Topic: Three most frequently played professions - and why?

[DangerMan]

In your games up through the years, what has been the three most frequently played professions, and why?

For my circle they would be:

1. Fighter. Easily played, good combat.
2. Magician / Arcananist. High power at higer levels. Players want to play God.
3. Thief / Rogue.  Easily played, good combat. Additional skill set, as opposed to pure fighter.

[Nders]

1. Fighter: Awesomeness
2. Warrior mage(RM2)/Bard: Versatility, vast number of possibilities at mid through high level
3. Sorceror: Very dangerous spells at low levels, many ways to assist party at mid through high level

[Kristen Mork]

#1 = Warrior Monk: Certain players love them, but they don't seem to last very long
#2 = Three way tie
#2a = Fighter: Simple and necessary
#2b = Rogue: Provides good skill coverage and not as specialized as the thief (which I rarely see)
#2c = Magent: Who doesn't want to be a ninja!

After that it's mostly semis (Mythic, Monk, Paladin, Bard and Dabbler), plus the Magician and Swashbuckler.

[DangerMan]

1. Fighter: Awesomeness
2. Warrior mage(RM2)/Bard: Versatility, vast number of possibilities at mid through high level
3. Sorceror: Very dangerous spells at low levels, many ways to assist party at mid through high level

Wow! Surprised to see the Bard. We've always thought the base lists to be way under powered..

[naphta23]

In my current group, we have no profession taken twice, so I cannot say anything about the other players. My top choices are:

Fighter: easy to play and there is always need of a "meat shield," as far as I know.

Cleric: the backup for the "meat shields." Healing is needed afterwards and the other magical powers are usefull, too. And I can always try to find new followers for my religion. 

Outrider: I just love the mixture between archer and thief. On the one hand, it is not a criminal per se, but could be of help, should the need arise. On the other hand, I can deal some small amount of damage without standing next to the "meat shields," so I do not have to fear to be on the cover of the weekly Blood & Gore-magazine. 

[Nders]

Wow! Surprised to see the Bard. We've always thought the base lists to be way under powered..

We allow people to choose between being mentalism or essence (as pr Charltonian vs Amthorian view)
We do not use stunned maneuver so the stun song is rather powerful in our games. Also the way controlling songs can be increased in targets via Sound projection - notice that the various enhancing spells on that list are cast at the same time as the controlling song spell you are enhancing making it very useful when pressed for time.

We also allow people to attack whilst concentrating with -50 to ob as pr 11.3 Spell law second edition making a combination of stun songs or holding songs and attacking rather useful as well.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Cleric: the backup for the "meat shields." Healing is needed afterwards and the other magical powers are usefull, too. And I can always try to find new followers for my religion. 

Back in the day, one of the more common professions I saw was Channeling Healers who wanted lots of ranks in tumbling (Attack/Evasion) and MA Grappling, in hopes they wouldn't have to wait for afterwards. Pull the guy out from under the middle of the melee, transfer, and send him back in. Sometimes they even got away with it, but it's not for the faint hearted. Then again, Healers can afford to be suicidally courageous, since they're nearly impossible to kill without having to stop and think about it, random blows mostly won't do the job.

"Did you see those Huns? They just popped up out of the snow! Like daisies!" - Mushu

The other professions I most commonly saw were Rogue, just for the versatility, and some kind of semi spellcaster, usually a Ranger or Warrior Mage. The again, my players were usually half a dozen or so people who were more than a full day's travel from the nearest town (or even village), so they tended to try to cover everything. If the meat shield is down, someone has to be able to step up long enough for the Healer to get him back on his feet.

[markc]

 I will speak for my self and list my favorite professions;
1) Armsmaster
2) Cleric of God of War From RMSS/FRP CC
3) Rogue & Modified Ranger profession
MDC

[Lord Garth]

1)  Armsmaster.
2)  Chaos Lord.
3)  Forcemage.
4)  Magician.

So yeah, firepower is fun.

[yammahoper]

Priest: Channeling Companion, nuff said.

Fighters: flexibility is very good.

Mages: with fire and ice and ess comp, they have lots of choices.

[Faustized]

1:Fighter

2:Thief/Warrior monk/Swashbuckler (nearly in the same numbers)

3:Magician

[Cormac Doyle]

strangely, except when someone is really starting out, I've never seen anyone pick "fighter". Rogue is - for 95% of use-cases - better than Fighter ... much more flexible, with (almost) no downsides ...

[Mercenary30]

1. Fighter
2. Druid
3. Magician

[RandalThor]

For me (as a player):

1. Fighter - Usually with something else, like being sneaky and/or able to cast a limited number of low-level spells (usually mentalism) that augment and/or add to his fighting abilities.

2. Semi-Spell Caster - Like the Armsmaster, Monk, Ranger, etc..

3. Full-Spell Caster - But not a channeler; Pure-Essence, Mentalism, or Arcane.

[Cormac Doyle]

Rand

you CANNOT add magic use to a fighter ... hense my perference for a rogue (just compare the cost of spells and PP Dev between a rohue and a fighter)

[RandalThor]

As far as I have ever know with RM, anyone can learn to cast spells and get PP, it is just really, really expensive for some.

[Zut]

Back in the day, one of the more common professions I saw was Channeling Healers who wanted lots of ranks in tumbling (Attack/Evasion) and MA Grappling, in hopes they wouldn't have to wait for afterwards. Pull the guy out from under the middle of the melee, transfer, and send him back in. Sometimes they even got away with it, but it's not for the faint hearted. Then again, Healers can afford to be suicidally courageous, since they're nearly impossible to kill without having to stop and think about it, random blows mostly won't do the job.

Wow! Great tactic! Never thought of that. I always saw Healers as people constantly carried around on a stretcher, waiting for the healing to complete, almost half dead all the time.

As for my (three) favorites or popular in my group, it depends on the experience of the player. For a beginner, Fighter is an easy pick. After that, we usually choose something with some sort of spell casting abilities :
- magician
- cleric
- ranger
- bard

There's not a lot of people wanting to be on the front line, maybe because the Fighter seems boring (repetitive) in combat (we may be lacking some tactical skills here). (: It's also hard to get veteran D&D players to stop thinking about having "every type" of typical professions (combat - melee, combat - distance, healer, mage, thief) since RM allows more customization.

[GrumpyOldFart]

I always saw Healers as people constantly carried around on a stretcher, waiting for the healing to complete, almost half dead all the time.

So did my Healers, and they hated it. So they decided if they were going to be that way anyhow, they didn't want to have to wait until the fight was over to start. The more time they spend in healing coma while people are still busy fighting, the less time they spend being carried around unconscious while everyone else has all the fun.

 

[Nders]

you CANNOT add magic use to a fighter ... hense my perference for a rogue (just compare the cost of spells and PP Dev between a rohue and a fighter)

As far as I have ever know with RM, anyone can learn to cast spells and get PP, it is just really, really expensive for some.

Agreeing a lot with Randal Thor here.

[Marc R]

Fighter, Cleric and Magican, with Rogue a close 4th.