New Design: Wizards...

[Just Another User]

A lot of the broader classes are just generic; the four main ones certainly are, and for a very good reason. But some of the other classes (and a lot of the prestige classes) are also professions in and of themselves. If you're a paladin, people are going to call you that; it's not what you do, it's what you are. Most of the caster variants are specific enough that I have no problem with someone self-identifying themseves as one, such as 'I am Lazlo the Warlock' or 'I am Pinebracken, a druid of the Winterfrost Caern'.

that some classes are so specific i.e. not generic is IMHO one of the flaws of 3rd edition, While I think that the generic classes of unhearted arcana are a little too extreme I believe that classes should in the direction to be as generic as possible and heavily customizable.
That said while identifing the character with your class is possible, it is also not necessary or (IMHO) desiderable, with some minor tweaking and some flavour adaptation even in 3.x a bard could be journalist, a detective, a preacher-like figure, a paladin could be a charismtic officer, etc. etc. You can say "I'm a Paladin", but you do not and should not have to.
And OTOH, an expert with ranks in perform would call himself a bard and nobody would have anything to object, exactly like a lawful good fighter/cleric would call and be called by everyone else a paladin, the only way to say him that it is not one would be by metagaming.

 

[BryonD]

I'm pointing out that while, yes, it is an option in the core rules psuedo-Greyhawk milieu, that usually doesn't work out in practice (where generally clerics are the servants of specific gods, and those specific gods determine what domains are available).

But that is for flavor reasons, not mechanical reasons. Which, again, actually makes the point that keeping the core open and leaving specific flavor to taste of a given setting is the best of both worlds. You are still re-enforcing the real point being made, and not at all rebutting it.

 

[WayneLigon]

And OTOH, an expert with ranks in perform would call himself a bard and nobody would have anything to object,

He certainly can and a lot certainly do, right up until someone asks them to do something only a true Bard can do. He's not a spellcaster, nor will his voice ever stir the courage in people's souls no matter how good his Perform skill might be.

exactly like a lawful good fighter/cleric would call and be called by everyone else a paladin, the only way to say him that it is not one would be by metagaming.

No, I think at least the educated are going to know the difference between a spellcaster and someone who can do their ability at will. He might well be able to call himself a paladin, but he won't actually be one.

 

[Someone]

He certainly can and a lot certainly do, right up until someone asks them to do something only a true Bard can do. He's not a spellcaster, nor will his voice ever stir the courage in people's souls no matter how good his Perform skill might be.

I know of plenty of people that could stir other people's souls with music, and they aren't spellcasters. Regardless, how a class is named doesn't forbid characters to name themselves that way. Continuing with the bard example, people could certainly know that there are Bards that can cast spells and bards that cannot.

 

[F4NBOY]

From Chris Perkins blog:

When Dave Noonan writes a D&D adventure and makes reference to a new demon lord named Mu-Tahn Laa, he's giving DMs everywhere something from his home game that they can pillage for their own campaigns.

(As far as I can tell, Mu-Tahn Laa doesn't appear anywhere in the 4E core rulebooks, but I know Dave's working on the DMG right now, and he's a sneaky guy.)

Can I deduce that the Gods will be in the DMG and not PHB?

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

If your players are asking you about the gods, then there is a big difference between

"Deities? I can't be bothered to think about that."

and

"Deities? I expect the players to collaborate with me to develop them so that we have a pantheon that suits all of us."

Since the quote itself is in response to a question about deities, there is already as assumption that this information is important to at least one player.


RC

You beat me to it. Good answer.

The answer to the question, "Hey, DM. I'm the cleric, who are the deities in this campaign," is not, "who cares?" And it's not an accusation of badwrongfun to take it for granted that if you're playing a cleric in D&D that there are going to be some deities around to worship. Or at least an explanation that there are no deities, so you should choose some domains based on a philosophy. At the very least, if the DM doesn't care about the deities in his campaign, he should be able to say, "use the default setting deities. Here they are." It seriously doesn't matter if they're in the DMG, because the DM should have a copy of the DMG, and be capable of handing it to a player for five minutes so that he can choose a deity, or at the very least, tell the player which gods are available in that setting.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

You are still re-enforcing the real point being made, and not at all rebutting it.

His real point seems to be, "It's here in the core; why don't people use it?"

My rebuttal is, "Because most DMs, in practice, don't allow it."

 

[Masquerade]

Can I deduce that the Gods will be in the DMG and not PHB?

I don't think there is any evidence for that. Mu-Tahn Laa is not a god, and demon lords were not listed alongside gods in the 3.X books.

 

[Just Another User]

No, I think at least the educated are going to know the difference between a spellcaster and someone who can do their ability at will. He might well be able to call himself a paladin, but he won't actually be one.

And how you or them can tell without reading the PHB/DMG? like Someone said what people would know is that there are bards that can cast spells and bard that cannot. The only thing people could say is that some paladin can i.e. heal spontaneously and someone cannot. it is not like NPCs goes around with their character sheet. And to complicate things consider all the feat, prestige classes,variant classes domains,and special abilities etc, etc, or even just DM cutomizations are you really sure that there is not a way for a fighter/cleric to not be able to lay on hands someway (Or that every paladin can lay on hands) ?

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

His real point seems to be, "It's here in the core; why don't people use it?"

My rebuttal is, "Because most DMs, in practice, don't allow it."

More like, "It's in the core, why don't DMs allow it?"

It's not hidden, it's not optional, it's not broken... What happened?

So I don't think the situation is that players are going to the PHB, asking their DMs if they can do it and being told NO.

My point is that it's as if that paragraph simply doesn't exist and nobody has ever played it any other way.

I wonder if the FRCS started folks down the "Deity Only" path and nobody ever thought to play it any other way ever again?