Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Giving the arcane gish an identity.
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Levistus's_Leviathan" data-source="post: 8334107" data-attributes="member: 7023887"><p>Here's a quote from the PHB's "Classes" section:</p><p></p><p><strong>*</strong>See the emboldened parts that prove my point, and then the examples below it for even more proof that theme/flavor is a part of your class. If you need even more, see the table below that shows the 12 different classes and gives a completely theme/flavor-based "<strong>Description</strong>" section of the table. </p><p></p><p>Your table runs it differently from how the game is written. That's fine. Just don't try to use your table's playstyle/houserule to try and invalidate my argument anymore, please. </p><p></p><p>I think you got that confused, as Warlocks recharge spells on a short rest and don't have sorcery points. I would know what class you are automatically when you use one of your abilities. Even if you went out of your way to avoid saying them, I could eventually narrow it down based on the spells you cast and how you recharged your spell slots. </p><p></p><p>Even if you mentioned absolutely no class features or spells, made no mention of your hit dice or anything else mechanical that could give you away, if you played it by the books, I could figure out what class you were at the first time you or anyone else said "Spellbook", "Tome of Shadows", "Imp/Quasit/Sprite/Pseudodragon familiar", "Pact Weapon", "Talisman", or "Otherworldly Patron". </p><p></p><p>Classes are a thing because of flavor. If there was no flavor or theme, it would just be mechanics and characters would only be chosen based on who was the most mechanically effective. Classes were made not to give a pool of different mechanics, they were made to give mechanics to fulfill a theme/idea that someone had for a class. This isn't some "chicken or the egg" riddle (the answer to that is egg), it's "do people create classes to have different mechanics, or do they create mechanics to fill different classes' thematic niches?", to which the answer is undeniably the latter. </p><p></p><p>Dude (and I mean this as a gender-neutral dude, I was raised by a Californian mother), you're comparing Apples (Classes), Oranges (backgrounds), Bananas (feats), Blueberries (skills), and Strawberries (race), and trying to replace all parts of a fruit salad with just one or two fruits. </p><p></p><p>Like in my example, if the Rogue class said "Rogues are sneaky and good at sleight of hand", but gave them no features that let them take the Stealth or Sleight of Hand skills, and someone was complaining about that, it would not be a valid argument to say "well, just choose X-background/race/feat!". Dude, just no. That's not how it works. The class says that it's sneaky and quick with their hands, so the class should have a mechanic that let's them do that. It would be even more disingenuous to say "well, just wait X-levels to choose X-feat instead of actually improving your rogue features if you want that part of the rogue theme!", hopefully for obvious reasons. If a class's flavor text gives you a theme, the class's mechanics should give you that theme. </p><p></p><p>And, again, you keep pretending like feats aren't optional, or at least are accepting it in the most grating way possible. I've been in campaigns where feats weren't allowed, I have friends that don't allow feats in their campaigns, and I've even met some players that hate playing with feats (which I absolutely cannot fathom from the standpoint of a PC). </p><p></p><p>And I never said there was anything inherently wrong with that. I just said that there is a line and that there are circumstances where it can be crossed. I even gave examples on circumstances where I feel that it would be unacceptable to say "just reflavor it". </p><p></p><p>First off, you're highly understating the tradeoff. You're trading bladesong (+10 movement speed, +INT mod to AC, +INT to Concentration saves, and the minor benefit of advantage on Acrobatics), Song of Defense (negating damage with spell slots as a reaction), and Song of Victory (+Int to damage while bladesinging). It matters because you're trading all of that in order to get one feature (two if you count the minor benefit of the light armor proficiency to make it easier to get medium/heavy armor proficiency). That's a huge tradeoff to be able to kind-of replicate your theme, and not even in the way that I want. I don't want to play a bladesinger, if I did, I would play one. I want to play a spell-striking Gish, which the Bladesinger does not do a good job at replicating. </p><p></p><p>1) Are you really going to force me to amend my statement to "ooh! Awesome rogue features! I can't wait to use them until the DM gives me two high-level magic items that let me be more effective ignoring my class features than actually use them in tandem with my magic items!!!"? That anecdote, although very strange, doesn't contradict my point. The PC didn't ask to do that, they didn't know that the DM was going to give them those items. I assume that most people that do know that their DM is going to give their specific characters certain magic items upon character creation are going to choose to create characters that would better benefit from using those magic items. If the DM says at character creation "You're going to get a Staff of the Magi at X-level", the player's almost definitely not going to say "Okay! I'll play a Barbarian!!!". </p><p></p><p>2) There's a huge mechanical advantage to Bladesong (+INT mod to AC and Concentration checks, +10 speed, access to the 10th and 14th level features), too. Maybe Sneak Attack isn't a good comparison, I think Rage is more equivalent. Someone that wants to play a barbarian with a high AC almost definitely won't wear Heavy Armor, because that prevents them from using Rage, Relentless Rage, and a ton of subclass features. </p><p></p><p>3) You keep using false equivalencies. This one is slightly more accurate than the "blowgun" argument of your previous post, but it's still wildly wrong. Tool proficiencies have no in-combat effects for fighters, but Bladesong has a ton. A more accurate equivalency would be telling a character that wants to play a Juggernaut that they have to be a Barbarian wearing Heavy Armor, even though they can't use Rage and tons of other features. Bladesong is a core feature of the Bladesinger subclass (it's in the name of the subclass, for goodness' sake!), just like Rage is a core feature of the Barbarian class, but the tool proficiency feature of Battlemasters is by no means a core feature of the subclass. </p><p></p><p>No one told the Hexblade that if you want to play a martial Warlock that we already have the Pact of the Blade, and thus we don't need any more martial warlock options. No one told the Unarmed Fighting Fighting Style that if you want to use unarmed strikes in combat that you have to be a Monk or race with natural weapons. No one told the Swords Bard that it couldn't exist because you could just reflavor the Battlemaster fighter as singing while using team-buffing maneuvers, or for that matter, that the College of Valor subclass already existed, and thus that it couldn't exist. Or the Chronurgy Wizard for Divination Wizards, or Oath of the Watchers Paladins for Horizon Walker Rangers, and so on, and so on. No one said "choose the original option, but use weapons/armor that make you sub-optimal" to any of them, so why should they now? "You have to build the character you want to play in order to play the character you want to play" is being directed very specifically to this class that people in this thread and others are asking for, but not any of the in-game official examples of some overlap that was allowed to exist in 5e. Why should an Arcane Gish be forced to specifically choose backgrounds and races to allow for their character concept to exist when no one told the Oath of the Watchers Paladin that it doesn't get to exist because "it can just get heavy armor with a feat, and is allowed to use melee weapons if they want"?</p><p></p><p>I did say "heavy armor", didn't I? Just checked. Yes, I did. That's 3 feats. Wizards get 5 ASIs. That's 60% of your ASIs and 12 levels that you have to use to just get the armor/shield/weapon proficiencies that an Arcane Gish class would give you in 1 level. Even if you say "just be a Variant Human/Mountain Dwarf/Githyanki/Custom Lineage!", that's 2 feats (well, still three for a Mountain Dwarf or Githyanki that wants Shields) that you have to use that otherwise could have gone to GWM, Crusher/Slasher/Piercer, Fey-Touched, capping out your INT score, or another feat. Additionally, an Arcane Gish class would give you a Fighting Style at level 2, so in order to replicate that, you'd have to expend another feat (and that wouldn't include the Arcane Warrior fighting style that the class would get, which would be a Wizard version of Divine/Druidic Warrior from TCoE). </p><p></p><p>Even so, this is completely besides the point. The nitpick in me forced myself to point out your error with counting the amount of feats required. This tangent is now becoming a red herring, because a class would solve all of this with one level and not require any ASIs to be used on the class identity. </p><p></p><p>I am aware. However, for a Bladesinger to benefit from all of GWM, they have to expend another feat to get proficiency with at least one heavy weapon. That's two feats behind, or three if they're going for Heavy Armor (like I said), or four behind to get a fighting style. </p><p></p><p><strong>FEATS ARE NO SUBSTITUTION FOR CLASS FEATURES</strong></p><p>(Not yelling, just making my point clear.)</p><p></p><p>Arcane gish is a catchall. I'm not debating that term, as that debate and a discussion of it would be a red herring. </p><p></p><p>I want a class. I have gone in-depth about how a class could accomplish things that the current subclasses couldn't (all armor, shield, simple/martial weapon, Fighting Style with an Arcane Warrior Fighting Style, different subclasses of the class that use the same base features (spell strike) but in different ways and with different spells, an arcane ward class feature, and so on). </p><p></p><p>Why? Why is that a "reasonable stance"? I cannot understand it at all. By the same argument, why aren't Rangers a Druid or Rogue or Fighter subclass? Why aren't Paladins a Cleric or Fighter subclass? Why is it reasonable to let a Primal Gish class exist (Ranger), a Divine Gish class exist (Paladin), but not an Arcane Gish? </p><p></p><p>Does that not seem contradictory to you? Does it not seem gatekeep-y? </p><p></p><p>No, because I didn't say that. I said that they should be able to Spell-Strike before level 11, not that they have to be able to use Lightning-Bolt in Spell Strike before 11th level (or if I did say that, I misspoke, and meant that spellstrike should be available before level 11, not the specific "lightning bolt-spell strike" combination). </p><p></p><p>It would not be OP unless you made it be so. I already have a rough-draft for a Spell-Strike feature that would make the feature not be OP (taking an action (eventually just a bonus action) beforehand to cast the spell, requiring concentration, giving the option of losing the spell if you miss enough, etc). Chromatic Orb is just one d8 higher in damage than a Divine Smite (and it's a more commonly-resisted/immune damage type), so I don't think that allowing a level 2 Arcane Gish use an action beforehand to store Chromatic Orb inside of their weapon to automatically deal its damage on the next turn to any target it hits would be OP. </p><p></p><p>I'm not going to address the rest of your math, because it's doing math on false assumptions about the feature's mechanics.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Levistus's_Leviathan, post: 8334107, member: 7023887"] Here's a quote from the PHB's "Classes" section: [B]*[/B]See the emboldened parts that prove my point, and then the examples below it for even more proof that theme/flavor is a part of your class. If you need even more, see the table below that shows the 12 different classes and gives a completely theme/flavor-based "[B]Description[/B]" section of the table. Your table runs it differently from how the game is written. That's fine. Just don't try to use your table's playstyle/houserule to try and invalidate my argument anymore, please. I think you got that confused, as Warlocks recharge spells on a short rest and don't have sorcery points. I would know what class you are automatically when you use one of your abilities. Even if you went out of your way to avoid saying them, I could eventually narrow it down based on the spells you cast and how you recharged your spell slots. Even if you mentioned absolutely no class features or spells, made no mention of your hit dice or anything else mechanical that could give you away, if you played it by the books, I could figure out what class you were at the first time you or anyone else said "Spellbook", "Tome of Shadows", "Imp/Quasit/Sprite/Pseudodragon familiar", "Pact Weapon", "Talisman", or "Otherworldly Patron". Classes are a thing because of flavor. If there was no flavor or theme, it would just be mechanics and characters would only be chosen based on who was the most mechanically effective. Classes were made not to give a pool of different mechanics, they were made to give mechanics to fulfill a theme/idea that someone had for a class. This isn't some "chicken or the egg" riddle (the answer to that is egg), it's "do people create classes to have different mechanics, or do they create mechanics to fill different classes' thematic niches?", to which the answer is undeniably the latter. Dude (and I mean this as a gender-neutral dude, I was raised by a Californian mother), you're comparing Apples (Classes), Oranges (backgrounds), Bananas (feats), Blueberries (skills), and Strawberries (race), and trying to replace all parts of a fruit salad with just one or two fruits. Like in my example, if the Rogue class said "Rogues are sneaky and good at sleight of hand", but gave them no features that let them take the Stealth or Sleight of Hand skills, and someone was complaining about that, it would not be a valid argument to say "well, just choose X-background/race/feat!". Dude, just no. That's not how it works. The class says that it's sneaky and quick with their hands, so the class should have a mechanic that let's them do that. It would be even more disingenuous to say "well, just wait X-levels to choose X-feat instead of actually improving your rogue features if you want that part of the rogue theme!", hopefully for obvious reasons. If a class's flavor text gives you a theme, the class's mechanics should give you that theme. And, again, you keep pretending like feats aren't optional, or at least are accepting it in the most grating way possible. I've been in campaigns where feats weren't allowed, I have friends that don't allow feats in their campaigns, and I've even met some players that hate playing with feats (which I absolutely cannot fathom from the standpoint of a PC). And I never said there was anything inherently wrong with that. I just said that there is a line and that there are circumstances where it can be crossed. I even gave examples on circumstances where I feel that it would be unacceptable to say "just reflavor it". First off, you're highly understating the tradeoff. You're trading bladesong (+10 movement speed, +INT mod to AC, +INT to Concentration saves, and the minor benefit of advantage on Acrobatics), Song of Defense (negating damage with spell slots as a reaction), and Song of Victory (+Int to damage while bladesinging). It matters because you're trading all of that in order to get one feature (two if you count the minor benefit of the light armor proficiency to make it easier to get medium/heavy armor proficiency). That's a huge tradeoff to be able to kind-of replicate your theme, and not even in the way that I want. I don't want to play a bladesinger, if I did, I would play one. I want to play a spell-striking Gish, which the Bladesinger does not do a good job at replicating. 1) Are you really going to force me to amend my statement to "ooh! Awesome rogue features! I can't wait to use them until the DM gives me two high-level magic items that let me be more effective ignoring my class features than actually use them in tandem with my magic items!!!"? That anecdote, although very strange, doesn't contradict my point. The PC didn't ask to do that, they didn't know that the DM was going to give them those items. I assume that most people that do know that their DM is going to give their specific characters certain magic items upon character creation are going to choose to create characters that would better benefit from using those magic items. If the DM says at character creation "You're going to get a Staff of the Magi at X-level", the player's almost definitely not going to say "Okay! I'll play a Barbarian!!!". 2) There's a huge mechanical advantage to Bladesong (+INT mod to AC and Concentration checks, +10 speed, access to the 10th and 14th level features), too. Maybe Sneak Attack isn't a good comparison, I think Rage is more equivalent. Someone that wants to play a barbarian with a high AC almost definitely won't wear Heavy Armor, because that prevents them from using Rage, Relentless Rage, and a ton of subclass features. 3) You keep using false equivalencies. This one is slightly more accurate than the "blowgun" argument of your previous post, but it's still wildly wrong. Tool proficiencies have no in-combat effects for fighters, but Bladesong has a ton. A more accurate equivalency would be telling a character that wants to play a Juggernaut that they have to be a Barbarian wearing Heavy Armor, even though they can't use Rage and tons of other features. Bladesong is a core feature of the Bladesinger subclass (it's in the name of the subclass, for goodness' sake!), just like Rage is a core feature of the Barbarian class, but the tool proficiency feature of Battlemasters is by no means a core feature of the subclass. No one told the Hexblade that if you want to play a martial Warlock that we already have the Pact of the Blade, and thus we don't need any more martial warlock options. No one told the Unarmed Fighting Fighting Style that if you want to use unarmed strikes in combat that you have to be a Monk or race with natural weapons. No one told the Swords Bard that it couldn't exist because you could just reflavor the Battlemaster fighter as singing while using team-buffing maneuvers, or for that matter, that the College of Valor subclass already existed, and thus that it couldn't exist. Or the Chronurgy Wizard for Divination Wizards, or Oath of the Watchers Paladins for Horizon Walker Rangers, and so on, and so on. No one said "choose the original option, but use weapons/armor that make you sub-optimal" to any of them, so why should they now? "You have to build the character you want to play in order to play the character you want to play" is being directed very specifically to this class that people in this thread and others are asking for, but not any of the in-game official examples of some overlap that was allowed to exist in 5e. Why should an Arcane Gish be forced to specifically choose backgrounds and races to allow for their character concept to exist when no one told the Oath of the Watchers Paladin that it doesn't get to exist because "it can just get heavy armor with a feat, and is allowed to use melee weapons if they want"? I did say "heavy armor", didn't I? Just checked. Yes, I did. That's 3 feats. Wizards get 5 ASIs. That's 60% of your ASIs and 12 levels that you have to use to just get the armor/shield/weapon proficiencies that an Arcane Gish class would give you in 1 level. Even if you say "just be a Variant Human/Mountain Dwarf/Githyanki/Custom Lineage!", that's 2 feats (well, still three for a Mountain Dwarf or Githyanki that wants Shields) that you have to use that otherwise could have gone to GWM, Crusher/Slasher/Piercer, Fey-Touched, capping out your INT score, or another feat. Additionally, an Arcane Gish class would give you a Fighting Style at level 2, so in order to replicate that, you'd have to expend another feat (and that wouldn't include the Arcane Warrior fighting style that the class would get, which would be a Wizard version of Divine/Druidic Warrior from TCoE). Even so, this is completely besides the point. The nitpick in me forced myself to point out your error with counting the amount of feats required. This tangent is now becoming a red herring, because a class would solve all of this with one level and not require any ASIs to be used on the class identity. I am aware. However, for a Bladesinger to benefit from all of GWM, they have to expend another feat to get proficiency with at least one heavy weapon. That's two feats behind, or three if they're going for Heavy Armor (like I said), or four behind to get a fighting style. [B]FEATS ARE NO SUBSTITUTION FOR CLASS FEATURES[/B] (Not yelling, just making my point clear.) Arcane gish is a catchall. I'm not debating that term, as that debate and a discussion of it would be a red herring. I want a class. I have gone in-depth about how a class could accomplish things that the current subclasses couldn't (all armor, shield, simple/martial weapon, Fighting Style with an Arcane Warrior Fighting Style, different subclasses of the class that use the same base features (spell strike) but in different ways and with different spells, an arcane ward class feature, and so on). Why? Why is that a "reasonable stance"? I cannot understand it at all. By the same argument, why aren't Rangers a Druid or Rogue or Fighter subclass? Why aren't Paladins a Cleric or Fighter subclass? Why is it reasonable to let a Primal Gish class exist (Ranger), a Divine Gish class exist (Paladin), but not an Arcane Gish? Does that not seem contradictory to you? Does it not seem gatekeep-y? No, because I didn't say that. I said that they should be able to Spell-Strike before level 11, not that they have to be able to use Lightning-Bolt in Spell Strike before 11th level (or if I did say that, I misspoke, and meant that spellstrike should be available before level 11, not the specific "lightning bolt-spell strike" combination). It would not be OP unless you made it be so. I already have a rough-draft for a Spell-Strike feature that would make the feature not be OP (taking an action (eventually just a bonus action) beforehand to cast the spell, requiring concentration, giving the option of losing the spell if you miss enough, etc). Chromatic Orb is just one d8 higher in damage than a Divine Smite (and it's a more commonly-resisted/immune damage type), so I don't think that allowing a level 2 Arcane Gish use an action beforehand to store Chromatic Orb inside of their weapon to automatically deal its damage on the next turn to any target it hits would be OP. I'm not going to address the rest of your math, because it's doing math on false assumptions about the feature's mechanics. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Giving the arcane gish an identity.
Top