Why is it always about Marx

Let's talk about classes.

D&D has 11 (if you only open the PHB), FFI had 6, WoW has 9.

How many classes should there be? Enough that no useful tactical role is unfilled, and not so many that it becomes possible to forget about one of them when writing down a list. It seems better to go from tactical role to class, instead of the other way around- it makes it clearer what division there should be between a fighter and a barbarian, for example, or if there should be a division at all.

So, tactical roles:

• Tank- high defense, low-med attack, low range.
• Melee dps- high attack, low-med defense, low range.
• Ranged dps- high attack, low defense, high range.
• Support - low attack, low-med defense, low-high range, other utility.

Now we get into flavors. What should the difference between an archer and a wizard be? There are two possible paths to take- the differing advancement path, and the number of targets path. The differing advancement path makes archers better than wizards at low levels, and wizards better than archers at high levels- ultimately, bad game design. The number of targets path makes it so that a wizard will hit some area with moderate damage, where the archer will be more of a sniper that does a lot of damage to one target. We've already got two classes out of ranged dps, and we could apply the same split to melee dps- melee aoe doesn't seem like it would be as useful, though, and is harder to rationalize ("he runs up, slaps the other guy with a grenade, and uh... doesn't get hit by the blast?"). A whirlwind fighter would make some sense, but it's still iffy.
Support is also easy to break down. There are three primary kinds of support: weakening your enemies, strengthening your allies, and undoing enemy actions (i.e. healing and dispelling). The tank probably don't need multiple varieties.
Then, one could make hybrids- but that's probably counterproductive, especially in a system which stresses making a good group. It's hard to balance hybrids, anyway, and so it seems likely that it's easier to just ignore them.

So, we have four main roles and seven main flavors. It seems like four makes for a good party size- it's certainly the traditional one. I like three, but it seems to constrain party choice a bit much. That might be a good thing- it makes the choice between having a tank or another dps char, instead of just saying "oh, I'll take both." The primary benefit of four characters seems to be that it makes it easier to balance support chars, or at least make support chars still desirable while not very powerful- a support character needs to boost 3 companions by 33% to compensate for not doing anything, or 2 companions by 50%.

So, temporary class list: Guardian, Soldier, Archer, Wizard, Sun Priest, Moon Priest, and Star Priest. I'll have to think about making the support characters all priests, and whether it's better to do astronomic or anthropic religions- but for now it works.


I haven't even touched on what makes up a character- I should probably discuss that a little. Generic ATK and DEF variables will probably suffice, as well as HP. I haven't decided yet if combat will be a la FF or FFT; FFT seems like it would be more interesting (especially since it makes it easier to do ranged attacks in a nice way, as opposed to the two-rows method of things like Disciples II). Abilities will have to be classes in their own right, with a range, effect, cost (looks like we need MP as well), and such.