If a Fighter/Mage (Magus) is a Gish.
What is a Fighter/Cleric or Druid (Hunter from ACG) called? Still a Gish?
-- david
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From urban dictionary:
A warrior/mage hybrid, generally using magical powers to enhance his or her abilities in melee. From the Githyanki word " 'gish", meaning 'skilled'.
Now I'm not sure how reliable you see urban dictionary to be, but there it is.
You can find it from other sources, but yeah the term comes from the Gith. I don't recall if this is correct, but they didn't have clerics, which may be why we associate a gish to be an arcane/martial combination.
Been playing for 20 years. Gish is a pretty old term, and as far I as know it has always been somehow linked to the Githyanki (which were always seemed to have powerful Fighter/Magic-Users).
As for where the term actually came from or how it spread to be common parlance? No idea.
When in doubt, blame Dragon Magazine.
Why is a Gish someone with Arcane power and Swordplay specifically? Because someone who is good at martial combat and Divine magic is just called a Cleric. I dunno.
githyanki also had psionics
Gish harken back to 2nd edition DnD (maybe even 1st). Back in the day, there were certain class combinations (that was the original multiclassing). So you could make a fighter/wizard, with the only restriction being that wearing armor shut your spells off (there was no ASF, your spells either were cast able or not.).
In second Ed they became notorious because cleric spells were noticeably less powerful than arcane spells. There was no blessing of Ferver, no searing light, no spear of purity. So you took someone with the best melee ability, and combined it with the spells in the game and there you go, one of the most powerful builds.
Githyanki were really known for doing this, so players who encountered them basically came to hate them because they could have 2nd Ed stoneskin (which was much more powerful than it is now) Mage armor and shield, and still had comperable skill to a fighter in melee.
There were others, of course. Honestly, the blade singer was worse. It was an elf kit (equivalent to an archetype.). Imagine a magus one level behind the party with a wizard's spell progression and full BAB (and still have, essentially, spell combat)
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
A gish is a high-level Githyanki, typically one who leads a group of githyanki. Most are fighter/magic-users or thief/magic-users.
All of the divine casting class already have martial proficiency built in since they iconicly carry heavy armor and weapons, so there is no point in having a different name for them.
A Gish is a character that combines melee fighting and arcane spells.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
DM Papa.DRB wrote: If a Fighter/Mage (Magus) is a Gish.
What is a Fighter/Cleric or Druid (Hunter from ACG) called? Still a Gish?
-- david
The reason the term Gish came to be was the popularity of the githyanki fighter/magic users from way back in AD+D first edition which were called gishes
Since the cleric was already so much the fighter, having access to heavy armor and medium BAB, making a fighter/cleric type wasn't exactly the breakwater thing that making a true fighter/magic-user was. Most folks who wanted that either were playing fighter/cleric races like dwarves already. or just straight clerics.
Thanks all for the comments.
So the answer to the question of what you call a fighter/(cleric or druid) is that there is no special term.
-- davids
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
DM Papa.DRB wrote: Thanks all for the comments.
So the answer to the question of what you call a fighter/(cleric or druid) is that there is no special term.
-- davids
Yes because fighter/cleric is much more inherently game synergistic than fighter/wizard. There's no special trick to making one and the cleric spell list isn't loaded with attack/battle spells the way the wizard list is.
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I still prefer 'stabacadabra' myself. Wish I could take credit for it.
A Magus, and a number of psionic classes and archetypes (Psychic Warrior (Fighter/Magey), Cryptic (Rogue/Magey), Marksman (Ranger/Magey), Gifted Blade Soulknife (also Fighter/Magey), etc.) are also quite Gish-y without multiclassing.
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DM Papa.DRB wrote: Thanks all for the comments.
So the answer to the question of what you call a fighter/(cleric or druid) is that there is no special term.
-- davids
Note what I said in my earlier post. This harkens a back to 2nd, possibly first edition dnd.
A cleric or Druid only had up to 7th level spells, and there weren't as many good choices to choose from. Meanwhile haste, stoneskin, mirror image, contingency, spell sequencer, there were a lot of very powerful wizard spells to choose from. So you could spell sequencer mirror image, (which was the equivalent of 'holding the spell' and being able to cast it as a free action) and essentially have 2 castings of mirror image on top of displacement and stoneskin on your character. Clerics had nothing like that back in the day.
Plus, clerics/Druids were limited by their weapons selection, even when they multiclassed (clerics could only use blunt weapons, Druids-Druid weapons) but fighter/mages had no such restriction. So your fighter/cleric was limited to a mace or a warhammer, but your gish character could be swinging around that vorpal longsword that goes snicker-snack.
The fighter cleric doesn't have a special name because it was less of a weird thing (they already had heavy armor back in the day, and the equivalent of a 3/4 bab), and it was less notorious.
Of course fighter/magic-users weren't a weird thing back then either - just about every elf ever. :)
Personally, I'd never heard the term "gish" until well into the 3.0 days and didn't know where it came from until fairly recently.
Githyanki were cool and all, but I don't remember ever seeing them used outside of the Fiend Folio itself, but then I wasn't really tied into the larger RPG scene or following modules or campaign settings & such.
Looking back at that Fiend Folio entry, I find it amusing that "gish" only appears once. It's not even a name for Githyanki fighter/magic-users, but appears to be a specific rank for F/MU 4/4 found in lairs - along with 2 warlocks (magic-users of 4th-7th level) and 3 sergeants (fighters of 4th-7th level) you have 2 'gish'. (Which also suggests it's a plural form, though the singular could be the same.)
The supreme leaders and captains could also be fighter/magic-users, though of higher level, and weren't called 'gish'.
It amuses me that this whole general term came from that one single usage.
BTW, the Githzerai equivalent is "zerths". That apparently didn't catch on.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
thejeff wrote: Of course fighter/magic-users weren't a weird thing back then either - just about every elf ever. :)
Gishes though worn't working with a Str ceiling and the con penalty every elf had. and that option wasn't open to 18/00 Str humans at the time.
thejeff wrote: Of course fighter/magic-users weren't a weird thing back then either - just about every elf ever. :)
Personally, I'd never heard the term "gish" until well into the 3.0 days and didn't know where it came from until fairly recently.
Githyanki were cool and all, but I don't remember ever seeing them used outside of the Fiend Folio itself, but then I wasn't really tied into the larger RPG scene or following modules or campaign settings & such.
Looking back at that Fiend Folio entry, I find it amusing that "gish" only appears once. It's not even a name for Githyanki fighter/magic-users, but appears to be a specific rank for F/MU 4/4 found in lairs - along with 2 warlocks (magic-users of 4th-7th level) and 3 sergeants (fighters of 4th-7th level) you have 2 'gish'. (Which also suggests it's a plural form, though the singular could be the same.)
The supreme leaders and captains could also be fighter/magic-users, though of higher level, and weren't called 'gish'.
It amuses me that this whole general term came from that one single usage.
BTW, the Githzerai equivalent is "zerths". That apparently didn't catch on.
Fairly positive Githyanki were a pretty big deal in Planescape.
Either that or they happened to come up a lot on our Planescape games because my DM liked them.
I also think it was the Planescape material that got into the Githyanki language, Tir.
I can't actively confirm any of this as my Planescape stuff was lost when I joined the Army about 100 years ago.
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Despite the fact that elves and half-elves could do the fighter/mu thing... the Githyanki Gish beat them out in bad ass attitude... not to mention their silver swords which had vorpal properties to sever silver cords as well as heads.
LazarX wrote: Despite the fact that elves and half-elves could do the fighter/mu thing... the Githyanki Gish beat them out in bad ass attitude... not to mention their silver swords which had vorpal properties to sever silver cords as well as heads. At least in the original write-up, the gish would never have had silver swords. Those were restricted to their higher level anti-paladin knights.
And sure, the Githyanki were cool. (Not surprising, they were apparently created by Charles Stross with inspiration from a GRRM book!) I'm just amused that this common term came from such a tiny original mention.
As ChainsawSam said, it probably got vastly expanded on later. I never paid any attention to Planescape.
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The term absolutely came from the Githyanki.
Back in old AD&D these sword and spell weilding badasses were masters of magic, psionics, martial combat, formed pacts with red dragons who ferried their raiding parties across the planes, and forged not only the astral thread cutting silver swords (instant death for astral travelers), but the most snicker snacky of all vorpal weapons the +5 special silver sword. Unfortunately, as with many of the coolest things in AD&D, the Githyanki have been shamelessly nerfed.
All that aside, a subtype of Githyanki -- the Gish -- became very well known as a badass spell slinger and martial combatant combined. The Githyanki, and the Gish by extension, therefore defined the pinnacle of the art of combining sword and spell in combat. Elven fighter mages wished they could hold a candle to the Gish. Hence, Gish became the easy, one-word, invoking the pure head cleaving, brain exploding, fireball slinging, red dragon riding bad assery, term that people began to use to describe the idealized form of the fighter-mage.
The term has since morphed into anything that both fights and casts combat spells and does it well. In pathfinder, a cleric or an oracle can make a pretty decent Gish. A magus is the Gish class (arguably Githyanki, if they existed in pathfinder, would be a premier race for magus). And anything that combines melee (especially swordplay) with offensive magic of any kind could well be termed a Gish.
But do not forget the terrible race from which the name Gish originates -- the Githyanki, who perfected the art.
Chromnos wrote: The term absolutely came from the Githyanki.
Back in old AD&D these sword and spell weilding badasses were masters of magic, psionics, martial combat, formed pacts with red dragons who ferried their raiding parties across the planes, and forged not only the astral thread cutting silver swords (instant death for astral travelers), but the most snicker snacky of all vorpal weapons the +5 special silver sword. Unfortunately, as with many of the coolest things in AD&D, the Githyanki have been shamelessly nerfed.
All that aside, a subtype of Githyanki -- the Gish -- became very well known as a badass spell slinger and martial combatant combined. The Githyanki, and the Gish by extension, therefore defined the pinnacle of the art of combining sword and spell in combat. Elven fighter mages wished they could hold a candle to the Gish. Hence, Gish became the easy, one-word, invoking the pure head cleaving, brain exploding, fireball slinging, red dragon riding bad assery, term that people began to use to describe the idealized form of the fighter-mage.
The term has since morphed into anything that both fights and casts combat spells and does it well. In pathfinder, a cleric or an oracle can make a pretty decent Gish. A magus is the Gish class (arguably Githyanki, if they existed in pathfinder, would be a premier race for magus). And anything that combines melee (especially swordplay) with offensive magic of any kind could well be termed a Gish.
But do not forget the terrible race from which the name Gish originates -- the Githyanki, who perfected the art.
Frankly, that fluff sounds really wank-y to me. I'm not surprised at all that they were "nerfed".
As an archetype, they absolutely worked.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
I discourage the use of the term gish, because
1) it has to be explained
2) it actually refers to something specific in AD&D, so if you use the term in a general sense, what do you call that?
3) there are plenty of other existing, much more obvious terms, like F/MU, or now, magus-type and EK-types
4) no one can agree on what it is - are clerics gish? what about psychic warriors?
5) ... which going back to the AD&D thing, gish were explicitly not specialized psionic characters
I hear scholars lost the true meaning of the word centuries ago, in German it means "a whale's vagina."
I've also heard it localized as "Get In Some Hits" as in referring to a spell caster using a weapon not ironically.
Since clerics use them intrinsically, it's normal to assume you're talking about a wizard or sorcerer.
Chromnos wrote: The term absolutely came from the Githyanki.
Back in old AD&D these sword and spell weilding badasses were masters of magic, psionics, martial combat, formed pacts with red dragons who ferried their raiding parties across the planes, and forged not only the astral thread cutting silver swords (instant death for astral travelers), but the most snicker snacky of all vorpal weapons the +5 special silver sword. Unfortunately, as with many of the coolest things in AD&D, the Githyanki have been shamelessly nerfed.
All that aside, a subtype of Githyanki -- the Gish -- became very well known as a badass spell slinger and martial combatant combined. The Githyanki, and the Gish by extension, therefore defined the pinnacle of the art of combining sword and spell in combat. Elven fighter mages wished they could hold a candle to the Gish. Hence, Gish became the easy, one-word, invoking the pure head cleaving, brain exploding, fireball slinging, red dragon riding bad assery, term that people began to use to describe the idealized form of the fighter-mage.
The term has since morphed into anything that both fights and casts combat spells and does it well. In pathfinder, a cleric or an oracle can make a pretty decent Gish. A magus is the Gish class (arguably Githyanki, if they existed in pathfinder, would be a premier race for magus). And anything that combines melee (especially swordplay) with offensive magic of any kind could well be termed a Gish.
But do not forget the terrible race from which the name Gish originates -- the Githyanki, who perfected the art.
Athaleon wrote: Frankly, that fluff sounds really wank-y to me. I'm not surprised at all that they were "nerfed".
The githyanki (and githzerai) were originally meant to be NPC foes, not PCs - and scary ones to boot. Therefore I don't think that they deserved to be nerfed. However, the point is moot for Pathfinder, as the various Gith races are WotC's intellectual property. :(
Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
thejeff wrote:
And sure, the Githyanki were cool. (Not surprising, they were apparently created by Charles Stross with inspiration from a GRRM book!) I'm just amused that this common term came from such a tiny original mention.
Look up David Brin's writings on the subject of meme propagation sometime.
LazarX wrote: thejeff wrote:
And sure, the Githyanki were cool. (Not surprising, they were apparently created by Charles Stross with inspiration from a GRRM book!) I'm just amused that this common term came from such a tiny original mention.
Look up David Brin's writings on the subject of meme propagation sometime. We grognards memed it all right. The Githyanki were just too terrible a monster not to be used by the game master, and too badass not to be remembered with ultimate jealousy by the players.
'Gish? What's that?'
'Dunno. But it just TPK'd us.'
'Why can't I play one?' ... And so the meme was born.
Not to mention the fact that actually killing a Gish and getting a silver or even a special silver sword was likely the object of entire campaigns -- as the dragon riding Githyanki would send out relentless hunt parties to track the weapon down and reclaim it.
Chromnos wrote: LazarX wrote: thejeff wrote:
And sure, the Githyanki were cool. (Not surprising, they were apparently created by Charles Stross with inspiration from a GRRM book!) I'm just amused that this common term came from such a tiny original mention.
Look up David Brin's writings on the subject of meme propagation sometime. We grognards memed it all right. The Githyanki were just too terrible a monster not to be used by the game master, and too badass not to be remembered with ultimate jealousy by the players.
'Gish? What's that?'
'Dunno. But it just TPK'd us.'
'Why can't I play one?' ... And so the meme was born.
Not to mention the fact that actually killing a Gish and getting a silver or even a special silver sword was likely the object of entire campaigns -- as the dragon riding Githyanki would send out relentless hunt parties to track the weapon down and reclaim it. Except gish weren't the ones with the swords. Or even the most dangerous githyanki. They were just the only ones with a weird sounding name. :)
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Gish was the easy name to remember.
Pull out your Fiend Folio and you'll find that Gish were the rank and file fighter magic users in Githyanki raid parties. Usually level 4/4. Get enough of them together bashing with swords, casting mirror image, burning hands, and magic missile, and blazing away with psionics and it was an even more memorable experience than that first encounter with the admittedly nasty drow.
Yeah. Not the ones with the silver swords. But you'd find yourself up to your eyeballs in Gish if one ever happened to fall into your hands.
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1st edition Fiend Folio wrote: If a lair is found it will house 21-30 githyanki with typical distribution as follows:
1 supreme leader: 11th level fighter or 7th/8th level fighter/magic-user
2 captains: 8th level fighter and 7th/6th level fighter/magic-user
1 knight: 8th level anti-paladin
2 warlocks: magic-users of 4th-7th level
3 sergeants: fighters of 4th-7th level
2 'gish': fighter/magic-users of 4th/4th level
10-19 lower levels: evenly distributed between the three possible classes and with experience levels 1st-3rd.
There you have it, straight from 1981.
P.S. Don't tell houstonderek I had to look it up. He still has that passage memorized.
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Yeah, that's what I've been referencing. I had to look it up too.
Gish aren't the rank and file as I see it, but low level officers, on the same scale as the sergeants and warlocks.
It's the knights who get the silver swords.
Arcane paladin.
Based on the complaints that come out every time D&D or Pathfinder makes a gish class, I am pretty sure the subconscious definition is any class that is heavy armored, full BAB, and gets to cast wish. Getting to cast a spell and make multiple attacks on a turn is preferred. Anything less gets hit with "it can't keep up."
Since even the splat book guys know better than to provide this (after this no one would ever buy another splat book), it is currently hypothetical.
Yep. I had to pull out the Fiend Folio too to get the details. But the name I remembered best was Gish. Probably because it was unique and cool-sounding. So no surprise that I might have elevated them to silver sword holders in memory.
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thejeff wrote: Yeah, that's what I've been referencing. I had to look it up too.
Gish aren't the rank and file as I see it, but low level officers, on the same scale as the sergeants and warlocks.
It's the knights who get the silver swords.
A DM who can't expand on monster manual entries is a sorry sight. The only reaason not to give a silver sword to an advanced gish is that you might kill the party before you get to show off how awesome and badass you are.
LazarX wrote: thejeff wrote: Yeah, that's what I've been referencing. I had to look it up too.
Gish aren't the rank and file as I see it, but low level officers, on the same scale as the sergeants and warlocks.
It's the knights who get the silver swords.
A DM who can't expand on monster manual entries is a sorry sight. The only reaason not to give a silver sword to an advanced gish is that you might kill the party before you get to show off how awesome and badass you are. I'm almost certain this was the way we played it. Gish were the up and comers, the ones that eventually, in many cases, advanced to 8/8 or 9/9 fighter magic user special silver sword wielders (supreme leaders). The Githyanki text includes both fighters and fighter magic users as supreme leaders.
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LazarX wrote: thejeff wrote: Yeah, that's what I've been referencing. I had to look it up too.
Gish aren't the rank and file as I see it, but low level officers, on the same scale as the sergeants and warlocks.
It's the knights who get the silver swords.
A DM who can't expand on monster manual entries is a sorry sight. The only reaason not to give a silver sword to an advanced gish is that you might kill the party before you get to show off how awesome and badass you are. At least originally, "advanced gish" were known as captains or supreme leaders, not gish. Gish were specifically the 4/4 NCOs.
And I assume the silver swords were intentionally tied to the anti-paladins.
It does look like it all changed, probably in 3.0, maybe earlier, with gish becoming a more generic multiclass term and silver swords being common to any higher level warrior types.
1st edition Fiend Folio wrote: A githyanki fighter of 7th level and above will usually (60%) carry a +2 or +3 longsword, while a knight of 7th level and above will have (100%) a silver sword - a +3 two-handed sword which, if used astrally, has a 20% chance per melee round of cutting the silver cord (this does not affect mind barred victims). A supreme leader will wield a special silver sword which is +5, fully vorpal and affects mind barred victims. The silver swords are non-aligned, though they have intelligence of 8 or more and appropriate powers. Githyanki will go to almost any lengths to prevent any of these silver swords from falling into human hands and the loss of a special silver sword will promote the immediate formation of a very powerful raiding party of githyanki whose task is to recover the sword - failure to do so means instant death.
Kirth Gersen wrote: 1st edition Fiend Folio wrote: A githyanki fighter of 7th level and above will usually (60%) carry a +2 or +3 longsword, while a knight of 7th level and above will have (100%) a silver sword - a +3 two-handed sword which, if used astrally, has a 20% chance per melee round of cutting the silver cord (this does not affect mind barred victims). A supreme leader will wield a special silver sword which is +5, fully vorpal and affects mind barred victims. The silver swords are non-aligned, though they have intelligence of 8 or more and appropriate powers. Githyanki will go to almost any lengths to prevent any of these silver swords from falling into human hands and the loss of a special silver sword will promote the immediate formation of a very powerful raiding party of githyanki whose task is to recover the sword - failure to do so means instant death. Oh, I'd missed the supreme leader having one.
But it still changed by 3.0. By which time gish were any multiclass, not just f/mu, and the psionic emphasis grew as well.
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