Vanguard Monks

So this is totally theoretical and all to my personal preference I just feel that the current issues with MMO's is they lack class lore and appeal.  EQ2 probably did it the worst with every race doing every job.  It just doesnt make sense.  VG is more like traditional eq and i appreciate the fact that they make an effort for certain races to be best at certain jobs.

Id like to see an MMO with the following:

Each race has at most 4 jobs: Tank, healer, melee dps, caster dps. with the dps also being substitutable for utility classes.
The jobs for that race are specific to that race only, and no other race in any part of the world can do them.
More diverse jobs. get away from the traditional jobs from D&D (and eq1,2,vg)  They are all cookie cutter and people learn to expect to much. (i play a ranger, i want tracking and endless quiver!!!)

Here would be my setup
City 1:Gorgenarks: A barbarian race with low levels of technology and levels of ancestral derived power
Tank: Berserker - specialty with  2 handed weapons
caster dps: death eater - specialty spells made from harvesting corpse items
healer: Medicine Man/alchemist - specialty heals with potions/herbs

City 2: Mishtens: An amazon race focused on war where only women fight and the men are mere slaves.
Tank: Huntress - specialty is permenant pet to tank alongside
melee dps: Archer - specialty is the bow camouflage


City 3: Archemedians: A Medieval race.
Tank: Knight - Specialty the more people to protect the more valiant the knight becomes
melee dps: Dragoon - Specialty Dragon rides/talkers, use lances and focus on high dmg attacks from above
caster dps: Geomancer - Specialty earth type magics, can only use certain spells on certain terrains

City 4: Jin juki Katumasi: East asian races from the feudal era.
Tank: Samurai - specialty long swords, slow movements, big dmg
melee dps: Ninja - Specialty stealth, ti jutsu, nin jutsu, uses sais, shurikens, throwing daggers, nun chucks

City 5: Athenites: A thesbian type society focusing more on politics and less on war
Tank:  Mimic- Specialty can copy certain and retain moves he has observed from fighting monsters
Male dps: Bard - Songs learned as epic poems, very few songs and all must be quested, 1 at a time
female dps: Dancer - Seduction tempts the most brave fighters, learning new dances from other cultures work as debuffs

City 6: Hujin Delah: Buddist type race
melee dps: Monk - excells in martial arts and combos
healer: Healer priest - heals through spiritual powers derived from meditation

City 7: Yarshen: Costal based pirate race
tank: Swashbuckler - Specialty Scimitar and powder pistal (dual wield), the more drunk the better
DPS: Gambler - specialty buffs and dmg based on dice and cards, new ones must be stolen or won

City 8: Necropolis
Melee dps: Death knights - Uses scythes and specializes in fear based dmg
Caster dps: Animationist - resurrects fallen foes as temporary pets (no perm pets)
Healer: Syphon - Can only heal by transfering hp, either from group member to group member or enemy to group

Traditional Classes i left out on purpose because of the overwheelming bland treatment they get
assassin/brigand/rogue - i grow tired of pick pocket, back stab, stealth and the overall generic build that seems copy and paste
paladin - replaced with just a knight, similar but dont have to worry about the "wheres lay hands!" type complaints
bruiser - copy of a monk, no real point
cleric/temlar/inquisitor/white mage - again they all end up copy and paste
druid - cool idea but again, to many preconceived notions of what the class should be
warrior- can u say most generic class in 99% of games
sorcerer/warlock/mage/black mage - again theres no need for 4 of the same things in one game
enchanter/illusionist/psyonosict/coercer - again more generic "mages" that always end up as utility an whine about dps, so get rid of them and just make new classes where they are specifically stating that they are utility from the get go

Tanks (6):
Berserker - 2 handed broad swords, great axes - ae attacks and berserken rage when below certain hp%
Huntress - dual short swords and daggers - perm animal pet
Knight - Long sword, maces, hammers & shield - buffs/attacks/etc get stronger the more full a group is
Samurai - 2 handed samurai swords - big dmg slow attacks, high armor
Mimic - unarmed - the more types of enemies you fight the more abilities you can use while tanking (think blue mage)
Swash Buckler- Scimitar and gun dual wield - Tanks through drunken sways, must consume alcohol


Melee dps (8 )
Archer - bow only, long bow for range, short bow for close range - multi target or multi arrow attacks
Dragoon - lances, spears - Dragon is set as healer/melee dmg/spell dmg and is used in most attacks
Ninja - sai, nun chucks, etcs - Stealth attacks, all attacks do more dmg if unseen.  Uses both magic (ninjutsu) and melee(ti jutsu)
Bard - any dual wield combo - epic poems buff the group or strike fear into the enemies
Dancer - any dual wield combo - learning the dances from each town helps add buffs and debuffs to specific races/monsters
Monk - unarmed, bladed staff, bo staff - combos build strength, the less time spent between attacks the more dmg.
Gambler - guns/short swords/scimitars -rolling dice or playing cards determines the dmg, the better cards/dice the more likey you are to do better dmg
Death knight - scythes - the more fearsome the knight the the more dmg he deals (teleports, shrouds of shadow, nightmares etc)


Caster dps (3)
Death Eater - harvests body parts to use as spells,disease/poison based
Geomancer - terrain based dmg
Animationist - revives dead foes as temporary pets

Healers (3)
alcehmist/Medicine man - heals with potions and herbs
Healer priest - heals through meditative chants
Syphon - can only transfer life from one target to another, be it group member to group member or foe to group




***Layout**
Since there are only 3 healers and 8 races, and since certain classes seem to mesh better and make more sense i would have 3 continents. With healer races being in the center of each continent

1----1 healer, 2 tanks, 3 dps---
Hujin Delah (Monk, Healer Priest)
Jin juki Katumasi (Samurai, Ninja)
Yarshen (Swashbuckler, Gambler)

2 ----1 healer, 3 tanks, 4 dps ----
Gorgenark (Medicineman/alchemist, berserker, death eater)
Mishtens ( Huntress, Archer)
Archemedians (Knight, dragoon, geomancer)

3 ---1 healer, 1 tank, 4 dps ----
Necropolis - death knight, animationist, syphon
Athenites - Bard, Dancer, Mimic

love it!

I'm always fond of games where the characters, classes and races are very diverse. Vanguard has a decent amount of diversity to it in respect to classes, with classes like monks, clerics, necros and shamans being able to split even further into different "types"

Something i never understood why mmo's didn't incorperate even more into the games is the difference in damage type, or damage resistance. Kings Field and II, and old game for ps2 or maybe even ps1 (great game pick it up sometime) had every armor and weapon with 3 sets of modifers on them, imo like it should be. Slashing, Piercing and Blunt. Because in actuallity almost everything you'd swing at a monster would utilize some portion of all these. A spikey mace shouldn't just be classifed as blunt, it can peirce too albeit not as much as a spear or dagger but has some puncture too it, even a little bit of slash. Greatsword for instance would be high slash, a mild amount of blunt (think heavy sword crashing into you) and some piercing theoriticly you could stab someone or something. Now you can also put those modifers into armor, leather might be good at handling peircing and slashing, but little blunt protection, where say chainmail but be better for slashing but less peircing and more blunt. Also your monsters could have these different resistances/weaknesses. Would give you a reason to carry around more than just one or two weapon. Even in vanguard you use the best you can find or what effects / stats you want on a weapon, not the type (slash 2hb 2hp) for any particular reason, fact it makes very little difference.

Good stuff... I'm currently working on a pen and paper ruleset... I might post it when it's done - which should be some time in May, probably.

So perfectly done, huge huge applause

I came to these games in '99, because i wasn't able to play pen&paper games anymore.  I've so beyond missed the diversity that i found in so many of the titles i loved.  And being able to customize my char's role and combat styles is frontmost in that list.  We've seen way so many versions of the same thing... there's sites that have all the up & coming mmo's listed/detailed/reviewed... and all i've seen are the same dated ideas rehashed endlessly.  Those few things that dared to be different are the ones that are still remembered, they had flavor, and their world was based around these differences.  And even with so many games based on D&D, or Tolkein... there were settings out there that added flavor still.... Dragonlance did a bit, Dark Sun, so much more so... and Ravenloft, had a setting that just coulnd't be beat, even with the same old groundwork to stand on.  I'm still holding out for variety, and things we've not seen before.... and i so love your approach Fuji.  Well Done Indeed.


Cant wait to see yours Khana :)