Class Sterotypes

[Lady-J]

Hello! I don’t usually think of classes much in RPGs because most of the JRPGs I played growing up didn’t really tell you what class the characters were, it was just that they had their abilities and that was it, but since RPG Maker requires classes it got me thinking about classes and the stereotypes around those classes. For example most people I know think of Warrior/Fighters as being digh Defense/HP and damage, but weak magic defense and usually not much versatility. Contrarily when I talk about a paladin there are people who think of them as a more tanky variant of a healer class and others who think of them as heavy damage dealers who use their magic for offense specifically against the unholy. Even on the second idea, unholy sometimes means just undead, sometimes includes demons, and sometimes only includes demons. Because it's a generally good idea to conform to an audience's expectations on systems related things (it's more controversial when talking about narrative), calling my tanky healer a Paladin might annoy someone who chooses that as their characters class. Now there is a few easy solutions, previewing a classes abilities is a good one IMO, but what I really want to ask about is the kind of stereotypes people have around certain class types. I have a few examples, but please talk about any kind of class and name you like.


Hero, Paladin, Avenger, Kngiht, Druid, and Ranger.

 

[Milennin]

If I went in blindly into a game and saw those classes:

Hero: This one isn't very much defined by stereo-types, in my opinion. You can go a lot of ways with Hero, but I suppose I would associate Hero with a swordfighter, because the most prominent legendary weapons in stories almost always are swords. A Hero might also have some sort of (generic/elemental) magic, or skills that could inspire (buff) allies. Their stats would be pretty well-rounded.

Paladin: Basically just healer + knight class combined. Can go either for a more physical or magical build, or a bit of both. Has lower offensive powers, but can take a lot of hits, and help protect the party from taking damage.

Avenger: Could probably count the times I've seen this class on one hand, so I don't have much of an idea where a game would take it. Probably a more offensive type of class, that's about all I'd think of it.

Knight: Usually the typical tank class, or a more heavy version of the warrior class, wielding sword + shield. More offensive knights might drop the sword + shield set for a more all-around weapon mastery kind of thing, where they can use a bunch of different weapons very effectively. Strong physical build, but weak to magic attacks.

Ranger: The well-balanced midrange class, who is effective with things like a dagger, but can also move to the backlines with a bow and arrow. Has a more hit-and-run approach, attacking, setting up attacks and has ways of curing themselves from ailments. They don't really have a set style of play, as they tend to be pretty flexible with their skill sets.

 

[Wavelength]

In RPG Maker, classes are just a helpful construct the database offers to easily design a game where characters can switch between different sets of stats, skills, and equip types. It is NOT necessary to design your game around this - in every game I have ever made, I give every character their own class (e.g. the actor Bob has a class called 'Bob') and add in the character-specific data (on the Classes tab) that I would add to the character themselves if I were working in another engine. I don't offer the player the chance to switch characters between classes, because I aim to give each character a unique identity and role in combat.

So don't feel compelled to design classes like Knights, Paladins, and Druids. Just design your characters how you like, and view the Classes tab as exactly what it is - a tool to help you define what the character can do.

With that said, to answer your question more directly, here are a few stereotypes of "job-oriented" JRPG classes that come to my mind offhand:

• Knight: Generally the party's tank; has high defenses (esp. physical defense) and usually moves to protect themselves or other party members. Weak offense often means that his usefulness relies on being able to draw aggro, which is impossible to do in some games. Usually a male character without much relevance in the plot.
• Black Mage: Has a variety of elemental damage spells that are extremely useful against specific types of enemies (and reasonably useful as DPS in general), as well as status-inflicting spells that are as useless as their laughably weak basic attack. Reliance on MP means their role changes based on how easy it is to restore MP via items. Very fragile, but worth keeping alive as he or she is going to be your main DPS in boss fights.
• Healer/Priest(ess): Your one-stop shop for healing - single-target heals, party heals, status removal, and so on. Usually also has a holy-elemental attack, but it's only useful against undead/demon enemies because her magic attack isn't that high. Has decent defenses, but little in the way of offense. Essential in all boss fights; often a waste of time to have in regular encounters. Usually a demure female character and often involved in a romantic subplot.
• Archer/Ranger: In JRPGs, usually a high-offense, low-defense class that may or may not use consumable Arrow items to attack, which by the way makes them impossible to balance correctly. Fun to have around, but not quite worth putting in your battle party unless you're already rich and powerful. In some other RPG subgenres, this class has weak stats but attacks and skills with very long range, allowing you to snipe dumb enemies from a distance without retaliation (often making them incredibly useful).
• Hero: The main character is often a jack-of-all-trades with relatively high attack, average defensive and magical capabilities, and a lot of utility skills. Useful to have in your party, but may end up on Item duty during boss fights if the other characters are specialists (like the Black Mage, Knight, and Healer). Interestingly, this class is almost always a good-hearted male character; female leads seem more likely to specialize than to be a jill-of-all-trades.
• Berserker: Extremely high attack, low defense, no magic or utility skills. Maybe some way to temporarily cheat death. This class has a focus on DPS skills and often gets stronger as their HP drops closer to zero (making them utterly useless in boss fights, but good for cruising through dungeons). Almost exclusively a violent male character, usually styled after (in order of likelihood) barbarians, vikings, or Spartans.
• Gimmick Character: Probably has good stats, but gains their new skills through some very uncommon, hard-to-achieve method. This makes them useless to casual characters going straight through the narrative, but interesting and potentially very useful to players who like postgaming or exploring every crook and granny nook and cranny. Usually an animal, robot, alien, construct, or other "nonhuman".

 

[kairi_key]

Hmm, let's see....

Personally, I don't think Classes can't be subverted from their ideas, but if you're gonna conform to the expectation, you should know the image and meaning behind what these classes feels like.

So, contrary to what people have said, I'll just say some defining traits that's outside of stats.

Hero: Stereotypically anyone who is the main character. Really just that, lol. Stereotypical image of this class use swords because swords are a more balanced weapon and has heroic image to it which fit perfectly for a person who has a Hero class.

Paladin: They are Knights who can use healing and/or holy power. I think a reason when someone might get annoyed when you call a tanky healer a Paladin is because the word "tanky healer" doesn't necessarily mean that the person is a Knight or feel like a knight.

Avenger: I... don't even think that this class is even a stereotypical class in rpg, lol. You can really get creative. Tho, the image I have for a class with a name like Avenger "might" be a ninja+assassin type of a class, or some executioner type person.

Knight: A knight is generally more tanky because they wear a full-body armor which is reflected in most game by having high defense and low agility. Common weapons seen are swords, spears and sometimes axes or hammers.

Druid: They use magic for sure. They mostly associated with nature from their Celtic origin. Some game give them healing power, while other give them destructive magic. This class is not that common in RPGs that will give player a clear expectation of a class.

Ranger: They use bow. They hunt wild animals. In game, they has weaker physiques than a knight because they don't usually wear sturdy armor.


In the end, I think it's more comparative. Like comparing a conventional knight to a conventional mage, you wouldn't expect a knight to have a weaker physiques than a mage, right? One is a person who is trained to protect the kings and go do war-stuffs. Other is a person who do mysterious thing and use magic which they probably know by reading ancient tomes or something.

 

[bgillisp]

I dunno, in my game I actually deviated from the normal healer stereotype, and so far it seems to have worked well. See in my world, healers use Life Magic, which gives them a bonus to Max HP, as well as 4% HP Regeneration per turn in battle. So they are actually far from squishy as a result of this. Plus I gave them good MAT so they are still useful in regular battles as well, making it very worthwhile to have one in your party at all times now.

In fact, in late game, my healer is also my strongest mage. It's forced a few more interesting tactical choices due to this, because now you have to decide if you wish to burn your MP to blast those enemies, or save it for healing later. Or do you heal this turn, or try to take out that enemy before they hit again? Needless to say it's caused a few tough choices in late game battles.

 

[Aesica]

More offensive knights might drop the sword + shield set for a more all-around weapon mastery kind of thing

In my experience, the shieldless offensive knight almost always uses a huge sword, axe, or hammer, all of which are most likely 2-handers. Big heavy weapons for big damage, heavy armor so slightly above-average defense, low speed, poor magic/magic resistance. Squishier than the sword and boarder, but hardier than everyone else.

 

[kovak]

About the Knight, why not both?

He could trade his offensive and defensive traits when using Shield or 2H Weapon skills. On this scenario his skills will remove offensive or defensive class traits when skills are used for the sake of balance w.e it would be better to make 2 classes instead if you're not sure you can handle this kind of complexity and that's totally fine.

2 Handed Knight should be faster and with great HP pool, poor defense and average magic/ magic resistance. His skills should raise evasion and reduce enemies hit rate. He shouldn't wear heavy gear as well.

1H + Shield Knight should have average speed, above average HP pool, average defense and poor magic. His skills should be related with mitigate damage and buff nearby party members as if he's a kind of leader, paladin or even warlord.

 

[Aesica]

2 Handed Knight should be faster and with great HP pool, poor defense and average magic/ magic resistance. His skills should raise evasion and reduce enemies hit rate. He shouldn't wear heavy gear as well.

That sounds more like it should be a gladiator than a knight. For most people (and google image search) "Knight" generally conjures up imagery of someone wearing heavy, full-body armor. Such armor makes nimble movements difficult, so high evasion doesn't really make any sense. His defense should still be high (but not as high as his shield-wearing counterpart) because he is wearing metal from head to toe, which offers quite a bit more protection than leather or the magical toilet paper used by a wizard or whatever.

 

[TheoAllen]

Don't get confused that two-handed weapons with dual wield weapons. You could arguably say dual wielder could act faster. But two-handed requires, well, two hands because of reasons. It's heavy, and harder to swing, which is it shouldn't make it more agile. If you swing the weapon and it misses, getting another sequential swing take more time than one-handed weapons counterpart. In the other hand, two-handed weapons could act as a shield because it's sturdier. But it doesn't mean it could substitute shield as a whole.

 

[kovak]

If it comes from terms of gameplay aspect, yes, you're both right.
If it comes from terms of historical martial arts, nope.

A plate armor does not slow you down, it actually weights a bit less than all the equipment a soldier usually has now a days. The weight is distributed over the body so it's easier to move than you guess.

About the sword, it's up to how you handle it, they are not as slow as you guys think and you can even grab it by the blade (if straight) to strike people with its guard. Never use a blade to clash with another object unless you want the blade to get dull or break.

 

[Lady-J]

I just realized i left avenger in there when i meant to take it out from the list. Ive seen it used once and it was the equivelent of the "DPS" Paladin while thr tanky paladin was also in the game. I vant remember the game thqt did this's name though.

The discussiin around the knight is sort of what i started the topic about. It reminds me of a ProJared video i saw a long time ago about super hydlide. The rouge class had high attack, high carrying capacity, qnd low dexterity.

 

[RandomFellow]

Most standard classes are pretty nailed down with some minor differences. There are a few I see very little agreement on.

Haberdasher: Generally, the party's most dashing character. They usually wear lots of hats that they can hide under if spotted. When in a real fight, their armor is usually made of fedoras and trilbies to girls away.

Unpaid Intern: High motivation and low self-esteem characters. They're made to carry all the other character's things and fetch healing potions from the break room.

Politician: Same as thief class, only less likable.

 

[Darth Equus]

Politician: Same as thief class, only less likable.

So much potential:

Red Tape: Immobilizes target for 3 turns. 50% chance to hit.

Subpoena: Lowers defense and M-defense to near-zero values.

Filibuster: Delays enemy action one turn. Unavoidable.

Impeachement: Makes one boss leave the battle at the expense of not getting any treasure, gold and Exp.

Indictment: Same as above, except player gets treasure, gold and exp. Only 10% chance of success.

 

[ShadowHawkDragon]

Onething to remember is that words often be stretched in meaning. The word 'farmer' can refer both to man on a field and to a novice adventurer running across the starting forest back and forth 'farming' monsters.

Ultimately its up to the creator to define these definitions according to their universe. Yes, people may raise an eyebrow (or fifty) if you call a heavily armoured slow moving goliath a 'rogue'. But that's your choice.

Ultimately as long as you tell people what something does it technically shouldn't matter what its called. The main thing is to be consistent. Its true that it helps to use 'meta' terms but even they can be a bit blurred at times. So even if you call a class a 'knight', I'd still add a description explaining how 'this' knight functions in game.