RPGs With Great Class Systems

Class systems have been a staple of RPGs for years, becoming one of the genre's most defining mechanics. If you're a fan of these types of games, you're sure to have your favorite character archetype in mind before you even get into the character creation menu.

Whether it's a powerful Wizard (who doesn't love some good spellcasting combat), a smooth-talking Rogue, or a sword-carrying Warrior, classes help tell us who our character is and how they interact with the world. All of this comes together to help ease us into the unique world we're about to explore and sink hundreds of hours immersing ourselves in.

This list will take a look at some of the best RPG games with stellar class systems that go the next step beyond just the blueprint, either by pushing the game's role-playing potential or utilizing its classes to prompt players to brainstorm unique builds during their run.

10 Dragon Quest VII Reimagined

Multi-Classing With "Moonlighting" For a Second Vocation

The Dragon Quest series is known for its wide variety of vocations, which are like classes, except you can equip them across multiple characters. By equipping a vocation, your character will gain access to its stat bonuses, skills and spells, and after mastering said vocation, you'll get to transfer those abilities over to another one to make for some truly broken builds.

This year's Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined introduced the new Moonlighting mechanic, letting characters equip a second vocation to level alongside their main job. Not only does this help ease the overall grind it would normally take to level all vocations, but it introduces even more opportunities to craft powerful builds on characters. What this also means is that you can synergize different abilities across characters to make sure you're not caught off-guard again. One setup I found particularly helpful was running a character with the Paladin and Priest vocations. After leveling the Priest vocation for bit, you can unlock the Grace of the Goddess spell, which instantly revives a K.O'd character without having to waste a turn bringing someone back in a chaotic fight.

You can also follow this up by casting Kerplunk, which sacrifices your life and grants a full heal to your party. Thanks to Grace of the Goddess, though, you'll also revive, effectively resetting the battle from scratch. It takes a bit of setup, but this strategy saved me while trying to grind some much-needed levels in the tougher areas of the game, also helping me catch up for some of those tough late-game areas.

9 Final Fantasy XIV

Multi-Classing Without Penalty

One of the biggest barriers to entry I have with MMOs is picking a class for my first character. There's no worse feeling for me than starting a character and investing 10, 20, maybe even 30 levels, just to realize it's not for me. This usually leads me to drop the game and never come back to it.

Thankfully, in Final Fantasy XIV, you'll be able to pick up every class in the game (some are better suited to beginners than others) and switch to them throughout the main story to help fill in for any party. To get started, all you have to do is speak to a job quest giver, who will introduce you to a mentor. This will kick off a unique story arc that will teach you its identity and why you might want to make it your main.

Then, outside of combat, you can either set up a button on your hotbar to instantly switch your class outside of combat or simply switch your weapon to change jobs. Just like that, you'll be able to change roles to join any party, without the needless tedium of logging out to switch to another character.

8 Baldur's Gate 3

Where Class Systems And Role-Playing Reach an All-Time High

In most RPGs, usually the class you pick only impacts your gameplay experience. However, in rare cases like Baldur's Gate 3, your class can also dramatically change how characters will interact with you. For example, choosing to play as a Cleric can offer a wide range of dialogue choices depending on which deity you choose to worship. If you choose to worship Selune, your Shar-worshipping companion Shadowheart might have a thing or two to say about that.

Not respecting your class and the roleplay offered by them can also have mighty consequences for your playthrough. If you choose to play as a Paladin and forget to switch characters while pickpocketing, you can end up violating your oath, thus becoming an Oathbreaker. Sure, you could pay a hefty sum of gold to reclaim your oath, but I think it's far more rewarding to live with the consequences and pivot your roleplay to the outcome given to you.

7 Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Class Variety in Every Playthrough

No single playthrough of Fire Emblem: Three Houses will be the same, and this tactical RPG's class system offers up plenty of replayability by forcing you to adapt with each run. As you'll quickly learn after leveling up the first few times, it's possible a character can just be really unlucky and get rather poor stat bonuses. For some, this could be a bench-worthy outcome. However, if you choose to roll with the punches, you can decide to re-spec the character to become a stronger utility player that won't need access to those impressive stat bonuses.

These classes are separated between Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and Master tiers, which you'll slowly unlock throughout the game. Each tier will have a more advanced version of the class before, with more branches to hone in on a playstyle the previous class embodied. Want your character to keep using bows? Well, future classes like the Sniper will give you extra range on your attacks. Or you can opt into the Bow Knight class to traverse even more ground during battle for some gnarly setups.

I personally opted to make everyone in my party a Bow Knight regardless of stats and let them roam freely across the battlefield, sniping unsuspecting enemies from afar. Regardless, Fire Emblem: Three Houses offers players plenty of options to build out their chosen faction, no matter how disappointing their stats may seem.

6 Final Fantasy V

The Blueprint For Job Systems in RPGs

It's impossible to talk about great class systems in RPG's without mentioning the original GOAT, Final Fantasy V. Taking control of Bartz and crew, players can invest in up to 26 distinct jobs throughout their playthrough.

During battle, you'll earn experience for both your own individual level and your job level. After mastering the job, you'll get its best stat bonuses and innate abilities. Characters will retain all of these skills throughout your playthrough, and can equip these innate abilities in their spare slots to either boost up their damage or make them more well-rounded in battle.

After maxing out all of your classes, you can actually switch back to the original Freelancer class and equip all of these innate abilities at the same time, which can be quite broken by the late-game.

Until then, feel free to experiment and get weird with your builds. I'm prone to equipping a White Mage with the Dragoon's Jump ability to disrespetfully finish off some important boss battles. Sometimes free will really does make evil possible.

5 Octopath Traveler

Mix And Match Jobs And Sub-Jobs to Craft Your Eight Perfect Heroes

Octopath Traveler was an excellent homage to the classic JRPGs that came before it, and one of its best features was its use of sub-jobs. Each character comes with their own main job, however they'll also be able to equip an extra sub-job to help add some extra tools to their arsenal.

As you battle, you'll also earn Job Points, which you can spend to unlock more powerful abilities available to said class. Even better, whenever your purchase a passive ability for a character, you'll be able to inherit that ability forever, even after switching classes later. My advice is to not get too attached to one character's sub-class and try to move them around plenty. Come late game, you'll want most of your characters to inherit important skills like 'Surpassing Power', which lets you exceed the damage cap and hit for 99,999 damage.

Switching sub-jobs will also grant different stat boosts, so you can really think about which characters you want in your party and what subclasses you want to enhance their potential. All of which gives players plenty of customizable builds to suit their ideal playstyle while enhancing your party's intended roles on the team.

4 Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth

A Surprisingly Rich Take On a Satirical Class System

If you ever wanted a modern-day parody of classic RPG classes, you won't find a better example than Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth.

The Yakuza series has always had an irreverent lean, so it should come as no surprise that its class system would play with the genre's sensibilities. As such, real-world professions will take the place of your usual class roles, replacing them with the likes of musicians, security guards, and idols.

My personal favorite is the cowboy-inspired Desperado, purely because of the Essence of High Noon ability, which sees you having a classic standoff with an enemy. Rather than have Ichiban draw his gun faster than your opponent, he'll opt to pull out an entire Tesla cannon, decimating a poor street thug instead.

Not only does Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth have one of the most amusing takes on an RPG class system, but it's rich with the depth any fan would crave from the genre.

3 Dragon Age: Origins

A BioWare Classic With a Rich Class System

BioWare made its name crafting intricate narrative-driven RPGs that seamlessly draw you in. However, in my opinion, none reach quite the same heights of worldbuilding as Dragon Age: Origins, and a key reason for this is its class variety.

Not only will the class you pick have dramatic ramifications for the rest of the game (the Mage mains reading this would know), but you'll also gain access to unique subclasses as you play, which open up a variety of different playstyles and builds as well. For instance, if you're sick of getting beaten up as a meek mage, you can select the Arcane Warrior subclass to go face-to-face with warriors and out damage them.

More impressively, every sub-class feels radically different. So much so, that you'll want to make an entirely new character just to try it out right after your first playthrough.

Room To Experiment With Archetypes to Create a Flexible Party

While borrowing plenty of elements from Team Atlus' Persona series, Metaphor: ReFantazio introduces the opportunity to customize your story companions by allowing you to assign them a new class thanks to the new Archetypes.

These function similarly to Personas, in that you summon them in battle to either do mighty damage to foes, buff your party or heal your team in a pinch. Different dungeons throughout the game will also suggest specific party lineups to deal with the foes inside it. This can see you running a team full of four brawlers or bringing a more magic-focused party lineup to deal with whatever challenge awaits you.

Whether you decide to heed these warnings or not, Metaphor: ReFantazio goes out of its way to reward players who engage with its Archetype system and go the next step in ensuring their party comes ready for any challenge. There will be many over the 100+ hours you can spend with this title.

1 Final Fantasy Tactics

The Peak of Class Systems In Any RPG

Ask any group of RPG fans which class system is their favorite, and odds are Final Fantasy Tactics will come up more than once. Starting off as a simple Squire or Chemist, you'll start to branch into one of 20 distinct jobs, all of which come with desirable skills to help kit out your roster. As you level up and start maxing out classes, you'll get to equip different abilities learned by different jobs to create your ideal party lineup. Equipping a combination of an action ability, a secondary action, a reaction ability, a support ability and a movement ability allows you to enhance a character's key strengths or make up for glaring weaknesses.

It's this level of variety, mixed with the impeccable design of these classes, that has kept Final Fantasy Tactics a beloved entry among RPG fans. It helps that the story is among the best in the genre as well, and you are doing yourself a massive disservice by putting off experiencing it.