What should WOTC do about Golden Wyvern Adept? (Keep Friendly)
- Thread starter Najo
- Start date
What's so wrong with just calling the feat 'Shape Spell (Golden Wyvern Adept)'?
Everyone gets what they want then. A generic feat name for homebrewers and a fluffy name for the inbuilt campaign setting. It's even easy to convert for campaign settings. You could have a list in the campaign setting books saying 'Shape Spell is referred to as 'Elminsters Shaping' in the Realms' or whatever.
Everyone gets what they want then. A generic feat name for homebrewers and a fluffy name for the inbuilt campaign setting. It's even easy to convert for campaign settings. You could have a list in the campaign setting books saying 'Shape Spell is referred to as 'Elminsters Shaping' in the Realms' or whatever.
Najo said:
There are two possibilities here: either the nomenclature is included in the SRD and 3rd parties can incorporate it (which is not a hindrance), or its not included (in which case its back to business as usual).
How is either one "crippling" when the OGL allows specifically for modification of OGC?
I would rather none, as I have said I think it is a silly name.BryonD said:
But that isnt really an argument, its purely a matter of personal preference. I dont see fluff included within the books as impinging on any game I run. I will simply do what I have always done, use what fluff I like and change what I dont. Its worked since Basic and it will still work when 5e comes out.
The complainers are going about this all wrong.
Look, I wrote up a very nice post on "Why we have golden wyvern adepts" that got all of a dozen and a half responses, then dropped off the front page in favor of complaining posts. If you want to read me explaining at length in a nicer tone of voice, go there.
Here I'll just summarize real fast why the complainers don't understand this argument and why as long as they continue to not understand this issue, won't get what they want.
Spells have been redivided based on mechanical attributes, instead of the fluff based attributes (that admittedly had some mechanical implications, but not as many as you might think) that were used in 3e.
Now we've got new schools, that doesn't have an obviously fluff link like "necromancy." They've got a mechanical link, like, "projects directly out from the spellcaster and favors fire as an element." I don't remember if that's exactly one of the schools, but that's the gist of the idea.
These schools need names.
Further, WOTC wants to encourage people to specialize in schools, so that wizards have some variety of build instead of just having one polymath build option. So they make feats for each school that augment the sorts of things that school likes to do. This helps separate the wizard who might know a little bit of golden wyvern magic from the wizard who has really mastered the stuff, which is cool.
So anyways now you have feats that use the school's name in them.
This is why you can't just rename "golden wyvern adept" to "spell shaper." It is deriving its name from the "golden wyvern" school of magic. There are probably other feats, like "golden wyvern initiate" or "golden wyvern master" sitting out there, plus similar feats for every other school of magic in the game.
So if you want the golden wyvern adept renamed, coming up with "spell shaper" is an inadequate fix. It doesn't even address the issue, frankly. You need to rename probably around 18 feats. And to rename those 18 feats, you FIRST need to rename six schools of magic.
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Anyways, regarding some other points brought up in the thread.
1: It won't be hard to remember what Golden Wyvern Adept does because it will reference the golden wyvern school of magic, which you'll get used to using. It won't be any worse than a feat like "Initiate of Mystra," and in fact will probably be easier on this score because there are loads more than 6 deities.
2: Players will probably assume that a golden wyvern school of magic exists. My players always assume that the default pantheon is in, unless I specifically tell them otherwise, so I imagine this will be the same. However, just telling my players "I'm not using the default pantheon, you can use feats that reference it but we'll just count them as applying to your particular god." has always worked for me before, and I can't see why it won't for me again.
3: This particular feat won't get referenced in game very much. Players will just say things like, "I cast fireball centered on the fighter, but I leave him out of the blast." You'll remember that the player can do that because the player does that every other time he casts a fireball.
4: If you're going to have schools of magic, martial disciplines, and religious orders, they need names. I personally believe the game is better off for having all of these things. I personally don't like it when default fluff intrudes on my game. But I'm willing to accept the time it takes me to say "oh, that's just a discipline of magic in my game, it doesn't represent any order of wizards or anything," as an acceptable trade off for gaining improvement to game mechanics.
5: I find it interesting how heavy the fluff tends to be in expansion books, and how that seems universally accepted, compared to how even light fluff in core creates howls of rage. I can see that expansions and core are different, but expansions REALLY pile on the fluff, often going so far as to dictate the explicit existence of organizations, detail how they get along with other organizations, mix in the default pantheon liberally, and even discuss how a particular class gets along with other types of character classes.
Look, I wrote up a very nice post on "Why we have golden wyvern adepts" that got all of a dozen and a half responses, then dropped off the front page in favor of complaining posts. If you want to read me explaining at length in a nicer tone of voice, go there.
Here I'll just summarize real fast why the complainers don't understand this argument and why as long as they continue to not understand this issue, won't get what they want.
Spells have been redivided based on mechanical attributes, instead of the fluff based attributes (that admittedly had some mechanical implications, but not as many as you might think) that were used in 3e.
Now we've got new schools, that doesn't have an obviously fluff link like "necromancy." They've got a mechanical link, like, "projects directly out from the spellcaster and favors fire as an element." I don't remember if that's exactly one of the schools, but that's the gist of the idea.
These schools need names.
Further, WOTC wants to encourage people to specialize in schools, so that wizards have some variety of build instead of just having one polymath build option. So they make feats for each school that augment the sorts of things that school likes to do. This helps separate the wizard who might know a little bit of golden wyvern magic from the wizard who has really mastered the stuff, which is cool.
So anyways now you have feats that use the school's name in them.
This is why you can't just rename "golden wyvern adept" to "spell shaper." It is deriving its name from the "golden wyvern" school of magic. There are probably other feats, like "golden wyvern initiate" or "golden wyvern master" sitting out there, plus similar feats for every other school of magic in the game.
So if you want the golden wyvern adept renamed, coming up with "spell shaper" is an inadequate fix. It doesn't even address the issue, frankly. You need to rename probably around 18 feats. And to rename those 18 feats, you FIRST need to rename six schools of magic.
-----------------------
Anyways, regarding some other points brought up in the thread.
1: It won't be hard to remember what Golden Wyvern Adept does because it will reference the golden wyvern school of magic, which you'll get used to using. It won't be any worse than a feat like "Initiate of Mystra," and in fact will probably be easier on this score because there are loads more than 6 deities.
2: Players will probably assume that a golden wyvern school of magic exists. My players always assume that the default pantheon is in, unless I specifically tell them otherwise, so I imagine this will be the same. However, just telling my players "I'm not using the default pantheon, you can use feats that reference it but we'll just count them as applying to your particular god." has always worked for me before, and I can't see why it won't for me again.
3: This particular feat won't get referenced in game very much. Players will just say things like, "I cast fireball centered on the fighter, but I leave him out of the blast." You'll remember that the player can do that because the player does that every other time he casts a fireball.
4: If you're going to have schools of magic, martial disciplines, and religious orders, they need names. I personally believe the game is better off for having all of these things. I personally don't like it when default fluff intrudes on my game. But I'm willing to accept the time it takes me to say "oh, that's just a discipline of magic in my game, it doesn't represent any order of wizards or anything," as an acceptable trade off for gaining improvement to game mechanics.
5: I find it interesting how heavy the fluff tends to be in expansion books, and how that seems universally accepted, compared to how even light fluff in core creates howls of rage. I can see that expansions and core are different, but expansions REALLY pile on the fluff, often going so far as to dictate the explicit existence of organizations, detail how they get along with other organizations, mix in the default pantheon liberally, and even discuss how a particular class gets along with other types of character classes.
BryonD
Hero
I have still yet to see a comparable example provided from a prior edition.jensun said:
It isn't a matter of fluff. It is a matter of effective communication. The same concern would exist if a zero fluff name such as "Feat W24" was used. I might even LOVE the name Golden Wyvern Adept. The preference of one fluff over another issue is wholely beside the point.
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