Wizard: Essential Class or Scared Cow

[Frostmarrow]

In the 1963 Roger Corman movie The Raven there is a good warlock Craven (played by Vincent Price) who is involved in a magic duel against the evil sorcerer Scarabus (Boris Karloff) complete with magic missiles, levitation, baleful polymorph, and more.

 

[Felix]

To be clear, when I capitalize the first letter, I'm talking about the class ("Barbarian"). When I don't, I mean a general description of the character ("barbarian").

My attitude is that the in-game language and roles should be exactly the same as the rules-based language we use.

Does this mean that a level 10 Fighter cannot accept money to kill a person? Because doing so would make them an assassin, and he doesn't have any levels in Assassin.

Similarly, an Expert can take only ranks in Perform and Knowledge skills; does the in-game/rules based language synthesis mean that he cannot go town to town exchanging stories, singing songs as a bard?

Usually, people in favor of disconnecting the two are people who'd prefer to dismiss the whole class-based system in its entirety (and are engaged in a project to break down the whole system).

Brother, that ain't me.

The class-based level system models the acquisition of skill sets, and it does so admirably.

What players decide their characters do with a skill set is what produces their character's role. So that a Barbarian may be an army marshal; a Wizard may be an assassin; a Monk may be a high priest.

The separation between Class and role is the same as ability and objective. It may help to have levels in Rogue to steal things, but you don't need them.

 

[Delta]

To be clear, when I capitalize the first letter, I'm talking about the class ("Barbarian"). When I don't, I mean a general description of the character ("barbarian").

Does this mean that a level 10 Fighter cannot accept money to kill a person? Because doing so would make them an assassin, and he doesn't have any levels in Assassin.

The very fact that you start having to going through grammatical big-letter, little-letter contortions is more complication than I want to deal with in my gaming. I don't want any part of a game where that was recognized in the rules-as-written. Fortunately, that's not the fundamental assumption of D&D; again, I'm still used to OD&D/AD&D where each class level had its own recognized in-game title. That's the philosophy that generated the class system in the first place.

No, I don't agree that a Fighter killing someone makes them an assassin or an Assassin or an assAssin or anything else. They're a fighter who got paid to kill someone.

Example: My dad once in a while teaches a university class, but he doesn't call himself a teacher; he's a doctor. My girlfriend will take photos for bands sometimes (for money), but she never identifies as a photographer; she's an artist/web designer. I've had a few gaming articles published, but I can't say I'm a game designer; I'm a teacher/musician.

An identity is more than just something you do once; it takes specific training, skill, career advancement, and public recognition about what you're doing. Some people identify themselves in a few roles (perhaps 2 or 3, a "triple threat"), but I don't know anyone who identifies themselves with 6 or 7 or 8 conjoined active occupations on their resume (as implied by completely unrestricted multiclassing).

 

[Slife]

An identity is more than just something you do once; it takes specific training, skill, career advancement, and public recognition about what you're doing. Some people identify themselves in a few roles (perhaps 2 or 3, a "triple threat"), but I don't know anyone who identifies themselves with 6 or 7 or 8 conjoined active occupations on their resume (as implied by completely unrestricted multiclassing).

Let's take two characters.

One is an assassin, specifically, an assassin in the brotherhood of the crimson rose, trained to complete their missions no matter what the circumstances - fight with anything, blend in when needed, hunt their victim as long as necessary. He's been an assassin since he was a child, and he plans to stay one until he get too old or rich enough to retire.

The other started out as a merchant guildsman, then joined organized crime when his business was destroyed by war. He learned Necromancy, and rose to become the classical evil baron. Then one day, he had an epiphany and gave up his former ways and rank to become a champion of good, defending the people from extraplanar horrors. After many years though, he came to realize that the tide of creatures from the lower planes could not be stopped by normal means, and set himself to mastering the planes in order to find a real solution. He's changed paths several times, and may do so again.

Consider which one is more consistant and which is more spread out.



And now let's look at their classes. The first is a Rogue/Monk/Fighter/Ranger/Bard/Invisible Blade/Replacement Killer. The second? Just a plain Wizard.

Probably not entirely unexpected, but I think it shows that the classes are not the same thing as the character, and that "cherry-picking" makes no more or less sense from an in-game PoV than going single-classed.

Thought this was relevent.

 

[Felix]

The very fact that you start having to going through grammatical big-letter, little-letter contortions is more complication than I want to deal with in my gaming.

You don't recognize that some game terms have real-life meanings different than those in the game, and that without some disambiguation things can get somewhat confusing?

No, I don't agree that a Fighter killing someone makes them an assassin or an Assassin or an assAssin or anything else. They're a fighter who got paid to kill someone.

An assassin, by definition, is "a murderer who kills for ... monetary reasons". (Source: Dictionary.com)

What you just said is that a fighter who kills someone for money can never be a murderer who kills for monetary reasons. How does that make sense again?

Example: My dad once in a while teaches a university class, but he doesn't call himself a teacher; he's a doctor. My girlfriend will take photos for bands sometimes (for money), but she never identifies as a photographer; she's an artist/web designer. I've had a few gaming articles published, but I can't say I'm a game designer; I'm a teacher/musician.

Each one of those examples shows how someone with skill sets (in game terms, by taking levels in a class) can apply those skill sets to a variety of jobs. How is that any different from what I said in my previous post? I said a Barbarian can find work leading an army; he doesn't need to take levels of marshal any more than your father needs a bachelor degree in education to find work as a lecturer.

An identity is more than just something you do once; it takes specific training, skill, career advancement, and public recognition about what you're doing.

Sure. And being able to sneak about is a skill as easily learned in the ranks of the Rangers as it is in the Rogues. So why can't a Ranger be a thief? Why must he take levels in Rogue?

An Expert can spend all his resources learning history and document preservation; can he not call himself an archivist?

A Fighter can learn, very well, how to kill people; can he not hire himself out as an assassin?

I don't know anyone who identifies themselves with 6 or 7 or 8 conjoined active occupations on their resume (as implied by completely unrestricted multiclassing).

Leonardo DaVinci, if you believe what they say in Hudson Hawk.

What does unrestricted multiclassing have to do with anything?

 

[JDJblatherings]

Why do we have Wizards? Despite the use of the term the archtype isn't common in pre-DnD fantasy.

The wizard archtype transcends genres, languages and cultures. It will outlast our civilization. It's here to stay.

D&D without wizards (or sorcerors, or MU's or arcane artillery) simply isn't D&D.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Doug McCrae hit it nicely on the head. Prior to about 1980, you don't see many wizard protagonists. Yes, there are the odd exception, but, by and large, wizards are the old guys in the background swooping in and performing Deus Ex Machina when necessary.

The idea of a main character being a wizard comes into popular genre novels at roughly the same time as D&D hits mainstream. I don't know if there is a connection there, but, it seems likely. People play D&D and want novels where the characters seem like the characters in their game.

I disagree... if wizards hadn't been part of the zeitgeist, they wouldn't have got into D&D anyway in all likelihood. There might have been more wizard novels after D&D hit the mainstream, but that would just be the result of the glut of D&D based novels that appeared.

Wizard of Earthsea (and related books) by LeGuin is yet another example of a magic using hero. The Traveller in Black by John Brunner is another - and those are just off the top of my head, I'm sure there are lots more.

 

[robberbaron]

Gandalf was also an outsider (Maia) - and his most spectacular trick was to use fireworks

I always thought Gandalf's most spectacular trick was beating a Balrog to death.

He set fire to a load of trees and wolves.
He broke Saruman's staff (ranged touch attack, I guess. Maybe Shatter).
He collapsed the Bridge of Khazad-Dum, stopping the Balrog getting past (didn't you get that far in the book/film?)

 

[Baby Samurai]

My problem is that we have a wizard and sorcerer class. I just don't think the differences between the two classes warrant a separate class. To me, the differences are almost cosmetic, and could be represented by a feat or a substitution level etc.

The sorcerer still reeks of a 3.0 gimmick to me. I'm sure we could have one magic-user class, and have the option of being a prepared or spontaneous caster.

 

[robberbaron]

I agree. I always thought the distinction should have been Wizard = Arcane, Sorcerer = Psionic. Or some other distinction making the classes more different.