As I have mentioned a few times before, my favorite Final Fantasy game (and, incidentally, one of my favorite RPGs of all time) is Final Fantasy 5, and I am wondering what other games are out there with similar job/class systems. Some of the things I like about FF5's system are as follows:

* Job leveling is decoupled from character leveling. When changing jobs, you don't suddenly become weak.
* When you change to a new job, you have its main abilities automatically, and can start using them right away. This encourages experimentation.
* If you have learned abilities by being in a job, you can use them in others, but you can only equip one at a time (preventing a single character from being able to fill all party roles at once).
* Leveling up in one job does not hinder your advancement in others. (In other words, it's not like 3e D&D.)
* The order in which you level up jobs doesn't matter, nor does your choice of job at the time you happen to level up. Furthermore, level up has no randomness in terms of stat growth; given a character's level, current job, current equipped ability, and equipment, one can determine all of a character's stats.

So, any other games like this that you can recommend?

(Minimum requirement: The game must allow you to change your characters' classes (or whatever the game calls that mechanic); simply having character classes doesn't count if they're not changeable.)

The only one I know that fits enough is Dragon's Dogma. It should meet all the requirements, only it is an action one rather than turn based.

The ones that I've played that have the most similar system are;

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (and it's DS sequel) - Both have systems which are pretty much an extension of that seen in FF V, of course they also contain tactical battles instead of just plain JRPG style combat so they are still relatively different games to FF V. Not sure if the original and other Playstation versions use the same style job system or not.

Bravely Default (and it's sequel too) - Another game basically inspired by FF V's job system.

Final Fantasy Four Heroes of Light is kind of a precursor to Bravely Default. It uses a similar ish job system (the Crown system) but it's been a while since I played it and I can't remember if it allowed you to carry skills from one job to another like FF V.

Final Fantasy X-2 has a job system.. been a long time since I played it and didn't play enough of it to really remember how similar it is to V, though I think the answer is not much.

Final Fantasy Explorers also has some kind of job system, but I haven't played it at all to know how much it borrows from V, plus it's an action game rather than turn based.

So basically a whole lot of Final Fantasy spin offs. They're all the ones I have played or can think of.


Edit: Actually I suppose you could say Tangledeep (available here) has an FF V style job system. It's not quite the same but you can change jobs during play (I haven't tried it yet as I play with permadeath and haven't had a character last that long)

Unfortunately, your stat gains at level up are determined by the job you happen to be in at the time of level up, a mechanic I find to be rather ugly, and which is not the case in Final Fantasy 5.

(The original Final Fantasy Tactics is also like this.)

IIRC, Jeanne D'Arc has a job system, but it's been so long since I've played it, I can't remember or not.
There was also Icarus, which has a similar battle system as Tactics, but I cannot remember if it actually had jobs. I don't believe it did. Didn't FF9 have a job system as well?

Final Fantasy XIII has the Paradigm System that allows you to switch up the classes of your 3 party members on the fly but you've probably already played this seeing as you like FF games.

This one may be an odd recommendation because it's a 3rd person FPS/RPG game. Mass Effect Andromeda allows you to alternate between 4 different profiles in the middle of battle. How it works is when you level up, you get skill points. You use these skill points to acquire new abilities from either the Soldier, Tech, or Biotic ability trees. Depending on what you put your points into, you'll level up 1 of 7 classes. Each class has their own passive abilities and stat modifiers that get more powerful with each new level. You can then customize 4 favorite slots that you'll use for switching during battle. For each slot, you pick a class and any 3 abilities. It's a very flexible system that allows for lots of experimentation. The only complaint I have is this game still has some bugs and Bioware is no longer releasing updates. This doesn't fix all the bugs, but I've been using a community fan patch called ME:A Fixpack that continues to fix things that Bioware missed. Link to the mod is below.

https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectandromeda/mods/541

No, it did not. (Characters may have classes, but they are fixed, can't be chosen by the player, and can't be changed, so it fails my minimum requirement for this thread. Also, stat growth is affected by equipment at the time of level up, a mechanic I don't like, and the ATB doesn't stop during animations, which leads to overfull action queues.) That game (and Dragon Quest 6) are closer to what I am looking for, but the problem is that I have already played them (and I am not going to play the DQ7 remake because it's on a region locked console with online DRM). (Also, you don't get the new class's abilities immediately, and you can end up with characters who can do everything at once. There's also the problem of somewhat random stat growth in the remakes of these games)

Just looking at that, and one quote that suggests this isn't what I am looking for:
"switching base job classes will mean fewer skill points for advanced class skills"

This is the sort of reason I don't like skill point systems.

(In particular, it is preferable if it is possible, at least in theory, to max every skill for every class, without the rate slowing down to unreasonable levels.)

Also, the kickstarter doesn't specify anything about distribution methods, so I can't be assured that there will be a DRM-free release, and I refuse to do any kickstarter for any game that will be DRM-encumbered. (Also, it's not quite of my preferred genre (I prefer non-tactical turn-based RPGs where I don't have to worry about unit positioning, and the amout they're asking for the game on Kickstarter ($20) is too much for a non-preferred genre for me.)

Final Fantasy III (Japan, on the NES)
FF5 uses the same system than the 3. If you liked the 5, you should enjoy the 3, which is also the first FF to be enjoyable imho.
There are patches to play it in english using an emulator.

Unfortunately, in FF3 (which I have played, both the Famicom and DS versions):
* There's no way to use an ability learned in one job in another, so you don't get the ability to combine abilities in interesting ways
* HP growth depends on the job you are in at the time of level up; I really dislike this sort of mechanic
* The random encounter design is rather bland; random encounters in any given area are all pretty much the same (this is something the original Final Fantasy did much better)
* Some jobs appear too late in the game (in particular, the advanced spellcasting classes)

Not on GOG, (and not as in depth as FF games) but Penny Arcade's: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 & 4 have really fun and inventive jobs for the characters, stuff like Hobo, Crabomancer, Dinosorcerer, Gumshoe (which uses actual shoes), Cordwainer, Diva. I beat 3 on 360 years ago and had a blast, have to replay it on PC and beat 4.

Several of the other Dragon Quest games have job systems as well (III, IX, X), although I can't vouch for what they're like.

Langrisser 2 has a 5 step class tree with the option to class change using a certain item.