Rich Baker on the Swordmage

[GreatLemur]

What did you get out of duskblades that I didn't? Bland and flavorless seemed a design goal.

How is "flavorless" a bad thing in a base class?

 

[Thanee]

Bland and flavorless seemed a design goal.

I certainly hope that it stays that way. "Bland and flavorless" is perfect for base classes.

I would rather call it "conceptually versatile", though. Sounds more positive.

I don't like classes that are limited through their flavor.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

How is "flavorless" a bad thing in a base class?

That's the entire thing I look for in a class. The point of taking a class for me is that I get a suite of abilities that suggests a cool character concept with a unique shtick.

I love the idea of the Swordmage.

 

[Cadfan]

Personally, I prefer flavor that can be rethemed.

Give me SOME inspiration. Maybe it will stick. Maybe not. But it can't hurt.

And honestly, some of my favorite classes have been heavily interwoven in terms of flavor and mechanics. The entire Tome of Magic, though a flawed book, was popular for exactly that.

 

[Khaalis]

I think the point is that most people would prefer Base Classes that are "flavorless" e.g. they are versatile and offer abilities in a specific role without restrictive flavor that mandates their abilities.

Example: Fighter vs. Samurai

For all intensive purposes, the Samurai IS a Fighter. The Fighter should be versatile enough to encompass all concepts that fit within that broad umbrella. However, the samurai flavor dictates too many specific abilities for the class to have general appeal.

So I personally stand in the arena for "flavorless" base classes that can be molded to different "flavors" by offering abilities for that class that relate to that specific "flavor".

If we use SW:SE as an example, we'd be able to have something like a Samurai talent tree for the fighter, just as easily as we could have a Knight.

 

[Cadfan]

I think the point is that most people would prefer Base Classes that are "flavorless" e.g. they are versatile and offer abilities in a specific role without restrictive flavor that mandates their abilities.

Are you sure? Perhaps the problem is that people prefer when base classes can be used for what they want to use them for. So when a base class has flavor that people like, they love the base class. When it doesn't have flavor they like, they don't like the class, and sometimes channel that into a dislike of the class' "lack of versatility."

The samurai is a great example. There was a huge constituency of people who wanted a samurai class. And then they got one, and it was a two weapon fighting heavy armored guy who intimidated people. And that wasn't what they wanted. They wanted a whole host of other types of samurai. So they complained about its lack of versatility. But see what happened? If they just wanted a "fighting man" they could theme to be a samurai, the game already gave them the Fighter. They wanted a class WITH flavor- just not the flavor they got.

Also look how popular the Binder and the Shadowcaster are, in spite of having flawed mechanics. If you ask people why they like these classes, its usually because of the flavor. The Binder's flavor assumes a very specific campaign world, with a specific cosmology, because the legends that justify the vestige's abilities are campaign world specific. And those flavor aspects are necessary to the class- most vestiges simply don't make sense without a backstory explaining them. The Shadowcaster, meanwhile, isn't so much designed as derived from the Plane of Shadow as used in the assumed setting.

And people loved it.

Adding flavor to a class can justify combining interesting abilities that otherwise wouldn't be combined. And its likely to increase a classes popularity, if past history is any guide. Its just when flavor starts disallowing things that many people want to do- that's when you get problems.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Nope, the sswordsage is explicitly described by baker as a light-armored fighter with defensive and teleport spells.

Except he also mentions the cone-attack in the first post as well. I think the Swordsage will have some magical offensive capability as well.

 

[Eldragon]

One aspect that really bothered me about many of the new Base classes in 3e was they had their own spell list instead of using an existing one. So if I wanted to play a Duskblade, I was limited* to the spell list printed in PHB2. Future books would contain new spells for Sorc/Wiz, but would never expand the spell list for the Duskblade.

Thus I ended up playing a Fighter 1/Wiz X anyway, since it gave me far more choices in new spells.

Hopefully 4e will get away from this trap and just add new spells that any class can take, and let the player pick his own spell list. For example: Instead of having a spell list for each class have an "Arcane Defender" spell list, and an "Arcane Striker" spell list, and any class that uses those archetypes can draw from those lists.

*Yes, part of the Duskblade's balance was its limited spell list, but my primary argument here is not about balancing the Duskblade.

 

[IanB]

What did you get out of duskblades that I didn't? Bland and flavorless seemed a design goal.

They're fun as hell to play.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I get the feeling that 4e is trying to modify the "flavor curve" a bit. Fighters become better defined, for example, while rangers and paladins become more flexible. Thus in 4e fighters can't learn two-weapon fighting without multiclassing or taking Class Training feats, and paladins can be of any alignment.