The Standard List of RPG Archetypes

[ro9ue]

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.

Yeah I think I just want to get down the bare minimum but without being too broad... if that makes sense.

So like Warrior/Rogue/Mages/Priests is too broad.

But having a list of 50+ where there's a Crusader, Paladin, Templar, Inquisitor, etc all in the same list is too specific. I would just classify all of those under something like "Paladin".

In my estimation most people would land at around 9-12 core classes they expect to be able to play as in some form or another in a typical fantasy RPG.

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

Yeah that's a good question. For me personally in my head I categorize one into Mage/Wizard - typical fireball, frostbolt, etc magic caster, but then Enchanter into the EQ Enchanter or GW2 Mesmer role where it's more about control, illusions, etc. But I feel like you could easily make the argument they could be the same core class.

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

Shamans I view to be more spiritual/voodoo/blood/ritualistic where Druids have a bit more peaceful harmony vibe and elemental magic. But again I feel like those can easily be wrapped up in a single class really. They are thematically very close.

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Summoners don't seem to have been mentioned yet.

Valyrian did, but yeah. It's definitely a popular class and for me I immediately think of the Final Fantasy summoners in particular as an encapsulation of that class.

[anaxie]

Summoners don't seem to have been mentioned yet.

A mage can be a can have summon spells........ i feel like some people are dogging too deep into subclasses

The core rpg classes are Fighters Mages Thieves

Druids can typically do the role of a cleric but almost always the cleric will perform better.

Mages usually can learn a huge range of spells only needing to have high intelligence to be able to successful scribe or cast spells.

Idk i feel like some people need rpg 101. Goddamn

Warriors are usually the most proficient in melee paladins have mid range clerical skills but like a warrior can wield most weaponry and heavy plate.

Theb you start talking about morality. A paladin is almost always lawful good. And a fallen paladin is essentially a gimped warrior.

[ro9ue]

A mage can be a can have summon spells........ i feel like some people are dogging too deep into subclasses

The core rpg classes are Fighters Mages Thieves

Druids can typically do the role of a cleric but almost always the cleric will perform better.

Mages usually can learn a huge range of spells only needing to have high intelligence to be able to successful scribe or cast spells.

Idk i feel like some people need rpg 101. Goddamn

Warriors are usually the most proficient in melee paladins have mid range clerical skills but like a warrior can wield most weaponry and heavy plate.

Theb you start talking about morality. A paladin is almost always lawful good. And a fallen paladin is essentially a gimped warrior.

Curious, what do you consider the best game in terms of how they handled classes? For me EverQuest is the gold standard.

[anaxie]

Curious, what do you consider the best game in terms of how they handled classes? For me EverQuest is the gold standard.

Classic dungeons and dragons

Everything monks and all that shit is irrelevant. At its core a game relies on fighter mage thief cleric

Each class is usually the most proficient non hybrid and governed by one of the traditional statistics

Strength. Dexterity. Intelligence and wisdom

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Curious, what do you consider the best game in terms of how they handled classes? For me EverQuest is the gold standard.

Id say no everquest is not the gold standard. Far from it.

[Gozzu91]

What OP describes are classes.
The standard archetypes are fighter/thief/mage/cleric, and everything else is derived from those.

Edit: as for the basic class fantasies of roleplaying i'd say;
Knight/barbarian
Cleric/Druid
Wizard/Sorceror
Archer/Thief

All other classes can be found under those, such as a paladin being a knight or a ranger being an archer.

[Velshin]

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?

You welcome and thanks to you with such great topic.


Yeah both Necromancer and Blood Mage use dark methods to their advantage. Necromancer is focusing more on bringing the dead (zombies, ghouls and spirits) to aid in battle.

Mage Blood is more like if you remember in Final Fantasy Tactics like a summoner where you could summon strong entities from different dimensions to aid in battle. The main difference that Summoners use typical mana/magic points to their summon but Blood Mage uses blood and more savage.

[StrawberryZebra]

Curious, what do you consider the best game in terms of how they handled classes?

Despite it's multitude of other faults and failings, Rift did it's classes extremely well on the whole.

It has the basic Warrior/Cleric/Mage/Thief framework, but then allows the player to customise their build to turn their Mage into a Summoner, Pyromancer, Battlemage or whatever else they choose. It gives you a simple starting point for your character, but doesn't limit your freedom to create whatever build you wish. You don't need to design more narrow class concepts like a Crusader or an Assassin when your class mechanics allow the players to build those classes for themselves.

Admittedly Rifts class design led to a situation where certain builds performed much better than others but the overall idea was a good one even if the execution was poor.

[ro9ue]

Classic dungeons and dragons

Everything monks and all that shit is irrelevant. At its core a game relies on fighter mage thief cleric

Each class is usually the most proficient non hybrid and governed by one of the traditional statistics

Strength. Dexterity. Intelligence and wisdom

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Id say no everquest is not the gold standard. Far from it.

Yeah I guess my question isn't really about the archetypes then, even though that was in my title. I'm looking for the simplest list one could compile that includes all of the main "class fantasies". It's a hard target to hit but I want to know what people want to play as in their RPG games.

It's like imagine whats the best roster to be able to satisfying just about ANY player. So like you have a group of friends, one always like playing a Paladin, one a Bard, etc.

With this arbitrary list of your design, anyone who plays can find something they want to play. Archetype in the classic D&D sense for this particular topic is too broad (even though systems let you specialize). Or imagine that archetype system but each possible outcome of specialization as the end goal.

Thief might be too broad (even though it can lead to Bard). But then on the flip side having Troubador, Dirge and Bard in the same list might be too specific. So somewhere in between.

EverQuest is in my eyes the best for that sort of class list.



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Despite it's multitude of other faults and failings, Rift did it's classes extremely well on the whole.

It has the basic Warrior/Cleric/Mage/Thief framework, but then allows the player to customise their build to turn their Mage into a Summoner, Pyromancer, Battlemage or whatever else they choose. It gives you a simple starting point for your character, but doesn't limit your freedom to create whatever build you wish. You don't need to design more narrow class concepts like a Crusader or an Assassin when your class mechanics allow the players to build those classes for themselves.

Admittedly Rifts class design led to a situation where certain builds performed much better than others but the overall idea was a good one even if the execution was poor.

Couldn't agree more. It's too bad what happened to that game over time because it was probably the MMO that pulled me away from WoW the most because of its well designed class system.

[Halicia]

Yeah I guess my question isn't really about the archetypes then, even though that was in my title. I'm looking for the simplest list one could compile that includes all of the main "class fantasies". It's a hard target to hit but I want to know what people want to play as in their RPG games.

I think the simplest list would be drawn from whatever statistics the game uses.

If there's a statistic, there should probably be a class archetype that focuses on it.

Constitution/Stamina is generally a stat that's lacking specific archetypes drawn from it, although I've seen warlocks, summoners, and certain types of mages fill that niche.

If this is for an actual game/campaign you're designing, I'd be interested in hearing more of those specifics to make the suggestions fit better.

[ro9ue]

I think the simplest list would be drawn from whatever statistics the game uses.

If there's a statistic, there should probably be a class archetype that focuses on it.

Constitution/Stamina is generally a stat that's lacking specific archetypes drawn from it, although I've seen warlocks, summoners, and certain types of mages fill that niche.

If this is for an actual game/campaign you're designing, I'd be interested in hearing more of those specifics to make the suggestions fit better.

It's going to have the basic setup of 3 base archetypes that expand into specific classes. The thread is mostly just to hear what people expect to be able to build their character out as when you can specialize those archetypes into things like Bard, Paladin, etc.

Looking at the history of fantasy RPGs, I think most players have gravitated to a specific class fantasy and have built expectations of "I should be able to make a..."

- Bard-like character
- Holy/Divine Knight or Paladin
- a Dark Knight / Shadow Knight
- a Fireball-throwing wizard or sorcerer
etc etc

Just trying to get some input into what everyone feels is a pretty standard/core lineup.