[concept only] Limiting Reclass for DS games - to simulate "Dismount" and or "Personal Preferences"?

[Prince Blueblood]

Oh well, blame my curiousity that lands me on a really interesting game that was named FE3 After I played FE11 and FE12...

Alright, so, rants about not being able to reclass Draug into hunter in FE3 and such, and after in separate event also tweaking with dslazy and nightmare to edit some stats for Shadow Dragon, and noticing the dismounted knight references.

So, uh, sorry to start with this, but we all knew all arguments that reclass reduce an units uniqueness (esp in FE12 after you unlock all male class), but still, in some sense, I did personally think that gameplay wise, reclass could be used to simulate what real army do if facing a different enemy loads, while only have the same men who could take things (due to the rest not having enough experiences to catch up or other things like limited X-only run).

So, how about actually limit the reclassing options for each characters? So everyone only get two or three (at most) classes, and they are custom tailored for each characters so they in fact giving more unique feels toward each characters rather than make them similar with each others.

Like Cain, Abel, Hardin all starts as cavalier, but when needed, or when the player feels like it, they can reclass into different unit, but its somewhat different for each others. Cain fight on horse as cavalier, but when needed on foot, he prefer to shed his armor and fight with swords as agile myrmidon. (Reclass : Cavalier - Myrmidon / Paladin - Swordmaster) Abel and Hardin fight on horse as cavalier, but when needed on foot, he prefer the opposite of Cain, aka don even heavier armor and fight with lances as Armor Knight. (Reclass : Cavalier - Knight / Paladin - General)

And while it could mean dismounting, it could also simulate different weapon preferences as well. Like Draug for example. He start out as knight in heavy armor, but when needed, he could fight without armor with bows as speedy hunter and later get his own horse as a horseman. (Reclass : Armor Knight - Hunter / General - Horseman).

Or if you really want, it could give you a way to simulate that only few has magic talent but those who have could use them as well. Like Cord, he start as a fighter, but he has option to reclass as Dark Mage (instead of other physical class) and start casting tomes, while his bros Barst and Bord cannot, and instead Barst get reclass option to Pirate, and Bord to Mercenary. With some proper tweak in stat growths, you can also make even more differences between those with magic. Merric has (more) strength growths, and when his magical casting expertise isn't needed, he could use a sword and become a myrmidon (and later swordmaster, and with his still existent magical growth, he could use levin sword effectively). Wendell in the other hand, prefer to keep things far when he didn't use his magic so he reclass into Sniper. Linde, being the highest in magic growth and no strength / defense gains, prefer to stay in magic class and use staff instead (so she can be cleric and start growing resistence more). Lena actually has pegasus for ride and could ride it into battle (reclass to pegasus knight). And Wrys of all people, could be secretly an expert in swordsmanship (with tweak to physical stats growths), so he could reclass into a very effective myrmidon and later swordmaster, but mediocre to poor curate otherwise (but since reclass to healer is more limited, he will see this job often)

And last but not least, considering Marth and the other usually non reclassable guys. Marth the Lord could "reclass" into Lord with horses. Thief could stay as thief, but has promoted thief class (maybe rogue), since they has the other job when thiefing is not needed, like Julian could reclass into Myrmidon, but Rickard the more fragile prefer distance fighting and reclass into archer instead. Bantu, instead of being helpless without Dragonstone, could equip an axe and fight as fighter, while Tiki... Oh well, she's a divine dragon so she could be mage as well.

What did you think then?

[Volug's Abs]

Yeah! I've been thinking the same thing. If I make a hack I'd love to have that as a feature. Like there would be units where their "base class" would be the mounted version and they could dismount, and foot units that could take mounts (or wyverns/pegasuses). There would be a sort of "penalty" for the additional movement, or an incentive to dismount.

However, I don't agree that physical units/magical units should be able to swap. Units should either stay one or the other, or be a class that has both (like in awakening)