Name: New class representing a new caste, aristocrats
Summary:
This proposal seeks to find a compromise between the desires for two characters per continent, and the advantages it brought, while bearing in mind and avoiding the major pitfalls that having two characters per continent brought.
Simply put, the aristocrat class would be an intermediate class between the existing "noble" classes, and the existing "non-noble" adventurer class. They would represent minor nobility, that have a clear and strong allegiance to their realm, but who lack many of the perks the full "major nobles" benefit from. A player could create an aristocrat directly if he can create an adventurer, and it would draw upon his adventurer pool for character limits. An adventurer who meets the requirements to become a noble would now become an aristocrat instead. To become a full on noble, it would require even more than he currently needs, possibly 5 recommendations and 20/10 h/p.
Details:
Aristocrats would not benefit from the major perks of nobility. They would not be included in the "message all nobles of the realm" chat. They would not be allowed to vote. They would not be allowed to become lords, dukes or hold government titles (but they would be allowed to pick an estate and become knights). They would not be allowed to lead troops. lord taxes on their estates would be doubled, and they would follow the same rules as adventurers for wealth and property taxes.
The aristocrat class would be turn-based, and have very few mechanics of its own. It would only have newbie mechanics available, such as visiting the locals and paid work. However, it would gain access to a number of subclasses, which would either be specific to them, or retweaked existing subclasses. For example:
Preacher: gets preaching and a few of the priest's abilities, but not the more advanced stuff like influencing region stats, auto da fe, or claim region. Gets to help morale of units that adhere to the same faith.
Officer: can target friendly units to improve morale, can evaluate how much stuff there is to forage, can make some activities (hunting, maybe looting, civil work, etc.?) more efficient, can recruit standard scouts.
Merchant: perks of the trader class, perhaps improved with some of the resource ideas.
Explorer: is essentially himself a scout, can look at a region to get a detailed report (perhaps including all the info from all the scout types?), can help troops find shortcuts?
Infiltrator: basically the current infil subclass
Administrator: basically courtier/diplomat stuff
An aristocrat, unlike an adventurer, would have his loyalties clearly displayed. On scout reports and when looking up a region, for example, they'd be there, showing their profession, family, and realm. Something like this:
Nobles here
nobody
Aristocrats here
John Poopoo, Administrator of Outer Tilog
Aroo Doodoo, Administrator of Outer Tilog
Bobby Looloo, Merchant of Outer Tilog
As a whole, aristocrats would have minor powers over realms compared to true nobles, but in numbers they will still be able to have appreciable impacts.
Benefits:
Many players crave for the possibility of a second character. But most importantly, the game was designed around two characters per continent. While the restrictions was wholly justified and overall beneficial, it did have many drawbacks that this proposal seeks to address. For example, the support classes... Having courtiers, priests, and diplomats was much easier back in the days, we had a lot more. Players didn't mind setting their secondary characters as support classes, because they were still able to fully participate in the team efforts with the "main" character. But nowadays? Most players I come across that play support classes do so because they feel their realm/religion needs it, but don't get much personal pleasure out of it at all. The loss of nobles overall, and the need to put some of these on support tasks, hurts realms' offensive capabilities, and thus the potential for war altogether. As it is, in many places, adventurers have been used as support alts anyways, for example with the wizard army of Angmar. But the problem with that is that adventurers are mostly hidden, weren't meant to be used as such, and aren't turn-based, so this class would help soothe that need while addressing that problem.
Downsides:
One of the drawbacks of 2 chars per continent was spying. This is addressed by aristocrats not being included in their realm chat. Another was grid-locking alliances, this is addressed by aristocrats both not being in the realm chat, as well as being unable to vote or hold office. A third drawback was drone characters, which were boring to interact with because they weren't really roleplayed, and again this is handled by putting them clearly on the sidelines.
