CLASSES
The Cleric Classes: A Cleric is usually The Medic — some variation on dedicated healers. Unlike Magician-classes, the Clerics usually draw their powers from either Faith, a god, or some variation of the two. Their magic generally requires them to stick to a certain doctrine to access it, but usually comes with less of a price or chance of backfiring like some Magician classes might experience. Clerics often focus on healing and party buffs, but sometimes they are offensively useful against "unholy" enemies such as demons and undead. Cleric-type classes generally have the least amount of variation, simply because healing is so vital and important that distracting a healer generally isn't seen as a good idea.
You start off as a Priest and then you can choose either the Battle Priest branch or The Witch Doctor branch. Once you level up in either of those classes If you choose the Battle Priest you will become a Templar. If you choose Witch Doctor you will become the Caster.
The Priest: Other Names: Healer, White Mage. A squishy dedicated healer with little abilities at offense aside from specific types of enemies, most commonly demonic entities and the undead.
The Battle Priest: A badass, tough warrior, carrying blessed weapons. This version of the Cleric can dish out melee damage and heal. They tend to be closer to Clerics than Paladins, who tend to be closer to Fighters.
The Witch Doctor: A version of the cleric flavored for a more shamanic, nature-worshiping culture as opposed to the generally Monotheistic religion most Cleric-using settings use. May be slightly more magically offensive and overlap with the Shaman.
The Templar: Other Names: Inquisitor. Named after the Knights Templar, the Templar is more of an assassin mixed with a Cleric. The chief role in the story is generally to do the church's dirty work, ferreting out heretics and covering up the great conspiracy. In battle, they may be anything, but tend to be a jack of all trades, weaker than a Paladin, Cleric, or Rogue in their specialties, but able to handle all of their roles to one extent or another.
The Caster: The Caster is a powerful, but can still be a little squishy when it comes to close combat. They have amazing healing abilities and can actually bring back downed players. They don't do a lot of damage but can give out buffs like there's no tomorrow.
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Fighter Class: Other Names: Warrior, Soldier. In any game with classes, one of them will always map to the Fighter. The Fighter is the tank of a group and the most basic and broad class, usually recommended for beginners. The fighter is basically, the strong guy with heavy armor, a large melee weapon, and possibly a shield or second melee weapon. Compared to the other classes, Fighters tend to be powerful but slow.
You start as a Warrior/ Soldier; then depending on your style of fighting you can either go to Knight or Swashbuckler. If you choose the Knight branch you will be able to choose from the Paladin or the Dark Knight. If you choose the Swashbuckler branch you will be able to choose from either the Dragon Knight or the Samurai.
The Knight: Other Names: Cavalier. The Knight is often depicted as a more experienced Fighter. He typically wears better armor, and may be more defensive, as well as being able to employ mounted combat on a steed.
The Swashbuckler: Other Names: Fencer. A fighter who tends toward light or no armor and prefers agility, cunning, daring and technical skill to sheer force. Tends to be rogue-like in his or her trappings (though usually more flamboyant than subtle) and is often used to evoke the Rogue archetype in games where skills and stealth play a small or no role.
The Paladin: Other Names: Crusader, Templar, Inquisitornote . The Paladin is a Fighter with the power of Light, often with a side of Healer, using White Magic to be more defensive; their devotion to their God or Deity gives them various prayers, healing abilities and light-based spells to protect themselves and others. Naturally, they tend to fall under Magic Knight. They are also quite good at laying the smite down on undead, demons and other traditionally evil supernatural creatures. However, they may have behavioral limits: some rulesets impose varying penalties on taking actions that stray too far from Lawful Good, which can lead to weakening of abilities, loss of abilities or sometimes even being kicked out of the "Paladin" class entirely.
The Dark Knight: Other Names: Blackguard, Antipaladin, Death Knight. The Dark Knight class is the opposite number of the Paladin, possessing the power of Darkness and often necromantic or dark-magic oriented abilitiesthat deal large amounts of damage to enemies, although often with a price. They may have abilities that lower their target's stats or inflict Standard Status Effects also. As the opposite of the Paladin, they may do more damage to light based enemies such as angels, fairies or other traditionally good/holy creatures even if Light Is Not Good or find such foes to be their biggest weakness. They generally do not suffer the behavioral limitations of Paladins.
The Dragon Knight: Other Names: Dragoon (though that term originally meant a mounted infantryman). A Fighter who either is in the employ of, powered by, owns, or who specializes in hunting, dragons. A Dragon Knight usually has a variety of extra abilities that mimic or relate to dragons in some way — flight or high jumping ability, fire breath, and dealing extra damage to dragons are all common. In many lucky circumstances, they mayown a dragon as a pet (either a big one large enough to ride on, or a smaller one). They seems to be associated with spears for some reason.
The Samurai: Other Names: Weapon Master, Blademaster. Samurai wear less armor than regular Fighters, which leads them with less defensive abilities. In general, but they are quick and deal high damage. Crits are easier for them to land.
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The Magician Classes: Other Names: Mage, Wizard, Sorcerer, Witch, Warlock, Magi, Magus, Sage, Magician. By whatever name you know this class by, you know this class. In any game with classes, there will always be one that maps to the Magician. These have the widest variety of any set of role-playing classes simply because there are so many varieties of Functional Magic. In a Fantasy Kitchen Sink setting, there can potentially be an infinite number of magic users, so long as there is justification for considering them each their own type. A Magician is usually a Glass Cannon, blasting away at long range, but easily taken down at close range.
Congrats you picked the widest rang of all the classes! All Magician's start out as a Vancain. From there depending on where you decide to focus your studies you can go in to being a Red Mage, Blue Mage, Illusionist, Summoner, Battle Mage, or Nature magician.
The Vancian Magician: Other Names: Wizard, among many others. These casters rely on Rule Magic and study to learn and wield magic, usually taking years, leaving their bodies squishy and out of shape... most of the time. Dusty tomes and candlelit towers are what you should associate with these guys. If there's a distinction between this and the Inherent Gift Magician, it will be that these ones have some kind of limitation — like needing to prepare which spells they'll use ahead of time — in exchange for more versatility if prepared.
The Red Mage: A magician who does not specialize in one school or tradition and studies the magic of various types. They tend to be rare, and depending on which limitations they have, may be very powerful thanks to their versatility or very weak thanks to their lack of focus. Of all the kinds of magician, they tend to be the most open minded and least prone to think there are Un Equal Rites.
The Blue Mage: Other Names: Mime, Mimic. A magician who does not usually rely on standard spells, but instead learns various spells and special abilities from monsters encountered in travel. Often they will need to see the spell or special ability in action, or cast their own unique spell to 'absorb' the ability. Traditionally will develop to be as diverse as the Red Mage, except with unique monster-like abilities to supplement them.
The Illusionist Magician: A magic-user who casts illusions. Generally considered weak, with no real damage output, and has been phased out of most settings - their abilities are generally given to characters with Psychic powers and Bards.
The Battle Mage: The battle mage can wear heavier armor and more focusing on themselves rather then focusing on others. They can change out their staffs and wands for daggers and short swords and infuse their weapons and armors with magic.
The Nature Magician: Wields power over the natural world, often including elements, animals, and plants.
- The Elemental Magician: A specialized Magician who can only use Elemental Powers in some way. They may be able to use all the elements, or may specialize in one or two. Often, they are the key to winning Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors in their setting.
- The Druid Magician: A jack of all trades nature magician. They often have a mix of elemental offense, healing, and the ability to morph into animals or elemental spirits to become melee fighters. To further the overlap with the Cleric classes, is often a worshiper of nature.
- The Shamanic Magician: A nature magician with a Summoner twist. This class generally revolves around bargaining with spirits and building a Place of Power for yourself.
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The Ranger Classes: Other Names: Hunter. They may be lumped in with Fighters or Rogues, but more often than not are a separate tree of classes all their own. Archery is generally their favored skill, although most can fall back on swordplay if necessary. Rangers may also be skilled in some form of wilderness or nature magic. They may be very good at fighting a specific type of enemy, and often take on the role of The Hunter against such foes. Rarely, a Ranger may have access to guns as well as bows.
Another long range group!! Though Ranger's are much more then just bows and arrows they are also fairly good at swords play. If you choose this class you will start out as a ranger obviously. But depending on what you decide to go towards will depend on what branch you will go into for this class!
The Sniper Ranger: This version is totally reliant on archery, but usually does higher damage because of it. May have a variety of status-inflicting arrows to slow or otherwise annoy enemies. Keeps to the back of a battle.
The Bow and Blade Ranger: A version of the ranger that can handle bladed weapons as well, allowing them to defend themselves against approaching enemies or close in for the kill. The most likely Ranger to overlap with the Fighter archetype.
The Beastmaster Ranger: This class specializes in either taking temporary or permanent control of wild animals, and then allowing their pet to rush to the front lines while they support with healing and long-range attacks.
The Dual Wielding Ranger: The Dual Wielding Ranger who uses two melee weapons.
The Trapper Ranger: The Trapper is a character who can lay down various traps in an area that the enemy can walk into, making them vulnerable to ambushes or follow-up attacks.
The Scout: Other Names: The Operative. Another rare variation on the Ranger, the Scout combines high movement rate with superior sensory and information-gathering skills, and often emphasizes stealth as well. Not guaranteed to be as good at combat as other Ranger; may overlap with the Ranger archetype if they are.
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The Rogue Classes: Other Names: Thief, ninja, assassin, gambler. Rogues are usually dexterous thieves or treasure-hunters who are experts in stealth, infiltration, lockpicking, traps and the disarming thereof, sneak attacks, and attacking from the rear. In almost any game with classes, there will be at least one that maps to the Rogue. They are often lumped in with Ranger-type characters, but more commonly specialize in melee - particularly with light blades and daggers. They tend to be quick but fragile, limited to light armor, but deal a lot of damage when allowed to do so.
Last but not least there is the Rogue class. Usually known as the sneaky sneaky class and usually the class that I pick XD *shot* they work mostly with stealth and in the shadows. Your base name for your class is Rouge, but depending on what you decide to focus on will depend on the branch that you open up!
The Thief: The Thief, when it is a separate class, is a version of the Rogue with lower damage, but the ability to steal items from enemies. Sometimes, this can extend even to intangible items, such as experience points, but more
commonly includes rare items that cannot be obtained in any other way.
The Assassin: A more offensive-rogue, who sacrifices technical expertise for better stealth and killing abilities. Often have a variety of weakening and poisoning abilities and are able to cripple a foe to leave him open for allies or to let him die from damage over time.
The Gambler: The Gambler is a fairly rare variation more often seen in video games than in pen and paper settings. The Gambler is a rogue who has a set of magical powers that rely more on chance than usual. They may have to draw a card, spin a roulette, roll magical dice, or activate a magical slot machine to get a desired effect which may be positive or negative depending on their luck. Very likely to attack with playing cards in lieu of throwing knives.
The Ninja: Generally, the highest tier of Rogue-type classes. The Ninja is a rogue who may have a long list of useful skills. Stealth and backstabbing are universal, but beyond that, it gets hazy. Invisibility, smoke techniques that increases evasion, long-range elemental powers, and sometimes special bonuses to combat like dual-wielding. They also tend to excel at throwing items like shurikens, daggers, and kunai. Often a Game Breaker. May be combined with the Assassin or distinct.
The Shadow: Occasionally, Rogue-types will specialize in magic or powers that augment their stealth, and when they do, those powers generally feature darkness, shadows or the occult as themes. May be distinct or combined with the Ninja or Assassin.
The Pirate: Other Names: Corsair, Privateer, Swashbuckler. Currently a rare variation of the Rogue, but gaining popularity thanks to memetic mutation. The archetype for pirate hasn't really yet set that hard in stone, but in general, a Pirate will use a combination of weaponry instead of specializing - usually being able to switch freely between pistols and swords.
