Creative Director
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The title says it all really. Seriously, you're a L20+ wizard and at some point in your career you had nothing better to do with a feat than learn "martial weapon proficiency: obscure pole arm?" Did Xin make his apprentices fight gladiatorial duels while he and his friends bet thousands of quatloos on the victor? Do they get an initiative bonus because the enemy stops to ponder "is that a Voulge or a Glaive-guisarme?" Or were the wizard weapon proficiencies just that different back in Thassilon. It kind of makes sense for the runelords of wrath because they were mostly eldritch knights (though even there, I would expect a one handed weapon that allows them a hand free to cast while they still threaten), but for everyone else?
Their polearms are as much weapons as they are badges of office.
Furhtermore, I wanted the runelords to have several elements that tied them together that made them all feel of a kind, despite the fact that individually they're really pretty different. Making them all single-class wizards was one thing, but then giving them all long hafted weapons was another. In fact, a wizard with a pole arm is such an unusual choice that it really goes a LONG way to give them all some cool connected personalities and the like.
In a perfect world, in the future when someone sees a picture of a wizard dude in robes carrying a magic polearm, I'd like them to say "Oh! That's a runelord!" in the same way folks today see a wizard in robes and a pointy hat and a beard and a staff say "Oh! That's a Gandalf!"
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I like it as a thematic visual cue.
It also can play a bit into an image possibly intended by Xin along the lines of "You are shepherds of the many peoples of Thassilon. These canes are your badge of office." Whether those canes had blades to begin with or if it was something the Runelords added might say a lot about how Thassilon developed as it went along.
It's also easy to read as "We use polearms to keep the ignorant unwashed masses at a distance." ;)
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Every Runelord needs his shtick.
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Everyone knows the singular is wizard and plural is Gandalfs. Like vampire is singular and Draculas are plural.
"You encounter 1d4 male and female human Draculas. They slowly approach with their capes drawn over their mouths and their eyes staring hypnotically into yours."
"What kind of gear do they have?"
"You can clearly see that each of them is wearing a Dracula trophy."
We need a RotRL movie if we want glaive-guisarme wielding wizards to be instantly recognized as Runelords.
Probably won't get that, but I just saw a trailer for a movie called Jack the Giantslayer and it looks really cool.
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Also: Polearms are hugely underused and underrated.
...It would be interesting if there was a thassilonian wizard archetype, either historical or resurgent, that gave polearm proficiency though.
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Also: Polearms are hugely underused and underrated.
...It would be interesting if there was a thassilonian wizard archetype, either historical or resurgent, that gave polearm proficiency though.
Maybe a small fix to the Thassilonian Specialist Wizard that gives the proficiency as well?
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I can't speak for you guys but if I were a powerful wizard king I would be tripping peasants with my polearm all the time. I'd have a man in my court whose only job would be to stand up after I trip him and patiently wait to be tripped again.
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Because why not. When you're one of those evil wizards who actually succeeded in obtaining UNLIMITED POWAH! than you can do whatever the heck you want with no questions asked. No one will question your choice to wield weapons normal members of your class would touch, or you'll kill them for questioning you. Besides, what part of the a runelord makes them "normal" in the first place. Exceptional weapons for exceptional people if you ask me.
Also, its original. Polearms are rarely used.
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In a perfect world, in the future when someone sees a picture of a wizard dude in robes carrying a magic polearm, I'd like them to say "Oh! That's a runelord!" in the same way folks today see a wizard in robes and a pointy hat and a beard and a staff say "Oh! That's a Gandalf!"
It's a little obscure these days, but IIRC Lohiro, the Archmage in Barbara Hambly's Darwath Trilogy, used a polearm.
Is there a reason why none of them were statted in the Shattered Star Part VI?
It's hard to believe that level 20+, hyper-intelligent wizards who have lived for hundreds of years would make choices that are sooo sub-optimal as to waste a feat on polearm proficiency. Shouldn't they know better???
One of them is even a blaster for crying out loud.
-Skeld
Who's to say they didn't just use wish for the proficiency or build in a special ability for their weapons that grants proficiency when wielded? Aren't the badges of office minor artifacts in their own right? No need to waste a feat when you have MAGIC!
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Creative Director
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Also: Polearms are hugely underused and underrated.
...It would be interesting if there was a thassilonian wizard archetype, either historical or resurgent, that gave polearm proficiency though.
Perhpas... but that kind of flies in the face of my desire to have all seven runelords be single-classed core wizard specialists. They're already pretty unique as they are already, and I'm always wary about overburdening an NPC with too many variants.
That works fine... works GREAT, in fact... for PCs, but not so much for NPCs since the GM has to run a lot more characters than the player.
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Creative Director
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Maybe a small fix to the Thassilonian Specialist Wizard that gives the proficiency as well?Also: Polearms are hugely underused and underrated.
...It would be interesting if there was a thassilonian wizard archetype, either historical or resurgent, that gave polearm proficiency though.
Nah... it's not an intrinsic quality of Thassilonian magic that you learn how to use a pole arm. In fact, the runelords wouldn't really WANT their followers and students using pole arms; remember, they're as much badges of office as they are weapons. The king doesn't let all his knights and squires wear crowns, so the runelords shouldn't want their apprentices to carry THEIR "crowns."
Expecting a runelord to use a feat on gaining proficiency in the polearm of choice is not a big deal. They have plenty of feats.
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Creative Director
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It's a little obscure these days, but IIRC Lohiro, the Archmage in Barbara Hambly's Darwath Trilogy, used a polearm. ** spoiler omitted **
In a perfect world, in the future when someone sees a picture of a wizard dude in robes carrying a magic polearm, I'd like them to say "Oh! That's a runelord!" in the same way folks today see a wizard in robes and a pointy hat and a beard and a staff say "Oh! That's a Gandalf!"
Huh... I'd say VERY obscure, since I don't recognize any of the capitalized words you just listed except "Archmage" and "Trilogy."
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Creative Director
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It's hard to believe that level 20+, hyper-intelligent wizards who have lived for hundreds of years would make choices that are sooo sub-optimal as to waste a feat on polearm proficiency. Shouldn't they know better???
One of them is even a blaster for crying out loud.
-Skeld
It's not a wasted feat. It doesn't make them sub-optimal. It gives them character, and affords them access to a cool and unusual weapon. In ALL cases, that weapon, in the runelord's case, is also an artifact, so if you think of it as "I'm spending this feat so I can be a little better at using an artifact," it's not bad at all.
Not every feat needs to be hyper-optimized to make an NPC as better as possible. That's boring. That route leads to sameness. Pass.
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Creative Director
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Is there a reason why none of them were statted in the Shattered Star Part VI?
A couple of reasons.
1) They don't actually appear in the adventure, so there's no need for their stats.
2) Three of them are mythic characters, and as such we couldn't stat them yet anyway. Maybe in 3 months when those rules are (hopefully) nailed down.
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Creative Director
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Who's to say they didn't just use wish for the proficiency or build in a special ability for their weapons that grants proficiency when wielded? Aren't the badges of office minor artifacts in their own right? No need to waste a feat when you have MAGIC!It's hard to believe that level 20+, hyper-intelligent wizards who have lived for hundreds of years would make choices that are sooo sub-optimal as to waste a feat on polearm proficiency. Shouldn't they know better???
One of them is even a blaster for crying out loud.
-Skeld
I'm to say, in fact.
I've already statted up one runelord, and he spent one of his many feats on Martial Weapon Proficiency. He had PLENTY of feats left over to do what he needed to do. And when I stat up the remaining six, I'm not gonna do that any differently.
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Huh... I'd say VERY obscure, since I don't recognize any of the capitalized words you just listed except "Archmage" and "Trilogy."
It's a little obscure these days, but IIRC Lohiro, the Archmage in Barbara Hambly's Darwath Trilogy, used a polearm. ** spoiler omitted **
That says something interesting about the way the fantasy market has split; she's been writing for over thirty years and has a couple dozen fantasy novels to her name, but most of what she's written in the last ten years have been mysteries. So she's fallen off of the radar as far as non-urban fantasy goes (she's had a couple of urban fantasies in the past few years). Younger readers, and people who weren't reading a lot of fantasy before the mid-90's, are a lot less likely to have heard her name.
It's hard to believe that level 20+, hyper-intelligent wizards who have lived for hundreds of years would make choices that are sooo sub-optimal as to waste a feat on polearm proficiency. Shouldn't they know better???
One of them is even a blaster for crying out loud.
-Skeld
Well, I don't really think feats are supposed to represent concrete decisions made by characters, knowing there's only a limited amount they can take. That just sort of seems like saying, "why would anyone be a kobold? Their stats are terrible."
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Huh... I'd say VERY obscure, since I don't recognize any of the capitalized words you just listed except "Archmage" and "Trilogy."
Barbara Hambly, a past president of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, is a prolific author and criminally under-recognized fantasist. I particularly recommend her Winterlands books, starting with Dragonsbane.
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It's hard to believe that level 20+, hyper-intelligent wizards who have lived for hundreds of years would make choices that are sooo sub-optimal as to waste a feat on polearm proficiency. Shouldn't they know better???
One of them is even a blaster for crying out loud.
-Skeld
It's not a wasted feat. It doesn't make them sub-optimal. It gives them character, and affords them access to a cool and unusual weapon. In ALL cases, that weapon, in the runelord's case, is also an artifact, so if you think of it as "I'm spending this feat so I can be a little better at using an artifact," it's not bad at all.
Not every feat needs to be hyper-optimized to make an NPC as better as possible. That's boring. That route leads to sameness. Pass.
James -
I posted in jest, but I do appreciate the serious answer since I share your thoughts on "wasted feats." Just because 3e/PF lends itself to optimization doesn't mean that every character creation decision needs to be optimized. I rather prefer that characters are what they are for story reasons than because that's what someone's (flawed) math dictates. That's one of the many things I like about Pathfinder.
-Skeld
You could argue that wizards have more leeway with feats that a lot of martial things do since they can do so much with spells and magical items.
And I guess I was kind of picturing a wannabe runelord archetype or prestige class...
Huh... I'd say VERY obscure, since I don't recognize any of the capitalized words you just listed except "Archmage" and "Trilogy."Barbara Hambly, a past president of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, is a prolific author and criminally under-recognized fantasist. I particularly recommend her Winterlands books, starting with Dragonsbane.
I liked her scientific approach to vampirism in her novel Those Who Hunt in the Night as well. First time I heard of the "vampirism is a virus" idea, and that was back in the 80s.
Contributor
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I liked her scientific approach to vampirism in her novel Those Who Hunt in the Night as well. First time I heard of the "vampirism is a virus" idea, and that was back in the 80s.Huh... I'd say VERY obscure, since I don't recognize any of the capitalized words you just listed except "Archmage" and "Trilogy."Barbara Hambly, a past president of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, is a prolific author and criminally under-recognized fantasist. I particularly recommend her Winterlands books, starting with Dragonsbane.
A great book. Traveling with the Dead was good too. The best part of this subthread is I just found out she wrote two more books in the series (in 2010 and 2012): Blood Maidens and Magistrates of Hell. Good titles. I have to find them... Thanks Sean et al. (and James for triggering this literary soiree, as well).
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I liked her scientific approach to vampirism in her novel Those Who Hunt in the Night as well. First time I heard of the "vampirism is a virus" idea, and that was back in the 80s.Huh... I'd say VERY obscure, since I don't recognize any of the capitalized words you just listed except "Archmage" and "Trilogy."Barbara Hambly, a past president of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, is a prolific author and criminally under-recognized fantasist. I particularly recommend her Winterlands books, starting with Dragonsbane.
Agreed. Even against the glut of excellent vampire stories from the 70s and 80s, hers stood out...in part because of her approach to vampirism, and in part because even from the beginning her characterization has been top-notch.
I admit to some fondness for Ishmael, her Trek fanfic novel. (Really, what else would you call a mashup of Star Trek: TOS and Here Come the Brides, with cameos by two different versions of Doctor Who and crossovers with Bonanza, the original Battlestar Galactica, Have Gun: Will Travel, and probably a few others I missed?)
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I admit to some fondness for Ishmael, her Trek fanfic novel. (Really, what else would you call a mashup of Star Trek: TOS and Here Come the Brides, with cameos by two different versions of Doctor Who and crossovers with Bonanza, the original Battlestar Galactica, Have Gun: Will Travel, and probably a few others I missed?)
That's where I know her name from! (One of the ones you missed was Poul Anderson & Gordon R. Dickson's Hoka series, which is still the one that stands out most to me...)
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Creative Director
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That says something interesting about the way the fantasy market has split; she's been writing for over thirty years and has a couple dozen fantasy novels to her name, but most of what she's written in the last ten years have been mysteries. So she's fallen off of the radar as far as non-urban fantasy goes (she's had a couple of urban fantasies in the past few years). Younger readers, and people who weren't reading a lot of fantasy before the mid-90's, are a lot less likely to have heard her name.Huh... I'd say VERY obscure, since I don't recognize any of the capitalized words you just listed except "Archmage" and "Trilogy."
It's a little obscure these days, but IIRC Lohiro, the Archmage in Barbara Hambly's Darwath Trilogy, used a polearm. ** spoiler omitted **
Well, add to that the fact that I actually haven't read a LOT of fantasy. Most of my reading has been in the horror genre, and when I do delve into fantasy, I tend to either go modern (George Martin) or pulp. With the exception of Raymond Feist and D&D novels, I didn't read a lot of fantasy novels in the 80s and 90s.
Also: Polearms are hugely underused and underrated.
...It would be interesting if there was a thassilonian wizard archetype, either historical or resurgent, that gave polearm proficiency though.
Perhpas... but that kind of flies in the face of my desire to have all seven runelords be single-classed core wizard specialists. They're already pretty unique as they are already, and I'm always wary about overburdening an NPC with too many variants.
That works fine... works GREAT, in fact... for PCs, but not so much for NPCs since the GM has to run a lot more characters than the player.
Wait, are the Runelords not built with the Thassilonian Specialist archetype from Inner Sea Magic?
Is there a reason why none of them were statted in the Shattered Star Part VI?A couple of reasons.
1) They don't actually appear in the adventure, so there's no need for their stats.
2) Three of them are mythic characters, and as such we couldn't stat them yet anyway. Maybe in 3 months when those rules are (hopefully) nailed down.
Nice! I loved the write ups but was a little disappointed when there were no stats to go along with them.
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Creative Director
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Wait, are the Runelords not built with the Thassilonian Specialist archetype from Inner Sea Magic?Also: Polearms are hugely underused and underrated.
...It would be interesting if there was a thassilonian wizard archetype, either historical or resurgent, that gave polearm proficiency though.
Perhpas... but that kind of flies in the face of my desire to have all seven runelords be single-classed core wizard specialists. They're already pretty unique as they are already, and I'm always wary about overburdening an NPC with too many variants.
That works fine... works GREAT, in fact... for PCs, but not so much for NPCs since the GM has to run a lot more characters than the player.
We've only built one runelord so far, and yes he is indeed a Thassilonian specialist. That's not technically an archetype though.
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Creative Director
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Nice! I loved the write ups but was a little disappointed when there were no stats to go along with them.Is there a reason why none of them were statted in the Shattered Star Part VI?A couple of reasons.
1) They don't actually appear in the adventure, so there's no need for their stats.
2) Three of them are mythic characters, and as such we couldn't stat them yet anyway. Maybe in 3 months when those rules are (hopefully) nailed down.
Some day, when the stars are right, they'll all have stats.
Who says every Runelord is proficient with their polearm as a weapon?I do.
Can we also get a Runelord that uses a mancatcher?
Characters have to live in the world they have constructed. That means every day events as opposed to adventuring so sub optimal feats make perfect sense.
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Creative Director
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Hm, Dead Heart of Xin refers to Alaznist as an "Arcane Knight", which I had mentally translated to be "Eldritch Knight".It kind of makes sense for the runelords of wrath because they were mostly eldritch knights...I used to think that too, but it's not the case. The Runelords of Wrath were single-classed evokers.
Ah; yeah. That's just a flavorful way of saying "a wizard who was really REALLY into combat and warfare."
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Creative Director
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1) Burn the HERETIC!!! You've missed a bunch of good stuff man. You might want to put Barbara (and a few others - Glen Cook anyone?) on your to read list.
2) Regarding the proficiency thing - weren't the runelords all major Ioun Stone freaks (including Implantation if Karzoug is any guide). What do the words opalescent white pyramid say to you?
1) There are more books in the world than I can read, and so I do what any sane reader must—I pick and choose. Glen Cook is indeed on my "to read" list, but authors I've never heard of have a lot of catching up to do considering I've got dozens of books by authors I adore that I've not yet read.
2) Not all of the runelords were into Ioun Stones and implanting them. Even then, I'd rather have a runelord's gear go toward really cool stuff. Again, and I can't say this enough, apparently... I don't regard a runelord spending a feat to be proficient in a pole arm to be a waste. Wizards have feats to spare. They're about spells, after all, not feats.