http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FantasyCharacterClasses

In RPGs a Character Class is a designation that determines a player's abilities and fighting style (and depending on the game possibly even their origin, education, and home area) often in the form of a job or archetype. A character class is defined by the abilities that it lends to a character  as such, two different characters with the same class are theoretically interchangeable, in that they have the same "power set" and can play the same role in gameplay because of their similar abilities. However, character class systems can come with varying levels of customization  ranging from characters of a given class being literally identical to having so much variety that character class is no longer even a good indicator of that character's abilities. While most common in fantasy Role-Playing Games, they have recently began to appear in other genres, such as trading card games and MOBAs.

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Some game systems allow players to dual-class in some way, or may have a more flexible class system. Sometimes, a player will be able to start as a more general class ("My character is a wizard.") and specialize into a more specific class ("My character is a fire wizard."). Many of these may be Prestige Classes. The opposite may also happen if a character is multiclass.

The Fighter, Mage, Thief trio covers the three most basic character class archetypes which serve as categories that most other classes are based on. This page aims to list some of the more common character combat classes in games - both electronic and pen and paper.

See also Common Character Classes, An Adventurer Is You, Job System, Square Race, Round Class, and Modern Day & Sci-Fi RPG Class Equivalents.

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Fighters

Mages

Rogues

Clerics

Rangers