D&D 5E D&D Next weekly art column!

[Andor]

And one does not need staff, fireball, robes, or pointy hats, to be a wizard, here are a few examples of what I mean.

Yeah, not one of those looked like a wizard to me. I saw douchbag, monk, gay ranger.

I did like both the pics drawn up for Elminster however.

As for the whole robes and pointy hat thing, that just happens to be what stylish scholars wore when the popular image of wizards got frozen into peoples minds. Robes, in particular, are so culturally associated with scholarship that we still wear the damn things, albeit only for graduation.

As far as art for 5e goes I'd like to see about a 50/50 split between historically grounded stuff (hose, liripips and yes robes in european settings, kimono and obi in a japanese one, lioncloth and chestplate in meso-american, etc) and more fantastic/contemporary clothing.

 

[Hussar]

It's interesting how iconic elements shift over time. As I mentioned, I've been rereading my Basic/Expert books. Did you know that in Basic D&D, magic staffs were cleric only? Wands were for wizards and rods were for everyone.

Here's an image of wizard sans head gear that I kinda like:

 

[YRUSirius]

I just want to quickly go back to cover art, here's my kind of cover art I'd like to see on the new main book (doesn't neccessarily have to be a phb btw).

On the left side we got pieces of a ruin, or you could say pieces of a dungeon. And on the right we got an awesome dragon.

A Dungeon. And a Dragon.

Okay, maybe add some more party members but something along those lines. Something EPIC.

-YRUSirius

 

[Sunseeker]

I just want to quickly go back to cover art, here's my kind of cover art I'd like to see on the new main book (doesn't neccessarily have to be a phb btw).

On the left side we got pieces of a ruin, or you could say pieces of a dungeon. And on the right we got an awesome dragon.

A Dungeon. And a Dragon.

Okay, maybe add some more party members but something along those lines.

-YRUSirius

I like depictions of dragons as enormous, destructive monsters. I never liked the idea of dragons the size of a horse. These things are DRAGONS! We can do a little better than "large horse".

 

[steeldragons]

Yeah, not one of those looked like a wizard to me. I saw douchbag, monk, gay ranger.

Gay rangers everywhere are taking exception to this.

Just so you know.
--SD

 

[Hussar]

I dunno, I figure that these would fit the bill for gay rangers:

 

[Dausuul]

I just want to quickly go back to cover art, here's my kind of cover art I'd like to see on the new main book (doesn't neccessarily have to be a phb btw).

On the left side we got pieces of a ruin, or you could say pieces of a dungeon. And on the right we got an awesome dragon.

A Dungeon. And a Dragon.

Okay, maybe add some more party members but something along those lines. Something EPIC.

-YRUSirius

This would make an awesome DMG cover.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Most worlds that I've seen that embraced the robed, hatted, staved wizard (I'm thinking Pratchett) generally did so with the understanding that it was effectively advertising.

If you're a powerful wizard, you frequently want to advertise the fact, because you don't want the local tough guy to put you into a position where you have to burn him to a crisp to avoid getting punched.

 

[Dausuul]

Most worlds that I've seen that embraced the robed, hatted, staved wizard (I'm thinking Pratchett) generally did so with the understanding that it was effectively advertising.

If you're a powerful wizard, you frequently want to advertise the fact, because you don't want the local tough guy to put you into a position where you have to burn him to a crisp to avoid getting punched.

Wizard signaling is interesting. As a wizard, you want your appearance to send one of two messages:

1) I am an all-powerful wizard. I summon pit fiends to light my pipe, annihilate a layer of the Abyss every Thursday, and regularly thrash Vecna at chess. Kneel before Zod.

or

2) Wizard? What wizard? Ain't nobody here but us commoners, one hundred percent mundane. No wizards here, nosirreebob.

As a general rule, the worst thing you can do is signal that you are a low- to mid-level wizard. That means you're powerful enough to be a serious threat, but fragile enough that killing you is still quite doable.

 

[Quickleaf]

It's interesting how iconic elements shift over time. As I mentioned, I've been rereading my Basic/Expert books. Did you know that in Basic D&D, magic staffs were cleric only? Wands were for wizards and rods were for everyone.

Huh, really? It changed in the Basic D&D Rules Compendium then. There you have a variety of staves, usable on by particular spellcasters; for example a Staff of the Druids (Druid only), Staff of Harming and Staff of Healing (cleric only), Staff of Elements (wizard only), etc. And some rods are class restricted; for example a Rod of Dominion is usable by any PC but a Rod of Inertia is only usable by a dwarf, halfling, fighter, thief, or mystic. Wands were still mages only.

So by 1991, when the Rules Compendium was printed, the magic object-class associations had shifted.