Western style classes

[Oddball]

Having trouble coming up with Western style classes...

Iv'e thought of one. Gunslinger

Basically, they have several skills were if the right conditions are met (I.E going before target, ect..) there a guaranteed critical hit. Also there's a skill were the player gets to decide how many shots are fired between 1 and 4.

the thing is though, all of there skills use ammo. You have a limited amount of ammo (around 6, depending on the weapon) and ammo takes another turn to reload after "reload" is selected. Also, All there skills use the same damage formula "a.atk*4 - b.def" because I figured there wouldn't be a way to impact the damage a bullet does

The battles will be fast paced, but each one could potentially kill you if you make the wrong moves

 

[LostFonDrive]

All there skills use the same damage formula "a.atk*4 - b.def" because I figured there wouldn't be a way to impact the damage a bullet does

Bulletproof armour

 

[Sieginder Niederlage]

Fast paced battles? That's nice (Especially since I played FF4, Random Encounters were hideously long and boring, in my honest opinion)

But if a mistake could kill you...well, some people might say that it turns the battles into puzzles, and I agree but only IF it's badly executed, I hate going to gameFAQs just to see how the heck am I supposed to kill an annoying boss that changes elemental weaknesses without any way of knowing which other than trial and error and where the error heals the enemy, forces him to use an OP skill, and then changes the weakness again, repeating the loop endlessly.

 

[Oddball]

Bulletproof armour

I meant from the attackers perspective. They can't really do much to influence how much damage there bullets due, except if they aim better, which ties into critical hits. 

@seige: That's part of the reason why I said "moves"

Also, I hated Seymour in FFX. Partly for that reason, and partly because I think he's the worst villain in a final fantasy game

But i digress

 

[CrazyCrab]

Hmm, here are some ideas (I just really like coming up with classes)

- Medicine Man

The primary function of these "medicine elders" is to secure the help of the spirit world, including the Great Spirit (Wakan Tanka in the language of the Lakota people), for the benefit of the entire community. Sometimes the help sought may be for the sake of healing disease, sometimes it may be for the sake of healing the psyche, sometimes the goal is to promote harmony between human groups or between humans & nature. (Wikipedia)

Your healer / druid with a more metaphysical approach. Seeing how we're talking about western styled classes, magic would not be common and would probably be heresy - sensing interesting quests ideas . Seeing how the rituals were timely and used herbs and other substances, gameplay wise he or she could be limited by charges in combat - a couple of uses max each fight, so deciding when to use the stun and heal could be crucial, representing the need to restock between fights. Alternatively you could go the pokemon skill charging route, where skills are exceptionally powerful, but take multiple turns (2-3 maybe? anything more would be boring) to perform the ritual. 

- Gold Miner

Some background info on the Gold Rushes: A rush typically begins with the discovery of placer gold made by an individual. At first the gold may be washed from the sand and gravel by individual miners with little training, using a gold pan or similar simple instrument. Gold rushes were typically marked by a general buoyant feeling of a "free for all" in income mobility, in which any single individual might become abundantly wealthy almost instantly, as expressed in the California Dream.(Wikipedia again) 

Given the historical background, those people were usually self-sufficient, capable of surviving on their own and defend themselves even though they were constantly under a threat. When compared with traditional classes, I'd expect one to be a mixture of a hunter and barbarian. A capable melee fighter with a pickaxe and a shovel and a skilled hunter that uses a bow - living in the middle of nowhere forces one to hunt for food. Needing to be able to survive alone, I'd expect the class to come with a lot of self buffing and healing skills, like first aid and overcome pain. Overall a lot of survivability and damage, but unfriendly towards other party members, lacking support skills.

- Highwayman 

A highwayman was a thief and brigand who preyed on travellers. This type of outlaw usually travelled and robbed by horse, as compared to a footpad who travelled and robbed on foot. There is a long history of treating highway robbers as heroes, originally they were admired by many as bold men who confronted their victims face-to-face and were ready to fight for what they wanted. In the 19th-century, American West highwaymen were known as road rangers. (You guessed it, Wikipedia again. )

Potentially a rouge counterpart, but your crucial feature here could be the horse which leads to interesting game mechanics. Buying new mounts and picking the best one would be fun in itself (maybe even getting exclusive ones from making friends with native american tribes? Fun stuff.) and it would also mean being probably the fastest character in the party. Skills could hit a lot harder when you ''charge'', corresponding to being affected mainly by your agility. Also you could potentially charge into battle, with having two states applied at the begging of every fight - one that is a massive Agility boost to represent the charge, other one that decreases agility every turn to represent the horse getting tired. 

Should be good enough for now, I'll post some more if I have more ideas.

 

[GrandmaDeb]

General Idea Here:


http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/27074-request-kind-of-for-classes-names/


Explosives Expert


Gambler/Card Shark


Train Robber/bank Robber/Rustler etc


Horse Trainer/Trader


Cattleman/Cowboy


Engineer

 

[Oddball]

@crazy crab: I think the medicine man could be a healer/summoner. Summoning spirits from the spirit world to help... or maybe somehow awaken party members spirit animal?

OH! I know! he/she could summon spirit animals to participate in combat depending on which party members are in the party! But, the medicine man/woman would go into kind of a trans, and wouldn't be able to use there other skills. That could even make you choose between supporting and attacking. You could also do all sorts of cool stuff with the spirit animals as well. Good idea!

It would be funny if the gold minner also used gold as a resource to attack

@grandmadeb: I'll think about those suggestions. Thank you!

 

[captainproton]

Just to throw some ideas out there...

*Gunslinger: gun weapons/skills, a lot of crit-or-miss attacks. Speedy, low defense

*Prospector: pickaxe/shovel/hammer weapons, standard melee combat. Slow, heavy, tough. Field skills for finding ore/minerals/etc.

*Dandy: dueling pistols, cane swords. Money-based skills, maybe some buff/nerf magic.

*Gambler: similar to the Dandy, but with luck and chance based magic and skills.

*Missionary: standard cleric class, really

*Shaman: more spiritual spell-caster, pretty standard

*Professor: snakeoil salesman, alchemy skills, lots of tonics and elixirs

*Heavy: bareknuckle fighter

*Madam: dance-style martial arts, fan weapons, charm magic

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

I would take a different approach in a game that took place in the 'cowboy' era. Technically, anyone could pop a few pills (medicine man), or pick up any kind of gun (gunslinger), or get into a fist fight (pugilist). I think instead of focusing on classes, you should focus on the characters and build their class around who they are, specifically what traits and abilities they posses, what kind of demeanor or morality stance they have, and what they do for a living.

If one character is hired gun/bandit/train robber/etc. then they would probably be a good shot, have skills that represent fighting dirty (i.e. throwing sand in their enemies' face to blind them), be able to patch themselves up (have some degree of healing type abilities), and be skilled with explosives and picking locks.

I would allow for characters to be proficient with all weapons and do the fine tuning in the weapon itself. This would put more emphasis on what type of weapons are used. You don't have to have them all readily available. For instance, you could probably find some mediocre pistol anywhere while the highly accurate and highly deadly repeating rifle is hard to come by (as are the ammo it uses). So then the player has to ask themselves, "Who get's the badass rifle -- the gunslinger who has more offensive type bonuses and will be attacking more (and can potentially run out of ammo faster) or the doctor who focuses on defense, has just as good ability with a gun, but who won't be attacking as much (and therefore will not be using up a much ammo -- allowing for prolonged use of the repeating rifle).

Anyways, I digress. I'm not trying to give you ideas for gameplay, I'm trying to show you how it can be beneficial to create the class around the character it's attached to as opposed to creating a bunch of classes and just sticking them on the characters you've created.

Good luck!

 

[Oddball]

I think I'm going to use tactical battle for this one. You see sometimes in westerns people using the environment to there advantage. So I'm going to look for a script that lets me use the map as a tactical battle. Just in case that influences ideas of classes

@humaninja: I usually build them around the character. I just wanted to try a different approach