The Standard List of RPG Archetypes

[ro9ue]

If you had to make a list of every class/archetype/etc a game ought to have for a full exhaustive roster, what would it look like? I'll go first:

1. Paladin - Holy crusader, knight
2. Monk - Melee fighter with maybe some magical enhancements
3. Bard - Music based hero
4. Warrior - Standard non-magic based champion
5. Dark Knight - Shadow Knight, Death Knight, Reaver, etc
6. Shaman - Tribal seer with blood magics and stuff
7. Ranger - Archer with some nature magic and animal powers
8. Druid - "Nature mage"
9. Enchanter - Mesmer, Mystic, etc
10. Cleric - Priest, Healer, White Mage
11. Wizard - Mage, Spellcaster
12. Necromancer - Death magic mage, warlock
13. Rogue - Thief/Scout/Shadowblade etc

[anaxie]

You missed the most important core archtype
THIEF


Rangers arent technically ranged. They are both archtypes

You're thinking literal Archer

I mean the most famous ranger of all time in RPGS is Minsc and the ferocious Boo afterall



Then you have deeper archtypes like Cavalier, Inquisitors, Berserkers, Sorcerors, Witchslayers, Blackguards ect. ect.

[Velshin]

An interesting topic indeed! here we go my list:

1-Knight- Defender of the weaks, specialize in melee combat, and use cover/guard to defend those who are in danger.

2-Wizard- a strong spellcaster specialize in long range magic attacks.

3-Paladin- a strong melee figher (not as strong as the Knight though), and have some healing spells to aid those who are in need.

4-Berserker- always in rage mode state which make the class has insane speed, and strength but has a weak defense overall.

5-Ward- A magi who aids and support his allies and make them stronger (stats up and buffing up), and weaken the enemies with spells and debuffs.

6-Archer- a range fighter who uses bows and crossbow as a primary weapon and can pinpoint enemies weakness (Analyze).

7-Dark Knight- a melee fighter who uses the power of the darkness to destroy his enemies and weaken them (Dark element and debuffs).

8-Blood Mage A spellcaster who uses blood for rituals and to summon entities from different dimensions.

9-Cleric - The healer of the group using blessing to help those in need.

10-Monk- Melee fighter with some minimum healing abilities.

11-Thief- a fast fighter able to pickpocket the enemies to get rare items from them and sometimes their own equipment to benefits the group. And can open old locks.

12-Necromancer- A spell caster specialize in using the souls of the dead to aid the group in battle and death magic.

[Fibh]

Personally I always see these 10 as the basic archetypes:

1. Knight/warrior
2. Holy Knight/crusader/paladin
3. Dark knight/death knight
4. Monk
5. Thief/rogue/assassin
6. Archer/ranger
7. Wizard/mage/sorcerer
8. Dark mage/necromancer/warlock
9. Holy healer/priest/cleric
10. Nature healer/shaman/druid

// You could even reduce it to 8. Since monk and dark knight are kinda specific to be standard. They're more 'almost standard' like bard, illusionist, lancer, berserker, etc

[Afrospinach]

Personally I always see these 10 as the basic archetypes:

I would say even less.

Warriors/Rogues/Mages/Priests

They tend to be based on some idea around strength vs agi vs intelligence vs wisdom respectively. To me every class is a derivative or a hybrid of this basic idea. In a lot of games paladins and druids are big on melee which makes their core combat ability warrior like but they are still usually preisty in spell casting ability.

Monks in baldurs gate have a lot of thief ability iirc, they are definitely of the roguish archetype. I think if you go any further than those core 4 you start to get oddly specific very fast as you say.

[Cyanu]

there are many ways to approach this

for instance you could use a simply 3 archetype approach: warrior/rogue/mystic to a maximalist like the one you suggested in the OP

from my experience the 'happy medium' is the best, games that include as much classes as possible end up with them being very poorly designed and balanced

generally if you end up giving every weapon style and every school of magic a different class along with all the roguish, knightly and exotic classes it doesn't end well

imo WoW is in a good number of classes, nothing is missing and no class feels lacking of depth or identity

if i had to suggest one it would be:

warrior/ranger/rogue for the physical classes and wizard (alteration/enhancement/illusion/abjuration), sorcerer(evocation/conjuration/necromancy), priest(divine holy), druid (primal nature) for the casters

[anaxie]

An interesting topic indeed! here we go my list:

1-Knight- Defender of the weaks, specialize in melee combat, and use cover/guard to defend those who are in danger.

2-Wizard- a strong spellcaster specialize in long range magic attacks.

3-Paladin- a strong melee figher (not as strong as the Knight though), and have some healing spells to aid those who are in need.

4-Berserker- always in rage mode state which make the class has insane speed, and strength but has a weak defense overall.

5-Ward- A magi who aids and support his allies and make them stronger (stats up and buffing up), and weaken the enemies with spells and debuffs.

6-Archer- a range fighter who uses bows and crossbow as a primary weapon and can pinpoint enemies weakness (Analyze).

7-Dark Knight- a melee fighter who uses the power of the darkness to destroy his enemies and weaken them (Dark element and debuffs).

8-Blood Mage A spellcaster who uses blood for rituals and to summon entities from different dimensions.

9-Cleric - The healer of the group using blessing to help those in need.

10-Monk- Melee fighter with some minimum healing abilities.

11-Thief- a fast fighter able to pickpocket the enemies to get rare items from them and sometimes their own equipment to benefits the group. And can open old locks.

12-Necromancer- A spell caster specialize in using the souls of the dead to aid the group in battle and death magic.

Isnt a dark knight a blackguard? Part of the paladin archtype

Zerker and knight are warrior specilizations i think

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I would say even less.

Warriors/Rogues/Mages/Priests

They tend to be based on some idea around strength vs agi vs intelligence vs wisdom respectively. To me every class is a derivative or a hybrid of this basic idea. In a lot of games paladins and druids are big on melee which makes their core combat ability warrior like but they are still usually preisty in spell casting ability.

Monks in baldurs gate have a lot of thief ability iirc, they are definitely of the roguish archetype. I think if you go any further than those core 4 you start to get oddly specific very fast as you say.

You pretty much nailed it

But lets be more proper

Its thief and cleric.

[Arrashi]

Malkavian - a charcter for insightful conversations.

[Velshin]

Isnt a dark knight a blackguard? Part of the paladin archtype

.

Yeah for me Dark Knight is kinda the anti paladin where paladin use some healing spells and Dark Knight uses some dark spells to weaken and steal HP of the enemies.

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Malkavian - a charcter for insightful conversations.

Oh you remind me of the FFT class Mediator where the class can communicate even with beasts, animals, and even dragons sometimes.

[anaxie]

Yeah for me Dark Knight is kinda the anti paladin where paladin use some healing spells and Dark Knight uses some dark spells to weaken and steal HP of the enemies.

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Oh you remind me of the FFT class Mediator where the class can communicate even with beasts, animals, and even dragons sometimes.

Yeah and they both worship dieties. Its the. Lawful neutral and chaotic evil paladin archtypes

Pretty sure rangers and druids can do the animal talking

As for dragona in MOST fantasy mediums dragons speak they arent beaata

[Arrashi]

Oh you remind me of the FFT class Mediator where the class can communicate even with beasts, animals, and even dragons sometimes.

Its not this kind of conversations.

[Velshin]

Yeah and they both worship dieties. Its the. Lawful neutral and chaotic evil paladin archtypes

Pretty sure rangers and druids can do the animal talking

As for dragona in MOST fantasy mediums dragons speak they arent beaata

Yeah you are right indeed and I agree they can talk human tongue for sure, but I am talking about the lesser dragoniod races like wyrms that act more like beast animal than your ancient epic dragon that has wisdom and can talk normally.

[anaxie]

Yeah you are right indeed and I agree they can talk human tongue for sure, but I am talking about the lesser dragoniod races like wyrms that act more like beast animal than your ancient epic dragon that has wisdom and can talk normally.

fucking wyverns

Mehhh.....

[Val the Moofia Boss]

As people before me have already covered the core classes, I will cover an extremely common but overlooked class: the Summoner.

[Mormolyce]

The holy trinity is Fighter/Mage/Thief. Which is directly derived from Tolkien, eg if you look at the Hobbit you have the Dwarves (Fighters), Gandalf (Mage) and Bilbo (Thief, allegedly).

You could also Rangers came from Aragorn in LoTR I suppose.

Cleric became an important addition around the time of D&D I think. Most of the other archetypes solidified later.

[ro9ue]

You missed the most important core archtype
THIEF

Holy shit... how did I forget that one lol. Rogue is my main in WoW and my username... is literally rogue. Going to add that to my list in the OP

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The holy trinity is Fighter/Mage/Thief. Which is directly derived from Tolkien, eg if you look at the Hobbit you have the Dwarves (Fighters), Gandalf (Mage) and Bilbo (Thief, allegedly).

You could also Rangers came from Aragorn in LoTR I suppose.

Cleric became an important addition around the time of D&D I think. Most of the other archetypes solidified later.

I agree with this as far as most classes can all be grouped into the 3 larger archetypes. But my goal would be to cover all of the main typical RPG classes or "fantasies" with this list. Usually when the 3 main paths are used like Fighter/Mage/Rogue, the other classes are achieved through specialization or subclasses. But the end result still often just leads to the set up of Fighter to Paladin, Dark Knight or Warrior, Mage to Necro, Wizard, etc etc etc.

So I guess I would clarify my question to be what are all of the RPG class fantasies you want to be able to play as in your typical RPG game, whether its just a base class or a specialized archetype.

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An interesting topic indeed! here we go my list:

1-Knight- Defender of the weaks, specialize in melee combat, and use cover/guard to defend those who are in danger.

2-Wizard- a strong spellcaster specialize in long range magic attacks.

3-Paladin- a strong melee figher (not as strong as the Knight though), and have some healing spells to aid those who are in need.

4-Berserker- always in rage mode state which make the class has insane speed, and strength but has a weak defense overall.

5-Ward- A magi who aids and support his allies and make them stronger (stats up and buffing up), and weaken the enemies with spells and debuffs.

6-Archer- a range fighter who uses bows and crossbow as a primary weapon and can pinpoint enemies weakness (Analyze).

7-Dark Knight- a melee fighter who uses the power of the darkness to destroy his enemies and weaken them (Dark element and debuffs).

8-Blood Mage A spellcaster who uses blood for rituals and to summon entities from different dimensions.

9-Cleric - The healer of the group using blessing to help those in need.

10-Monk- Melee fighter with some minimum healing abilities.

11-Thief- a fast fighter able to pickpocket the enemies to get rare items from them and sometimes their own equipment to benefits the group. And can open old locks.

12-Necromancer- A spell caster specialize in using the souls of the dead to aid the group in battle and death magic.

Great list thanks for the post. I would like to personally see more Blood Mages in RPGs. I wonder if maybe you would consider them to be often wrapped up with Necromancers?

[Mormolyce]

I agree with this as far as most classes can all be grouped into the 3 larger archetypes. But my goal would be to cover all of the main typical RPG classes or "fantasies" with this list. Usually when the 3 main paths are used like Fighter/Mage/Rogue, the other classes are achieved through specialization or subclasses. But the end result still often just leads to the set up of Fighter to Paladin, Dark Knight or Warrior, Mage to Necro, Wizard, etc etc etc.

So I guess I would clarify my question to be what are all of the RPG class fantasies you want to be able to play as in your typical RPG game, whether its just a base class or a specialized archetype.

In modern fantasy? The list could get pretty long.

I guess it depends how iconic or common the archetype has to be as well.

P.S. Are you distinguishing Warlocks from Necromancers? I imagine "blood mage" would probably fall under the "Warlock" bracket too.

[ro9ue]

Personally I always see these 10 as the basic archetypes:

1. Knight/warrior
2. Holy Knight/crusader/paladin
3. Dark knight/death knight
4. Monk
5. Thief/rogue/assassin
6. Archer/ranger
7. Wizard/mage/sorcerer
8. Dark mage/necromancer/warlock
9. Holy healer/priest/cleric
10. Nature healer/shaman/druid

// You could even reduce it to 8. Since monk and dark knight are kinda specific to be standard. They're more 'almost standard' like bard, illusionist, lancer, berserker, etc

Yeah I think there are ones that are "almost standard" but I often feel like something is missing when they aren't available in the game. For example in WoW I do feel like a Bard type class is missing and it's one of the most requested classes next to probably Tinker - which can also be considered an Engineer archetype. I decided to stay away from the technology ones though because that isn't always relevant in typical fantasy RPGs.

Good list though, thanks.

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In modern fantasy? The list could get pretty long.

I guess it depends how iconic or common the archetype has to be as well.

P.S. Are you distinguishing Warlocks from Necromancers? I imagine "blood mage" would probably fall under the "Warlock" bracket too.

Yeah I'm more or less just wanting to hear peoples arbitrary lists. Up to them how nuanced they want to get. For me though, I'm trying to get the sense of a typical formula of classes in RPGs. While someone might list out Crusader, Paladin, Inquisitor, Templar - in my mind they are the same Paladin-ish archetype with just slight differences.

Also the Warlock/Necro/Blood mage thing falls under the Dark-Wizard-ish archetype.

Goal for me is to reduce the list down to the simplest components, but somewhere between the 3 archetype (Fighter/Mage/Rogue) and the 50+ subclass specialization someone can point out. When you get to a list that large some of the names are essentially interchangeable.

However Fighter, Mage, Rogue while extremely efficient, doesn't sufficiently describe the "core class fantasies" every player wants to fulfill in the game. Something like Bard, Dark Knight or Monk.

Again it's all arbitrary, but I want to get the sense of what players expect to be able to make in a typical RPG game. Whether it's just a base class or achievable by specializing a more broad archetype.

[Halicia]

Summoners don't seem to have been mentioned yet.

[Mormolyce]

Is an Enchanter sufficiently distinct from a Mage to be a separate archetype?

Controversial - how about Shaman and Druid? They're both primal tribalistic Mages. Historically speaking, a druid was simply what the Celts called their "shaman".

Actually, you could also combine some of them that are mostly split on alignment - eg, a Dark Knight is really the evil version of a Paladin, a Warlock/Necro/etc is the evil version of a Mage etc.