#also I can finally be a pirate now since it’s a class in 5e

[everylittlepiecelove13]

working on creating a character for a dnd campaign I’m gonna play soon and it’s so fun 😭

[rerollpodcast-blog]

Why are there so many grapplers?

If you’ve been playing for a while, then I’m guessing at some point you’ve played with someone who played “a grappler” character. Even if you haven’t, the internet is full of stories and anecdotes of players that build their character around the grappler mechanic (in fact one of my players’ grappler died and he just made another grappler). Now, I’m not badmouthing them, but it did get me wondering: why is the grappler so ubiquitous? I spent a lot of time thinking about this and I think that the underlying answer actually has a lot to say about the way we play and think about martials in 5e. To explain why, we’re going to have a look at the differences between magical and martial classes, the shortcomings of the latter, and how to make life more interesting for your martial players.

Jackie Chan: the epitome of a martial

First, let’s look at the way magical classes are set up. Let’s say you wanted to create a new magic-based character. In terms of playstyle, you have quite a lot of options. You can be the blasty-mage that throws fireballs and lightning bolts. You can be a healer, supporting the party and tending to their wounds. You can be a Loki-like trickster, focusing on illusions and charms and deception. You can be a summoner, or a shapeshifter. Or you can focus on utility and be able to change terrain and crowd control your foes. You get so many options as a mage, and that’s not even counting the many ways you can mix and match your spell lists, or the completely different mechanics that each magical class has on their own.

Martials on the other hand are considerably more limited. Their options boil down to essentially: do you want to use two handed weapons, do you want to use an offhand weapon, do you want to use a ranged weapon, or do you want a shield. And even after those exciting choices, they largely all play the same way: run up to/away from something, roll a d20 and then do some damage. Compared to mages, martials just can’t compare in terms of playstyle options. Hell, just look at what’s available to a level 1 wizard compared to a level 1 fighter. The wizard gets to pick 9 spells from a list of 65. Fighters get to pick 4 weapons from a list of 36, most of which do the same thing or are inferior versions of each other.

Now at this point you may retort: “but flavour wise, the classes feel different.” And you are right on this point, but it is very discouraging when your flavour choices don’t reflect in your gameplay. The mysterious, Loki-like, illusion-specced mage plays very differently to the trigger-happy, fireball throwing mage. On the other hand, we have both the gallant longsword-wielding Champion Fighter and the savage warhammer wielding Berserker Barbarian who just run up to things and hit them for 1d10+STR mod damage.

Martials end up feeling like the mechanical equivalent of the Mass Effect 3 ending

 And that’s where I think grapplers come in. Mechanically speaking, grapplers just feel different to traditional martial gameplay. Rather than roll a d20 and compare to AC, you have a contested roll-off against your DM; that’s an exciting tension beat. Instead of inflicting damage, you inflict a status; that opens up new strategies. You get to move your target, you get to set up your target for co-operative attacks. I don’t think people play grapplers because they’re inherently fun to play, they play them because there aren’t many other variants of a martial to explore. The grappler just feels different, and most importantly, feels like a uniquely martial style of gameplay; it’s not like Gandalf ever did judo. But what do we do about this? How do we “fix” the martial classes to make them feel like individual classes? How do we make the martial classes feel like they’re more than just different flavours of attacks? Well in my opinion, there are three main methods: items, techniques, and environment.

 First up, let’s look at items. Items (especially homebrewed ones) are a really easy way to tailor a character to a certain playstyle vision since you can let them do literally anything. Of course, the type of items you give is important. If you want to play into a flavour archetype, you need to look beyond just adding more damage, it needs to either play to their strengths, overcome their weaknesses, or synergise with their mechanics. It’s probably why the “blink dagger” is such a classic item to introduce for a rogue player. It lets the rogue be sneaky, be agile, zip around, and most importantly: stab people. The mechanics of the item fit with the flavour of the character. It makes a rogue play uniquely like a rogue.

It helps here if you already know what your player wants out of their character. For example, I had a (revised) ranger player whose backstory involved them being the fantasy equivalent of a secret agent. So, I gave them a bow that could attach special arrowheads like Hawkeye, turning them into more of a stealth-infiltrator-utility character. That player went wild with that bow, using it for everything from long range shackles, smoke bombs, and grappling hooks. They even opted to keep it after bows that did more damage became available. I’d like to think it’s because it let them feel uniquely like a ranger; stealthing around and setting traps, playing with cunning rather than pure strength.

Slightly disappointed I didn’t see a USB arrow

 Now, items are all well and good, but they do have their limitation in that they require a bit of knowledge of what your players want already, require some skill in homebrewing, and are largely DM driven. After all, we’re trying to make enticing options for creating martial characters, but your player won’t know what items they’re getting when they create their character. Instead, let’s look at something that’s largely player driven: techniques. When I say techniques, I’m referring to abilities that aren’t hard-written into the rules of D&D but are instead flavourful abilities that players ascribe to their actions and require the DM to adjudicate effects on. For example: the ranger that asks if they can shoot at a flying creature’s wings to bring them down; that would be an example of a technique. It’s not something that’s strictly in the ranger’s abilities or in the rules for flying, but it would make sense from an in-game perspective.

Techniques like these can be extremely useful for when players want to feel like their individual strengths make a difference in-game. A bow toting ranger may be able to make that shot at the enemy’s wings, but not the axe wielding barbarian, and you want to reward those strengths and creative thinking. I have a barbarian/enforcer rogue player that has a spear that lights itself on fire. Originally my intent with the item was just that it sets creatures on fire for extra damage. Ironically however, she’s used it for just about everything except that. She’s done everything from creating sparks to blind people, lighting explosive materials on fire, melting gears in a construct’s arm to disable them, and stabbing it in an ogre’s back to ride them around Batman-on-a-mutated-henchman style. None of these are strictly in the rules, and thus required me to come up with a ruling and a check on the spot. I like to encourage her to request these techniques though because they let her play her barbarian-rogue the way she envisioned them; a swashbuckling pirate that likes fighting dirty.

Dale Gribble knows what I’m talking about

Our final differentiation method is one that let’s both the player and the DM control the input: the environment. In a way, the environment is like a combination of the above two methods, it’s like providing a short-term item that creative players can make a technique with. And its so easy to implement too, just describe your battlegrounds more. You certainly don’t need to come up with a list of potential actions that your players could use with every single item in the room like you were coding a video game, your players will come up with it for you. All you need to do is make sure your players know that they’re fighting in more than a featureless void and they’ll get to work. Indeed, my best players even start asking me if there’s certain objects in the room, just so they can enact some crazy plan they’ve come up with. Nine times out of ten, I’ll say yes, just to see what they do.

The best part about using the environment is that different classes will see the environment in different ways, and utilise it depending on their strengths. The agile rogue may see a hanging chandelier as a convenient method to get across the room, while the eagle-eyed ranger may see it as a heavy object to shoot down on their enemy. The brazier of coals can be knocked over by the cunning fighter to slow the enemy, or the savage barbarian can throw their foe into it to cook them alive.

This is going too far though

 So, now we know three good methods for providing class differentiation. But, here comes the tricky part: convincing your players to use them. You see, the methods are not overly difficult, and I would argue that a lot of them are more fun than just vanilla attacking. Unfortunately, in a lot of cases, attacking just seems to be the strictly better option. Why take a creature down by shooting its wings, when you can just take it down by killing it? Why bother knocking over a brazier to slow down your enemies, when you can just stab them? In other words, what’s the incentive to be creative?

Personally, I like to encourage it in a few ways. First, is that I don’t make fights overly punishing. When players know that they don’t need to optimise every single action to come out victorious, they feel the freedom to mess around a bit more and go for the fun plays. That barbarian-rogue I mentioned before? Sure, she’s done all those cool things; but she’s also failed at a whole lot more. But, punishment is rarely anything more serious than if she had missed an attack, so she feels free to try again another time.

The second is the inverse of the first. When my players try something out of the ordinary, I like to reward them. If they attempt a technique as an action, I will make sure that the successful result is at least as useful as an action spent attacking. If my fighter knocked over that brazier of coals, my minions will over-react, taking the long way around, or attacking in a way that lets the fighter knock them back into the coals for even more damage. Nothing kills a player’s enthusiasm quite as much as pulling off what they thought was a great move, only to find out it achieved next to nothing.

Finally, I like to encourage creative fighting by joining in on the fun myself. Particularly noteworthy NPC’s have special weapons and items that make them feel like more than just vanilla damage dealers. My NPC’s attempt big plays just as much as my players do, and mess around with the environment like a player would. I’ll admit, I’ve even thrown a few NPC grapplers at my players just for the fun of it. Not only does seeing the DM do these methods assure the player that it’s okay to do them, it also inspires them to try their own things.

 I hope that this has helped inspire you and your players to explore the potential of the martial classes again. Instead of resorting to one-note tricks like playing a “grappler,” try to use items, techniques, and environments to bolster creativity, and let martial classes really shine. So many times, I’ve heard people complain that martials are just plain boring compared to all of the options that magical classes have. And while it may be true that magical classes get many more options than martials, I’ve found that once you give martials anything to work with, they end up using it even more creatively than the mages do with their spells. So, work with your martials, and maybe we can finally remove all these luchadore stories from the front page of Reddit.

[jennawynn]

I love creating D&D characters. 

Wynn (3.5) is my Paladin of St. Cuthbert. She’s my most fleshed out (and an inspiration for Tor from the Holy Knight fic). Her family was killed (all but her sister who was soon captured by slavers and killed in a failed rescue attempt) when she was young and after accidentally killing someone with her bare hands while black-out drunk, she tried to kill herself, but was saved by what she believed to be the Saint himself. He told her to fight and get her vengeance against those who do evil and create orphans and killed her sister (slavers). She’s a barely contained ball of rage (to the point that when the aprty gained gestalt abilities, she’s now half barbarian). She was a good person before becoming a paladin, probably neutral good, but she sees herself as nothing more than a tool to be used and a martyr to her cause. She’ll fight and fight until she dies on the battlefield and barely even considers herself a person. She is now LN with some good tendencies but her Oath to the Saint and the Saint’s Law comes before anything else. She’s evened out quite a bit during her travels (particularly after picking up two other paladins of the Saint- one of which isn’t anymore), but she was very quick to judge, quick to take charge, and always assumed she was right and best for the job regardless of circumstances. She’s also very much a protector and would rather die than see any innocent get hurt. She uses a shield and mace combo, but her shield could be considered her primary weapon and has a lot of the shield related feats and spells that allow her to use it as a secondary weapon. Nothing a good shield bash and mace to the face can’t solve. LOVE her. Love playing her. 

Hank (a non-system with minimal dice) was a Navy vet who lost his lower leg and worked as a mechanic in the 1930s. It was a supernatural investigation team hired by Howard Hughes, but Hank wasn’t really a good fit, regardless of how interesting I found his character. He was obviously a bit modeled on my own Navy/mechanic experience, but also on The Sand Pebbles, a Steve McQueen movie about an American boat in China about that time period. He was basically a metal bender which made his job as a mechanic a bit easier. His reluctance to go seeking out the weird meant I had to bench him and create

Rafe! He was a shape-shifter and a movie star. He was a street urchin and an orphan who got into the seedy underbelly at a young age and worked mostly as a conman. When he got his shape-shifting abilities, he used them to work his cons. Sometimes he’d pose as a woman and seduce a banker, then as her husband to blackmail him or demand retribution. I think he was my first explicitly bi character (though Wynn is dating a gender-fluid shapeshifter herself, I’m not sure where she’s at with self-identifying since she sees the other personalities as parts of the male standard personality as opposed to individuals). He was very charismatic and fun to play.

Hurricane Henri (3.5) for a one-shot we played. She was a pirate by trade and a rogue/sorcerer/stormcaster by class. She was a flirty character loosely based on Isabela from Dragon Age. She liked to sing shanties about mermaids and talk about the people (largely women) she’d slept with. (Romance tends to be a big part of the game with this particular group.) I only got to play with her for one session, but I loved her. She was so different from Wynn but awesome too.

Cyan (Call of Cthulhu d20) is for a different group from all the others. She’s another highly charismatic character (I didn’t realize how often I play those). She’s a queer actress/singer/dancer who has been on Broadway, in movies, and on television. She’s based a bit on Anna Kendrick with some twists and has a bright blue pixie cut (a la Pink but Blue). Eventually if she can get her teammates to agree, she wants to liveblog their dungeon delving on Periscope or something similar. She’s kinda snarky, mostly because she tends to get underestimated or mocked, but if she likes you, she’ll have your back no matter what. She’s a 5′2 scrappy little shin-kicker who takes point and acts like the tank of the party (which I also play a lot of). 

Finally, my newest character (and if you’re in my group, stop reading because this part is secret!) Her name is Ovuk (5e) and she’s a half-orc enforcer for a cartel. She’s actually a charismatic (!) ranger (hunter) named Yevelda, but she speaks in grunts and gestures and simple words and phrases, allowing people to assume she’s a stereotypical barbarian. (Doesn’t hurt that she carries a greataxe and pretends to be really angry when she fights... and actually has a short temper.) She never uses her magic if she thinks it will be noticed. She was once the face of a group back in her homeland, but a job went bad after she passed out drunk with the mark. Both the mark and her boss blamed her and assumed she stole the trinket. She was exiled and is currently hunted, so she’s in hiding by assuming a new identity (as a stupid brute barbarian) and making money breaking kneecaps so she can pay off her debts and stop being hunted. It’s a one-shot so I’m not sure she’ll ever be ‘discovered’ while we play, but it should be fun. She’s CN and will always choose money over friendship because money is power and might makes right. 

[desertleviathan]

Final Fantasy D&D hack

A while back I made some posts about a Final Fantasy inspired D&D setting.  Since then, I’ve been pecking at the concept now and then, and used big parts of the setting in other games.  Today, I want to write about the class list I’ve settled on and some of the design ideas behind them currently.

A few things about these classes - First, they’re being designed to cap at level 10.  A level 20 character will have two classes, guaranteed.  Second, they all run their special abilities on Magic Points.  If you’re a Fighter and you pick up a level or two of a Mage class, that’s not a completely stupid idea since you’ve already got MP for things like Provoke and Weapon Skills.  And Third, the acquisition of Feats and Attribute Bonuses is being based on total character level, not class level.  Finding weird multiclass combos is an essential part of the FF Job system, and I don’t want to discourage it at all.

I’m also making a bunch of changes to the default D&D 5E system.  Feats in particular are going back to the old 4E style where you have Reflex, Fortitude and Will saves, and you get to choose which of two attributes to key them to.  I’m also shifting back to the Healing Surge system for everyone instead of Hit Dice, and the higher HP for level one characters.  Feats and Attribute Bonuses are now independent of each other, but the feats available will be closer to 3E or 4E, where they were neat perks, but not as potent as 5E.  Also, for flavor purposes the Constitution attribute is being renamed Vitality, and the Wisdom attribute is being renamed Mind.  Also, the first and second Jobs you take will grant an Attribute bonus at 1st level, so that someone whose multiclass goals change after character creation won’t be completely out of luck.

Anyway, here’s the planned list.  Classes are broken up into groups of “Expansions” based on overlapping concepts that I’ll be working on in groups.

And of course, this is all subject to change later.  Right now, I’m just brainstorming out loud.

The planned class list is:

THE ORIGINAL CREW:  Fighter, Monk, Thief, Black Mage, White Mage, Red Mage

THE KNIGHTLY ORDERS:  Paladin, Dark Knight, Dragoon, Runeblade

THE HIDDEN SCHOOLS:  Blue Mage, Grey Mage, Green Mage, Summoner

THE UNTAMED EXPLORERS:  Ranger, Marauder, Berserker, Beastmaster

THE SOCIAL CIRCLE:  Bard, Dancer, Negotiator, Gambler

THE DISCIPLINED PATHS:  Samurai, Ninja, Mimic, Esper

THE EDUCATED ELITE:  Engineer, Gunslinger, Alchemist, Scholar

More details on all of these below the cut:

THE ORIGINAL CREW:  FOCUS AND FUNDAMENTALS

These traditions are more or less universal, and PCs from any background or culture could have picked them up.  These are also the ones I need to have the most mechanically solid before I go any further, so I can use them as a foundation for the others.

Fighter - Heavy armor, strong Vitality, and skill with a very wide variety of weapons.  The Fighter’s signature tricks are all about Aggro Control, and rapidly swapping through a small arsenal of weapons to fit the specific demands of a fight.

Monk - FF Monks differ from D&D monks by favoring Strength over Dexterity.  They’ll also supplement their fists with knuckles and claws.  I think of FFVI’s Sabin as the quintessential Monk, and at least some of their MP abilities will be based on his Blitz techniques.  (FFVII’s Tifa and FFVIII’s Zell will also see some love though.)

Thief - I’m leaning heavily towards the FFXI version of Thief, where positioning relative to allies was the key to their combat power, and they had some interesting aggro-manipulation mechanics.  Overwhelmingly finesse-based, but less social than D&D Rogues.  You’ll want to multiclass a little to be a charmer.

Black Mage (Wizard) - The important thing about designing Black Mages is figuring out some Elemental Control and Manipulation abilities that are more diverse than just direct damage and status effects, without compromising the overall feel of the class.  I think I’ve got some pretty good ideas.  Regardless, the Black Mage will always be the unholy king of the Alpha Strike - when you need a ton of damage dropped RIGHT NOW, he’s your guy.

White Mage (Priest) - Like the Black Mage, I’m working to expand their spell list and keep it interesting outside of straight up combat effects.  While all Mages draw on the power of the Goddesses as filtered through Crystals and the Mist, White Mages have the strongest tradition of theological study accompanying practical knowledge of magic.

Red Mage (Sorcerer) - A hybrid class with aspects related to all of the other core classes except Monk.  A finesse-based swordfighter with black and white magic.  But their synthesis of traditions has resulted in a unique blend, and they have some spells and metamagic tricks that aren’t available to Black or White Mages, and some swordplay tricks that aren’t available to Fighters or Thieves.

THE KNIGHTLY ORDERS:  CONFLICT AND CHIVALRY

The four Knightly Orders aren’t much less common than the core six classes, but they all have specific training and initiation requirements that are tied to fewer locations.  The Knightly Orders have more group support than other classes, but also have codes of conduct required to continue enjoying that backup.

Paladins (Holy Knights) - The sturdiest class, with a heavy dose of healing and buffing backing up high Vitality and strong armor.  While Fighters tank by drawing monster attention, Paladins tank by physically intercepting strikes for allies (and the two classes combo together very comfortably, obviously).  Not quite the offensive powerhouse of the D&D Paladin with its Smites, though.

Dark Knights (Reavers) - Aggressive to the point of recklessness, Dark Knights have a major theme of empowerment through sacrifice.  Fortunately, their focus on Dark Magic gives them a suite of vampiric abilities to sustain themselves.  They prefer to emphasize their Knightly charge over their common name because if they didn’t, people would probably forget that they're not (always) the bad guys.

Dragoons (Dragon Knights) - Some say they learned to fight by imitating dragons.  Others that they learned to fight against dragons.  Both are probably true to some degree.  Polearms, armor choices that favor mobility, and superhuman leaps.  Also a small but versatile suite of Draconic Magic, based on Freya Crescent from FFIX being my favorite canon Dragoon.

Runeblades (Mystic Knights) - A Red Mage experiment in creating their own hybrid Knight class discovered that their unique Sword magic does weird things when you adapt it to weapons other than finesse-based one handed swords.  In this case, in addition to empowering their greatswords with elemental effects, Runeblades can also charge their weapons and armor with Anti-Magic fields, making them the perfect Mage Killers.  This has caused some distance to develop between them and the parent Red Mage order.

THE HIDDEN SCHOOLS:  HEXAGONS AND HERESY

There are six recognized types of Mages with some degree of international organization.  The three above are much more common, while others are more reclusive or rare.  And then there’s the School of Summoners, who do not get along with the Hexagon Schools at all.

Blue Mage (Warlock) - A class based around stealing magic from Monsters.  I loved FFXI’s take on it, and the class in this game will follow suite to a degree, where the spells you select for your Spell List at the beginning of the day will also have passive effects on the Mage.  Unusually sturdy for Mages as well, since they learn Monster Magic by being subjected to it.  I have some tricks in mind to make spell acquisition not too burdensome in play.

Grey Mage (Oracle) - The Magic of Time and Space is largely non-elemental. Oracles can speed their allies, slow or stop their enemies, rewind time to undo failures, manipulate gravity (even using it to call down debris from outer space in pinpoint-targeted Meteor strikes), and open portals between distant places.  They also have a lot of divination-based buffing abilities, similar to FFXIV’s Astrologians and other classes like it.

Green Mages (Geomancers) - Drawing their magic from the land itself, Geomancers will play like brawlier Druids, although their shapeshifting will fall more in the realm of “neat tricks” than being their primary focus.  Like Blue Mages, I have some ideas for how to make their exploration-based spell acquisition less of a hassle.

Summoners (Rainbow Mages) - The other Mages look askance at Summoners, because it took so much effort to bind the Eidolons in the Protocrystals in the first place, and they’re not big fans of aspects of those entities being drawn out.  Summoners will probably be one of the last classes I complete, just because balancing summons is going to be a pretty heavy task.  Their magic will be split between Conjurations (the Eidolon appears on the battle map and sticks around for a while as a combat unit) and Evocations (the Eidolon manifests a big powerful spell with flashy effects, then gets the hell out of there).

THE UNTAMED EXPLORERS:  WARDENS AND WILDERNESS

The standard for FF games is for civilization to be mostly sequestered in a few heavily fortified city states, with vast monster-haunted spans between them.  It takes a special kind of adventurer to venture out into the wild places at all, much less prefer them over the cities.

Rangers - Archery-focused hunters who are experts in tracking, scouting, and pinpointing enemy weaknesses.  Probably also have a lot more skills for self-reliance and crafting their own supplies than other classes.

Marauders - Many FF games have Pirate themed jobs, but I liked the Marauder name from FFXIV for capturing that overall feel without necessarily pinning someone to a criminal or seafaring occupation (although proficiency in Piracy will certainly be an option).  Marauders love heavy weapons (especially Axes), have more HP than just about anybody else, and are great at attacks that ‘Break’ enemy stats and traits.

Berserkers - While a Blue Mage learns monster magic, a Berserker learns monster fighting.  They’re like Monks who learned martial arts by being raised by wolves.  FFVI’s Gau is the standard here - a Berserker will learn a few different Beast Styles that provide certain advantages and disadvantages, and incentivize a specific combat style. The danger being that the battle may shift in a direction that style is no longer appropriate for, and a Berserker may have a hard time redirecting their fury productively.

Beastmasters - Why do your own fighting when you can tame a critter to fight for you?  I’m working on ideas for how a Beastmaster can keep a single pet that they’re especially close to, or could summon and dismiss different pets for different needs.  They’ll probably have a lot in common with Summoners on the battle map, but nowhere near a complete overlap.

THE SOCIAL CIRCLE:  FRIENDSHIP AND FINANCES

Is it fairly cynical lumping in the moneymaking classes with the getting-along-with-people classes?  Yes.  But it also totally fits.

Bards - The Red Mage already fills the same jack-of-all-trades role as a D&D Bard, so my goal with the FF Bard is to make them much more support oriented both in and out of combat.  The Bard doesn’t want to hog the spotlight unless he’s actually performing on stage - what the Bard wants is to make his friends kick ass harder.  A skilled bard on the team is the difference between a bunch of goobers throwing powers at the wall and hoping something sticks, and an elite and well-coordinated fighting unit.

Dancers - Capable of generating a ton of magical effects with their dances, operate as a sort of agile martial artist with a lot of close combat debuffs.  If FF Monks are too scrappy and you want someone with more finesse, the Dancer class may do it for you.

Negotiators - Some call them “Gold Mages”, and that’s not far from the truth.  Currency in circulation builds up a strange charge, and Negotiators learn how to manipulate it, and also manipulate the parts of people’s minds that are sympathetic to it.  Negotiators are basically like hypnotists who work with bribes.  They may be tricky to balance for campaigns where the GM is playing loose with tracking wealth, but I’ve got some ideas.

Gamblers - Do you love novelty throwing weapons, whether playing cards or soccer balls?  Do you enjoy consigning more of your character’s agency to fate than is even typical with Dice Rolls?  This class works a lot like D&D Wild Mages - you may pull off something amazing, or you may crap the bed.  Things are weighted in your favor though, and your bad rolls will be more tactically interesting than catastrophically punitive.  At high levels Gamblers learn to manipulate meta-game elements, like their own player’s dice.

THE DISCIPLINED PATHS:  WILL AND WARFARE

It’s kind of funny that FF games often have a Japan-like place off in the corner of the world map, and treat classes from there as exotic and unusual.  As a white American, that’s not an emphasis that I want to lean into necessarily, but I do feel like those classes do fit a different pattern than others, where they’re about an intense unity of mind and body manifest as extraordinary precision.  So I lumped Ninja and Samurai in with a couple ‘psionic’ type classes, and have some goals for how they’ll play similarly.

Samurai - A swordsman of incomparable skill and dedication.  The most interesting parts of Samurai gameplay from what I’m planning will be a focus on counter play.  A Samurai wants his enemy to take the first move, which will be the wrong move, and will open him up for the Samurai to retaliate so fast that he may stop his enemy’s move from happening in the first place.  Every action a Samurai takes should prompt a bunch of chess master speculation from his opponents.  For balance purposes, I recommend this class be played by writing out counter moves on cards and placing them face down until the enemy triggers them.  They’ll also have plenty of proactive stuff too though, focused on trashing the Initiative order and striking faster than others can react.

Ninjas - Once there was an order of Purple Mages, the Illusionists, who quietly withdrew from the world of magical academics and vanished.  It’s unclear if the Ninjas inherited their legacy directly, or developed similar skills independently, but they mix uncanny deception techniques with an assassin’s skills with small concealable weapons.

Esper - Sometimes magic isn’t something you learn, sometimes it’s something innate.  Maybe you have an ancestor who was some kind of arcane entity, or maybe you were exposed to weird magic, or maybe you’re just the next step in human evolution.  Esper magic will be flavored a lot more like Psionics, even though it still just uses MP.

Mimic - The fourth and final Martial Arts path (along with Monk, Berserker and Dancer) that shares a lot of counter-based play with Samurai.  The Mimic gets into your head, learns your tricks, and uses them against you.  Strongest when teamed with a large and diverse group, so he can mix and match tricks from his allies along with those stolen from enemies.  Has a ton of build flexibility, but lacks the potency of more focused classes.

THE EDUCATED ELITE:  TECHNOLOGY AND TRAINING

There is an Evil Empire.  There is always an Evil Empire.  It has more advanced tech than the rest of the world, and some unique jobs have arisen there to take advantage of that.  Despite their best efforts though, complete control of these jobs has not been maintained.  Some members have defected, others have stolen secrets.

Engineer - Guns and weird inventions.  Of course, not all of the Engineer’s salvaged and hastily assembled tech would work if it weren’t being fueled by his own MP.  May have pet class elements, with drones, turrets, and even servant automatons.  Probably more focused on a bunch of little pets than a single strong one like Summoners and Beastmasters, though.

Gunslinger - Firearms are powerful and easy to use, but in an early experimental phase where they can be just as dangerous to the user as to his targets.  Gunslingers are the best of the best though, and know how to make their firearms perform perfectly.  Trick shots, speed reloads, fast draws, ridiculous precision and rate of fire, and the ability to snipe specific body parts to restrict enemy actions.

Alchemist - Item-based classes are complicated to balance.  Like the Engineer, I imagine this one running on a heavy dose of “you automatically have whatever you need in your bag, unless it’s something expensive enough that the cost is clearly supposed to be a limitation.”  So pretty much exactly like a D&D Wizard’s spell component pouch.  Anyway, the big difference between the Alchemist and the Engineer is a focus on buffs and support over offense.

Scholar - What happens when you apply rigorous scientific principles to Magic?  Well, not actually a new Color School, but an interesting meta-magic class that works all right on its own, but is most interesting when paired with another spellcasting class (especially common with Black Mages and Grey Mages).