Character Archetypes

Character Archetypes are a quick way to to understand the role a charachter plays in a party. They were made popular in MMORPGs where you’d have charters that were DPS or Healers or Tanks and you needed a certain composition to make it through a particular quest. Archetypes function in a simmialr way in TTRPGs. However, archetypes are a solution for a charcter creation that locks the character in a particular role. In Numenera the role of archetypes is diminished by many reasons some of which I outline below but the main one is flexibility. Numenera doesn’t only have flexibility in character creation but once the character is created their role on the party can shift depending on the current party’s composition and needs.

There are various ways to look at Archetypes below are a few takes from specific books and then followed by my own.

Your Best Game Ever By Monte Cook

Your Best Game Ever talks about a generalist archetype or a focused character and presents 8 archetypes for the focused character:

  1. Warrior : deals damage
  2. Tank : can take a lot of damage
  3. Sneak : sneaky
  4. Face : good at talking
  5. Specialist : one area of knowledge
  6. Shaper : moves around the battle field
  7. Nullifier : nullifies opponents
  8. Supporter : aids usually by healing

These are far too many in my opinion.

Live to Tell the Tale by Keith Ammann

Live to Tell the Tale presents 6 ability contours for a D&D-type game based on their abilities:

  1. Front Line : Tank/Melee
  2. Shock Attacker : Sneak Attacker (Assassin)
  3. Skirmisher : Ranged or Finesse-weapon attacker
  4. Marksman : Range only attacker (Sniper)
  5. Supporter : Aids usually by healing
  6. Slinger/Glass Cannon : Deal lots of damage but can’t take any.

My Take on Archetypes

Based rather heavily on Keith Ammann work, I like to sum this up into 4 battle archetypes:

  1. Front-line : Tank, Warrior
  2. Second-line : Armored Supporter, Skirmisher
  3. Third-line : Marksman, Shock Attacker(Sneak Attacker)
  4. Protected/Strategist : Glass Cannon
  1. Front-line => Melee Fighter, goes toe-to-toe with the enemies
  2. Second-line => Armored Aid, can take a hit but supports or can attack from the second row, either ranged or with a pole-arm.
  3. Third-line => Not very armored but can take some damage, and can attack from afar or needs to move in and out of the front row like a sneak attacker.
  4. Protected/Strategist => Unable to fight melee effectively, either aids from afar or attacks from afar.

These make more sense but none quite map to Numenera because:

  1. Any character can wear armor. The penalty for wearing armor is not being able to avoid getting hit as easily. So if you’re good at avoiding getting hit like a Striker, you may not even need armor or a dedicated Tank character. You can also quickly get armor or loose it as the group make-up changes. There is flexibility in armor.
  2. No single pool of damage. Even though excess damage spills over to other pools, damage can occur to multiple pools simultaneously and its kept track separately. This prevents the whole hit-points being one single pool.
  3. No single character-type has a monopoly on massive damage capabilities like a Wizard in D&D does.
  4. Only three ability scores as opposed to six in other RPGs.
  5. The importance of non-combat roles in Numenera is larger than in other RPGs.

In Numenera Archetypes aren’t that common because you have more flexibility in how you create your character. For example: To make a healing character like a cleric in a fantasy RPG, you can pick a glaive and the focus “who performs miracles” that only uses bashing (blunt) weapons but you can also pick a jack or nano.

Conclusion

The value of looking at the archetype in Numenera lies in giving a group variety, preventing characters from filling the same role in the group and clashing. By looking at archetypes you can find or carve a niche for your character from the get go.