What're the least and most lore-friendly jobs for an RP character to have?

Supposedly anyone could become, say, a machinist, but jobs like dark knight seem to be.. a special case. Which jobs seem like fair game for your run-of-the-mill adventurer, and which ones would need some heavy justification to fit within the world's lore?

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Originally Posted by Jzarah

and which ones would need some heavy justification to fit within the world's lore?

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I don't understand...
All jobs fit in the world's lore...

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Originally Posted by ItMe

I don't understand...
All jobs fit in the world's lore...

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What I mean is, your average joe isn't going to become a gunbreaker. There's not a million of them running around. If I remember correctly, your job trainer is supposed to be "the last one" until you become one.

*sits in his rocking chair with a tall class of Crystal Light and a NERF gun, ready to fire a single dart at anyone who says BLM or WHM before SMN*

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Originally Posted by Jzarah

What I mean is, your average joe isn't going to become a gunbreaker. There's not a million of them running around. If I remember correctly, your job trainer is supposed to be "the last one" until you become one.

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Ah, I see.
Wait... I haven't played GNB, but aren't there a bunch of them in Bozja? What do you mean your trainer is "the last one?"
And wouldn't they just... be able to keep training other people? Do they die or something?

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Originally Posted by ItMe

Ah, I see.
Wait... I haven't played GNB, but aren't there a bunch of them in Bozja? What do you mean your trainer is "the last one?"
And wouldn't they just... be able to keep training other people? Do they die or something?

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I think the Gunbreaker questline was written before Bozja was considered, but also sure, they can train other people, but the likelihood of someone that can't see big blue exclamation points on their map running into the sole trainer of an exotic combat art seems very slim. Meanwhile the Manufactory in Ishgard is making artificial soul stones and actively trying to recruit people to become Machinists.

Actually, on a more serious note, I know some roleplayers who are obsessed with this question and keep this speculative document going to try to answer it. As a lore archivist, my answer is usually entwined with the nuance that Square Enix wants you have some excuse to sensibly see yourself as any job you want to be. They deliberately leave loopholes open, so even if we can Pirates vs. Ninjas a list of more vs. less accessible jobs together, at the end of the day the most difficult one to get a hold of is just as "likely" as the easiest, from a certain point of view.

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Actually, on a more serious note, I know some roleplayers who are obsessed with this question and keep this speculative document going to try to answer it. As a lore archivist, my answer is usually entwined with the nuance that Square Enix wants you have some excuse to sensibly see yourself as any job you want to be. They deliberately leave loopholes open, so even if we can Pirates vs. Ninjas a list of more vs. less probably jobs together, at the end of the day the most difficult one to get a hold of is just as "likely" as the easiest, from a certain point of view.

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This is actually incredibly helpful, thank you!

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Originally Posted by Jzarah

but also sure, they can train other people, but the likelihood of someone that can't see big blue exclamation points on their map running into the sole trainer of an exotic combat art seems very slim.

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I mean... just because their first apprentice meets them in the East Shroud doesn't mean everyone after that needs to stumble upon them being attacked by a highway man.
Especially since... doesn't the questline afterwards take place with them hanging about New Gridania?

Also, does this mean you are RPing where you can see quest markers?

I guess what I'm saying is most jobs are only an issue if you're looking to make them as such. If you're RPing you don't even need to have the same backstory as the game lays out for you. We get our chocobo given to us from the ranch, but some RPers pretend it's been their choco since they were kids, or that it was their fathers mount.
One could say "yeah, I'm a GBN. I picked it up from..." and then just make up literally anything.

If two people both wanna adhere to the in game GNB quest though is that really a problem? You will never ever get your RP lore to be compatible with everyone else's.



So I guess, to awkwardly loop back around to your question...
NIN is probably the toughest since it is a secret art being taught to you by a foreigner.

SCH sounds hard for multiple people to be when you focus on the Tinberry stuff, but you become a SCH because "oh cool it's a fairy."

Everything else* is pretty much fair game, even WAR which is about you helping a guy rediscover lost WAR arts. You can just make some shit up about how you independently learned the true inner power was friendship.

*not that I've played them all though lol

I misunderstood the thread title when I first saw it and I was prepared to come in here to say the most likely is "farmer" and the least likely is "WoL".

I think most roleplayers get this idea that the jobs are specifically harder to get due to the way they're setup, but also due to the way RPers approach wanting to try to perfectly mesh being a young character in the world in a relatable way. You see tons of overlap and such between RPers, because let's be honest, when RP is communal people often steal/take/lift/bite/borrow/blend ideas they see other people do. It results in flavor of the month sort of characters that change every few months to whatever's in style.

That aside, you just have to realize that RP is essentially writing. The limits to it are tied to your imagination. While the game does like to make proclamations such as, "This is the last scion of the noble Allagan house of pantaloons, and you just so happened to be able to master it and kill off the only remaining heir that could possibly master the technique!" It is also just as quick to dismiss or retcon such notions with things such as, "Character X was presumed dead by Ye Olde RDM mentor or Ye Olde BLM mentor, but they weren't. They were just missing on the other side of the world, and hey, guess what, they taught the super special snowflake unique arts to some chick you see at a cursory glance in Ye New Bozja content."

This absolutely gives you the freedom to do the same. It's a wild and fantastical world, and until something concrete completely contradicts your idea, then you needn't give what seem to be complications a second thought. A lot of the world in FFXIV will forever remain a mystery so that the devs can continue the game for as long as it prints money, which ain't happening any time soon!

Some ideas just off the top of my head, for even the lost/special/one and onry types of jobs:

SMN - Character winds up being the son or daughter or what have you of an Allagan Clone who went off rails and managed to reproduce naturally with a loving man/woman, passing the art onto their offspring, who inherited the same primal residuals via genetics.

SCH - Every technique comes from somewhere. Someone has invented every job. One such Arcanist fond of butterflies and knowing of Fae style myth delves into "new" aetherial geometry, creating their own fairy/pixie. Later on they learn they weren't the first person with this idea. There's nothing new under the sun.

RDM - An ex-Crimson Duelist, thought slain by the traitor, instead he clung stubbornly to life, devoid of memory and magicks for no few years. Time heals most wounds, and certainly ends them all, so one day this person finds they know a spell called Jolt. Over the proceeding moons, more follows, and soon they've a small sword and catalyst in hand once more, ready to strike out to find what became of the other RDMs and the traitor.

DRK - "Do you truly think that Ser Ompagne Deepblack was the first person whose heart burnt out of time with righteous indignation for all those suffering under oppression or betrayal? The first person whose aether swirled and churned from a burning black heart? The only one ever moved to possess a technique allowing one to move their broken body in spite of any missing ligaments or sinew? Then you're a fool who's ignored history. I know not where my mentor learnt the arts, nor where he found these soul crystals, but he did and now I do, and neither of us are Ishgardian." - A large Hyur, all in deepest black, wielding a sword that's less a sword and more a giant slab of steel.

I could go on, and while I wouldn't(and don't) have the best examples for how to do this, my point is that if you can think of a way to write it in, you can make it make sense. There's a lot more room for this kind of stuff than a lot of RPers think. Particularly because the NPCs we encounter in the game are not anywhere close to all knowing. They are frail and fallible and certainly not the lore keepers or masters.

It IS kind of a debatable point about the canonicity of the other players you see in the world. Tongue-in-cheek dialogues will say they're your adventurer friends and are lore-accurate, but as ARR jobs took pains to establish how rare these arts are and how forbidden they are and how no-one else would ever be using this fobidden magic anywhere... (likely to make the jobs feel that more special over their base classes) It ends up painting that immersion into a corner (ans, as has been previously debated endlessly, the race/gender combinations are not exempt from this, such as a newbie will see a flood of Au Ra around Coerthas Central before they're at the point that Ishgardians consider maybe not shooting them on sight. Hell, the PC may be one of those).

Outside of a handful of Jobs that have positioned the WoL as the unique practitioner, or at least unique-outside-of-specific-race (WHM and SCH come to mind), the rest find some lore justifications: You can headcanon White Mages as simply random conjurers who just so happen to know Holy... for reasons. Or Alphinaud's unique Academician job can serve as a headcanon for other Scholar players. Or maybe X'run ended up training other people and didn't mention it, or other Red Mages that eventually trained their own pupils that show up in Bozja. GNB actually deals with other practicioners who were away from Bozja and ended up training their own disciples (Thancred among them). While MCH is specifically recruiting new members at all times. Dancers don't seem to have a problem bringing in new people, either. Even Summoner brings in more people with the ability to Summon in their story, if you get enough job crystals (of which there is a surplus in the SMN job quests) you just need to go on an expedition, absorb some of the constantly resummoned Primals' aether, and you got yourself a new Summoner, with the added benefit that apparently everyone in Eorzea got a healthy dose of Bahamut-flavored aether, so even Dreadwyrm trance is rando-canon.

Bottom-line is: uhhh, try to ignore other players as much as possible? And for RP purposes, I guess people would just need to get on the same page? If you're decidedly going full-in-universe canon then not everyone can be the only Non-Padjali White Mage, or one could handwave it for RP purposes as a cabal of "Not-White-Mages" closer to Eastern Geomancers.

As for the actual question, I'd think the most likely to have a bunch of people running around with job stones would actually be Blue Mage, given how they're actually SOLD, alongside a spellbook and a cane. After that, possibly Machinist, Monk after the events of 4.0, and probably Dancer; with the special snowlakes being White Mage, likely Scholar, and certainly Dark Knight. The rest sit somewhere in the middle as "rare but not incredibly rare, just not common to Eorzea"

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Originally Posted by WhiteArchmage

It ends up painting that immersion into a corner (ans, as has been previously debated endlessly, the race/gender combinations are not exempt from this, such as a newbie will see a flood of Au Ra around Coerthas Central before they're at the point that Ishgardians consider maybe not shooting them on sight. Hell, the PC may be one of those).

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It seems implied that the Ishgardians realized they screwed up with Au Ra after the incident with Sidurgu and his tribe because they simply refer to Alaqa as a foreigner and Adkiragh also tried to seek asylum within the city but was denied.

I'm honestly still kind of bothered about the lack of closure regarding that, since it doesn't seem like anyone actually owed up to the mistake.

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Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

I misunderstood the thread title when I first saw it and I was prepared to come in here to say the most likely is "farmer" and the least likely is "WoL".

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so Reaper?
thats all they are angry haunted farmers

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Originally Posted by Duskane

so Reaper?
thats all they are angry haunted farmers

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I'm really interested in getting to the Reaper story, because depending on the context we're given, it might be one of the least 'RP-friendly' jobs for entirely different reasons to stuff like Scholar.

With how seriously voidsent are taken as a danger in most of the game's story, Reaper might be one of the only jobs we have access to that's legitimately a pariah to most modern society. Especially given it's Garlean, which isn't exactly an ethnicity with positive connotations right now, either!

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Originally Posted by Jzarah

What I mean is, your average joe isn't going to become a gunbreaker. There's not a million of them running around. If I remember correctly, your job trainer is supposed to be "the last one" until you become one.

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Gunbreaker actually seems like one of the easier jobs for an average joe to pick up, the lack of trainers and weapons is definitely the main bottleneck.
The actual art of 'Gunbreaking' definitely strikes me as one of the easier ones to learn though, you don't need to remember a bunch of ancient incantations, bathe in demi-god aether, or master your inner beast/darkness/dragon/etc. You just need to know how to swing a sword and make sure you have some sticky labels for your various cartridges.

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As for other players out in the world and such, I don't know, people often seem very rigid in their thinking on this.
A bloke with a big two-handed sword doesn't have to be a Dark Knight specifically, they might just be a bloke that knows a bit of magic and can swing around a big two handed sword pretty well.

That's my take on it anyway, the other people knocking about are not the super special chosen one, but they are very very good at what they do and at a glance it does look very similar to what I, the actual super special chosen one, can do. :p

remove your jobstone for rp and youll be ok

A lot of the jobs leave room for generic versions of jobs to exist. Like for Dragoon, you become an “Azure Dragoon”, but there are other dragons about. Even Dark Knight, sure..YOU met Fray and did that quest line..but there is no reason someone else didn’t have alternative origins.

Even with Gunbreaker, I was always led to believe he just thought he was the last, not that he actually factually had to be the last.

For me, for RP, the most difficult ones would be location specific like Ninja or Samurai or even possibly Dragoon on a character NOT from Doma/Kugane/Ishgard…but even that could work somehow.

>>Link to thing someone else wrote<<

aka If you wanna get into stupid fights, pick WHM/BLM
and then spend your time wondeing: but how can I make even my retainer into WHM/BLM, just by filling up some paperwork?

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Originally Posted by Jandor

As for other players out in the world and such, I don't know, people often seem very rigid in their thinking on this.
A bloke with a big two-handed sword doesn't have to be a Dark Knight specifically, they might just be a bloke that knows a bit of magic and can swing around a big two handed sword pretty well.

That's my take on it anyway, the other people knocking about are not the super special chosen one, but they are very very good at what they do and at a glance it does look very similar to what I, the actual super special chosen one, can do. :p

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Granson comes to mind. He's definitely not a Dark Knight (it'd probably be known as something else on the First, if at all, regardless) but via "convergent evolution", on account of his choice of weapon, we see him with a greatsword even before what happened to him, and his subsequent inner turmoil, he's ended pretty damn close to one

how he ended up wearing Alliance gear from the Source is another issue altogether

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Originally Posted by Anonymoose

Actually, on a more serious note, I know some roleplayers who are obsessed with this question and keep this speculative document going to try to answer it. As a lore archivist, my answer is usually entwined with the nuance that Square Enix wants you have some excuse to sensibly see yourself as any job you want to be. They deliberately leave loopholes open, so even if we can Pirates vs. Ninjas a list of more vs. less accessible jobs together, at the end of the day the most difficult one to get a hold of is just as "likely" as the easiest, from a certain point of view.

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Some of these are a little questionable. In particular Ninja is listed as tier 5, but in ARR Yugiri was openly teaching the Rogues of Limsa her arts and quite a large proportion of the Doman military appear to be Ninja. Sure to actually come from one of the real Ninja clans would be restricted by backstory, but with Oboro, Yugiri and Edelweiss being so interconnected and the art being so practiced in Doma it's hardly such a secretive path.

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Originally Posted by Vyrerus

DRK - "Do you truly think that Ser Ompagne Deepblack was the first person whose heart burnt out of time with righteous indignation for all those suffering under oppression or betrayal? The first person whose aether swirled and churned from a burning black heart? The only one ever moved to possess a technique allowing one to move their broken body in spite of any missing ligaments or sinew? Then you're a fool who's ignored history. I know not where my mentor learnt the arts, nor where he found these soul crystals, but he did and now I do, and neither of us are Ishgardian." - A large Hyur, all in deepest black, wielding a sword that's less a sword and more a giant slab of steel.

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He learned it by reading/watching Berzerk. :)

I haven't dabbled much in most classes, so I can't say which class/job would be the hardest for an Eorzean-born adventurer to learn, but Ninja and Samurai would be at the top of the list for me. Now that Othard's been open for so long, it's not surprising that there'd be immigrants from those lands adventuring here, so the presence of a number of them isn't out of the realm of believability to me.

Who's to say that a Summoner character doesn't follow the canon storyline and learned the arts from someone who learned the arts from *the* canon character?

As Vyrerus thankfully points out, at some point a tradition was invented (and doubly thankful for once mention of Scholar's job was not prefaced by the disclaimer those fairy soulstones cannot be found outside Nym). There is unfortunately a lot of conflation between method and specific traditions still despite Square writing class/role quests showcasing strangers executing much the same skills as our White Mage/Black Mage etc.
The only restriction I'd bear in mind is acquiring the job exactly in the same manner as the Warrior of Light for some jobs might be a trifle difficult, but otherwise the sky is the limit. Adventurers by their nature tend to stumble across hidden knowledge on the regular.

P.S Illegality never stopped the criminals from multiplying, why would the forbidden nature of White/Black magic be cause for concern? Fairly certain 'twas an entire nation or two regularly using such magic which led to ruin, plus some Ascian meddling.

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Originally Posted by Cygnia

P.S Illegality never stopped the criminals from multiplying, why would the forbidden nature of White/Black magic be cause for concern? Fairly certain 'twas an entire nation or two regularly using such magic which led to ruin, plus some Ascian meddling.

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I mean, White Magic is supernaturally illegal by decree of an oppressive theocracy in exactly the place where you'd try to learn about it.

With Black Magic I think the bigger problem is the part where you burn alive from the inside-out if you do it bad.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I'm really interested in getting to the Reaper story, because depending on the context we're given, it might be one of the least 'RP-friendly' jobs for entirely different reasons to stuff like Scholar.

With how seriously voidsent are taken as a danger in most of the game's story, Reaper might be one of the only jobs we have access to that's legitimately a pariah to most modern society. Especially given it's Garlean, which isn't exactly an ethnicity with positive connotations right now, either!

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I'm assuming RPR starts in Ul'dah specifically so it can come into conflict with the Order of Nald'thal; what with them being Eorzea's resident voidsent researchers/regulators.

Given that they already participate in sanctioned voidsent summonings for bloodsports and other activities of questionable merit, I think some of them would be more fascinated with then appalled by the profession.

I would add, in role play, you can largely ignore jobs. A character equipped in White Mage gear could simply say they are a healer, or just a traveler. Even if they specifically wanted to be a white mage, they could easily claim to have learned the art outside of Gridania/shroud entirely. It’s not like the knowledge must be exclusive, especially when you could easily have convergent evolution (eg, Geomancy in Hingashi is essentially Whm if you follow the story).

In addition, the ancient Amdapor and Mhachi were not restricted to specific places- it is entirely possible their knowledge of white/black magic has survived in other lands with other traditions. Doors are wide open!

Regarding Garlemald, we'll see how stigmatised Garleans are by the conclusion of 6.0, particularly since the idea will probably be to set aside differences to join against a common threat (plus Yoshi is explicitly saying the aim through the Garlemald zone is to render them sympathetic, much as Emet-Selch did with the Ascians.) That aside, I get the strong impression the story behind the job will involve restoring an ancient art, so associations to Garlemald may end up being historic mostly. Obviously showing up with a scythe and voidsent in tow may get you in trouble in some places, but as with most things in RP, common sense is king.

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Originally Posted by Burmecia

>>Link to thing someone else wrote<<

aka If you wanna get into stupid fights, pick WHM/BLM
and then spend your time wondeing: but how can I make even my retainer into WHM/BLM, just by filling up some... paperwork?

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Far more weighted between those two to WHM I'd say, especially given the content of the level 80 BLM job quest. WHM requires the Padjals' approval, BLM is/was mostly just outlawed and very risky to practise without a soulstone. Although as was pointed out by others, there are NPCs who, while not necessarily a WHM or BLM, use similar powers, and my guess is there's more than one way to come across these powers, including stray soulstones.

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Originally Posted by Cleretic

I mean, White Magic is supernaturally illegal by decree of an oppressive theocracy in exactly the place where you'd try to learn about it.

With Black Magic I think the bigger problem is the part where you burn alive from the inside-out if you do it bad.

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To clarify, my not (at all) pithy remark had Necromancy in mind; in many settings, the art of raising undead is zealously hunted down by the divine and their followers and its knowledge eradicated - yet such places still crop up many a necromancer ready to defy the gods themselves. Also a thoughtless reaction to the reasoning for white/black magic existing as tier 5 being 'illegality' as if that'd stop the most reckless creature in Eorzea, the Adventurer.

Pardon for the late response by the way. Probably wasn't really needed, eh.

Personallly I tend to go with the concept of "if you have a coherent reason to have a soul crystal then you can be the job." Not only that but although we don't know *how* explicitly to make new soul crystals, the fact is going by the tooltip of Machinist's soul crystal alone means that these things can be created. They may be weaker then the ones that appear in the quest storylines but it could be possible.

WHM is likely the hardest one to justify in my opinion due to the fact the elementals would heavily regulate who had access to white magic. Although with their power overall weakened in the wake of the calamity, and people scouring the ruins of Amdapor. I do believe it is still reasonably possible for someone to be a White Mage.

BLM is in a similar position. However the knowledge of the art does exist in tomes and such now. And with my statement earlier about the possibility of new soul crystals being able to be made, it could reasonably stand that the research notes on black magic that exist could infact have a "How to cook your own Soul of the Black Mage" somewhere.

SMN and SCH used to be in a similar position to WHM and BLM, however both of their storylines both implicate that people are going reviving and training others in these arts. This point is actually a core element to the SMN SB storyline.

Beyond these 4, alot of the rest seems to just be a matter of getting yourself the correct training and finding or making the special plot power rock.

I think most jobs theoretically don't need a soul crystal, they're mostly a tool to help learn a particular skill set quickly.

If the job you want is pretty short on spare crystals you could always have whatever backstory you come up with have you spending years learning the job the old fashioned way.