We've all played Baldur's Gate many times, but what is your favorite character class outside of the BG games? Maybe something in P&P? Something from a JRPG? Anything not BG is fair game.
My favorite non-BG class is Final Fantasy's Red Mage.
Image under spoiler:
Image from FFXI
Inspired by D&D's bard, the red mage combines both black and white magic (basically giving them evocation, enchantment, abjuration, and divine spells), but not to the highest tier of magic. In FF1, they got up to the second highest spell level. Able to fight almost as good as a fighter and were able to equip all mage and thief weapons.
They also have better style than pretty much any class. Just look at the image above.
There is a 3.5 sourcebook I used to have. For the life of me I can't remember the name of it, but it dealt with prestige classes for non-standard races. Among them was a monk class for the giant that I was a huge fan of, as well as a few pretty cool ones for the pixie. What's weird is that I can't find any mention of it online. I know i'm not imagining it. If anyone remembers the name of it, let me know. I have a feeling it wasn't official, but man, it should have been.
I could go on all day about the builds I liked in Final Fantasy Tactics. My favorite one class has to be the Dragoon though, the high jumping, self-resurrecting, spear wielding guys with the dragon helmets. Very nice style, unique weapons, and easily made broken in certain situations.
Calling them classes is debatable, but i've always enjoyed the wide variety of monster classes you can get in the Ogre Battle series. Octopi, Two headed dogs, many varieties of Dragons, Golems, Griffins, I could go on. Often, I will barely use any human classes at all, and build an army almost solely out of monster units.
I am a witch lover. Especially Pathfinder's Witch class. Probably one of my favourite pure casters of all time. A close second would be the Alchemist due to its Dr. Frankenstein flair. Honourable mentioning goes to The Dark Eye's Geode class. Mainly because it's a dwarf-only arcane caster focused on earth magic.
My favorite non-BG class is Final Fantasy's Red Mage.
Image under spoiler:
Image from FFXI
Inspired by D&D's bard, the red mage combines both black and white magic (basically giving them evocation, enchantment, abjuration, and divine spells), but not to the highest tier of magic. In FF1, they got up to the second highest spell level. Able to fight almost as good as a fighter and were able to equip all mage and thief weapons.
They also have better style than pretty much any class. Just look at the image above.
Ah. I was going to take the Red Mage as well - and so much of it is due to the Bard equivalency.
If I wasnt going to take something already said here, I've always been a big fan of JRPG variations of the thief, such as the thief class from Final Fantasy Tactics or the like.
Speed and utility over damage. I love the flexibility.
I tend to be fond of the of Battlemage class type kind of archetype from TES games... though not always taken as is from the standard classes, since I normally roll my own custom ones... But I always liked the mix of magical skills and fighting skills. That's why I mostly like to play F/M multiclasses in BG.
I've been in love with the Magus class in Pathfinder: Kingmaker. It feels a bit like playing a figher/mage in 2nd ed, since you can cast and fight right of the gate, instead of mixing classes in 3rd ed, and spending time where you can't do either very well. The one handed casting also reminds me a lot of the old school Bladesinger kit from 2nd ed, too. Being able to deliver touch attack spells through weapon strikes is just icing on the cake. Since you've got combat and magic there's always something you can do and I never find things boring with a Magus. It's the class I did my no reload run with.
Most of the other RPGs I play are more trait based, than class based. I'm running a tabletop Vampire game ATM. I guess the Clans could be somewhat described as class. Tremere are obviously cool, although my game's still to early for them to exist. One of my all time favorite characters was a Follower of Set, who I purposely built to be as weak as possible. He managed to diablerize 3 other vampires to lower his generation. My favorite NPC I've made for the current game I'm running is a Brujah Viking, who just takes his own version of Carthage with him on his boats.
I'd have to go with a Shaman in World of Warcraft or the Necromancer in Diablo 2. The first (well, originally anyway) played perfectly into the more primal nature of the Horde races. The later had the ability to make a screen-filling army, including one to make Golems with certain pieces of gear that took on the traits of the destroyed item. Blizzard, in general, does "classes" very well. Though I also feel like I have to give a shout-out to all the Elder Scrolls games BEFORE Skyrim in this regard, because if you didn't use the create a class feature, every pre-made one forced a distinct playstyle based on strengths and weaknesses, just like BG. In fact, I'd argue limitations are just as important.
I like the Warlock class a lot (as seen in NWN2). Someone who gets his magical powers from demonic bloodline is interesting to me from a roleplaying perspective.
Calculator from Final Fantasy Tactics. You could cast spells based on math. If you could figure out something that applied to every enemy on the map you could harm every enemy with one spell. If you used an element you were geared to absorb, you could heal everyone in your party as you harmed every enemy, and all because of stuff like everyone's level, elevation, etc. being a prime number, a multiple of 3/4/5, etc.
It was overpowered, but at least you earned that ridiculous power by using your brain
@themazingness
I had a love hate relationship with that class. It loved to always make sure my entire team was in the way of the spell or the entire enemy team was in the way of the heal.
@themazingness
I had a love hate relationship with that class. It loved to always make sure my entire team was in the way of the spell or the entire enemy team was in the way of the heal.
And I hated it fore it!
Yeah, you had to be really careful or it's overpowered-ness would destroy you instead
Oh, I have many! How could I ever choose just one!?
PoE2; Monk/Druid multiclass - LOVE this combo so much. It's my absolute new favorite class combo and I try to recreate them wherever and whenever I can, as with my Monk/Druid/Sacred fist in NVN2 and similar ideas in PKM (though no prestige classes there, sacred fist is just an archetype for Warpriest). The idea of a 'naked' (no weapons, no armor) druid resonates with me very much.
Drakensang; Charlatan - Amazing class concept! A thief, bard, trickster archetype combo I have never seen anywhere else in a RPG. Never played through all of Drakensang so haven't seen the end result of running this class, but I love the concept.
FF1; Red Mage - yeah. see my avatar I love hybrid classes, always have, and the red mage (though made yellow for fun in my ava, in lieu of my country's colors) and the red mage was my first ever introduction to a hybrid class in any RPGs and have been my favorite ever since. Personally I am old-school and love the older look of FF before the went all-out J-style on the graphics. The "thief/bard" look of the FF1 is epic.
ME2 (and 3); Sentinel - My favorite class, and you guessed it, the ultimate hybrid class of Mass Effect. Combining both tech with spells and some sniping to boot, they are my favorite sci-fi class. A bit different in ME3 but still my favorite.
PKM; Vivisectionist - Arcane, thief, fighter combo hybrid that's really, really cool. Don't care so much about the 'evil' concept tied to the class of a sort of medical studying character who likes to dissect bodies and whatnot. but love the mixture of class concepts into one hybrid.
@Skatan Hybrids for life! I'm actually trying to plan out a way to re-create the FF1 Red Mage for a BG2 run.
I feel like the fighter/cleric/mage multi is the best way to go about this, myself. The 1st edition bard definitely had the Red Mage feel. Now I kind of want to do it too...
@Skatan Hybrids for life! I'm actually trying to plan out a way to re-create the FF1 Red Mage for a BG2 run.
I feel like the fighter/cleric/mage multi is the best way to go about this, myself. The 1st edition bard definitely had the Red Mage feel. Now I kind of want to do it too...
Hehe, felt the same..
Cheated a bit just for fun, gave him UAI since swords felt more fitting. Gave him longswords but was also thinking about to wakisashi since they feel the most rapier-like being the only D8 piering weapon and I always gave my redmage in FF1 rapier IIRC.
Very powergamey, but when you roll a 92 and can max out so much, then who needs CHA?
@ThacoBell
Like I said the calculator and myself have a love hate relationship.
I love that I have access to ALL my spells, I hate that it has weak stats and I have almost no control over math skills.
Truth be told, not counting literally any special class wielding Excalibur (why does the cid need to exist I'll never know) calculator is hands down the most broken base class in the game.
I mean yes...giving ninja class martial arts is just creating a walking death machine or giving monk fuel with is a "why do you hate your enemy's go bar so much" moment.
Or even Abandon+Shield+Mantle (you're just asking for easy mode now)
Just hey guys, it's my turn? You guys don't mind if I use holy on the ENTIRE ENEMY TEAM do you?
I'm loving monk in PoE and PoE2. Way, way back I wrote in Upopular opinions thread that I generally dislike monks, but PoE made me change my mind. Love his flexibility on battlefield.
I also enjoy infiltrator in ME2 and ME3. Tactical cloak with asassination skill are sweet combo. In NWN2 my favourite is probably warlock. I like fiendish theme and infinite spells.
And shieldbreaker in Darkest Dungeon: guard-breaking, shuffle skills, piercing armor, attacking four ranks, blight... Easily the most versatilie class in the game.
Off hand I'd say the Fallout 1+2 PC. The protagonists in those games aren't defined classes, but your choices in attributes, traits, skills and perks determine the classes you eventually become in those two games.
Ah yes, I forgot about the Mass Effect games. Infiltrator was really fun, but the class I had the most fun with was Vanguard. It was decent in the first game, but became fun as hell in the sequels. It just played completely different to all the other classes. Instead of hiding behind cover you were literally throwing yourself at enemies and smashing around them.
I like the dual-wielding rogue in Dragon Age: Origins for the variety it brings to a thievish way of fighting. In BG you got one type of backstab, but in DA:O a dual-wielding rogue gets all type of attacks with her two weapons that can deal damage, or stun, or disable and give penalties or a combination of those. It's too long gone to remember all attack skills you could pick, but my favourite one was the combo of possibility of a critical hit and stunning the enemy with the Riposte attack skill.
I always hated the Vanguard. Dunno why. I guess I just found it funnier to cover and snipe stuff between the eyes and let the squad do whatever kamikaze-attacks they felt like doing.
I always hated the Vanguard. Dunno why. I guess I just found it funnier to cover and snipe stuff between the eyes and let the squad do whatever kamikaze-attacks they felt like doing.
That was fun, but Vanguard got really cool once you could keep chains of attacks going and fly all over the battlefield. My favorite character was an infiltrator, but I still found Vanguard fun as hell to play. Plus in the first one you could get singularity, and biotics were crazy powerful in the first game. Although infiltrator was awesome in the first one, too, since you could shut down enemies weapons and shields right off the bat. I did dig that the first one let you rely on tech or biotics way more than guns.
Comments
Image under spoiler:
Image from FFXI
Inspired by D&D's bard, the red mage combines both black and white magic (basically giving them evocation, enchantment, abjuration, and divine spells), but not to the highest tier of magic. In FF1, they got up to the second highest spell level. Able to fight almost as good as a fighter and were able to equip all mage and thief weapons.
They also have better style than pretty much any class. Just look at the image above.
I could go on all day about the builds I liked in Final Fantasy Tactics. My favorite one class has to be the Dragoon though, the high jumping, self-resurrecting, spear wielding guys with the dragon helmets. Very nice style, unique weapons, and easily made broken in certain situations.
Calling them classes is debatable, but i've always enjoyed the wide variety of monster classes you can get in the Ogre Battle series. Octopi, Two headed dogs, many varieties of Dragons, Golems, Griffins, I could go on. Often, I will barely use any human classes at all, and build an army almost solely out of monster units.
Ah. I was going to take the Red Mage as well - and so much of it is due to the Bard equivalency.
If I wasnt going to take something already said here, I've always been a big fan of JRPG variations of the thief, such as the thief class from Final Fantasy Tactics or the like.
Speed and utility over damage. I love the flexibility.
Most of the other RPGs I play are more trait based, than class based. I'm running a tabletop Vampire game ATM. I guess the Clans could be somewhat described as class. Tremere are obviously cool, although my game's still to early for them to exist. One of my all time favorite characters was a Follower of Set, who I purposely built to be as weak as possible. He managed to diablerize 3 other vampires to lower his generation. My favorite NPC I've made for the current game I'm running is a Brujah Viking, who just takes his own version of Carthage with him on his boats.
Fft has me tied between dragooner and temple knight.
Ff10 basically has me with the summoner class.
Honorable mention to the Wizard Supreme from NWN2 (Wizard/Arcane Scholar/Red Wizard). Talk about a nuclear option!
It was overpowered, but at least you earned that ridiculous power by using your brain
I had a love hate relationship with that class. It loved to always make sure my entire team was in the way of the spell or the entire enemy team was in the way of the heal.
And I hated it fore it!
Yeah, you had to be really careful or it's overpowered-ness would destroy you instead
PoE2; Monk/Druid multiclass - LOVE this combo so much. It's my absolute new favorite class combo and I try to recreate them wherever and whenever I can, as with my Monk/Druid/Sacred fist in NVN2 and similar ideas in PKM (though no prestige classes there, sacred fist is just an archetype for Warpriest). The idea of a 'naked' (no weapons, no armor) druid resonates with me very much.
Drakensang; Charlatan - Amazing class concept! A thief, bard, trickster archetype combo I have never seen anywhere else in a RPG. Never played through all of Drakensang so haven't seen the end result of running this class, but I love the concept.
FF1; Red Mage - yeah. see my avatar
ME2 (and 3); Sentinel - My favorite class, and you guessed it, the ultimate hybrid class of Mass Effect. Combining both tech with spells and some sniping to boot, they are my favorite sci-fi class. A bit different in ME3 but still my favorite.
PKM; Vivisectionist - Arcane, thief, fighter combo hybrid that's really, really cool. Don't care so much about the 'evil' concept tied to the class of a sort of medical studying character who likes to dissect bodies and whatnot. but love the mixture of class concepts into one hybrid.
@Skatan Hybrids for life! I'm actually trying to plan out a way to re-create the FF1 Red Mage for a BG2 run.
I feel like the fighter/cleric/mage multi is the best way to go about this, myself. The 1st edition bard definitely had the Red Mage feel. Now I kind of want to do it too...
Hehe, felt the same..
Cheated a bit just for fun, gave him UAI since swords felt more fitting. Gave him longswords but was also thinking about to wakisashi since they feel the most rapier-like being the only D8 piering weapon and I always gave my redmage in FF1 rapier IIRC.
Very powergamey, but when you roll a 92 and can max out so much, then who needs CHA?
Edit: Two redmages meet on the road..
Like I said the calculator and myself have a love hate relationship.
I love that I have access to ALL my spells, I hate that it has weak stats and I have almost no control over math skills.
Truth be told, not counting literally any special class wielding Excalibur (why does the cid need to exist I'll never know) calculator is hands down the most broken base class in the game.
I mean yes...giving ninja class martial arts is just creating a walking death machine or giving monk fuel with is a "why do you hate your enemy's go bar so much" moment.
Or even Abandon+Shield+Mantle (you're just asking for easy mode now)
Just hey guys, it's my turn? You guys don't mind if I use holy on the ENTIRE ENEMY TEAM do you?
I also enjoy infiltrator in ME2 and ME3. Tactical cloak with asassination skill are sweet combo. In NWN2 my favourite is probably warlock. I like fiendish theme and infinite spells.
And shieldbreaker in Darkest Dungeon: guard-breaking, shuffle skills, piercing armor, attacking four ranks, blight... Easily the most versatilie class in the game.
There is a certain appealing freedom in that.
That was fun, but Vanguard got really cool once you could keep chains of attacks going and fly all over the battlefield. My favorite character was an infiltrator, but I still found Vanguard fun as hell to play. Plus in the first one you could get singularity, and biotics were crazy powerful in the first game. Although infiltrator was awesome in the first one, too, since you could shut down enemies weapons and shields right off the bat. I did dig that the first one let you rely on tech or biotics way more than guns.