The Mahout: Basic Class Information

The Mahout (over on EN5ider) is a new class for 5th Edition, a tamer of monsters, a character with a special bond with their devoted pet, whether that be a beast, an exotic aberration, a slime, or even a draconic creature. Also includes the Animalist subclass (two more subclasses, the Monstrous and Oddball appear next month), and four introductory monster tricks. By Erik Evjen and Mike Myler; illustrated by Joyce Maureira.

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[Nathaniel Lee]

Wrangler was on the maybe list beside mahout and got passed over because it's just not as inspiring

Fair point! Heck, "Beastmaster" is a lot more awe-inspiring a name than "Wrangler."

"Whisperer"? It has the advantage of sounding kinda cool and mysterious... but I feel a lot of players would be disappointed with the reality of the abilities versus what the mind could imagine the abilities would be with such a name.

one definitely sounds more exciting/intriguing than the other

I imagine the order of events goes something like:

- "Mahout? That's an interesting word. I wonder what that means."
- "An Indian elephant rider?!"
- "Oh, cool: Beast Master!"

 

[Mike Myler]

Fair point! Heck, "Beastmaster" is a lot more awe-inspiring a name than "Wrangler."

"Whisperer"? It has the advantage of sounding kinda cool and mysterious... but I feel a lot of players would be disappointed with the reality of the abilities versus what the mind could imagine the abilities would be with such a name.



I imagine the order of events goes something like:

- "Mahout? That's an interesting word. I wonder what that means."
- "An Indian elephant rider?!"
- "Oh, cool: Beast Master!"

Name circling took a while and for most of the design phase it was "monster trainer" which, thank heavens, has been left in the dust.

 

[Hurin70]

A bit of irony there in that most of the official class names are not at all generic but rather very specific to settings based on medieval Europe?

Fighter, Monk, Thief, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Wizard sound pretty generic to me. In any case, my point was that the primary purpose of the name is to give an general indication of what the class is like in a word or two. Pretty much any English speaker is going to be able to infer from the name 'Fighter' what the Fighter class does, and indeed from the name Beastmaster what a Beastmaster does. By contrast, most English speakers will not be able to infer anything about what a 'Mahout' does from the name.

It is just my 2 cents of course, but I think the name of the class should be able to convey a general sense of what the class is about, without the necessity of a lengthy explanation.

'Mahout? What's that?'
'It's a Beastmaster.'
'Then why not just name it that?'

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

I agree with your sentiment and was just giving you some grief. Even said as much a few posts back.

 

[Zardnaar]

When I first saw the thread title I thought elephant rider.

 

[Hurin70]

I agree with your sentiment and was just giving you some grief. Even said as much a few posts back.

Right, sorry; I didn't catch that. But yes, I think we agree here.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The only way an obscure word becomes generic is to use it. 'Samurai' and 'Paladin' were obscure once too.

So mining all cultures for more specific words that American English doesn't currently have in my opinion is a good thing. Which is why a word like 'schaedenfreude' (sp?) has caught on so well as a word and has now become a relatively generic English word we mostly all usr.

 

[Laurefindel]

It is just my 2 cents of course, but I think the name of the class should be able to convey a general sense of what the class is about, without the necessity of a lengthy explanation.

'Mahout? What's that?'
'It's a Beastmaster.'
'Then why not just name it that?'

Because there already is a beastmaster, and by adding another name to the list, you don't have to erase the former. Thus a party could include a mahout and a ranger(beastmaster). It also dispel ambiguities such as:

"I think I'll play a beastmaster!"
"Which one, PHB or the Unearted Arcana revised one?"
"Oh no, the one Mike did on ENworld"

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

The only way an obscure word becomes generic is to use it. 'Samurai' and 'Paladin' were obscure once too.

The challenge comes with a word such as "mahout" which really doesn't have much practical or even pop cultural use in most Western societies since "elephant rider" isn't really something that 99% of people will ever even need to think about.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

When I first saw the thread title I thought elephant rider.

Five bucks says you'd be in the extreme minority. It's a word that 99% of the population will never hear or need to use. That circuses are all but history now makes it that much harder.