I’m building the racial archetypes for the game, starting with the five playable races: Elezen, Hyur, Lalafell, Miqo’te, and Roegadyn. I also started with the 2.x classes (including Rogue). I haven’t started on talents or magic yet, but I know where I want to go, at least. And I know about jobs. So what does all this look like, and what do I think is coming next?

  • Jobs: I want most of the mechanics to be provided by a “soul crystal”, which is a piece of equipment. The soul crystal will act as a magical implement, allowing you to use certain forms of magic more easily, e.g. chakras for Monk or summoning magic for Summoner having similar benefits as existing implements.
  • Can anyone just pick up a Soul Crystal? Maybe, maybe not. I think it would be good to have a ranked Talent that does two things: unlock the power of a specific Soul Crystal (e.g. Soul of the Paladin), and make one associated skill a career skill (e.g. Conjury Aether for the Paladin’s curative and protective spellcasting). So you’d need both the Talent and the crystal to “be” a paladin. Each Talent rank past the first unlocks two more Soul Crystals, and you pick one more relevant career skill. This means at tier 5, you’ve unlocked a maximum of 9 crystals, which I think is pretty accomplished.
  • I know one other Talent I want: “Cavalry Training” or something like it. You get Riding as a career skill, and advantage on any maneuvers where your trained chocobo is able to help you.
  • Magic: I plan to keep using the Genesys magic system as written, but write up specific spells e.g. Cure 1/2/3 in advance.
  • Magic Talents: I will import something like the “Signature Spell” talent from Realms of Terrinoth to make it easier to cast such things. Others might appear as well, e.g. something to replicate the Black Mage’s Astral Fire/Umbral Ice rotation.
  • That said, not every adventurer is the Warrior of Light. I want to leave room for characters to come up with their own styles of magic, their own mixture of effects, and so on. I’ll be creating Talents with this in mind.

More on the way soon!