Character Archetypes
From Shape Shifter
First rough draft based on first playtest session.
Characters played were
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Ranger
This was a difficult class to decide on maneuvers for. It was easy making a list, but most of the powers revolved around using a bow. I was hesitant to use them because it forces the player to use a bow. And some of the spell like abilities did not seem quite ranger like.
Barbarian
I came up with quite a few rough and tumble maneuvers for this archetype, but as usual, nobody wants to play a Barbarian.
Knight
For first playtesting, I did not have enough maneuvers to make this a playable archetype on its own. I made end users pick Avenger or Paladin, then used these abilities for both those archetypes (I believe I had 9 for Knight, 2 for Avenger, and 3 for Paladin)
Avenger
I got the idea of an Avenger as being a vindictive knight who works for hire or for personal revenge. I did not picture them to be always be truly evil. Unfortunately, everyone wanted to play an Avenger. I think there is just a tendency to want to be the anti hero in the game.
Paladin
I am not fond of the traditional Cleric, and think of a Paladin as being more along the lines of what most players think of as a Cleric. I did not, however, give the Paladin any turn undead powers. Seemed like something they would acquire at higher levels.
Mystic
I have reservations about even using this. For some reason, a karate using monk never made sense to me in a medieval setting. For the first playtest, I did not have enough maneuvers in place to make this a viable option.
Bard
Most players never want to be a Bard. I guess there just isn't anything appealing about singing. However, I think a bard becomes a very viable option with the creative maneuvers at his or her disposal now.
Thief
It was easy to come up with maneuvers for this class. I envisioned most of them being of the dirty tricks, revenge strike type. However, I never came back and fleshed out the maneuvers so this class was not played during the play test.
Wizard
I tried to give the Wizard all the iconic spells they are known for... Magic Missile, Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound, Wall of Fire etc... I did run into the issue of how powerful they should be at first level and how they would stack up against the other Archetypes. In playtesting, it seemed that none of the powers used came through, but that might have been more due to circumstance than any inherent flaw.
