Characters, stages and story

Normally in this kind of game there will be one main protagonist (or main procrastinator perhaps) who starts off and then rallies various companions to his or her cause. I have decided to step aside from this and being inspired, again, by supernatural (the TV-show) I will have two characters from the beginning. The main idea is that these two set out for an adventure by taking work as mercenaries, which will eventually lead to a moral decision to save the world, or something in that direction.

The two first characters, who now have the working names Alpha and Beta, will be 20 plus years old, have three to five years age difference and not exactly be getting along, like brothers, because they are brothers. This sets up the first stage, or stage 0, which is a tutorial stage where the two brothers will fight unarmed and unarmored for X rounds (say 30 or so round so they can make about 10 attacks each). Stage 0 will be tutorial for how to attack and perhaps use basic simple skills. This is basically before the brothers leave home and they keep fighting with each other.

Both Alpha and Beta will start as fighters and both will be able to become warriors and knights, so they can basically both be main tank and/or leader for the fighting classes. There the similarities end though; Alpha, the older, will draw more towards the magical with choices of paladin, crusader and samurai among the fighting classes and the option the change to either magic class, where he can be battlemage or warlock (but not wizard), and religious class, where he can be cleric, monk, paladin or crusader.

Younger Beta is a bit more chaotic in nature and will be drawn to the more shady agility classes. In fighting classes he can chose from warrior, knight, barbarian, berserker or gladiator. He can also change to ranged classes where he can be musketeer, hunter or ranger and agility classes where he can pick from corsairs and swashbucklers.

This opens for a lot of options from the start already, of course it will take a few stages before you can actually pick any job except fighter, but the fighters talent build (which is a base character build and will only have the first tier) you can pick between reducing threat or increasing threat.

At the second stage, stage 1, both characters will be equipped with wooden practice swords and light armor and together they will face one practice foe. This is the real first stage of the game but still tutorial minded. Stage 1 is tutorial for how to work together and build threat with one character using threat and defense skills and doing damage with the other using damage skills. This stage is when the brothers have decided to become mercenaries so they take up some training with a recognized master.

After stage 1 a third character, working name Gamma, will be introduced. This is a girl priest whose actual name I have already decided but will not reveal just yet. She will be able to pick from white priest, gray priest, black priest and druid, she can also change to magic class where she can pick from any mage, sorcerer, battlemage, animagi, bard or dancer. Gamma cannot be any leader class.

At this point the group can take on a little heavier enemies and they will start taking on mission as mercenaries, killing monsters for money, stage 2 will still be a tutorial for how to work in group with a healer, tank and damage dealer but at least the story will have started.

From here on there will be lots of additions to the team and by level 10-15 there should be a full team of 15 characters. Anyone can at any time change job but they will have to start over from job level 1 in the base job (or level 1 in the job group if they pick from same group).

More jobs

Introducing two new jobs:

• Archpriest (bishop?) - The archpriest is the leader class for the religious classes. Being the leader an archpriest has all skills from the class they turned from and most skills, excepting only the higher level skills, from all religious classes. Archpriest can at high level and with the help of other devoted characters summon a powerful angel to smite enemies.
• Crusader – Crusaders are much like paladins; heavy and armor and with powerful divine magic at their disposal. The main difference is that they are more into two handed weapons or dual wielding than shields, even though they can wear shields. Because of this crusaders will be more suitable for damage or healing than tanking.Crusaders wear any armor (leather, chainmail and plate) and shields, they are specialized in swords and maces (both one and two handed) and can also use two handed axes (but not one handed). They can use divine magic.

Combat engine

It is not impossible for me to make a real time engine for this but creating threads and making the timing workout and more about controlling all characters in real time is way too much trouble. And doing it completely turn based with just a round robin method would be quite boring. Instead I plan to use a timing system where every action has action time (cast time) and many skills will have cooldown. A normal action like attack will take 3 turns (this could be equivalent to 3 seconds).

For this I have to introduce variables on all weapons and skills for action time and cooldown, I must also create some kind of method to count this down. I imagine this could be done about the same way as I do the thread pausing in procrastination; basically have a static method that registers an action in a list and for each turn go through that list and count it down. I think this can be done in the action method in the BattleHandler class.

Weapon changes

A minor change in weapons is that spears are no longer polearms and there will be one handed and two handed spears.

New jobs

New jobs introduced are:

Fighters (brutal forced change to fighters):

• Gladiator – Strong fighters using one handed weapons and shield.Gladiators only wear leather armor but use small shields both as a weapon and for blocking and extra armor, they can use any one handed weapons (including swords, axes, maces, knifes, spears and fist weapons).

Magic users:

• Bard – Semi magical bards use their charisma to inspire their fellows to perform better as well as confuse their enemies to perform worse. Bards can steal from enemies.Bards can use basic magic as well as swords and leather armor.
• Dancer – Like the bards dancers use their charisma but instead of inspiring their friends, dancers confuse their enemies to perform worse. Dancers can steal from enemies.

Tanks

Initially I consider mainly only one type of tanks, but later I’m considering introducing more:

• Fighter - The obvious one is a fighter type character in plate armor and large shield with initial block, parry and dodge rate and very high armor, let’s call that an armored tank. The armored tank is typically a warrior or paladin and they build threat by either taunting or using especially threat heavy damage skills. Generally they will also have skills to increase their block rate substantially.
• Fencing? - A parry-counter tank, generally they are classes that only use leather armor but can upgrade to chain with talents, they use fencing swords which are high on parry and accuracy and use skills to increase their parry and use high threat counters to keep the creatures attacking them. Fencing tanks can be fencer (obviously?), corsair and swashbuckler. With a tanking build they can all improve their armor; fencer and swashbuckler to chainmail armor and corsair to plate, the swashbuckler will be able to use medium shields instead of only small.
• Magic? - Also considering introducing a magic using class as tank, with battlemage as the only available option, where a tank specialized build would give the battlemage powerful magic armor.
• Beast? - Summoned and shape shifted beasts could also possibly tank; they would then rely on heavy natural armor and dodge.
• Unarmed?- Unarmed and unarmored monks have always been a favorite of mine for tanking, they would rely heavily on dodge and dodge counters (which is allowed when they can’t parry) but also on block as my idea is that someone using fist weapons in both hands could use them to block with, but not nearly as good a block as with a large shield (maybe similar to a small shield). Monks also have quit high natural armor.
• Staff? - Also monks but using staffs instead of fist weapons and therefore relying more on parry-counter than dodge and block. This offers two interesting builds for thanking monks.

Shields

Introducing shield types: I want define different shields by size. Basically three sizes; small, medium and large, where a larger size means significantly more armor and block value (e.g. absorbs more damage); a small shield will basically be equivalent to a leather armor, medium to plate armor and large even more. The benefit of the smaller shields is that they do more damage when used as a weapon; a large shield will hardly do any damage at all.

Most shield using jobs will only be able to use small shields, tanking classes will be able to use medium shields as well. Large shields will require tank talents excepting legionaries. Legionaries can’t really tank thought as they can’t build threat. This idea extends into tanking theory.

The following jobs use shields:

• Small shields – fighter, gladiator and swashbuckler
• Medium shields – warrior, paladin, soldier, guard and swashbuckler (with talent)
• Heavy shields – Legionnaire, warrior (with talent) and paladin (with talent)

Controling of summoned creatures

My personal favorite, or favorites, among these classes are the ones that use firearms, fencing swords or animal summoning. I think the reason for the former is that I just pushed through David Gemmel’s Ravenheart, the 3rd book in the Rigante story, and there is a lot of heroic gun fighting and sword fighting in that book. I will start reading the 4th book, Storm Rider, tomorrow for that matter, perhaps I will find even more inspiration. Speaking of inspiration I found a book on weapons and armor over the centuries when I bought the Gemmel book today, it is a bit too pricy for me at the moment but I’m considering buying it for inspiration when I got some more cash.

This post however is not about inspiration but more about summoning and in particular animal summoning. Summoned creatures will be controlled in a few different ways depending on what they are and who is summoning them. For instance:

• Beasts summoned by a druid will not be controlled at all but rather randomly pick one hostile unit and start beating. Perhaps that can be controlled by the druids in that they chose who is hostile.
• The big summonings from mages will be controlled directly; as the mages actually possess the elementals or dragons they summon and thereby are in nearly full control.
  The reanimated courses raised by a necromancer will simply have a target picked by the necromancer when he is raising them, this can of course fail if the necromancer is trying too hard (trying to raise too many or too powerful creatures) and the creatures might pick any random target, even friendly and likely the necromancer.
• I haven’t decided exactly how to control demons (and devils?) but an idea is to set up probability or priority tables with the warlock who summons them, or a list of things to do. When the demons reach the end of that list they warlock will lose control and they will go for revenge, so it should be banned before that happens. More powerful warlocks will gain a longer list but summoning stronger demons will make the list shorter or a stronger demon will make the tasks quicker. Example list of three positions: attack creature A, attack creature A, attack creature B. A weak demon will keep attacking creature A for 10+10 turns and then attack creature B for 10 turns, giving the warlock a lot of time before it needs to be banned. A strong demon however might only do each task once, attack creature A twice then creature B once, this might still do more damage than the weak demon but it will occupy more of the warlock’s time too.
• Finally to the original idea for this post, trained animal summoning: First the trained beasts will gain skills (not anywhere near the extent of human player characters) when they grow stronger, the amount of skills they can have is decided by their level or job/class. To implement this I think it is likely I will use the job class and create a trained beast class which is allowed certain skills. The skills are given by the trainer and could well be interchangeable.
  Control in combat can be done in two ways; either the trainers directly command the beasts, thereby using up their own turn for a combat, or they set up logical rule system for how the beasts should act. The former idea is taken from Final Fantasy 12’s gambit fighting system. A lot of RPG games have automatic fighting systems where one rule is chosen, for example attack weak target or attack strong target. Other simple gambits can be attack target’s target or defend target. To this it could be introduced logical properties such as, defend target if target is attacked (very logical since it wouldn’t have anyone to defend against), defend target is target is attacked and life is lower than 50% (percent or absolute values). Then with simple priority the beasts might very well be able to take care of themselves throughout the battle.
  However the amount of gambits one character can set out is limited, and this limit applies to all beasts in his control, and I mean both the length of the priority list and the gambits are limited. For example the controller has only 2 attack target and three beasts. Then he will have to use something else, like defend target or attack target’s target. Also the controller might only have 5 priorities, he can then chose to give 3 to one beast and 1 each to the other two, or 2 to one and control the last beast directly.
  Finally with this idea and these limits it could be allowed that one controller can control all trained beasts in the battle, ergo a beastmaster summons 4 beasts and a ranger summons 2, the ranger who is more or less completely specialized in his range weapon only has enough power (e.g. gambits and priorities) to control 1 beast, the beastmaster however has more than enough and doesn’t fight himself so he can use his extra power to control and help control the rangers pets as well as his own. With this idea you could create a rather big team with several beasts and still specialize your characters in their weapons of choice instead of pet-control.

Devils

New Idea: After watching too much Supernatural (TV-show I'm following) I got the idea of introducing devils as well as demons. The difference between a demon and a devil is that demons were once human who sold or lost their souls to hell and devils are pure hell creatures.

Skills and skill groups

My idea for implementing the use of skills is to first make groups; reasonable differing magic and skills to start with. Beyond that there should be damage skills, special skills, damage magic, healing magic and special magic. Shoot (as in with ranged weapons) and steal will be two other specials generally as specific as attack. Maybe there should be shoot skills as well. Damage skills can basically use the same method as normal attack, as in compare with heroic from WOW, absolute value added to weapon damage, attack twice but first with main hand and second with off hand, this will require certain changes to the attack method but I think it will be manageable.

• Attack skills – Use current attack method with different effects, example dual swing, first attack with main hand then immediately attack with off hand (need to somehow implement attacks for offhand), or normal attack with added absolute or multiple value.
• Defense skills – Manipulate defensive skills like temporarily increase block rate to a very high amount or set higher defense and counter probability. Configuration files can contain information such as number of strikes, multiples and absolute values.
• Shoot skills – For later implementation.
• Thieving skills – For later implementation.
• Special skills – For much later implementation, but will probably need to be specifically implemented for every skill.
• Damage magic – Create a method such as that or attack but with functions concerning magic and resistance instead. Different magic use this method with special attributes much like attack skills can use the current attack method.
• Healing magic – Create a method such as that or attack but with functions concerning magic and resistance used on friendly targets instead. Different magic use this method with special attributes much like attack skills can use the current attack method.
• Special Magic – For much later implementation, but will probably need to be specifically implemented for every skill.
  
  I really need suggestions and help with skills, consider the groups.

Hit table

For every attack a dice is rolled that can get any value between 0 and 10000, this value represents the probability to something happening to the action according to a table in order miss, dodge, parry, block, hit, critical strike.

miss = 10000 – hit (e.g. bottom percent)
dodge = hit + dodge (e.g. bottom above hit percent)
parry = 0;
if (canParry)
par = miss + dodge + parry (e.g. bottom above hit and dodge percent)
block = 0
if (canBlock)
block = miss + dodge + parry + block (e.g. bottom above hit, dodge and parry percent)
crit = 10000 – crit (e.g. top percent)

This basically means that if the sum of miss + dodge + parry + block is higher than 100% there will be no hit nor crit. High accuracy can negate dodge and parry, e.g. if accuracy is over 100% it will deduct excess accuracy first from dodge, second from parry and finally from block. If there is still excessive accuracy after all dodge, parry and block have been negated it will be added to critical strike chance.

Configuration

Using the filehandler I created for Procrastination I formed a way to create units and jobs (I have decided to call classes jobs instead because class is a taken name in Java and most languages) from pre-edited configuration files. This can easily be extended to weapons, armor, skills and anything else. I can also use the file for a job or weapon to set the weapon for a new character or unit this way.

Level and experience

Already in Procrastination I came up with a function form for calculating how experience needed for each level. Basically it uses a second experience variable that will have a value depending on level subtracted from a fixed value that is set as soon as that value is reached, that fixed value is the experience needed to reach the first level (e.g. level 2). The function to calculate the value to subtract is level to the power of X times multiplier plus another value where X should be a small value higher than 1, the multiplier is just to make the numbers more interesting and final value is just to make the second level up more interesting than the first if the X value is very close to 1. For procrastination I use:
lvl^1.1 * 250 + 100, and the first level at 100
In irresponsibility I use:
lvl^1.7 * 100, and first level at 200
With each enemy giving a multiple of 250 experience per stage this gives slightly more than 1 level per monster at the first 3 stages but decreasing for each stage (comparing one stage to 1 level which is of course very inaccurate). More accurately all characters should reach level 2 after stage 1, level 4 after stage 2, level 10 after stage 5, level 18 after stage 10, level 38 after stage 20 and level 55 after stage 30. Level 100 should be reached around stage 65, so far I only plan to have 30 stages though but every stage should be able to be replayed at any time. Monster will be approximated to this list, e.g. a monster at stage 1 should be level 1, monsters at level 5 should be between level 8 and 12 and monsters at level 30 should be between level 50 and 60.

Attributes

Primary attributes are used to calculate secondary attributes which in turn are used for the real interaction such as attacking. Classes have a base in all secondary attributes which the calculations are based on. There are 8 primary attributes: Strength (str), Agility (agi), Intelligence (int), endurance (end), vitality (vit) and luck (luc). Attack (atk) and defense (def) are considered secondary attributes but they are never used directly in calculations. The secondary attributes are life (hp) , magic (mp), armor (arm), resistance (res), dodge (ddg), parry (par), block (blk), block value (blkval), damage (dmg), damage per second (dps), critical strike (crit), accuracy (hit), attack speed, magic power (pow) and movement speed (mspd). Level (lvl) is also used to calculate some secondary attributes. Secondary attributes are also affected by equipment, such as damage and attack speed is mainly affected by weapon used and armor and resistance is mainly affected by armor used.

• Level (lvl): increases life and magic.
  hp = 5*str + 15*vit + lvl*20
  mp = 15*int + 5*vit + lvl *40
• Strength (str): Strength increases attack and life.
  atk = 4*str + agi
  blkval = 2 * str
  hp = 5*str + 15*vit + lvl * 20
• Agility (agi): Agility increases attack, critical strike, accuracy and defense.
  atk = 4*str + agi
  crit = agi/20
  hit = agi/10
  def = agi/4+end/2
• Intelligence (int): Intelligence increases magic and magic power.
  mp = 15*int+5*vit + lvl *40
  pow = 5*int
• Endurance (end): Endurance increases armor, resistance and defense.
  arm = end
  res = 2*end
  def = agi/4+end/2
• Vitality (vit): Vitality increases life and magic.
  hp = 5*str + 15*vit + lvl*20
  mp = 15*int + 5*vit + lvl *40
• Luck (luc): Luck affects all chances such as when damage, which is ranged, will have higher probability towards the higher end.
  
  
• Attack (atk): Attack increases physical damage done depending on weapon. For example the bonus damage to a normal sword is 1/10 attack times by weapons speed.
  atk = 4*str + agi
  dmg = atk/10*aspd (dps = atk/10*aspd)
• Defence (def): Defense increases dodge, parry and block.
  def = agi/4+end/2
  ddg = def/10
  par = def/10
  blk = def/5
  
  
• Life (hp): Life basically determines how much damage a character can take.
  hp = 5*str + 15*vit + lvl*20
  Magic (mp): Magic determines how much magic (e.g. how many spells) a character can use.
  mp = 15*int + 5*vit + lvl *40
• Armor (arm): Armor reduces physical damage with a percentage. Armor is mainly gained from the body armor a character wears but every class has an initial armor and it is also slightly increased by endurance, which covers the first 4% damage reduction.
  arm = end
  ratio = 1 - ((arm/lvl*0,4)-(arm^2/lvl^2*0,0004))/(10+diff+(arm/lvl*0,4)-(arm^2/lvl^2*0,0004)) hp(1) = hp(0) - dmg*ratio
  With this formula it takes about 9 times as high armor compared to level to get 25% damage reduction, 25 times to get 50% damage reduction, 50 times to get 66% damage reduction and 100 times to get 80% damage reduction. Meaning a level 100 will need 10k armor to get 80% damage reduction. The reduction is also decreased if a higher level enemy hits you.
• Resistance (res): Resistance reduces magical damage by a percentage, resistance is mainly gained from the cloth items that characters wears over their armor but body armor as well as enchants can also increase resistance.
  res = 2*end
  ratio = 1 - ((res/lvl*0,2)-(res^2/lvl^2*0,001))/(10+(res/lvl*0,2)-(res^2/lvl^2*0,001))
  hp(1) = hp(0) - dmg*ratio
  About 40 times as high resistance as level means about 50% reduction.
  From items and talents characters can also get elemental specific reduction, for example 10% fire resistance.
  hp(1) = hp(0) – dmg*ratio*0,90
  for fire in this case.
• Dodge (ddg): Dodge calculates the probability to avoid an attack. After a block an unarmed character can counter attack.
  ddg = def/10
• Parry (par): Parry calculates the probability to parry an attack with a weapon. After a parry an armed character can counter attack.
  par = def/10
• Block (blk): Block calculates the probability to block an attack and deflect a magic attack. A blocked or deflected attack reduces the attacks power with an absolute amount, the block value (blkval). A character can only block once between each strike.
  blk = def/5
• Block value (blkval): Block value is the absolute value absorbed by a shield when blocking or deflecting. Block value is mainly determined by the characters shield but also increased by strength.
  blkval = str/2
  dmg(1) = dmg(0) – blkval
• Damage (dmg/dps): Damage determines how much damage can be done on an enemy.
  Critical strike (crit): Critical strike determines the probability for attacks (physical and magical) to do significantly more damage. Most classes have between 1% to 10% critical strike chance as base.
  crit = agi/20
• Accuracy (hit): Accuracy modifies the probability to hit a target, at higher level the base accuracy is lowered and level difference alters accuracy significantly.
  hit = 99-lvl/4-lvldiff+agi/10
• Attack speed: Attack speed is based on weapon, equipment and sometimes talents and skills.
• Magic power (pow): Magic power increases the power of spells, different spells are affected differently.
  pow = 5*int
  ex dmg = spelldmg + pow^2/(level*1000)
• Movement speed: Is mostly based on class but can be manipulated by items, talents and skills.
• Range: Range is completely based on weapon, most melee weapons have range 1 (excepting polearms and spears that have range 2). Ranged weapons can have any range.

Creatures

Humanoids, beasts, undead, demons, elementals, dragonkin and monsters are the seven types of creatures that can be encountered in this world. Some skills are specific for type of creature it is used on.

• · Humanoids are generally weak but make up for it and more with weapons, armor and powerful skills and magic.
• · Beasts wears no armor or use any weapon but have thick natural skin, high resistance and are strong, beast have special beast skills.
• · Undead are very similar to humanoids but with a much wider range of power, from very weak (even compared to humanoids) to extremely strong. Undead have access to skills and magic similar to that of humans. Undead are weak against all divine magic.
• · Demons have like undead a very wide range in power; from very weak demonlings to powerful demon kings. Demons wear no armor but use demonic skills and magic.
• · Elementals are magical beings created from one of the four elements, even the weaker elementals are powerful in magic of their own element. Stronger elementals are also physically strong. Elementals have high defense and resistance but very sensitive to their opposite element.
• · Dragonkin and dragons are very strong mystical creatures that have access to powerful arcane magic and skills, the smaller dragonkin can use armor and weapons, larger dragons don’t need any of that.
• · Monsters are all other creatures, generally monsters can’t wear armor but there are exceptions, weapons among monsters are also uncommon but less so than armor.

Passive skills (talents?)

For every class level characters gain a (using WOW terms) talent point that they can spend in a talent tree. There will be three tiers and nine talents in the tree, tier one has two talents, tier two has three talents and their three has four talents. The talents on tiers one and two have 5 levels each and the talents on tier three have 3 levels each. In tier one you can spend talent points in both talents and you will be able to reach tier two when you have spent 4 points in total or 3 points in one talent. In tier two you can spend points in any talent that is connected to the talent you have most points in from tier one, if you have equal points in both talents in tier one you can only reach the middle one. You can reach tier three once you have spent 3 points in one talent in tier two, you can only put point in one talent in tier three. In total you will get 10 point for each character to spend however you feel fit. There will be a left to right alignment for all talent trees with full specialization in one field on the left and full specialization in another on the right with mixed talents in between. For example a warrior will have defensive talents to the right and offensive talents to the left.

Level

There will be two types of level; character level and job level. Gaining character level will be pretty much linear throughout the game; in the beginning each character will gain a level for each enemy that is slain, at mid game you will need to kill two enemies for one level and later three or even four enemies for one level. You gain some stats depending on both character and job with each level. So with several, up to over 20, enemies per map it might always be a good idea to consider in which order to take them down, as you might gain several levels in on map. When gaining a new character his character level will be approximately the same as your other characters should be. No experience is gained if a character is dead when an enemy is killed.


Job level works slightly different from character level, when gaining a job level you will gain no extra stat, only receive some new ability or increase the power (grade) of abilities you have. All characters start at level 1 of one of the base jobs, from here some character can chose to switch to another base job and this can in fact be done at any time but once you switch you will start over from level 1 at that job, not all base jobs are available to all characters and not all jobs within a group are available, even to a character that starts in that group. The base job lasts for 5 levels, after that you can choose your specific job. In fighting job group, magic job group and religious job group you can change one character in each the leader job, Knight, Wizard and Archbishop respectively.

All jobs have 10 levels except Knight, Wizard, Archbishop, Templar, Light Templar and Dark Templar which all have 5 levels (Templar plus Dark or Light Templar is 10 levels, while the leader jobs will go through 15 levels in total). At higher maps and character levels you should gain job level quite rapidly so that a change won’t keep your character back significantly. Leveling in job depends on job specific action and will be based on effect, e.g. even though a high character level new fire mage can only cast the first grade of firebolt his stats should be high enough to do significant damage (not compared to a high grade fireball of course) and will from that gain a high amount of job experience and gain job level rapidly.

Skills

First each class will need two “bread ‘n butter” skills, one for low levels and one for medium to higher levels, I’m thinking something like firebolt and fireball for firemages. Second each class will need 4-6 secondary skills, e.g. skill that are powerful but maybe not as generally useful as the primary “bread ‘n butter” skill, these could be some multiple hit or area of effect skill like a wall of fire, or a powerful short range skill like inferno (think of a flamethrower) or a buffing skill like fire enchant and finally the summoning of a fire elemental with the help of their fellow mages. Third each class will need some (1-3) passive skills, for mages concentration would be a good idea to have to prevent them from being interrupted when struck, or some skill which grants them the power to regenerate magic.

Suggestions for any skill for any class will be highly appreciated.

Summoning

Different types of summoning.

• Trained animal summoning: Beastmasters, hunters and rangers have the ability to charm/capture animals and train them to follow their command in battle. Commands will take time and skill and low level characters will need to use their every turn to make the animal do what they want, later however the animal will stay at course and commands will be quicker giving the characters to command several animals at once or support the fight on their own. Beastmasters are of course the strongest ones and can command up to 5 animals in battle at high levels, hunters and rangers can command up to 3 animals in battle at high level. Even though there is a limit of how many in combat animals they can have they can still charm and capture more animals to train and have at their disposal, giving them opportunities to be more diverse and approach any given situation with the right force.
• Elemental summoning: Elemental mages can at high level summon a powerful elemental to do their bidding. However to control such a powerful being the mage needs the support from other elemental mages to boost their power, all mages will still be able to move and must keep moving to stay in range of each other and the elemental, or they will lose their control of it. At least two mages are required to summon an elemental but the more mages that work together the more powerful the elemental will be. Elemental summoning lasts for a limited amount of time.
• Demon summoning: Warlocks will use their arcane abilities to summon evil demons which they will lock in their control, once summoned a demon will struggle to get free and this requires the warlocks to concentrate on the demon and their lock. Higher level warlocks can summon stronger demons and at a high level they will be able to turn themselves into demons to become powerful fighters in battle. Finally at a very high level warlocks can turn themselves into demon-kings which allow them to command another powerful demon to join the battle. A demon can only be controlled for a short amount of time and will therefore have to be banned before it is too late.
• Undead reanimation and summoning: Necromancers have the ability to reanimate slain enemies on the battlefield to do their bidding. At lower levels necromancers can only reanimate the skeletons for a short time but higher levels gives more substance to their reanimation which allows them to create zombies, fleshy ghouls or even reanimate the enemies themselves, but always only for a short period of time. At higher levels Necromancers can also summon powerful undead creature such as gargoyles, golems, vampires and with some help litches. Reanimations only lasts for a short time before the bodies collapses, summoned undead are powerful and must be banned before it is too late. To summon a powerful undead creature necromancers must build up their strength, they do this by reanimating weaker creatures.
• Nature summoning: Druids and in a smaller amount shamans can summon help from the nature. At a smaller amount in the lower levels they can summon bugs and other small wild animals to disturb the enemy, and at higher levels bigger wild animals can be summoned. The druids and shamans cannot control this animal though but only show them who are friends and who are foes. Wild animals are wild and might run away to their own at any time.
• Dragon summoning: The most powerful of all summoning is the summoning of a dragon; only a fully powered wizard with the help of at least 6 other magic users (magic class or religious class) can summon a powerful dragon that will gain attributes depending on who is there to help in the summoning. Summoning a dragon is extremely consuming and will surely kill the wizard and many of who helps him to summon, these deaths may not be resurrected again in the same battle. Once summoned a dragon will help until it has taken too much damage, however you cannot heal it or give it any direct support so make sure you are not putting it up against too much.

Titles

While playing you will be rewarded titles that you can give to your characters; while some titles can be for anyone others are only for certain classes or class group. For example alchemist which allows any character to use certain special items like smoke bombs and have potions being more potent and Leader which allows either a knight, wizard or witch to empower a fellow character of the same subclass or hire a mercenary (there will only be five mercenaries available since the maximum amount of characters is 15 and only five are hidden). Any character can only have five titles. A character can level up titles.

• Leader (5 levels) – Allows a character to boost friends of the same subclass by giving them a title of their own as well as empowering the whole group.
  Available for knights, wizards and witches.
  Level 1: 1 squire (knight) from brute force group or apprentice (wizard & witch) who gains a low amount of bonus depending on leader’s stats.
  Level 2: 1 man at arms (knight from brute force group) or xxx (wizard & witch) who gains a medium amount of bonus depending on leader’s stats or 1 mercenary.
  Level3: 2 men at arms (knight from brute force group) or xxx (wizard & witch) who gains a medium amount of bonus depending on leader’s stats or 2 mercenaries.
  Level4: 3 men at arms (knight from brute force group) or xxx (wizard & witch) who gains a medium amount of bonus depending on leader’s stats or 3 mercenaries.
  Level5: 3 men at arms (knight from brute force group) or xxx (wizard & witch) who gains a medium amount of bonus depending on leader’s stats or 3 mercenaries and a small bonus to all characters of same base class (brute force class or magic class).
• Alchemist (5 levels) – Items used by an alchemist will gain power, such as healing and magic potions become more potent, allows the alchemist to use special alchemist’s items and allows the alchemist to create normal and special items.
  Available to all classes.
  Level 1: Potions become more potent.
  Level 2: All items become more potent (such as bombs), and potions become even more potent.
  Level 3: Can use special alchemist’s items, all items become even more potent.
  Level 4: Can create items, all items become even more potent.
  Level 5: Can create special alchemist’s items, all items become even more potent.
• Master (5 levels) – Increases stats for all friends using the specified weapon or type. Specific for one type of weapon, for example swords is a sword master.
  Level 1: Increase stat 1 (for example accuracy for swords).
  Level 2: Increase stat 2 (for example parry for swords).
  Level 3: Increase stat 3 (for example damage for swords).
  Level 4: Increase stat 4 (for example speed for swords).
  Level 5: Further increase all 4 stats.
  
  Lower grade stats are generally less useful. A character can only be one type of master.
  Different Masters are:
  Sword Master
  Axe Master
  Mace Master
  Shield Master
  Knife Master
  Spear Master
  Rifle Master
  Gun Master
  Bow Master
  Fence Master
• Arms Master (3 levels) – Increases stats (accuracy, critical strike and attack) for characters using arms (e.g. weapons excepting fist weapons).
  Level 1: Very very low increase.
  Level 2: Very low increase.
  Level 3: low increase.
• Kung Fu Master (5 levels) – Increases stats (accuracy, attack, attack speed, block, critical strike, life, armor and resistance) for unarmed characters.
  Level 1: Very very low increase.
  Level 2: Very low increase.
  Level 3: low increase.
  Level 4: medium low increase.
  Level 5: medium increase.
• Defender (6 levels) – Increases defending stats for one character.
  Level 1: Increase armor.
  Level 2: Increase resistance.
  Level 2: Increase block.
  Level 3: Increase dodge.
  Level 5: Increase parry.
  Level 6: Increase block value.

More titles are needed, suggestions are welcome.

Weapons specifications

Different weapons have different behavior concerning skills and other special features.

• Normal Swords (both one and two handed): Normal swords are the most balanced weapons; used as reference their speed, damage (in terms of damage per speed), accuracy, parry, dodge, range and critical strike ratio are all normal. Normal one handed swords can be dual wielded or used with shield.
  Examples of swords are short sword and long sword.
  Examples of prefixes for swords can be wooden, rusty, keen and fine.
• Fencing Swords: Fencing swords are faster than normal swords and have higher accuracy and dodge and parry rate but lower damage. Fencing swords cannot be used with shields but can be dual wielded (by some classes).
  Examples of fencing swords are espada and rapier.
  Examples of prefixes for fencing swords can be sharp and rusty.
• Katanas: Katanas are sharp two handed swords, they have a minor armor piercing ability and will ignore a percentage or an absolute value (depending on which is higher) of the opponents armor value. Katanas generally have higher damage than normal swords.
  Special katanas are bokuto and shinai (blunt wooden practice swords without armor piercing)
  Examples of prefixes for katanas are rusty and keen.
• Maces (both one and two handed): Maces are slow, heavy blunt weapons preferred by the religious (such as clerics and paladins). Maces are generally slower and have heavier damage than swords but even though they can be used to parry it is usually tougher as they are heavy to move around. One handed maces can be used for dual wielding and shields. Maces can be used as a focal point to summon divine energy and increase magic users power.
  Examples of maces are war-hammer, mace, morning-star and club.
  Examples of prefixes for maces are light, heavy, iron, rusty and diamond.
• Axes (both one and two handed): Like maces axes are also heavy and therefore slower than swords, but not as heavy as maces giving them better balance which makes it easier to use for parries. One handed axes can be used for dual wielding and shields. Some small one handed axes can be thrown.
  Examples of axes are hand axe, cleaver axe and battle axe.
  Examples of prefixes for axes are keen, dull and broken.
• Knives: Knives are quick piercing weapons preferred by thieves and assassins. Knives are usually much faster than swords but can’t be used for parrying or with shields. Knives can be dual wielded and are often preferred for off hands. Some knives can be thrown. Knives can often be enchanted with magical power that magic users can draw upon to increase their power.
  Examples of knives are dagger, kukri, switchblade and athame.
  Examples of prefixes for daggers are magical, rusty, keen and radiant.
• Fist weapons: Using the same skills as when unarmed martial artists uses fist weapons to put and extra punch to their punch. Fist weapons can be used to channel chi through which helps monks and other martial artists to increase their power. Characters dual wielding fist weapons can block, however the block value is significantly lower than that of shields.
  Examples of suffixes for fist weapons are of power, of anger of justice.
• Normal polearms: Polearms are long range melee weapons used by many professional soldiers and guards. Aside of longer range polearms have the benefits of being able to do all types of damage but they are slow and heavy and hinders dodging.
  Examples of polearms are – halberd, glaive, pole-axe and bardiches.
• Spears: Spears are like polearms in range and damage but they do not have blunt type damage. Some classes that cannot use other polearms can use spears. Some spears can be thrown. Spears come in both one and two handed versions.
• Staffs: Staffs can be used as focal point for all magic powers such as arcane powers, divine powers and chi, many different classes uses staffs to increase their power and used for protection and damage. Staffs are easy to parry with but are slow and have low damage output.
  Examples of staffs are bo, war-staff, half-staff and long-staff.
  Examples of prefixes for staffs are oak, yew, cedar, gnarled and iron.
• Bows: Bows are the fastest ranged weapon and can with the right person using it do a lot of damage. Some bows can be used for melee also, as a staff.
  Examples of 1st prefixes for bows are cedar, yew and oak.
  Examples of 2nd prefixes for bows are war, hunting, long and short.
• Crossbows: Crossbows are bolt shooting weapons that penetrates and damages armor. Crossbows do high damage but are very slow. Reloading a crossbow takes most of the time of using it. There are repeating crossbows which can fire multiple times between reloads.
• Guns: Guns are light firearms that shoot bullets that penetrate armor. Most guns can only shoot one bullet between reloads but skilled gun users can dual wield guns and even carry extra guns with them. There are also rumors of guns that can hold more than one bullet. Reloading guns takes one turn; skilled gun users (such as true gunslingers) can reload all their guns at the same time.
• Rifles: Like guns rifles also penetrate armor. Rifles do more damage than guns and shoot small grenades instead of bullets; grenades have special effects.
  Examples of grenades are exploding, burning and stunning.
• Throw weapons: Except throwing daggers, axes and spears there are a few other throw weapons, these cannot be used in melee combat though.
  Examples of other throw weapons are shuriken, bo-shuriken and darts.

Weapons

There are three types of physical damage; slashing, piercing and blunt. Different types do different amount of damage on different types of armor; slashing does 80% damage on leather armor, 90% damage on chainmail armor and 70% damage on plate armor, piercing does 80% on leather armor, 70% on chainmail armor and 90% on plate armor and blunt does 90% leather armor and chainmail armor and 60% on plate armor. Special effects are limited to some types; poison, wind and water enchants can only be applied on piercing and slashing weapons, fire enchants can only be applied to slashing and blunt weapons and earth enchants can only be applied on blunt weapons. A weapon that has two types of damage will apply the type that is more effective.

Weapons are categorized in main and subtypes, classes can have specified a main type for example “swords”, then they can use all types of swords, or more specified “fencing swords” then he can only use one handed “fencing swords”. It can also be specified that a class can use “two handed weapons”, that includes “normal two handed swords”, “katanas”, “two handed maces”, “two handed axes”, “normal polearms” and “spears”.

Jobs

Basically there will be four roles: Tank, healing, damage and support. Some classes will be specialized in for one role where others can do two or even all three roles to some extent. There will be four different ways to convey effects (such as damage or healing): Physical (brute force), magic (self explaining), technological (using tools) and summoning (getting help from animals, celestial beings or something else for doing damage). Each class will be specialized in the use of certain weapon, armor and tools but still allowed to use some and unable to use the rest (example a paladin is specialized in blunt weapons such as maces and hammers but can still use swords and axes but not daggers).

Each character will be inclined in a field and can only chose classes that suit them (example character B is a small weak character with high magical abilities who can pick almost any magic using class but excluding classes that use brute for with magic such as paladin or battle mage). There will also be within each group a leader class that is somewhat weaker by itself but who will give strong bonuses to characters of classes in that group (there is also an idea about hiring mercenaries when not being able to find hidden characters).

Every character will be one basic class at the beginning, being able to use only a few standard, low level skills until reaching a certain level where the real class will be chosen. The leader class will be turned from a class of the same type at higher level. There can only be one leader class of each field.

The classes so far are as follows:

Fighter jobs: Fighters are melee fighting and tanking jobs; generally they wear heavy armor and can use most weapons with some expertise. They generally don't use magic.
1. Fighter - The basic fighting and tanking class. Mercenaries can be fighters. Fighters can use leather and chainmail armor, shields and any one handed weapon except knives and fist weapons.
2. Warrior - Using heavily armor and especially skilled using single handed weapons and shield this is the simplest choice for a tanking character. Warriors can use any armor, including leather, chainmail and plate, shields and all one handed weapons except knives and fist weapons and all two handed weapons except staves.
3. Samurai - Not as heavily armored but specializing in two handed swords (generally katanas) the samurai is not suitable for tanking, but can still take a few punches and deal heavy damage. Samurais can only use leather and chainmail armor and no shields. They are specialized in two handed swords but can also use one handed swords, knives and polearms. Samurais can dual wield.
4. Barbarian - Used to extreme environments barbarians have high resistance but wears only light armor. Barbarians are infamous for their expertise and melee weapons which they wield with brute strength. Barbarians are specialized in all one hand weapons except knives and all two hand weapons except staves and polearms, they can still wield knives, staves and polearms. However they can only wear leather armor and no shields. Barbarians are specialized in dual wielding.
5. Berserker - Like the barbarian the berserker have high resistance but they cannot wear any armor at all. Berserkers wields only two handed weapons but with such strength and expertise that they can still dual wield. Berserkers wear no armor and no shield, they have expertise and can use all two handed weapons except staves and polearms and never uses one handed weapons except fist weapons. They are specialized dual wielders and even dual wield their two handed weapons with brute force (at higher levels), however they never dual wield two weapons of the same type, except fist weapons.
6. Gladiator – Strong fighters using one handed weapons and shield.Gladiators only wear leather armor but use small shields both as a weapon and for blocking and extra armor, they can use any one handed weapons (including swords, axes, maces, knives, spears and fist weapons).
7. Paladin - Heavily armored and blessed with divine strength a paladin is one of the few brute force classes that have magical powers at their disposal. Paladins wear any armor (leather, chainmail and plate) and shields and are specialized in maces (one and two handed), they can also use one handed swords. Holy magic is also at their disposal.
8. Crusader – Crusaders are much like paladins; heavy and armor and with powerful divine magic at their disposal. The main difference is that they are more into two handed weapons or dual wielding than shields, even though they can wear shields. Because of this crusaders will be more suitable for damage or healing than tanking.Crusaders wear any armor (leather, chainmail and plate) and shields, they are specialized in swords and maces (both one and two handed) and can also use two handed axes (but not one handed). They can use divine magic.
9. Templar– Lighter armored than Paladins and Crusaders Templars tend to be more offensive. Templars can do astral projection which instead of using their physical bodies uses their souls and travel the spirit world to either enhance a friend greatly or fight foes. ATemplars can wear leather and chainmail armor, they are specialized in swords and dual wielding and can also use maces.
a. Light Templar – Light Templars are strong with defensive and buffing skills and uses their astral projection to enhance friends more than fighting enemies. They still can fight however but weaker than the Dark Templars. Light Templars have special skills to destroy Dark Templars.
b. Dark Templar – Dark Templars are more aggressive and much stronger than Light Templars in their offensive skills, especially in astral projection is greater, however all religious classes have a high chance of resisting them and have astral blast that does great damage to the Dark Templars.
10. Gladiator – Strong fighters using one handed weapons and shield.Gladiators only wear leather armor but use small shields both as a weapon and for blocking and extra armor, they can use any one handed weapons (including swords, axes, maces, knives, spears and fist weapons).
11. Knight - The knight is the leader class for melee and tanking classes. Being the leader a knight has all skills from the class they turned from and most skills, excepting only the higher level skills, from all brute force classes.
12. Soldier - Being drilled to follow orders quickly and precisely a soldier gets extra bonuses from a leader (knight). Soldiers also get bonus from other soldiers. Mercenaries can be soldiers. Soldiers wear chainmail armor and shields and are specialized in polearms, one handed swords, one handed maces and crossbows.
13. Guard - Being drilled to follow orders quickly and precisely a guard gets extra bonuses from a leader (knight). Guards also get bonus from other guards. Mercenaries can be guards. Guards wear plate armor and are specialized in polearms and crossbows. They can also use swords and maces (both one and two handed).
14. Legionnaire - Being drilled to follow orders quickly and precisely a legionnaire gets extra bonus from a leader (knight). Legionnaires also gets bonus from other legionnaires. Mercenaries can be legionnaires. Legionnaires wear plate armor and shields. They can use one handed swords, polearms and bows.
Magic jobs: Magic users have jobs which generally use no armor and very light weapons; they mainly use magic skill for their damage. Generally they can use knives or other one handed small weapons such as swords or maces and staves.
1. Mage - The basic magic using class. Mercenaries can be mages. Mages can use magic of all elements but never to any higher level.
2. Elemental Mage - The elemental mage is a mage specialized in a certain element, he can still use lower level magic from all four elements but has the expertise in their own element in which they can grow extremely powerful. Mages can instead of casting spell for damage use their power to boost another mage or wizard in the group. Mercenaries can be elemental mages. Elemental mages can cast spells of all elements but are specialized and very strong in one and weak in the others.
3. Sorcerer - Specializing in arcane magic a sorcerer has access to a range of powerful magic dealing with time, gravity and other such mysterious forces. Arcane, time and gravity are the main magic for the sorcerer.
4. Necromancer - Dark magic and death are the fields of the necromancer. A necromancer can use leather armor.
5. Warlock - Using dark magic to summon demons and even turning themselves into one. Warlocks use dark arcane magic.
6. Battlemage - Summoning powerful weapons and armor a Battlemage uses his magic powers to fight melee battle. Battlemages can use leather armor but no weapons at all, as they summon their weapons.
7. Witchdoctor - Specialized in curses. Witchdoctors use dark arcane and natural magic.
8. Animagi - Shape shifters who turn into animals suitable for the situation. Animagis wears no armor nor uses any weapons.
9. Bard – Semi magical bards use their charisma to inspire their fellows to perform better as well as confuse their enemies to perform worse. Bards can steal from enemies.Bards can use basic magic as well as swords and leather armor.
10. Dancer – Like the bards dancers use their charisma but instead of inspiring their friends, dancers confuse their enemies to perform worse. Dancers can steal from enemies.
11. Wizard - The leader class of magic users a wizard can use all magic the other classes can use, excepting the highest level ones. To this a wizard has a range of powerful magic boosting skills.
12. Witch - Only available for female characters a witch have like a wizard all the powers of the other classes and a range of powerful boosting magic (not the same as the wizard). Even though the witch is not a leader there can only be one witch.
Religious jobs: Religious jobs are mainly healing jobs but generally they also have access to some offensive magic or melee brawl. Generally Religious classes wear no armor and use staves and one hand maces.
1. Priest - The basic religious class with the ability to heal. Priests have no offensive magic.
2. White Priest - The priest of holy magic has the most powerful healing spells but can also use his divine power to smite his enemies. White priests use holy magic mainly for healing.
3. Gray Priest - Mixing holy and unholy magic the gray priest combines the divine powers for both help and vengeance. Gray priests also have powerful supporting magic. Gray priests can access both holy and unholy magic.
4. Black Priest - Black priests can only access the unholy powers and have therefore no healing ability. Black priests have access to strong buffing and de-buffing magic. Black priests use only unholy magic.
5. Cleric - Combining divine magic and melee brawl the clerics uses their strength to smite their enemies as well as heal and support friends. Clerics wear chainmail armor and wield one handed maces.
6. Druid - One of the most diverse classes a druid can wield the forces of nature to his advantage, summoning animals and plants to their aid as well as destructive weather and healing earth. Druids wear leather armor and are specialized in staves.
7. Shaman - Using natural magic and divine forces the shaman can shape shift into animals and control the forces of nature to damage their enemies or heal their friends. Shamans wear chainmail armor and can wield staves and maces (both one and two handed).
8. Monk - Channeling divine powers into their own body monks are powerful martial artists who can both avoid and take a lot of damage despite not wearing armor. Monks wear no armor and are specialized in fist weapons and staves.
9. Archpriest (bishop?) - The archpriest is the leader class for the religious classes. Being the leader an archpriest has all skills from the class they turned from and most skills, excepting only the higher level skills, from all religious classes. Archpriest can at high level and with the help of other devoted characters summon a powerful angel to smite enemies.
10. Paladin - see Paladin in fighting classes.
11. Crusader – see Crusader in fighting classes.
12. Templar – see Templar in fighting classes.
a. Light Templar – see Light Templar in fighting classes.
b. Dark Templar – see Dark Templar in fighting classes.
Range and ranger jobs: Ranger jobs generally wear lighter armor and generally either shoot firearms or bows. They will sometimes tame beasts to aid them.
1. Keeper - The main class for range and ranger classes. Keepers can use all one handed and range weapons except crossbows (including, swords, maces, knives, guns, rifles, bows and throwing weapons).
2. Gunslinger - Highly accurate a gunslinger uses his two guns to hit the most elusive of targets. Gunslingers wear leather armor and are specialized in guns. They are also specialized in dual wielding guns. A gunslinger can use any range weapon as well as knives.
3. Rifleman - Long range and highly accurate a rifleman can deal heavy to targets near and far. Riflemen wear leather armor and are highly specialized in rifles. They can use any firearms, knives and one handed swords.
4. Fencer - Fencing is the art of parrying and hitting accurately allowing them to fight elusive enemies without getting hit themselves. Fencers use leather armor and are specialized in fencing swords, they can also use any one handed swords, knives and firearms.
5. Musketeer - Like a rifleman they can shoot at long range but are also experts of knives and like a fencer fencing weapons (such as rapiers). Musketeers wear chainmail or leather armor and are specialized in fencing swords and knife, rifles and guns. They may also use any other one handed swords or maces.
6. Archer - Archers are expert bowmen. Archers wears leather armor and are specialized in bows. They can also use knives, one handed swords and staves.
7. Beastmaster- Beastmasters are experts in the lore of animals; their expertise allows them to train animal pets that they can summon to do their bidding in combat. Animals are generally weaker than characters but with higher level Beastmasters can summon several animals at the same time.Beastmasters wear leather armor and can use staves, knife and bows.
8. Hunter - Combining his expertise with the outdoors and animals like a woodsman with expert use of range weapons a hunter summons trained animals to his aid while he supports at range. Hunters wear leather armor and can use all ranged weapons (including bows, firearms, crossbows as well as throwing weapons) as well as knives.
9. Ranger - Unlike a hunter a ranger combines summoning animal with melee skills. Rangers wear chainmail armor and can use all melee weapons except polearms and fist weapons (including swords, maces, staves and knives), rangers can also use spears, bows and throwing weapons.
Agility jobs: High in agility their main way to survive in battle is their high evasiveness by dodging (some highly skilled agility classes are even said to being able to dodge bullets).
1. Thief - The basic agility class is not a tough fighter but has the ability to steal from enemies. Thieves wear no armor and only use daggers and guns.
2. Acrobat - Extremely mobile and with high agility they are tough targets to hit, but with low armor they are still vulnerable. Mainly fighting unarmed or with throwing weapons. They can also steal from and pickpocket enemies. Acrobats wear no armor but are specialized in fist weapons and throwing weapons, they can also use knives and guns.
3. Rogue - Rogues are not as elusive as acrobats but can wear heavier armor and wield heavier weapons. Rogues can steal from enemies. Rogues wear leather armor and are specialized in knives and one handed swords, they use fist weapons, guns and one handed maces and axes. Rogues can dual wield.
4. Assassin - Assassins have low armor but can output high damage quickly. Assassins wear no armor. They are specialized in knives, guns, bows and throwing weapons but can't use any other weapons. Assassins are specialized in dual wielding.
5. Ninja - Ninjas are like assassins but can teleport and have lower damage output. Ninjas wear leather armor and are specialized in swords, bows, crossbows and throwing weapons. Ninjas have magic abilities such as teleport and shadow melding.
6. Pirate - Pirates fight with fencing weapons and firearms and steal like thieves. Pirates can steal from enemies. Pirates wear no armor and are specialized in fencing weapons and knives and can use any one handed weapon and all firearms. Pirates can dual wield but only with knives or guns in their off hand.
7. Privateer - Like lightly armored pirates they fight with swords and guns. Privateers can steal from enemies. Privateers wear leather armor and are specialized in one handed swords and guns, they can also use any other one handed weapon, all firearms and throwing weapons.
8. Corsair - Medium armored range fighters they also have the ability to steal from enemies. Corsairs wears chainmail armor and are specialized in firearms, they can also use knives and one handed swords.
9. Buccaneer - Lightly armored fist fighters who also have the ability to steal from enemies. Buccaneers wear leather armor and are specialized in fist weapons.
10. Swashbuckler - Using their shield as a weapon they are ferocious fighters when with one handed weapons. Swashbucklers wear leather armor small shields and are specialized in all one handed weapons except fist weapons (including swords, maces and knives) as well as guns.
11. Monk - see monk in religious classes.

The class chart

A new game

So far I haven't done anything except experimenting with some ways to control the battle and functions for calculating attacks.

I made two experiment projects to test whether it is best to do calculations within a specific class or to have an overlooking class that fetch information, which is the only thing the other classes keep track of. Example for an attack the unit class could have the attacked opponent as parameter and return the resulting damage, or the overlooking class can just fetch all neccessary information from both the attacking and defending unit.

The drawback of the overlooking class is that all units will have the same calculation, which sometimes might not be what we want.

I also tried to make up a suitable function for calculating defence. Before I always let the defence be an absolute valute (simplified: attack - defence = damage, and if damage <= 0 it's a miss) but I found the idea of having a defence recalulated to a valute between 0-1 (0-100%) and multiply it with the attack for a damage as well as using defence (or some other variable) to calculate a probability for a miss.

Right now my function looks something like this:
def = defence, lvl = level, diff = level difference, ratio = defence ratio (0-100%)

ratio = 1 - ((def/lvl*0,6)-(def^2/level^2*0,0004))/(10+diff+(def/lvl*0,6)-(def^2/level^2*0,0004))

or as it looks in code:

double partA = defence * 6 / level / 10;
double partB = defence * defence * 4 / level / level / 10000;
double defRatio = 1000 * (1 - ((partA - partB) / ((10 + levelDiff) + (partA - partB))));

this gives something like 100% damage when defence is 1, 50% at around defence 16-17 and around 25% at defence 50. This will multiply with level so a level 10 will need 160-170 defence for 50%.

Up to date

At first the monsters where created somewhat randomly based on the players level but soon I tried to introduce an arithmetically generated monster list. This was done by having two smaller lists, one with prefixes and one with names, and combining these, e.g. a list with 20 prefixes and one with 20 names would yield 400 monsters. This way I could get monsters ranging from level 1 through about 500 without much work at all, however the balance of the game got very hard to adjust.

As it is now I'm planning to change to something where monsters are region based and one region has a fixed level range of monsters and after you kill a boss you can decide by yourself to proceed to the next area. Furthermore I began to introduce classes and skills which you gain by reaching a certain level and is picked depending on how you play until then.