Unique classes

[NoxNoctum]

I hope we get some unique classes in the game, more than just the "rogue, mage, warrior" deal. Not that there's anything wrong with those, but it would be cool if it could be diversified maybe by having "sub classes".

 

I think Obsidian should take a look at the classes in the roguelike Tales of Maj'Eyal for inspiration... I stumbled on this game a few weeks ago and frankly the amount of variety and originality in their classes is stunning, just off the top of my head, a few of the more unique ones are the solipsist and the temporal warden.

 

I'm playing a Solipsist now and it's a really unique experience. Solipsism is the philosophical belief that only the self exists , that only you are "real" and that everything else is a reflection of your thoughts basically. So the idea with the class is that the character has managed to master this concept so well that they can manipulate reality through "dreaming". So to give an example, one of the solipsist's abilities involves invading an enemy's thoughts (after you cast a sleeping spell) to attack his subconscious. It's really cool stuff.

 

Another really cool class the game has is the temporal warden, which is basically a time-travelling melee-ranged hybrid. Basically most of their spells revolve around the manipulation of the time-space continuum. One of the more basic but useful abilities the class has is "premonition" which lets you basically "see into the future". The way this plays out is you get for 6-7 turns (or whatever you've bumped that skill up to) you can do anything you want to "test" it out. If you die or the timer runs out it just shoots you back to the present. Another one lets you open up a wormhole and jump to a different spot on the map but creatures can follow you through it for a few turns before it collapses.

 

The paradox mage class (another time related class) actually has an ability that lets you split the space-time contiuum into 3 strands, play them all out, and then choose one to make it "reality". The danger with all these spells though is that while they are powerful they can trigger backfires if your "paradox" is too high (it gets bumped up by casting spells), which can result in various destructive (often hilarious) anomalies showing up.

 

Even the game's more basic classes, like the shadow blade (a subset of the rogue metaclass) are pretty cool. Basically it's a rogue with magic abilities, which involve stuff like casting a spell that lets your "shadow" become alive and go nuts for a few turns, or also a variety of spells that drastically increase your speed, which lets you dodge arrows by moving out of the way (I'm not talking about just making it "miss" automatically but that time "slows" so that you are able to move around to avoid attacks, since you get more like 2-3 turns for every turn an enemy gets, it's neat stuff)

 

Anyways, I'm not suggesting Obsidian use these kinds of classes specifically, just that I would love to see this kind of originality in the game's classes.

Edited September 16, 2012 by NoxNoctum