Why is the Gish so popular with players?

[Undrave]

"Hey, I have an idea! Let's start calling FMUs 'gishes'!" and I was like, "That's a terrible idea, please don't do that," but a significant number of people did it.

On the other hand, fighter-mage, fighter/magic-user, spellsword, and the like require essentially no explanation, and don't cause any confusions at all except when talking about specific constructs that may differ between specific game editions.

New proposition: we call them WiFi! Wizard/Fighter

 

[TiQuinn]

I'm looking at what Elric does, and what a gish does, and saying those don't match up in any sense.

But this is true across the board.

How many times have people argued about whether Merlin or Gandalf is really a wizard in D&D parlance? Conan is less of a D&D barbarian than he is a fighter. D&D has always had trouble approximating characters from other media, particularly in earlier editions.

 

[Distracted DM]

You're not going to get D&D style magic in the Elric books. Most of the powerful magic in those books were rituals and not D&D spells.

Exactly. So for folks saying that he's an inspiration for gish characters- you want to make Elric in D&D so you make a blur-casting, fireball-throwing, self-buffing character, and you now end up with a character that's nothing like the inspiration?

 

[Aldarc]

Exactly. So for folks saying that he's an inspiration for gish characters- you want to make Elric in D&D so you make a blur-casting, fireball-throwing, self-buffing character, and you now end up with a character that's nothing like the inspiration?

Inspiration doesn't have to be perfect imitation. IMHO, perfect imitation is an unreasonable expectation. I do think that Elric inspired gishes. He was a sorcerer who was also a swordsman. He did both. Maybe he didn't throw spells out like a D&D mage, but who is making a big deal about that fact apart from you?

 

[Undrave]

In 5e, it's almost a shame that the Paladin has Smite, beause the mechanic of burning a spell slot for bonus damage on a weapon attack is Grade A Gish material.

Weird we never got a Oath of the Arcane Secrets or something to add Arcana to a Paladin. Give the guy access to Rituals to make him more Wizardy and let him use one of the Weapon at-wills (and explicitly make them compatible with smites).

 

[dbm]

A big challenge with hybrid classes in most editions of D&D is the multi-attribute dependency. If you want to be competitive you need to buy up usually STR for melee and INT for your spells. There are potentially less expensive options - getting a high DEX can get you a fair way to Fighter / Thief in 5e by taking the right skills and not overly bothering about class abilities like backstab. I keep thinking about playing an eleven Eldritch Knight / Arcane Trickster character. They would be an interesting facsimile of the elven F/M/T from early editions.

The other big issue with trying to be a hybrid in D&D is it usually means spending several levels as a different archetype to what you really would rather play. In the hypothetical EK/AT build you would spend potentially four levels before getting any magic and it would take six to realise the bare level of the build. Since many campaigns only get to 10-12 level that’s half the campaign where you didn’t get to play the archetype you actually wanted to be.

A big tick from me for any system where I can play a flexible character from the start and it remains relevant (but it doesn’t need to dominate) throughout the campaign arc of ‘power’ (whatever that means for a system).

 

[TwoSix]

Exactly. So for folks saying that he's an inspiration for gish characters- you want to make Elric in D&D so you make a blur-casting, fireball-throwing, self-buffing character, and you now end up with a character that's nothing like the inspiration?

That's more a limitation of the system. People will still try to make characters like Batman, even though any attempt will be (at best) a crude facsimile of Batman.

 

[Undrave]

A big challenge with hybrid classes in most editions of D&D is the multi-attribute dependency. If you want to be competitive you need to buy up usually STR for melee and INT for your spells. There are potentially less expensive options - getting a high DEX can get you a fair way to Fighter / Thief in 5e by taking the right skills and not overly bothering about class abilities like backstab. I keep thinking about playing an eleven Eldritch Knight / Arcane Trickster character. They would be an interesting facsimile of the elven F/M/T from early editions.

in 4e you could use INT for AC and that unlocked a lot of hybrid and MC potentials.

That's more a limitation of the system. People will still try to make characters like Batman, even though any attempt will be (at best) a crude facsimile of Batman.

I've seen things weirder than Batman

 

[Distracted DM]

That's more a limitation of the system. People will still try to make characters like Batman, even though any attempt will be (at best) a crude facsimile of Batman.

Ok, I can appreciate that reasoning

 

[GrimCo]

I like well rounded characters. I like my fighters being able to tap into that magic and my mages to know how to use weapons. That's why i usually play bards and arcane trickster rogues. They have a bit of everything - some magic, some weapon skills and some skill skills.

Even my vanilla human fighter champion has Magic initiate as lv1 feat to give him some magic utility and fun.