "sneaky guy" isn't?

Where does non-magical strategist ala Zhuge Liang fit in?

He's not fighty, he doesn't throw fireball, and he's too wimpy to sneak around.

Sounds like he's not the adventurer type, not for combat-oriented games. If you insisted, I'd probably suggest Bard for him, and have the character mechanically focus on buffs and assists rather than damage dealing.

Rolled 59 (1d100)

Rollin!

sounds like you are talking about them there tactical battle miniature board games, but how many classes should an actual pen-and-paper RPG have?

Isn't that Tunnels and Trolls?

Indeed he is no typical adventurer, although I recall reading some works (novel?) With this kind of main character leading a group of adventurers around / commanding armies at the front line, so I am trying to work out a similar "class" into tabletop game.

Warlord?

4E had the Warlord class. dnd4.wikia.com/wiki/Warlord

Had some healing abilities, but also had abilities to give other players additional attacks during his turn, as well as other buffs.

This only works if you make the classes so vague that they're meaningless or you make some other system to customoize them further.

Might as well go full video game if you want to fit everything into one grid and make basicly a class-tree that allows you to specialize every three levels or so.
At character creation you choose a general archetype that gives you very basic perks, like improved to-hit for the fighter guy or baby's first spell for the mage guy.
The GM can add class nodes or refluff some nodes to better fit the setting. If you play a non-fantasy game you simply start with a different set of base classes. Additionally you add prerequisites to accessing certain nodes, like having a mount for the cavalry classes.

Yes, warlord is the class i've selected and work from there. Need to tone down his fighty part and buff up his buffing/healing part tho.

What system? If this was 4th Edition I'd say just replace his direct fighting abilities with stuff stolen from Bards and Clerics, or take his powers and instead of the Warlord doing the attack, have a target ally do it - with the Warlords modifiers instead of the target character's.

Then buff the Commanding Strike to allow target player to use one of his own powers, *and* add the characters key stat (Probably Wis or Int) to it.

I'd suggest a heavy Int/Wis split for the stuff - Int for knowledge, wisdom for how to apply the knowledge.

If it's not 4th, then treat it like a spellcaster, but all his spells are buffs, heals, or "Target ally makes an attack"

I love the way Strike! does it, with the different paths gaining Support in different ways, but it's probably a bit too simplistic for you.

AD&D 2e only had 4. The two spellcasters sneak and fight. Everything else was a subclass.

Fighter- Paladin, Ranger, Barbarian
Mage- Wizard, Specialist, Artificer
Priest- Cleric, Druid, Shaman, Witchdoctor, Monk
Rogue- Thief, Bard, Assassin

Eventually they released Psionicist, a class centered around perfecting something other characters might snowflake/luck into having a bit of.

And that worked splendidly.

So frankly, I feel like you only need five.

Anything else is either a stand-alone subtype or a subtype that combines two (like monk is cleric+rogue and paladin is fighter+cleric)

what is that, "Strike!"?

Classes only work if the scope of the game is extremely limited. Y'know, like a videogame.

Otherwise, you're better off just going classless, and having players build their characters out of a set of skills instead.

So.... to modify OPs list

>Fighty guy
>Leader guy
>Spontaneous Emissary
>Scholarly preparer
>Guy who cheats

Rolling item guy into preparer (what is batman but a non-magical wizard)
And leaving out mental/physical training because really that's a scholar too.

Yeah, that's Strike!.

Apocalypse world classes are:

Healer
Mind-tamperer
Biker gang minionmancer
Rocket Raccoon, minus the raccoon
The Godfather
freaky religious dude
mechanic
Odd jobs freelancer
Literally a stripper
Intimidatingly hot
Guy who drives the van

I think OP did fine choosing DnD classes.

Think of it as creating base templates for a classless system.

Like how you might implement races in a classless. "All X start with A B C and D. It costs Y points, you have Z left to spend."

>So are you the pretty one, the big, tough, stupid one, or the weird one with freaky powers?
youtu.be/pqLvFfwcqfw?t=8m41s

Yeah, I've never really understood why Sorcerors don't cast via spell-like abilities.

Glad 2e effectively had that with Psionicist.

Rolled 54 (1d100)

let's see what my next character will be!

Eh, i'd say Leader is just another form of indirect confrontation.

Plus the overlapping mobility and sneaking skills would help them stay out of the foray and be generally tactical.

>talking
But that's not how you murderhobo, user.

So then....
>Juggernaut - Energizer bunny. Consistent supply of offense and defense.
>Day planner - Tools for many jobs, but must choose wisely; your utility belt only carries so much.
>Ritual recharge - A finite supply of rabbit out of your hat miracles before you have to restock on rabbits. Limited "luck."
>Angle - Strengthen your allies, weaken the opponent, employ hit-and-runs or sniping from the shadows, anything to avoid a fair fight.

The four methods of winning. Being prepared. Being legitimately good. Metaphysically manipulating the situation. Cheating.

All completely divorced from lore, so you can fluff them or build them how you like.
And of course, with options to go 2/3 one, 1/3 the other.

I personally like it.

Pathfinder, but suggestion from other system are welcome.

This one is actually pretty neat!

Rolled 47 (1d100)

Just go "lazywarlord" where you never directly attack. It's a pretty decent build.

ok

Class systems are best when they're tailored to the setting, to represent particular types of characters that exist in that world. Maybe there are five distinctly different types of magic and each one is practiced by a different class. Maybe space pirates are an iconic part of the setting and have their own class separate from any other fighty or sneaky classes.

If you're trying to make your classes as broad and generic as possible, a class system probably isn't really what you want.

>not using archetypal classes + profession to make well-rounded characters
You won't be disappointed

I actually prefer to play games that just straight up don't have classes and instead allow you to just build as you please.

It makes so that instead of a guy being "paladin", they can be "Doug who is pretty good in a fight, has medical training, and can read the ancient language we need here.".

Duelist.

I go for four classes:
>Factotum: Jack-of-all-trades, master of none, they wear armor, use weapons, know magic, and can do some thievery.
>Magic-User: Scholarly masters of magic, a priest and a magician are using the same magic just with different ideology.
>Specialist: Roguish individuals skilled in the unsavory methods of societies underworld.
>Warrior: Your go to fighting-men, they are anyone who dedicates themselves to the art of warfare.
Other classes can be emulated with multi-classing, dual-classing, kits, or proficiencies.

I know this is bait, but where would WFRP fall on here? It basically has 95% martials and 5% magic users, but most of the differences between classes are roleplaying-wise.

...

I prefer class role (what does s/he do), power source (how does s/he do it) and character background (why does s/he do it, and how is s/he different from other doing the same).

I really liked the Maryial/Arcane/Divine/Nature split in 4th.

I really liked how 4e did the class distinctions like this and wish more systems had something similar.

you are confusing classes with profession

/thread

OP tried to bait people but instead generated some interesting discussion on the topic, I don't see the issue.

How so?