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Message: <blockquote data-quote="steenan" data-source="post: 5375426" data-attributes="member: 23240">In my opinion, the most important question to be answered is: what does a class mean to you? It may sound strange or trivial, but I think it's not. I encountered several different interpretations - and disagreements about them started quite a lot of flames.So, what is a class?An archetype, found in a wide range of fantasy stories?A particular group in the setting, clearly defined by their abilities and social ties?A set of purely mechanical powers, to be flavored as a player likes?Something else entirely?With a clear understanding of what a class is, it's easy to decide what should be a class and what shouldn't. If it's an archetype, you should have no more than 6-7 classes and they should be thematically strong. There is definitely no place for several caster classes (wizard, sorcerer, psion, druid), unless you want to make everyone a caster and focus on the differences between types of magic and types of magic users. There is also no place for extremely generic, but flavorless classes as a fighter (nearly everybody fights - that's not something that defines a character). Take ten to twenty good fantasy books you want to use as a base for your setting, list all the main characters and find a set of archetypes that fits them.If every class corresponds to a group in the setting, you'll have a lot of them, but they may be thematically narrow. There is a lot of conceptual space for monks, paladins, druids and your soraryn - all are very specific, but in this approach classes may be. On the other hand, fighters don't fit here too - you should have separate classes for knights, tribal warriors, swashbucklers etc. Classes don't have to be balanced (if a group is hard to enter or burdens members with a lot of duties, it may be more powerful) and should have various in-setting limitations reflecting who they are and what they do.In the purely mechanical approach, you need to make every class balanced in itself on every level. No roleplaying limitations may be used as they make reflavoring hard or impossible. Different abilities should be the only criterion for separating classes, as the flavor differences are not represented (the system does not care if you do magic by the power of your mind or by praying to deities - only the effect matters). The only good limit for the number of classes is the amount of good ideas you have for their abilities and the amount of time you have for playtesting to make sure all combinations are balanced and tactically interesting.</blockquote>

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