Are they? I can see how there may be some correlation between an adventurer and mercenary but I see certain clear distinction between the two regardless.
An adventurer is someone who, well... goes on adventures. The classic RPG primary character. He's not formally employed, but rather than that finishes quests and tasks, explores dungeons and all that kind of jazz.
A mercenary is a professional warrior who is temporarily employed for a very specific kind of work. Mercenaries usually operate in groups, more than often as soldiers for hire.
A soldier is someone in some form of governmental military organization and is on military pay.
Perhaps I should have said 'skill-set,' then - a Mercenary is a professional fighter who hires himself out to others ... which means he's going to have effectively the same skills as a 'soldier' if he's more of the 'soldier-for-hire' archetype or he's going to have 'adventurer' skills if he's taking other jobs (bodyguarding or other protection work, for example). As far as the 'Adventurer' goes, if you're actually going for a realistic approach you'd be talking a jack-of-all-trades character, someone with a lot of breadth - bonuses to Medicine, to Cooking, and so on, and probably Toughness and Agility as well, because 'adventurers' are people who expect to not always have a stable base of operations. I would certainly not expect them to have a better Combat Bonus than a Fighter. 'Mercenary' would also cover individuals in guilds that you can hire for specific tasks, too - and guilds can include Magic, Thieves', and other professions as well, so using Merc as the 'generic hired fighter' class is still questionable, as is the idea that they're group-oriented.
This was more me wanting to "wrap up" all the ninja girls (because damn is there plenty of them) under the Assassin class. But I suppose you're right in the end.
Problem is - what kind of an effect would an Assassin class have except for combat effectiveness?
Possibly a Charisma boost (to represent the intimidation factor a professional murderer would have, even if he himself isn't particularly impressive), or a resistance to intimidation similar to Iron Will or Fearless. The problem is that 'Assassin' is such a broad concept you either need to go "Okay, an Assassin is XYZ with characteristics ABC and that's the way it is," or you need to split it into different groups. Or just fold 'Assassin' into another group with similar characteristics. :shrug:
I tried to condense all the elvenkind races in something common to all of them- and that's physical beauty and grace.
I would argue Charisma rather than Beauty. Maybe it's just the other fantasy I've read, but I've always figured elves
should be striking, yes, and attractive, but not, strictly speaking, beautiful by human standards, because they're just this side of the Uncanny Valley.
Where does it say that? The description I wrote clearly states: "[/font]Often viewed as nothing but barbarians and brutes, these natural warriors often have a strong sense of honor and discipline." Often doesn't mean always. It's more of a general description of how their race is viewed.
If it's something that gets pointed out in an objective description as 'often,' then it's something that's common enough across their race that a similarly general overview contrasting stereotypes can simply do without the 'often.'
In most fantasy settings humans are viewed as the most adaptable, "jack of all trades" kind of species...I guess.
Which I've always found kind of silly, since half of them have a dozen varieties of elves, dwarves, and other "demihumans" wandering around in different areas ... but "humans" are always "humans." And why would such a short-lived species (relative to ... just about every other major fantasy race save the goblinoids) be the ones who have the most generalization when other species can have citizens who've lived for centuries and have more experience across a dozen fields than all the humans in Backwardsville, Nowhereland put together?
I thought it fitting. Perhaps no bonus at all would be better but that'd be boring. If you have another suggestion for what the most common characteristic of humanity is then by all means.
Eh, I was always fond of the 1E AD&D situation, myself - humans didn't have any advantages, per se ... except that they could outbreed anyone except the goblinoids, and they were tougher and better-organized than them, and that's why humans were the most common group you encountered. As far as balancing them against the other playable races, IIRC they still had no advantages, but playing as a different race gave you a
disadvantage. Elves were more graceful, but had lower toughness than humans. Dwarves were tougher, but not as agile and a bit more thick-headed. And so on and so forth; your 'advantage' for being human was that you had no disadvantages, and you were part of the majority.
To put it from a different point of view ... for Elves, humans aren't as graceful, are pitifully-short-lived, and are generally crude and unsophisticated. But there are
always more humans, and they're tougher individuals, and if only one in a thousand humans is the equal of an elf in his chosen field, humans have those thousands.