Excerpt: Paragon paths (merged)

[Stormtalon]

You could call it 'superfighter', you could call it 'increased badassery', or you could call it 'ultra scary drunken cow'. In and of itself, the means to change it does not refute the idea there is a problem.

If there was a throw away line like "... similar to a kensei", there wouldn't be much of an issue. I can't imagine the paragon path being called 'Bonaabakulu abasekhemu' would get a pass like this. Being familiar with the term does not invalidate the specificity, which is really the point of contention.

My only concern with them using the name Kensai for a Paragon Path is it takes the name out of the pool of possible names for the hypothesized Ki power source. I was thinking yesterday that a Kensai would be an ideal Ki Defender class (with Monk as striker & Samurai as Leader), and now that dream has been dashed. As dreams go, it's not much of one so no real big loss, I guess.

Oh, who am I kidding.... My world has been ruined!

 

[Lacyon]

Let me rephrase: I don't understand why they didn't just call it "Weapon Master" in the same language the rest of the Player's Handbook is written in.

It's English now.

Hang on, I'm still checking the pockets for loose grammar.

 

[LEHaskell]

It's English now.

Hang on, I'm still checking the pockets for loose grammar.

Did grammar get loose again? You know how she gets when she doesn't take her meds.

 

[Voss]

You understand it wrong. It's the gaming group themselves that define if they like Vikings vs. Samurai vs. Saracens vs. Pirates vs. Cowboys vs. Ninjas vs. D&D 3.X grognards vs. D&D 4.0 fanbois vs. Godzilla. Names are irrelevant. Wizard of the Coast only provides rules how they work. Every gaming group can call their Viking Warriors in their game Imperial Saint Stormtroopers for all I and other people not affiliated to that gaming group care.

It gets really tiresome if people complain about Wotc "forcing" them to accept flavor, the same as they complain about the loss of the dumb Great Wheel, the change of the Succubi to the Devils, the advancement of the timeline for the Forgotten Realms, and all that other stuff. No, they don't force you to accept naming conventions and background lore. Get over it, people.
D&D is about fantasy. Plain and simple.

Which is fine if you're playing by yourself. But in a group, whats in the book is the standard jargon for communication. If you all have your own special code for what specific names. feats and background you don't like, it quickly becomes a trainwreck. A gaming group doesn't have a hivemind any more than a message board does.

And of course, that assumes that everyone has 'a' group and sticks with it, and doesn't play at cons or events or anything else.

So yes, flavor is going to bug people.

 

[DandD]

A gaming group will have better communication than any message board on the world by virtue of people being together, playing together and facing each another face to face, and having their own prefered atmosphere they like. Background lore is what everybody agrees to in advance, and changes to how they want it for their style.

 

[tresson]

Let me rephrase: I don't understand why they didn't just call it "Weapon Master" in the same language the rest of the Player's Handbook is written in.

I'm sure if we go back far enough that would disqualify weapon master too. You have to remember that English is the Ali Baba of languages.

 

[katahn]

My only concern with them using the name Kensai for a Paragon Path is it takes the name out of the pool of possible names for the hypothesized Ki power source. I was thinking yesterday that a Kensai would be an ideal Ki Defender class (with Monk as striker & Samurai as Leader), and now that dream has been dashed. As dreams go, it's not much of one so no real big loss, I guess.

Oh, who am I kidding.... My world has been ruined!

Ki Power Source:
Defender: Samurai
Controller: Wu-Jen
Leader: Monk (ie. shinto priest, buddhist monk, taoist, etc.) or Shogun ("warlord")
Striker: Ninja

Strictly speaking, Kensai isn't needed. I don't personally see a difference between "martial" and "ki" though, so using Kensai as a paragon path doesn't bother me in the slightest. The exploits, what I've seen of them thus far, seem like they come pretty close to making "martial" characters approach the standard of "wire fu" already and that only would leave the Wu-Jen (no martial controller). So outside of campaign-specific fluff and maybe some variant abilities/feats, I don't have a good idea of how a Samurai is really going to be terribly different from a Fighter, or a Ninja from a Rogue.

 

[Dausuul]

It's English now.

This would be why it doesn't show up anywhere in Merriam-Webster's Online, or Dictionary.com, or Wiktionary?

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Man, I really feel sorry for the folks coming up with these names. No matter what they use, they can't win!

Might as well just have called it the Awesomemaster Weaponguy.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

We got a long list of paragon paths. Every single one of them was class-specific. The excerpt was not described as "class-specific paragon paths" but just "paragon paths."

The logical conclusion is that paragon paths are class-specific now.

Wrong. Just plainly wrong. You can´t logically conclude from that subgroup to the rest.

Also we saw two different types:

- Class specific

- Build specific

so maybe we get: One prestige class for the class + 1 prestige class for certain builds.
Or maybe we get hybrids or role specific paths. We just don´t know yet...