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Hi, everyone! This is just a lighthearted creative thread focused on brainstorming new class names. I noticed we kept doing this on all the "please rename x" threads, and it was always the least exhausting section those threads had. It's kind of an interesting challenge.
Ideally, let's not argue about whether the classes need renaming here. This is more a brainstorming space. I'm actually kind of interested in seeing if we can come up with anything good here.
Monk renames are worth 5 points, oracle renames are worth 4 points, magus and druid renames are worth 3 points, barbarian and fighter renames are worth 2 points, and all other classes are worth 1 point. I'm on the phones with Paizo right now, and they say that whoever has the most points at the end gets to make their least favorite ancestry Rare in the Remaster.
Anyways, we should rename the Fighter to the "swordser". Related to this, all non-sword weapons should be made Uncommon.
More seriously, I vaguely like the idea of renaming the Monk to "dervish"? I don't know. I feel like if there's one thing that makes a monk a monk, it's the swiftness and grace of their fighting style.
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A Dervish implies a greater leaning into the religiosity of the class than Monk, even, and is kind of just trading out the exoticism of East Asia for the exoticism of North Africa. It's a shame, because I did adore the Dervish class in Guild Wars: Nightfall, but it's a term still in use by a living religion today - probably best to avoid.
'Ascetic' feels like it draws on both the "going without arms and armor" aspect of the class and the religious traditions that inspire it, while also broadening the identity up a fair bit.
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Anyways, we should rename the Fighter to the "swordser". Related to this, all non-sword weapons should be made Uncommon.
More seriously, I vaguely like the idea of renaming the Monk to "dervish"? I don't know. I feel like if there's one thing that makes a monk a monk, it's the swiftness and grace of their fighting style.
Might I recommend "swordcerer"?
I don't know if I associate "dervish" with exoticism, even if it isn't a European term. I associate it with "whee spin fast!". But mine is only one association, so good point!
EDIT: Ooh, I didn't realize the term was still in use, too. You're right, that's confusing. I should read your posts closer; you're usually right about things. XD
"Mendicant" could be interesting for monk, even if it's probably a little too narrowing.
Might I recommend "swordcerer"?Anyways, we should rename the Fighter to the "swordser". Related to this, all non-sword weapons should be made Uncommon.
More seriously, I vaguely like the idea of renaming the Monk to "dervish"? I don't know. I feel like if there's one thing that makes a monk a monk, it's the swiftness and grace of their fighting style.
Let's rename the wizard to the "swordless" too if we're going in this direction
Monks, embodying the essence of swords in their bodies, are "swordfists".
Okay, I think I've solved this problem. Rename champion to "soulknife", monk to "psychic warrior", rogue to "lurk", barbarian to "wilder", and druid to... *agent whispers in my ear* ...hm? What's that? Well, that can't be right.
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Druid: Naturist. This comes with an upgrade to unarmored defense proficiency.
Oracle: Heretic. They're all about using divine power in ways that the divinities involved never intended.
Monk: Fist Puncher. Additionally, "monk weapons" stop being a thing entirely.
Alternate Monk: Wuxia. If you're going to steal blatantly, you might as well own it.
For Monk, I prefer Disciple or Ascetic to Dervish, which is a completely different thing to me. Brawler doesn't address the religious or disciplined narrative of the class and makes me think of back-alley drunkards fist-fighting instead of organized devotees trying to contribute something to society and/or their religion/spirituality.
I like Berserker way better than Barbarian. The class just IS a Berserker moreso than anything like the often insulting definition of a Barbarian.
I don't really see the need to change Bard, but if I did I would probably want to change it to Herald, as in "...a person or thing that proclaims or announces".
Fighter should just straight up become Warrior. Man-at-Arms sounds cool, but the name is too binary.
Priest would be fine for Cleric, but I don't really see the need to change it.
I don't know what to do with Druid other than calling it a Hermit or use a synonym for priest or wizard, which isn't good. I would probably just leave it as is.
Wizard, Sorcerer, Witch, and similar mage-like Class words have a lot of different synonyms that could be used if need be. But, I don't really see the need. They work fine as is.
Alchemist, Champion, Ranger, Rogue, and many of the others don't really need to change, either, in my opinion.
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Oh, I'm 10000% on team Berserker!
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Yeah, Man-at-Arms is a really cool name, but I feel like it would lead to endless "my character's, um, a Person-at-Arms? A Woman-at-Arms?" introductions. It's also just a bit of a mouthful.
"Berserker" is lovely, and I like "warrior" for the Fighter. I think "soldier" might be interesting, too--just to emphasize that this is the warrior who really trained for it, y'know?--but could be flavorfully limiting. Oh, I know, let's name the Fighter "martial artist".
I honestly feel like Inventor might benefit from a name change. I get really confused by the name, and to this day, never having played one but having had it explained to me multiple times, I still feel a little lost. I guess Inventor is meant to be, like, some sort of martial artificer? Iron Man? I can't place her. I just get her confused with Alchemist.
For Monk, I kind of like "battledancer", but that's sort of taken. "Disciple" is pretty good, since it makes me think of "disciplined", and "mystic" and "ascetic" are strong picks, too. If we want to combine the "dancer" and "puncher" ideas, though, might I suggest:
"Bopper".
I could see the Slayer stepping in for Fighter or Ranger in PF3. A lot of those weirder PF1 class names could come back, honestly - Brawler was also a good one, and everyone adores the Bloodrager.
EDIT: If Dervish goes anywhere, it should be as a Swashbuckler name/subtype.
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Armsmaster could work as an alternative to Man-at-Arms, I do prefer warrior though.
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Um, are you asking me to actually read the posts I reply to? Rude.
Anyways, we should rename the Fighter to the "swordser".
Swordcerer.
If you're going to change the name for Ranger, then whatever you change it to needs to acknowledge what Ranger *is*.
It's "Aragorn: the Class". It has been from the very beginning. Aragorn was first introduces as "Strider, Ranger of the North" and thus the class was named. It's why it's such a grab-bag... because Aragorn took a lot of archetypes, and they all got crammed in there.
I remember thinking it was weird when he went off on that five-page rant to Legolas about hobbits and their pipeweed, but we were five epilogues and two tangents about Shadowfax deep in Return of the King at that point and I was getting pretty tired, so I sort of breezed past it at the time.
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Psychic could be renamed to Esper, I'd prefer that since it's slightly annoying to have the word "psychic" be both an adjective to describe their type of magic and a noun to describe the name of the class. It's not a huge deal in the end though.
If I were to rename Investigator (which I don't really have a problem with - and I would only do it in order to be more inclusive of other intellectual combatant concepts for characters, though that would also need a bit of a redesign to get away from overly focusing on the detective angle and adding other conceptual abilities to the class, such as Researcher/Scholar, Spymaster, Doctor/Barber, Bureaucrat, Merchant, Debutante, Crimeboss, Master of Coin, or what-have-you), I would probably go with Sage to better represent that they are geniuses in their chosen field/methodology.
Oracle is pretty spot-on already since the class is clear lu a reference to the Oracle of Delphi, who was considered to be both cursed and blessed with her ability by the gods. I wouldn't change it.
I think Witch and Swashbuckler are fine as is, though I am tempted to want to call the Swashbuckler a Dervish or have a subclass for a Dervish. Calling the class Dervish would change its identity too much, though. But, I am really liking the idea of a Dervish subclass more and more...
Inventor is spot-on and has been my primary character for over a year now. There is no better name for the class. Iron Man IS an Inventor.
I like Gunslinger too much as a name to change it, but I suppose Sharpshooter might work, though it sounds boring in comparison.
Magus, Psychic, and Thaumaturge are all fine.
Summoner might need a different name since they don't summon much more than one creature very often. I don't know what I would call them though, if not Summoner.
Oracle definitely isn't awful, but it 10000% makes me think of divination, and that's just not really a huge aspect of the broader class. I'm not sure if I have a better idea, though.
For that reason, I honestly wish the Oracle had gotten something like Devise a Strategem and/or something like a little bit of the game mechanics that the Starfinder Precog got and a little less of some of its other abilities. But, it seems it would compete too much with the Investigator and maybe even inherited a bit too much from its 1e roots to make that much of a change in its design.
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Ranger as Melee-er
The Rogue should be renamed "Scamp" because that is more fun.
I would also accept "Rascal".
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Fighter should just straight up become Warrior. Man-at-Arms sounds cool, but the name is too binary.
I don't really see the need to change Bard, but if I did I would probably want to change it to Herald, as in "...a person or thing that proclaims or announces".
Mechanically it is a good class and it plays well. However the name and the class concept is confusing.
Let me think the Bards in media recently:
Thom Merrilin - Wheel of Time
Edgin Darvis - Honor Among Thieves
Scanlin Shorthalt - Vox Machina
Only the last one is an occult caster, the others are probably more Rogue Scoundrel/MasterMind.
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Honestly, a hypothetical PF3 where your core party could be an Arcanist, a Berserker, a Disciple, and Redeemer feels pretty alright, especially if they can drift further from OGL identities.
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I was gonna name all the classes from PF1 and 2 and what I wanted the same, what I wanted to change and what I didn't care about, but the list was absurdly long and most I didn't care about
If we change monk I think the correct move is doubling down on the Chinese aspect. We should go full Wu Xia with this one. I think doing the opposite and making it generic will both remove flavor and basically just be a sort of colonization of the idea. I don't really care if the name is changed or not, I think monk actually does describe the class. Though Warrior Monk would be much better
I'm also 10000% on team BERSERKER
I also am fond of keeping wizard but I wouldn't complain about arcanist. With wizard I'm just a traditionalist here and love the name. I don't even care that arcanists are, in canon, something different from a wizard. Just ANYTHING but "mage"
And speaking of mage, I don't like Magus, at all. I liked Eldritch Knight, but that is so d&d. Knight Enchanter is my favorite name but is confusing in this setting unfortunately!
I love the name champion, and I love thaumaturge
Everything else I have no feelings about
I also think it would be cool if PF3 had giant overarching classes in which subclasses were basically classes something like:
Warrior:
-Fighter
-Ranger
-Champion
-Berserker
Rogue:
-Assassin
-Thief
-Gunslinger
-Swashbuckler
-Alchemist
-Bard
Or whatever.
All the full spellcasters can be under some kind of name too. This could have mechanical benefits where there is a category of feats for the over arching archetypes that all of them can choose for class feats and then specific class feats for the kind of thing they are. Then there could be a hybrid category or something. Might be too complicated, but it fits the naming thing. I don't think this is worthy of a thread, but it is close to what this question is asking
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Monk should be renamed Columbo... another eccentric detective... wait the class has nothing to do with detective work?.. thats the investigator? preposterous.
I like the idea, at least in theory! A nitpick: I'm pretty sure the gunslinger is a lot closer to the fighter than the rogue in terms of what she's good at and what she's meant to do.
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Alchemist - The Mix
Bard - The Whimsy
Barbarian - The Fury
Champion - The Stalwart
Cleric - The Loyal
Druid - The Wild
Fighter - The Valor
Gunslinger - The Deadeye
Inventor - The Maker
Investigator - The Wit
Kineticist - The Flow
Magus - The Keen
Monk - The Disciple
Oracle - The Seer
Psychic - The Unknown
Ranger The Tracker
Rogue - The Skill
Sorcerer - The Blood
Summoner - The Caller
Swashbuckler - The Bravo
Thaumaturge - The Miracle
Witch - The Mystic
Wizard - The Sage
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Assuming I am not allowed to reimagine anything other than the class's name and I have to rename every class? I'll also attempt to not use anything that has already been posted.
Core Rulebook
Alchemist: While this is already a sufficient name for the class, perhaps it might be more evocative (and potentially fitting for the insane madlads that science their ways around a magical world) to call themselves Concoctors, as their efforts surely don't always revolve around turning lead to gold!
Barbarian: Berserker is such a good alternate name that it's been thrown around a lot already (Even back in the 3.5/PF1 days). Can I come up with a worthy alternative? Probably not, but how does Rageforged sound?
Bard: People always say that the Occult list doesn't feel very bardic, but those people have probably never heard a truly alien, haunting hymn and felt cold dread deep in their soul. Since bardic talent can manifest in many ways, maybe something along the lines of Musetouched might suit those folks better?
Champion: Admittedly, I think this class's name is perfect. My brightest hope is that with the rending of alignment from the system, this class will have something more akin to 1e Cavalier's creeds, which represents the time-honored tradition of people, in a self-driven affair, placing stock in their beliefs SO HARD that their drive to impose increases drastically, separate from but not excluding faith. Let's call them the Oathsworn.
Cleric: This one's hard, though I love the idea of some person on Golarion getting confused because someone made a "clerical" error... anyways, a deity choosing a follower to carry a sliver of their divine powers along with their baggage? Devout seems like a fine description.
Druid: As neat and tidy as it is to call the tradition representative casters (tradition)ists, since I didn't call Clerics "Diviners" then we gotta go with something else. Also Primalist was already mentioned, sooooo... how about Naturalist. Hey, it's technically different from Naturist, okay?
Fighter: Always been a pretty generic name for a fairly generic class, but in 2e they actually have quite a an identity - Maneuvers and Weapon Mastery focus. As much as I want to crib 5e's Battlemaster title for this, it's technically under the Coastal Wizard umbrella, so instead I'll go with the less-infringing Battle Savant.
Monk: Focus on perfecting one's own body, and form with either one's hands or a specific weapon? Call 'em the Honer.
Ranger: Oh boy. Somebody who makes a point to etch into their memory the knowledge of the various lands they drift through, and the creatures and peoples that make their homes there? Let's make it weird. The Encyclogist, from the same root as "encyclopedia" (all-around education). Nobody ever said I couldn't make up new words, did they?
Rogue: Somebody took away all the good synonyms up above, so now I'm left a bit high and dry. Well, the common thread of all of the rackets is that they really REALLY care about being thorough and precise while also having a catalogue of good skills. Perhaps the Professional would be fitting, especially once more rackets start appearing.
Sorcerer: Someone who has innate magical abilities because somebody in your lineage mixed some strange blood into you? You're a Genealogian.
Wizard: Clearly folk of (magical) science, they should take some etymology from the modern sciences if we're reading research papers with titles rivaling theoretical mathematics. "Wizards" is like calling a PhD a "Scientist". The "more correct term" would be an Arcanologist. Sure, you could shorten that, but for some reason when I try I hallucinate something about a "reservoir" and "exploits" and I get shivers. I wonder why.
"Thaumaturge" should be "Thaumaturgist". There was a perfectly good longer word right there!
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Some of the new names for the classes have been revealed! There's even a return to classic:
Conflict-oriented being
Diversely-honest skill-oriented being
Faith-haver being
Magic-user being
Irritation-experiencing conflict-oriented being
Chemistry-precursor being
Green-related conflict-oriented being
Faith-empowered conflict-oriented being
Pet-friendly magic-user being
Otherworld-inclusive pet-friendly being
Magic-using conflict-oriented being
Self-confident flair-haver being
Supernaturally-challenged magic-user being
The others are still a secret.
Sorcerer - prodigy
Oracle - destined
Ascetic actually feels pretty religious to me, too.
Here's another unlikely idea for Monk: The philosopher.
I think most classes are fine as is. I can read the name and get a general gist of what the class is about.
There are exceptions however:
Berserker for Barbarian, because it better captures its underlying mechanic.
Warrior or Soldier for Fighter, because fighter is probably the most generic name ever for a class
Priest for Cleric, but cleric really isn't that bad
Magus for...something. I just don't visualize spellcasting fighter when I think of Magus, nor is there any connection to that particular word with that theme. Spellsword would I suppose work, but I don't have an obvious choice in my head.
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Ascetic actually feels pretty religious to me, too.
Here's another unlikely idea for Monk: The philosopher.
Well, aren't monks religious? Isn't that the whole point? Also "The Philosopher" feels more like, idk. Either watered down western interpretations of Buddhism, or like an annoying grad student who just can't stop telling me about Hegel. I WILL NEVER READ HEGEL
I like the idea, at least in theory! A nitpick: I'm pretty sure the gunslinger is a lot closer to the fighter than the rogue in terms of what she's good at and what she's meant to do.
They thematically feel like rogues to me, and I think making rogues fully martials, as we are doing now, is both the right move and allows us to have two kinds of martials. Warrior types, and rogue types. To which I put gunslinger in rogue. It is worth mentioning swashbuckler was presented in PF1 as a hybrid of fighter and Gunslinger