Discussion on Roleplay Vs. Character Class

As I stated before, I strongly disagree with the idea that lower lists doesnt help define a character.

They are the backbone on how players write their characters back story, and concept.
Without said lower list a player can't ever reach the being that warlord, daredevil, soulwarden etc. yes to some all these thing might not be important. Some people might just like swinging a sword around and lower and higher list mean nothing to them.

But it's those lower list that help mold the decisions and path that the player can and will choose for their characters. Some players even let ingame RP dictate what lists the character will end up with, going against his/hers original concept.

It is for these reasons that disagree with the earlier post. There are many ways to build a character, and to simply tell someone to pick another list, is to tell them to rewrite what they believe in their mind and heart to be the true concept of their character.

There are definitely times when I'm of the "professions as skill set" mindset. You can have a character who has skills off of "rogue" lists who isn't necessarily roguish in nature and the same goes for other types of lists. They could just happen to have that skill or ability as a person and the beauty of KR, is that they don't have to follow strict role-play guidelines merely for having that list.
Having explained that to several people just starting out, it's a question that comes up.

Aleister wrote: We have explicitly stated you do not need to play an absolutely crazy person or a gung-ho-for-dragons all the time kind of character to play a chaos warrior or dragoon. Additionally, Lore: Chaos is neither a pre-req for any skills, nor does it force a character to have an insanity anymore, so doubly so the character would not need to roleplay the insanity aspect.

But I *have* to be aligned chaos, don't I? That's a HUGE roleplay connotation still. I physically have to be part dragon, or have to change my entire alignment. I'm sorry but this is literally writing me into a corner.

My character's religion is aligned order. Doesn't mean that she has to be *lawful*. You can be an evil order character and a good chaos character. They are not mutually exclusive. In addition, you can also have a character have opposing alignments on lower lists. It's only the higher lists that require you to pick an alignment, based on what they've been saying


Also? You can be a dragoon and never pick up spirit of the dragon and call yourself a warrior and be done with it. What you call yourself = the name of your list. There are people with thief list who are 100% not rogues. I've heard them refer to themselves as archeologists and rangers and any variety of things. The name of your list doesn't have to dictate how you play your character.

In looking at the overall revisions of the lists I was under the impression that part of the intention here not to have people buying whole lists for one skill? I can understand buying a list if you want all or a large portion of the list, but not for one non unique skill.

Also, there are always incidents where something affects everyone with a certain list. Or a Marshal asks everyone of a certain list to Contact them. If you took a list just for one skill, you are still that list for those purposes.

I am a large fan of making the classes more lenient, as this can easily give players more agency in terms of how they want to portray their characters; with this belief adopted one could easily play a mage, shaman and hexer as either a 'studious practitioner of the Art', 'sporadic wielder of extraplanar forces' or 'vile champion of powers beyond your comprehension.' Each of those classes could pull off each of those archetypes very well with the lenient classes system shown in this rules preview.

However, if you imagine the 'stereotypical' version of each of these classes, you will find that:
Mages are often studious.
Wild Mages (now Shamans) are either more sporadic or more likely to wield elemental/extraplanar power.
Hexers are more likely to be vile and wield powers that Travance may not entirely understand yet.

The unique abilites of each of those three example classes appear to adhere to each of those stereotypes, considering that mages are capable of reworking the nature of their own magic via an eldritch rune, shamans are capable of lessening the cost of their elemental spells via the use of elemental essences usually dropped by creatures aligned with a certain plane, and Hexers are capable of summoning, an act which between four years ago and now was only accomplished (using the player's section of the rules) by necromancers. These classes, while capable of being played in a multitude of ways, have certain skills and details within them that lead to a particular style of play and roleplay when fluffed and flavored as they normally are within the system.

There's nothing wrong with that in this case, in fact I find it to be the charm of the Knight Realms rules system, but for the people who use Might weapons there is an issue. While it is true that any character (including a certain 19 body mage whose reason for learning magic was not being as strong as his father while working in the fields) is capable of wielding a Might weapon, at the moment there are two classes that are capable of using a Might weapon proficiently. Comparatively, there are six classes with finesse proficiency (Gladiator, Bounty Hunter, Cavalier, Berserker, Cleric and Spellsword). And while it is true that these two classes do not need to be played as an anarchy happy killmonster or a glorious champion of the draconic bloodline, there are skills, skills that are the core to the list, that just don't make sense to take unless your character is open to being slightly more like one of those things. Not getting those skills just leaves you spending 10 build and one or two profession slots because you want that kickass custom greataxe of yours to deal decent damage on the battlefield.

Because of this, Might weapon users that aren't already Dragoons or CWs have three options (in my eyes):
1: Just ignore might proficiency and keep using skills with your 2HE despite dealing only base damage with it.
2: Get one of the two classes just for the sake of might proficiency (or use a legendary work esque abilities to earn the ability to buy might proficiency) and just say that your character knows how to use might weapons.
3: Get might proficiency from one of those other classes alongside other skills on the list you just blew ten build on, only to either ignore the skills like Spirit of the Dragon and Chaotic Alteration (and skills that are just too different from your character concept) or take those skills that normally your character wouldn't have and either fluff them differently or alter the character concept all because you like using two handers.

The question of whether or not a lower list defines a character depends on how much you let it based on the skills you take, but there is a distinct dearth of classes that can purchase might weapon proficiency, so going out of your way to get one of the two classes that can instead of progressing in your regular class may be seen as 'shooting yourself in the foot' solely because you like big swords and you cannot lie. I believe that the two most obvious solutions are either taking one of those two lists and embracing the slight changes that may have on the character or somehow making might proficiency more common.

Whew, that was a lot more text than I was expecting! I'll take the time now to say that this rules update is flat out amazing in terms of quantity, quality and ability to hype me up for KR!