History Main / SquareRaceRoundClass

*** Similarly, the [[WorldsBestWarrior greatest Archer-Class]] Servant, Orion ''also'' has a Berserker's attack sheet and arguably skills, to say nothing of his [[HeroicBuild appearance]] and is more likely to either hit people with his bow or ''throw it at them'' than to use it properly. To say nothing of his other WeaponOfChoice, a giant spiked club.

* In [[http://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic/classy-part1 one strip]] of ''Webcomic/AwkwardZombie'', Katie-as-[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Robin]] gets a kick out of reclassing every unit who could possibly be a [[ChurchMilitant War Cleric]] into one, including [[SquishyWizard Miriel]], who has no physical prowess and can't even lift [[AnAxeToGrind the axe]] she's been given as her new weapon. Also featured: mage Virion, (no magic prowess), and Wyvern Rider Nowi (her ''also'' being a dragon makes her extra weak to wind attacks). The next comic also shows off knight Tharja (doesn't let her exploit her strong magic prowess) and fighter Gaius (lousy defense for a front-line combatant).

* ''LightNovel/SkeletonKnightInAnotherWorld'': Arc Lalatoya is a skeleton classed as a Holy Knight, so he wears armor, fights with a sword, and has access to holy magic like healing spells.

* ''Videogame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'':

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* In ''WebComic/TheWeeklyRoll'', Klara the tiefling is a Warlock. Not unusual, pretty common in fact, but her patron is a ''Celestial''.

* The queen of this trope may be Fall-from-Grace from ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment''. She is a succubus priestess of Experience and one of the nicest, most reasonable individuals in the game. Her race are AxeCrazy demons who engage in slaughter ForTheEvulz. Her subtype are HornyDevils who rip the souls out of those they tempt and drag them to the Abyss. Grace? She runs the [[PlatonicProstitution Brothel of Slaking Intellectual Lust]] where she houses and educates beautiful women who will spend time with you for a price. The services on hand are esoteric, such as word play, debate, games, and philosophy. None of her girls' bodies are for sale. Finally, she belongs to the Society of Sensation, a group usually stereotyped as vapid hedonists, but Grace is a refined, chaste epicurean who seriously tries to sample all existence so she can learn from it. On the other hand, Vrischika does remark that "the best temptress is one that can make you buy into the illusion of being both promiscuous yet virtuous at the same time; a prostitute-priestess, as it were", implying that Grace is still a succubus in principle.

* ''WebVideo/OutsideXbox'': While most of the party in their ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' campaign is relatively optimised for race/class combos, with a wood elf druid, human rogue, tiefling warlock and dragonborn paladin, there's one outlier in the form of Dob, the half-orc bard. Not only do half-orcs in fifth edition not have a Charisma bonus (at least they're doing better than their third edition compatriots, who had a Cha ''penalty''), but apart from a little EarlyInstallmentWeirdness, Dob also isn't built to take advantage of the half-orc Strength bonus, having a fairly average Str modifier and mostly using a Dexterity-based rapier or his array of spells in combat. Of course, because the Oxventure is less "serious, hardcore D&D for very intense TTRPG players" and more "half a dozen friends messing about at a table, playing pranks on the [=NPCs=] and occasionally rolling dice", Dob still achieves a decent amount, and he's mostly a nuisance to the party not because of any weaknesses in his stats, but because he [[CollateralDamage cast a few AOE spells without checking where his allies were]] and [[PerpetualPoverty keeps throwing their money in a lake]].

* Cyandog in the ''VideoGame/{{Medabots}}'' anime has a robot body designed for shooting attacks, but his A.I. is derived from a Monkey medal that is intended to use melee attacks. As a result, he suffers from ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy-grade inaccuracy whenever he gets into a fight. Later he gets a melee weapon... and still retains his inaccuracy. He's just incompetent.

* Regill from ''VideoGame/PathfinderWrathOfTheRighteous''. Gnomes in ''Pathfinder'' embody OurGnomesAreWeirder, as they are former members of TheFairFolk who [[AllergicToRoutine have to experience new and novel things entirely or they literally drop dead from a degenerative mental disorder called The Bleaching]]. They are also small and physically weak, and optimized towards being rogues or wizards. Regill, meanwhile, is a ConsumateProfessional Hellknight with NoSenseOfHumor whose idea of a well-spent evening involves either smiting demons at the frontline or writing reports, and would rather die than engage in any gnomish schenanigans to delay the Bleaching. The only concession to his race is his favouring of the [[NationalWeapon Gnome Hooked Hammer]] in melee, which he's built around using effectively.

* Preserving its tabletop roots, ''VideoGame/ShadowrunReturns'' and its sequels completely decouple race and archetype (not quite a hard and fast class, but also considerably stronger than a starting package a la ''Dark Souls''). This results some odd combinations like and Orc Rigger or Troll Mage. Trolls will take meaningful handicaps in the late game if they're made a rigger, decker, or shaman (their Intelligence and Charisma cap out 3 points lower than other races). That said, they make surprisingly good Mages; it's hard to be a SquishyWizard the stat that governs your hit points caps out almost double everyone else's. Perhaps most surprisingly, the best race for a mage is a Dwarf, who can raise their all-important Willpower stat higher than anyone else by 2.

** Dwarfs are almost always miners and smiths, even in Ankh-Morpork, but (aside from the aforementioned Casanunda) there's a dwarf alchemist (Cheery Littlebottom, who later becomes a forensic scientist), a dwarf fashion designer (Madam Sharn), and a dwarf playwright (Hwel, who's not just ''any'' playwright, he's ''Discworld's equivalent of Shakespeare''). The playwright is especially notable because dwarfs are described as a plain-speaking folk who are [[LiteralMinded not used to metaphors and other forms of literary creativity]].

* ''TabletopGame/{{Eon}}'' plays around with this trope by way of first providing racial stereotypes (e.g., [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Dwarves]] don't do magic, [[OurOrcsAreDifferent Tiraks]] are {{Barbarian|Tribe}} {{Proud Warrior Race Guy}}s, etc) and then goes out of its way to provide exceptions to the stereotypes (e.g., Dwarves of clan Drezin are mages -- and also shave their beards in favour of {{Badass Moustache}}s, Tiraks of the Marnakh lineage have fully integrated with human society, etc).

* In ''Literature/TheWarGods'', the Hradani are akin to Orcs. They even have a Tolkienish history of being a race of High-Men before wizardry twisted them into a race of berserkers. Bazhell, the main character is akin to an Orc Paladin chosen by the god of Justice. His best friend, Brandark, is a Bard and scholar.

* ''Fanfic/FateBlackAvalon'': Morgan le Fey, one of the most powerful witches of all time, is summoned as a ''Berserker''. This is canon to ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'', but it was weird there too. The very first thing Morgan does is break the Mad Enchantment on herself, making her a Berserker in name only.

* ''VideoGame/BattleChefBrigade: It never affects game mechanics, but Wart is an orcish pastry chef. It's mentioned that orcs with the dexterity and attention to detail to excel at pastry are rare, but Wart has managed to join the Brigade on his pastry skills alone.

** The card Ogre Ninja reuses the art from Dagg'um Ty'gor, still as visible as ever and with a 50% chance to attack the wrong target.

* The ''Videogame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' series has Yog, who, despite having a natural talent for magic as a half-genie, abandoned his wizard training at the academies of Bracada in favor of becoming a BarbarianHero.

-->''"Well met, mage of Skyrim. The Nords may have forgotten their forefathers' respect for the Clever Craft, but your comrades throng this hall. Here in Shor's house we honor it still."''

* Moles in ''Literature/{{Redwall}}'' are stolid, salt-of-the-earth types, specializing in tunneling, cooking and building. As of ''Sable Quean'', we have [[AwesomeMcCoolName Axtel Sturnclaw]], giant-hammer-wielding Bloodwrath-using mole badass.

* PlayedForDrama in ''Webcomic/TwoKinds''. Basitins (a three-way hybrid of [[OurOrcsAreDifferent orcs,]] [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame dwarves,]] and [[BeastMan beastmen]]) biologically cannot use magic. Their three generals become {{Magic Knight}} SuperSoldiers through [[SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic human magical experimentation]]. However, normal magic damages the basitin brain in the same way BlackMagic damages the human mind, leading to the basitin High Command slowly lobotomizing themselves. Something the human magicians were fully aware of, bot the basitins were not.

** Since Tasha's was written, races created since then have floating stat bonuses -- any +2, +1 combo or three +1s. This means any of the new races have the freedom to be optimized for any class from the begining, without needing to use any Optional Rules. Still, this can lead to some funny combinations, like a Damphir Paladin that can use Divine Smite while Biting a target, or a Barbarian Fairy that can have a decently high AC from the get-go, and still fly around. Then there's the Harengon -- normally, a heavy Armor wearing Fighter or Paladin, or Cleric would dump Dexterity as they don't need it, but they'd be slower at Initiative -- Harengons can add their proficiency bonus to their Initiative rolls, meaning they have a chance to still go ahead of others, especially the opposition.
** ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'' established bright and early that it was going to feature some out-of-the-ordinary combinations, with the initial 3.5 Eberron Campaign Setting introducing [[BeastMan shifters]], establishing that they tend to live in rural or wilderness areas and favour the Ranger class, and then immediately featuring a shifter wizard named Baristi. Then there's the culture of halfling barbarians, or the Cloudreaver fleet in the Lhazaar Principalities, where orcs and dwarves unite as, essentially, Vikings. Then there are the regular dwarves, whose relatively recent discovery of [[BeneathTheEarth a subterranean nightmare landscape]] has led to some of their number embracing the secrets of [[HumanoidAbomination the daelkyr]] and forming warlock pacts.

** The Time Spiral block is full of these, by design.

** Draenei and tauren, however, cannot be rogues. Both races have strong cultural mores against deception, they are ''too big'' to be stealth-based combatants (at least the males) and have hooves for feet. Despite this, two Draenei rogues turn up as [=NPCs=] in ''Warlords of Draenor''. A common joke is that tauren and draenei rogues do exist, they're just very good at what rogues are supposed to do, which is staying hidden. (Stealth animations for them always existed in the game since players can change appearance in a few ways.) Something akin to draenei rogues were introduced in ''Warlord of Draenor'' with the Rangari, who are a mix of pathfinders and hunters who stalk uncivilized wilds, it's not uncommon to find one that's stealthed or in camouflage when you approach.
** Considering how tall orcs are, and how big and burly the male model is, orc rogues look out of place. Story-wise, however, they've been using subterfuge and assassination since they appeared on Azeroth. The franchise's most iconic rogue is the Half-Orc [[LukeNounverber Garona Halforcen]] (tellingly, a female, with more slender proportions).

*** The two Lancer versions of Altria do wield the spear Rhongomyniad, but they have the Riding skill and ride horses into battle, so they should be Riders.