[COMMUNITY PROJECT] MISSIONGARDE -- CLASS REFINING IN PROGRESS

I'm just fine with Dragon Warrior IV NES graphics.

Also, I renamed the songs for the Bard to make sure that they will all fit:

Two Mandolins is now 2Mandolins

Heroic March - Q1 - Raises all party members strength slightly
Tale of Breathless - Q1 - May inflict mute to all enemies
Minstrelosity - Q1 - CAN ONLY BE USED INSIDE BATTLE Heals the Bard (His/Her vain pride causes him/her to continue fighting) (Has the same tune as the tale of the spoony bard)
Lay of Weasel Turd - Q2 - Makes the enemies ears bleed! (Causes damage to all enemies)
Ye Olde Jokester - Q2 - Inflicts enemies with chaos
Accordion's Discorda- Q3 - Inflicts all enemies with discord
Lay of Drying Mud - Q3 - Inflicts everyone except for the bard (both enemies and party members) with sleep
Storming of DaratDar - Q3 - Uppers the party
Brawler's Theme - Q4 - Bikills and Hastes party
Ancient's Battle Lay - Q4 - Inflicts everyone except the bard (both enemies and party members) with berserk
Agony - Q4 - Makes the enemies' ears explode! (Causes larger damage to all enemies)

I vote we go for 4-color Game-Boy style graphics, complete with frame around the field view.

BASIC CLASSES

Physical
Soldier
Generica Kid**

Magic
Cleric
Evoker
Mage
Druid

Stealth
Ranger
Raider

*These classes that appear on two lists? They're hybrids.


**RECOMMENDED CUTS: I strongly recommend losing "Generica Kid" entirely. It is not fitting with the tone of the rest of the classes and is also pretty uninteresting; and do we really need more than one uninteresting class besides soldier? I also recommend moving Evoker to Advanced, as long as it's the one by F-G that used to be enchanter.

***These are new classes. See below.

Notes, by Class:

Raider:
I like this guy, but he needs more abilities. There are too many classes with few or no abilities. How about a steal skill?

Soldier, Cleric, Mage:
These are just about perfect.

Ranger:
I can only make an argument for keeping this if there are actual traps in the game that can be disarmed. Also I am unhappy that this class is lifted directly from Hero's Realm. Also I strongly feel Cleanse should be moved to druid. Give rangers a dual-attack with bows instead.

Evoker:
I can't find the stats for this anywhere. Did it used to be Enchanter? Anyway, I think it should be moved to Advanced, and here's why....

1) It is the only HYBRID class in basic and sticks out like a sore thumb.
2) It makes symmetry more difficult. Symmetry is having the same number of classes for each archetype; see below.

Druid:
Needs more CLEANSE. Cleanse is a classic druid ability. Also, I suggest giving it buffs.

General Thoughts on the Basic Classes

As it stands, we have two to three physical, four magical, and one to two stealth, depending on where you put Raider.

Assuming my proposed ideas go through, we are left with..


Physical
Soldier
Raider?
???

Magic
Cleric
Mage
Druid

Stealth
Ranger
Raider?
??????

Now out of these, I REALLY like how Magic gets distributed; we have one natural magic, one arcane magic, one divine magic PERFECT. I am going to try and fill in some of those question marks; we need one new physical and two new stealth, or vice versa; it'd be good if Darken would way in on where he wants Raider to stand.

In the mean time, I will try to do one new basic physical and one new basic stealth, and try to make them not redundant with any of the current classes at any level. More in my next post.

I'll take one last crack at this:

Poacher
Class Rank: Advanced
Class Points: Meh.
Description: A hunter that specializes in killing monsters. As he levels, he gains insight as to the weak points of more enemy types.

HP: 4
MP: 3
STR: 5
DEF: 4
INT: 2
AGL: 6

Battle Commands: (Explain any new ones)
FIGHT
HUNT - Poacher command. Deal triple damage to certain enemy types. As levels are gained, more enemy types can be affected.
SCAN - Waits a few turns, and then views the selected enemy's data, and maybe a blurb of background information as well.
ITEM
ESCAPE

Spells:
(Spell Name - Level Gained - explanation if unusual)
A spell for every common enemy type, such as:

Silver Arrow - Deals triple damage to wolves and werewolves.
Burial - Deal triple damage to undead.
Wyrmkiller - Deal triple damage to dragons.

Interesting idea: Perhaps Poachers should learn their skills once the party defeats a certain number of that enemy type? With more powerful enemy types requiring more kills to learn?

Condition/Attribute Resistances:

Dual Wield? Nope.
Mighty Guard? Nope.
AI Control? Nope.
Lock Equip.? Nope.
EXP leveling: Average
Equipment Notes: Bows, spears, muskets(?), whips, other weapons associated with hunting.

General Notes:
Feel free to rename the class as you wish. Also, not every enemy type needs a skill.

*Changed to Advanced form of Ranger.

Yeah, that sounds about right to me, Max. But where does that leave stealth?

So, allow me to post the revised class list of basic classes so far. With the lack of input from some people, I have made some executive decisions; I sensed I was getting the nod from Kentona.

Oh, and to answer Chaos's question, "Stealth" here is really a vague term meaning all utility, miscellaneous, and "other" characters who aren't casters or tanks or caster-tank hybrids. Craze likes to call this category "damage output" which is a pragmatic but limited way to look at things.

BASIC CLASSES

Physical
Soldier
Knight*
Raider

Magic
Cleric
Mage
Druid

Stealth
Ranger**
Infiltrator
Artificier***

*As I mentioned, this was powered down somewhat and is now more on par with a Soldier than a Carnitank. (Does anyone else feel that a game with boring class names like Soldier and bizarre class names like Carnitank and everything in betweenis a bit...eyebrow raising?)
***See below.

Artificier
Class Rank: Basic
Class Points: Omitted at this time.
Description: A skillful tinkerer, not the fastest or the strongest character you will find, but rather brilliant with gadgets.

HP: 3
MP: 3
STR: 2 (Important note: does not effect damage for Muskets.)
DEF: 2
INT: 6
AGL: 3

Battle Commands: (Explain any new ones)
FIGHT
MUSKET - Okay, so here's how this will work. The artificier carries a normal weapon, set up through the DBS normally, and a firearm. In game terms, this command switches to the musket and fires it. In metagame terms, it's just a battle command that deals a highly and exponentially randomized amount of damage (something like d64 * d64 so anything from 1 to 4096; the middle ground would be 1024; obviously these numbers need to be scaled down to be appropriate to enemy HP, but the idea is on the high end it could seriously mess up a boss or one hit a normal enemy, but on the low end, it would do like 8 damage) to a single enemy; it might have to be a random enemy, if I recall how 2k3 works. I toyed with the idea of the musket having limited ammo or needing to be reloaded, but I feel that we should not overcomplicate things at this stage. Finally, if the PC upgrades to a different firearm (say, something like ye olde shotgun, which damages all enemies) then yes, we'd need to find a way to change the battle command, which might be a pain in the ass.
ARTIFICE - Tools, like from Final Fantasy 6. They should be item-linked; they should either consume items with each use (preferred) or if that proves difficult to code, they should require certain items to be in the inventory or equipped or consumed to learn them. A la FF6.
ITEM
ESCAPE

Tools:
Tools do not cost MP unless they need to for balance reasons. (I always felt the engineer from FF6 was a little broken, and also I think traps in HR are a little too good, but it's up to you guys). Also, this stuff is pretty far-fetched, because I assumed Missiongarde was not trying to be too realistic to the medieval period.

(Tool Name - Level Gained - explanation if unusual)
- Q1 - Quadbow - Launches a flurry of crossbow bolts at all enemies. Mod. dam
- Q1 - Hurrikan Shield - Raises party's resistance to ranged/arrow based damage, assuming that this is a common enough type of damage to make this skill not completely crap.
- Q2 - Dragon's Maw - Single-target highish damage flamethrower.
- Q2 - Accelerator - Low chance to haste entire party. Like "Cheer Song" in FFT.
- Q3 - Crystallizer - Highish ice damage on one enemy, low chance to petrify.
- Q3 - Positron - Small heal and removes some status effects for entire party; lowish hit%
- Q4 - Hydra - Four-barreled shotgun; like Quadbow only better.
- Q4 - Alchemist's Fire - Low chance of low fire damage, confusion, and poison to all enemies.

Condition/Attribute Resistances:
None.

Dual Wield? No. (Only in his own way.)
Mighty Guard? No.
AI Control? No.
Lock Equip.? No. (Except for the Musket, as explained above.)
EXP leveling: Slow
Equipment Notes: All crossbows, light armor, muskets and other firearms.

General Notes: Same as the other two classes I made; poor attributes, interesting skills. This is a basic class that will really shine late in the game, with the exception of his Musket. His Musket starts out ridiculously strong and gets weaker and weaker, since it has no growth, but his skills get stronger and stronger. He has a miscellaneous skill set, not to be confused with an all encompassing one.

So Poacher was denied? Pity.

Summoner
Class Rank: Advanced)
Class Points: (Omitted since Max Magee did it first)
Description: Everything that is wrong with an RP---I mean, a class of mage that summons mighty creatures of lore(tm) into combat for him.

HP:
MP:
STR:
DEF:
INT:
AGL:

Battle Commands: (Explain any new ones)
FIGHT
SUMMON - Summons one of the Mighty Creatures of Lore(tm) into battle to devastate the enemy with a fancy, gratuitously graphic intensive, attack!
COMMUNE - Needed to create a link between the Summoner and Summoned Creature. Also will restore some of those badly needed Magic Points.
ITEM
ESCAPE

Spells:
NOTE: Summoners do not gain their summons with levels. Instead, they must enter a spirit circle and do battle with the elemental to gain their power. All Summoners start with one summon, usually Fire, Lighting, or Water.

The first rank are Elemental, creatures that specifically utilize one elemental trait.

(Summon Salamander - Summons a Fire Elemental for moderate fire-typed damage)
(Summon Yeti - Summons a Ice Elemental for moderate ice-typed damage)
(Summon Will-o-wisp - Summons a Lighting Elemental for moderate lightning-typed damage)
(Summon Naiad - Summons a Water Elemental for moderate water-typed damage)
(Summon Whirlwind - Summons a Air Elemental for moderate air-typed damage)
(Summon Dyrad - Summons a Earth Elemental for moderate earth-typed damage)

The second rank are the Loa, which embodies the particular element or attribute completely.

(Summon Efreet - Summons a Fire Loa for moderate-to-heavy fire-typed damage)
(Summon Wendigo - Summons a Ice Loa for moderate-to-heavy ice-typed damage)
(Summon Thunderbird - Summons a Loa Elemental for moderate-to-heavy lightning-typed damage)
(Summon Naga - Summons a Water Loa for moderate-to-heavy water-typed damage)
(Summon Djinni - Summons a Air Loa for moderate-to-heavy air-typed damage)
(Summon Golem - Summons a Earth Loa for moderate-to-heavy earth-typed damage)

The third rank is the Totems. Totems are the top of the foodchain for an element or attribute.

(Summon Phoenix - Summons the Fire Totem for heavy fire-typed damage)
(Summon Snow Queen - Summons the Ice Totem for heavy ice-typed damage)
(Summon Raiden - Summons the Lighting Totem for heavy lightning-typed damage)
(Summon Poseidon - Summons the Water Totem for heavy water-typed damage)
(Summon Nin'lil - Summons the Air Totem for heavy air-typed damage)
(Summon TItan - Summons the Earth Totem for heavy earth-typed damage)

There will be more, and some non-elemental, when I get a free moment.

Condition/Attribute Resistances: Somewhat resistant to magic.

Dual Wield? No
Mighty Guard? No
AI Control? No
Lock Equip.? No
EXP leveling: (Average)
Equipment Notes: Summoners are limited to one class of weapon. Whether this be a whip (like Rydia), a rod (like Garnet), or a staff (like Yuna), is up to the specific tastes of someone else, since I personally want to see the Summoners wield a Colt .45, or a Tomahawk, whichever looks cooler. Okay, after thinking about the whole summoning circle motif, I think that the Summoner should be limited to the Chakram, a circle-like weapon.

General Notes: It's a summoner. You can even give it a near horn on its head if you want to completely rip off Squareenix. Now to be serious, I can see the Summoners being like Tribal Shaman, dressing in furskins, wearing paint (or tatoo) depicting runes and the names of their Summon Gods/Totems/Whatnot. I would recommend that the Summoners be treated in this fashion, as it makes sense from a story standpoint that any magi that directly summons things would have a spiritual connection.

EDIT: Added more content.