Mearls talks about his inspiration for the 4e classes

[Grimstaff]

I wonder if the actual wizard had any wizardy inspiration. Not that cribbing Gandalf for the Invoker makes him illegal to use as a wizard, of course, but D&D wizards haven't been very Gandalf-y ever.

I also wonder if mearls's experience of fantasy inspiration coming later is something that the rest of the team had, as well -- in other words, that they might start with, say, a mechanical inspiration or a 3e class that needs an analogue, and only worry about the fantasy you can distil from that after the initial inspiration.

Something like "We need a healer who is not the cleric" -> Warlord, or "We have all these neat cleric attack spells that didn't get used" -> Invoker/Avenger.

I also wonder how much their inspiration matches the ideas that come later. Thinking about it after mearls's comment, Gandalf = Invoker makes some sense, but before then, what was Gandalf to you in D&D? And what was the Invoker?

The original D&D wizard, or "magic-user", was taken almost whole cloth from Jack Vance's "Dying Earth". Read just the first 10 pages or so and you'll understand. Tolkein's work inspired som e of the monster selection in D&D, the hobbit(aka halfling), and the ranger, and that was about it.

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

Why do you see Conan as a multiclass rogue in 4e? I have only skimmed the 4e PH but my understanding is that rogue powers work only with light weapons while Conan uses big swords and axes with which these would not work.

Conan rarely went heavily armored. He usually went nearly naked or lightly covered.

Also, Conan as the axe-weilding maniac wasn't really how he was presented in the original Robert E. Howard stories. More than anything, he used a dagger -- simply because it was convenient.

However, Conan wasn't a backstabber, and not really much of a trap-springer, though he had a very good sense of perception. He was also a legendary climber and all around sneaky guy.

So yeah, he doesn't really need to multiclass as a Rogue to be a "thief" at all, but if he wants the stealth skill, he'd be better served by multiclassing than by taking the skill feat.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Conan rarely went heavily armored. He usually went nearly naked or lightly covered.

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. Having reread a lot of the stories lately, I was surprised at how often he was described as wearing a chain hauberk or its equivalent. And I think I recall him using a sword far more often than either axe or dagger.

But yeah, there's certainly room for interpretation.

 

[Reynard]

Conan rarely went heavily armored. He usually went nearly naked or lightly covered.

Also, Conan as the axe-weilding maniac wasn't really how he was presented in the original Robert E. Howard stories. More than anything, he used a dagger -- simply because it was convenient.

However, Conan wasn't a backstabber, and not really much of a trap-springer, though he had a very good sense of perception. He was also a legendary climber and all around sneaky guy.

So yeah, he doesn't really need to multiclass as a Rogue to be a "thief" at all, but if he wants the stealth skill, he'd be better served by multiclassing than by taking the skill feat.

If anything, I think the tendency to quantify everything in strict game mechanics has caused the "confusion" as to what class(es) Conan might be. After all, the games inspired, at least in part, by REH's Conan stories didn't get so fiddly with character abilities. Sneaking around, climbing walls and ambushing enmies weren't the province of a class, they were things anybody could -- and probably should -- do when confronted with the same situations Conan found himself in.

Remember, "Hide in Shadows" and "Move Silently" were, in AD&D (OD&D didn't even have a "thief") weren't "stealth" -- they were literally super special ways of being sneaky (and you couldn't do both at once). "Climb walls" was actually "climb sheer surfaces" -- any idiot with some brains and some brawn could try and pull himself up a rugged cliff or a stonework wall. Players were expected to be creative, and in return they expected that the game world worked "realistically" and their mighty thewed barbarian (aka 3rd level fighter with a 17 strength) would have a reasonable chance of scaling the tower wall to get to the gem encrusted crown.

It wasn't until the advent of skills/proficiencies/what-have-you that the classes really started to be restrictive in this regard. Once mechanical elements were added to determine exactly what a character was capable of, the list of what the character wasn't capable of became huge. Suddenly, Conan *had* to be a fighter-thief because fighters just couldn't climb walls.

I think one of the reasons that the retro-clone, and similar games like the new Hackmaster, have come back into vogue is that with movies like Jackson's Lord of the Rings, players once again expect to be able to *do stuff* that a hero of their type and caliber should be capable of. Aragorn performs many varied tasks -- riding, healing, fighting, leading men, tracking, diplomacy -- because he is a Dunedain Ranger. He doesn't lack for skills because he *isn't* something else.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

could kill you with his brain.

I thought that was what psionics was for.

...or the Corruption Corpse Zombie

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. Having reread a lot of the stories lately, I was surprised at how often he was described as wearing a chain hauberk or its equivalent. And I think I recall him using a sword far more often than either axe or dagger.

But yeah, there's certainly room for interpretation.

I've been reading through the original Robert E. Howard Conan stuff fairly recently, and it seems that in almost every story, Conan makes use of a dagger -- and just as often, he ends up losing it.

As for the chain hauberks and so forth, you're right -- whenever Conan was working as a sellsword and riding to war, he wore armor. It was when he was working as a "thief" that he was scantily clad.

In either case, I remember that my first reaction to 4e was "Wow -- you could run a great Conan style campaign with this, especially since everyone has some kind of healing ability, it lessens the need for Clerics."

And back to the original influences, I certainly saw lots of the Grey Mouser in the 4e Rogue, which I thought was awesome.

The 4e rules already presented lend themselves to a pretty wide range of campaigning, from light-magic Lieber/Howard Sword and Sorcery to high-fantasy stuff.

All we need now is the ability to change the names and fluff text of powers in the Character Builder! I'd love to replace all the flavor text with classic fantasy quotes.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. Having reread a lot of the stories lately, I was surprised at how often he was described as wearing a chain hauberk or its equivalent. And I think I recall him using a sword far more often than either axe or dagger.

But yeah, there's certainly room for interpretation.

I agree with this, he was often armored in what he could find, same with weapons. He tended to wear weapon and armor, of the area he was in at the time

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

I will not enter the Gandalf debate, but I'll support the idea that Conan is really a Fighter with several extra trained skills.

In the original stories, he is often described wearing armor (except when he's a pirate) and usually wields a sword.

It is the comic book Conan the one that wears the furry thong

Also, one of my first observations when I read the 4E PHB was "Rogue = Grey Mouser", so I guess its nice to be confirmed.

Another observation is that Aragorn is best modeled in this edition by the Warlord class (maybe with the Warrior of the Wild multiclass feat)

 

[Rechan]

Avenger: Ripping aside the ethereal nature of Wolf's Book of the New Sun and treating it as a comic book of sorts, Severian the torturer was a major influence on this class's initial feel and direction. Obviously its divine roots steered in a different direction, but I can easily see playing an avenger based on fantasy's most famous torturer.

Bard: Fflewddur Fflam from Alexander's Prydain books provided a fair amount of inspiration.

I'm unfamiliar with either of these.

 

[thedungeondelver]

*Head Explodes*

since I happen to have this handy...

(edit: the exploding head gif from SCANNERS is not as someone else pointed out grandmother safe.)