Oh.. Well that's good to know.  And no, I don't know for a fact,  just thought it wouldn't show up or something.  Now I'll just make Blue Mage on its own then.

A Slayers-style magic mod would be an interesting variant (White/Shamanistic/Black magic)

Before you code dozens of classes, you might want to think about how you could make this mod compatible with other mods. Specifying restrictions based on race or faction can get messy. Gender is a great idea though. How are you going to handle cross-classes? Having too many traits available at once makes leveling too random, so that a character you want as a Mage-Fighter, will never get the chance to choose that. The best solution seems to be to allow all possible traits to show up on leveling and just make sure the player knows to scroll down. But then you can't have rarity of traits. 

I wanted to go for full class crossing, but eventually noticed that either every trait had to have the same worth or people are just going to cross-class for the extra power. Since I wanted each new class to offer some new power, I decided to make cross-classing a choice at higher levels, but with new paths that combine the current one with something from the other choices. So for an arcane archer, you could have this option branch off from path of the archer at a high level. If you stick to making it easy to cross-class, you might think about adding in a penalty that unlocks when you cross classes, like D&D has. That would take some extra work, but probably be necessary. 

I assumed that you would be making a mod for the public. If not, it only needs to be compatible with your game, which is fine. Still, I hope that those who have the knowledge and work ethic to mod the game will tend towards adding to a pool of content that we can all benefit from. That is what is going to keep the game alive. Imagine if Hf never let us play Stormworld, how much darker would the world be?

Sorry, I get a little obsessive when it comes to modding. I meant no offense. 

   So far to date as I code this I have the latest Stormworld installed (including reliquary, factions, rivermod, everything ).    Which to say since as of now, my changes only affect choices at level ups it is completely compatible (So far.  Famous last words.  Lol  )  Anyways, I find it fascinating that HF has restricted races that there's one choice they are restricted from having.  Which means they also won't be able to pick or benefit from that advanced path/job either. 

   Also I am notorious for making things unbalanced and OP thus far when it comes to modding.  I would be seeking and loving feedback and inputs in regards to how things are/ how they can be improved.  The goal here is not to unbalance everything a  but really the intended goal is to have more choices and have the player feel like they have a real say on how the champion grows before them.   And try to keep the balance as much as possible. 

I could very well make it modular. So that if you didn't want the additional spells added, you could just install the advanced jobs folder.  I would like to add in my own flavoring of items at some point also.

Yup . 

Edited OP with Geomancer and Blue Mage.  I guess I have a lot in my plate for new jobs/classes.  I'd really be looking for ideas on spells and abilities for each job if people care to comment.  Feel free to say what you'd like to see me add-in as well.  It's one thing for me to like it, but another for others to like it and use it and/or not destroy any hope of balance. Also since it's not mentioned, I think - I thought Summoner was too OP the way it is presented with Eidolons.  I may look at taking on some enhancements to summoning overall. Who knows I may look at tackling Summoner once everything else is done..

It feels like the future is wide open for modding.  Only limit so far has been creativity. 

Ha ha ok.  I'll take that as flattery.  I could have went the route of all D&D, but I thought others who had some real art experience would do better and started off with something else.  That's how I got started on the paths.  It's just awesome how you can easily twist the wraiths into a custom drow faction (hint hint.  lol )  Anyways I was thinking of one point starting with Neverwinter, Port LLast, IWD/Ten Towns, Mithril Hall, Waterdeep as some custom factions.  I went so far as to start gathering logos to use for crests, but that's as far as I went with it.   Anyways, I may research FF a bit more and make custom factions and make it a true overhaul at some point. I was totally looking to see if some one was into Dragonlance as well (was at least 3 or 4 different ones of those announced when  the first game releaesed.  )

Code wise, I am just getting used to the beginner side of the pool.  Having dipped my toes in and now getting my ankles wet.  

I appreciate the offer, but so far so good. 

The prereqs allow us to specify that if a unit has one trait, he can't get another. That can be used to prevent cross-classing. The cool thing is that you can make a later path give you some of the stuff from two areas of specialization. For instance, my spellsword path branches off of Path of the Arcanist (Mage). It gives you access to some of the basic fighter abilities and adds elemental damage to all attacks. That is one way to cross-class. 

Another way to do it would be to allow any early path to coincide, like the vanilla game does. Then increase the number of traits your have to choose from at levelup to 100. That way you will always see every possible trait your character has unlocked. You can even mod the UI to have a much larger list for less scrolling. Then you could put in a penalty for choosing to cross-class, like we see in D&D. Basically you would have a trait that unlocks once a unit has the two prereq traits. For example, having Path of the Mage and Assassin could unlock a trait that reduces the spell power bonus and critical damage. So you pay a high price for variety, but now can combine two fields. I don't know many hardcore RPG players that don't cross-class. It has massive appeal for replayability. The trick is to balance those combinations so you don't end up with a situation like BG2's Berserker-Cleric that can solo the whole game.

I think this is the most interesting aspect of modding as it is not very well fleshed out in the vanilla. Anyone given my path mod a spin? Even just looking at the xml can be very informative.

It's in the Elemental Balance Mod. Download and look in the CoreAbilities file at the top. Everything is organized and most of it has a description. The abilities can be found in the CoreSpells file at the very bottom. 

When the game goes gold I am going to cut up my balance mod and serve each feature separately. That could take some time though, since my mod is miles apart from the current balance.

Easier question, when content-wise.  Should I make my own thread and allow others to check it out?   10% done 20%?  or at least 50%?   Currently at < 5% 

So time to get cracking on the mod.