I HATE the term GISH

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

FWIW, the prominence of use of the term gish to describe any generic fighter/mage type is very much a 3E thing. With the lack of a search option on the Wizards boards, i can't really find the thread, but several years ago a poster (i forget whom) started a thread on the Character Optimization forum in which he explained the term and its history and meaning in D&D and proposed it become the de facto term for fighter/mages. I don't recall the general discourse of the thread, but it's pretty clear what the effective outcome was.

Bring me his head.

 

[BOZ]

Isn't he on the boards? (The guy that created the Githyanki, that is. Thought I remembered reading a thread about that not too long ago.)

not that i know of. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stross

 

[Agamon]

Bring me his head.

I'll take his still-beating heart. Or his spleen, I'm not picky.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

not that i know of. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Stross

I know there was someone who had designed a creature that appeared in the Fiend Folio that was a poster here. I may have gotten them confused.

Or just may be confused in general, which is probably the case. No- I'm not hearing voices again!!!

 

[Henry]

I know there was someone who had designed a creature that appeared in the Fiend Folio that was a poster here. I may have gotten them confused.

Or just may be confused in general, which is probably the case. No- I'm not hearing voices again!!!

That would be our own Plane Sailing, who designed the Shadow Demon, the Qullan, and the Stunjelly in a White Dwarf magazine, and they later got added to the Fiend Folio...

As for Charles Stross, I think I have seen him before... I could have sworn we had an ENWorlder with "stross" in the user title, but I just searched and there isn't one. Maybe I saw him on another forum?

 

[BOZ]

i don't think he's particularly involved in D&D anymore. i remember seeing an interview with him once, around the Planescape era, and they asking him about githyanki and slaad and he didn't seem to recollect that much.

 

[jmucchiello]

5 to 7 levels in Fighter, 6 to 9 levels of Thief, then Re-start as a Druid, and BAM! You're a Bard. But no more or less than that, and it had to be in that order.

Almost. 5-8 levels of Fighter. Then dual-class into thief for Ftr+1 to 9 levels. Once your thief level exceeds your fighter level, and before attaining xp for 10th level, you can wipe your xp clean as start with 0 xp as a bard. Bards have access to druid spells (and technically study druidism) but take no actual druid levels.

I don't know anyone who played a 1e bard except in games that started at high level. The pages of the PHB before the bard were used far more frequently. Those pages being the psionics pages.

Oh, yeah, the topic. Never noticed the term Gish before this thread, but there it is in the FF. No one has noted though that it is in quotes on a table where a typical lair of 21-30 githyanki is described. The entries include 1 supreme leader, 2 captains, 1 knight, 2 warlocks, 3 sergeants, 2 'gish', and 10-19 lower levels. Just a paragraph up from that is a party of githyanki traveling the Prime Material Plane. There, the f/mu is the leader. So Gish could be a title.

Hey, Charles Stross also invented the Slaadi. Wonder what his games were like....

 

[InVinoVeritas]

Almost. 5-8 levels of Fighter. Then dual-class into thief for Ftr+1 to 9 levels. Once your thief level exceeds your fighter level, and before attaining xp for 10th level, you can wipe your xp clean as start with 0 xp as a bard. Bards have access to druid spells (and technically study druidism) but take no actual druid levels.

I don't know anyone who played a 1e bard except in games that started at high level. The pages of the PHB before the bard were used far more frequently. Those pages being the psionics pages.

Heck, actually becoming a bard was tougher than it looked, even.

First, only humans and half-elves can become bards. But only humans can take two classes (dual-class, not multi-class). So, half-elves actually can't become bards.

Second, bards need a minimum of Str 15, Dex 15, Con 10, Int 12, Wis 15, Cha 15. However, they must switch to thieves, and then switch to druids/bards. That means they actually need a minimum of 17 in Dex, Wis, and Cha.

I never even heard of the term "gish," but I never used githyanki, either. I never thought they were that cool, actually.

 

[Kyrail]

I always called Fright/Rogues Frogues. Or Barbarian Fighters Biters. Not proud of it though

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

It's a nice slang term understood by most of the people on the board. Gish is a helluva lot easier to type than

fighter/magic user
fighter/mage
duskblade
mage blade
eldritch knight
so forth...

Not only is it short, it's generic. Someone could say "Hi, I'm interested in playing a gish-type character, but not sure how to build him," and most people (here on the boards) would understand what the poster is looking for. If someone else goes asking about making a mage blade, he's going to start getting a lot of responses about Arcana Evolved.