Class Names, and some possibilities.

[Judging__Eagle]

Just to get the mind juices flowing (with the limitation that the classes and types need to all be alliterative, the letter C in this case):

We have the 4 main character types; Curers, Casters, Caitiffs and Confronters.

Since the premise of the system is that you fuck someone up a lot before you can try and kill them; I've tried to have classes that either "deal damage" (whatever that means, I'm not sure yet; a universal reduction of a target's ability to resist getting killed? so the more 'damage' taken, the less likely you'll resist the next effect that could kill you?); apply a debuff or remove a debuff.

In each catergory I tried to place 1 class that deals damage and applies debuffs; 1 class that deals damage and removes debuffs and 1 class that both applies and removes debuffs; ideally the third class does something with debuffs. Either move a debuff from an ally to an enemy; apply debuffs or remove them in large amounts of targets;

Curers: These guys remove debuffs, and otherwise mess around with them

Corrector (formerly Convalescer) - Hmm. If I take this Baatoran sand out of your eyes.... I can blind that fiend's henchman in return. debuff remover.... oooh, a debuff applier? scrathc that, Debuff shifter? Debuff Remover + Debuffer

Cleric - It takes more than a stab in the back to harm me! RAAH![/b] Debuff Remover + Damage

Cicatrizer - Come, your bones call to me, and I want to speak to them in person (creates skars!1eleven!) Debuffs + Damage

Casters

Controller - Who affects the minds of men? Only the Controller knows! (battlefield? people? both?) Debuff Remover + Debuffer

Conjurer - Pewpewpew! Invisible Machinegun! Ur hungreh Walrus? Here, you can has majik bukkit... and visible cheeseburger blaster? ranged debuff applier? Debuff Remover + Damage

Cognizant - Yes, stab the brass giant in the heel. No, not the eyes. no, not the face, the heels. Stupid spartan slave-turned-war god. They.. know things. Debufferr + Damage (but really i want this class to use "knowing" as a weapon, I'm not sure on how to describe that; figure out weak points before affecting them magically?). Debuffs + Damage


Caitiffs

Cynic - If someone comes out and tells you that **** ******* make *****, punch them in the face. i dunno.... but that seems like a great idea for a class name; the cynic; something rogue-ish.... and... hits people in the groin. I don't know. Pokes holes in enemies abilites or decisions; gives allies confidence, thus removing enemy de-buffs. Debuff Remover + Damage.

Charmer - I attack it! With my words! ... also with my panties. In some lands, females showing males their undergarments keeps them in a state of suspended animation; actual nudity does not. Fortunatly for both. Some females use this to their advantage. Adds/removes debuffs. The charming can be as much Honoured Matre sex bonding of allies and Voice of Control of Bene Gesserits on enemies (yeah, first a Xanth reference, then two Dune ones); or that they toss acid-meringue pies at enemies and bake up awesome cookies to give to allies that are debuffed/injured/butsecd/hurt/catatonic. Debuff Remover + Debuffer

Cutpurse - I don't think you can breathe fire on my armoured friend dragon; afterall.... I've got your nose! attack by being sneaky... and taking away enemy tools (gear, or just debuffs that act as if gear isn't working right, whatever) Debuffs + Damage


Confronters

Cleaver - Hahaha! To me my friends! Let's make them taste reaping steel! melee based debuffer/controller; can either 'borrow' an allies debuff ability and use it, or can lend multipe allies a debuff ability that they have. Debuffs + Debuff Remover

Crusher - Maim! Kill! Burn! Maim! Kill! Burn! Maim! Kill! Burn! Maim! Kill! Burn! You're scary, you are followed by insane minions, you hit things uberhard. Debuffs + Damage

Charger - On my signal... attack! a ... charger. pretty easy, neh? uses inspiring words to remove de-buffs. Debuff Remover + Damage


==========


There, 12 classes. Who's up next? No, you don't have to use the letter D, or any letter at all. I just wanted a challenge for myself.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Alliteration really is the most important part of any RPG. But just as an aside: damage is a debuff. It'll probably be the most common, but that doesn't mean that there should actually be characters specialized in applying it.

[Judging__Eagle]

Hmmm.

Maybe damage is a "universal" debuff but it's smaller than applied or specific debuffs.

So... one damage = -1 to everything; but an application of a movement debuff applies a -5 to your movement or attack rolls.

[JonSetanta]

Today's Sesame Street was brought to by...

... the letter "C"!

... and....

... Judging_Eagle!


I still go by Warrior, Expert, and Caster archetypes, but your concepts have important application to redefining class roles.... despite all the Cs.

I compare your buff/debuff/moving concept to Magic cards and casting/removing/retargeting Enchantment - Auras, aka Enchant Creature spells.
It's a localized, nearly tangible, effect that can be contained within a single 'object' and moved. I like that. Very modular.

If I ever need class name synonyms, from now on I'm pestering you for them rather than Googling a thesaurus.


Also, I have good news and bad news.
The bad news is that's not Baatorian sand.
The good news is you won't be alive long enough to care, now that it's in your eyes.

[Username17]

I still go by Warrior, Expert, and Caster archetypes,

I'm strongly against them.

First of all, there's no difference between a warrior and an expert. Classic "warrior" heroes are "good at stuff." There's really nothing to differentiate one from the other. Beowulf sneaks around, makes shit, gives big speeches and so on and so forth. Julius Caesar totally stabs some fools and is a great general, but he destroyed the republic through sneaking around and ranting at crowds and shit. Indiana Jones fights. And on and on and on.

The very existence of the "expert" archetype is just an excuse to not give the Fighters nice things even in the limited realm of "non-magical stuff that therefore isn't that exciting." 3rd edition comes around and now suddenly not only can they not open gateways to far universes that are filled with angry fire demons lusting after a chance to burn shit on their behalf, but they also can't even do such mundane crap as "talk to people" or "notice clues" what the fucking hell?

The expert isn't just conceptually identical to the warrior, he's actively bad for the game.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

And yet, you yourself want a fantasy RPG to have classes and select roles? I would quote you on it from one of the many TNE debates on classless vs. class but I personally find quoting in that manner rude, and you probably know what I mean.

What exactly are those broad roles to you, then, if not the standard?
Why the reversal, or at least why no alternatives other than stating "this is wrong"?

[Username17]

I've actually stated this several times now.

Splitting up "casters," "swordsmen," and "guys who are good at mundane things" is a bad way to split things up. The Heroes of Might and Magic / Etherlords / Magic the Gathering / Master of Magic / World of Darkness / Diablo model where the entire spectrum of abilities is divied up into chunks is good.

Forcing people to choose whether they get access to Kinet or Vitali magic is fine. It's good for the game because it encourages player diversity and cooperation as well as establishing consistency and predictability to the world that people are playing in. But carving it up so that people who can sneak around can't set shit on fire or shoot a crossbow effectively is terrible.

It's good for the Star Wars universe that only Sith can use Red Light Sabers. It would be bad if Sith couldn't use blasters or fix land speeders.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

You want even more classes? How grotesque!

[Judging__Eagle]

Hmm.

Are damaing attacks a general, yet minor debuff?

Or will all attacks be debuffs, until you apply a debuff that will outright kill the targer?

if it's the second; then you only need 3 types of characters.

Ones that focus on debuffing, with a much smaller set of debuff removal. Perhaps a ratio of 4:1 (Debuffs:Debuff removers).

Ones that focus on buffing, with a much smaller set of debuffs.

and

One that gets equal amounts of buffs and debuffs. Give them 4 slots to use as they want, but the Debuffers get 5 and Uncursers get 5.


Also, i never said that any of the 4 types of characters is better or worse than any other.

Heroes of M&M is a familiar starting point; you specialize, but you're of a general type (caster/meleer).

[Draco_Argentum]

Heroes need to be combaty, sneaky, talky and chasey. If those are your classes your RPG is shit because sneaky guy sucks in a fight and combaty guy can't talk to people.

The point is: you can't divide classes up based on what portions of the game they are good at. Everyone needs to be able to play all of them.

[Judging__Eagle]

I don't think that classes work, so much as character types do.

Offensive
You choose an uneven distribution between offensive/defensive powers. More debuffs than debuff removers. Your debuffs are more effective since you specialize that way.

Benefits: Your Debuffs get a bonus equal to the difference ratio between your debuffs and debuff removers. So, if you have 8 Debuffs and 2 Debuff removers, you have a +4 to your Debuff abilities.

Penalties: You may not have more 'lateral' abilities than you have defensive abilities.

Defensive
You choose an distribution between offensive/defensive powers. More debuff removers than debuffs. Your debuff removers are more effective since you specialize that way.

Benefits: Your Debuffs get a bonus equal to the difference ratio between your debuffs and debuff removers. So, if you have 8 Debuffs and 2 Debuff removers, you have a +4 to your Debuff abilities.

Penalties: You may not have more 'lateral' abilities than you have offensive abilities.

Lateral
You choose an even distribution; more importantly,

Benefits: Your Debuffs and debuff removers get a bonus equal to the the average number of the two. So, if you have 4 Debuffs and 4 Debuff removers, you have a +4 to your abilities.

You may have as many 'lateral' abilities as you choose.

Penalties: Your total amount of Offensive and Defensive abilities must remain even.

For some reason I'd like characters to be able to take different classes.

These is of course the debuff/debuff removal way of distinguishing characters.

A "wizard" can be any of the three, as could a "rogue", "fighter" or "priest". It would just be a matter of what abilities they took

[edit]: I changed something and added 'lateral' abilities. Which are things like "speak to dragons" or "royal heritage" or "bugbears are good people".

[NoDot]

I still go by Warrior, Expert, and Caster archetypes,

I'm strongly against them.

Excluding the "What do spellcasters do?" question, gestalting those three together for Warrior/Expert, Warrior/Caster, and Expert/Caster works (better).

[IGTN]

I still go by Warrior, Expert, and Caster archetypes,

I'm strongly against them.

Excluding the "What do spellcasters do?" question, gestalting those three together for Warrior/Expert, Warrior/Caster, and Expert/Caster works (better).

"What do spellcasters do?" is solved by cutting the caster archetype with finer grains. I've drawn up a draft of something similar to this to pass time on my own a few years back.

The Fighter, Expert, Caster, pick 2 triangle still has the "Sith can't fix speeders" problem, since a sith will probably be a Fighter/Caster, and fixing speeders seems more like a Mundane Skill ability.

Also, if anything like that is to be implemented and caster to be divided further, the decision as to whether or not to make it Fighter, Expert, Red Caster, Blue Caster, Green Caster, pick 2, or Fighter, Expert, Caster, pick 2, then subdivide (Red Caster, Blue Caster, Green Caster).

The former allows "pure" casters (Purple, Cyan, and Yellow); the latter does not; the latter allows certain kinds of magic to only work with certain mundane skills, the former does not (Red casters might need to be Fighter/Casters, while Blue casters might only work as Expert/Casters; Green can be either).

[JonSetanta]

I still go by Warrior, Expert, and Caster archetypes,

I'm strongly against them.

Excluding the "What do spellcasters do?" question, gestalting those three together for Warrior/Expert, Warrior/Caster, and Expert/Caster works (better).

And there you are back again at classless if you take it one step further.

As by classless:
1. You can pick any role set and are limited to a certain number of them.
2. Role sets get better according to your level.
3. Role sets determine what you can do.

So while you don't have the railroaded problems of making players stick to their single role (and problems of interclass balance therein) it's more of an issue of making sure A, B, and C roles can't be combined in such a way that makes every other role combination obsolete forever.

[Username17]

Again and still, classes should not have anything to do with whether you can swing a sword, speak convincingly, open doors, sneak, or perform ranged attacks. Everyone needs to be able to do those things. Classes should determine whether your ultimate move is Luminaire, Life 2, or Dark Matter.

The Chronotrigger model is extremely good for cooperative storytelling games. The classic D&D model really is not.

-Username17

[JonSetanta]

Again and still, classes should not have anything to do with whether you can swing a sword, speak convincingly, open doors, sneak, or perform ranged attacks. Everyone needs to be able to do those things. Classes should determine whether your ultimate move is Luminaire, Life 2, or Dark Matter.

The Chronotrigger model is extremely good for cooperative storytelling games. The classic D&D model really is not.

-Username17

Well, yeah. Who are you disagreeing with here?

[Judging__Eagle]

Okay, so what do we want for ultimate moves and how many different ones are there?

I was under the impression that characters would pick from certain types of abilites, and then tried to seperate characters based on their preffered approach.

The bone-wall necromance, dwarven stone plate fighter and quick-as-lighting rogue are all defensive characters; either they prevent themselves from being harmed, or they stop enemies from harming allies. Either by putting up a wall of jagged bones to guard the Barbarian's flank, or having kobold pickaxes bounce off of their armour or pulling the slowest party member to the ground when an arrow flies at the party. They have abilities that negate enemy offensive abilities.

The flesh melting shadow priest, insane berzerker and bloodthirsty assasin are all offensive characters. Seriously, you could make Kills things hardcore come in long ranged, melee or medium range/melee flavours (with different damage for each) and that would be fine. A priest that burns with his hands, or a lighting javelineer, or a hand-crossbowyer are all plausible.

Of course, that's based on assumptions as to the types of abilities that we want to see.

So far I know that we'll have Debuffs, so we need Removers for those as well, and there are no buffs, so they won't be included. However what other types of things will we see?

[JonSetanta]

What about the method in which Buffs and Debuffs are applied?

For instance,
Counterattack Debuffs
Trap Debuffs
Contingent Buffs
Contingent Removal

[Judging__Eagle]

No Buffs. I think that everyone has agreed to no buffing.

..... and using debuffs as a word is annoying. Since the antithesis of a debuff is not always a buff. Because a debuff can have effects that no buff you will ever get is similar to.

You could have effects that reduce your speed, or even speed of attacks as being common Curses in a game. While effects that do the opposite are, frankly, uncommon or difficult to get.

What removes a debuff is a de-curse.

I was thinking more along the lines of the large "Universal" abilities list, and if it will be divided in any fashion, or if there is a fourth or fifth category of things to use in TNE.

Curses and De-Curses.... or Penalties and Penalty-removers are two groups that cannot be otherwise merged into a single list, but they can also literally by anything.

[RandomCasualty2]

Heroes need to be combaty, sneaky, talky and chasey. If those are your classes your RPG is shit because sneaky guy sucks in a fight and combaty guy can't talk to people.

The point is: you can't divide classes up based on what portions of the game they are good at. Everyone needs to be able to play all of them.

Yeah, honestly I think one of the worst things to happen to RPGs was the concept of the skill monkey class. Skills are the noncombat shit and they should be doled out liberally to all classes, especially classes that have few noncombat abilities, like noncasters.

Its like, nobody has a problem handing crazy noncombat candy out to casters, but when it comes time to let the fighter be good at sneaking around like Conan, people go apeshit and start saying how Conan needs to be part rogue. And whatever you do, don't you ever dare try to make a fighter that can disarm traps, then people get all fucking crazy.

[Manxome]

No Buffs. I think that everyone has agreed to no buffing.

I think everyone has agreed that the 3e style of buffs is bad. However, I believe we still want beneficial effects, just not ones that break the game. There's some description of different types of lingering effects in the "broad classes" proposal.

But basically, if you can devote your actions to conjuring and manipulating a cloud of faerie fire or glitterdust or whatever that debuffs foes, there's no reason you couldn't devote those same actions to make your allies awesome instead (with the same net effect). Making your allies hit harder is a lot like attacking at the same time as them to inflict more damage. When it gets broken is if you can spend out-of-combat actions to get the equivalent of extra in-combat actions.

[CatharzGodfoot]

But basically, if you can devote your actions to conjuring and manipulating a cloud of faerie fire or glitterdust or whatever that debuffs foes, there's no reason you couldn't devote those same actions to make your allies awesome instead (with the same net effect). Making your allies hit harder is a lot like attacking at the same time as them to inflict more damage. When it gets broken is if you can spend out-of-combat actions to get the equivalent of extra in-combat actions.

Yeah, as long as the characteristics of the effects are the same, they can be balanced. A mobile debuff like a horde of mindless zombies or [persistant, directable] cloud of poison gas is comparable to a buff that sticks with the party, and can have identical costs to initiate and sustain them. Having the debuff up and running before combat works just as well as having the buff up, although ambushers are still heavily favored.

The problem arises when you try to theoretically balance bless and glitterdust. One is an instantaneous effect that requires an action to use in combat. The other is in place before combat started and therefore requires no actions whatsoever. Cases like this can be balanced if you change the cost to sustain to equal the cost to initiate.

[JonSetanta]

No Buffs. I think that everyone has agreed to no buffing.

Or limit buff capabilities within RNG.
Agreed, 3e buffs blow the top off of expected level-appropriate encounter outcomes because they effectively put a character's numbers in range of the next level.... or few.

I've seen that same dynamic in the Flyff MMO when a pairing of Full Support class "Ringmaster" stands behind any kind of decent Tanker/AOE such as "Knight", "Billposter" (think demonic-looking monk), or "Elementor" and not only adds around 50% to all of the AOEr's values but refreshes their HP every second.
These combos can wade through fields of supposedly level-appropriate monsters and soak up XP and items like a towel within a matter of minutes.
Likewise, an FS with any kind of lockdown-focused solo expert can walk up to a monster easily twice as powerful or more and nail it to the ground. Takes longer, but the XP is atrociously high due to the disproportionate level difference.

When alone these AOE and Solo Expert class types are forced to fight within expected level-matched areas, but when buffed up all bets are off.

[Bigode]

No Buffs. I think that everyone has agreed to no buffing.

For whatever that might count: I think everyone should have them. As said elsewhere, the advantage for better preparation should be important.

[Draco_Argentum]

I think preparation should be of reduced importance. Its a playstyle thing, do you want people to play SAS style flashbang alpha strikes or issue challenges ye olde style?

Who else wants to weigh in on the stylistic choice?