Just a couple of questions

[neceros]

Well, if you get one of each working together as a pair, you can call them 'lock 'n' 'lord.

Awesome.

 

[DM_Blake]

The word "wizard" to me connotes someon who has achieved an impressive and imposing level of magic, someone like Gandalf. I certainly wouldn't call a gawking apprentice a "wizard." So that's a pretty pretentious, high falutin' class name IMO.

I don't know that I agree.

Maybe I've just been playing D&D for 30+ years, but wizard doesn't strike me as having to be pretentious or powerful.

On the other hand, someone who can magic missle 3 or 4 times a day can slaughter a typical commoner with ease. Burning hands memorized a few times could burn a tavern to its foundations in no time. And charm person could virtually turn a commoner into a slave for weeks on end.

So by that definition, even a first level wizard is pretty high-falutin by commoner standards.

And as for gandalf, what spells did he ever cast? Light, ghost sound (or ventriloquism), speak with animals. All low level stuff. Heck, when he had to fight anything, he fought with a sword or staff. He basically kicked the Balrog's butt with grappling and swordsmanship. I figure he was a multiclass FTR 15, WIZ 2, more or less.

No, terms like Archmage sound pretentious and powerful. Wizard is just an arcane caster.

In fantasy fiction, almost anything I've ever read that has wizards in it has very few of them. For example, there were 3 wizards in Lord of the Rings, with mention of a 4th. In that kind of world, wizards are special because they're rare. Most commoners have never even seen one. That rarity makes them seem special.

In D&D, wizards are on every street corner. A dime a dozen. Every small village has at least one, and many cities have entire guilds of them. Not rare. Not special. Powerful compared to commoners. But even wizards have to start somewhere.

A level 1 wizard is a puny wizard, but still a wizard. A level 1 fighter is a puny fighter, but still a fighter. However, a level 1 warlord as probably never even been to a war, let alone been a lord of an army at war.

 

[TheSeer]

I don't mind that it's close to warlock. I'm clever enough to know the difference. But, it will be strange to come up with abbreviations for stat blocks. Can't abbreviate it as War or Wrl because of warlock, and can't use the first+last letters (a common second choice for abbreviations, such as Maryland or Georgia), Wd, because of wizard. Not really a big concern, but an interesting point.

I do, however, dislike class names that sound impressive or imposing. Fighter, for example, can be level 1 or level 30; he fights. Wizard can be level 1 or level 30; he casts arcane spells.

Warlord is, in any standard definition, someone who leads armies and theoretically has vast experience at warfare. This doesn't apply well to a level 1 character. Marshal as a suggestion isn't much better.

I would have the same complaint if they renamed the wizard class to archmage. It wouldn’t sound appropriate for a level 1 beginner.

I can live with this, but it does irk me a little.


No fuss here. I’m fine with it.

Hmm..Ok, I can see your point. Flavor does have something to do with your immersion. The way I look at it is that A Warlord would be someone who leads others. Now if you compare a 1st level character against your typical town citizen you can see that they would be someone who would have better training, be tougher over all (they could take a few swipes from that goblin that would immediately kill a commoner) and be able to lead that rabble to actually becoming an army. Ghengis Khan didn't have to be the BEST warrior to be a Warlord. What he needed was the leadership skills, some skill at arms in the beginning to impress others and the desire to lead. Kinda sounds like what the 4E Warlord is.

So I don’t really care which campaign world WotC uses in the core books, or any other books. I will still convert it to Rynn.

I would like, however, that the core books feel like a toolset that I can apply to my campaign. This means most of the content should be generic. Save the campaign fluff for core books that I can decide to buy or not buy. I have never bought an Eberron book. Not one. Don’t need the campaign fluff.

But I have bought all the core books, every MM, every Complete Classname, and a score of other books like Spell Compendium, Tome of Magic, Book of 9 Swords, etc., since those books contain mostly tools and only some, or no, campaign flavor.

Well, in 3E the generic world was Greyhawk. There was Greyhawk fluff in the PHB so there shouldn't be a problem now that they've just shifted now that the Realms = "generic".

Thanks for the discussion.

 

[TheSeer]

Does that mean that if I'm a player (not a DM) in a game that the naming, look and game mechanics in that game will be as I want them? What about if I go to a convention and play in games there? And what about discussing D&D online in communities like EN World? I think you'll find that the answer in all these cases is "no". The argument that it's your game and can therefore be customised only applies to DMs in their own game worlds (i.e. not shared game worlds like those used by the RPGA). In other words, WotC can't force you to run the game as they want but they can certainly distance you from the wider gaming community if you don't.

It's not about a reluctance to modify the game. It's about the consequences of making changes.

Ok, what happens if right now you go to a convention. Does your gaming group play adhering 100% to the rules? Or, is your campaign like 99% of campaigns where you have house rules that modify some rule in the game. So when you go to a convention you'd need to change things anyway. So what is the difference?

 

[TheSeer]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070917a

It was in the Wizard impliments Design & Development article. It's very clear that the orders are directly tied to game mechanics. Nowhere does it state that you must be part of a certain order to use a certain ability, but from what I can tell you wizard has to be part of one of the orders in the book. For certain your order is tied to game mechanics.

Thanks for the link! I took a look at the info and while it mentioned that certain orders use the impliments to do different things, it does not state you HAVE to be part of the order to use the impliment. It's jsut stating that that is how THAT PARTICULAR ORDER uses their impliment. By the same token, you might not have to be part of the Golden Wyvern Adepts to have studied their methods and use them yourself.

 

[TheSeer]

I actually have a homebrew that the Dragonborn would fit into well by this very method:

The dwarves, exiled from their traditional home, having been taking over the homeland of the lizardmen over the last several centuries. The whole interaction has a lot in common with the European Settler/Native American conflicts in America. Since the dwarves hate dragons (it was dragon who drove them from their home in the first place), I think they might apply the term Dragonborn to the lizardmen as a pejorative.

Cool! I'm glad to have helped you out!

Will I be quoted as a campaign contributer?

 

[DM_Blake]

Ghengis Khan didn't have to be the BEST warrior to be a Warlord. What he needed was the leadership skills, some skill at arms in the beginning to impress others and the desire to lead. Kinda sounds like what the 4E Warlord is.

No, but I imagine Ghengis Khan didn't start his adult life as a warlord. He started it like all the rest of the mongols at the time. A nomad warrior. By 3.5e D&D terms, either a fighter or barbarian. By 4e terms, looks like fighter. His father had died when Genghis was 9 (called Temujin - the name Genghis came later). His family deserted him and left him to fend for himself. He grew older, won some fights, gained some respect amongst his peers, joined the army, won more fights, impressed some officers, rose through the ranks, siezed hold on the leadership (maybe a coup?), then finally earned the title of warlord.

A quick google tells me he was 39 years old when he was voted the title of warlord (or the equivalent among his people). That means for 20 years of his adult life he was honing those fighting and leadership skills until he finally earned that title.

Now, he passed on the title of Khan to his son, Ogedei, who was 41 when Genghis died and 43 when he became Khan (I guess these things took time back then). But he had been leading armies and conquering nations as part of Genghis Khan's army all his adult life too.

 

[Shortman McLeod]

I agree with you and your reasoning on the name Dragonborn.

As for "Halfling", if I were part of the halfling community, I wouldn't use that name. I would call myself human and call those big oafs "doubleings."

Good point. Doesn't the Forgotten Realms 3.0 corebook mention that halflings don't call themselves that, but that they have accepted that humans use the term to describe them? I haven't read the FR books in ages (never a big fan of the setting) but I recall a passage that went something like this:

(paraphrase alert) "Halflings, of course, don't use this term for themselves, but they understand that it is widely used by humans and they accept it with a good-natured smile and shrug." (paraphrase alert)

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

Good point. Doesn't the Forgotten Realms 3.0 corebook mention that halflings don't call themselves that, but that they have accepted that humans use the term to describe them? I haven't read the FR books in ages (never a big fan of the setting) but I recall a passage that went something like this:

(paraphrase alert) "Halflings, of course, don't use this term for themselves, but they understand that it is widely used by humans and they accept it with a good-natured smile and shrug." (paraphrase alert)

Yes indeed. Call themselves the "hin".

Kalamar does the same for hobgoblins (and likely halflings).

 

[Shortman McLeod]

And as for gandalf, what spells did he ever cast? Light, ghost sound (or ventriloquism), speak with animals. All low level stuff. Heck, when he had to fight anything, he fought with a sword or staff. He basically kicked the Balrog's butt with grappling and swordsmanship. I figure he was a multiclass FTR 15, WIZ 2, more or less.

Gandalf, with only two wizard levels?

Heresy! Heresy!