The Role of Classes

[Proxima Sin of Brighthaven]

Okay. Rogue, fighter, wizard, cleric are classes and damage dealing, healing, control/support, etc. are roles and each class has their own class-based skills and ethos towards fulfilling those roles. You know it, I know it, the role playing universe in general knows it, GoblinWorks knows it, and I can prove it:

AlphaInstructionsv1.doc wrote:

Achievements

When you complete achievements you get category points in one or more of the categories below...

Class: These achievements are gained by reaching the requirements to advance in a role. They are needed by all roles and each role has its own set.

The type individually for fighters, wizards, etc. they keep saying each "role" is what you're advancing in the description but what do they name it? Class Achievements.

In the GoblinWorks.com Store there is a $10 add-on called the Class Pack, because they know if they called it a Role Pack no one would know what they mean and therefore never buy it.

Attempting to redefine already very well established terms in role playing and fantasy gaming is only going to cause worse confusion in players the more get exposed to it. Disrupting basic understandings, stuff players take for granted, in something as core as developing their characters (is this thing for a fighter role also good for my ranger or does it mean class-specific like implements?) is only going to influence on-the-fence players away from finding their Pathfinder Online niche. It shouldn't be something we have to work around to otherwise enjoy the game. That's why it matters much more than if we should call buildings civic assets or support structures.

I want to have an intervention. It's still alpha it's not too late to go back to calling classes classes and roles roles the way 100% of possible future customers understand it. Maybe it came about because you thought the gamer population would assume their character is stuck as one class permanently if you called them classes, but switching to another word that already means something else doesn't help.

Saying "Our game has an open class system; a single character can train to be anything if you have the pre-requisites" is a very attractive feature! No one understands why they should care when you say "Play any role you want to play" because they can already be a tank or healer in any other fantasy game too.

For a potential new customer, having to learn a new lexicon for classic well-established concepts is off-putting and an unnecessary barrier in their evaluation if they want to purchase the product. As a paying customer the blurred meanings between class and role being used interchangeably is a hindrance to my playtime that adds no value.

Please do this. In part because I passed up the pun "have some class" but mostly because it's the long-term right thing to do.

[TEO Cheatle]

Ok, so I started writing something, then I realized your argument was different.

You want them to change Roles to Classes? Is that the Gist?

[Being]

I'd say we are building characters. For our characters to learn different things we attend distinct schools. The sum of our skills should be our builds, and our builds are intended to fulfill different roles. Classes should be commoner, expert, and aristocrat.

But that wouldn't be Pathfinder I guess.

[Guurzak]

PFO's flexible training model makes classes here significantly different from classes in most other games. It's probably true that "class" is more properly used than "role" to describe PFO's character ability trees, but it's more important to trigger the conversation about the differences than to pursue linguistic purity at the expense of effective communication.

If we call classes "classes", people who come into the game with preconceptions about what classes are from other games will miss the idea and point of the flexibility and non-lockin that we have here. Choosing to use "roles" instead may not be the best word but is nonetheless the best way to convey a necessary message.

[Kemedo]

I guess they start to call "Role" because we are not choosing classes and we were free to level our character as we want. After that they attached something to those roles, turning them like to classes again. Now it's a bit confusing. They said there won't be classes, and make roles function like classes. Now seems like classes again.

[Proxima Sin of Brighthaven]

"In Pathfinder online you can train your character to be any class when you get the prerequisites". Does the conversation have to be longer than that?

It's not an alien concept, more and more people are familiar with the idea as more games do it in recent years.

The request is to call sets of character abilities and the desired results of using those abilities by the decades-long established terms everyone is expecting. It's causing definite obstacles in getting to know the game to cure a possible occasional misconception that's cleared up in one sentence.

[Proxima Sin of Brighthaven]

Being wrote:

I'd say we are building characters. For our characters to learn different things we attend distinct schools. The sum of our skills should be our builds, and our builds are intended to fulfill different roles. Classes should be commoner, expert, and aristocrat.

But that wouldn't be Pathfinder I guess.

Now "build" is a word I could get behind to describe our characters training, it connotes the sum of different elements added together with a possibility of many different ways. But different builds are still made from elements of rogue class (stealthy, quick, sneaky, etc.) or fighter (wall of armor, face bashing, etc.) or others.

[Caldeathe Baequiannia]

I think the distinction GW has chosen is about as good as they're likely to find. Your role is not in any way limited by the class achievements you have. I could be a pretty darn good cleric, maybe the equivalent of third or fourth level one, but have zero levels in the Cleric class if I never took "crusader armour"

The class achievements are a way for those that need to feel advancement to measure their progress, and to restrict access to certain role training. Except where they form a prerequisite for higher training, they are of no mechanical significance. Even where they do form a prerequisite, it's merely hiding the fact that a certain group of feats, skills and achievements is the real prerequisite, since the granting of those "levels" is automatic once you have them.

[Caldeathe Baequiannia]

It's also been repeated elsewhere, a class defines what something is, while a role defines what it is doing. You can act as a rogue in PFO without being a Rogue. You can act as a fighter, without being a Fighter.

[Being]

Hm. I think a class is a type, rather than the thing itself, isn't it? A category rather than an individual. But whatever.

[Kemedo]

Caldeathe I could agree more if there aren't any feat with pre-requisite by role/level, like "Wizard 4" per exemple. Now it's unknow how not being a determinated class will be meaning or not.

[Saiph the Fallen]

I'm certainly more confused after reading this thread than before I happened upon it.

[Wyspr]

I tend to agree with Proxima, I've been telling a bunch of my friends about PFO in varying amounts of detail and always it starts...

"So you've rolled a <insert class> but you can also train to use <insert ability> from <insert other class>."

I tried explaining the same thing early on and found that each person got more confused. They needed to start with something they understood and then they could easily grasp the concept of the open class system.

[T7V Jazzlvraz]

Perhaps tell them "So you've rolled a human/elf/dwarf who can learn absolutely anything you want him to learn, from any class, but he has to start with the easy things, and work his way up as he gains experience". The questions that follow should guide you toward what, if anything, they get hung up on.

[Master of Shadows]

Some of this goes back to one of my fundamental frustrations with this game.

When I first heard of PFO back in the begining of kickstarter 2 I was sold on the concept of a Classless skill based system where I could train any character to have any skill. I thought to myself, "great, finally a game where I don't have to be pidgeonholed into someone elses preconceived notion of what makes an effective character! I can build the character I want who has access to the skills and abilities I want him to have in order to best meet the play style I enjoy. And its even being made by the folks who make my favorite table top game!" Alas it was not to be. Although I can train any skill from any role (read class), I am limited to slotting only a handful of them at a time, and if I want to acheive peak efficacy in one ability, I must sacrifice access to another ability, and won't have access to certain other abilities because you can only slot one role(read class) at a time.

I argue that abandoning this silly notion of Roles/Classes altogether is the right thing to do. It would be a simple matter to take all the abilities currently tied to roles and just give them xp/achievement requirements like any other feat or skill. If someone wants to make a Arcane spell caster wearing full plate he should be able to (with enough investment) be able to achieve maximum efficacy for both his spells and his armor. If someone wants to make a pajama-wearing unarmed monk who focuses on total defense actions and can Tank he should be able to.

[KoTC Edam Neadenil]

It would have been better if they had moved away from the whole class based thing altogether.

Historically the original D&D had no class anyway. What you could do was related to race.

[KarlBob]

I only go as far back as the Basic Rules in the original red box. I remember that it had classes for humans, but elf and dwarf were "class-equivalent" races. If you started playing before that, Edam, my hat's off to you.

[T7V Jazzlvraz]

White Box, 1976, junior year of high school. When I read those books today, I have no idea how we got a game out of them that both worked and remained coherent for two years until the AD&D Player's Handbook arrived.

[Urman]

T7V Jazzlvraz wrote:

White Box, 1976, junior year of high school. When I read those books today, I have no idea how we got a game out of them that both worked and remained coherent for two years until the AD&D Player's Handbook arrived.

Lots of house rules. The Greyhawk book gave us Thieves in there as well, and tightened a lot of things up.

[Lam]

and blackmoor

[AvenaOats]

Master of Shadows wrote:

Some of this goes back to one of my fundamental frustrations with this game.

When I first heard of PFO back in the begining of kickstarter 2 I was sold on the concept of a Classless skill based system where I could train any character to have any skill. I thought to myself, "great, finally a game where I don't have to be pidgeonholed into someone elses preconceived notion of what makes an effective character! I can build the character I want who has access to the skills and abilities I want him to have in order to best meet the play style I enjoy. And its even being made by the folks who make my favorite table top game!" Alas it was not to be. Although I can train any skill from any role (read class), I am limited to slotting only a handful of them at a time, and if I want to acheive peak efficacy in one ability, I must sacrifice access to another ability, and won't have access to certain other abilities because you can only slot one role(read class) at a time.

I argue that abandoning this silly notion of Roles/Classes altogether is the right thing to do. It would be a simple matter to take all the abilities currently tied to roles and just give them xp/achievement requirements like any other feat or skill. If someone wants to make a Arcane spell caster wearing full plate he should be able to (with enough investment) be able to achieve maximum efficacy for both his spells and his armor. If someone wants to make a pajama-wearing unarmed monk who focuses on total defense actions and can Tank he should be able to.

It can be hard to untangle.

Imho, however, the way to conceptualize it is as per Spaceships:-

1. Choose a hull type
2. Choose weapons/shieds
3. Choose speed/movement
4. Choose fuel tank

etc.

When you make once choice eg Hull, you're already building a particular kind of tree-build with a particular emphasis: Slow but high armour-shields, low movement, but high cargo hold etc...

IE you're anticipating and planning your FUTURE FUNCTION for the specific goal you want to achieve.

Tbh, this is the best way forward. It allows players to choose MORE future functions but keep each built for those functions specific/specialized towards doing that more effectively. It's not about the build it's about the goal = interesting decisions for players and ideally as they play more MORE of those to be able to make.

[KoTC Edam Neadenil]

TBH it does seem more like the class levels are a shorthand way of specifying prerequisites for feats/spells.

As far as TT D&D we first played the AD&D box set so my comments were based more on random comments from older players at the time about humans being fighters and elves wizards in the early versions rather than actually playing the pre-AD%D myself.

[Proxima Sin of Brighthaven]

Instead of reaching a class level which then grants you abilities, you train abilities that are cumulatively described by a class and level. But it's still within that single class. Rogues are still only light weapon, light armor, stealthy, frail but quick. "Rogue" doesn't mean other elements in the broad spectrum of the fantasy game role of damage dealing.

It's quite difficult to teach someone how to cook a dinner entree if you say the word "salt" every time you want the person to think of flour.

[Bringslite of Fidelis]

Lam wrote:

and blackmoor

Blackmoor! Haha! I have that "guide" in the old paper bound Judges Guild print. City of the Invincible Overlord too. :)

Man, those were good times when the rules were made fast and loose and the DM really had final say, not the rules lawyers...