Class

Many are the paths that a character can travel. Many are the choices that determine what destiny the character will fulfill. What destiny will unfold and what myriad roads will one travel? The officious life of a Courtier; lurking in the shadows of government, never seen but one's influence always felt? Maybe an Infiltrator; risking life and limb to be something that too few understand and none bear sympathy for? Or take the path less traveled? Will that make the difference?

Main Class and Subclass

The class system in BattleMaster is divided into two parts: a "main class" and a "subclass". Every character has a main class. This can be thought of as the character's general occupation.

To further refine your character, you can add a subclass. Basically, a subclass helps define the way you go about the work implied by your main class. Not all characters will have a subclass, meaning that subclasses are optional. Adventurers cannot have a subclass.

Be aware that choosing which class to play as is one of a noble's inalienable rights in Battlemaster. Anyone who gives you orders about choosing which class to play as should be reported to the Titans or Magistrates.

Main Classes

There are four main classes in BattleMaster:

Warrior - Focused primarily on combat and warfare.
Courtier - Focused primarily on the court and non-combat activities, such as government, region maintenance, etc. - also often combined with the diplomat or trader subclass
Priest - Focused primarily on expanding the influence of their religion.
Adventurer - Restricted to the special Adventurer characters.

Warrior

Almost all troop leaders start out life as a Warrior. A warrior can hire a unit, and can perform most of the basic actions in the game. This includes the ability to train their troops. Only characters with Warrior as their main class can train swordfighting. Many characters spend their entire lives as warriors and are perfectly happy that way. The advantage of being a warrior is that all non-class specific actions are available to you, however other classes may be superior to you in these activities, regardless of experience.

Courtier

"Bring order into the chaos. Concentrate on organisational skill and civil service. It may not bring as much glory, but it is less risky and you can actively improve the realm."

Courtiers are the class more focused on peaceful interaction rather than warfare. Characters who were bureaucrats and traders in the old class system are Courtiers in the new system. Courtiers are restricted in the amount of troops they can recruit. They cannot recruit cavalry or special forces at all. In addition, courtiers cannot train their troops. Courtiers have the following general abilities:

A Courtier's job is to ensure the smooth running of realm administration. Essentially a clerk, their job is to travel the realm and improve the stats of regions.
Most of the time, Courtiers will have little other than a small bodyguard for a unit.
Courtiers can not attend tournaments.
The main benefit of being a Courtier is the ability to do specialist bureaucratic work, intended to improve production, morale and loyalty of a region. Unlike most other kinds of work, this work will not come with a drop in morale for a Courtier's unit.

Skills:

All courtiers can perform bureaucratic work regardless of their subclass, if they have one.
Courtiers cannot train swordfighting.

Requirements:

Honour needed: 20
Prestige needed: 5
21 days in realm.

Priest

"An end to war, and a new life. Spread the faith and convert people to your religion while taking care of its temples, shrines and holy sites."

A priest is a noble who has dedicated his life to religion. Priest characters cannot hire troops, and therefore cannot participate in battles at all.

Becoming a priest opens up a whole new world to you, though it comes at a price. The priest class justifies its own page, because playing a priest is much like playing a whole new game, the Priest Game. This class is strongly a roleplaying class. There is less to do in game terms than for other classes, but more options for interaction and roleplaying.

Requirement:

Honour needed: 20
Must be a full member of a religion.
Must be in the same region as a medium sized temple of that religion.

Adventurer

Adventurers are the only characters capable of dealing directly with monsters and undead before these form a group/horde and cause trouble in the region they are in. Adventurers can find and eliminate the evil creatures before they become a problem, and thus are quite valuable to a realm that wants to keep its regions peaceful and trouble-free.

Adventurers can (and often should) work together to eliminate these foul beasts.

Requirements:

Your account must be at least 30 days old

Subclass

A subclass is a refinement of the main class. It helps define the way you go about your work. Not all characters will have a subclass, meaning that subclasses are optional. Adventurers cannot have a subclass.

There are currently six subclasses:

Diplomat - Focused primarily on relations with other realms.
Ambassador - An officially sanctioned diplomat with the power to sign treaties for the realm.
Trader - Focuses on the food trade, and making money through financial transactions.
Infiltrator - Spies, saboteurs, bounty hunters, and assassins.
Cavalier - Highly respected knights that excel at leading cavalry into battle.
Hero - A knight that has chosen to personally lead his men in battle.

Diplomat/Ambassador

"Represent your realm and deal with foreign nobles. The pen can be mightier than the sword, or its extension. But beware: The intrigue in some courts is more dangerous than the bloodiest battlefield."

An Ambassador is simply a Diplomat with official support. Anyone can become a Diplomat, but only the ruler can turn a Diplomat (any Diplomat) into an Ambassador, or an Ambassador into a simple Diplomat again. Only Ambassadors have the abilities associated with treaties as described on the Enhanced Diplomacy page.

Diplomats have less troops than most other classes, and can only keep their unit as a police force. They can also spread word among lesser nobles that a realm is good, or bad for that matter. This tends to have an effect on the region, the level of effect as determined by the skill of the diplomat in speaking. It is easier to speak about your own realm, and harder to badmouth a realm that the lesser nobles belong to. An ambassador, due to its official position, is more effective at this than a normal diplomat. Warriors, courtiers, and priests can become diplomats (and ambassadors).

Requirements:

30 Honour
12 Prestige
31 days in realm

Cavalier (Paladin)

"A noble fighter, a knight of the realm. Cavaliers are highly respected knights who subscribe even more to the life of a nobleman."

Cavaliers could be considered the advanced version of soldiers. In return for being knighted, by swearing fealty to a liege, one is able to become a cavalier. Cavaliers are able to command more cavalry or special forces than a soldier of the same experience, and earn more honour in battle. However, cavaliers are too great to be reduced to civil work or paid work; they are unable to do these things.

Their devotion to Honour is such that they will not hunt a defeated foe nor plunder their lands - they will only meet them face to face on the battlefield.

Requirements:

50 Honour
20 Prestige
61 days in realm

Characteristics:

Gains a point of honour for every battle you participate, except against peasants. They can also recruit 20% more troops than others having as much honor, or 50% more in the case of cavalry units.

Hero (Martyr)

"Raise yourself above the ranks of the cannon fodder and become a living legend. Or a dead one, as that is the risk of heroes."

The greatest of fighters and a true warrior, the hero is nothing less then a living legend. The trouble is, living legends may die. This is the Achilles' heel: an injury during battle that would only seriously wound a lesser man would fell a hero. However, once on the path, one may not turn back. Victory and glory or death; such is the way of a hero.

Not all men are worthy of becoming heroes. A small amount of prestige is required to advance to the ranks of a hero; however, if you are determined to follow this path the pittance required should be no trouble.

As a hero, you join your men in the heat of battle, inspiring your unit to keep fighting. You are also able to inspire your men before battle and on the cold nights on campaign far away from home, raising their morale and their spirit to continue. Even peasants would welcome you to tell your tale, raising their morale and may even inspire them to greater loyalty and friendliness to your realm.

Of course, as the model warrior in your realm, you are respected more than the common rabble. Priests will always bless you in their temples should you come, and no man would expect yourself to lower yourself to do civil work or police work, nor to relegate your men to sentry duty. Should you be captured, your reputation and status as a hero will even reduce the abilities of your guards, which gives you a chance of escape not afforded to others.

Occasionally a hero can pick up volunteers from a home or allied region. These people tend to be inspired commoners; as such they tend to lower the training and cohesion value of a unit, but equipment is usually found.

Note: The martyr subclass does not actually appear in-game, but this is what Priest/Heroes are usually called. The martyr is merely a roleplaying description of the process of a religious noble becoming a hero.

Requirements:

25 Honour
10 Prestige
31 days in game

Trader

"Become a man of the coin, not the sword. Trading brings wealth and prosperity, if done right. It is also necessary to feed your troops and realm at times."

The trader is a noble who invests his time (and gold) in the movement of food, wood and other goods. Although many traders hope to make a profit by buying and selling for low and high prices respectively, others perform a selfless duty in buying food at any price merely to see that a region's population is supplied with food.

Like bureaucrats, traders cannot join tournaments, and can command fewer troops. Their units are also automatically set as mercenaries.

What they gain however the ability to improve their merchant skill at an academy, and the occasional side-profits in luxury goods. As well, trader scouts provide detailed economic information of the regions they investigate, although they will ignore troops, and Traders can chat with merchants to learn valuable market information from all over the continent.

Requirements:

25 Honour
5 Prestige

Infiltrator

"A spy, a saboteur, a man of the shadows. Only the most honourable nobles of the realm get away with this, at least for a while."

An infiltrator will make the shadows his friend as he sneaks and spreads dissent and chaos throughout the land. This is a career entrusted to only the most experienced of nobles; do not expect to rise quickly. Further, a infiltrator may not hold a government position (Ruler, General, Judge or Banker).

Although necessary, such trickery is beneath most nobles, and there is no honour in taking such a path. There will be little fame, gain, or glory on this path, unless the glory one seeks is in doing the job necessary and taking great risks for the greater benefit of one's realm. Infiltrators lead a solitary life, filled with disguise and low profiles. One that chooses this path does not travel it to protect oneself.

As an infiltrator, one will able to damage the production or fortifications of regions, preparing them for an assault. Infiltrators can break into tax offices to steal a region's gold, carry out assassinations, and even simply play around with road signs and confuse and befuddle those that travel the path.

Unlike other men, infiltrators are not bound by relationships of the realm or even to one's own countrymen. An infiltrator may attack those that are of allied realms or even their own realm as easily as one would a hated enemy. However, infiltrators can expect to find no mercy should they be captured. It is more common that an infiltrator is first banned for crimes against a realm before being deported or executed. But this is not always true - there are those that become so notorious that they can be executed the same as even the most common of rogues. Therefore, one must be wily, diplomatic, and tread softly; always check that none follow. Paranoia, danger and silence - such is the world of the infiltrator.

The Infiltrator Central is a very useful resource that can help aspiring and veteran infiltrators alike build and improve their skills.

Requirements:

40 Honour
5 Prestige
max 49 Prestige
31 days in game

Old Class System

Information regarding the old class system has been archived here: Class/Old Class System.

Recruitment limits

The classes and sub-classes have the following modifiers to the standard warrior/none recruitment limit:

Warrior=1
Courtier=0.25
Priest=0

None=1
Diplomat/Ambassador=0.33
Trader=0.5
Infiltrator=0.8
Cavalier=1.2 (1.5 for cavalry)
Hero=1.2

Note that your typical limit of special forces and cavalry is 1/3 of your limit for normal types (infantry, archers, and mixed infantry).