Mage Classification

Recently I have been thinking about individualism amongst characters, specifically derived from their abilities. Some people have been playing their characters in certain ways that are intended to express specific traits unique to their character. This is incredibly difficult to acknowledge if not systemically defined, as someone can just state "my character has fifty times more magical power than yours does" to which most people would reply "yeh, but your spells still cost the same and we all have 100% mp to start with".

This is just an example, one of many. I always intend to play my character as a "knowledgeable" mage that has an acquired skill-set in comparison to one that is derived from talent, like other characters do. An example of that would perhaps be Heero's character Yugi, which he likes to play as a prodigial youngster, close to a genius (under my impression).

Others would perhaps like to play their characters as mages with a much better grip on what magic is and how it works, perhaps with a much higher focus on the malleability and versatility of single spells. This is just an idea which I thought about whilst encountering many, ability-specific comments that were supposed to make characters unique but are not systemized in any way.

Now, would it not be cool to HAVE such a thing be defined by a small system. Something like a character perk, that allows mages to CHOOSE from a set of, for the lack of a better term, "classes", that have little to do with physical strength in relation to magical strength, but simply determine what kind of mage they are. Perhaps have a set of different classes that can be added or subtracted to? Here's my unworked out example of what that MIGHT look like.

Do NOT comment on details of the sample system. I repeat, do NOT comment on details of my sample.

Mage Classes:

*NOTE THAT THESE ARE EXAMPLES AND SHOULD BE TAKEN WITH SEVERAL GRAINS OF SALT. PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT ON THE IMBALANCE OF THE EXAMPLES THEMSELVES, IF YOU WISH TO CRITICIZE THE IMBALANCE OF THE IDEA, DO NOT USE THESE SAMPLES AS ARGUMENTS!*

So, what do you guys think? Is this a yay or nay? This idea could be expanded, or even changed to incorporate something reminiscent of a stat system that gives bonuses in several fields depending on how much points you put into the fields? W/e the case, I like the idea of having several classes to choose from, gaining benefits unique to the combative nature of my character.

I vote yay since it adds unique twist to each character so people aren't copying each others stuff when it comes to magic.

Given this sample I would say it isn't a horrible idea. It would defiantly have to be balanced however as I can see that most people would pick the class that they think would give them the most advantage. Here in the sample that's obelisk and wizard. then the others would feel insignificant and that would lead to balancing issues.

Id like to see it more fleshed out. It seems cool

RyoKnetegawa wrote:Given this sample I would say it isn't a horrible idea. It would defiantly have to be balanced however as I can see that most people would pick the class that they think would give them the most advantage. Here in the sample that's obelisk and wizard. then the others would feel insignificant and that would lead to balancing issues.

Given that the suggested classification system is based more off of the character itself rather than the magic, I think it could be set up to where people would choose the class when they make their character instead of when they make their magic. This way, the staff could just look at the personality (and likes, dislikes, etc.) and determine whether or not the class type chosen is justified. Thus, a dumb, brutish character couldn't choose a smart-person class type simply because it's advantageous for his or her magic.

I am conflicted on how prominent this should be. I like the basis but I am concerned of how the extent of the classes will effect things. Like the Obelisk seems too much(or is it?) and the beast seems too little(or is it?). While I like that some people's to approaches to magic make them stronger in certain ways I really thing balancing will be rough.

Please understand I'm not trying to say the examples are unbalanced I'm trying to say I don't know how to balance them.

Like what amount of spell slots for the wizard justifies giving what amount of frost aura to the beast? Some of these will translate rather awfully. Not to mention things along the lines of the genius's ability to make more complicated spells is highly subjective.

So I guess my suggestion to that problem is as follows. Keep the abilities in-battle only and rather minor. Then give the player access to short time periods where they are able to magnify the abilities for a more dramatic effect. Maybe on command, maybe when certain conditions are met.

I call it style mode, check it

Spoiler:

Because not all of us are scholars or natural genius's at magic or just magic power lakes.

I think we also need to consider class changes. Is your class set in stone once you have it or can substantial changes in your character allow for a class change later on?

Spoiler:

I guess this also raises a question. Are my suggestions even viable options? I noticed as I made these my classes are more of personality traits then types of mages compared to the examples Lyserg provided. Are classes going to have to all be specific to the nature of your magic and how you got it or can your personality be a factor also?

maybe we could switch the lineage up to have an effect in this either way yay

I actually really like this classification idea, but I would add a class. Spell sword, or warrior or something. I play Akryn as a fighter, with mediocre spells at best, but almost unmatched physical combat abilities. Perhaps a more rogueish class as well, for the types like Filfire, who works mostly on sensory and stealth, from what I have seen so far anyway.

And no, this should be in conjunction with lineage. Makes for more unique character ranges I think.

What my idea behind classes was: Give some malleability to the stale, streamlined concepts such as magic power (spell costs are all the same, amount of mp is the same for everyone), spell slots, signature spells, etc. etc.

Balancing, yes, this will have to be done. And I am QUITE sure that I can manage to do that. I have seen it work once, and I believe I can reproduce what balanced the Class system I saw once back then.

What these Classes are NOT supposed to do is force characters into some sort of personality trait. No, I don't want Natsu's as classes, or rivals. Of course, to some extent, it would be possible. But I want to keep Classes general, and not attach too much personality to them, as that would end up making all mages of a certain class stale. Which is the exact opposite of what I want to do. Also, Kira, I want to avoid numbers. Numbers are a pain to deal with, no "depending on the amount of damage he takes". I just want a systematic representation of specific aspects some mages should be able to obtain, to reduce the same-ness of the magic system. No big number interactions attached to that. Only flat amounts.

I see it like this, right now, ALL characters/mages on site are a singular class. Namely the "jack of all trades" class. The class that doesn't have anything unique attached to it. Earlier in the cbox, the question of "Well, what if I don't WANT to pick a class?" was raised. Although obsolete, as even the most bland mage has some sort of abundance and connection to magic that is special, classes for that can be made just as easily. Namely, through the introduction of a class that specifically favors balance. I am pretty sure I can manage to create such a thing.

And yes, Classes were intended with the focus on magic. All Classes should focus on magic as we are all mages. Some have more mp, some have a stronger focus, some a stronger control, some a greater knowledge, some are talented, some are not and so on and so forth. I could create an ENDLESS list of classes that someone could end up wanting. Even if you right now think "MY STUFF DOESNT FIT ANYTHING ON HIS LIST", I can create something for it.

As to Kira, your character was a wimp in the beginning and had not magical quirk whatsoever, it had to develop. For that purpose, it could be that choosing a Class becomes a Character Perk available upon reaching B rank! That way, D and C Ranks, the still kinda wimpy Ranks are out of the loop for this entirely, and the entire "still has to be fleshed out aspect" takes the overhand until appropriate rank is reached and actual effects take place to make their impact in combative roleplay.

EDIT: @Akryn, perhaps there could be a class that expresses an increase in physical abilities, but there would only be one, not multiple. Or perhaps a subcategory of a couple physical-centered classes.

EDIT: @Kaito, no I don't intend this to be a site-changing addition that takes away one of the biggest mechanics (albeit it being highly controversial) that made this site unique.

Although this is a magic based site even in canon there are quite a few mages who rely on pure physical power with magic as a secondary aid.

Erza is one of these, even without her fancy armors and swords and what not she can lift huge items with ease. Sure she has a HUGE magic power which has allowed her to use the nakagami armor, but that was only after unlocking second origin.

Another is bacchus. The guy barely even uses magic yet was supposed to be on par with Erza.

Gildarts is another.
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Now i'm not saying that these guys can't have massive magical pools or whatever, but that we would need to take these sort of characters into account when building a class system for the site.

Perhaps have it slightly customizable to some extent. Like they give up 20% of their total MP and can put that 20% into a boost to any stat or combination of stats providing it doesn't exceed 20%.
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really like this idea. Though I think people are getting a bit too concerned over Physical fighters... which shouldn't be relevant. Whether you use magic or fight physically, you still follow the same magic system as everyone else, you just make your "Spells" physical attacks that do more than normal. The "Classes" are able to suit everyone and you can alter the description to suit yourself. A "Prodigy" can be a prodigy in magic or martial arts, and a "Wizard" can be a scholar in magic or a master who's studied martial arts for a while. It all works for everyone.

Now that I think about it, isn't the current "Unique Abilities" system already sufficient for this sort of thing? I feel like a lot of the examples everyone has cooked up could just as easily be made into abilities rather than requiring a completely new system to be used.

I thought the same. Perhaps rather than a set class system we could have some set unique abilities people can select and maybe up the unique ability amount by 1 or 2.

Maybe have some mutual exclusivity about them e.g. if you have a leaky magic pool you can't get the extra spell slots or something.


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Shuhei the reason I brought up physical fighters is for those that really don't use magic except as an occasional addition. Look at Gildarts...we've only ever really seen him use one or two spells. The rest is pure physical strength.

this forum isn't set up to accommodate people who use pure physical strength. Everyone has to use the magic system, whether they change it to be "Stamina" instead of magic is irrelevant the rules still apply, and a system like this won't change that. It's meant to be generalized to suit everyone and if necessary additional classes can be made to make sure that all types of characters can be included.

a "Knight" class that allows the use of more higher ranked weapons, to get around the "1 weapon of each rank rule."

Right off the bat i thought up something that could benefit all the Erza's of the forum.

This system could potentially accomodate people who prefer to use physicality is what I'm saying and thus make non-magic focused characters more viable. People are already trying to introduce ways of bending the magic system to an extent to allow for a more unique play style in that regards. Look at Kiba or Natalia's BR alt.

SO what i'm saying is when we consider a system like this we have to make sure we aren't limiting people in the wrong way. We want to promote creativity rather than remove it.

Tbh i'd be all for a purchasable perk system and you earn perk points as you rank up, you can choose to spend them at low ranks or save up and buy them at bigger ranks.

Zack i still have that one we made a while back if you want me to dig it up.

@Enola First off, that thought crossed my mind before making this suggestion. But the thing is, Unique Abilities are somewhat (notice: SOMEWHAT) limited as it stands. You can nay this out as much as you want, but Unique Abilities would NOT allow things like additional spell slots, having more spells than others to your advantage or having a buttload more MP than others. If they do, then I clearly missed a memo. But the secondary reason why I don't think Unique Abilities should be an argument is that up until now, they were always supposed to relate to the magic itself. If you're a fire mage, saying "This dude just has more mp for reasons that have little to do with fire magic" is kind of... well, it rubs me the wrong way. That would undermine the specification of Unique Abilities and I would probably go ahead and re-organize mine to be a lot more diverse than what I have right now. To summarize, Unique Abilities should not be as general as I make the classes. Aspects of BEING a mage should not really count towards Unique Abilities. But if that's just me, Imma stay put.

@Shuhei & Zack: Shuhei is kind of right. The reason I WANT to emphasize on magical aspects is because as it stands, the system FAVORS physical mages. You can again, nay this out as much as you want. But spells are pretty nerfed as it stands. Mobility spells can't really stand up to someone with 200% speed and strength buff from a singular spell for a buttload of posts. Spells and magical systematics such as mp and amount of spells are streamlined in numbers. Physical aspects are not. Which just makes them THAT much more gratifying to tweak positively to your advantage, would you not agree? Nevertheless, a class that favors physical aspects over magical aspects would probably be possible. If I get to do a draft, I'll be sure to incorporate something like that.

@Otaku-ism900: Zack, whilst Bacchus is surely strong without using magic (same goes for Erza) they use it quite often to enhance their strength. Especially prominent in Bacchus's magic, "Palm Magic", he just focuses magic power into the palm of his hands enhancing his strikes. When he, for example, split the caravan cart in two, he CLEARLY made use of focusing magic power into his legs and just stomped away. That was not merely his physical strength at work. As for Gildarts, the reason we have only ever seen him use two spells, is because in Fairy Tail, spells are not really the non-plus ultra. Not to mention Gildarts only ever really fought once, whilst the other one was a training battle. But take his Disassembly Magic. No spells, he just does it without using a specific chant or similar. Same goes for his magic. Crash. He did NOT crater a village with his physical strength. That is simply put, not possible in Fairy Tail. He used his magic. He just has so little control over it, that it blasts out unconsciously. Why he has little control over it is argueable. Last example Erza, yes she is certainly strong, even without using armors or weapons, but her armors and weapons are the things that grant her physical prominence in the first place. She would NEVER be able to do the things she does WITHOUT her requip. The armors and weapons she uses are CLEARLY magical in nature. Especially the stronger ones such as adamantine armor. Not to mention that Erza also uses Sword Magic AND telekinesis. Just saying, but physical aspects are not the prominent feature in ANY physical mages. They just utilize their magic power differently. Which I would incorporate when making a class that favors close combat and similar over ranged casting or other Classes.

I think when you get into people trying to make special perks for classes and all that, they can end up game breaking as everyone not only will want the one the most likely pertains to their character but also the most powerful one that they can get. Clearly they wouldn't want a class that's just you have a bonus when eating cookies, even though we all want that, when there is a class with the ability to significantly boost damage. It gets to the point where you are over complicating things and this makes several if not a ton of game breaking headaches. Such a system would have to be balanced and re-balanced regularly to make sure that one class doesn't become the god of all classes and keeps the others up to par as well, and then people would be severely bummed out when someone breaks a class that they happen to be using causing the staff to re-balance it and make it really weak, then you have over a dozen people are raging cause their class turned weak and now they can't swap out of it.

Also if you so insist you can make two class systems to represent both physical abilities and magical abilities so that you can actually have Erza's with massive magic power despite being 100% on sword play.

Or you can simply have a different kind of classification system where it is really just a label with either no power or a tiny buff that otherwise wouldn't have a major effect on that character.

I now feel like I rambled on about nothing, thanks.

Not gonna lie.

I couldn't be bothered to read the rest of the comments.

I'm here to drop down that I like this idea.  I like it a lot.  I think it should be a thing.  At the same time, I think otherwise.

Yes, the idea is neat; I really like it, but then always comes the "MOAST P4W37FUL CL4$$!!!!11!!1111ONE!!!!ELEVENONEONE!!111" arguement, which is always a pain to deal with.

That might be a problem. For the most part, though, I like the idea, and think it should be an actual thing.

Good on ya for suggesting this one.

Alright, to clarify one thing. There will be NO class that allows mages to deal a fuckton of damage with zero repercussions whatsoever OMGHESAHACKERBANHIM!!!onehundredandeleven

If I get the yay on pulling up a draft, I will be very sure to balance classes. This idea came from my personal desire to play MY character as a sort of scholar who knows a metric fuckton about magic and has MORE spells than others. That is what I would want for him. So don't worry, I have no bias towards making a class that is simply BETTER or that much more useful in combat than other classes.

I understand that there will ALWAYS be the worry that some classes are simply better, but let's leave it to YOU guys to not be dicks about it and start balling for a singular class. Additionally, of course there would have to be an initial run to see if this stuff works, a secondary check to see that the Classes are relatively balanced and nobody suddenly has an upperhand that did not exist before and just general monitoring as it is with everything on this site to ensure that people don't abuse this little perk.

I'll leave it to staff to collectively decide if they give me a yay on starting a serious draft that I'll hand in for them to go over. They can then ping me back, I'll edit, and resend the draft. That can go on for as long as they are satisfied. That's my proposition. But I can't make the decision o-o

Eh go for it. I'd like to see a bit of a more fleshed out version before I make a decision. So give us a draft and I will see

I feel sometimes we are too worried that everyone will be power playing muchnkins to realize that those people are the exception not the norm. I'm sure Lyserg is capable of creating a fair and balanced system and I trust our players enough that only a tiny amount of them will be dweebs about this.

Welp... If someone makes all of their apps and makes them mesh someone can become OP as hell. This just adds another level to it.

If, if, if, if. I can't name one time I've seen that happen Towaface, and if it does happens and it becomes a problems the mods can stop it, have a little faith in the community.

So, this has already been said, but I just feel like adding my agreement:

one of the major arguments against this system seems to be that some people might focus on only getting the most powerful class and use it to become the most powerful. However I believe that to be an exaggerated fear.

While I have seen communities where that could become a serious issue, I have yet to see anything indicating that the community of this site consists of greedy munchkins whose major focus is breaking and/or twisting the rules in their favour whenever possible.

I mean, taking myself as example, I'm constantly trying to find the limits of what I'm allowed to do, but I do so by asking staff, so I know where those limits are, rather than just trampling limits and then later on getting told to change it. Of course it would be better if I didn't try to find the limits in the first place, but I'm just the kind of person who wants to know where the line is so they can work with that.

However, I don't cross that line. And I really doubt anybody else in this community is inclined to do so (maybe there are some exceptions, but still, can't be that many of them).

And there's the fact that we've got the staff to keep the rest of us in check, so even if you were to encounter somebody who is obviously trying to surpass the power levels they're allowed to have, the staff would sniff them out or you could just alert them to the issue yourself. The mods and admins here are smart enough to look at how things are working out and change it if necessary. They wouldn't let somebody get away with being a munchkin just because they don't directly break the rules.

So yeah, while we should of course we careful to not introduce completely broken systems, we also shouldn't deny new systems because of the fear that it could possibly be exploited, both because there aren't people who would spoil the fun for the sake of being the absolute most powerful, and because we have people and systems who prevent that from happening.

On the subject itself, I like it, although I think we'd have to keep it to simple effects, because otherwise things could get confusing. We already have a Lineage, a Primary Magic, a Secondary Magic, Signature Magic, Weapons, Armours, Magic Items, and Pets, so if we add another level of 'customize your character' it'd be better if it doesn't end up as something really complicated. Experienced RPers could maybe deal with that, but newcomers would have yet another thing to deal with when trying to get used to our system.