Fantasy AGE 2e Classes Overview

Second Edition Changes

Classes received probably the most of the changes in second edition. The high level changes are:

• Envoy class
• Defense advancements
• Level 6, 11, 16 you get +1 defense
• Focus advancements
• At level 11 every focus the character has is automatically upgraded from +2 to +3
• At level 11 you are allowed to spend another focus advancement to improve the bonus to +4
• Specialization advancements
• A level 1 you get a specialization advancement
• In first edition this was at level 4
• You ignore ability and focus requirements, but not class requirements when choosing
•  Additional advancements are recieved at odd levels
• This is a total of 10 advancements in 2e
• 1e only had 6 total advancements at level 4, 6, 8, 12, 14, 16

Common Class Advancements

There is a new layout for classes which groups advancements into patterns (like even and odd levels). This is a good view to have but not at the expense at the level by level break down. Here is the common patterns with any exceptions noted.

• Even Numbered Levels
• Primary ability advancement
• Primary focus advancement
  
• Stunt advancement - Class Flavored
  
• Talent advancement - Class Flavored
  
• Odd Numbered Levels
• Secondary ability advancement
• Secondary focus advancement
• Specialization advancement
• Level 6
• Weapon Damage Bonus from Focus (or Arcane Blast)
  
• Level 6, 11, 16
• Defense advancement
• Level 11
• Focus Bonus - Improved from +2 to +3
• Level 16
• Stunt Die to Damage - Class Flavored
  
• Level 20
• Epic Stunt bonus
  

Class Advancements 

These advancements are in addition to the common ones except where common advancement were annotated with "Class Flavoured" to indicate an exception to full commonality.

• Level 1
• Envoy
• Base - Health 25, Weapon Groups 3 (pick 3), Talents 2, Specialization 1
  
• Action - Coordinate
• Action - Dazzle
• Bonus - Social Chameleon
• Mage
• Base - Health 20, Weapon Groups 2 (pick 0), Talents 1, Specialization 1
• Action - Arcane Blast
• Talent x2 - Magic Training
• Bonus - Magic Points
• Constraint - Arcane Device
• Rogue
• Base - Health 25, Weapon Groups 4 (2 + pick 2), Talents 1, Specialization 1
• Action - Pin Point Attack - when DEX > adversary, or condition
• Bonus - Leather Armor with no penalty
• Bonus - Speed increase if wearing leather or no armor
• Warrior
• Base - Health 30, Weapon Groups 5 (1 + pick 4), Talents 3 (1 + pick 2), Specialization 1
• Level Even Numbered
• Mage Spell Talent advancement
  
• Level 2, 6, 10, 14, 18
• Mage Stunt advancement
  
• Level 4
• Envoy Action - Double Talk
• Rogue Action - Choice between "Take Aim" or "Vital Blow"
• Level 4, 8 ,12
• Envoy Bonus - Additional focuses
• Warrior Bonus - Additional weapon group
• Warrior Bonus - Additional armor
• Level 4, 8, 12, 16, 20
• Mage Talent advancement (non magic)
  
• Level 6, 12, 18
• Envoy Stunt advancement - can be from other classes
• Rogue Stunt advancement - can be from other classes
• Warrior Stunt advancement - can be from other classes
  
• Level 7
• Rogue Action - Stunning Attack
  
• Level 8
• Envoy Action - Stunning Repartee
• Mage Action Bonus - Arcane blast range increased
  
• Level 10
• Rogue Damage Bonus - Add Intelligence to attacks
• Warrior Action - Expert Strike
  
• Level 10, 14, 18
• Mage Stunt advancement - can be from other classes
  
• Level 11
• Envoy Action Bonus - Dazzle
• Mage Action Bonus - spend more MP for more damage
• Level 12
• Rogue Bonus - Slippery
  
• Level 15
• Warrior Action - Quick Strike
  
• Level 16
• Envoy Damage Bonus - Add stunt die if your COM > adversary WIL
• Mage Damage Bonus - Add stunt die for arcane blast
• Warrior Damage Bonus - Add stunt die to attacks

Class Imbalance

The following are the items that are not equal between the classes.

• Abilities - Equal at 19 advancements each
  
• Focuses
• Classes 19 (19 common advancement)
• Envoy 23 (19 common advancement, 3 class advancement, 1 from additional background)
  
• Weapon Groups
• Envoy 3 (0 plus pick 3)
  
• Mage 3 (2 plus pick 0)
• Rogue 4 (2 plus pick 2)
• Warrior 8 (1 plus pick 4, 3 advancement)
  
• Health
• Envoy 25
• Mage 20
• Rogue 25
• Warrior 30
•  Talents (Starting Talents, Talents, Spell Talents, Stunt Talents, Class Talents)
  
• Envoy 29 (2 + 10 + 0 + 10 + 7)
• Class Talents - Coordinate, Dazzle, Social Chameleon, Doubletalk, Stunning Repartee, Dazzle Bonus
• Mage 27 (1 + 5 + 10 + 5 + 5)
• Class Talents - Arcane Blast/Device, Magic Training x2 talents, Magic Points, Arcane Blast Range, Spend Extra MP Damage Bonus
• Rogue 28 (1 + 10 + 0 + 10 + 7)
• Class Talents - Pin Point Attack, Rogue Armor, Rogue Speed, Take Aim/Vital Blow, Stunning Attack, Lethality, Slippery
  
• Warrior 28 (3 + 10 + 0 + 10 + 5)
• Class Talents - Improve Armor x3, Expert Strike, Quick Strike

Class Comments

Envoy

This class has "expert" vibes from the older BlueRose/True20 system that GR devs have history with. The expert had a bigger focus on skills. Blue Rose AGE renamed the rogue to expert, but it looks like the Envoy returns as the "true" expert with the additional focus on focuses. I can see that with the old system where the skills seem more constrained. However 19 versus 22 focuses not as big of a feature and does hit as a useful bonus. Actually, the social chameleon class talent does a better job of framing the extra focus there.

Health Advancement

There is no reason for these differences. Constitution alone is enough to get a difference in health. Also the "cinematic" like health advancements make no sense when compared to adversaries and it is also a quadritic increase in health because of the +CON per level. Not a problem for players but extra work for the GM to balance a fair or challenging fight.

Ability and Focus Advancements

Primary and secondary flavors don't add anything to Fantasy AGE. They are arbitrary constraints at best to limit high scores, but without any understanding the effects of said high scores. There are things in FAGE that would get really toxic mechanically like DEX and CON since defense is an exponential slow in combat pace and CON could stack HP super duper high in later levels. The others not so much and in fact DEX and CON could have those consequence fixed with small but meaning design changes. 

Modern AGE does the best in that it only ask that you do not take two ability score increases in back to back level advancements. This means a character can really invest in the stats important to their character like focusing on the current primaries. The max ability is still kept in check with that constraints however the total of the primary group can increase by like 75%.

Weapon Groups

They have no benefit in AGE. They only remove an imposed penalty. Literally what is a warrior going to do with 8 weapon groups. Mages are only allowed sticks.

Defense and Armor Advancements

These are treadmill advancements that only hurts adversary building since they have to dump more ability points into accuracy or fighting or damage just to hit competently. If a GM was going to make a PC-like humanoid adversary you would need that extra 1-3 ACC or FIG to even make the fight interesting. That will either nerf your on hit damage, or make the character pretty lop-sided in stats (which maybe isn't a problem, but it may not be what a GM is expecting to handle).

Damage Advancements 

These are interesting but like defense advancements really only affect adversary design. Perhaps we would have to wait for a second edition "FAGE Companion" but even the first edition did nothing to directly compare adversary design with PC advancements. To counter these PC buffs you would roughly need to:

• Level 6 Focus damage (+2) - increase adversary health by 10
• Level 11 Focus damage (+3) - increase adversary health by 15 (5 more than level 5)
• Level 15 Stunt die (+1d6, or 3.5) - increase adversary health by 17.5
  

Specialization Advancements

You get 10 of them for each class. Are they really different from regular talents though?

Talents (Bonuses versus Actions)

I had this section split up into more pieces but I realized when counting things up that the Mage's standard 10 talents were split 5 and 5 between talents and stunt talents. At that point it made more sense to add them all together in order to hopefully get more similar numbers. It sort of does then with Mage at the bottom but only 2 behind the leader (Envoy). What it really exposes is that stunt talents and spell talents are better classified as actions while the majority of regular talents are bonuses on an existing action (such as a ability test or weapon attack).

That leaves us with the following break down of talents versus actions. It's pretty interesting but I need more time to make anything useful from it.

• Talents
• Envoy 14 - 2 starting +10 talents + 2 class (social chameleon, dazzle bonus)
• Mage 9 - 1 starting + 5 talents + 3 class talents (magic points, arcane blast range, MP damage)
• Rogue 15 - 1 starting + 10 talents + 4 class (rogue armor, rogue speed, lethality, slippery)
• Warrior 16 - 3 starting + 10 talents + 3 class (3x armor)
• Actions
• Envoy 14 - 10 stunt + 4 class (coordinate, dazzle, doubletalk, stunning repartee)
  
• Mage 18 - 5 stunt + 10 spell + 3 class (arcane blast, magic training spell talent x2)
  
• Rogue 12 - 10 stunt + 2 class (pin point, take aim or vital blow)
  
• Warrior 12 - 10 stunt + 2 class (expert strike, quick strike)
  

Class Advancements House Rules

For me it's hard for me to love the classes where there are psuedo patterns and a lot of inconsistencies. A more predictable framework would make decisions and planning easier. So here is a generous house rule that just steam rolls everything flat. We can fix things like the class skills at a later time.

• Every level you get an ability advancement with primary and secondary constraints for now
• Every level you get a focus advancement, no primary or secondary constraints
• Every level you get a talent or specialization
• Every level you get a spell talent or a stunt talent

Those rules grant a lot of bonuses per level and maybe there is too much to think about at one time. What could be done is make the levels take only 25% of current XP and you hand them out more often for a single advancement. Then the leveling advancement is choose one of all the different types.

If all the class skills were re-formatted into talents or specializations then we would have a classless system. For players and GMs classes can be more like character builds with suggestions on what combination of advancments will achieve the desired theme.