D&D General What To Call A Gish?

[Stormonu]

If you're hoping others will pick it up, the less esoteric the name the better. Swordmage is fine if it's descriptive.

I went with battlemage (warmage?) for my "gish" version (arcane archer, bladesinger, chi warrior, death warrior, duskblade, gish, golembound, janissary, mystic warrior and sorcerous blade [swordmage] are all subclasses the class has).

<Edit:> the linked document must be a work in progress - the "Rock" ability in the leveling chart and under Order of Elemental Aegis, the 7th level spell is Chocolate Chip...(and under Aegis Spells, Earth is mispelled)

 

[Mind of tempest]

hexgis?

 

[AtomicPope]

I never liked the term "gish". Ever. Not even during the heyday of 3e Char Op on the WotC forums. Swordmage always sounded better. The names of classes should be revealing. Eldritch Knight is too specific. Just considering the name, a Swordmage could wear heavy armor or none at all. If the "sword" part is off-putting because of its limitations that's completely understandable, but I still like it better than "gish" which basically conveys nothing. The word "gish" is an idioglossia of D&D lore and we can do better.

 

[Aldarc]

Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed/Evolved uses the term "Mageblade" for its gish class that bonds with an athame.

 

[Jack Daniel]

Ranger. Then they'd finally have an identity that couldn't already be handled by "warrior class + outdoorsy background." (And there's a bit of precedent from the BECMI elf-trained "forester" class, which is a pure gish.)

(Hard no on any name that uses "sword" or "blade", though. We don't want to alienate any club casters, mace mages, or axe arcanists, do we?)

 

[Aldarc]

If all else fails, "A Gish Called Wanda."

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Aegis?

I've always like the Janissary name from one of the 4e PP.

Gladius or Artamer?

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Honestly I think it's a good idea to keep 'swordmage'.

Yeah it's a 'meh' name. But people know what it means, and it has an edition's worth of history behind that name. Changing the name every edition is a 100% sure way of ensuring that the class cannot ever establish an identity.

 

[aco175]

I would echo what @Stormonu said about keeping the name simple. Swordmage tells you that it is part of each. You could go with something like Arcane Blade or Mana Monk as well, but Swordmage is fine.

Something more can come from the campaign setting. Studied at the elven temple of the 4 winds and thinks of himself as a Windknife, fine. A dwarf that learned it from his grandfather and wants to be called a Thunderforge, fine. That is flavor and not what you need for the masses.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Esoteric.

No reason why you couldn't make this adjective into a noun, just like we have with 'Mystic'