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Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
On The Horrible Naming
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<blockquote data-quote="Lurker37" data-source="post: 3910641" data-attributes="member: 9522"><p>I believe this hits the nail on the head.</p><p></p><p>These fluff names have the potential to make the game harder for new or inexperienced players and DMs to use the feats. That alone should be sufficient reason to avoid them.</p><p></p><p>To any player new to 4E, "Gold Wyvern Adept" could mean anything from "I have a pet mini-dragon" to "I successfully completed the pub crawl in the local village, which starts at the Boar's Head and finishes at the Golden Wyvern." This is even worse for a DM, who doesn't have the players' luxury of just boning up on the feats taken by their character. New DMs need every piece of mnemonic aid they can get.</p><p></p><p>So a name like "Selective Spell AOE", for all its faults, at least jogs the memory of anyone reading it, even if it's only their first game.</p><p></p><p>The reference to the name of (what we assume will be) a PHB-listed wizard order may be helpful for those who have studied the PHB cover-to-cover a dozen times, but it won't help those who (shock, horror) don't own a copy themselves. This is compounded if the DM chooses to not use those particular order names in his game, or if his game world doesn't allow for wizard orders.</p><p></p><p>There's enough of a learning curve for new players (let alone new DMs) without adding feat names that seem to be deliberately chosen to be as uninformative and confusing as possible.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lurker37, post: 3910641, member: 9522"] I believe this hits the nail on the head. These fluff names have the potential to make the game harder for new or inexperienced players and DMs to use the feats. That alone should be sufficient reason to avoid them. To any player new to 4E, "Gold Wyvern Adept" could mean anything from "I have a pet mini-dragon" to "I successfully completed the pub crawl in the local village, which starts at the Boar's Head and finishes at the Golden Wyvern." This is even worse for a DM, who doesn't have the players' luxury of just boning up on the feats taken by their character. New DMs need every piece of mnemonic aid they can get. So a name like "Selective Spell AOE", for all its faults, at least jogs the memory of anyone reading it, even if it's only their first game. The reference to the name of (what we assume will be) a PHB-listed wizard order may be helpful for those who have studied the PHB cover-to-cover a dozen times, but it won't help those who (shock, horror) don't own a copy themselves. This is compounded if the DM chooses to not use those particular order names in his game, or if his game world doesn't allow for wizard orders. There's enough of a learning curve for new players (let alone new DMs) without adding feat names that seem to be deliberately chosen to be as uninformative and confusing as possible. [/QUOTE]
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On The Horrible Naming
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