Character Class Types

So you know those character class types in games like FF, WoW, D&D. Yeah, so I was working on my story and I was wondering what kind of powers or traits a person in a Psychic character class would have?

 

Telepathy, telekinesis, mind reading, etc.

You know, the standard psychic stuff.

 

Well, that seems obvious now. I feel stupid. Okay I got another one. What if there was a Reaper class (just saying) what would their powers be?

 

Anything involving death. Think about the innate powers that Shinigami from Death Note have. Alternatively, process of harvesting wheat is called "reaping," so you could make him a farmer with the ability to summon wheat from his fields.

 

Thanks. I probably would have had better questions but there's a word limit on the story so I only have two characters.

 

You'd definitely get a loooot of helpful advice from @Ars Nova, he is excellent with class building.

 

Also, this IS a Kingdom Hearts forum, so I assume you're familiar with Organization XIII. They all vaguely equate in classic job types
Though I'm not sure if flower petals is the motif you'll want to go for with your Reaper

 

I'd think a better way to think of it would be to relate it to something like Hades or Angelo de Nico in Percy Jackson

 

aw shucks u wu

Real talk I saw this in my alerts and I was like WHO DID THE THING WHY WAS I NOT INVITED

 

I dunno about class building -- definitely leave that up to Nova -- but if you want personality traits for certain classes, I've got you.

 

I'm sorry for not inviting you (please forgive me) , but you're here now and that's what counts.

There's so many people here. I didn't think a lot of people would notice. Anyway, I absolutely have nothing thought up about the Reaper class so there's like nothing there. So Im prettty much open to anything. Okay I do have a color scheme which is orange and black. I don't know what I'm doing :(

 

In terms of a color scheme, orange and black seems... costumey (esp. because Halloween colors), but reapers seem like fairly monochromatic characters. You're best going black and white with it, unless you want to put a spin on the stereotype.

Anyway, as far as powers/skills go, reapers should be cold and ruthless killing machines. They should be able to stare death in the eye without a second thought, and they should know how to strike fear in the hearts of anyone. I say should with all of this because you could always choose to break the stereotype, but that's all your choice.
Personality-wise, I think a reaper should be cold towards most, yet respectful of the brave and just. After all, death comes for everyone just the same, but I feel that even a reaper can respect someone who is accepting of their fate.

 

Ok first off. You say this is for a story. I assume it involves game mechanics? Are these classes going to be named out loud, or are you using them in your head for convenience? And how specific do you wanna get? As in what details specifically are you looking for or what would you like to incorporate.

 

So no more orange (I don't like it anyway) and more black and white.

So at the beginning he's really new so he doesn't know how to do anything, but you can see a hint of that personality in him. His equipment and outfit is really basic at the beginning, but I could see him developing a personality like that as it goes on. Wow you're really good at this Cat~, I'm better at actually creating the world they live in instead of the characters themselves.

Well, there inside a video game (Isn't the future great) so there are game mechanics and the classes will be named out loud. Most of the story will take place in the game and it'll be like a fantasy mmorpg with monsters and stuff (manticores, harpies, etc.) It's going to be pretty specific. I wanna make it so it'll be easy to picture it in your head. I wanna have like a health/ damage system like in normal games, mana system, and specific moves or special ones like the more basic attacks you get in the more powerful the special moves will be. If you get my drift.

 

Thank you, I try my best.

Honestly, I can't flesh out original characters/locations for the life of me, but if you need personality in any person or place, I've got you.

 

Tip for writing, learn the differences between they're, their and there asap

 

Sorry I get nervous when I reply to people (got issues) :'(. But when I write stories I get paranoid so I reread a lot.

 

Understandable

 

Forever DM over here. My input here to to do it all by jobs. What does the class do for the team? Most RPGs come from the same roots as Dungeons and Dragons and most of them as a result have team structures. Each class must have other classes around for them to survive. Classes are defined by jobs. Combat jobs usually center around the Tank, Striker, Controller, and Leader. Tank is the frontline, Tank is good at taking damage or hits and drawing aggro. Tank is self sacrificial and has faith in the rest of the team. Fighters are the stereotypical tank. Striker is the hero or the artillery, good at dealing damage and killing enemies at a nonspecific range. Striker is the guy who appears to do all the work but is less effective alone. Sorcerers, Rogues and Rangers are the stereotypical strikers. Controller is the back row, Controller only indirectly effects the course of battle by changing the stats of the enemies and allies and the conditions of the battlefield. Controller depends on others to close out but needs to be the most trustworthy and reliable to enable that. Bards are the stereotypical controllers. Leader is what it says on the tin, Leader is where the plans come from and the one watching everyone else's back from wherever it's needed most. Leader depends the most on everyone else and knows everyone the best, but can be willing to sacrifice the one for the many. There is no stereotypical Leader class. This is massively simplified, but it gives you an idea of how classes are separated.

The further differentiation between classes is done by how you want to do your job and if you can mix jobs. The how comes down to energy used and personal preference. So energy is separated into 3 categories in D&D: arcane, holy, and physical. Arcane is magic from study, holy is magic from the gods, physical is normal action from muscles. Also remember that there's gonna be some out of combat class features also that have to do with things like climbing, seeing details, swimming, making shoes, and pretty much anything else. Here are some examples to try and work on understanding. A rogue is a physical striker at short range almost purely in combat but can also take many trades and skills like trapfinding and socializing so they can do many thing outside of combat that other classes would struggle with. Ranger is the basic physical ranged striker but also has favored enemies that they are better against and tracking skills in nature. Cleric mixes tank and controller because they have high HP, decent armor capability and healing spells. They also use holy power instead of arcane or just plain physical power. A paladin mixes tank, striker and controller because they have high HP, high armor potential, and high attack power but they also have the most stringent conditions of how they have to act so their hands are more tied than other classes. A Wizard can change role based on the day of the week but needs to accurately predict what will be needed that day or risk being a liability more than a help and in general cannot take the role of tank. So yeah, it gets pretty complex when you start adding all this stuff but I feel that these are decent examples and you can get the idea from here.

So your question was about Reapers. If I was a smartass I'd say, "why is farmer split into multiple classes?", but I'm not right now so I won't right now. I ask you instead, what does a Reaper do? How does the Reaper interact with his companions? My personal guess would be that a Reaper would be like a Paladin; bound by duty to a higher power from which they derive their strength. They would probably favor order over chaos, they would probably focus on melee attack as opposed to range'd option they would probably have some supernatural death sense that could be flavored as the ability to see HP levels in other beings, and they would probably not have a large range of out of combat skills and options due to their devout religious/pseudoreligious qualities.

As everyone before me said it's really up to you not me so salt it. But for me, it's especially important to remember that I'm basing all my stuff on D&D and Pathfinder as opposed to any other class system.

So good luck.

 

Woah, okay, not reading that. Excuse me while I type this with absolutely no idea what all that says, because my laziness and fear of big chunks of words tell me tl;dr.