Why is the Gish so popular with players?

[The Sigil]

Agreed. To me, it's much less of "I'm always the star" and more "I'm never actively sidelined, and always have something to contribute."

This is actually super helpful! Thank you!

 

[Zardnaar]

A large chunk is I think Elric of Melinbone originally. That became the fighter/mage and became a D&D trope.

Mechanics don't really matter 5E and 3E aren't the best at doing the concept but people picked it anyway.

 

[Scribe]

A large chunk is I think Elric of Melinbone originally.

Bingo.

You know whats cool? Casting spells.
You know what else is cool? Using swords.
You know whats really cool? Putting magic INTO your sword.

Warlock tries to cover this space, but there is a dissonance in that Warlocks really should be casters, and their primary contribution should be blasting with their uber cantrip.

 

[Undrave]

The appeal of gishes to me isn't "I want all the wizard stuff and all the fighter stuff," it's "I want to do over the top, unrealistic nonsense with weapon combat." Like my favorite gish class is the 4e Swordmage, where I can do things like teleport an enemy next to me so I can immediately hit them, simultaneously stab everyone adjacent to me in a logically impossible way, and do an attack that magically prevents an enemy from approaching my allies. Like it's a separate fantasy than being a big strong guy with a greatsword or a scholar with a long beard throwing fireball.

I actually don't like either Eldritch Knight or Bladesinger in 5e that much. 5e eventually added a few spells that feel like they're integrated into melee combat, but it's not all that many, so it feels like a lot of the time, you're either going to be doing a standard fighter thing or a standard wizard thing, not really integrating the magic with your melee combat. The fact that I could be a bladesinger and still just hide in the back line and toss fireballs and if anything be more effective than actually making use of the melee stuff is a huge negative to me. I'd actually prefer if there was a real cost to doing standard wizard naughty word in exchange for the melee power.

The 5e fighter subclasses Rune Knight, Echo Knight, and Psi Warrior are actually much closer to what I think of as a good gish than anything that actually tries mixing 5e's spell system with melee combat. I just wish they could all use the over the top nonsense more continuously, and I'd happily give up some bonuses fighters get for the priveledge.

Agreed on all points.

The 5e Gishes are really just 'Sword with one hand, magic with the other' and they rarely mix them properly, especially in ways 4e did it.

 

[Staffan]

The appeal of gishes to me isn't "I want all the wizard stuff and all the fighter stuff," it's "I want to do over the top, unrealistic nonsense with weapon combat."

Yes, same. I see the point of the traditional fighter/wizard who can fight one round and cast a spell the next, but that's not my jam. I want something along the lines of WoW's Enhancement Shaman or Death Knight, using magic as an inherent part of fighting. Or many of the characters in RWBY, who also use their pseudo-magic Semblances and Dust-powered weapons to do awesome things in battle, with that battle still fundamentally being about punching/stabbing/slashing/smashing the opponent.

Part of it is that, with the exception of 4e, fighters have been the dull class. They're the ones whose primary class ability is "number go up slightly more". But they fundamentally don't do Cool Stuff. And personally, I find that unsatisfactory.

 

[TiQuinn]

Matt stated his belief is there is always some percentage of the population that react to the choice "pick A or B" with a reflexive "I refuse! I MUST have both A AND B!"

Typical Colville argument.

It’s because people don’t look at classes in a box, they look at what characters can they emulate with the class. As soon as designers started using characters like Hercules, Conan, D’artagnan, and Gandalf as examples of classes, people started saying “Well, I want to be like Luke Skywalker.” Or “I want to be Thor.” Or some other character that was not one of these single classes.

 

[Dyson Logos]

For me it goes back to the first Fantasy novels I enjoyed reading, the Elric saga (after hating the Lord of the Rings).

 

[MichaelSomething]

As I learned from the Dexit scandal from Pokémon, every Pokémon (or in this case, class) is someone's favorite.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Popularity of githyanki?

 

[Blue]

In a recent Matt Colville livestream, he mused a little bit about the Gish, to wit, he noted he feels to some degree, the Gish arises out of the following:

1. In a class-based RPG, you are usually asked to pick one thing you are an expert at (your class). For instance, you can be great at swords (fighter) OR spells (mage).

2. Matt stated his belief is there is always some percentage of the population that react to the choice "pick A or B" with a reflexive "I refuse! I MUST have both A AND B!"

I disagree with this really strongly. It's a leading question bringing you to a false conclusion.

I want to be good with swords via STRENGTH!
I want to be good with swords via DEXTERITY!
I want to be good with swords via MAGIC!

All three of those are valid archetypes in the heroic fantasy genre. But not all editions of D&D have classes that support those. So the third one, which we call "gish", gets called out with no class and needing work arounds.

It's about mixing and matching "what I do" and "what's my power source". We don't blink an eye at a ranger with a bow "I'm good with ranged attacks with a WEAPON" and a warlock "I'm good with ranged attacks with MAGIC". Matt's #2 statement is no more true then it is with them.