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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grydan" data-source="post: 6276451" data-attributes="member: 79401"><img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/erm.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":erm:" title="Erm    :erm:" data-shortname=":erm:" />I've written on this before, but I rather emphatically disagree that the 'big four' are non-specific.Wizards, Clerics, and Rogues are not lacking in identity the way that the Fighter is, the way that  @<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=6774827" target="_blank">EnglishLanguage</a>  is talking about. Wizards are a very specific archetype, incorporating a specific-to-D&D interpretation of what wizardry is that fails to cover even a significant fraction of what wizard means to the general public. Merlin, Gandalf, Dumbledore, Dr. Strange, Dr. Fate ... not a single one, or any of the vast array of wizards appearing in Saturday morning cartoons, comicbooks, fables, myths, or legends maps onto the narrowly defined D&D wizard, outside of those appearing in D&D-derived material and maybe the works of Jack Vance.Clerics are an incredibly specific archetype, something that did not exist in any shape or form prior to its publication in D&D. There's no long tradition of spell-casting, armour-wearing, undead-repelling, specific-god-from-a-pantheon-worshipping, blunt-weapon-using magical warrior healers found anywhere. Heck, there's not even a single individual example of that archetype that I'm aware of that predates D&D. It's cobbled together from a variety of largely unrelated sources. Even the divine/arcane split is fairly unique to D&D, as any distinction between the two I'm aware of in pre-D&D material would treat the arcane as unholy work of the devil. Rogues are only slightly broader in concept than the class they replaced, which was a fairly narrow archetype covering the tomb-raiding thief. They're nimble, sneaky, opportunistic, pick-pocketing, lock-picking, trap-disablers.And yet the fighter is treated as if it should cover every non-magical warrior that isn't covered by a more specific class. Samurai and street thug, knight and pirate, swashbuckler and tribesman, archer and pugilist, soldier and farm boy. Where the other classes are broad are in precisely the area where the fighter is narrowest: the tool-set they're given to bring their archetypes to life. This is where your wizard is 'non-specific': those 'non-specific' wizards can be blasters and summoners and sages and generalists, with where they fall depending on what spells they decide to prepare today.</blockquote>

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