Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Arcane Runes Press" data-source="post: 1954958" data-attributes="member: 402">The problem I see is that most of the new classes are less generic than their names imply.In specific, I'll talk about two of the new classes that draw the most heat for being overly specialized: the swashbuckler, and the samurai. The swashbuckler, as a concept, is fairly generic mechanically, as is the samurai. Both imply certain thematic elements, but each is broad enough to support multiple mechanical expressions of the theme. Each one is a gem with many facets, I suppose you could say. The problem for me is that each of these new base classes takes a broad theme, and ties it directly to one specific implementation of the theme. To use the previous analogy, each is designed to acknowledge only one facet of the whole gem. This is especially notable with the samurai, in part because of the breadth of possibility the Oriental Adventures samurai enjoyed, and in part because of the way that Rokugan d20 showed how one class could be developed hundreds of different ways. My Crane Iaijutsu duelist fought with precise, measured grace, and he was built using the samurai class. But another player had a Crab bushi who was the archetypal, club wielding thug, and he was built using the samurai class too. But the samurai of the Complete Warrior does not provide the same luxury of customization. It's the same generically-thematic name, but now it's tied to very specific class abilities that do not acknowledge the full range of expressions of the theme &quot;Samurai&quot;. People complain that the ranger is too specific now, but imagine how much they'd grouse if the class had the same abilities but was named &quot;the Woodsman.&quot; Same with the paladin and &quot;Holy Warrior&quot;. To sum up: The names of each class are thematically one step removed from the generic, and mechanically two or three steps removed.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Arcane Runes Press, post: 1954958, member: 402"] The problem I see is that most of the new classes are less generic than their names imply. In specific, I'll talk about two of the new classes that draw the most heat for being overly specialized: the swashbuckler, and the samurai. The swashbuckler, as a concept, is fairly generic mechanically, as is the samurai. Both imply certain thematic elements, but each is broad enough to support multiple mechanical expressions of the theme. Each one is a gem with many facets, I suppose you could say. The problem for me is that each of these new base classes takes a broad theme, and ties it directly to one specific implementation of the theme. To use the previous analogy, each is designed to acknowledge only one facet of the whole gem. This is especially notable with the samurai, in part because of the breadth of possibility the Oriental Adventures samurai enjoyed, and in part because of the way that Rokugan d20 showed how one class could be developed hundreds of different ways. My Crane Iaijutsu duelist fought with precise, measured grace, and he was built using the samurai class. But another player had a Crab bushi who was the archetypal, club wielding thug, and he was built using the samurai class too. But the samurai of the Complete Warrior does not provide the same luxury of customization. It's the same generically-thematic name, but now it's tied to very specific class abilities that do not acknowledge the full range of expressions of the theme "Samurai". People complain that the ranger is too specific now, but imagine how much they'd grouse if the class had the same abilities but was named "the Woodsman." Same with the paladin and "Holy Warrior". To sum up: The names of each class are thematically one step removed from the generic, and mechanically two or three steps removed. [/QUOTE]

Verification