Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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There's not really a historical word that means "wizard guy with a sword." We agonized over naming this class. I personally favored the warlock, but we decided against that because of the existing warlock class from 3.5. While that is not open content and thus is forever closed to us, some folks here felt that the players would always associate it with the D&D class of the same name, so we went with something else to avoid that confusion.
Not that it would have mattered. A warlock is not, historically, a fighter/magic-user, either.
For that matter, a sorcerer in history and myth is no different from a wizard, but folks have come to associate the term with the mechanics over time.
We went through this months ago. There was a multiple-hundred-post thread of suggestions, the best of which by comment assent was something like "Stabracadabra."
It's not easy coming up with a great name for something that never existed in history, so we decided on magus as "close enough" and won't be changing it at this point.
There's not really a historical word that means "wizard guy with a sword." We agonized over naming this class. I personally favored the warlock, but we decided against that because of the existing warlock class from 3.5. While that is not open content and thus is forever closed to us, some folks here felt that the players would always associate it with the D&D class of the same name, so we went with something else to avoid that confusion.
Not that it would have mattered. A warlock is not, historically, a fighter/magic-user, either.
For that matter, a sorcerer in history and myth is no different from a wizard, but folks have come to associate the term with the mechanics over time.
We went through this months ago. There was a multiple-hundred-post thread of suggestions, the best of which by comment assent was something like "Stabracadabra."
It's not easy coming up with a great name for something that never existed in history, so we decided on magus as "close enough" and won't be changing it at this point.
Hi Eric.
I understand the reasons for using Magus, as I don't think any name would be more appropriate (there isn't a traditional and consensual name for a mage/fighter after all).
However, if you at Paizo ever make a Pathfinder translation to Portuguese I would recommend to call it for other name. Maybe adding something like Warmage or Warmagus.
The reason is that, while English speaking people would need to know what "magus" means in Latin (like mythusmage above) Portuguese is a language derived from Latin. A "Magus" is called "mago" in Portuguese, and this is the exact translation of Wizard. So the classes would look like Mago and Magus (not a great differentiation :) )
(Actually Warmagus would be a good name for the magus class, but this is way to late to offer another name.)
Anyway, this brings another question: Are you people at Paizo thinking about translation to Portuguese? Or others languages for that matter?
I'm from Brazil and there's an active community of RPG players here ( it's a big country, there are lots of people who play RPG), and it would be amazing to have THE BEST RPG ever in our native language. It could expand yet more the hobby.
You can say I'm dreamer, but I not the only one!
So, keep doing the good work we all love from Paizo!
As far as I know, Paizo doesn't do any translations themselves. There are French, German and Italian editions of PFRPG, but all translations are made by local companies. You would have to pitch the idea of translating PFRPG to some Portugese/Brazilian company.
Tnx for the answer!
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I know it means little in the greater scheme of things, but some words deserve a little respect in their usage.Magus annoys me far less than monk. Friar Tuck may have been able to kick ass, but he didn't use kung fu.
The thread oddest names are probably Oracle, Monk and Magus; in descending order of oddness.
At least Magus' do magic, and there are some monks who kick kung-fu ass. Oracles gain insights into the future directly or indirectly from individual gods, which has almost nothing to do with the Oracle class.
However, I have now got over it and am comfortable with the peculiar names.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Amusingly, some of us do still associate Magus with Warlock :-)
The reason is that, while English speaking people would need to know what "magus" means in Latin (like mythusmage above) Portuguese is a language derived from Latin. A "Magus" is called "mago" in Portuguese, and this is the exact translation of Wizard.
Eheh, yeah, happened the same thing in Italian. Wizard is "Mago" from the time of the basic red box :P
Luckily, now I buy the books in english from amazon ;)
@Erik: english is not my language.. but isn't Warlock some of a male form of Witch*? Couldn't have been troublesome call the class Warlock if there is a Witch class in the APG?
*For my gaming group I use Warlock for male Witches because of another translation mess: Witch in italian is "strega"... male of "strega" is "stregone". Sadly, they already translated "sorcerer" as "stregone". XD
In english you have far more cool and diverse names for spellcasters... I guess this mess was not avoidable, and has roots older than the actual PF italian edition (Sorcerer -- > Stregone already happened in the italian 3.0 D&D).
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Amusingly, some of us do still associate Magus with Warlock :-)
Holy obscure reference, Batman!
The thread with names suggestions for what would become the Magus stretched on as far as the eye could see, like the rolling prairies of the internet, on to the horizon and beyond. I don't have the same sort of associations as you seem to with that word. When I suggested it and a half dozen other names, they were nearly all from Warhammer 40,000, a game where most psykers (spell casters) are also potent combatants. There's a type of alien called a Genestealer which can create human hybrids of itself. A Geanestealer Magus was often the leader of covens of these hybrids. From what I remember (hybrids and their Magus haven't existed since the 2nd edition of that game, something like 15 years ago), the Magus could claw a bunch of enemies to death and then sear the flesh from the bones of their friends with their magic. I doubted Librarian (Space Marine Psyker) would get much play but I thought Magus had a chance. And so it did.
Long story short, I think you need to take it up with the Games Workshop of a couple decades ago. It's their fault.
Also, while a hidebound adherence to source material isn't worthwhile unto itself, if a concept simply doesn't exist and never did exist in non-D&D material then is it really an archetypal fantasy concept that requires a core class to properly model it?
Think Elric of Melnibone in fantasy literature. Multiclassed or a Magus. It's a traditional concept in D&D as well, beginning with OD&Ds Elves who could multiclass Fighter and Magic User (maximums of 4th and 8th level with extra levels by high scores in strength or intelligence), or the Elf class from the later Basic D&D which combined sword and spell. Admitantly you could multi class to get the effect, but a class which combines the two is reasonable.
good stuff
Welcome to the boards. Your post was good, and I hope they remember it.
For some reasons companies in the entertainment business don't seem to care about the Spanish speaking part of the world. (The film industry is really arrogant in that respect.) I guess it's not as bad if you're a Portuguese speaking constumer, as you are, but bad enough.
Anyway. Good post.
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Magus with a scythe! (Chrono Trigger spoilers)
I've stated this before and it still stands. He used spells and he rocked bad ass in melee.
... fits to me ^_^
In my campaing magus are just called spellsingers (or chantlameurs, the weird french traduction of spellsingers). (;
And yeah, when someone say magus, I can't think to something else than Chrono Trigger.
Well if he is a warrior, who can cast a limited amount of arcane spells, why not just call him an Arcane Warrior? simple, elegant, not confusing ,and fitting.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Well if he is a warrior, who can cast a limited amount of arcane spells, why not just call him an Arcane Warrior? simple, elegant, not confusing ,and fitting.
As mentioned elsewhere (no link handy, sorry) Paizo is trying to keep their base classes to one word names. Apparently Stabacadabra was frowned on.
I guess the comments above show how things change over time, lots of people have different associations with the word/name 'Magus', so I guess what's one more?
While looking for another name for my Arcane Legionary, I came across 'Magian' which is another old word that sounds neat. I like Damascarran (plural Damascarri) for my stabacadbra class, it doesn't mean anything, just sounds neat.
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While looking for another name for my Arcane Legionary, I came across 'Magian' which is another old word that sounds neat. I like Damascarran (plural Damascarri) for my stabacadbra class, it doesn't mean anything, just sounds neat.
I actually like magian much better then magus. Plus, you can have two magians instead of two magi which is much easier for me to remember.
I know it means little in the greater scheme of things, but some words deserve a little respect in their usage.Magus annoys me far less than monk. Friar Tuck may have been able to kick ass, but he didn't use kung fu.
Good thing he was a friar and not a monk then. Which are OBVIOUSLY the Eastern version of monks.
An incantor - it was the name for magical dabblers in my old 3.0 campaign.
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Well if he is a warrior, who can cast a limited amount of arcane spells, why not just call him an Arcane Warrior? simple, elegant, not confusing ,and fitting.As mentioned elsewhere (no link handy, sorry) Paizo is trying to keep their base classes to one word names. Apparently Stabacadabra was frowned on.
I guess the comments above show how things change over time, lots of people have different associations with the word/name 'Magus', so I guess what's one more?
While looking for another name for my Arcane Legionary, I came across 'Magian' which is another old word that sounds neat. I like Damascarran (plural Damascarri) for my stabacadbra class, it doesn't mean anything, just sounds neat.
I was in the same boat when coming up with a name for what became the Vanguard (from Super Genius Games).
During the writing and playtest phase, I was calling the class a Battle Caster. Then we decided to go with Paizo's rule of single word base class names. I though about just going Battlecaster, but that felt like cheating somehow ...
Eventually we went with Vanguard, which I really like. Of course, like the Magus, some may feel that it does not quite convey a fighter / magic user hybrid. The bottom line is, coming up with REALLY good, interesting and evocative names for new base classes is not easy!
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I was in the same boat when coming up with a name for what became the Vanguard (from Super Genius Games).
During the writing and playtest phase, I was calling the class a Battle Caster. Then we decided to go with Paizo's rule of single word base class names. I though about just going Battlecaster, but that felt like cheating somehow ...
Eventually we went with Vanguard, which I really like. Of course, like the Magus, some may feel that it does not quite convey a fighter / magic user hybrid. The bottom line is, coming up with REALLY good, interesting and evocative names for new base classes is not easy!
Wow,
Completely off topic, but it's amazing how our designs parallel each other. I just read DM's review.
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Well if he is a warrior, who can cast a limited amount of arcane spells, why not just call him an Arcane Warrior? simple, elegant, not confusing ,and fitting.
Why not just Warmage. It would just be a revisioning of an existing class from 3.5 that really didn't fit in my opinion.
Is there some sort of copyright issue with that?
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Well if he is a warrior, who can cast a limited amount of arcane spells, why not just call him an Arcane Warrior? simple, elegant, not confusing ,and fitting.Why not just Warmage. It would just be a revisioning of an existing class from 3.5 that really didn't fit in my opinion.
Is there some sort of copyright issue with that?
Speculation:
It's just a 'magic circle against lawyers' move. The Warmage class is closed content, and in theory WotC could take legal action saying they're too similar. 'Knight' or 'Ninja', even though there are closed classes that use those terms, are too broadly accepted to be protected. How often do you see 'Warmage' in other sources?But I don't mean to speak for Paizo. I can tell you that's why I avoided warmage or [X]-blade for my class.
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Why not just Warmage. It would just be a revisioning of an existing class from 3.5 that really didn't fit in my opinion.Is there some sort of copyright issue with that?
There may have been IP issues with that. Mage and War are common use terms but the portmanteau might be IP. Either way, the Paizo team is generally in favor of single word base classes and a portmanteau is, as Marc noted, cheating.
I do miss stabracadabra, though. That was a good name.
We used ''Irregular'' in our games.
The name was required to be not only to be one word, but also not compound.
Magus sounds good. And that's what matters, really. The "we don't want to confuse people with words that have a different meaning in real life" train has long since left the station.
The game has specific and exclusive meanings to words like wizard, sorcerer, enchanter, conjurer (and lots of others). But in the real world, there is/was no division between different kinds of "mage". You can call merlin a sorcerer, enchanter or conjurer, and people who don't know D&D will see no difference.
But in D&D (and pathfinder), they're all different things: A wizard is anyone with the wizard class, meaning he casts spells he learns from books, while a sorcerer has some magical heritage or background that allows him to cast spells intuitively. A conjurer is a specialist wizard who focusses on conjuration magic (which calls creatures or things from elsewhere) while an enchanter uses enchantments (which is a specific word here, too, meaning a spell that somehow messes with the minds of others).
Throwing magus into the mix and saying that a magus is someone who combines swordery and sorcery in a specific way (by using the magus class) is hardly the camel that broke the straws back.
Why not just Warmage. It would just be a revisioning of an existing class from 3.5 that really didn't fit in my opinion.Is there some sort of copyright issue with that?
There may have been IP issues with that. Mage and War are common use terms but the portmanteau might be IP. Either way, the Paizo team is generally in favor of single word base classes and a portmanteau is, as Marc noted, cheating.
I do miss stabracadabra, though. That was a good name.
I'm not sure whether wotc has any rights to warmage, but more important than the copyright issues is the issue that the 3.5 class warmage has cemented the meaning of the word: Spontaneous spellcaster with full spell list known, which is very strongly focussed on blast magic.
Calling the PF magus warmage instead would have led to confusion.