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<blockquote data-quote="DMScott" data-source="post: 1093984" data-attributes="member: 11734">Sure, but the same holds true for D&amp;D. Conan isn't a straight D&amp;D Barbarian, at various points in his career he's very likely picking up Rogue and Fighter levels, too. Your uber-thief in D&amp;D is necessarily also an uber-assassin with a sneak attack that will utterly destroy low to mid level opponents (and perhaps high level Wizards, who are uniformly frail, as opposed to the sword-wielding Gandalfs of fantasy literature)... even if you just wanted to make the ultimate cat burglar who prides himself on never drawing a blade, the class abilities require him to become a killing machine.That is all part of the implied setting, to use a Monte Cook concept. In D&amp;D, &quot;Barbarian&quot; has a specific meaning that doesn't necessarily match with any particular meaning from history or literature, but it's a strong enough archetype that we can build settings around it. AU also has strong archetypes, but they're different from the D&amp;D ones. That's basically the point of the exercise - to provide a different implied setting. That's why it says 'Variant' on the cover, after all.I still think the AU classes look exotic more because they're new - I've been playing around with AU concepts for a week and a half now, whereas I've had 25 years to get my head around the *D&amp;D implied setting. When I stand back and look at it, a Magister is no more exotic than a Wizard or Sorcerer, he's just different. Barbaric cultures in my campaign won't necessarily be focused around a single class for their main fighter. The head of the Thieves' Guild is no longer necessarily a nasty assassin. There's a different set of paradigms, and it'll take a bit to internalize them all and turn out a believable campaign world, but I don't think it'll feel forced or weird when that's done. Unless I do a bad job, of course <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> .</blockquote>

[QUOTE="DMScott, post: 1093984, member: 11734"] Sure, but the same holds true for D&D. Conan isn't a straight D&D Barbarian, at various points in his career he's very likely picking up Rogue and Fighter levels, too. Your uber-thief in D&D is necessarily also an uber-assassin with a sneak attack that will utterly destroy low to mid level opponents (and perhaps high level Wizards, who are uniformly frail, as opposed to the sword-wielding Gandalfs of fantasy literature)... even if you just wanted to make the ultimate cat burglar who prides himself on never drawing a blade, the class abilities require him to become a killing machine. That is all part of the implied setting, to use a Monte Cook concept. In D&D, "Barbarian" has a specific meaning that doesn't necessarily match with any particular meaning from history or literature, but it's a strong enough archetype that we can build settings around it. AU also has strong archetypes, but they're different from the D&D ones. That's basically the point of the exercise - to provide a different implied setting. That's why it says 'Variant' on the cover, after all. I still think the AU classes look exotic more because they're new - I've been playing around with AU concepts for a week and a half now, whereas I've had 25 years to get my head around the *D&D implied setting. When I stand back and look at it, a Magister is no more exotic than a Wizard or Sorcerer, he's just different. Barbaric cultures in my campaign won't necessarily be focused around a single class for their main fighter. The head of the Thieves' Guild is no longer necessarily a nasty assassin. There's a different set of paradigms, and it'll take a bit to internalize them all and turn out a believable campaign world, but I don't think it'll feel forced or weird when that's done. Unless I do a bad job, of course ;) . [/QUOTE]

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