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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5054343" data-attributes="member: 4937">I agree in theory, but I brainstormed about alternate Rage powers for a while and the problem is making an interesting mechanic that also has good flavor.  When it comes to combat, there isn't really alot of good ideas that can't be encompassed by 'Anger'.  The Dwarven Defender has a stance best described as 'Stubborn', but its almost strictly inferior to rage.  I thought about making a 'Hatred' stance, but I couldn't think of anything as elegant and evocative as the Rage strength boost.  I've seen a 'Fear' stance which was designed to be comical, and succeeded, but it's not really something I want to make an option in anything but a deliberately silly setting (like 'Discworld').  So, while in theory alternate stances sould like a good idea, in practice a set of interesting flavors and matching mechanics is hard to come up with.  My personal feeling is that 'Rage' can just be reflavored for any other sort of intence dislike which provokes combat excellence.I don't really see a reason why a fighter can't do that either.  I think the hard part in d20 is the whole skills/hit die trade off.  However, I'm not entirely uninterested in a swashbuckler style class, provided it isn't a strictly better fighter.Oddly, Bard I never felt the need to reflavor.  I fit them into my homebrew's history and made the general idea of a singing wizard part of the culture.Brief background, after the gods made mortals and things settled down, the gods started teaching their new creations.  One nation grew to become the first global empire - the fabled 'First Kingdom' - and begin to refine magic to the level of craft and craft to the level of magic.  There were spell dancers, spell forgers, spell blowers that made spells out of glass, spell chefs, spell tinkerers, spell carverers, spell growers, spell painters and indeed every sort of magic imaginable.  Magic became a mundane thing and the empire grew very great.  And as great empires do, it fell to hubris and the Art Mages tried to make war on the Heavens and Hells.  The gods fought back and sank their kingdom and continent beneath the waves and destroyed and scattered most of the accumulated magical lore.  Only two traditions survived the Iconoclasm, the spell casters who wove spells from the words written in books and the spell singers who made them from music.  These became the Wizards and the Bards.Sure.  But the thing is, no one really remembers how and the gods get distinctly annoyed if anyone tries to resurrect the forgotten lore.  Besides, there is a lot of lingering ill will even 10,000 years latter against magic for that whole 'nearly destroy the world' Iconclasm thing, and the wizard that looks like he might be practicing forbidden lore finds his tea and bed sheets poisoned by fearful locals - often of the 'the gods should have finished the job 10,000 years ago' inclination. Partly it just goes with both wizards and bards attracting the curious sorts that wants to know things.  But also the spellcasting tradition known cloquially as Wizardry was preserved by a group of librarians, who fled the wreckage of the First Kingdom on the back of a giant turtle and carrying the last of the surviving spell books.  And I know why the Bards know, but the Bards themselves don't.  I will say that the less learned of them think its just because they read books, recite poems and listen to rumors, but the more learned ones know that that is ridiculous.Other than the fact that they sing?  All Bardic spells are automatically disguised per the disguised spell metamagic.  They don't have to look like they are casting a spell to cast a spell.They have Leadership as a class skill.  Of course, you have to actually have a Leadership skill before that means anything to you.</blockquote>

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