This statement I believe is the true heart of your objection. If the DM bans something he detracts from the fun of the player who wants to use the banned material for his character, therefore if the player wants to retcon the world to fit what he wants in then the DM must allow it so the player's fun is not diminished.
But there is NO retconning going on, mechanics live in the 4th dimension lets say - the only people who see them are the players of the game. The game world never has any interaction with them. The core mechanics allow for certain "things", then we bring in these mechanics that produce equivalent "things" to the "things" that are pre-existing already in the game. The use of these mechanics has no actual in game impact at all. To the game world they are not new as there was a pre-existing "thing" similar to it, the world isn't shaken to its core and nor does it fall down like a house of cards. One swings a sword and gets bright sparklies the other swings a sword and gets dark sparklies, the same results with minor differences in game world preception. If there is no in game impact there is no retcon. If there is no retcon where is the problem with the mechanics being used?
"Hi I'm magic using sword guy from the school CORE who are you?"
"Oh, hi to you! I'm magic using sword guy from the school ToB, how are you doing this fine day?"
One magic using spell guy went to one school, the other went to a different school. Or even better, they went to the same school but took different classes. At what point does this new mechanic require a retcon of the entire world by the DM?
Your stance is that the players define the world and the DM is merely there as an enabler for their fantasy.
No my stance is the group defines the world, it is a group game, when all in the game are not having fun the game stops being a game and becomes work. To DM should be selflish act, you are for all intents and purposes giving of your time and energy to allow your friends or aquaintances to enjoy a break from the real world in a fantasy world that you are "in control of," sometimes DM's take that part too far though. This "control" is less the iron fist type and more the multi tasking AI to an advanced video game. The DM has to portray all other entities in the game world besides the players. The DM has all knowledge of this world at his or her finger tips so they can tell the players what will happen in any particular instance in time, space, what have you. He or she is the interface to this world for the players. He or she is much more than an "enabler," it is a symbiotic relationship, with out the characters there is no game, with out the DM there is no game. The "in game world" isn't the most important part of the game, the fun that should be being had by everyone is the important part of the game. If a player will have more fun with a character using mechanics B instead of the comparable mechanics A which exist why would any good DM say no?
Mine is that the world can be defined and exist independent of the players and imposes limitations on them. The DM defines the world and the world defines the characters.
The world should never define the characters, ever. The players should. If the world defines the characters you might as write up the characters yourself and hand every new player a pregenerated character to play. It might be fun the first time or two, but it will QUICKLY grow old. I want my character to be my character in a campaign. I want to play what concept I came up with, not the one you are shoving down my throat every time I kill off a boring character you made me play in your "world."
Two different play styles. To you having the world completely predefined is seen as constraining. To me it helps in my immersion into the character.
One may be more right for you, but neither is inherently wrong.
There can be as many play styles are there are people, I'm not saying that isn't the case. I'm saying that when something exists in the game already, that this concept is completely normal in the game world and is available to use via mechanic A, that using a mechanic B that amounts to the exact same thing in game that already exists has no negative impact IN GAME and on top of having no negative impact has the positive impact of a happy player which in turn ends up with a satisfied DM (knowing every one playing is enjoying themselves) which in the end is pretty much the only reward a DM ever truly gets.
Having the world completely predefined is different than what we are talking about here. Mechanics A and B may be apples and oranges in the real world, but they are both pears in the game world. When the end results of the mechanics are the same, the immersion is the same, your character knows nothing of the mechanics. Your character just sees two sword fighters using magic, maybe they are the same and just using different spells? To say anything else means you are meta gaming and basing your complaints about the in world game on meta game knowledge... Well that is a whole other story which has nothing to do with the topic at hand:
Comparable mechanics stripped of fluff have no impact on the in game world and as such should not be excluded from play because of the provided fluff/background/what-have-you when there is an existing mechanic in play that allows for similar in game results. Saying there is no magic in the world and only sword play is one thing, I would say I'd want to go through ToB with a fine tooth comb and note which abilities were "realistic" enough to pass before allowing the book possibly. Saying the world is medieval with magic available and then complaining about the level of magic seemingly entwined with the ToB is something completely different. Somehow the fighter mage combo is valid yet the swordsage isn't, really? You are willing to accept that?
How many times have I looked at our DM expecting him to tell me what my character would know about something that I as the player don't?
And how many times has that same DM either said before hand during character briefings/background creation or at that particular time you looked at him, to "go ahead and make it up however you like, I'll stop you if you get too wild for what I had planned?" His world was structured, it was formed, he had ideas about the grand scheme of things and yet everything we tossed at him managed to get fit in in some way. Maybe not as the incarnation we first envisioned but something that was retooled slightly (typically, if not always in the fluff department for background purposes and fitting it into the world) with minor cruch tweaks if at all. Again the mechanics didn't matter as long as they were on par with what was being used, and the fluff was redone to help with the immersion of the "new" character in the game world. We all got to enjoy what we wanted to play, we enjoyed ourselves, he enjoyed that we enjoyed it. That is "the game." We were winning "the game."
I draw the line at Monkey Grip, though, that one is just TOO stupid.
I knew I liked you for a reason...
Well said. I've argued in this thread the case that DMs should give material fair consideration before banning it. Now I find myself arguing the case that players should not force DMs to allow things. I am arguing against both extremes.
No one is arguing that players should be able to force anything on the DM. I'm arguing that a DM ought to have a well thought-out and valid reason before banning anything, and they should be honest about it. Even if it's just, "I don't want to deal with X." Derek's policy of not allowing things from books he doesn't own is perfectly acceptable and not a problem in any capacity.
I'm also arguing against very specific invalid arguments, as well as unnecessary conflation.
Fluff is not a part of the mechanics. If you line up four dwarves in front of King Bob, and they're a Warrior, a Fighter, a Warblade, and a Knight, the king does not see a Warrior, a Fighter, a Warblade, and a Knight. He sees four dwarven warriors. If you line up four gnomes in front of him, and they're a Wizard, a Wu Jen, a Psion, and a Warlock, King Bob does not see a Wizard, a Wu Jen, a Psion, and a Warlock, King Bob does not see a Wizard, a Wu Jen, a Psion, and a Warlock. He sees four gnomish magi.
The classes are nothing more than metagame tags attached to ability sets. They're character-representation tools. A game world doesn't have, say, "No Bards." That makes no sense. There is no notion of the Bard class within the world, making the nonexistence of a class, a metagame tag, an absurdity. "No Bards," is not fluff because it has nothing to do with the world itself, and has no in-game meaning. There may be other, non-fluff reasons for banning Bards, but "This world has no Bards," in and of itself, is a nonsensical statement, as classes do not exist within the world anyways, thus the statement has no bearing on fluff.
The actual fluff for the world may be, "Draconic heritage and mystical music are not sources of magic power," which is going to omit most Bards. However, if clergy works as normal and I then come with my priestess of Lliira, represented by the Bard class, who derives her powers from worship of Lliira like any other clergy, for whom her Bardic Music is an invocation of divine grace? There is no reason to omit her on fluff grounds. She is completely consistent with the world, despite belonging to a class that is generally omitted by the fluff.
Likewise, if psionics don't exist in the world, that only omits characters who utilize psionics, not classes. Fluff that omits psionics does not mean the psionic mechanics cannot be used to represent magic users. My character, represented by the Psion class, can just as easily be a wizard or a sorcerer, same as any other, perfectly compatible with the world at large, without any revisions to the world required. After all, the other characters in the world can't see power points or spell slots or class titles. They just see another mage. This is not the players writing the world, or even the players rewriting the classes. This is nothing more than the players writing their characters in the first place, which is what they're supposed to be doing anyways. Any further objection to the use of psionics is not rooted in fluff, and should not be framed as such.
I draw the line at Monkey Grip, though, that one is just TOO stupid.Not to mention mechanically inferior.
Actually, it can be pretty nice if you squeeze it hard enough. If you're just using it to go from a medium greatsword (2d6) to a large greatsword (3d6), then it's not any good. Just -2 AB for +3.5 damage, which is a worse return than power attack. However, if you take fullblade proficiency, which deals d8's for damage instead of d6's, you get an extra 4.5 damage for the -2 hit. If you then go with Psychic Warrior and use Expansion to go up two sizes, you're starting to dip into the higher end of weapons scaling by size. Instead of Monkey Grip taking you from 2d8 to 3d8, it's now taking you from 4d8 to 6d8, a +9 damage bonus for your -2 AB hit. Put Monkey Grip and fullblade proficiency on a Wu Jen gish, and use Giant Size to turn colossal, then it's taking you from 8d8 to 12d8, a +18 damage bonus for the -2 AB hit.
Then again, Greater Mighty Wallop and a goliath greathammer would probably serve you better. Particularly if, after Greater Mighty Wallop sets your weapon to colossal damage, you use Expansion to tack on two more sizes worth of damage, upping you to 16d6 damage.
Fluff is not a part of the mechanics. If you line up four dwarves in front of King Bob, and they're a Warrior, a Fighter, a Warblade, and a Knight, the king does not see a Warrior, a Fighter, a Warblade, and a Knight. He sees four dwarven warriors. If you line up four gnomes in front of him, and they're a Wizard, a Wu Jen, a Psion, and a Warlock, King Bob does not see a Wizard, a Wu Jen, a Psion, and a Warlock, King Bob does not see a Wizard, a Wu Jen, a Psion, and a Warlock. He sees four gnomish magi.
The classes are nothing more than metagame tags attached to ability sets. They're character-representation tools. A game world doesn't have, say, "No Bards." That makes no sense. There is no notion of the Bard class within the world, making the nonexistence of a class, a metagame tag, an absurdity. "No Bards," is not fluff because it has nothing to do with the world itself, and has no in-game meaning. There may be other, non-fluff reasons for banning Bards, but "This world has no Bards," in and of itself, is a nonsensical statement, as classes do not exist within the world anyways, thus the statement has no bearing on fluff.
The actual fluff for the world may be, "Draconic heritage and mystical music are not sources of magic power," which is going to omit most Bards. However, if clergy works as normal and I then come with my priestess of Lliira, represented by the Bard class, who derives her powers from worship of Lliira like any other clergy, for whom her Bardic Music is an invocation of divine grace? There is no reason to omit her on fluff grounds. She is completely consistent with the world, despite belonging to a class that is generally omitted by the fluff.
Likewise, if psionics don't exist in the world, that only omits characters who utilize psionics, not classes. Fluff that omits psionics does not mean the psionic mechanics cannot be used to represent magic users. My character, represented by the Psion class, can just as easily be a wizard or a sorcerer, same as any other, perfectly compatible with the world at large, without any revisions to the world required. After all, the other characters in the world can't see power points or spell slots or class titles. They just see another mage. This is not the players writing the world, or even the players rewriting the classes. This is nothing more than the players writing their characters in the first place, which is what they're supposed to be doing anyways. Any further objection to the use of psionics is not rooted in fluff, and should not be framed as such.
The trouble you're failing to note is that some mechanics mesh less well with some flavors than others, and it's a rare player who does a perfect job of sanding the Fluff off of the Crunch. I can give players as many handouts for the world as I like, even a weighty game bible, and they will still at many points fall back to the jargon and flavor in the main game book or whatever book they're pulling their character mechanics from.
And some mechanics do a less good job of modeling some characters than others. If I say for a world that the only magic I want in it is alchemy and magic items, and thus the only magical character classes I'm allowing are Artficers from Eberron and maybe Gnomish Artificers from Magic of Faerun, it's probably not that great of an idea to make up a Cleric, Psion, Wizard, Warblade, Paladin or whatever no matter how much you try to retweak them so they fit the world's alchemical bent, even if you say that the Wizard memorizing his spells is done by him snorting lines of alchemical pixie crack at the beginning of the day which is very much like drinking a potion, and the Psion's weird powerz were the result of his mom drinking the wrong potions while he was in utero and so forth. Just because something could conceivably happen that way doesn't mean it does, and if I as a DM would rather prefer to see a lot of alchemical gizmos and gimcracks and not so much of the kewl powerz, then the kewl powerz classes probably shouldn't be played.
And honestly, sometimes the "perfect stats to model my character" business starts to look like wheedling. If I say a given world only has humans, orcs, elves, and the occasional half-elf and half-orc (and if you cross an elf and an orc, you get a human), and there are no dwarves, halflings or gnomes, then someone says, "I want to play a Kender" and I say "No, there are no Kender either" and then they say "I'll play a midget half-elf with ADHD and use the rules for Kender to model them" then I'll say "No, no Kender, and no faux Kender either."
Mercurial Fullblade + Monkey Grip + Weapon Master + Improved Critical = What the F ever. Not happening in my game.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I'm in the midst of an electrical storm, and this post has been eliminated by lightning strikes twice now. I'll try to keep this brief, and hope for the best.
First off, skylancer4, I wanted to compliment your posting style and thank you for some well-thought-out and deep theory about world-building.
Secondly, I'd like to take a step off-topic for a moment.
As a teacher, you learn that many problems can be solved by not giving people the opportunity to cause them. More opportunity = more chance of problems.
Your players are not your lessers, your subordinates, or your wards. They are your friends, your peers, and your equals. To treat them in the same manner as you would students is demeaning.
I've been a teacher, of adults and teens, for 12 years. Before that, I was a professional magician. Throughout, I've been an Game Master in different games and campaigns. I've also been a student, an audience member, and a player. I've felt that any of these roles has been "demeaning".
If you've been humiliated by a teacher, I'd like to apologize on behalf of the profession. We're supposed to start from a groundwork of mutual respect and trust.
As are the people gathered around a game table. In my meta-meta-game perspective, the Dungeon Masters are offering products --campaigns-- that they hope will be attractive and satisfying to consumers --players-- who might want to become regular customers. The guy behind the DM screen may certainly be a peer to the other people around the table, but his job is very much like that of a teacher.
TEACHER: How does Poe use language differently from his fellow authors?
STUDENT: He's a lot more interested in the sound and rhythm, but not in a mechanical way. Longfellow moves his prose in and out of poetry, but it's like Poe is trying to move his work in and out of art.
OTHER STUDENTS: Cool!
TEACHER: That's insightful.
DUNGEON MASTER: At the bottom of the stairs, you come across a pair of doors in what appears to be an otherwise dead-end. The door to the right seems to be bulging out at you, pulsating in and out slowly, and there's dim red light coming from the cracks. What do you do?
PLAYER: I don't trust either door. The nymph warned us that if we saw the heart of the castle, we should keep going. I think this is what she meant. Since we're heading down, I try to see if there's any secret door in the floor.
OTHER PLAYERS: Good idea.
DUNGEON MASTER: That's insightful. You do indeed find a trap door, leading down even further into the darkness.
AUTHORITY: Description. Question.
OTHER PERSON: Proposed answer.
AUTHORITY: Evaluation.
Thank you for letting me take this tangent.
Mercurial Fullblade + Monkey Grip + Weapon Master + Improved Critical = What the F ever. Not happening in my game.
I did not know there was a mecurial fullblade* and the weapon master + scythe is where the money is.
Money=Lots of pain.
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StuffYes. Thank you. Misconstrue positions, refuse to address the actual arguments and rebuttals to all the "brokenness" inherent to the systems you don't like, and then spend your entire post attacking people instead of their arguments, or over simplifying their arguments to the point that they become straw men. Awesome.
You win the thread.
You're welcome. Where's my medal? ;)
My point was, before I had to rush off before finishing, is that why bother mentioning liars in conjunction with the argument.
People lie, but engaging someone in a discussion while assuming they are lying about their position is not constructive. See, I can say the following:
"Anyone reasonable knows that the DM has the final say on the rules. If a player wants to do something the DM does not allow, they need to respect the DM's position. Arguing against a DM ruling makes you a bad group member."
That's the mirror argument to the "liar" proposal. I didn't insult anybody directly, just made massive insumptions and infered positions on both sides.
Anway, we're not talking about the game anymore.
The trouble you're failing to note is that some mechanics mesh less well with some flavors than others, and it's a rare player who does a perfect job of sanding the Fluff off of the Crunch. I can give players as many handouts for the world as I like, even a weighty game bible, and they will still at many points fall back to the jargon and flavor in the main game book or whatever book they're pulling their character mechanics from.
And some mechanics don't clash in the least with certain flavors while extreme bias proliferates myths to the contrary.
And it's not about sanding off fluff. It's about making a character. There is no fluff coming in from the class. Only mechanical abilities. The only fluff coming to bear is the fluff of the characters themselves. If I make a wizard, she will be a wizard all the same whether I use Psion or Wizard or Wu Jen, simply because my character is a wizard. I'm not filing off fluff from the Psion, I'm creating the fluff appropriate to the character.
Just handing the players a setting bible is generally a Bad Idea. If you're extremely lucky, one player might read half of it. With or without lots of sources, they're still going to ignore it and make inappropriate characters if they're going to make inappropriate characters.
You have to work with the players directly and involve them in world creation if you want them to get anything right at all. Handouts, they do nothing.
Also, you've pretty much admitted you come from a highly conflationist tradition. From what I've gathered, in your group, if someone is clergy, they're a Cleric, and if someone's a wizard, they're a Wizard, so if someone's a Psion, then they're a psion, because that's the group tradition. So of course you see folks using the original fluff and flavor. I'm saying that tradition and mindset are what're detracting from the game to begin with.
And jargon may slip, but that's a petty concern. It's not like if someone accidentally says "manifest" rather than "cast" or "initiate" rather than "stab" it fundamentally shatters the game world. It's a quibble on par with complaining about the player who cracks her knuckles at the table.
And some mechanics do a less good job of modeling some characters than others. If I say for a world that the only magic I want in it is alchemy and magic items, and thus the only magical character classes I'm allowing are Artficers from Eberron and maybe Gnomish Artificers from Magic of Faerun, it's probably not that great of an idea to make up a Cleric, Psion, Wizard, Warblade, Paladin or whatever no matter how much you try to retweak them so they fit the world's alchemical bent, even if you say that the Wizard memorizing his spells is done by him snorting lines of alchemical pixie crack at the beginning of the day which is very much like drinking a potion, and the Psion's weird powerz were the result of his mom drinking the wrong potions while he was in utero and so forth. Just because something could conceivably happen that way doesn't mean it does, and if I as a DM would rather prefer to see a lot of alchemical gizmos and gimcracks and not so much of the kewl powerz, then the kewl powerz classes probably shouldn't be played.
I've run purely alchemical mages before without using the Artificer. One of my favorites was an alchemical NPC Warmage/chef/undercover body guard. All of his spells involved ingesting some alchemic substance and spitting it back out, or throwing something most foul, or breaking open a bottle of doomydeath. If I were running him as a PC, his standard-issue one-hour spell recharge time would consist of brewing all that stuff back up again for the day.
I could do the same for many Wizards and Clerics and Psions with ease, though it would involve some restrictions on spell/power selection. The characters you present are inappropriate characters for the setting, but to ban the classes themselves because the first character you think of using a class is inappropriate is illogical. There are other, possibly perfectly valid, possibly spectacular characters out there that can use that class.
However, the world you're describing is going so far from a lot of the basic assumptions that D&D is built on that you'd very likely be better off using another system entirely. As a general rule, if the first thing you set out to do upon creating a setting is cut out two thirds of the material from a system, especially without replacement, you really ought to question your use of the system in the first place.
My point was, before I had to rush off before finishing, is that why bother mentioning liars in conjunction with the argument.
People lie, but engaging someone in a discussion while assuming they are lying about their position is not constructive.
Except I wasn't assuming anyone was lying, or accusing anyone was lying, or calling anyone a liar.
The point is that fluff pretty much can't write out a class. If you're banning a class based on fluff, then if the player resolves the fluff, there is no objection to the character or the use of the class and it is completely acceptable for use in the game, because the presented reason for the ban does not exist within the character. In effect, the 'ban' is not, in fact, a ban.
If the DM enforces the ban despite the sole stated issue being resolved, then clearly the reason for the ban was not fluff, and thus there was no fluff-based ban in place in the first place, but rather a ban based on entirely different premises.
The only way it's even possible for a class to be banned based on fluff is for every single character that could conceivably be represented via a class to be inappropriate. Otherwise, it's impossible to ban a class based on fluff, and the assertion is fundamentally inaccurate, illogical, and ultimately dishonest.
Argh! Long post swallowed when I went to post it. *sigh* Oh well, time to recreate it and, this time, save it before posting. It's going to be shorter than before :)
I've been busy, but I've followed the thread and I'd like to make a couple of points. First...
I'm also arguing against very specific invalid arguments, as well as unnecessary conflation.
Conflation. It's combining different things under one name. In short, calling one class another is conflation. Not defining roles closely. I was wondering if my memory was off, but -- Dictionary.com:
conflation. Show Spelled Pronunciation [kuhn-fley-shuhn] Show IPA – noun
1. the process or result of fusing items into one entity; fusion;
amalgamation.
2. Bibliography. a. the combination of two variant texts into a
new one. b. the text resulting from such a combination.
Origin: 1400–50; late ME < LL See conflate, -ion
Second...
All right. Calling for logic and analysis (prior posts, not this one) in a discussion based on individual game experiences is like using logic to count the number of angels who can stand on the head of a pin. It has been done, but the usefulness is open to doubt. Since the "evidence", on all sides, is anecdotal and based on specific personal experience and opinion it is largely futile to weigh it. No one will be convinced as their experience / evidence will always be percieved as having a greater validity to it (for them at least) than anothers.
Fluff is not a part of the mechanics. If you line up four dwarves in front of King Bob, and they're a Warrior, a Fighter, a Warblade, and a Knight, the king does not see a Warrior, a Fighter, a Warblade, and a Knight. He sees four dwarven warriors. If you line up four gnomes in front of him, and they're a Wizard, a Wu Jen, a Psion, and a Warlock, King Bob does not see a Wizard, a Wu Jen, a Psion, and a Warlock, King Bob does not see a Wizard, a Wu Jen, a Psion, and a Warlock. He sees four gnomish magi.
Third...
The four in either of your examples may look alike, but they are not. Definition, simplification, and clear communication of abilities is the whole point of a class based system. If you want a free form rpg there are other systems that are better.
The classes are nothing more than metagame tags attached to ability sets. They're character-representation tools. A game world doesn't have, say, "No Bards." That makes no sense. There is no notion of the Bard class within the world, making the nonexistence of a class, a metagame tag, an absurdity. "No Bards," is not fluff because it has nothing to do with the world itself, and has no in-game meaning. There may be other, non-fluff reasons for banning Bards, but "This world has no Bards," in and of itself, is a nonsensical statement, as classes do not exist within the world anyways, thus the statement has no bearing on fluff.The actual fluff for the world may be, "Draconic heritage and mystical music are not sources of magic power," which is going to omit...
Fourth...
Yes, the classes are ability sets. These "metagame tags" communicate a clear role and set of abilities to all participants in game. Renaming classes is just inviting confusion and miscommunication in any discussion of classes. Every profession, or hobby in this case, has a jargon for the same reason -- the communication of information related to it to the community of people in the profession / hobby.
finally...
As for "re-tooling" or altering a class to fill the role of another... why bother? By the time you get it to do a close approximation of the original class you will have re-invented the wheel using another set of mechanics. If the goal is to use a different class or have significantly different abilties, why go through the renaming / retooling of the class. Just ask if you can use it. The DM may say "yes" or "no". It's his call. The game world can involve an expectation of the abilities of a given class, and other mechanics or abilities may just not fit that worlds role for that class. A game world is (my prejudice here) a simulated environment with given rules. These rules encompass both the "fluff" and "mechanics" of the world. Seperating the two is reducing them to less than the combined whole. They inform and influence each other in a symbiotic way. Change one and you change the other. Enough cliches for one paragraph I think :D
And speaking of change... you want the DM to consider changing his campaign to suit the creativity and foster the enjoyment of one player. You want the DM to be flexible. Why can't the player be flexible? Why doesn't (s)he find an existing class within which his inspiration / role model can exist (if imperfectly) and adapt to it. Why should the DM, AND the rest of the players, be the ones to change their game? Is the DM being asked to make up for the lack of creativity / adaptability of one player? The heart of role playing is acting. Mechanics shouldn't prevent playing the role. The 3.5 / Pathfinder rules are very adaptable. Between the classes, prestige classes and feats available in any given game a player should be able to find his part. failing that he can always find another play...
Mercurial Fullblade + Monkey Grip + Weapon Master + Improved Critical = What the F ever. Not happening in my game.I did not know there was a mecurial fullblade* and the weapon master + scythe is where the money is.
Money=Lots of pain.
Stupid Fing Fullblade. 2d8 damage x3 crit. Large-sized with weapon master was just lametarded.
I can see some of what your saying R_Chance, but at the same time, my perspective is at odds with it. I'll give an example of probably my favorite 'off flavor' character I've used.Shinsuei is a dwarven martial artist. He's spent years and years perfecting his craft, developing the arts of chi manipulation and employs that in combat to great effect, whether hurling 'water chi' beneath foes to cause them slip (grease), or condensing and hardening the air around them into a 'web' of chi to entangle them. (web) etc etc.
But in his pursuit of these techniques, he's discovered something interesting. He has to practice them every morning, during his morning workout, or he is unable to perform them, so he always carries his massive scroll (spellbook) with him to refresh himself on the propper flows and breathing technique of his craft.
In short, he is a wizard, played and themed as a martial artist (Think Master Roshi but even more versatile, if less directly powerful). If you looked at him, he would look like a monk. If you asked him what he contributed to an adventuring party, he would tell you he brought his martial arts to bear against his enemies.
And yet he is a 'wizard.'
So, call him a wizard with a wierd vocabulary... his martial arts are his magic. No harm, no foul. The class fits the game world. In a discussion of "classes" I think you'd refer to him as a wizard when talking about his abilities. How you imaging his abilities functioning is a simple matter between you and the DM. I'd probably file him under "eccentic chracters, wizard with an imagination" in my game :D
Excellent example, Kyrt. I'm reminded of a 3.5 character named Seth, whose singleminded devotion and martial discipline in the service of the god Rao allowed him to attain a battle-trance in which he didn't feel wounds. Mechanically? A barbarian/paladin. Totally illegal by the "official" rules, but a well-integrated, solid character concept nontheless. My mind is relatively flexible; I saw the end goal, and was happy to allow the combination, and he made an interesting, excellent character all around, for session after session. If I'd banned him for "flavor" reasons, it would have done the entire campaign a grave disservice.
Conflation. It's combining different things under one name. In short, calling one class another is conflation.
That ain't what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about the unnecessary conflation of fluff and mechanics. There is no rule stating that a barbarian must be a Barbarian. To state that all barbarians must be Barbarians is unnecessarily conflating the rules and the fluff.
All right. Calling for logic and analysis (prior posts, not this one) in a discussion based on individual game experiences is like using logic to count the number of angels who can stand on the head of a pin. It has been done, but the usefulness is open to doubt. Since the "evidence", on all sides, is anecdotal and based on specific personal experience and opinion it is largely futile to weigh it. No one will be convinced as their experience / evidence will always be percieved as having a greater validity to it (for them at least) than anothers.
There's a reason I keep saying personal experience means nothing. Which is why I'm avoiding using game experience as a basic premise. I do not use anecdote as evidence. Analysis of the system is to be performed on the system, under the constraints set forth by the system.
And how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? As many as wish to. A very useful thing to know, as it's a reminder that sometimes, the truth is simple.
The four in either of your examples may look alike, but they are not. Definition, simplification, and clear communication of abilities is the whole point of a class based system. If you want a free form rpg there are other systems that are better.
Again, the fluff is not a rule. The classes themselves are ability sets with metagame tags attached which define what your character is capable of doing. A class is what you do, not what you are. To say that my Bard cannot be a priestess because she doesn't have levels in Cleric has nothing to do with the rules. Farm Boy can be a Barbarian if that's what represents him best, even though he's not a barbarian. The rules still hold their integrity; they still bind what the characters are capable of. It's just that additional non-rules aren't being added to the equation, and fluff isn't being used to needlessly shackle the characters.
As such, the Warlock fluff is not a rule. The Psion fluff is not a rule. The Warmage fluff is not a rule. Any of them can be used to represent a character who is a wizard.
Yes, the classes are ability sets. These "metagame tags" communicate a clear role and set of abilities to all participants in game. Renaming classes is just inviting confusion and miscommunication in any discussion of classes. Every profession, or hobby in this case, has a jargon for the same reason -- the communication of information related to it to the community of people in the profession / hobby.
The roles aren't changing. My Bard priestess of Lliira serves the same function as a Bard. The classes' names aren't changing. The Bard class is still called Bard. It still says Bard on the sheet. It's just that my character is a priestess, not a wandering minstrel.
And arguing that people won't understand that my priestess isn't a Cleric despite being clergy is rather insulting to the intelligence of the entire species.
As for "re-tooling" or altering a class to fill the role of another... why bother? By the time you get it to do a close approximation of the original class you will have re-invented the wheel using another set of mechanics. If the goal is to use a different class or have significantly different abilties, why go through the renaming / retooling of the class. Just ask if you can use it. The DM may say "yes" or "no". It's his call. The game world can involve an expectation of the abilities of a given class, and other mechanics or abilities may just not fit that worlds role for that class. A game world is (my prejudice here) a simulated environment with given rules. These rules encompass both the "fluff" and "mechanics" of the world. Seperating the two is reducing them to less than the combined whole. They inform and influence each other in a symbiotic way. Change one and you change the other. Enough cliches for one paragraph I think :D
Except there isn't any retooling or revision of any sort going on at all.
I create a character appropriate to the world, and select the mechanics most appropriate to the character. If I write up a sorcerer, and then decide that a Psion in the shaper discipline would best represent her, I'm not rewriting the rules for Psion- I'm using those as are and am, in fact, selecting Psion precisely because the rules for Psion as they are best represent my character. I'm also not rewriting or reinventing the Psion class in any capacity. I'm creating a character. My character is the source of all her own fluff. Psion is just a mechanical ability pack used to represent her. I'm not reinventing the wheel, I'm crafting a character, who I hope to be considerably more interesting and complex than a wheel.
And the mechanics and fluff are not a combined whole, and are explicitly stated as not being so. The rules quite specifically allow for Clerics who aren't a part of any clergy at all.
And speaking of change... you want the DM to consider changing his campaign to suit the creativity and foster the enjoyment of one player. You want the DM to be flexible. Why can't the player be flexible? Why doesn't (s)he find an existing class within which his inspiration / role model can exist (if imperfectly) and adapt to it. Why should the DM, AND the rest of the players, be the ones to change their game? Is the DM being asked to make up for the lack of creativity / adaptability of one player? The heart of role playing is acting. Mechanics shouldn't prevent playing the role. The 3.5 / Pathfinder rules are very adaptable. Between the classes, prestige classes and feats available in any given game a player should be able to find his part. failing that he can always find another play...
I'm not asking the DM to change anything whatsoever. The player is devising a character appropriate to the world. That character just happens to be a sorcerer utilizing the Psion class. The DM doesn't have to change anything, however; the character already has a defined place in the world. That of a sorcerer, a being already known and defined as existing. It's just that the mechanics of the Sorcerer class do not accommodate the character so well.
And why should the DM hoist non-rules on the players to prevent them from utilizing the mechanics that most efficiently and elegantly represent their character when it contributes nothing to the game? A Bard priestess isn't diminishing the game. She gets to wield the abilities most appropriate to her character, the mechanics that allow her to do what she is intended to do. How does that detract from anything whatsoever? Or a Psion sorcerer? Or a Warblade knight?
Stupid Fing Fullblade. 2d8 damage x3 crit. Large-sized with weapon master was just lametarded.Mercurial Fullblade + Monkey Grip + Weapon Master + Improved Critical = What the F ever. Not happening in my game.I did not know there was a mecurial fullblade* and the weapon master + scythe is where the money is.
Money=Lots of pain.
The full blade is 19-20 crit x2. I dont know if that gets it allowed into your game, however.
I'm talking about the unnecessary conflation of fluff and mechanics. There is no rule stating that a barbarian must be a Barbarian. To state that all barbarians must be Barbarians is unnecessarily conflating the rules and the fluff.
That makes more sense. I was wondering. In any event I don't see the division between fluff and mechanics. The mechanics are there to create the charcacter who fits the fluff. Any number of classes might be appropriate to an area that turns out Barbarians (the class). When discussing class abilities it helps to call them by an identifiable name. I don't see people in game running around using the exact naming conventions of the game, but those conventions serve a purpose when looking at the game world from the outside.
There's a reason I keep saying personal experience means nothing. Which is why I'm avoiding using game experience as a basic premise. I do not use anecdote as evidence. Analysis of the system is to be performed on the system, under the constraints set forth by the system.
Like judging a car without taking it out on the road. You can look at the thing, but without seeing it in action? I haven't seen any statistical analysis or hard evidence in this thread. What is left is opinion, anecdotal evidence and personal experience.
And how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? As many as wish to. A very useful thing to know, as it's a reminder that sometimes, the truth is simple.
An assumption about truth can be simple. In the end, it's just an assumption.
Again, the fluff is not a rule. The classes themselves are ability sets with metagame tags attached which define what your character is capable of doing. A class is what you do, not what you are. To say that my Bard cannot be a priestess because she doesn't have levels in Cleric has nothing to do with the rules. Farm Boy...
In the end I think we're arguing semantics. I wouldn't have a problem with a Bard attached to an appropriate temple. For game, or perhaps metagame, purposes I would label them a Bard and note that they were a lay priest / deacon / whatever with the Temple of X. Any number of my temples have various classes attached to them in various capacities. I wouldn't however find it necessary to adopt a class that is not already in my game / world to give a specific ability or mechanic to a player. I would work with the player to find an existing class / combo / feat chain that would give them, roughly, the abilities / role they were looking for.
As for the rest, there might be differences of opinion on which rules mechanics are most appropriate to a given role in a given world. I wouldn't choose a class without first consulting the DM. Again, I don't expect everyone else, DM and players alike, to build their game around my personal choices, nor would I insist on using a class they didn't approve of.
Kevin, I have a thought. Instead of letting this debate continue on with massive posts that say alot but don't really seem to accomplish anything, how about this.
Give VV and I a small list of classes that you don't like the flavor of, and give us a small set of parameters you do allow, and see what we come up with.
I'm not saying it's something every player can or should do, but it's an interesting option and it helps to free roleplayers from published storylines.
Why do we have to confine our character concepts to what they say a class is? Why can't we take one set of mechanics, one engine, so to speak, and build our own unique chassis and paint job around it? Take a set of mechanics and make the story our own.
The trouble is, it isn't a matter of classes I "don't like the flavor of" so much as classes I don't like in this particular setting, which I think clash or detract from it in some way, shape or form.
As for published storylines, while I've written them, I've never run them myself. I tend to invent adventures tailored to the characters currently being played.
Likewise I invent and reinvent worlds, though I'm generally floating somewhere around the European art fairytale mode.
But anyway, let me give a setting which is fairly easy to explain: The Fairytales of the Brother's Grimm. Make a world based on that. It's all Germanic with no travelers from far lands, there's a fair bit of magic and so on.
Here's the classes I think would not fit in that setting, for one degree of flavor or another: Monk, Psion. Reasons: Monks and their powers are too Eastern in flavor; Psions likewise seem rather Eastern when they aren't scifi.
Go ahead and make up a Grimm's fairytale character with those, and explain why it's the perfect engine for whatever fairytale chassis you came up with.
That makes more sense. I was wondering. In any event I don't see the division between fluff and mechanics. The mechanics are there to create the charcacter who fits the fluff. Any number of classes might be appropriate to an area that turns out Barbarians (the class). When discussing class abilities it helps to call them by an identifiable name. I don't see people in game running around using the exact naming conventions of the game, but those conventions serve a purpose when looking at the game world from the outside.
Yes, those naming conventions serve a purpose. They're there to label abilities. "Barbarian Rage" would be the same if it were "Class Ability 37."
The classes and abilities may all have something they were intended to represent, that doesn't mean it can only be used for what was intended. It also doesn't impede communication, if you have communication going on in the first place. It ain't hard to communicate that Farm Boy's taking the Barbarian class, but he's not a barbarian, he just hits things really hard.
In the end I think we're arguing semantics. I wouldn't have a problem with a Bard attached to an appropriate temple. For game, or perhaps metagame, purposes I would label them a Bard and note that they were a lay priest / deacon / whatever with the Temple of X. Any number of my temples have various classes attached to them in various capacities. I wouldn't however find it necessary to adopt a class that is not already in my game / world to give a specific ability or mechanic to a player. I would work with the player to find an existing class / combo / feat chain that would give them, roughly, the abilities / role they were looking for.
No. My priestess of Lliira is a priestess. Ordained and everything. She is not laity. She is no lowly deacon. She's clergy, fully and completely, real as any other And the class that properly represents her abilities is Bard.
There are no rules stating my Bard cannot be clergy, that all clerics must be Clerics. To invoke them against the priestess of Lliira is to cheat the player and cheapen the game. You say you'd help me find an existing class that has the abilities I'm looking for? It's already there. Bard. Forcing her to take that one level of Cleric and automatically become worse at everything she does as she advances the rest of her career as a Bard is baseless, and it's nothing more than punishing the player for actually having a character and putting thought into how that character would best be portrayed. And you're eroding that portrayal by forcing the priestess to waste resources on mechanical abilities that do not contribute to the concept, that she doesn't want or need or intend to use, that aren't even appropriate for the character at all.
Name one way this sandbagging enriches the game. It's not communication, I assure you; it won't take five minutes to explain the character's a priestess, but the class is Bard. And everyone ought understand how the Bard class works. Or, when it's time for discussing mechanics, I just introduce her as a human Bard because that's all that matters when discussing mechanics, and it best describes her function within the group. When it's fluff time, she'll always be a priestess.
The status as clergy is purely social. It is the result of an organization, a church, choosing to elevate an individual to a position, priest. The church is capable of selecting whoever they want, whenever they want. If the church chooses to ordain a Bard, that's their choice. Just because there's a class that is designed for representing certain types of clergy does not mean it's the only class that can represent clergy.
In fact, if you crack open Faiths and Pantheons, and look at Azuth, the very first god in the book, and look at the very first sentence in the "Clergy and Temples" section, it reads, "Azuth's clergy includes wizards and monks, though single- and multiclassed clerics hold most positions of power within the hierarchy." Those Wizards and Monks aren't mere laity, they're fully-initiated members of the clergy. And they're not just lowly deacons; some of them even hold positions of power, even if Clerics hold most of 'em.
By your logic, a lowborn barbarian could not be just a Barbarian. She'd have to first take a level of Fighter, because she's a fighter, and if she didn't take Fighter she couldn't be a fighter. Then she'd have to take Warrior, because she's a warrior, and if she didn't take Warrior, she couldn't be a warrior. Then she'd have to take a level of Commoner, because she's a commoner, and she couldn't be a commoner without taking Commoner.
Every mechanic is a method of achieving an effect. Inserting a new mechanic into the game is a retcon. That method of achieving said effect did not exist previously even if the effect did. Just because a player wants to use an alternate method to achieve an effect does not mean that that method must be made available for the player.
Retcons only apply to the narrative. If draconic heritage is an acceptable source of arcane power, and those who draw their power from it are sorcerers, then sorcerers are an established part of the setting. If someone uses the Psion class to represent a sorcerer, nothing has changed in-world. The sorcerer being represented by Psion is drawing on a preexisting power source in the world, with no changes required.
While the Psion may not have been available in the meta sense, the game world does not see the meta. The narrative does not see the meta. A shift in the meta is not a retcon. Otherwise, when Tex stops bringing the Doritos, the entire game world would be shaken to the core.
And I'm not saying that the players should be allowed to use everything just because they want to. I'm saying that fluff doesn't ban classes. It bans characters, who would be represented by classes. If a player comes up with a character who complies with the fluff, and the mechanics represent the character loyally, then there is no fluff reason to ban the fluff.
If you have other reasons for disallowing the class, reasons that still stand, like the DM not allowing things from books she doesn't own, or not knowing the system, or not being comfortable with psionics or Tome of Battle, or any of dozens of reasons. Hundreds. Thousands. Those still stand. But fluff can hardly ever put a blanket ban on a class, because the class can still oftentimes be used to represent a character who is fluff-compliant.
You keep insisting that the world adapt to the players wishes and the DM is obligated to accommodate the players. That type of open world is one style of play. It is your preference but it is not the only valid option.
I'm not saying anything remotely like that. The case I keep presenting again and again is that the player brings an appropriate character who fits in the world. A sorcerer represented by the Psion class doesn't require any world adaptation whatsoever.
And the DM isn't obligated to pander to the players' every whim, but she s obligated to work with the players. If a DM shoots down a perfectly fluff-appropriate character in the name of fluff, that DM is wrong.
You are insisting that I am wrong because I defend a play style that is contrary to your preference and support the DM's right to refuse to allow any mechanic they choose. The DM does have the ultimate power of choice by the simple fact that they can choose not to DM - END OF GAME! You can claim that it is petty, but no more so than continuing to push the issue of being allowed the mechanics you want until the DM relents.
I'm still not arguing against the DM's right to deny things from their game, but the reason must be valid, and the DM must take the needs and desires of the players into account. Restricting player options with a reason and in a manner that contributes to the game? Fine. Restricting player options for reasons that are factually incorrect and contribute nothing to the game? Big problem. Shooting down a fluff-compliant character on the grounds of fluff? Outright wrong. I'm arguing against the second and third, not the first.
There are very, very few things I will decry as Doing It Wrong. Unnecessary conflation is on that very short list, precisely because it is such a poisonous, destructive, and worst of all prolific idea. It's treated with the weight of rule when it isn't a part of the rules at all. It stifles creativity and bans countless spectacular character types. It bars any character who either doesn't fit neatly into one of the eleven archetypes or isn't written explicitly to the rules. It makes the mechanics the enemy of the roleplay when they're supposed to be working with each other to bind the narrative and the game. It punishes players for coming up with characters who deviate from very harsh and very arbitrary lines by either nerfing them through the floor for trying to grasp at the abilities that fit while being forced to take the metagame tags that have nothing to do with their jobs or they're shackled with abilities that have nothing to do with what there character is supposed to do just because their character happens to have the metagame tag of "barbarian" or "cleric."
The trouble is, it isn't a matter of classes I "don't like the flavor of" so much as classes I don't like in this particular setting, which I think clash or detract from it in some way, shape or form.
But again, you have to realize, it's the characters who take part in the story, not the classes, and as such, it's the characters who do or do not fit within any given game. If you envision a character utilizing Class X, and that character doesn't fit in the game, that only means that one character doesn't fit in the game, not the class. You presented your alchemical world, where you didn't think the normal casters would fit because you were envisioning specific characters with them, yet I easily came up with a perfectly appropriate character type in my alchemical Warmage, who could just as easily be made under Wizard or Psion, classes you explicitly saw as inappropriate.
But anyway, let me give a setting which is fairly easy to explain: The Fairytales of the Brother's Grimm. Make a world based on that. It's all Germanic with no travelers from far lands, there's a fair bit of magic and so on.
Here's the classes I think would not fit in that setting, for one degree of flavor or another: Monk, Psion. Reasons: Monks and their powers are too Eastern in flavor; Psions likewise seem rather Eastern when they aren't scifi.
Go ahead and make up a Grimm's fairytale character with those, and explain why it's the perfect engine for whatever fairytale chassis you came up with.
NEI.
I'm not sufficiently familiar with the material. From my limited recollections of Grimm's Fairytales, I don't recall a great many combat characters featuring prominently at all, nor many overt magic users, so I couldn't so much as make an appropriate Fighter.
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Just a quick thought. If i was running a game and someone said they wanted to play a bard (mechanically) in my world without bards, and they slipped one in by calling it a member of the clerigy, my question to that player would be Why is it that no other cleric in my entyre universe can give people power by singuing without NEEDING to use it´s holy simbol? why is it that your spellcasting power are so different from EVERY OTHER CLERIC IN THE UNIVERSE? Why is it that no other cleric in the histry of my world has lacked the ¨wisdom of the gods¨? and why is it that you can´t wear the holy heavy armor of clangeddon like everyone else (for 3.5 at least)?
Of course all this can be fixed with extra work from the DM, but hen we´re getting into the whole DM having to adapt his world and story around the player.
Why is it that no other cleric in my entyre universe can give people power by singuing without NEEDING to use it´s holy simbol?
Who said anything about singing? Perform: Oratory can easily be reciting chapter and verse from the deity's holy book, and Clerics aren't required to use their holy symbol for every spell and ability.
why is it that your spellcasting power are so different from EVERY OTHER CLERIC IN THE UNIVERSE?
They aren't. The deity grants them the same as s/he grants them to you.
Why is it that no other cleric in the histry of my world has lacked the ¨wisdom of the gods¨?
What on earth are you asking here?
and why is it that you can´t wear the holy heavy armor of clangeddon like everyone else (for 3.5 at least)?
Who said anything about Clangeddin? The example was a "cleric" of Lliira, the goddess of joy, happiness, dance, festivals, freedom, and liberty.
Just a quick thought. If i was running a game and someone said they wanted to play a bard (mechanically) in my world without bards, and they slipped one in by calling it a member of the clerigy, my question to that player would be Why is it that no other cleric in my entyre universe can give people power by singuing without NEEDING to use it´s holy simbol? why is it that your spellcasting power are so different from EVERY OTHER CLERIC IN THE UNIVERSE? Why is it that no other cleric in the histry of my world has lacked the ¨wisdom of the gods¨? and why is it that you can´t wear the holy heavy armor of clangeddon like everyone else (for 3.5 at least)?
Of course all this can be fixed with extra work from the DM, but hen we´re getting into the whole DM having to adapt his world and story around the player.
Choosing to not nitpick is not more work.
I keep saying time and time again, this is not anything that requires the DM to go out of her way and rewrite the world. The priestess of Lliira is still a priestess, same as any other, same in the context of the world, and is still drawing her powers from her goddess, just like any priestess. And as an aside, most divine spells don't even require a divine focus, and if you really want to, you can go your entire career casting spells without ever touching a holy symbol anyways.
It's about abilities appropriate to the character.
Behold Mask, FR's god of thieves. He is the thiefiest of gods, and has the thiefiest of worshipers. As the god of thieves, I expect his clergy to embody his ideals and wield powers appropriate to a servant of the god of thieves. If I were then to create Bob, High Priest of Mask, greatest servant to the thiefiest of gods, which should presumably mean he's the greatest thief in the world, I would choose mechanics appropriate to the greatest thief in the world.
So, which class do I pick? Do I choose Cleric, because Bob's a cleric? Let's see. Tin can Cleric provides heavy armor proficiency, but why would Bob wear heavy armor when he's supposed to be thiefy? It provides an absolutely horrible skill list; in 3.5, you need a domain to get Hide, can't get Move Silently, can't get the vast majority of other thiefy skills, only have 2+ skill points, and have stat demands in so many other places (most notably wisdom) that you can't really get a decent intelligence score. The spell list itself has scant few thiefy spells, even after domains. Controlling zombies or letting loose a wave of doomydeath has absolutely nothing to do with thiefing whatsoever.
Gee, Cleric doesn't seem to contribute much to what Bob, high priest of Mask is supposed to be doing at all.
But perhaps another class would work. Like, say, Beguiler. Armor proficiency only goes up to light, but light armor is appropriate for Bob anyways. It gets lots of skill points, relies strongly on intelligence, and has all the skills required of a thief, which is very appropriate for our cunning friend Bob. The spell list? Oi, the spell list, 'tis perfect, it is the thiefy spell list, absolutely perfect for representing the kinds of powers Mask would grant to his followers. This is too great, Bob is represented flawlessly by Beguiler, it has the kinds of skills he would hone himself, and the kinds of powers that are appropriate for Mask to grant him, it fits the fluff, and it fits precisely what Bob is meant to do. A match made in heaven.
Likewise, the priestess of Lliira is a Bard precisely because the abilities fit her so well. As a priestess of the Joybringer, she's supposed to be singing and dancing and bringing joy, not clubbing folks with metal sticks while wrapped in a tin can and for some strange reason scaring zombies that have nothing to do with her goddess' ethos.
And to answer your question of why she can't wear heavy armor? Because the character never had any reason whatsoever to even look at it twice.
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I´m not specifically addressing a given example here, thou using it as a base as why SOME concepts might just not fly. In this case it was someone trying to pass a bard as a clerig of a warrior god.
And for the ¨wisdom of the gods¨thing i was refering to a good wisdom score (probably lower than charisma).
And the spellcasting of a bard is definetly different from any cleric, so they would not be the same spells. There is no way a bard could raise the death by himself while the rest of clerics could.
Now however, if for example the player was willing to have wisdom as his highest stat, spend feats on being able to wear a full plate (like the other clerics in any given order) and cast on it. And of course get a way to cast staple spells that are spected from clerics. The i say yes play a bard as a cleric for my campaign good sir and I admire your commitment.
ADDED. Concerning the liria goddes of song and happyness, what if the DM stablished that (for whatever reazons he might have) that is not the proper behavior of clerics of liria. What if the DM stablished (beforehand of course) that they still get trained with armor and whatever else he might come up for his world. The problem is that the DM has the control over what the customs, traditions and social rolls are in his world, and if clerics of liria have strong wills and wear medium shinny armor then you´d have to ask him to change it to fit your character concept.
I´m not specifically addressing a given example here, thou using it as a base as why SOME concepts might just not fly. In this case it was someone trying to pass a bard as a clerig of a warrior god.
And for the ¨wisdom of the gods¨thing i was refering to a good wisdom score (probably lower than charisma).
And the spellcasting of a bard is definetly different from any cleric, so they would not be the same spells. There is no way a bard could raise the death by himself while the rest of clerics could.
Now however, if for example the player was willing to have wisdom as his highest stat, spend feats on being able to wear a full plate (like the other clerics in any given order) and cast on it. And of course get a way to cast staple spells that are spected from clerics. The i say yes play a bard as a cleric for my campaign good sir and I admire your commitment.
ADDED. Concerning the liria goddes of song and happyness, what if the DM stablished that (for whatever reazons he might have) that is not the proper behavior of clerics of liria. What if the DM stablished (beforehand of course) that they still get trained with armor and whatever else he might come up for his world. The problem is that the DM has the control over what the customs, traditions and social rolls are in his world, and if clerics of liria have strong wills and wear medium shinny armor then you´d have to ask him to change it to fit your character concept.
You're making one enormous, erroneous assumption here that shows either your bias or your lack of understanding.
The question wasn't, "Why can't I use the Bard class to represent the clergy of every church?". The question was, "Why can't I use the Bard class to represent the clergy of Lliira, the goddess of bards?". You're assuming that the player wants the DM to fit the character to any given class. That's false and backwards. The truth of what VV is saying is that, if the player can fit a class given to a given character concept (and said concept is within the flavor of the world -- as a cleric of Lliira would be in a FR game), then there remains no grounds for the DM to ban it for "not matching the fluff".
The truth of the matter is that Bards do perfectly fit as clergy of the Lady of Joy. There is no good reason for a DM to ban such a character concept.
I´m not specifically addressing a given example here, thou using it as a base as why SOME concepts might just not fly. In this case it was someone trying to pass a bard as a clerig of a warrior god.
Except this is about characters who are appropriate, rather than ones who are not. The Bard class most likely won't represent a priest of a war god very well, no, but I'm not talking about using the class for things it fails to represent. I'm talking about using Bard for things it does represent flawlessly, like a priestess of the goddess of joy. The entire point revolves around using the mechanics that best represent the character, which means you must first actually figure out which class best represents the character.
And for the ¨wisdom of the gods¨thing i was refering to a good wisdom score (probably lower than charisma).
*Shrug.* You can still give the Bard an above average wisdom score.
And the spellcasting of a bard is definetly different from any cleric, so they would not be the same spells. There is no way a bard could raise the death by himself while the rest of clerics could.
A level 1 Cleric cannot raise the dead. That the Bard priestess of Lliira can't, either, is not inconsistent with her status as clergy. She can use very clerical spells, including a standard array of healing and curing, and has a selection of spells uniquely appropriate to appropriate to a priestess of the god of joy, such as Good Hope and Heroism.
Now however, if for example the player was willing to have wisdom as his highest stat, spend feats on being able to wear a full plate (like the other clerics in any given order) and cast on it. And of course get a way to cast staple spells that are spected from clerics. The i say yes play a bard as a cleric for my campaign good sir and I admire your commitment.
Except heavy armor isn't appropriate for the priestess of Lliira at all, and she shouldn't be forced into it, an obscene wisdom score is completely unnecessary and outright silly (though an above average wisdom score is probably appropriate), and requiring them to acquire specific spells that many Clerics cannot cast at all (by virtue of their level) just doesn't make sense.
The purpose for using Bard in the first place is that they grant the abilities appropriate to a priestess of Lliira while many Cleric abilities do not. Forcing the Bard to reproduce the Cleric abilities that were so inappropriate in the first place does nothing but detract from the character and completely defeats the purpose of using a more appropriate class in the first place.
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I might have exagerated on my previous posts. I guess the point i was trying to make is that using any mechanic to fit the fluff in any world is not always possible.
There are mechanics that cna be fitted as different character rolls in any given world, but there are worlds or adventures that will just not tolerate them without DM alteration of said world or adventure.
Blocking any mechanically different character concept outright shouldnñt be done, but neither should be assuming that any mechanics can fit the fluff in any world or campaign.
Can there be an agreement on that?
I might have exagerated on my previous posts. I guess the point i was trying to make is that using any mechanic to fit the fluff in any world is not always possible.
There are mechanics that cna be fitted as different character rolls in any given world, but there are worlds or adventures that will just not tolerate them without DM alteration of said world or adventure.
The entire point is to select whichever class best represents the character and go with that. The best fit for a priest of Clanggedin is almost certainly not Bard, hence you do not use Bard.
And sometimes, the most appropriate class to represent a cleric is Cleric. If I have a head-thumping, zombie-hating priest of Pelor, the Cleric class is a perfect fit. For Bob, high priest of Mask, and the priestess of Lliira, Cleric is not the perfect fit, while Beguiler and Bard respectively are. This is about those perfect fits.
Now listen, I have no trouble with using one class to portray another role if it makes sense. For example, the last campaign I ran was based on the fairytale middle ages, including lots of Christianity, and the player playing the pagan druid from the Scandinavian fairylands was wondering what was going to happen when she stepped into Christendom.
Enter the Franciscan Order. Consider their founder, St. Francis of Assisi: guy in a brown robe and sandals who spends all his time hanging out in the woods talking to his little animal friends. Sounds like a Druid to me, and indeed, all the Franciscans were Druids, and even ran interference for the pagan PC Druid by informing the heretic-hunting Dominican that she was a member of their sister order, the Poor Claires. (And this helped explain a lot of the antipathy between the Dominicans and Franciscans, and though nobody ever scratched the surface that far, most if not all of the Jesuits were Archivists.)
That all said, I wouldn't see the Franciscan Order in that world accepting anyone without at least one level of Druid, since speaking their secret language was important, and so far as I know, there isn't any other class that gets it.
Now as for the idea of a priestess of Llyra or whoever that goddess is being portrayed by a Bard, that makes reasonable sense for a character, or even an entire religion, though after a while people will start to notice that the priests of Llyra, while okay at minor healing, kind of suck at the big stuff, being unable to reattach severed limbs or raise the dead, and adventurers needing a Cleric will go to another temple.
And that's where the trouble with classes portraying roles other than their traditional roles begins. If your classic Wizard runs into a town, he'll look for other people wearing the pointy wizard had with the moons and stars because those are other people he can talk shop with, trade spells and so on, and he's going to be kind of put out if he finds the pointy moon-and-stars hats are being worn by Sorcerers, Psions, Artificers, Bards, Shadow Casters, Warlocks, Warblades and even a few 3.5 Assassins. In fact, he will probably figure out that in this town his beloved wizard hat is in fact a mage hat and if he wants to find some spells, he's going to need to find some actual Wizards, not just people with similar powers who say they're the same thing but aren't.
So let's say there's a Tower of Wizardry and they only want to allow Wizards as members. To join, you need to pay 25 GP and place your Arcane Mark in the great book. By the RAW, this will automatically exclude everyone except Wizards and Sorcerers and maybe a few gnomes with the Mark of Scribing bussed in from Eberron.
That's nice enough, but the Wizards then have a test to separate the Wizards from the Sorcerers: Please study this useful but otherwise specialized 1st level spell (let's say Amanuensis or something), copy it into your spellbook, demonstrate how to cast it, then pen a scroll of that spell and submit it to the guild master. That scroll should be enough to make certain no Artificers are trying sneak through the gate and steal the Wizards Guild's preciouz secretz (TM).
This isn't to say that you couldn't have an associated league of magi and so on, but at a certain point, and not even a very high level one, a Wizard will be able to demonstrate to other Wizards that he's a Wizard and no other class will be able to do that.
Still missing the point. Forest for the trees?
Alright, so I've failed on the timing, but here is the results of my research so far.
None of the Brothers Grim works in Volume 1 (which I've spent the last two hours perusing) have anything resembling a typical fantasy hero. The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was (Märchen von einem, der auszog das Fürchten zu lernen) is the closest I could find, but that character is a child (though I imagine he could be represented rather well by fighter)
I'm about to start on Volume 2, but I'm doubtful I'll find anything to compare to typical fantasy adventuring, whether it's a Paladin, or a Druid, or a Cleric. Nothing usual seems to be there.
So, Kevin, this brings my question. Could you further define the setting you proposed?
Sure, let me give you a selection of tales that I'd look at for good fantasy adventurers:
Clever Gretel
http://www.familymanagement.com/literacy/grimms/grimms168.html
The Young Giant
http://www.familymanagement.com/literacy/grimms/grimms67.html
The Master Thief
http://www.familymanagement.com/literacy/grimms/grimms135.html
The Griffin
http://www.familymanagement.com/literacy/grimms/grimms125.html
Godfather Death
http://www.familymanagement.com/literacy/grimms/grimms33.html
The Shoes that were Dance to Piece (aka The Twelve Dancing Princesses)
http://www.familymanagement.com/literacy/grimms/grimms101.html
The Devil's Sooty Brother
http://www.familymanagement.com/literacy/grimms/grimms75.html
The Valiant Little Tailor
http://www.familymanagement.com/literacy/grimms/grimms15.html
The White Snake
http://www.familymanagement.com/literacy/grimms/grimms14.html
The Wishing Table, The Gold Ass, and the Cudgel in the Sack
http://www.familymanagement.com/literacy/grimms/grimms27.html
The Blue Light
http://www.familymanagement.com/literacy/grimms/grimms89.html
Jorinda and Joringel
http://www.familymanagement.com/literacy/grimms/grimms164.html
If you read through those, you'll find some rogues, some fighters, a trio of artificers, a healer or necromancer of some sort, a witch, and even a combo warlock-bard. There are a lot more tales, but those are some of the ones that illustrate the setting best.
No. My priestess of Lliira is a priestess. Ordained and everything. She is not laity. She is no lowly deacon. She's clergy, fully and completely, real as any other And the class that properly represents her abilities is Bard.There are no rules stating my Bard cannot be clergy, that all clerics must be Clerics. To invoke them against the priestess of Lliira is to cheat the player and cheapen the game. You say you'd help me find an existing class that has the abilities I'm looking for? It's already there. Bard. Forcing her to take that one level of Cleric and automatically become worse at everything she does as she advances the rest of her career as a Bard is baseless, and it's nothing more than punishing the player for actually having a character and putting thought into how that character would best be portrayed. And you're eroding that portrayal by forcing the priestess to waste resources on mechanical abilities that do not contribute to the concept, that she doesn't want or need or intend to use, that aren't even appropriate for the character at all.
I've sort of been reading but not commenting, but I think you are being too nitpicky here. He didn't say the character wasn't a Priestess of Lliira. What he said was, out of character, he would note her down as a bard lay priest.
I'd do the same. Or mark her down as a Bardic Preistess, or a Bard Deacon, or a Bard High Priestess, or whatever her rank happened to be. Why? Two reasons.
1) Churches have ranks. Those ranks vary from church to church, but usually are something like : Elder, Deacon, Lay Priest, Priest, Archpriest/High Priest, Bishop, Archbishop, Cardinal, Patriarch/Matriarch. With the Lay Priest being the only one of the low-level titles that's consecrated as an actual priest. So noting down that the character is a Bardic Lay Priest of Lliira is perfectly valid. Now, I'd assume she was level 1 to 4 for that ranking. Bishop or higher would be an appointed office, not based on level. So say, level 1 to 5 is Lay Priest, Priest is 6 to 15, and Arch/High Priest is 16 to 20.
2) The GM needs to keep track of what the character's underlying class is. So, Bard Lay Priest is a way for the GM to keep track of the fact that you are not playing a cleric. It's important for a GM to remember what the characters are playing, regardless of what they are calling themselves in character. Otherwise he might end up putting out a tiny little thing (in his mind) that is a killer otherwise. Here's an example. I was in a game about 5 years ago where the only magic user (my character) died. I came back in with a scout. The GM forgot about that, and put in a simple trap that summoned swarms of ethereal ants that could only be harmed by magic. We tripped the trap accidently, and ended up with a swarm. Someone tried to kill the swarm with a bottle of flamign oil and set it off again, summoning another swarm. We had no way to get rid of the swarms, no weapons appropriate to attack them (IE: No magical weapons, and no spells/scrolls and no magic). So, something that would have been blown away by a low level magic spell and 1 minute of game time took us 3 hours of game time to bypass because the GM forgot our warmage died the previous week. Little notes like that are a GM's way of keeping that from happening.
Edit : Fixed Part 1, left out a small section of my comment, noticed it after I posted it. The correction is in italics.
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Just wanna point out that I completly agree with the idea of having the character concept done before the mechanics are taken into account. That way player and DM can work to make the character as close to the concept using the mechanics available. However that´s a very different thing from trying to make the character´s flavor (of the character and NPC around it) fit whatver mechanics the player feels like having.
I'm not sure you and I will ever completely come to agreement Kevin. To me, in the game there is no such thing as a wizard. There are arcane spellcasters that prepare spells from written sources, but they 'are' whatever they choose to be.
In the example I gave above of Shinsuei, he is what he is. A character first, backed by mechanics.
When my players are choosing characters, I always give them the same advice. "Come up with a character concept, a person you want to play or be, don't look at the classes until you know who your character is. Then we'll work together to make him a badass at what he does, using the mechanics available."
You get what I'm saying Kevin? To me and many of us, the mechanics are a framework to do build stories and people around. The character is a person, not a (insert random class) and that class, with it's label, either does not exist, or isn't universally used.
For example lots of mages might call themselves wizards, because it's a term for an arcane caster, but not all wizards are 'Wizards.' Harry Potter is a Sorcerer, Merlin was a Druid, you get the idea.
Well, taking Harry Potter as an example, the metaphysics of the Potter-verse is different than D&D, or Pathfinder, or for that matter most other game systems.
Yes, Harry's like a D&D Sorcerer in that magic is an inborn talent, but he doesn't have spell slots or even psionic power points. Indeed, the only limitations on magic in the Potterverse are the fact that the most powerful spells--the killing curse and the summoning of the Patronus, for example--require a heavy emotional component. Or Lily Potter using a Mother's Love to not only shield Harry from the killing curse but do it permanently.
Were I to write up a Harry Potter game, I would probably do it as more of a White Wolf system, where all the characters are defined as Wizards from the get go, and characters can start with certain inborn Merits, such as Harry being a Parseltongue or Professor Trelawney's sporadic Gift of Prophecy.
There'd also be secondary rules for the creation of potions and magic novelty items, and also the wrangling of magical beasts and magic plants.
But once all that was done, if someone wanted to write up a character in it, I would not be allowing in a Vancian wizard or a psionic or any other magical system not established in the Potterverse, and I would strongly discourage anyone from trying to play a Muggle unless they had an extremely compelling reason and backstory.
My point is that the mechanics need to reflect the world, and if they don't reflect the world, then they shouldn't be used.
There's also a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. A great deal of problems at Hogwart's could have been solved by Hermione bringing an AK47 back from the summer holidays, but Rowling didn't want to break that wall so I wouldn't either.
So let's say there's a Tower of Wizardry and they only want to allow Wizards as members. To join, you need to pay 25 GP and place your Arcane Mark in the great book. By the RAW, this will automatically exclude everyone except Wizards and Sorcerers and maybe a few gnomes with the Mark of Scribing bussed in from Eberron.
That's nice enough, but the Wizards then have a test to separate the Wizards from the Sorcerers: Please study this useful but otherwise specialized 1st level spell (let's say Amanuensis or something), copy it into your spellbook, demonstrate how to cast it, then pen a scroll of that spell and submit it to the guild master. That scroll should be enough to make certain no Artificers are trying sneak through the gate and steal the Wizards Guild's preciouz secretz (TM).
This isn't to say that you couldn't have an associated league of magi and so on, but at a certain point, and not even a very high level one, a Wizard will be able to demonstrate to other Wizards that he's a Wizard and no other class will be able to do that.
And Kevin, at that point, where you're having tests of game mechanics in-world, the DM is actively trying to force the minor differences in mechanics to be as big a deal as possible. You have the DM making a conscious effort to get in the players' way as much as possible and force these petty details into the fore as much as she possibly can. The technical term for that is wrong.
And there's no way a Warblade could represent a Wizard in any capacity. Swordsage is at the muggle edge of gish.
The only points we seem to disagree on are that mechanics can be tied to the game world and requiring DMs to introduce new mechanics into the game world. Or at least I think we disagree.
Again, I'm not requiring anything of the DM except valid reasons. Banning a sorcerer being represented by the Psion class for not being a Sorcerer is not a valid reason. Banning a sorcerer being represented by the Psion class because you're not comfortable with the Psion mechanics is a valid reason. And the two cases are extremely and fundamentally different, as a pumpkin from a squash.
Mechanics represent how a character does something, his method. Defining how effects can be achieved is part of defining the game world. It can be established in a game world that the only method of spell casting is Vancian and that this is an element of the setting. Introducing a new method that was not currently in use is a retcon. It alters the setting.
1) Even in core, the only mechanic isn't Vancian. Bards, Sorcerers. They aren't Vancian. They use a system reverse-engineered from Vancian, yes, but if you're ruling Vancian-only, you gotta axe or rework the Bard and the Sorcerer.
Further, if you're taking the mechanic and making it the fluff, such that it's all Vancian, only Vancian in-character, and the NPCs know the game mechanics around it, that's the definition of unnecessary conflation.
If the mechanic (method) is already established in the world or new and the DM agrees to retcon it's existence into the world, then any character concept built using that mechanic should be valid barring any other world continuity issues.
I admit I may be mistaking arguments that if a mechanic is established in the world, then it can be used for characters outside it's archetype (The mechanics for a Bard are established, therefore can be used to represent a priestess.), for an argument that because a player wants to use a mechanic to represent a character that the DM must incorporate that mechanic into the world. The first case I agree is perfectly valid and should be allowed, the second I disagree with and the DM has full discretion as to what mechanics are or are not valid in the world.
Again, it's not a retcon. The mechanics aren't a part of the world at all. A mage represented by Psion can have her method be study, or draconic birthright, or deals with a demon, or whatever is established in-world.
Whether the minor details of accounting depend on spell slots or power points are irrelevant, as the mages are still chucking fireballs and reading minds.
Players and DMs should not be working against each other. An adversarial situation quickly breaks down. If I have been arguing for any particular play style it one of balance and compromise. My arguments have been against inflexible extremes.
My entire point is that players and DMs should work together! If the DM says, "No, it doesn't fit in the world because it has minute mechanical distinctions that only arise if put under a microscope which I am now going to deliberately summon in game just to force the otherwise perfect representation of your character to never ever work at every opportunity," that's not working together.
And compromise is always bad. When there is compromise, by definition, everyone loses, and nobody's happy. The objective is not to compromise, not to sacrifice your own happiness. It's to find a situation in which everyone can win.
1) Churches have ranks. Those ranks vary from church to church, but usually are something like : Elder, Deacon, Lay Priest, Priest, Archpriest/High Priest, Bishop, Archbishop, Cardinal, Patriarch/Matriarch. With the Lay Priest being the only one of the low-level titles that's consecrated as an actual priest. So noting down that the character is a Bardic Lay Priest of Lliira is perfectly valid. Now, I'd assume she was level 1 to 4 for that ranking. Bishop or higher would be an appointed office, not based on level. So say, level 1 to 5 is Lay Priest, Priest is 6 to 15, and Arch/High Priest is 16 to 20.
"Lay" has a specific meaning, and it specifically means worshipers who are not clergy. By definition.
And the conversation is not about what rank you might have at which level. The only relevant interpretation I could see was that the Bard priestess was being relegated to the status of either a non-clergy affiliate or someone holding a position so low that they are hardly clergy at all, without the option of them being full clergy at all due to lack of Cleric levels.
The Bard priestess getting a demotion for being a Bard is equally as inappropriate.
Just wanna point out that I completly agree with the idea of having the character concept done before the mechanics are taken into account. That way player and DM can work to make the character as close to the concept using the mechanics available. However that´s a very different thing from trying to make the character´s flavor (of the character and NPC around it) fit whatver mechanics the player feels like having.
And again it's not about whatever mechanics the player want, but of whatever mechanics fit the character. The priestess of Lliira is a Bard because Bard fits the character. Bob, high priest of Mask is a Beguiler because Beguiler fits the character.
I might have exagerated on my previous posts. I guess the point i was trying to make is that using any mechanic to fit the fluff in any world is not always possible.
There are mechanics that cna be fitted as different character rolls in any given world, but there are worlds or adventures that will just not tolerate them without DM alteration of said world or adventure.
Blocking any mechanically different character concept outright shouldnñt be done, but neither should be assuming that any mechanics can fit the fluff in any world or campaign.
Can there be an agreement on that?
I think that's pretty much all that is being argued. At least from my end. Of course my problems mainly consist of the balance issues with the classes, so I haven't a whole lot to say on the fluff issue. I will say that people's perspectives on this were pretty interesting, and I will probably be incorporating more classes into the various archetypes as a result of this conversation (such as the bard-as-cleric, or the thief-as-cleric, for example).
That perfect fit depends on how the DM decides the clerics of any given random deity are represented in HIS world.
It is not the DM's world. It is the group's world.
And Kevin, at that point, where you're having tests of game mechanics in-world, the DM is actively trying to force the minor differences in mechanics to be as big a deal as possible. You have the DM making a conscious effort to get in the players' way as much as possible and force these petty details into the fore as much as she possibly can. The technical term for that is wrong.
Were I doing it to just mess with the characters, then yes, but were I to simply set up some challenges with some bog standard magics? Let's say I put magic runes on the wall of a dungeon which of course can only be read by someone with Read Magic. That's a lot of classes usually: Wizards, Sorcerers, Clerics, Bards, Druids, and hell, even Paladins and Rangers have it on their spell list. But I don't know what the Psion wearing the pointy hat with the moons and stars is going to make of it.
Later I put in a Prismatic Sphere, but somewhere along the line also put in a gift assortment of scrolls as treasure, exactly the combo needed to take down the sphere. Except some of them may have got lost, or not everyone can use them. So I'm looking for a Gust of Wind spell to take down a color layer, and I've already ruled that Iron Heart Surge is not a universal passkey to every unwanted effect, including night and gravity, regardless of what the RAW says. And then the Warblade player is going "Will Flatulent Manticore Stance work then?" and I've never heard of this power and am asking for rulebooks to read them and then the Psion is trying various powers into locks in which they were not intended to fit, and while conceivably there might be a sequence of seven psionic powers used in order to take down a Prismatic Sphere, hell if I know which might be fair, and the Warlock player is bouncing up and down because at least I've ruled that Voracious Dispelling can be used for the final dispelling challenge, but we're still stalled at the Gust of Wind and this also might be why I dislike classes from books with reams of powers I haven't read.