They have no special skills, but there is the determination to achieve something with every movement of the knife.
— Ragnarok Online, Novice Class Introduction
In games with a Job System and/or Prestige Classes, there will be a class that is essentially a blank slate or a Vanilla Unit, lacking the skills and proficiencies of other classes. The Player Characters only stay in this class due to there being no other options at first, the Starting Point Class. When the opportunity to change to a stronger class finally comes, the player will likely upgrade unless they are looking for a Self-Imposed Challenge or there are Delayed Level Benefits. What the Starting Point Class is named varies from game to game, such as Novice or Rookie to represent inexperience, or it may be a Humble Trade Class such as Commoner or Villager to represent a character's humbler beginnings.
In some games, the Starting Point Class will also be a solid endpoint class. This could be due to having more customizability than other classes and/or the class gaining bonuses as other classes are mastered.
When classes are linked to a tree of Prestige Classes, the Starting Point Class is a building block that unlocks classes with very different stats and abilities from each other. Sometimes, there may be multiple trees tied to different Starting Point Classes, separated by factors such as race, gender or faction.
There may be characters that do not begin with a Starting Point Class, such characters tend to be Crutch Characters who the others will eventually match or surpass in strength, or join after the other characters are expected to have moved away from the Starting Point Class.
A common class for Starting Units. Compare with Magikarp Power, a character who goes from weak to strong after a lot of work.
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Examples in Games:
Action RPGs
- Atlyss: A freshly created character begins as a Novice with a barebones list of abilities: innate (no need to even invest skill points) "Recall" that returns them to the safety of the Sanctum, "Recover" that is relatively potent heal but with long cooldown, "Rock Toss" that expands rocks as ammo by throwing them at enemies, and a race-specific initial skill. At level 10, players can talk to one of the three Guardians and pick up a "quest" that gives a book that unlocks a new class. Angela gives the Tome of the Mystic, Sally gives the Tome of the Bandit, and Enok gives the Tome of the Fighter.
Eastern RPGs
- Bravely Default: In all entries, the player characters will tend to start as Freelancers (with the exception of Elvis in Bravely Default II, who starts as a Black Mage). This starts as a Master of None, having middling stats and lacking a high affinity to any equipment. The class is tied to the Miscellany command, which mostly provides basic skills such as "Examine" to view enemy information, though at a high job level unlocks the valuable Mimic skill, which repeats the previous action of the user or allies without expending any resources. This class is also tied to the Late Bloomer ability, which increases stats based on how many jobs a character has mastered. In Bravely Default and Bravely Default II, this ability is an innate ability locked to the Freelancer job, while in Bravely Second this is a secret ability that can be learned after equipping the Awakening ability from the Yokai class and leveling up the Freelancer job to level 11.
- Dragon Quest VII: In the Reimagined version, each party member a personal starter vocation to tide them over until the Job System is available. For example, the Hero is a "Fledgling Fisherman", Kiefer is an "Heir Apparent", and Maribel is a "Mini Mayoress". While these vocations can provide some powerful abilities in their highest ranks, unlike the "real" classes they don't buff or debuff any of the characters' stats. (In the original version of the game, the characters start out class-less and remain that way for some time.)
- Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time: The player starts as the "Brand New" class, until introduced to the Life system shortly into the game. There's no reason to return to the Brand New life, as it has poor combat abilities and cannot craft or harvest.
- Final Fantasy III: The four player characters will start in a Starting Point Class, though what class depends on the version.
- In the Original and Pixel Remaster versions, everyone in the party starts as Onion Knights. With low stats and equipment options along with no special commands, the jobs the Wind Crystal offers will be a welcome change. However, by level 90, the Onion Knight stats start to rapidly improve along with the bonus of being the only class that can use the powerful Onion Equipment, potentially becoming the most powerful physical job in the game.
- In the 3D versions, the Onion Knight is a secret job, with the party now starting as Freelancers. The Freelancer is a useful class in the early game, being able to use all equipment and magic found before going through Nelv Valley. After passing through this valley, the Freelancer's restrictions become apparent, outdone physically by the Warrior and Monk, magically by the White Mage and Black Mage, and outdone in both categories by the Red Mage.
- Final Fantasy V: While the Freelancer can equip anything, having no innate abilities or stat bonuses along with no abilities to learn means there's little value staying a Freelancer after getting the Wind Crystal jobs. However, the Freelancer gains the passive abilities and stat bonuses of any mastered job, and can equip two commands freely, unlike most jobs which will have one command locked to their current job. While the Mime has similar bonuses plus three command slots to equip, the limited equipment options mean the job is more suited for magic-focused builds than physical builds.
- Octopath Traveler 0: The Player Character, Zero, starts out with a generic "Watchman" class to reflect the fact that their father leads the town watch and is teaching them how to fight. After the Doomed Hometown of the prologue, the player is allowed to shift Zero into any of the traditional 8 classes of the Octopath series. This contrasts the other two titles in the series (1 and 2), in which there are 8 Player Party characters, each with an assigned name and a class they already inhabit, and the player decides which one will be the central character for this save file.
- Xenoblade Chronicles X: The playable avatar (Rook/Cross) is the only character who can change classes and will always start in the Drifter class. Drifter offers no stat bonuses or skills on its own and uses Knives and Assault Rifles. Once class level 10 has been achieved, three advanced classes are unlocked that grant stat bonuses and skills, which further branches of into six tier 3 and tier 4 classes. There's however a bit of Magikarp Power, since Drifter is the only class that offers five skill slots and mastering a tier 4 class allows to use its weapons in any class, which would allow a wide choice of different builds.
Idle Games
- Evolve Idle: By default, all new citizens in herbivorous/omnivorous species are given the "Unemployed" job, which drains morale and contributes no resources but consumes less food. It's possible to set a different job (farmer, lumberjack or quarry worker) as the default once the infrastructure for it exists, as there's no limit to the number of people who can work there. Carnivorous species instead have hunter as the default job, which automatically produces food, while desert species or species on a Trashed planet give the Scavenger job, which gives a (very) minor boost to overall production.
MMORPGs
- EverQuest II: At the start of the game in 2004, all starting characters start as Commoners that are fished out of the oceans. It was only upon arriving at the Isle of Refuge that they would choose one of four archetypes: Fighter (Tank), Priest (Healer), Mage (Spellcaster), or Scout (Damage Dealer), and the class progression would go from there. The progression system was abandoned halfway through 2006, with new characters simply picking their desired class at character creation.
- MapleStory: Explorers, Cygnus Knights, and Resistance characters start off as Beginners, Noblesse, and Citizens, respectively. After reaching level 10 through some introductory quests, they can choose which class they want to become by talking to the NPC associated with that class.
- Ragnarok Online: All new Human characters start out as the Novice class, designed around being a beginner adventurer. They only ever have access to three skills (including Play Dead to avoid monsters), but at Level 10, they can change to one of the more conventional First Classes. If one stays a Novice until level 45, they can become a 'Super Novice'. Although versatile due to being able to learn all the skills of other First Classes, they end up as Glass Cannons due to their low HP and SP, along with losing the ability to Play Dead like a standard Novice.
- Tibia: New player characters start out in the state of "no vocation" on the Noob Cave island of Rookgaard. Vocationless characters are deprived of magic, lack any bonuses to skill increase when Stat Grinding, and gain only the base amount of max Hit Points, Mana and carrying capacity when leveling up. Upon reaching level 8, a pop-up tooltip tells the player that they're able to leave Rookgaard behind for the proper game, embarking on a one-way trip — first through Island of Destiny to pick one of four vocations and optionally get in a bit of practice playing as them (up to level 10, when they're immediately teleported out of the dungeon), then going to the mainland forever.
Sports Games
- Football, Tactics & Glory: Rookie players, including the squad you inherit at the start of the game, have one of four starter classes that denote their preferred position but otherwise confer no gameplay benefits: Keeper (K), Defender (D), Midfielder (M), or Forward (F). Once a rookie player gains enough experience in a certain position, you can upgrade them to either a specialised class for that position, such as Left-Back (LB) or Defensive Midfielder (DM), or an upgraded version of their starting class, each of which has unique abilities and bonuses. The exceptions are Keepers, who can only upgrade to Goalkeepers (GK), but again, in doing so they gain a huge boost to their abilities.
Strategy RPGs
- Final Fantasy Tactics: At the start of the game, only the Squire and Chemist jobs are available. The Squire is the first physical job available, capable of basic offensive and defensive abilities with the Fundaments skill. The Chemist is the first Magick job available, though not having magick, is the only job that can initially use restorative items. Both jobs allow for an upgrade to different classes when their Job Level is at 2, with Knight and Archer the options for Squires while Chemists unlock the White Mage and Black Mage jobs.
- Fire Emblem:
- Fire Emblem Gaiden: The majority of starting units in Alm's party will be Villagers, a sword-wielding class with minimal combat capability. Alm and Lukas start in the Fighter and Soldier classes respectively, while Gray, Tobin, and Kliff, along with Faye in Shadows of Valentia, will start as Villagers. At Level 3, villagers can change class, with the men able to change to Mercenary, Soldier, Cavalier, Archer, or Mage, while Faye can change to Cleric, Mage, Pegasus Knight, or Cavalier, with their stats changing to fit their new classes. Atlas, the sole villager found in Celica's party, fits Magikarp Power more, due to being found halfway through Celica's first chapter. Noticeably, the Dread Fighter (the third-level version of a Mercenary) can also class change back to a Villager, allowing them to repeat the cycle while keeping their stat growth.
- Fire Emblem: Three Houses: Byleth, Cyril, the Lords, and all characters recruited before Chapter 3 start out as either a Commoner or a Noble. All characters do have access to one of the two classes, and mastering either gives the unit access to "HP +5", a valuable early-game ability when your units have lower hit points. Outside the mastery ability, there is little reason to stay either class after unlocking Beginner Classes at Level 5, as both classes offer no skill bonuses linked to actions unlike other classes, a limited amount of magic compared to dedicated magic classes and low stat increases upon leveling, with Noble offers only a slight bonus to Charm while the Commoner offering no bonus at all.
- Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen: Male units start off as Fighters while female units start as Amazons. As the units' stats improve, new classes become available.
- Ogre Battle 64: Units start off as generic "Soldiers", who operate in small squads of three. When a "Soldier" squad has enough experience, one of the Soldiers herein can become a proper unit, with male Soldiers becoming Fighters and female Soldiers becoming Amazons. A Soldier's gender is determined by the leader of their team.
- SD Gundam G Generation: A key gameplay feature of the series is the evolution mechanic, where a unit at a certain level can be evolved into another. Across the various games, basic Mook units from various Gundam series are the easiest for players to gain. These Mook units are key to unlocking even the protagonist machines. For example, the GM from Mobile Suit Gundam usually can be evolved into the Ground Combat GM from Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team , the Cold Climate GM or the GM Command from Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, or the iconic RX-78-2 Gundam.
Tabletop Games
- Lancer: Downplayed. At License Level 0-1,note pilots only have access to the three frames of the General Massive Systems manufacturer; Sagarmatha, Chomolungma, and Everest. The frames lack the flashiness, complexity, and specialization of the ones by other manufacturers and in-universe are described as generalist workhorses, however they do have fairly balanced stats and are incredibly modular as pilots acquire more license levels to supplement their fairly basic toolkit. Chomolungma in particular can keep up with other hacking-based frames and in certain cases excel because it's so generalized.
Turn-Based Tactics
- XCOM: Enemy Unknown: At the beginning of the game, the player will be given twelve Rookie soldiers. After gaining one kill, the Rookie will be promoted to the Squaddie rank and randomly become either an Assault, a Heavy, a Sniper or a Support.
- XCOM 2: The Rookie class returns, with the player only starting with four to show the lesser manpower available to them. With one kill, the Rookie will be promoted to Squaddie and become either a Ranger, a Grenadier, a Specialist or a Sharpshooter.
Examples in Other Media:
Literature
- KonoSuba: In the Parallel World, the Adventurer is the only adventuring class that doesn't require a threshold of stats to unlock. It is generally seen as a Master of None in-universe to spend as little time in as possible before upgrading, as while an Adventurer learn any skill, they can only learn intermediate and expert-level skills with a large markup of skill points along with having poor stat bonuses. Kazuma ended up with the job due to his low stats aside from Intelligence and Luck, and wanting to be an adventurer rather than take a Humble Trade Class like merchant better suited for his stats. Due to the Crippling Overspecialization of his teammates, Kazuma stays this job to have its versatility make up for that. Eventually however, Kazuma discovers however that the Adventurer is more in line with an Elite Tweak, as learning any skill means any skill, learning the Drain Touch from Wiz, a Disc-One Nuke that usually only known by high-level Lichs. Kazuma eventually has the potential to be a One-Man Army thanks to learning stealth skills from Thieves, sniping skills from Archers, and even Explosion magic from his Arch Wizard party member Megumin.
- Saintess Summons Skeletons: Children of people who are in the System are automatically inducted into the System themselves at birth, and given the [Child] placeholder class, which doesn't level up — likely as a protective measure, discouraging them from going out to fight monsters (and discouraging anyone from making them do it). The only benefit of [Child] is that every option is still open.
