Whatever weapon is in your hands decides what you are. Hold a sword and a shield and you are a knight. Put them away and take up a dagger and you are a rogue, on the spot, in the street, with no menu in between.
When you make a character you choose the class you start in, and that choice decides one thing: the weapon you are holding when you arrive, with the clothes that go with it. Everything after that is down to what you pick up. Classes and skills lists every class and the weapon that makes it.
A class is three things at once
- A skill tree. Every skill belongs to one class. Nothing you learn as a rogue is any use to you as a mage.
- A wardrobe. What you can wear and what you can hold.
- A level of its own. Experience, stats, health and mana are kept per class.
Your bags, your name and your face stay the same whichever class you are.
Changing your mind is cheap
Put the sword down and take up a dagger and you are a rogue, starting from the bottom. Your knight has not gone anywhere. It is exactly where you left it, with its level, its skills and its points, and picking the sword back up puts you straight back into it.
The game will not let you change weapons in a fight, or in the few seconds after one, and being hit counts as much as swinging. A weapon also asks for a level in the class it would make you, so a better blade waits until that class has grown into it.
What to take first
Whatever you enjoy holding. If you have no idea, a class with a shield is the most forgiving to learn on, because the shield is most of what keeps a new character alive. A mage is the most fun to watch. Every class gets new armour to grow into as it levels, sold in town and made by players.
Next: how a fight works.