Creating and fleshing out your character is one of the biggest challenges of the traditional RPG genre. In Video Games, you can often just start playing but tRPG require more input. That being said, your character is expected to grow over time.
So where do you even start?
The first place, I’d start is with your “Job Class”. There many different names for this concept. This isn’t necessarily your character’s actual Job (but in some cases, it may be).
As this time, we have many Job Classes to choose from and they all have “subclasses” where you specialise or focus your character more specifically. For example, there is a Wizard character on one of the other teams from Otemachi named Barry Plotter. Mr. Plotter is a fresh graduate from a prestigious School of Wizardry where he learned about a variety of Magic. Now that he’s in the field, it’s time for him to focus on what type of Wizard he wants to be. So perhaps he will choose to be a specialist in Abjuration spells that boost your defensive capabilities.
With not only many Job Classes to choose from but also SubClasses plus a lot of choices to further specialise your character how you want them to play out, there are an almost overwhelming number of choices.
What kind of Character do you want to be?
On a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is a very physically strong character with absolutely no magic ability and 10 is a powerful magic user that is physically weak, where do you want to be on that scale?
In general, magic users are a lot more complicated because they have so many more options. Not only which class, or subclass, but also choices from a huge list of spells they can try to learn. Wizards in particular have the most utility and diversity of spells they can keep since they keep all their spells in a spellbook which they can choose which spells are important to them each day from a potentially huge list.
The Champion (Fighter) Job Class, on the other hand, is very straight forward. This class gets a lot of “passive” boosts to allow to hit harder and more often but they are focus primarily getting the most out of “regular” weapon attacks.
I want to be strong and sturdy!
There are a handful of “Martial” character that are highly trained specifically for combat: The Fighter, The Paladin, The Ranger, and The Mystic Warrior. In terms of their sturdiness and their ability to stay standing after taking a lot of damage, we can categorise job classes as 6, 8, 10, or 12. These martial characters are all rated 10 and the Barbarian [if implemented] is rated 12!
The Fighter is very versatile in physical combat. There is a huge diversity in Fighters so not only will you choose a major archetype or subclass but also the way you fight, the weapons that you will choose. There is one subclass called an Eldritch Knight that adds some magic to the Fighter but that comes at the cost of combat effectiveness and a damage dealer.
The Ranger is a natural explorer and hunter. They are akin to a champion warrior of the wilderness and are masters at tracking their prey. They are famed for their deadly accuracy with a bow or dual bladed attacks. They are a martial fighting character but also have access to magical abilities. There are many Rangers employed as Rangers as their profession to protect wilderness filled kingdoms.
The Paladin is a champion for their deity. They are martial fighters but they also have access to “divine” magic granted to them by their deity. Like clerics, though, they have a vested interest in spreading the popularity and reach of their deity. Most Paladins are righteous upholders of Law and Justice and have the ability to hold the line against the darkness and turn back the Undead. Being a Paladin is their profession.
Mystic Warriors have psychic abilities but have trained from a young age to be warriors augmenting their abilities with psionics. There are all kids of things in the world from strange beasts to magic but psionics is something completely different. They are very rare and their existence may freak people out.
Rogues are less martial and not as durable as the other classes but instead rely on their nimble agility and abilities. Rogues are Spies, Assassins, and Swashbucklers that excel and hiding and attacking with precision and speed.
I want to be a magic user!
There are a variety of magic using Job Classes. The most famous are the Wizard and the Sorcerer. Both of these have access to powerful magic but they are on the physically frail side.
Wizards are scholars and spend their time studying. They often go to Wizard School or apprentice under other Wizards. They achieve magic through their hard work studying from the basics of arcane spell construction up. They also employ magical spell books that they can use to store spells they either learn or discover. This gives the ability to “collect” the knowledge and utility of a huge number of different spells.
Sorcerers are natural spellcasters which arcane magic coursing through their veins. They don’t need to study because of their magical lineage so they are “spontaneous casters” capable of using their spells without preparing them or even truly understanding how they work. They train to better control their own innate abilities and learn to manipulate the very fabric of magic using “metamagic“.
There are three more Job classes that are considered “Full Casters” in that they can gain access to the full range of spell power levels. Warlocks, Druids, and Bards also have more durability unlike the more frail Wizards and Sorcerers.
Warlocks (and their counterparts Channellers) are spontaneous casters like Sorcerers but have an entirely different set of spells and abilities. They recover their magic a much faster rate and are capable of very destructive magic from the start. Unlike Wizards that gain their magic through understanding the arcane and Sorcerers who gain their abilities through their lineage, Warlocks and Channellers achieve this through forming a contract with far more powerful beings and channeling those beings’ power through them – but at what cost?
Druids are the priests of the natural world. They protect the balance of nature and can turn into beasts in addition to their variety of druidic spells.
Bards are entertainers, poets, and collectors of information. They have a variety of Bardic spells which they use their voice, words, sounds, and music to manipulate the magic weave that permeates the fabric of reality. They are Jacks of All Trades & Masters of Few and adopt magic from other job classes in addition to their own.
Clerics are a “half caster” but they don’t need to shy away from combat. They are battle priests for their Deity. Like Paladins they serve the interests of their deity and using magical powers granted by their faith in their deity, but have more magical power than Paladins yet are less martial.
Where do I go from here?
With so many options available, it would probably be best to think about how you want to play your character. What kinds of roleplay will you want to do with your character? What kind of role would you like to see yourself in, in a fantasy adventure settings. Then, try to think of which Job Class best fits that image.
There is a LOT of room to make changes to the flavour and specialization of characters but choosing your base Job Class is the first step.
Best of luck and things are not set in stone… yet…