I thought I had a post about this already, but maybe it is buried somewhere. Anyway, I'd like suggestions on how to handle abilities that traverse classes. A few questions, first.
Taking Taunt as an example... According to this wiki, other melee classes can use this same exact ability, and it functions exactly the same for said classes: Berserker, Bruiser, Paladin, Guardian, Monk and Shadowknight. Not one of those classes gets "something special" (at level 1) just because they are their class. When a Bruiser casts this Taunt, the exact same thing happens as if a Paladin casts it (just being obnoxiously clear on my question setup here).
Taunt is the "newbie" ability for all 6 classes. Then, after they reach maturity (level 9) all 6 classes then branch off into their own specialty versions of the Taunt line (see link above). What this tells me is that our spells data needs to only have 1 single "Taunt" (by name) ability that all 6 classes share. Not 6 individual Taunt entries.
However, the complexity comes when these "Common Class Abilities" have multiple Tiers (App1, App2... Master II). Now you have a common, leve 1 ability that could have currently 9 spell entries. The good news is, if we tie these abilities to multiple classes (as they should be), you only have to update one single spell record to effect all classes that share that spell. The downside is trying to identify and manage those into a "common spell_id range" - which is my problem, not yours
Mostly, I wanted to throw this theory out there to see if there are any opinions on it before I start "commonifying" (my new word) shared datas.

If I understand this right, taking your taunt example,
there will 1 spell called Taunt which will be used by all fighter classes at level 1, and there is a another common taunt between all fighter classes at level 20 called Goading Gesture (from the Splitpaw AP).
Then there 6 taunts that each fighter class gets for a total of 36.
So there will be 38 spell entries of fighter taunts.
Times that by the 8 different tiers and you get 304 spell entries in the DB
The good thing though is, we can cover those with only 6 lua spell scripts

Zcoretri wrote:Times that by the 8 different tiers and you get 304 spell entries in the DB

This is exactly what I am trying to avoid. If there are potentially 8 tiers of Taunt Level 1 for 6 classes, my goal is to have 8 Taunt Level 1's that all 6 classes "share". So, 8 entries - not 48.
Something else I found while poking around:
http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Fighter_Spells
http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Priest_Spells
http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Mage_Spells
http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Scout_Spells
While I did not think base-classes were still a used in EQ2, perhaps this is the levels 1-9 "common" stuff I am looking for. In other words, if it is considered a "Warrior Spell" on this list, can I assume the 6 classes under the Warrior archetype would all share the same ability?
If so, I can set most of this up in advance in the DB for us - no manual effort except tuning the tiers.

Yep, and aside from class-type specific (scout, mage, fighter, priest) we can do the more specific class type like predator(ranger, assasin), rogue(swashy, brigand), druid(fury, warden), etc because they share a lot of the same spells as well.

Ahh, I think a lightbulb just went on. Here's what I'll try to do then.
I'll re-open the classes I otherwise commented out (since I didn't think they were actually used anymore) and I will go through these lists of "common" spells for each class and archetype, and re-assign them. We can then build our spell_classes to assign them to the classes that EQ2Emulator uses.
Unless I am mistaken, the emulator does NOT assign a Paladin the class_id of a Fighter for levels 1-9, a Guardian from 10-19, and finally a Paladin at 20.
Yes?

For Paladin I believe it would go Fighter from 1-9, Crusader from 10-19, then finally Paladin at 20.

Sorry, I guess I wasn't clear again. What I mean is, if I go create a new Paladin today on EQ2 Live, he is a Paladin, not a Fighter. I am never a "Fighter" class, ever. In principle, sure. As far as abilities, yes. But in title, and as far as EQ2Emulator is concerned, I am never class_id = 1 (Fighter), I am always class_id = 10 (Paladin).

John Adams wrote:This is exactly what I am trying to avoid. If there are potentially 8 tiers of Taunt Level 1 for 6 classes, my goal is to have 8 Taunt Level 1's that all 6 classes "share". So, 8 entries - not 48.

But what I am trying to point out is, we will still have a total of 304 spells....there is no way around that I can see. Each class has a spell icon, and a HO icon associated for that spell.
Thats right...we will have 1 taunt spell that all 6 fighters use called Taunt, and it will have 8 tiers, so that is 8 spells in the DB.
Each fighter has 6 taunts of their own at 8 tiers...thats 48 taunts spells in DB for each fighter.
There are 6 fighter classes 48 x 6 = 288
The shared Splitpaw taunt at level 20 is another 8
TOTAL 288 + 8 + 8 = 304 spell entries.

Zcoretri wrote:Each class has a spell icon, and a HO icon associated for that spell.

So you are saying that the Guardian's icon for Taunt, level 1, app 1, is different than the icon for the Bererker Taunt, level 1, app 1?
And the HO icon is different as well?
If so, then there is absolutely no way around this horrible redundant data. But according to the spells lists I got from you, nearly every "Taunt" had the same name, description, and icons. So I guess I am confused.

For simplicity, let's only focus on one single spell name, and level - and not the 304 other possibilities for now. I'd like to get it straight if 6 classes can use the same single spell_id or not for their level 1 version of Taunt

John Adams wrote:For simplicity, let's only focus on one single spell name, and level - and not the 304 other possibilities for now. I'd like to get it straight if 6 classes can use the same single spell_id or not for their level 1 version of Taunt
...But according to the spells lists I got from you, nearly every "Taunt" had the same name, description, and icons. So I guess I am confused.

You are not confused...they are all the same spell.
We should be able to use the 1 spell_id for 'Taunt (Apprentice I)' which is a level 1 combat art actually
...the icon is the same for all the fighters, and since they are all fighters, the HO icon is the same as well.
Maybe I don't fully understand what your trying to get at maybe because it's so hot here in Seattle...something you are used to JA, lol

If the temperature is in the double-digits here, we dive for our long-john's.
I think you got what I am getting at... so I'll just continue on this path, let you guys look over the spells editor when I am done, and if it all makes sense, groovey. If not, I'll restore a backup and we can figure something else out.