D&D 5E (2014) The Illrigger: Why I hate this class and love what it could have been.

[Paul Farquhar]

Special ability: Steal Tarts.

 

[cl3ver]

That's a really good point. Matt Coville did not come up with the name for the class, he just looked back to a class from an earlier time.

Still a terrible name. So is interdict, and the seals and stuff. It could be better than it is, is the main thrust!

I feel it should also go w/o saying (forgive me if this is mention in any of the subsequent posts) that the OP is not an attack on Matt Colville. at least imo, it doesn't seem so.

 

[Steampunkette]

Agree with everything you're doing here but I'm sorry, Knave? We've gone out of the frying pan and directly into the fire!

You've gone from:

"Dumb name, looks ugly, doesn't mean anything, kind of hard to say"

To

"Ridiculous name which makes you sound like a prankster or jester, and definitely totally unserious and unthreatening".

Maybe to an American it sounds different but I doubt that's broadly true, I know multiple Americans would openly guffaw if you told them your class was "Knave" and they would 100% expect you to be some kind of Bardic prankster. Or best case a Rogue who was primarily a con artist, not a combatant or acrobat or trap-disarmer.

So no to Knave, you actually went there and found a genuinely worse name than Illrigger - I didn't think it could be done, but girl you pulled it out! Talk about falling at the finish line!

Questing Beast games lost a sale because their game has a dumb name btw, I literally couldn't put a game called "Knave" in front of my RPG group (unless it was a joke-y Paranoia-type game or something). It literally might as well be called "Jester" - actually no, that would be less bad than Knave! I cannot overemphasize the fundamental, insoluble unseriousness of the word "knave" in English English. At best it's ren-faire talk and we don't do ren-faires here.

Blackguard would work if you're going for that sort of vibe. Sorry if you already changed but jesus wept lol.

Blackguard is what I went for, but for clarity's sake:

Knave, Varlet, and Blackguard have largely the same definition in American English: "Insult Yelled by Pirates and Knights"

"Avast, Varlet!" "Halt, Knave!" "You filthy Blackguard!"

None of it has any kind of specific cultural weight for a lot of Americans except a general sense of condemnation.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Blackguard is what I went for, but for clarity's sake:

Knave, Varlet, and Blackguard have largely the same definition in American English: "Insult Yelled by Pirates and Knights"

"Avast, Varlet!" "Halt, Knave!" "You filthy Blackguard!"

None of it has any kind of specific cultural weight for a lot of Americans except a general sense of condemnation.

Yeah I get that but in English English, the valence is that knave and varlet are ridiculous frilly things that comedy fops call peasants and each other, whereas Blackguard can at least be mispronounced "Black-guard" which sounds kind of sweet, and even Bla'gard is at least associated with angry Victorians talking about dangerous outlaws and criminals who scare them (c.f. the Skeleton Army etc.).

Anyway sorry Knave caused me to temporarily lose my mind lol.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yeah, the reason we have thesauruses is that words have shades of meaning beyond dictionary definitions, generally associated with the context which is most familiar.

Knave is most strongly associated with Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, and it got there as an alternative name for the Jack in a standard pack of playing cards.

 

[Mannahnin]

Yeah, the reason we have thesauruses is that words have shades of meaning beyond dictionary definitions, generally associated with the context which is most familiar.

Knave is most strongly associated with Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, and it got there as an alternative name for the Jack in a standard pack of playing cards.

The main cultural referent I had for it, growing up, is:

The Queen of Hearts (poem) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[JamesLFlowers]

Having played the Illrigger for a while now, I have to agree that the class has some major weaknesses. Yes, I hate the name and most of the subclass names - Painkiller? Really? The class has the power to be a major damage dealer for a short duration and then its just a fighter in black armor.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It'd make about as much sense, linguistically... "Evil/Sick Rope-Manager/Tool-User".

Awful, awful, name. Varlet would've been good. Knave. Malefactor. Lots of good solid words out there.

Blackguard is right there, and the 4e version even have vices as its distinguishing features (what 5e would build out into subclasses if translating directly).
Edit: somehow missed how old the op post is, and the fact that you already went with Blackguard, which is perfect on every level. (I liked Knave too though. Hell I wanna rework the Bard and Rogue and have the Jack and the Assassin fill rogueish stuff and the Jack of all trades thing and then make the bard more about storytelling and lore keeping and speaking with power/without fear, etc. more Bardic. A Knave class would fit right in with all that)

I made a (as of last edit terribly disjointed due to three rewrites that didn’t start from scratch) warlock variant that is sort of equal parts Binder reimagining and 4e Hexblade translation, with Binding Seals and other features that abjure and (frankly) interdict enemies based on their type (fiend, undead, aberration, all become “anathema”), with any cursed creature counting as an anathema for those features.

Which tbh feels like the other side of what the Illrigger could have been, using its mechanics as published rather than its intended vibe as a basis.

I like your thoughts here enough that I think I will try to remake my Anathemir (also a made up word, but most fantasy nerds know what anathema means, and I think it words, though Interdictor would be funny to me as a name because I think of Star Wars when I hear that word).

 

[Steampunkette]

Blackguard is right there, and the 4e version even have vices as its distinguishing features (what 5e would build out into subclasses if translating directly).
Edit: somehow missed how old the op post is, and the fact that you already went with Blackguard, which is perfect on every level. (I liked Knave too though. Hell I wanna rework the Bard and Rogue and have the Jack and the Assassin fill rogueish stuff and the Jack of all trades thing and then make the bard more about storytelling and lore keeping and speaking with power/without fear, etc. more Bardic. A Knave class would fit right in with all that)

I made a (as of last edit terribly disjointed due to three rewrites that didn’t start from scratch) warlock variant that is sort of equal parts Binder reimagining and 4e Hexblade translation, with Binding Seals and other features that abjure and (frankly) interdict enemies based on their type (fiend, undead, aberration, all become “anathema”), with any cursed creature counting as an anathema for those features.

Which tbh feels like the other side of what the Illrigger could have been, using its mechanics as published rather than its intended vibe as a basis.

I like your thoughts here enough that I think I will try to remake my Anathemir (also a made up word, but most fantasy nerds know what anathema means, and I think it words, though Interdictor would be funny to me as a name because I think of Star Wars when I hear that word).

Yeeeeah...

I wound up making a Blackguard class and put it in as the $10k stretch goal for Martial Artistry!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeeeeah...

I wound up making a Blackguard class and put it in as the $10k stretch goal for Martial Artistry!

Nice. While I’m not a huge A5e fan, I can see it working nicely alongside 2024 stuff, and I do love some crunch in my martial arts.