D&D 5E (2014) Giving the arcane gish an identity.

[cbwjm]

The divine death knight and the arcane death knight are two different concepts.

I only really know of the WoW archetype which seems like arcane to me. A heavily armoured warrior using death and frost magic.

 

[Tinker-TDC]

You could be right there.

What about we assemble a starting list of the archetypes we need and see what that looks like?

My initial thoughts are :

• OD&D Elf race
• 4e Assault Swordmage
• 4e Shielding Swordmage
• Jedi (Knight only? Consular? Sentinel?)
• 3.5e dusk blade
• The Witcher (?)
• Bladesinger (?)
• Githyanki Gish (?)
• Wuxia Sword Saint (?)

What would you add or subtract from that list?

This is where I am less useful as I have not played 1-4e. If you want to give me a description of each I'd be grateful.

Now, going by what I know and my guessing and separating them in order of styles I think:
Elf: Basically equal parts Wizard and Fighter? If I am correct I would say Bladesinger and EK has this one.
Assault Swordmage: Blinking, Teleporting, and Striking. Favorable to light/mage armor and, in turn, probably one-handed finesse weapons.
Shielding Swordmage: Heavy Armor, 2h weapon or 1h and shield, Shielding and/or Buffing spells, STR based.
Jedi: Unarmored Defense (Probably INT based for this class though I think The Force is more of a WIS ability), Weapon and open-hand or versatile weapon, cuts (and maybe deflects) projectiles that pass by. Probably a cool sword-throw ability. Mind-games with your opponent.
Duskblade: I have no idea, feels like a rogue/shadowmonk by the title which I think is definitely cool, but no idea if that's what it actually is.
Bladesinger: All I know is the actual subclass. I also know it was originally an elf-only subclass but that was just taken away. I assume from this that it was going for old-elf class and can probably also be dropped but if the goal is a more magical subclass to this half-caster I'd give it the Wizard's Arcane Recovery as-written to let it keep more slots but not buff its overall spell progression. If this was a subclass ability the other subclass abilities for that level would also have to be pretty badass to balance that.
Witcher: Stalk your magical enemy and go in for the kill after learning and preparing to fight it. The Ranger subclass of the Spellsword (not meant as derogatory, lots of subclasses have a subclass that is "other class without multiclassing" and I think that's great. I'd probably give some research or knowing about abberations ribbon in addition to any of their other abilities. I want to play this, it sounds fun.
Githyanki Gish: A psychic version of the spellsword. Should definitely be in for the sake of being a name maker of "Gish" but depending on how psychic is done I think maybe these should also incorporate the Jedi (I mean, githyanki have Mage Hand, Jump, and Telekinesis as natural abilities, that's totally Jedi.)
Sword Saint: I googled it and it recommended "Kensei" as the first result. I'm 50/50 on it but I'd need to know more. How would it differ from Monk Kensei or the Jedi if we're going with a more psychic definition of 'mystic'?
Arcane Archer: I know it's a fighter subclass but it seems like if this class existed before the Arcane Archer was finalized it would belong here so I added it.

 

[Minigiant]

I only really know of the WoW archetype which seems like arcane to me. A heavily armoured warrior using death and frost magic.

The divine one is either a fallen paladin or a paladin of a Death god.

The divine and arcane versions are both "heavily armoured warrior using death and frost magic".

The different is the arcane one is more wizardly and has more utility magic. Whereas the divine oneis more martial and has focus on smites, buffs, and undead fodder.

 

[TheOneGargoyle]

I think the bladesinger does several of those already since it gets you light armor and lets you choose a weapon.

Elf race - take a longsword or shortsword

Jedi - bladesong+mage armor is effectively improved mage armor. Retool shadowblade spell for a lightsaber

Sheilding swordmage - choose any 1-handed weapon and shield spell

Agreed that bladesinger seems the closest "as is" that we have available right now mechanically, but for many people it's not "fighter-y" enough and the EK isn't "magic-y" enough, so people are looking for something in-between. Both of those are also missing aspects strongly associated with implementations from past editions and other genres.

Main question posed by this thread though is : what should the identity of this character concept (presume both mechanically & thematically unless OP says otherwise?) be, given how strong the demand for this type of playstyle is, and how many variations on the theme there are. And how do we strike a middle ground between too specific that restricts individual character stories and not enough story background to give it its own identity distinct from other classes. And how do we ensure that mechanical aspects sufficiently reinforce the thematic identity.

That's the challenge.

 

[Tinker-TDC]

what should the identity of this character concept (presume both mechanically & thematically unless OP says otherwise?) be, given how strong the demand for this type of playstyle is, and how many variations on the theme there are. And how do we strike a middle ground between too specific that restricts individual character stories and not enough story background to give it its own identity distinct from other classes. And how do we ensure that mechanical aspects sufficiently reinforce the thematic identity.

That's the challenge.

What should the identity be?
So the big ones from this thread that I've liked so far are
The Sentinel (designed to protect a specific place, person, or object) which has a specific story, possibly at the Paladin level of required backstory. Some might like that because it intrinsically must tie the character to the world but I worry that would restrict players who have an idea they want to do.
The Order of Monstrosities (don't remember the name, but the one that had stuff like "Order of the Gorgon" which focused on paralysis and poison and the "Order of the Displacer" which focused on illusion and teleportation) which has a theoretical story to it but is vague enough that you could expect a setting would at least have the beast you were talking about. This seems best in-line with the WOTC style of having specific references to things but not nailing anything down and would probably receive very few complaints.
The Mystical Warrior (your powers come from training hard enough with a weapon that the natural course of magic found its way into your fighting style) which is the most generic but tends to be my favorite flavor-wise (though I am a fan of things being super-generic so I can make them fit my world easier whereas I realize some people want the story of the character to come from the class).

If I may make up a fourth one I'd go with "The Wanderer" where the class is based off the wandering ronin for hire tropes (of course cleaned up to not be accused of using a real-world culture), have the powers come from their learning off the land (knowledge picked up in their travels, could be INT or WIS), and have the personal flavor from subclasses come in the form of an environment that they learned from (an Underdark Wanderer could be a Shadowblade, an Astral Plane Wanderer would be the Gish-style Psychic-Warrior, a Wilderness Wanderer could be the Monster Hunter, a City Guard subclass could be the Mage Knight, a Wizard's Courier Wanderer could be the Spellsword, etc.)

How many variations on the theme are there? As many as there need to be. Drop it with four subclasses and everyone's gonna have their own Wanderer idea for a different environment or plane.

I think the base class could fit for the ideas people have agreed on here and then the more specific stuff can fit pretty easy for subclasses. The only worry I'd have is people comparing it to the Ranger because they have a favored terrain so I'd want to really word the story of it in a way that focuses on the Wanderer being a story about the travel where the Ranger is the story about the environment to make sure its toes don't get stepped on.

 

[Parmandur]

Haven't seen much in terms of literary/cinematic precedent yet: Rand Al'Thor is am AD&D Fighter/Magic-User who cjeated at rolling Stata, and Jedi's are Paladins or Clerics.

 

[TheOneGargoyle]

Jedi's are Paladins or Clerics.

How would you create a paladin or cleric that could do the sorts of things a Jedi does?

 

[cbwjm]

I always thought Jedi were monks or psions.

Andrew Rowe has characters that fight with steel and magic. The main one has a focus on metal magic and wields a powerful magical sword.

 

[Parmandur]

How would you create a paladin or cleric that could do the sorts of things a Jedi does?

Spell selection, I reckon. Partly depends on which Jedi, in which piece of fiction you are talking about: in Knights of the Old Republic, they were definitely Clerics and Paladins. d6 Star Wars Jedi were generally considerably less stabnerdy than either Clerics or Paladins already are.

 

[Parmandur]

Also, the directive for the recent Psychic Warrior Fighter Subclass was to make a Fighter that behaved like Darth Vader in the original movies, with similar abilities. It succeeds pretty well.