Excerpt: Paragon paths (merged)

[TwinBahamut]

I was more referring to the assertion that 'kensai' is English. It is, as I am sure you are aware, more properly a loanword. I am not arguing for or against the porousness of English, merely that 'kensai' is hardly English.

Being a loanword and being a word in English are not contradictory things. Actually, something is only a loanword if it is actually part of the language doing the borrowing...

Unless you want to argue that popular French loanwords like "Beef" are not actually English words, then you might want to rephrase your statement.

Personally, I have no problem with words like "kensai" showing up in D&D. Actually, I wouldn't mind seeing a few more words from different languages showing up. It would help WotC avoid the truly terrible names that start showing up when most of the good names are already taken. Maybe a few more blatantly French or German words could be used for class names.

Also, as someone who majored in English myself, I am taking more offense at people citing that dictionary.com is a good source for this kind of debate than I would ever take offense at someone using the word Kensai. The unabridged Oxford English Dictionary is the one true dictionary. Accept no substitutes. As far as I am aware, professional writers don't.

 

[AlphaAnt]

They began as that. They most definitely evolved beyond that, even by the admission of the design staff, since PrCs were also originally intended to be 'special circumstances only' and most building was to be accomplished through multiclassing and feats (Which didn't happen of course). There are no organizations behind Frostrage Barbarians, Highlander Stalkers, among others. Its not 100% assumed with every PrC.

I, for one, prefer to use PrCs (And will use Paragon Paths/Epic Destinies) to model what a character is capable of, not to delineate what organizations he belongs to. It leaves their backgrounds a lot more open that way, and thereby I can choose whether I want to tie it to an organization or not.

I've always hated the term Prestige Class to be used as a blanket descriptive for the mechanic. It implies a certain amount of, well, prestige. A Champion of Corellan implies prestige. Shadowdancer, Assassin, and Blackguard do not. D20 Modern called them Advanced classes, but they moved back to the PrC title for Star Wars Saga Edition, and very few of them implied any prestige or membership. A member of the Jedi/Jedi Knight/Jedi Master class was not necessarily a member of the Jedi Order, and vice versa, which made the concept even more confusing.

An avid fan of SWSE, I'm already familiar with the concept of "character defines class" as opposed to the more traditional "class defines character", but even in Star Wars (which only has 5 base classes and will never have more) it's proven extremely difficult for a lot of people to wrap their head around. In D&D it will be even tougher of an uphill battle.

 

[The Little Raven]

One of my guiltiest pleasures is Dungeons & Dragons 2: Wrath of the Dragon God.

I remember I was flipping channels once, and I came across this movie. After a second, I realized what it was and thought "Wow, for a straight to video movie, these sets and costumes are way better than the first one." and I watched it for a little bit with an amused smile... then someone said the words "dragon god of undeath" in all seriousness and I just couldn't watch anymore.

 

[Polyhedral_Columbia]

"English"?

I was more referring to the assertion that 'kensai' is English. It is, as I am sure you are aware, more properly a loanword. I am not arguing for or against the porousness of English, merely that 'kensai' is hardly English.

If one includes in "English" only words that are of Old English descent, then "kensai" is not English. If one includes in "English" words that are used in modern spoken and written English, then "kensai" is surely "English", even if it is only used in the specialized English jargon of Japanese history and RPG gaming.

If one includes in "English" only words of Old English descent, then not only such words as "futon", "ginkgo", "hibachi", "soy", "(head) honcho", and "tycoon" are not "English", but also a large percentage of the words used in your post are not "English", such as "referring", "assertion", "properly", "arguing", and "porousness", which go back to another foreign language: Latin.

Travis

 

[Knight Otu]

As written, I cannot say I have many problems with the name kensai being used - as far as I'm concerned, you could easily write "Weapon Master (Kensai)" or "Thug (Fighter/Rogue)" or "Holy Guardian of the Silver Falls (Paladin|Ascendant Blade)," or something like that. This keeps the re-flavor intact without the worry of "what's that class again?"

It can become confusing if the is a class of the same name, of course, but the notation should point out quickly that this isn't the case.

I'm personally a big fan of trying to keep class names out of in-game dialog. Sometimes, it can be appropriate, but most of the time, it is simply a fourth-wall poke. A mercenary might be a Fighter or a Rogue. A priest may be a Paladin, a Cleric, or an Expert. A sorcerer may understand himself as a sorcerer, a wizard, a witch/warlock, an arcanist, an aberration, a saint... That's what defines the character flavorwise. The classes define the character ruleswise. They can (and should, to avoid "Thief (Cleric of St. Cuthbert)" stuff) inform each other, of course.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I remember I was flipping channels once, and I came across this movie. After a second, I realized what it was and thought "Wow, for a straight to video movie, these sets and costumes are way better than the first one." and I watched it for a little bit with an amused smile... then someone said the words "dragon god of undeath" in all seriousness and I just couldn't watch anymore.

No, the worst part was when the Wizard character was describing how the two different kinds of magic, I just cringed ><

 

[webrunner]

I think the Kensei thing might be part of their attempt to make it so 4e isn't "Europe + Elves"

 

[Azurebane]

Howdy!

Hi all, this is my first post.

I'm going to skip the babblespeak about linguistic nitpicking, because it pales in comparison to this (quoted yet again, for emphasis):

1) There are over 30 paragon paths in the PH.

2) My paladin took a multiclass cleric feat so she could qualify for a cleric paragon path.

This... this is groovy.

 

[Sojorn]

This... this is groovy.

THAT's the word I was looking for! Thanks!

 

[Kobold Avenger]

With all this controversy about "Kensai"...

Are any of you aware that "Assassin" comes from an Arabic word?