How to determine one's class while playing?

[Anaphyis]

I'm currently trying to make an adventure, drawing heavily from the AD&D module Treasure Hunt. For all who never played it, the PC start as level 0 classless and by the end of the module the DM recommends/assigns them classes depending on their actions during the course of the adventure. Someone who approached encounters offensively and trained with the sword they happened to find leans towards fighter while someone who intensively studied a magic tome leans more towards wizard.

I thought it would make for a nice introduction for newbies because you can skip large portions of the character creation and introduce them to game mechanics one bit at a time. And it would be something unusual to start of a lengthy campaign, especially when said players are actually talented roleplayers.

But now I have a bit of a problem. Making a level 0 adventure isn't hard but determining the final class is. We have more classes now than in ye olden days after all and including triggers like in the original module (magic tome for wizard, appearance of a deity for the cleric and so on) for all of them just isn't feasible.

My thought is to break the adventure into milestones; have them fight two encounters with only basic melee/ranged and their racials and cunning. If a PC acts offensively, assign them a striker and a controller at-will and look what power the PC prefers to determine his or her role at the end.

This would break down the number of choices to 4-6. But how would you deal with the power source? Divine is simple, just have them encounter a deity/divine servant/avatar/miracle of sorts and see who acts especially reverent. Martial is pretty much a catch-all and a strong connection to nature is also something you can feasibly expect to see during roleplay.

But psion and arcane, especially sorcerer - i.e. classes that are already born with this potential? I'm drawing a complete blank there. How would you deal with them?

 

[aco175]

I might still have that module in my parents attic, realy liked it.

These days we do have many extra classes and sub-classes to choose from and it can be difficult to make choices for each in this module format. If it is mostly geared towards beginners, it may make sence to limit it to the basic classes and maybe after broaden the choices after it is over.

Say one character liked melee fighting and divine magic to heal others. Really any of the leader classes can work but I may steer someone towards paladin or battle cleric.

 

[DragoonLance]

The most simple breakdown would be power source and role.

1) When evil goblins (or whatever) attack the village what do they reach for? A sword, wand, holy relic, psychic crystal or their faithful animal companion?

2) When the goblins are attacking a helpless family, how do they react? Do they defend the family, stab the goblins in the back, make them fight amongst themselves with devious tricks or tell your comrades to follow you into battle?

This should narrow their choice down to one or at most two classes.