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TheFurith
2016-09-25, 04:39 PM
There are certain class names that when used in game I cannot help but roll my eyes. They're class names that should be adjusted based on what one actually does. Or just completely done away with in game. For instance.

Fighter. Unless you actually are a professional fighter like in a cage, pit, or otherwise you probably would be called something else. If nothing applies, try your name.

Rogue I have never in my life heard the word rogue used to describe a person. Never. It's solely a thing of fiction and nobody would walk around calling them self it. Especially considering the reputation.

Ranger How does one range exactly? No. Try again.

Barbarian Call a man a barbarian and he's probably just going to punch you in the mouth. That's an insult, not what one calls them self.


Now for a few out there ones.

Dread Necromancer Necromancer works perfectly fine. Besides, what's so "dread" about it anyway?

Swiftblade Cast slow on this man and then ask him what he is again. Seriously.

Spellsword As it is, that's fine. But what if he's a SpellGreathornMinotaurHammer as per the variations in name Spellsword mentions? How about a Spellflail? Surely that guy sounds like he's going to burn down the town and chaotic magic display. Like a fireworks display gone wrong.

Anti-Paladin Nobody is going to define them self as nothing more than the antithesis of something else. That doesn't make sense. It's still a paladin, just not a very nice one.

This could be a long list. So I am going to stop. But seriously, I do not like a lot of class names in my games. It's as bad as being an "adventurer"....

The point is IN CHARACTER. Not why they class is called what it was. Or it's mechanics. Or what real world analog almost sort of by not really resembles something that has to do with the game. Please don't miss the point. Or do, I mean, everyone else did. Why not right? Words.

tensai_oni
2016-09-25, 04:46 PM
Most classes aren't an IC concept, just an OOC name for what your character does.

No one would ICly go "I am a fighter" to describe what is their profession. Someone could go "I'm a paladin" because paladins are an IC organisation, with codes of conduct, orders, and so on. But not fighter. Instead the character would go "I'm a guard/mercenary/bounty hunter/whatever they do for a living". Likewise, a barbarian would call themselves a strong warrior of their tribe or something like that.

Rogue and ranger are RL words. Just because you never heard them used outside of fiction doesn't mean they don't exist.

Amaril
2016-09-25, 04:54 PM
Something tells me you might be joking about at least some of them, but I'll tender my opinions anyway :smalltongue:

Fighter. I see this as less a description of your job (what you do for a living) and more of your tactical role in a party. You're the guy who fights; that's your thing. Anyone else who participates in combat is backing you up. The problem, rather, is that the old-school assumption of the fighter being the only one expected to fight regularly (from back in the XP-for-gold days of exploration and treasure-hunting being the core engagements of the game) no longer holds up in current editions. Also, the core classes in general don't all follow the same logic for where their names come from--a fighter is a description of one's tactical role, but by that logic, a rogue would more appropriately be called something like "security specialist", "scout", or "negotiator", and so on.

Rogue. Yeah, this one's a little weird. Other people would probably call them a rogue as an insult or, at best, affectionately, but anyone who introduces themselves as such is not only weird, but bad at their job (part of being a rogue is that no one knows you're a rogue, in most cases).

Ranger. Like oni said, this is a word. I believe it means someone who travels far and widely (as in "to range all across the land"). Park rangers and army rangers both exist in real life. Again, the only problem is that it doesn't conform to a uniform system of naming logic.

Barbarian. Same kind of thing as the rogue--other people would totally call them that, but they'd never use it for themselves. I'd go with berserker, since that can be an actual term for a recognized social role and occupation.

As for the others, yeah, the names are gonna get weird when they start having to come up with fifteen different ones for a sneaky mage, or a brawny healer. The term "adventurer" is, I think, mostly a holdover from Tolkien (really just The Hobbit, far as I know). I usually go with mercenary, treasure-hunter, or something more appropriate to what they typically do, specifically.

RedWarlock
2016-09-25, 04:58 PM
Ranger is a real job position, like a Forest Ranger, US army ranger, etc. Same general concept.

Dread Necromancer is because the term 'Necromancer' in 3e was taken by the Necromancer subclass of Wizard (alongside Conjurer, Evoker, Transmuter, etc.).

As for Spellblade/Spellsword/Duskblade/etc, etc, we don't have a good single-word term for one who combines (non-divine) magic and martial prowess. This is why the term 'Gish' is so popular, because it was a D&D-created term from the Githyanki culture for one who used both.

TheFurith
2016-09-25, 05:00 PM
Most classes aren't an IC concept, just an OOC name for what your character does.

That's exactly it. But I've never seen a game where some random person isn't referred to by their ridiculous class name at least once.


Rogue and ranger are RL words. Just because you never heard them used outside of fiction doesn't mean they don't exist.

Never said Ranger wasn't a word. I simply asked how one does "range". That's not an applicable verb. I've seen it used plenty, just for military and police purposes. Never for what RPG's make them out to be.

EvilCookie
2016-09-25, 05:04 PM
While ranger could be a profession, "rogue" is generally an adjective used to describe someone who is not part of something
E.g. rogue mercenary, rogue paladin, rogue mathematician (that guy that writes / instead of a normal fraction)

While "rogue" makes some sense if you consider the class abilities (sleight of hand, backstabbing, lying, sucking in combat). Those are abilities of an outlaw (a rogue member of society) and while it would make more sense to name a class Assassin, Politician or Thief (cutpurse), it is much simpler to name it Rogue than "DishonestBackstabbySneakyMan"

TheFurith
2016-09-25, 05:05 PM
Ranger is a real job position, like a Forest Ranger, US army ranger, etc. Same general concept.

Dread Necromancer is because the term 'Necromancer' in 3e was taken by the Necromancer subclass of Wizard (alongside Conjurer, Evoker, Transmuter, etc.).

As for Spellblade/Spellsword/Duskblade/etc, etc, we don't have a good single-word term for one who combines (non-divine) magic and martial prowess. This is why the term 'Gish' is so popular, because it was a D&D-created term from the Githyanki culture for one who used both.

How does game editions and popular terms affect anything in character?

I understand why these things have dumb names. In the end they just ran out of names. That's fine. But in the game it's self it's entirely out of place.

hamishspence
2016-09-25, 05:06 PM
Never said Ranger wasn't a word. I simply asked how one does "range". That's not an applicable verb. I've seen it used plenty, just for military and police purposes. Never for what RPG's make them out to be.

I think Aragorn was the prototype - his role (prior to the War of the Ring) being - patrol the wilderness outside the Shire, keeping outside threats from harming it.

Slipperychicken
2016-09-25, 05:09 PM
The class names aren't supposed to be professions or even what characters call themselves, and in the case of D&D they're meant to apply across a broad range of settings and personality types. That's one thing that background options can help with, is helping players players to nail down an identity beyond the classes they picked.


As for fighters, a lot of people IRL are referred to as such. I hear soldiers, rebels, and militia called fighters pretty frequently. In the US, officials will sometimes call soldiers "warfighters", which to their credit is a concise and explanatory name. Others might call themselves fighters to communicate that they have some measure of personal strength or resilience in the face of adversity.

Berenger
2016-09-25, 05:23 PM
Swiftblade Cast slow on this man and then ask him what he is again. Seriously.

"Aaaaaa Sswwiiiiiiffttbbllaaaaaaddeeeeee."

nyjastul69
2016-09-25, 07:33 PM
There are certain class names that when used in game I cannot help but roll my eyes. They're class names that should be adjusted based on what one actually does. Or just completely done away with in game. For instance.

Fighter. Unless you actually are a professional fighter like in a cage, pit, or otherwise you probably would be called something else. If nothing applies, try your name.

Rogue I have never in my life heard the word rogue used to describe a person. Never. It's solely a thing of fiction and nobody would walk around calling them self it. Especially considering the reputation.

Ranger How does one range exactly? No. Try again.

Barbarian Call a man a barbarian and he's probably just going to punch you in the mouth. That's an insult, not what one calls them self.


Now for a few out there ones.

Dread Necromancer Necromancer works perfectly fine. Besides, what's so "dread" about it anyway?

Swiftblade Cast slow on this man and then ask him what he is again. Seriously.

Spellsword As it is, that's fine. But what if he's a SpellGreathornMinotaurHammer as per the variations in name Spellsword mentions? How about a Spellflail? Surely that guy sounds like he's going to burn down the town and chaotic magic display. Like a fireworks display gone wrong.

Anti-Paladin Nobody is going to define them self as nothing more than the antithesis of something else. That doesn't make sense. It's still a paladin, just not a very nice one.

This could be a long list. So I am going to stop. But seriously, I do not like a lot of class names in my games. It's as bad as being an "adventurer"....

The point is IN CHARACTER. Not why they class is called what it was. Or it's mechanics. Or what real world analog almost sort of by not really resembles something that has to do with the game. Please don't miss the point.

How do your arbitrary choices about class names differ from any other arbitrary choices? Warrior, Fighter, Battler, Fighting Man, is there really any difference? I can't truly see one.

falloutimperial
2016-09-25, 07:39 PM
I would echo the idea that classes don't really need to be in-character concepts.

But, I mean, you can totally range. It's a verb. Ranger range. They move about-- they range. It's a thing people do. If they're rangers.

mikeejimbo
2016-09-25, 08:15 PM
As for fighters, a lot of people IRL are referred to as such. I hear soldiers, rebels, and militia called fighters pretty frequently. In the US, officials will sometimes call soldiers "warfighters", which to their credit is a concise and explanatory name. Others might call themselves fighters to communicate that they have some measure of personal strength or resilience in the face of adversity.

I think "warfighter" encompasses more than just soldiers, but pretty much every military member in an area of engagement.

Cluedrew
2016-09-25, 08:24 PM
Barbarian Call a man a barbarian and he's probably just going to punch you in the mouth. That's an insult, not what one calls them self.I'm a barbarian, in that I was not born in Rome.

Jokes about old meanings of word aside, I could see someone from the wild holding the title barbarian close to them in pride. Unlike those soft city folk who are too clever for their own good and can't feed themselves without the help of a tavern.

TheFurith
2016-09-25, 09:03 PM
How do your arbitrary choices about class names differ from any other arbitrary choices? Warrior, Fighter, Battler, Fighting Man, is there really any difference? I can't truly see one.

As a class or an in character concept? Because if you're talking about the name of the class you've missed the point.

If you're talking about as a character concept what's the difference between a soldier, a mercenary, and some guy with a sword killing random villagers and taking their stuff just because they can? Those are not the same thing and all can be a "fighter".

Khi'Khi
2016-09-26, 12:08 AM
I'm a barbarian, in that I was not born in Rome.

.

Or Athens for that matter! The ancient Greek word "barbaros," from whence we get "barbarian," was the word for any sort of non-Greek foreigner. It was a derogatory term that mocked the way foreign languages sounded to the Greeks. (they thought the languages of the surrounding peoples sounded like "bar-bar-bar,")

And now you know

Slipperychicken
2016-09-26, 12:08 AM
I think "warfighter" encompasses more than just soldiers, but pretty much every military member in an area of engagement.

I think you're right.

Fri
2016-09-26, 12:18 AM
Never said Ranger wasn't a word. I simply asked how one does "range". That's not an applicable verb. I've seen it used plenty, just for military and police purposes. Never for what RPG's make them out to be.

According to google

3.
(of a person or animal) travel or wander over a wide area.
"patrols ranged thousands of miles deep into enemy territory"
synonyms: roam, rove, traverse, travel, journey, wander, drift, ramble, meander, stroll, traipse, walk, hike, trek
"they ranged over the sprawling hills"

I assume this is what rangers refer to.

EvilCookie
2016-09-26, 12:32 AM
Or Athens for that matter! The ancient Greek word "barbaros," from whence we get "barbarian," was the word for any sort of non-Greek foreigner. It was a derogatory term that mocked the way foreign languages sounded to the Greeks. (they thought the languages of the surrounding peoples sounded like "bar-bar-bar"

Actually the name comes from the latin word for beard "barba, barbae f." for it was a time before rome adopted the greek "the bigger your beard the bigger your phylosophical knowledge", and the intruders were simply "bearded men"

Fri
2016-09-26, 12:41 AM
Actually the name comes from the latin word for beard "barba, barbae f." for it was a time before rome adopted the greek "the bigger your beard the bigger your phylosophical knowledge", and the intruders were simply "bearded men"

Oh man, this is true.

I only found out a while back that philosopher beard, is an actual, real concept back then. You can't be a good philosopher without appropriately awesome beard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beard#The_.22philosopher.27s_beard.22

raygun goth
2016-09-26, 01:00 AM
Fighter. Unless you actually are a professional fighter like in a cage, pit, or otherwise you probably would be called something else. If nothing applies, try your name.

The original was "Fighting Man." They changed it to "fighter" when they realized girls could also be one.


Rogue
I have never in my life heard the word rogue used to describe a person. Never. It's solely a thing of fiction and nobody would walk around calling them self it. Especially considering the reputation.

You don't live in the 1600s. It was perfectly acceptable during the time to refer to oneself as a "rogue" when in a playful or mischievious context.


Ranger
How does one range exactly? No. Try again.

"Ranging" is what you do when you're overseeing a tract of land. "Rangers" are people who work the "range" doing "range-work."


Barbarian
Call a man a barbarian and he's probably just going to punch you in the mouth. That's an insult, not what one calls them self.

I have always had a problem with this word and this class, but the term comes from the Robert E. Howard, who described "mighty thewed barbarians" who came from his mysterious north lands.



Now for a few out there ones.

Dread Necromancer Necromancer works perfectly fine. Besides, what's so "dread" about it anyway?

Necromancer and Dread Nekomancer were already taken. Someone objected to being called "crazy cat lady."


Swiftblade
Cast slow on this man and then ask him what he is again. Seriously.

You can't. That's literally its class feature. "You can't cast slow on me."


Spellsword
As it is, that's fine. But what if he's a SpellGreathornMinotaurHammer as per the variations in name Spellsword mentions? How about a Spellflail? Surely that guy sounds like he's going to burn down the town and chaotic magic display. Like a fireworks display gone wrong.

Yes, but this isn't about "spellflails," it's about "spellswords." Would you prefer "fightmage?" This one's at least as old as Elder Scrolls II, which makes it damn near venerable.


Anti-Paladin
Nobody is going to define them self as nothing more than the antithesis of something else. That doesn't make sense. It's still a paladin, just not a very nice one.

"Paladin" itself is kinda dicey - historically it refers to the peers of Charlemagne, which were not a very paladin-y group of people at all. The "anti-" prefix has a long history in the RPG industry, which, of course, does not protect it from criticism. The much funnier (to me) "blackguard" has its origins as a derogatory epithet used to describe scullery personnel in the army.


This could be a long list. So I am going to stop. But seriously, I do not like a lot of class names in my games. It's as bad as being an "adventurer"....

"Adventurer" was in use as early as the 1660s to describe what D&D characters do. Before that it was "mercenary," "outlaw," or "beggar."


The point is IN CHARACTER. Not why they class is called what it was. Or it's mechanics. Or what real world analog almost sort of by not really resembles something that has to do with the game. Please don't miss the point.

Hey, in the old days, what we're calling rogue now was "thief," and most tables I've been through since then have had training rules - you think using these names is bad? Imagine having to find a thief of higher level than you to train you when you thought you needed a new level, that person is always higher rank than you in the thief's guild (there's only one and it's global), and the DM is being 100% serious.

Some classes can describe jobs - Wizard, for example. There's not a whole lot of ways to spin it, and that feels like one of the weaknesses of the class to me (but if it were up to me, the "core four" would be called the Tallfella, Clown, Storyteller, and Magician, and the game would be very different).

nyjastul69
2016-09-26, 02:16 AM
As a class or an in character concept? Because if you're talking about the name of the class you've missed the point.

If you're talking about as a character concept what's the difference between a soldier, a mercenary, and some guy with a sword killing random villagers and taking their stuff just because they can? Those are not the sake thing and all can be a "fighter".

Huh? I'm a stupid person. Can you simplify your argument for me?

Kitten Champion
2016-09-26, 02:52 AM
I like the term Rogue, it indicates an archetype which is pretty expansive for narrative purposes. Though I suppose it has the issue of "rogue" being too general and could equally describe any character with a chaotic disposition - a roguish fighter, wizard, etc.

Still, preference for it over being called the Thief, which has the same problem as Barbarian that it biases people by narrowing the class concept too forcefully in people's minds. I would prefer the term Berserker over Barbarian - while that might be in part due to the influence of the Nasuverse - mostly it's an apt description of their combat style and how it differs from other classes without really limiting the character's origin to somewhere outside the civilized world in its wording. While you can just ignore Barbarian as a context for a Barbarian-class character - as has been said none of these terms need apply in-universe - but it's still something which can cause a degree of unease particularly when you're starting out.

I also find Monks are pretty weird conceptually, just all around. Given D&D is mostly Western fantasy where Shaolin monasteries or their contextual equivalents are - while tempering my assertion with the fact that this is all in the infinite realm of the imagination - somewhat out-of-context. I have no real alternative for it, however.

Enixon
2016-09-26, 04:04 AM
I could see someone from the wild holding the title barbarian close to them in pride. Unlike those soft city folk who are too clever for their own good and can't feed themselves without the help of a tavern.

I can't seem to find it off hand, searching "Conan quotes" floods the results with the "What is best in life?" one :smallbiggrin: , but I'm fairly certain Conan has done that very thing.

TheTeaMustFlow
2016-09-26, 06:33 AM
"Paladin" itself is kinda dicey - historically it refers to the peers of Charlemagne, which were not a very paladin-y group of people at all. The "anti-" prefix has a long history in the RPG industry, which, of course, does not protect it from criticism. The much funnier (to me) "blackguard" has its origins as a derogatory epithet used to describe scullery personnel in the army.

Huh? The (essentially mythical) Paladins of Charlemagne are exactly the sort of people you'd expect a D&D Paladin to be based on. Works like the Matter of France and the Song of Roland have them as heroic knights (at least by contemporary standards of heroism, which are close enough to D&D standards of heroism if you swap out Saracen for Orc). And their historical counterparts were simply nobles and commanders under a great monarch, which seems a fairly fair thing for a Paladin to be.

And while Blackguard does have the origin you describe, it normally means a dishonourable or contemptible man, and in the 18th century came to refer to a scoundrel or villain, which seems a fai enough description for the D&D character, though why it should refer specifically to fallen Paladins is indeed questionable.

2D8HP
2016-09-26, 06:55 AM
Those are abilities of an outlaw (a rogue member of society) and while it would make more sense to name a class Assassin, Politician or Thief (cutpurse), it is much simpler to name it Rogue than "DishonestBackstabbySneakyMan"Now I'm going to try and fit "DishonestBackstabbySneakyMan" on my character sheet!
:biggrin:
This is why the term 'Gish' is so popular, because it was a D&D-created term from the Githyanki culture for one who used both.I've been wondering what "Gish" meant.
Thanks!
(I believe in "Ye olden times", "Elf" ment much the same thing)

ComradeBear
2016-09-26, 08:43 AM
Ranger How does one range exactly? No. Try again.


By travelling/wandering. Range is also verb with many meanings, including:
"a : to roam at large or freely
b : to move over an area so as to explore it"

So it turns out a Ranger does, in fact, range.

Cosi
2016-09-26, 09:17 AM
Fighter. Unless you actually are a professional fighter like in a cage, pit, or otherwise you probably would be called something else. If nothing applies, try your name.

That's not really the issue with the Fighter. The issue with the Fighter is that he only has one verb: fight. When the situation calls for tracking, navigation, infiltration, trade, deception, persuasion, investigation, or construction, there's nothing for a "Fighter" to do. Compare that to a Wizard, who has a noun (magic) which he can use to do any verb. He can track someone with magic, use magic to infiltrate, or construct something with magic. He can even fight with magic.


Rogue I have never in my life heard the word rogue used to describe a person. Never. It's solely a thing of fiction and nobody would walk around calling them self it. Especially considering the reputation.

Fortunately, D&D is a work of fiction. Also, Rogue is great because it's detailed enough to instantly explain what the character is (a broadly Han Solo-ish type), without being so detailed as to pidgeonhole the character.


Ranger How does one range exactly? No. Try again.

The class is called "Ranger" because Aragorn was a called a ranger and early D&D was 100% a Tolkien riff. This one is pretty good, and a lot of the alternatives are worse. Seriously, what else are you calling this guy? Woodsman doesn't work, because there are desert Rangers and mountain Rangers. Hunter might work, but it moves your game closer to WoW clone status.

Also, there are actual people who are called "Ranger" and do things broadly similar to what you'd expect a D&D Ranger to do.


Barbarian Call a man a barbarian and he's probably just going to punch you in the mouth. That's an insult, not what one calls them self.

The class is called "Barbarian" because Conan was a Barbarian. It's a fine name, though there are arguments for using Berserker instead.


Dread Necromancer Necromancer works perfectly fine. Besides, what's so "dread" about it anyway?

As has been pointed out, 3.5 already had a Necromancer (the Wizard who specializes in Necromancy). Also, dread is a pretty cool adjective. Would you be as impressed by Pirate Roberts?


Swiftblade Cast slow on this man and then ask him what he is again. Seriously.

Is a Fighter not a Fighter while not actively fighting?


Spellsword As it is, that's fine. But what if he's a SpellGreathornMinotaurHammer as per the variations in name Spellsword mentions? How about a Spellflail? Surely that guy sounds like he's going to burn down the town and chaotic magic display. Like a fireworks display gone wrong.

Yes, having weapons in class names is dumb (unless the class is a weapon specialist, but that is also dumb).


Anti-Paladin Nobody is going to define them self as nothing more than the antithesis of something else. That doesn't make sense. It's still a paladin, just not a very nice one.

I dunno, there were people who called themselves anti-popes (admittedly, it didn't have the same relative meaning as Anti-Paladin).

quinron
2016-09-26, 10:08 AM
:biggrin:I've been wondering what "Gish" meant.
Thanks!
(I believe in "Ye olden times", "Elf" ment much the same thing)

I've always been frustrated by the term "gish" being considered a Githyanki term. I won't deny that it is one in-game, but it seems evident to me that "gish" is derived from "gestalt" - it's a class whose physical and magical capabilities combine to form something more significant than just "fighter/wizard."

D+1
2016-09-26, 10:15 AM
You read a book or play a game set in a particular fictional world. A character calls himself a "Landwalker". What is that? Maybe he's like a ranger and walks the land fighting the monsters and bad humanoids to keep more civilized areas safe. Maybe he's like a fighter with a traditional military background and the name is used generically in the setting as a reference to military needing to march long distances. Maybe he's like a magic-user and the "land" that he walks is the same one that everyone does, but being a magic-user he sees and feels magic that others don't and so he walks a different "land" than they.

What does it matter the NAME of the class. You can NAME the class anything. Why call someone a magic-user rather than a wizard? Maybe for no better reason than back in the day they wanted to use "wizard" as a level title (and used up a lot of other potential class names as level titles) so they needed something else to name the class. Why cleric and not priest? Thief rather than rogue or criminal or blurgelfleimer? What the player in the chair uses as the class name for their character need not be the word that the character in the game world actually uses to describe his "career" or job. That seemed to actually have been the purpose of level titles back in the day - to have a word that the PC could and would use IN GAME that not only indicates his profession but also makes clear how advanced he is within that profession.

Maybe that's what you really want. As it is the names of the various classes are not exactly brimming over with relevance and meaning. It's just a name, often now used by tradition as much as anything else, that is used for generic reference. If it bothers you, just change it. Many games do. 2E changed them from what 1E had. Thief became rogue as a suggestion that the job of the class was not necessarily to STEAL everything. Magic-user did indeed become wizard because level titles were dropped from the game and it could then be used without creating confusion. Clerics became priests, again since the level title was no longer in use, but also because referring to religious leaders as "clerics" is somewhat archaic and less readily understood by those new to the game. Rather than have them wonder how religion has anything to do with typing and filing papers it was changed. Fighter became warrior which seems more descriptive of a general class.

Really don't understand your objection to ranger, however. Even without having been initially based directly on Aragorn from LotR, who was one of the Rangers protecting the northern portions of Middle Earth (including the Shire) from all the bad things beyond their borders, there's still US Forest Service Rangers, US Army Rangers, etc. To "range" IS a verb but also "range" a PLACE. Home, home on the range... A ranger is one who ranges (i.e., wanders, roams) a forest or "a range" (i.e., an area, especially one where livestock graze or referring to the extents that certain plants or animals can be found.

But again, if Ranger just doesn't mean to you what you think it should for the class, then give it a name exclusive to your campaign world. Players might even enjoy the unique touch.

Flickerdart
2016-09-26, 10:19 AM
Nobody is going to define them self as nothing more than the antithesis of something else.
That's absolutely not true, and you only need open a history book to find loads and loads of people, movements, and alliances that were explicitly "we are the opposite of those guys there."

SimonMoon6
2016-09-26, 10:25 AM
For me, Fighter is a weird class name, but it goes back to first edition (or earlier) where we had an equally awkward class name: Magic-User.

It's like each class had to say what the person was going to do: this guy fights, this guy uses magic.

The class of Thief is along those same lines, saying "this is a guy who engages in thievery". In first edition, Cleric was the odd one out (of the four main classes) and probably should've been called something like "Prayer-User" or "Worshipper".

But those (Fighter, Magic-User, Thief) are all terrible names. Magic-User is awful and ungainly, but fortunately became wizard which is better. Thief is terrible because it announces that this character is a criminal. It's like being called "Murderer" or "Assassin"... it's not something you would announce to people. "Rogue" is a far better class name than "Thief", as one can be a scoundrel without being a criminal. And while it might be a bit of an out-of-date word, that's all to its credit, I think, as it doesn't make you think of real world scoundrels. Unfortunately, it still has a bit of a "I'm naughty" tinge to it, which is not something someone is likely to announce. "Hi, I'm a dishonest person. You should never trust me!" A class name like "Jack of all trades" would be better (but then what would a bard be?).

"Fighter" is just awful, nearly as bad as "Magic-User" and is probably kept merely because "that's how it's always been". No great combatants are ever really referred to as fighters. They could be warriors or soldiers, but not the blandly generic "fighter".

VoxRationis
2016-09-26, 10:41 AM
"Fighter" is just awful, nearly as bad as "Magic-User" and is probably kept merely because "that's how it's always been". No great combatants are ever really referred to as fighters. They could be warriors or soldiers, but not the blandly generic "fighter".

The fighter retains a generic name because it, more than any other class, is closest to its roots of being a generic, nonspecific class to put in a variety of historical or fantasy concepts for people whose primary skills (at least within the context of an adventure) are "not dying in a melee" and "hitting people with weapons." Some have criticized the fighter for this generic quality, but I personally think of it as an asset.
"Magic-User" was part of the same idea—a word that told you what the class did without giving any specifics. The switch to "mage" made it less cumbersome to say, and I prefer it to the modern "wizard," since "wizard" connotes age and masculinity in common usage. But then, D&D is now stuck with the sorcerer, so I suppose something that indicates a difference was necessary.

Edit: I too share the OP's hate of the many "XBlade" and "WarX" names of the late 3.5 era. I feel as though they could probably have done more with a thesaurus, and they got really formulaic after a bit. But hey, they had sourcebooks to pump out, and thinking of good names takes time.

2D8HP
2016-09-26, 11:27 AM
T The class is called "Ranger" because Aragorn was a called a ranger and early D&D was 100% a Tolkien riff

100%?

*sputter*

:furious:

Dem's fighting words!

(Your right about the Ranger though)

:smile:

I invite you to first read the "Tolkien in Dungeons & Dragons article before the rest of my rant :smallwink:

The Dragon, April 1978 (https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=19&ved=0ahUKEwjF7M6zq63PAhUK2GMKHVGwAek4ChAWCDMwCA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fannarchive.com%2Ffiles%2FDrmg013. pdf&usg=AFQjCNEqxEn338NGRRoH7jByJdsBMEIcSw)

Read it?
Good.


These rules are strictly fantasy. Those wargamers who lack imagination, those who don't care for Burroughs'
Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits, who feel no thrill upon reading Howard's Conan saga, who do not enjoy the de Camp & Pratt fantasies or Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
pitting their swords against evil sorceries will not be likely to find Dungeons & Dragons to their taste. But those whose imaginations know no bounds will find that these rules are the answer to their prayers. With this last
bit of advice we invite you to read on and enjoy a "world" where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!
E. Gary Gygax
Tactical Studies Rules Editor
1 November 1973
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

To cite a few, Law/Chaos started out as the only axis of D&D alignment back in 1974.The literary antecedents of Law and Chaos were Poul Anderson (Three Hearts and Three Lions) and Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melinbourne.
Having read some Michael Moorcock, I'm also pretty sure the Lawful vs. Chaotic axis exists because Gary Gygax didn't understand the concept of satire or the possibility that the reader was supposed to disapprove of the protagonist.The "Thief" (later the "Rogue") class owes much to Leiber's the "Gray Mouser", Abraham Merritt' The Metal Monster is likely an inspiration for Modrons, and D&D Trolls are much more like the one in "Three Hearts and Three Lions", than the Trolls in Tolkien.
To mangle Kipling:
"What should they who only know of Dungeons & Dragons, of D&D know?"
(I believe the original poem (http://www.telelib.com/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/verse/volumeXI/englishflag.html) was about some tiny place where it rains a lot, which is clearly not as important as D&D!).
I've been loving RPG's since 1978, but if I had to choose between losing all of RPG material published after then or most any chapter of the APPENDIX N works that inspired D&D, I would not hesitate to save the pre '78 works. I love my musty old books, and I refuse to accept that they're irrelevant!
Imric the elf-earl rode out by night to see what happened in the lands of men. It was a cool spring dark with the moon nearly full, time glittering on the grass and the stars still hard and bright as in winter. The night was very quiet save for the sigh of wind in budding branches, and the world was all sliding shadows and cold white light. The hoofs of Imric's horse was shod with an alloy of silver, and as high clear ringing went where they struck.
He rode into a forest. Night lay heavy between the trees, but from afar he spied a ruddy glimmer. When he came near, he saw it was firefight shinning through cracks in a hut of mud and wattles under a great gnarly oak from whose boughs Imric remembered the Druids cutting mistletoe. He could sense that a witch lived here, so he dismounted and rapped on the door. Get thee to a library!

*breathing slows*

*face loses red hue*

Of course your right about Tolkien being a big influence:

But in the 1970s, the road to D&D went through the Shire for almost all players. There is no way to express just how big LotR was with college-age Boomers.I was a kid under the "age limit" when I first started playing DnD in the 1970's, but I can specially remember when I first got the (1e) PHB how my Dad's girlfriend and her friend (who were real live "adults"!) saw it and then expounded on their playing DnD (that deeper levels of the Dungeon had more dangerous monsters is what I remember them telling me). Tolkien was everywhere! I remember a girl named "Arwen" (yes she was cute, but sadly her ears were not pointed), our cat was named "Wizard" (parents picked the names not kids!).
While it was pretty close in time, I actually don't think I had read any Tolkien before playing DnD, I only saw the "The Hobbit" cartoon (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qT8jCTUqgzg) which I saw on channel 5 about the same time that I first encountered a Dungeons and Dragons box (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QTIeBuLnD-A/UR_ToMA9-VI/AAAAAAAAAKA/q8g2RT4XY-s/s1600/holmes+box.jpg).
Reading the books was what the "grown-ups" did! I was probably most influenced by seeing Sinbad vs. the scheming sorcerer Sokurah, when I saw "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tGCuLWdZTDs&itct=CBgQpDAYAiITCJ3h5IKW0c0CFUHcfgodyloJHzIHcmVsY Xhttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QTIeBuLnD-A/UR_ToMA9-VI/AAAAAAAAAKA/q8g2RT4XY-s/s1600/holmes+box.jpglZEjCz6XC1bmil_AB) at the drive-in (since I later learned that the movie was made in the 1950's it must have been re-released in the early 1970's). I can specially remember first watching it through the back window of a V.W. bug while my parents watched something boring Burt Reynolds movie through the front window, and marveling at the Dragon and the sword wielding skeleton! And sometimes "Jason and the Argonauts" (http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg1v5HkpdEA) was on the T.V.!
I read the "Arabian Nights", Greek mythology and a lot of science fiction, but actual fantasy fiction before playing D&D? Maybe a couple of Conan short stories if that. The "Catspaw" episode of Star Trek influenced my vision of the Dungeon, and old Errol Flynn movies influenced my vision of what PC's should be like!
Another big influence was
Later fantasy books, films etc. were all post D&D for me. I can remember watching "Conan the Destroyer" and "Young Sherlock Holmes" in the movie theater and thinking of how I was going to steal homage some elements in my games!
Except for the cartoon I absorbed "Middle Earth" second hand mostly from the grown-ups who loved LotR, but I myself definitely read it after DnD.
Decades later, while among a big pile of deceased PC character sheets of mine, they're Dwarves, Elves, half-elves, and half-orcs, they are no "halflings".

Kitten Champion
2016-09-26, 11:40 AM
I'm trying to think of a single non-D&D video or computer game which uses the literal term "Fighter" for its related class archetype, and the only one I can think of is the heavily D&D-inspired original Final Fantasy and I believe they changed that to Warrior in remakes. Even Diablo changed it to Warrior, while leaving the ranged-focused trap-disarming character as Rogue.

There are characters from Street Fighter and similar games, I guess - do people refer to them as Fighters?

Enixon
2016-09-26, 11:48 AM
Now two classes that bug me are Pathfinder's Alchemist and Hunter classes, becasue their names are just normal (at least for D&D-style fantasy land) job titles. I've half-jokingly had to say "alchemist/hunter with a lower-case A/H" to make it clear the person was just someone that knew how to make smokesticks and alchemist's fire or a peasent with a bow as opposed to someone with a bunch of magic powers.


The problem is technically there with other classes I suppose, you can be an assassin and kill people for money without having the Assassin class for example, but those ones always stand out because alchemist and hunter are usually more "mundane" jobs I guess is the best way to put it.

Enixon
2016-09-26, 12:00 PM
I'm trying to think of a single non-D&D video or computer game which uses the literal term "Fighter" for its related class archetype, and the only one I can think of is the heavily D&D-inspired original Final Fantasy and I believe they changed that to Warrior in remakes. Even Diablo changed it to Warrior, while leaving the ranged-focused trap-disarming character as Rogue.

There are characters from Street Fighter and similar games, I guess - do people refer to them as Fighters?

Off hand I know Ogre Battle, Final Fantasy Advance and Fire Emblem all use Fighter as a class. Dragon Warrior/Quest 3 also does, but there the Fighter class is the name of the Martial Artist/Monk type, with the "D&D style" fighter being called Soldier or Warrior depending on if you're playing the origanal or remake.

Kitten Champion
2016-09-26, 12:35 PM
Off hand I know Ogre Battle, Final Fantasy Advance and Fire Emblem all use Fighter as a class. Dragon Warrior/Quest 3 also does, but there the Fighter class is the name of the Martial Artist/Monk type, with the "D&D style" fighter being called Soldier or Warrior depending on if you're playing the origanal or remake.

Oh, more than I thought.

Though looking at it, I find it odd conceptually that a Soldier upgrades into a Fighter for Tactics Advanced. I guess it's a FF1 reference at that point? Just seems more like a side-step than an advancement. Though I get why Fire Emblem went with it. With Barbarian and Berserker under their belt already you've got the traditional axe-wielding archetypes down, asked to create two more and you get something like Axe Fighter for a "well, I guess this works"-sort of idea.

icefractal
2016-09-26, 12:36 PM
They're not IC names at all, IMO, so how fitting they are IC doesn't matter. In fact, I don't think that there's even a 1:1 correspondence between classes and IC professions at all.

Example 1:
OOC: Monk 2/Rogue 3/Bard 1
IC: "I'm an assassin, trained to pose as a courtier or entertainer and to kill without weapons. I've been with the guild since I was very young, no other careers."

Example 2:
OOC: Barbarian 10
IC: "Done a lot of different jobs over the years. I used to be part of the Broken Mountain nomads, but the simple life ain't for me. So I went off, joined a ship's crew, privateering along the Jade Coast. After things went bad there, I ended up as a professional duelist - rich guys would hire me to fight in their place. Good money, but no future in it, so once I had a stake, I bought into the trader's league as a caravan master. Few more years running this, I'll be in charge of all the trade through these mountains."

nyjastul69
2016-09-26, 01:11 PM
I've always been frustrated by the term "gish" being considered a Githyanki term. I won't deny that it is one in-game, but it seems evident to me that "gish" is derived from "gestalt" - it's a class whose physical and magical capabilities combine to form something more significant than just "fighter/wizard."

Why would you think it's derived from gestalt? Gestalt is term, insofar as D&D is concerened, that I've only heard from 3e. Gish has been a game term since 1st edition.

VoxRationis
2016-09-26, 01:15 PM
I'm trying to think of a single non-D&D video or computer game which uses the literal term "Fighter" for its related class archetype, and the only one I can think of is the heavily D&D-inspired original Final Fantasy and I believe they changed that to Warrior in remakes. Even Diablo changed it to Warrior, while leaving the ranged-focused trap-disarming character as Rogue.

There are characters from Street Fighter and similar games, I guess - do people refer to them as Fighters?

The problem with "warrior" is that it implies a different sort of thing. "Warrior," PTSD-treatment initiatives notwithstanding, tends to stand in contrast to modernity and professionalism in combatants, often referring to combatants from tribal cultures. "Fighter" is more general, if less romantic, than "warrior."

Kitten Champion
2016-09-26, 02:10 PM
The problem with "warrior" is that it implies a different sort of thing. "Warrior," PTSD-treatment initiatives notwithstanding, tends to stand in contrast to modernity and professionalism in combatants, often referring to combatants from tribal cultures. "Fighter" is more general, if less romantic, than "warrior."

It just means someone experienced with warfare, I consider it a fairly neutral (as in not indicating what manner one participated in combat) and positive - if somewhat flowery - to describe contemporary veterans and the like.

Besides that, modernity hardly applies to Barbarians, Bards, Paladins, and Clerics - at least the way D&D present them - and romance certainly does.

Beleriphon
2016-09-26, 02:33 PM
The problem with "warrior" is that it implies a different sort of thing. "Warrior," PTSD-treatment initiatives notwithstanding, tends to stand in contrast to modernity and professionalism in combatants, often referring to combatants from tribal cultures. "Fighter" is more general, if less romantic, than "warrior."

Grand Admiral Thrawn finds your lack of faith disturbing. "Concentration, focus, long-term thinking--those are the qualities that seperate a warrior from a mere flailing fighter."

Malimar
2016-09-26, 02:50 PM
I dunno, there were people who called themselves anti-popes (admittedly, it didn't have the same relative meaning as Anti-Paladin).

I thought antipopes were more in the habit of just calling themselves "pope", and were only called "antipope" by the supporters of the "legitimate" pope (and/or by historians).

That said, the point, made by you and expanded upon by Flickerdart...
That's absolutely not true, and you only need open a history book to find loads and loads of people, movements, and alliances that were explicitly "we are the opposite of those guys there." ...is correct. Antifederalists, antiabortion, antipoverty, antislavery, antiracism, antialcohol, antismoking, antitax...

Lyndworm
2016-09-27, 12:10 AM
Why would you think it's derived from gestalt? Gestalt is term, insofar as D&D is concerened, that I've only heard from 3e. Gish has been a game term since 1st edition.

Gestalt is an actual English word outside of D&D. A gestalt is "an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts." You know, like how a multiclassed warrior/mage is perceived to be greater than the sum of its levels (it's usually not, but it's perceived to be).

Ninjaxenomorph
2016-09-27, 10:01 AM
I like to think anti-paladins were from an 'arms race' between good and evil. The forces of darkness were winning, the forces of light came up with their champions, paladins. Then the forces of evil were losing, and they came up with their own champions.

Jay R
2016-09-27, 10:24 AM
Rogue I have never in my life heard the word rogue used to describe a person. Never. It's solely a thing of fiction and nobody would walk around calling them self it. Especially considering the reputation.

A Rogue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_(vagrant)), meaning a person from the class of vagrants and vagabonds, dates back to the 16th century. It was defined legal in an Act of Queen Elizabeth.

It's commonly used today. The villains that appear in Flash comic books are routinely called his Rogue's Gallery (http://theflash.wikia.com/wiki/The_Flash_Rogues_Gallery).

Yes, you wouldn't call yourself a Rogue. But it replaced the name "Thief", and you wouldn't call yourself that, either.


Ranger How does one range exactly? No. Try again.

A Ranger, meaning a person who roams, dates back to the 16th century. So does the verb "to range", meaning to roam, wander or stray. As a job title for somebody who cares for forests (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_ranger), it dates back to the 17th century. All those definitions are still in common use today, and a Ranger, as a job title, is quite common.

I was a Philmont Ranger (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philmont_Scout_Ranch#Ranger_Department) in 1975 and 1976. My job involved protecting people in the wilderness, teaching wilderness camping and survival, and a lot of walking through the forests and mountains.

AMFV
2016-09-27, 10:57 AM
The problem with "warrior" is that it implies a different sort of thing. "Warrior," PTSD-treatment initiatives notwithstanding, tends to stand in contrast to modernity and professionalism in combatants, often referring to combatants from tribal cultures. "Fighter" is more general, if less romantic, than "warrior."

A.) The Wounded Warrior Program is not actually exclusive a PTSD treatment initiative, it's for all kinds of injuries.

B.) Around 99% of Soldiers, and Marines I've met in person, at least some of whom were extremely professional soldiers would describe themselves as "warriors" if asked. Myself included.

Hamste
2016-09-27, 11:14 AM
Gestalt is an actual English word outside of D&D. A gestalt is "an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts." You know, like how a multiclassed warrior/mage is perceived to be greater than the sum of its levels (it's usually not, but it's perceived to be).

But why do you think the term gish came from gestalt? They don't sound similar, look similar and it makes no sense for it as a shortening. Their meaning is similar but so many words can mean similar things without being derived from each other. Isn't it more logical that they chose gish just because they wanted a foreign sounding name for a concept with out considering gestalt at all in the naming .

lunaticfringe
2016-09-27, 11:24 AM
Ranger How does one range exactly? No. Try again.

To Range:

(of a person or animal) travel or wander over a wide area.

Someone who ranges is a Ranger

3rd definition under range. Tolkien I believe used it first in fantasy. Was a linguistics expert that invented languages so I'm pretty sure he knew what he was doing. The things you don't know are greater than the things you do.

wumpus
2016-09-27, 02:29 PM
Huh. I thought this was a setup for a few straight answers. Here are a few:

Rangers: Why, they [provide] range [DPS]. Unless they specialize in TWF (3.x). And AD&D rangers were based on Aragorn instead of Drizzt, so they weren't any better with a bow than a fighter.

Class names in general: if you have an issue with class names, you'd love Gygax's titles for each level. Here are the ones for fighter:
1. Veteran
2. Warrior
3. Swordsman
4. Hero
5. Swashbuckler
6. Myrmidon
7. Champion
8. Superhero
9. Lord

So far, so good. But how about Magic User (now called Wizards):
1. Prestidigitator
2. Evoker
3. Conjurer
4. Theurgist
5. Thaumaturgist
6. Magician
7. Enchanter
8. Warlock
9. Sorcerer
10.Necromancer
11.Wizard

So you would expect them to get a bonus on the appropriate school of magic, no? Sorry, the names are simply grabbed from a thesaurus and sorted by the "rule of cool". I think the spells were broken out by magic school, but nowhere in the rules (1e, anyway) made any difference between them. Nobody thought worse of the lawful good "necromancer" other than "one level to go to Name Level".

Basically it is a problem with class-based rules. With class based games you are typically forced to fit the character to the class. Trying to fit the class to the character tends to result in wildly different power levels, and issues with party balance. I'm guessing that classless systems either have worse issues with balance or go all rules light and avoid the issue altogether. But giving a name to a class is hardly a major fault of a class based system.

SethoMarkus
2016-09-27, 05:38 PM
I also find Monks are pretty weird conceptually, just all around. Given D&D is mostly Western fantasy where Shaolin monasteries or their contextual equivalents are - while tempering my assertion with the fact that this is all in the infinite realm of the imagination - somewhat out-of-context. I have no real alternative for it, however.

The best I can think of is either pugilist or savateur/savateuse, but both would come into play later than the typical (in my experience) D&D game is set... While we're at it, what is a practitioner of bartitsu called?

quinron
2016-09-27, 07:13 PM
But why do you think the term gish came from gestalt? They don't sound similar, look similar and it makes no sense for it as a shortening. Their meaning is similar but so many words can mean similar things without being derived from each other. Isn't it more logical that they chose gish just because they wanted a foreign sounding name for a concept with out considering gestalt at all in the naming .

They sound very similar if pronounced in the German from which the term is derived - "gesh-talt" - and even more so the way most English speakers pronounce the term - "gish-talt." Removing the second syllable to make "gish" sounds foreign without being difficult to read or remember, and it feels appropriate that it be part of the culture of the "gith." The concept of combining two things to make a whole distinct from the parts is similar enough to the warrior/mage social class to support the connection, especially considering that gishes are high-ranking warriors in githyanki society, implying that they're doing something more impressive than just multiclassing.

VoxRationis
2016-09-27, 08:11 PM
They sound very similar if pronounced in the German from which the term is derived - "gesh-talt" - and even more so the way most English speakers pronounce the term - "gish-talt." Removing the second syllable to make "gish" sounds foreign without being difficult to read or remember, and it feels appropriate that it be part of the culture of the "gith." The concept of combining two things to make a whole distinct from the parts is similar enough to the warrior/mage social class to support the connection, especially considering that gishes are high-ranking warriors in githyanki society, implying that they're doing something more impressive than just multiclassing.

Most English speakers say "gish-talt?" I am skeptical of that claim.

RedWarlock
2016-09-27, 08:23 PM
I have never heard it pronounced with an H after the S, it's always pronounced 'geh-STALT' in my experience. (Edit: Or 'GISS-talt'.)

raygun goth
2016-09-27, 08:24 PM
Most English speakers say "gish-talt?" I am skeptical of that claim.

Even in German it's ge-shtalt. The ʃ starts the second syllable, not closing the first.

RedMage125
2016-09-27, 09:57 PM
There are certain class names that when used in game I cannot help but roll my eyes. They're class names that should be adjusted based on what one actually does. Or just completely done away with in game. For instance.

Fighter. Unless you actually are a professional fighter like in a cage, pit, or otherwise you probably would be called something else. If nothing applies, try your name.
But what is an adventurer who uses martial prowess, but a "professional fighter"? Be he a mercenary, a soldier, a samurai, a swashbuckler, an archer...he is someone who FIGHTS as his profession.


Rogue I have never in my life heard the word rogue used to describe a person. Never. It's solely a thing of fiction and nobody would walk around calling them self it. Especially considering the reputation.

This one I don't understand. How have you never heard this word. Usually, it implies that someone is sneaky, conniving, or untrustworthy. But it has a less specific meaning than "Thief", which is what the class used to be called in earlier editions. I have DMed for many a Rogue who was not, in any way, a "thief". Several of them had zero ranks in Sleight of Hand.


Ranger How does one range exactly? No. Try again.

Well, forest/park rangers have already been called out. As has the Tolkein influence. That pretty much covers it.


Barbarian Call a man a barbarian and he's probably just going to punch you in the mouth. That's an insult, not what one calls them self.

Unless he disdains "civilization" as the comforts of those too weak to hack it in the wild. Then he might bear the moniker proudly.
That said, in the oft-maligned L5R d20, they do specify that the Crab Clan trains "berserkers", which use the PHB Barbarian class. But to be a "barbarian" in that world, means that one is a gaijin, a person outside the honor and class system of Rokugan. Calling a Crab Bushi that WILL get you punched in the mouth.
Berserker is a perfectly acceptable alternative.



Dread Necromancer Necromancer works perfectly fine. Besides, what's so "dread" about it anyway?

As the Wizard specialist was covered, I also want to point out that going by the definition of the term, a "necromancer" is simply someone who communes with the dead in order to divine information. Technically, all [x]-mancy spells are a form of divination, if we're clinging to real-world definitions.


Spellsword As it is, that's fine. But what if he's a SpellGreathornMinotaurHammer as per the variations in name Spellsword mentions? How about a Spellflail? Surely that guy sounds like he's going to burn down the town and chaotic magic display. Like a fireworks display gone wrong.
I imagine it's a take on the term "sellsword" to describe a mercenary, even if he doesn't use swords.
Thus it's a magic-related spin on an already familiar term.


Anti-Paladin Nobody is going to define them self as nothing more than the antithesis of something else. That doesn't make sense. It's still a paladin, just not a very nice one.
As the Peers of Charlemagne definition has already been pointed out, the OTHER dictionary definitions of "paladin" are "a noble and righteous warrior" or "champion of a noble cause". And if you actually READ the class description for paladins in any edition besides 4e, you will note that there is no required connection to a church, deity, or faith. They are devoted to "righteousness".
So, you are, in fact, WRONG when you say an anti-paladin is "still a paladin". What he is and what he does actually is best defined by being the antithesis of something else. Note: I am also fond of "blackguard" (pronounced "blaggard"), which is a person who behaves in a contemptible way.

By the way, that is the answer for when people ask "why don't evil gods have paladins?". It's simple. Because people with a steadfast devotion to "righteousness" typically do not worship evil deities. And because paladins don't get their power from deities like clerics do.

Of note is that 4e redefined "paladin" for D&D purposes as "knight of a deity or faith", allowing "paladins" who were evil.

Kitten Champion
2016-09-28, 02:37 AM
The best I can think of is either pugilist or savateur/savateuse, but both would come into play later than the typical (in my experience) D&D game is set... While we're at it, what is a practitioner of bartitsu called?

I think my issue is more that D&D and its multiverse only have these monasteries and their whole seeking enlightenment through rigorous training and contemplation philosophy for the exclusive purpose of players having some fluff to roll up Monks and nothing else really.

I may be wrong, it's been a while since I've read a campaign setting book for D&D or an exhaustive amount of fiction derived from it, but do any of the major campaign settings have layman Fantasy Buddhists who exists outside the monastic life and have their teachings influence their lives or regional politics in any way? Does it have any impact on the world whatsoever beyond these cloisters existing in the first place?

Also, do popular religions for pantheon deities not have monastic traditions of their own?

It's a class archetype thrown in that, unless you change it conceptually or justify it somewhat better in-setting, stands apart from every other one regardless of what you actually call it. Were you to call them Pugilists, it wouldn't exactly explain their superpowers.

khadgar567
2016-09-28, 02:43 AM
The class is called "Barbarian" because Conan was a Barbarian. It's a fine name, though there are arguments for using Berserker instead.
I dont think connan created as rage using barbarian he is more like master fighter with eventual leadership around 20th level cuz around that level basicly we are going into kingmaker territory so calling conan a barbarian is probably wrong if you ask me I write new class from scratch but first read conan series until I understand character correctly you know he is more like wild man version of han solo he can lock pick he can wrestle he is literate enough to put scholars to shame and has perfect physique to lure the damn girls like moths to fire

quinron
2016-09-28, 02:44 AM
Even in German it's ge-shtalt. The ʃ starts the second syllable, not closing the first.

You're right, of course - I misrepresented the word a bit trying to illustrate my point. Though I think the tendency that most American accents have to hang onto their ending consonants (most famously the prominent final rhoticity common to most of them) figures into it a bit.

As for the more significant point, it may just be that I've spent too long in classical music and gotten used to the German; I had no idea that people didn't pronounce the fricative S.

Kitten Champion
2016-09-28, 02:50 AM
I dont think connan created as rage using barbarian he is more like master fighter with eventual leadership around 20th level cuz around that level basicly we are going into kingmaker territory so calling conan a barbarian is probably wrong if you ask me I write new class from scratch but first read conan series until I understand character correctly you know he is more like wild man version of han solo he can lock pick he can wrestle he is literate enough to put scholars to shame and has perfect physique to lure the damn girls like moths to fire

I've always thought of Conan as Fighter/Rogue personally.

khadgar567
2016-09-28, 04:25 AM
I've always thought of Conan as Fighter/Rogue personally.
agreed may be with bit of ranger dip for all wilderness needs and his stats probably rolled high enough where he has no dump stat

Kaerou
2016-09-28, 04:56 AM
Conan is totally a fighter-rogue there was no need for them to invent a 'barbarian' class to fit him. He's just got proficiency in survival (or skill points in it in 3rd ed).

Martial training as a warrior: fighter
Was part of a group of thieves and learned their skills: thief

Contrast
2016-09-28, 06:00 AM
I agree with you to a certain extent. My brother once played Dark Heresy and got pretty annoyed when he tried playing as a character using the Cleric class (in that game more of a zealous preacher type) and explained to everyone how he wasn't actually playing as a cleric or religious person in any way and his background in character had nothing to do with those things, he just thought that the skills and abilities that class gave him were closest to the character he wanted to create (i.e. someone good at tallking and throwing a punch). The DM then promptly introduced him as a preacher and he was asked to oversee some wedding paperwork, because he was a cleric right?

In that circumstance the name of the class isn't helpful as its prescriptive of how you actually play the character (and is something Dark Heresy is pretty bad at generally with its 'Scum' class and 'Arbite' (police) and 'Tech Priest' who are literal organisations in the game and give you unavoidable equipment and rules related to being members of those organisations).

That said I can't say I really get your hatred of the D&D class names. I actually thought they were generally alright at giving you a generally idea for the class without pidgeon holing you too much. A lot of people have been suggesting soldier or warrior instead of fighter. Soldier is too prescriptive in my opinion, warrior maybe but I don't have warrior is much better than fighter to be honest.

I have heard rogue used to describe people a lot (usually 'he's a bit of a rogue' to describe someone as dishonest or untrustworthy but maybe slightly likeable). I can't think of a better term that doesn't clamp the class down more (and the last thing most rogues need is more of an excuse to steal everything not nailed down becuase their class is called thief!).

Where they do get overly specific (i.e. spellsword or swiftblade) its usually using non-generic terms so the class Spellsword isn't a spell sword in my head - the term Spellsword simply relates to the D&D class. Either that or its (as has been pointed out) because there are only so many ways to skin a cat (D&D already has a necromancer, hence Dread Necromancer). At the end of the day the classes have to be called something unless you want someone to say 'Oh I want to play a character with rules as outlined in P34-39 of the rulebook'.


TL;DR I agree naming of classes is important to ensure you can play the character as you want. I don't have much objection to the examples you've listed though.

Jay R
2016-09-28, 07:09 AM
Class names in general: if you have an issue with class names, you'd love Gygax's titles for each level.

So far, so good. But how about Magic User (now called Wizards):
1. Prestidigitator
2. Evoker
3. Conjurer
4. Theurgist
5. Thaumaturgist
6. Magician
7. Enchanter
8. Warlock
9. Sorcerer
10.Necromancer
11.Wizard

So you would expect them to get a bonus on the appropriate school of magic, no?

No. Those names are from original D&D, in which there were no schools of magic. They were just random synonyms for "wizard".


I've always thought of Conan as Fighter/Rogue personally.

Correct. Once again going back to original Dungeons and Dragons, in the book Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes, Conan is described thus: "This mighty fighter of the 15th level also has thieving abilities of a 9th level thief..." [Note that the game did not have multi-classing for humans.]

Hamste
2016-09-28, 07:46 AM
No. Those names are from original D&D, in which there were no schools of magic. They were just random synonyms for "wizard".



Correct. Once again going back to original Dungeons and Dragons, in the book Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes, Conan is described thus: "This mighty fighter of the 15th level also has thieving abilities of a 9th level thief..." [Note that the game did not have multi-classing for humans.]

Wasn't illusion its own school of magic with the illusionist using it? Or was that added later?

khadgar567
2016-09-28, 08:44 AM
Correct. Once again going back to original Dungeons and Dragons, in the book Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes, Conan is described thus: "This mighty fighter of the 15th level also has thieving abilities of a 9th level thief..." [Note that the game did not have multi-classing for humans.]
this makes conan 21 level adventurer ready for king maker camping

2D8HP
2016-09-28, 09:04 AM
Once again going back to original Dungeons and Dragons, in the book Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes,I can just remember that much original gaming group referred to the book as"Clods, Demi-Clods, and Zeroes".
I miss those days.

BTW In 1970's D&D, just as a "Veteran" was the level "title" of a first level Fighter, a "Pathfinder" was a 5th level Ranger (in oD&D) or 7th level Ranger (in 1e AD&D).
Wasn't illusion its own school of magic with the illusionist using it? Or was that added later?
Just like the "Ranger" was originally from an article in The Strategic Review, the "Illusionist came from a articles in The Strategic Review, and The Dragon,

Illusionists are a sub-class of magic-users who, as the name implies, employ illusion and similar powers. Their prime requisite is dual, in that they must have both a good intelligence and a dexterity of not less than 15 as a high degree of manual conjuration is involved when they cast their spells. Although severely limited in the number of magical items they can employ, Illusionists make up for this restriction by the power of their magic.*

Experience Number of Spells & Level*
Level Points 1 2 3 4 5*

Minor Trickster 0 1*
Trickster 3000 2*
Master Trickster 6000 3*
Cabalist 12000 4 1*
Visionist 25000 4 3*
Phantasmist 50000 4 4 1*
Apparitionist 75000 4 4 2*
Spellbinder 110000 4 4 3 1*
Illusionist 175000 5 4 4 2 1*
Illusionist, 10th 350000 5 5 4 3 2*
Illusionist, 11th 525000 5 5 4 4 3*
Illusionist, 12th 700000 5 5 5 4 4*
Illusionist, 13th 875000 5 5 5 5 5*


ILLUSIONISTS SPELLS*

1st Level*
1. Phantasmal Forces*
2. Light*
3. Wall of Fog*
4. Darkness*
5. Change Self*
6. Gaze Reflection*
7. Hypnotism*
8. Detect Invisible*

2nd Level*
1. Imp. Phantasmal Forces*
2. Invisibility*
3. Fog*
4. Blindness*
5. Hypnotic Pattern*
6. Misdetection*
7. Detect Magic*
8. Deafness*

3rd Level*
1. Invisibility 10' Range*
2. Fear*
3. Spectral Forces*
4. Continual Light*
5. Continual Darkness*
6. Paralyzation*
7. Non-Detection*
8. Hallucinatory Terrain*

4th Level*
1. Improved Invisibility*
2. Massmorph*
3. Shadow Monsters*
4. Shadow Magic*
5. Minor Creation*
6. Emotions*
7. Confusion*
8. 1 st Level Magic- User Spells*

5th Level*
1. Projected Image*
2. Summon Shadow*
3. Major Creation*
4. Chaos*
5. 2nd Level Magic User Spells*
6. Demi-Shadow Monsters*
7. Demi-Shadow Magic*
8. Create Spectres*

Note: Imp. = Improved.*

Items that Illusionists can use:*
Illusionists Scrolls (or those with Magic-User Spells otherwise employable by this class):*
Crystal Balls (not with ESP or Clairaudience)*
Fear Wand*
Paralyzation Wand*
Illusion Wand*
Magic Detection Wand*

ILLUSIONIST SPELLS EXPLANATION."*

1st Level*
1. Phantasmal Forces: Same as Magic Users.*
2. Light: Same as Clerics.*
3. Wall of Fog: An opaque wall of fog with the same dimensions as a Wall of Fire, but with no other effect than blocking vision. Range 16".*
4. Darkness: Same as Anticlerics.*
5. Change Self: An illusion spell that can make the user appear to a creature of the same general size and shape, i.e. a human could make himself look like a Gnoll, but not a Wyvern. Duration: the Level of user + 10 + roll of a 6-sided die.*
6. Gaze Reflection: A spell that simply acts as a perfect mirror, reflecting the gaze of a Basilisk or Medusa as if a mirror was in front of their eyes. Range 8". Duration: 1 round.*
7. Hypnotism: Acts like a Charm person spell with a +2 chance of success, it is necessary for the subject to look the Illusionist in the eyes. Range 8".*
8. Detect Invisible: Same as Magic-Users.*

2nd Level*
1. Improved Phantasmal Forces: Same as regular Phantasmal Forces but the Illusionist can move while employing the spell. Also the illusion will last up to 3 turns after the Illusionist has stopped concentrating. 2. Invisibility: Same as Magic Users.*
3. Fog: A cloud of opaque fog that acts like a Cloudkill except that it has no effect but to obstruct vision.*
4. Blindness: A spell that if it succeeds will cause the object to become blind until the spell is dispelled or removed by the caster. Range 12".*
5. Misdetection: A spell that if it succeeds can cause a detect spell to malfunction (Detect Good, Evil, Magic, etc.). Its chance of success is determined in the same way as Dispell Magic.*
6. Hypnotic Pattern: A pattern that the Illusionist projects in front of him that will hold motionless staring at the pattern anybody that it catches. It can catch 4-24 1st level types, 3-18 2nd level types, 2-12 3rd or 4th level types, 1-6 5th, or 6th level types. The effect will last as long as the Illusionist concentrates + 3 + the roll of a 6-sided die (4-9) turns afterwards. Range 12".*
7. Detect Magic: Same as Magic Users.*
8. Deafness: Same as Blindness but affects hearing.*

3rd Level*
1. Invisibility 10' Range: Same as Magic Users.*
2. Fear: A spell that projects a field not unlike that produced by a Fear Wand. It will affect 4-40 1st level types, 3-30 second level types, 2-20 3rd level types, 1-10 4th level types, 1-6 5th level types, 1-4 6th level types. Range 18".*
3. Spectral Forces: Similar to Improved Phantasmal Forces, but includes sound, smell and temperature illusions, also these are not destroyed by touch and they last up to 5 turns after the Illusionist has stopped concentrating.*
4. Continual Light: Same as Clerics.*
5. Continual Darkness: Same as Anticlerics.*
6. Paralyzation: A spell that paralyzes twice as many hit dice as the Illusionists level, lasts until dispelled or the Illusionist removes it. Range 18".*
7. Nondetection: A spell that prevents Detection spells from working against the Illusionist using it. It also acts like an Amulet vs. ESP and Crystal Balls. Duration 2 times the level of the Illusionist.*
8. Hallucinatory Terrain: Same as Magic Users.*

4th Level*
1. Improved Invisibility: Same as Invisibility. 10' range, but allows you to attack while using it.*
2. Massmorph: Same as Magic Users.*
3. Shadow Monsters: This spell allows the Illusionist to create semi-real monsters that have 1/5 the hit dice of the original (note: fractions are handled thusly: 1/5 over, nothing; 2/5, +1; 3/5, +2; 4/5, +2). The armor class of the creatures is automatically 9. The creatures do not get special abilities, such as turning to stone, draining life levels, doing more than one die damage when hitting, or breath weapons unless their victim believes that they are the real creatures. The Illusionist can raise his level in hit dice of shadow monsters. Such monsters take double damage from silver.*
4. Shadow Magic: This spell allows using of semi-real offensive spells that have the following effects. Lightning Bolts and Fire Balls, one hit die for every 4 levels; Wall of Fire or Ice, 1 or 2 points of damage; Death Spell, 1-8 1 st level types. However, if the target should believe that the spell used against it is the real one, then it has full normal effect Range and Duration are the same as the spell being mimicked.*
5. Minor Creation: Creation of Djinn style materials up to wood in hardness, the maximum that can be created in a day is 100 gold pieces times level of Illusionist weight. The materials will last 4 + level of Illusionist + any bonus or penalty for hardness the referee cares to add days.*
6. Emotions: A spell that projects various emotions as in Fear. The emotions that can be projected are: Fear, as described earlier, Battle Lust that makes men fight as Berserkers, which can be countered by Fear (however, if Fear is thrown first, Battle Lust does not counter it), Deprivation, which can cause men to desert and lowers morale by 75%, Bravado which can cause immunity from Fear, Bravado which can counter Deprivation, Hate can be used but its interpretation by the subject is variable: 1, 2, hate any enemy around; 3, 4, hate each other; 5, 6, 7, hate both; 8, hate selves; 9, 10, hate caster. A person under the influence of a hate spell will attack whoever the die roll says. If hates self, then commits suicide. Range 18". Duration as long as Illutionist concentrates.*
7. Confusion: Same as Magic-Users.*
8. 1st Level Magic-Users Spells: This allows the Illusionist to use all 1st level Magic Users spells.*

5th Level*
1. Projected Image: Same as Magic Users.*
2. Summon Shadow: A spell similar to Invisible Stalker except the creature summoned is a Shadow. (one Shadow for every level above 5th the Illusionist has attained)*
3. Major Creation: Gives user full Djinn creation powers, up to 300 times level of Illusionist gold pieces weight per day materials created.*
4. Chaos: A spell that affects an area 3" X 3", confusing the entire area. A creature caught in an area hit by the spell is automatically confused until it leaves; however high level fighters and high Illusionists are not affected. Range 12"; duration: as long as the Illusionist concentrates.*
5. 2nd Level Magic Spells: Same as 1st level Magic Users spells but with 2nd level spells.*
6. Demi-Shadow Monsters: Same as Shadow Magic, but the monsters are 2/5 the hit dice of the original, and the armour class is 8. The amount summoned is now a maximum of 1-1/2 times the level of the Illusionist in hit dice.*
7.Demi-Shadow Magic: Same as Shadow Magic but the damage is doubled.*
8. Create Spectres: If a person is killed, this spell can be used to cause him to become a spectre with hit dice equal to half the killed character's level rounded up. A character must have been at least 2nd level to be raised as a spectre. The spectre is raised with its mind and memory intact. It does not come under the control of the raiser; it still retains its alignment. A spectre can only be raised 24 + 6 times the level of the Illusionist turns after death.

(Dragon #1)*

MIGHTY MAGIC MISCELLANY*
by Peter Aronson*

Illusionist Additions*
Number of Spells*
Experience and Levels*
Level Points 1 2 3 4 5 6 7*
Illusionist, 11th 525000 5 5 4 4 3 1 —*
Illusionist, 12th 700000 5 5 5 4 4 2 —*
Illusionist, 13th 875000 5 5 5 5 5 2 1*
Illusionist, 14th 1050000 6 6 5 5 5 3 2*

Additional Spells*
1st Level*
9. Ventriloquism*
10. Mirror Image*
11. Detect Illusion*
12. Color Spray*

2nd Level*
9. Magic Mouth*
10. Rope Trick*
11. Dispel Illusion*
12. Blur*

3rd Level*
9. Suggestion*
10. Phantasmal Killer*
11. Illusionary Script*
12. Dispel Exhaustion*

6th Level*
1. Mass Suggestion*
2. Permanent/Illusion*
3. Shadow/Monsters III*
4. Programmed/Illusion*
5. Conjure Animals*
6. True Sight*

7th Level*
1. Astral Spell*
2. Prismatic Wall*
3. Maze*
4. Vision*
5. Alter Reality*
6. Prismatic Spray*

Spell Explanations*
1st Level*
9. Ventriloquism: As MU spell of name, but Range 9”, Duration 5 Turns*
10. Mirror Image: As MU spell of same name.*
11. Detect Illusion: Detects any illusion for what it is. Range 6”, Duration 3 Turns*
12. Color Spray: A sheet of bright conflicting colors. They affect 1-6*
levels of creatures, rendering them unconscious through confusion.*
(Note: for every 5 levels above Trickster the caster has obtained,*
add one to the die roll for amount of levels, the number*
never to exceed 6.) The distribution of the effect if there are more*
target levels than spell levels is semi-random, first one creature is*
fully affected, then another, till all the levels are assigned, there*
being no more than one partially affected creature. There is no*
saving throw vs this spell if the creature is fully affected, if all but*
one level is affected, it gets a normal saving throw, for every level*
unaffected beyond the first, it gets an additional +2 on its saving*
throw, in any case, it will not affect any creature above the 6th*
level. Range 24”.*

2 n d L e v e l*
9. Magic Mouth: As MU spell of same name.*
10. Rope Trick: As with MU spell of same name.*
11. Dispel Illusion: This spell will automatically dispel any illusion*
caused by a non-Illusionist. Vs. those caused by Illusionists, it*
functions like Dispel Magic. Range 12”.*
12. Blur: The caster’s appearance is highly blurred, making -2 on*
being hit, and +2 on saves vs wand and staves. Duration 4 + The*
roll of a 4-sided die.*

3rd Level*
9. Suggestion: Like the MU spell of the same name.*
10. Phantasmal Killer: A spell that causes an illusionary horrible*
beast (formed from the subject’s own fears) from whom any cut*
causes death. The beast is visible only to the Illusionist and its*
subject, it is immune from all attacks and barriers, as it exists*
only in its subject’s mind. The subject may try to disbelieve it, to*
do so he must roll his intelligence or less on three 6-sided dice. If*
the victim has faced this kind of attack before, add +5 to his intelligence*
for purposes of seeing if it is disbelieved, if the subject is*
an Illusionist add +1 to his intelligence for purposes of determining*
if he disbelieves it, and if the subject is wearing a Helm of*
Telepathy, add +3 to his Int., and if he disbelieves it, he may turn*
the Killer on the Illusionist. If the subject is not expecting an attack,*
he is -1 on Int., if he is totally surprised, he is -3. Range 6”.*
11. Illusionary Script: A special form of writing that can only be read*
by he whom the Illusionist set it to be read by (like Magic Mouth),*
any others who attempt to read it must save vs magic or be confused*
for 1-6 turns. One spell is suitable for a full page.*
12. Dispel Exhaustion: This spell temporarily gives its recipient the*
illusion of being well rested and healthy. It allows action without*
rest, however, after the spell ends, one must rest twice as much as*
has been missed. It also allows recently raised and badly wounded*
men to move about normally, but they take an additional 1-6*
points of damage. Duration 4 Hours.*

6th Level*
1. Mass Suggestion: A broad area version of the suggestion spell, affecting*
1-8 creatures or 1 creature at -4 saving throw. The same suggestion must be made to all on whom it is cast.*
2. Permanent Illusion: As with spectral forces, but lasts until dispeled.*
3. Shadow Monsters III: Like Demishadow Monsters, but 3/5 of the hit dice, and AC 7, and twice the Illusionist level in hit dice can be raised.*
4. Programmed Illusion: A Form of Spectral Forces. It will perform pre-set instruction without the Illusionists directing it. Ex., A manticore appears, circles the camp for 3 turns, screams, then flies off while the Illusionist escapes. Duration 12 Turns.*
5. Conjure Animals: Same as clerical spell of same name.*
6. True Sight: A polymorphed creature or object looked at with this spell will appear as it really is, superimposed with its present form. Also when looking at a person one may tell his alignment, class, level, and intentions. With it one may also see invisible, displaced, and astral objects. Duration level — 10 + roll of 6-sided die.*

7th Level*
1. Astral Spell: Same as MU spell of same name.*
2. Prismatic Wall: Same as MU spell of same name.*
3. Maze: Same as MU spell of same name.*
4. Vision: When an Illusionist wishes guidance from those above, he*
formulates his question, then casts this spell. Random reaction*
dice are rolled, and +2 are added to the result. If a negative result*
is rolled, the Illusionist is quested to do some task, if a neutral*
result is rolled, then he gets information of use to him, but not*
what he asked for, if a positive result is achieved, he is told the answer*
in great detail.*
5. Alter Reality: Like a limited wish, but it must be used in conjunction*
with an Illusion; an Illusion is first cast of what is wished to happen, then the spell.*
6. Prismatic Spray: A stream of colored energy, 9” long, 1” wide. If*
any are hit by it, roll an 8-sided die, 1-7 are as if the target has*
passed through the corresponding layer in a prismatic wall, a roll*
of 8 means he has been hit by two colors, roll again twice,*
ignoring 8’s.*

Note: Illusionist may start manufacturing Illusionist scrolls,*
Illusion wands etc. at the 10th level. However at the 9th level, he*
may manufacture minor items such as talking puppets, toys, etc.*
Note: Illusionists are +4 on saving throws vs things involving*
illusions or light but most of us first saw both in the 1978 AD&D PHB.
Hey there had to be some differences as AD&D was a completely different game!
"No royalties for you Arneson! Mine all Mine! Bwahahaha!
Wait, what's that Blume?"
:smallwink:

Thrudd
2016-09-28, 09:52 AM
Wasn't illusion its own school of magic with the illusionist using it? Or was that added later?

Illusionist is a class added in AD&D, with their own separate spell list. The AD&D PHB has a types listed on each spell, like evocation or conjuration or whatever, but that is just flavor, there are no rules associated with that. 2e AD&D was the first time they introduced mechanics for "schools" of magic and specialist mages that got extra spells and had restricted schools, and illusionists became a mage specializing in the illusion school instead of their own class.

Keltest
2016-09-28, 10:19 AM
Wasn't illusion its own school of magic with the illusionist using it? Or was that added later?

In 1e the illusionist was a separate class with its own spell list. There were many overlapping spells, which the illusionist typically got earlier in level than the magic user, for obvious reasons.

Jay R
2016-09-28, 03:01 PM
this makes conan 21 level adventurer ready for king maker camping

Adding levels of a multi-classed character had no meaning until 3e. None. A 15th level Fighter / 9th level Thief was 15th level for some things, and 9th level for others, but not 24th level for any purpose whatsoever.

The closest equivalent to "king maker camping" was that a 9th level Fighter was a Lord, and therefore ready to call up an army, clear out a wilderness, and make himself a nobleman.


Wasn't illusion its own school of magic with the illusionist using it? Or was that added later?

Those were added later, at two different times.

First, illusionists were only introduced a year or so after the level names we're talking about. The Illusionist was first introduced for original D&D in The Strategic Review #4 (Winter 1975), the TSR magazine soon replaced by The Dragon. We knew it existed, but nobody I knew ever qualified to play one, since you had to roll a 15 for each of DEX and INT (less than 1% probability).

Second, illusion wasn't a separate "school of magic"; those didn't exist until AD&D. Illusionist was a separate class (or sub-class; the article used both terms), not a magic-user who specialized. They had separate spell lists.

The Illusionist levels were
1. Minor Trickster
2. Trickster
3. Major Trickster
4. Cabalist
5. Visionist
6. Phantasmist
7. Apparationist
8. Spellbinder
9+ Illusionist.

Telesto
2016-09-28, 03:39 PM
"They call them fingers but I've never seen them fing."

Fighter is the only one that makes sense. A close second goes to Ranger, and Sorcerer. Monk, Rogue, Wizard, and Warlock are all sexist. Honestly, aside from fighter, class names don't work at a 1:1 realistic to game ratio. At least for the common base classes.

Barbarian- "a member of a community or tribe not belonging to one of the great civilizations (Greek, Roman, Christian)." Does not make sense.

Bard- "a poet, traditionally one reciting epics and associated with a particular oral tradition." Overgeneralizing the term for gaming. That's ridiculous.

Cleric- "a priest or religious leader, especially a Christian or Muslim one." Most of them never reach the rank of "leader"

Druid- "a priest, magician, or soothsayer in the ancient Celtic religion." How many Celts does Dungeons and Dragons need, seriously, most of them are no where near Druidic practices.

Fighter- "a person or animal that fights, especially as a soldier or a boxer." This actually makes sense in most games. You are fighting, you're a fighter.

Monk- "a member of a religious community of men typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience." Sexist and they are almost always martial artists, but not always religious.

Paladin- "any of the twelve peers of Charlemagne's court, of whom the count palatine was the chief." First, most are not part of Charlemagne's court, second, most aren't any of that group of 12.

Ranger- "a keeper of a park, forest, or area of countryside." Often this is actually part of the intent of the class, with favored terrain being part of it. Ranger makes sense, loosely.

Rogue- "a dishonest or unprincipled man." That's sexist. Although otherwise it's faorly accurate when looked at subjectively from the view of the people they act against.

Sorcerer- "a person who claims or is believed to have magic powers; a wizard." It works, but is far smaller in scope within games.

Warlock- "a man who practices witchcraft; a sorcerer." Pretty sexist.

Wizard- "a man who has magical powers, especially in legends and fairy tales." That's pretty sexist, people.

InvisibleBison
2016-09-28, 06:02 PM
Fighter is the only one that makes sense. A close second goes to Ranger, and Sorcerer. Monk, Rogue, Wizard, and Warlock are all sexist. Honestly, aside from fighter, class names don't work at a 1:1 realistic to game ratio. At least for the common base classes.

Games are allowed to make up new meanings for terms. The fact that the game meaning of a term differs from the dictionary definition of that term is not a problem with the game term. The problem is that you're trying to use an inappropriate definition for the game term. Take, for instance, alignment. One dictionary definition (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/alignment?s=t) reads: "an adjustment to a line; arrangement in a straight line", but no one ever says that alignment is bad because it doesn't have anything to do with characters' physical locations.

RedMage125
2016-09-28, 08:44 PM
"Cleric" story
I've done that before. I have a character concept (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?335215-Character-Concepts-Non-Evil-Necromancer) of a non-evil necromancer from a culture that's a lot like Ancient Egypt. Culturally, he is a priest. He has ranks in Knowledge (Religion), he is called on for funerary rites and preparation of bodies for mummification. but class-wise, he is an arcane spellcaster.

Also DMed a 4e game for a guy whose character class was Shaman, but he was not a "shaman" like most of us would recognize. He was just a guy who retreated from the world for a decade, and in his isolation, started thinking he was going mad when a stone in his hut began speaking to him. Come to find out he was what the Primal Spirits refer to as a "world speaker", an individual meant to be a voice for the Primal Spirits in the world. Great concept.


Remarks about sexist class names.

I honestly don't know if that was serious or meant to be satire. I hope the latter.

Telesto
2016-09-28, 08:58 PM
My entire post was meant to be a comic jab about the first post.

InvisibleBison
2016-09-28, 09:25 PM
My entire post was meant to be a comic jab about the first post.

Poe's Law strikes again!

Ruslan
2016-09-29, 02:55 PM
To me, classes are simply not in-game constructs.

A member of any class does not necessarily introduce himself with "Hello, I am Bob, a <class>".

A Fighter, for example, may be referred to in-game as a Knight, a Templar, a Mercenary, a Bodyguard, a Sellsword, a Soldier, a Thug, or whatever their social status and profession is.
A Warlock, in-game, can be called a Shaman, a Witch, a Strange Man Who Lives At The Old House, or even a Sorcerer.
A Barbarian can be a Strongarm, a Warrior, a Brave, a Chieftain, etc.
A Rogue would be a Criminal, a Cutpurse, a Scout, a Thief, an Assassin, a Thug, a Mercenary, a Burglar, an Outlaw, or just That Cute Little Girl Over There Hey Where Did She Go And Where Is My Wallet.
A Ranger can be a Trapper, Hunter, Archer, Scout, or even Ranger (that's a real word, as in US Army Rangers)
A Cleric is usually a Priest, a Healer, an Acolyte, a Warpriest, etc.

As you can see, there's some overlap. Which is only natural, because sometimes different classes can perform the same job or the same social function.

Monks, Wizards and Paladins are likely to refer to themselves by their class name - because Monastic Orders, Orders of Paladins and Wizard Schools are in-game organizations.

CaptainSarathai
2016-09-29, 05:16 PM
I don't play Classes, I play Characters. This recently came up in a discussion between myself, my DM, and another player at my table because of some heavy multiclassing. For a time, I was looking at my "Warlock" having the lowest number of levels in actual warlock. Can I still call myself a Warlock? Yes, yes I can.
Warlock 4 | Sorcerer 16 can still be a Warlock, he just made deals with his patron to gain more arcane power than the originally flavored 'Lock gets.

Pugwampy
2016-09-30, 05:49 AM
he best I can think of is either pugilist or savateur/savateuse,

Final Fantasy labled him as a Black Belt . I find that word quite appropriate .


I recall the first time I heard the word Dungeons and Dragons and one of the most coveted class called Cleric .

I asked myself what the heck is a CLAARRRIC ? I went to church most of my young life . No cleric there . I speak english . Whats a cleric is it a watchmaker and potion dude ....a tinker perhaps ?

Some labled classes even if they sound stupid will bring up a certain mental image to a person . If i say fighter , rogue , wizard and most people get the idea .

Say the word monk and most folks think Friar Tuck . They might even go as far as imagining a monk as a priest like class worships a god and heals people and is holy because well its Friar Tuck .

Milo v3
2016-09-30, 07:59 AM
Was I the only kid who knew what a cleric was, and what sort of monk the class was talking about? @_@

Beleriphon
2016-09-30, 08:30 AM
Say the word monk and most folks think Friar Tuck . They might even go as far as imagining a monk as a priest like class worships a god and heals people and is holy because well its Friar Tuck .

I don't know about that, outside of Europe monks are more like this guy:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/86/David_Carradine_as_Caine_in_Kung_Fu.jpg

In that they're all Shaolin kung-fun masters.

Of course it doesn't hurt that Shaolin monks are also monks in the same way any other monks are, the Shaolin monks just incorporate training in kung fu as part of their spiritual journey.

khadgar567
2016-09-30, 08:37 AM
Was I the only kid who knew what a cleric was, and what sort of monk the class was talking about? @_@
nope I understand him perfectly just needed swift action to memory check

Kitten Champion
2016-09-30, 09:31 AM
Was I the only kid who knew what a cleric was, and what sort of monk the class was talking about? @_@

Monks are pretty ubiquitous in video games - particularly JRPGs - and they tend to go for the Chinese look of loose clothes like a gi - or for a female character something along the lines of a cheongsam - just to sell the whole Eastern martial artist package while generally implying they're poorly armoured.

Still, as I said, given every other Class in D&D and a lot of intrinsic fluff that goes into them - the Monk is an odd man out conceptually. I can see why people would assume they're of the brown robes and cross-wearing Christian variety.

khadgar567
2016-09-30, 10:01 AM
Monks are pretty ubiquitous in video games - particularly JRPGs - and they tend to go for the Chinese look of loose clothes like a gi - or for a female character something along the lines of a cheongsam - just to sell the whole Eastern martial artist package while generally implying they're poorly armoured.

Still, as I said, given every other Class in D&D and a lot of intrinsic fluff that goes into them - the Monk is an odd man out conceptually. I can see why people would assume they're of the brown robes and cross-wearing Christian variety.
can anyone give me european monk with non chinese fluff character like priest of church who knows capoeira as fighting style instead of kung fu and has zero mysticism flavor in character

Beleriphon
2016-09-30, 10:27 AM
can anyone give me european monk with non chinese fluff character like priest of church who knows capoeira as fighting style instead of kung fu and has zero mysticism flavor in character

Unarmed fighter probably the best option, although in D&D the linked between class features and fighting ability are hard to separate. Realistically a European Christian styled monk that also knows how to kick a dude in the face while spinning on his head is probably best modeled as a fighter class character if you don't want the monk class' special features. If you don't mind them, then the D&D monk class is a fine. Just rename the Ki points Focus or something similar and you're good to go.

khadgar567
2016-09-30, 10:32 AM
Unarmed fighter probably the best option, although in D&D the linked between class features and fighting ability are hard to separate. Realistically a European Christian styled monk that also knows how to kick a dude in the face while spinning on his head is probably best modeled as a fighter class character if you don't want the monk class' special features. If you don't mind them, then the D&D monk class is a fine. Just rename the Ki points Focus or something similar and you're good to go.
so its literally to hard to create non kung fu monk with no chinese fluff( ps I talked about real world non chinese monk with no kung fu knowledge)

Keltest
2016-09-30, 11:14 AM
so its literally to hard to create non kung fu monk with no chinese fluff( ps I talked about real world non chinese monk with no kung fu knowledge)

Not really? The European meaning of monk is more of a job title or lifestyle choice than a class title, as far as D&D goes. Anyone can dedicate themselves to that lifestyle if they wanted to, but they aren't going to be getting Special Adventure Training out of it.

wumpus
2016-09-30, 11:19 AM
To me, classes are simply not in-game constructs.

A member of any class does not necessarily introduce himself with "Hello, I am Bob, a <class>".

A Fighter, for example, may be referred to in-game as a Knight, a Templar, a Mercenary, a Bodyguard, a Sellsword, a Soldier, a Thug, or whatever their social status and profession is.

To me, this is a huge problem with something as rigid as a class-based system. If you have such a system, the setting/society should reflect it. I remember a great game called Bushido, which had classes* that fit 1:1 to AD&D (it was from 1981 [the one I played] and that wasn't so odd for the time). Even then it wasn't really classed based (most of your advancement came from training skills outside the class structure), but their mythical Japan had a sufficiently rigid social structure to fit the specific classes. I'd expect Pendragon (which appears to still be in print) to work in a similar way. Either you are a knight, priest, or druid (insert other classes here) and fit in that social structure or you aren't.

D&D, unfortunately doesn't seem to work this way. It has been rigidly class based from the start (with an experiment in wild builds with 3.x/Pathfinder), but the settings never seem to account for this. Consider the bit about Miko's life as a samurai: how can she be a samurai without any levels in it?

One possible escape (which is what appears to be what Gygax was going for in AD&D, and pushed even harder in 4e) was that the players are special, and that only the rare few adventurers even have a class or can advance in one (significant NPCs typically have class/levels, but are often retired or otherwise not advancing. Only PCs, henchmen, and [possibly] named antagonists advance. This meant that naming your class was pretty pointless, as the concept might be too rare to bother with.

The other (with 3.x and Pathfinder) was to assume that the classes were sufficiently flexible to be ignored, but in practice (see Miko again) that wasn't true.

* Note that full coverage wasn't entirely by class. Bushido only had the "Bushi" class to cover Fighter/Ranger/Paladin. But between the Samurai (bushi with the right social class), Ronin (easier to be born into than Samurai, not necessarily dishonored), and the Ashigaru [peasant born warrior] rounded out the classes. Similarly Buddhist and Shinto priests matched the cleric and druid classes in scarily similar ways. There probably wasn't an illusionist proper, but that class never really fit the gamist style I was used to (effectiveness of *any* illusion was completely up to the DM, where as a fireball did nd6 points of damage).

Beleriphon
2016-09-30, 11:27 AM
so its literally to hard to create non kung fu monk with no chinese fluff( ps I talked about real world non chinese monk with no kung fu knowledge)

No, a Europeanish monk is going to be either a character with a different character class, like fighter, or they are going to be commoners that live in a religious commune.

quinron
2016-09-30, 11:37 AM
can anyone give me european monk with non chinese fluff character like priest of church who knows capoeira as fighting style instead of kung fu and has zero mysticism flavor in character

This, I think, is what makes the monk class so incongruous - the Shaolin monks aren't "mystics," they're Buddhists. They have just as much in common with clerics as they do with fighters and rogues, which I've always seen them as being a kind of modified hybrid of, but there's never a religious bent to the default fluff; they're always just "mystical" and "spiritual."

Beleriphon
2016-09-30, 12:29 PM
This, I think, is what makes the monk class so incongruous - the Shaolin monks aren't "mystics," they're Buddhists. They have just as much in common with clerics as they do with fighters and rogues, which I've always seen them as being a kind of modified hybrid of, but there's never a religious bent to the default fluff; they're always just "mystical" and "spiritual."

Its the kung fu movie monk though, in particular the wire-fu movie monk the class is emulating. The kung fu monk is a Chinese fantasy story staple, and one that D&D emulates reasonably well. Look at Sun Wukong, sure he's a "monkey" but he's also a Taoist/Buddhist monk with all kinds of wacky superpowers.

VoxRationis
2016-09-30, 12:51 PM
This, I think, is what makes the monk class so incongruous - the Shaolin monks aren't "mystics," they're Buddhists. They have just as much in common with clerics as they do with fighters and rogues, which I've always seen them as being a kind of modified hybrid of, but there's never a religious bent to the default fluff; they're always just "mystical" and "spiritual."

"Mystical" and "Spiritual" are just different ways of saying "religious," really—it just means you're devoted to your supernatural beliefs. Yet those qualities are what make me wince a little when I hear people trying to pass monks off in strict settings as "just a skilled wrestler" or a "brawler"—there's too much cultural context in both the class descriptions and the actual class abilities to really be made generic in those ways.

khadgar567
2016-09-30, 01:50 PM
Its the kung fu movie monk though, in particular the wire-fu movie monk the class is emulating. The kung fu monk is a Chinese fantasy story staple, and one that D&D emulates reasonably well. Look at Sun Wukong, sure he's a "monkey" but he's also a Taoist/Buddhist monk with all kinds of wacky superpowers.
the monkey king I dont know how to build him in d&d or pathfinder actually as long as we use path finder its kind a easy via spheres of power but the problem is his martial skills

Beleriphon
2016-09-30, 02:37 PM
the monkey king I dont know how to build him in d&d or pathfinder actually as long as we use path finder its kind a easy via spheres of power but the problem is his martial skills

Honestly, probably a high level monk multiclassed with something else, at least in 5E. As it stands I'd probably stat Sun Wukong as something akin to a high level monster like or Tiamat in Rise of Tiamat rather than a normal character.

Thrudd
2016-09-30, 03:04 PM
Honestly, probably a high level monk multiclassed with something else, at least in 5E. As it stands I'd probably stat Sun Wukong as something akin to a high level monster like or Tiamat in Rise of Tiamat rather than a normal character.

Yes, that's right. Sun Wukong is basically a demigod or even a full-on god. Even before he technically is elevated at the end of the Journey, the heavenly host and its generals can't beat him. I don't think he can be built with character classes, he's a heavenly being with a number of legendary powers.

quinron
2016-10-01, 01:57 AM
"Mystical" and "Spiritual" are just different ways of saying "religious," really—it just means you're devoted to your supernatural beliefs. Yet those qualities are what make me wince a little when I hear people trying to pass monks off in strict settings as "just a skilled wrestler" or a "brawler"—there's too much cultural context in both the class descriptions and the actual class abilities to really be made generic in those ways.

That's exactly what I mean - Shaolin monks consider their kung fu training to be an element of their religion. A lot of people don't like including monks in their games because they don't like the incongruous Eastern flavor in their Western fantasy games; I'm more concerned with the fact that, as you point out, the class is essentially turning a set of real-world beliefs and practices into another method to beat up bad guys.

It's tantamount to including in the core rules the option to play as a cleric of Shiva or Christ - fair for the '80s, maybe, but today we should be realizing how insensitive and in poor taste it is.

Milo v3
2016-10-01, 02:27 AM
It's tantamount to including in the core rules the option to play as a cleric of Shiva or Christ - fair for the '80s, maybe, but today we should be realizing how insensitive and in poor taste it is.
umm.... Druid? Druid anyone?

And cleric was really obvious in that it was christian priests originally. And there are stats (even in 3.5e) for gods from real-world mythology including figures that are still worshiped today.

Kitten Champion
2016-10-01, 03:38 AM
I think having a fantasy Buddhist culture in fictional campaign settings would be neat - just like I'm cool with historical fantasy which uses real world cultures implicitly - it just depends on how you sell it (Though mixing the two, as in having a real life religious figure amid a wacky fictional pantheon is pretty questionable to me). The problem is there isn't one, usually.

They're like an exotic PC race without any real presence or history within the world. While you have to have a justification for why they're there, they aren't really part of the wider design of the world.

Monks exists, so there have to be monasteries where they came from regardless of whether there would be otherwise. Whereas other D&D religions tend to be a thing regardless of whether or not Clerics, Paladins, or Druids exists in your party, because its a staple of Western fantasy and useful both mechanically and as for story-telling purposes.

Milo v3
2016-10-01, 10:32 AM
I think having a fantasy Buddhist culture in fictional campaign settings would be neat - just like I'm cool with historical fantasy which uses real world cultures implicitly - it just depends on how you sell it (Though mixing the two, as in having a real life religious figure amid a wacky fictional pantheon is pretty questionable to me). The problem is there isn't one, usually.
Iirc, pathfinder's default setting has that, where they have Buddhist creatures, some Buddhist aspects to their afterlife cosmology, and have a philosophy for monks that functions like Buddhism, but using ki doesn't seem to require following a specific philosophy. And they for some reason have not only various fictional deities, but in it's "not-Egypt" the gods of Anubis, Isis, Thoth, Osiris, etc. are worshiped.

quinron
2016-10-01, 11:08 AM
umm.... Druid? Druid anyone?

And cleric was really obvious in that it was christian priests originally. And there are stats (even in 3.5e) for gods from real-world mythology including figures that are still worshiped today.

The major differences here are that a) real-world druids weren't exclusively priests, they were a whole social class including judges, scribes, poets, and doctors, and b) the real-world druidic religion doesn't inform that much of the druid class; they pretty much just took "nature reverence" (a common thread in any number of historical cultural faiths) and "magical" (though real-world druidic practices were more Hermetic than D&D's functional magic).

Also, real-world druidism - at least as it was practiced by the Celts - doesn't exist anymore. The closest modern analogues are Neo-Paganism and Wicca, which have little more in common with TTRPG druids than historical druidism.

As for the other gods you mentioned from the 3.5 supplements - this is the same edition of the game whose executives famously demanded that the artists include a white male human as an additional iconic fighter when they already had a perfectly serviceable dwarf. TTRPGs can lag behind a bit in terms of cultural sensitivity.

Cluedrew
2016-10-01, 11:39 AM
I'm more concerned with the fact that, as you point out, the class is essentially turning a set of real-world beliefs and practices into another method to beat up bad guys.I'd be more concerned with implying the religion is about wandering around and beating people up. But its not and ultimately the monk class is. For me there is a sufficient divide between the Kung-Fu Monk as shown in action movies and any real monk belonging to any real religion (even if they have a tradition of practicing Kung-Fu).

I don't know anyone who complains about the anti-establishment connotations of the ninja when it is used, and they have been through that same process. I will grant you there are no current (notable) rebellions with members who refer to themselves as ninjas, but that difference isn't important to me.

Nor do I know anyone who complains about Paladins showing support for the rule of Charlemagne, nor the religious imagery used in Jedi. I mean there are ways to do these things wrong, but I think all of these are examples of respectful uses of inspiration. All of which have grown into their own, beyond the ideas that started them off.

quinron
2016-10-01, 12:10 PM
*snip*

I just find it weird and a bit uncomfortable how specifically the monk is based on Shaolin Buddhist practices - in the fluff, in the martial arts mechanics, and in the ki mechanics. Clerics, druids, and paladins - the last of whom actually have no historical connection to religion other than that they served a theocratic empire - are generic, indistinct religious characters; as I said above, although the "druid" name refers to a real-life group, there's very little in common between real druids and TTRPG druids. The same can be said of the Jedi - while they're clearly influenced by Shaolinquan, they aren't a direct attempt to emulate Buddhist practices in a fictional world the way monks are.

RedMage125
2016-10-01, 12:31 PM
*snip*
D&D, unfortunately doesn't seem to work this way. It has been rigidly class based from the start (with an experiment in wild builds with 3.x/Pathfinder), but the settings never seem to account for this. Consider the bit about Miko's life as a samurai: how can she be a samurai without any levels in it?

*snip*

The other (with 3.x and Pathfinder) was to assume that the classes were sufficiently flexible to be ignored, but in practice (see Miko again) that wasn't true.

* Note that full coverage wasn't entirely by class. Bushido only had the "Bushi" class to cover Fighter/Ranger/Paladin. But between the Samurai (bushi with the right social class), Ronin (easier to be born into than Samurai, not necessarily dishonored), and the Ashigaru [peasant born warrior] rounded out the classes. Similarly Buddhist and Shinto priests matched the cleric and druid classes in scarily similar ways. There probably wasn't an illusionist proper, but that class never really fit the gamist style I was used to (effectiveness of *any* illusion was completely up to the DM, where as a fireball did nd6 points of damage).
I said something similar in my post (#57). And I agree entirely.

A simpler, more streamlined way to say this is that the name of ones character class MAY have some transparency into their in-game designation, but it's not a hard-coded rule that needs to be adhered to. Hence Miko being a Monk2/Paladinx "samurai"


"Mystical" and "Spiritual" are just different ways of saying "religious," really—it just means you're devoted to your supernatural beliefs.
As someone who was raised with both, I object to this designation.
My family is Irish, and my mother raised me to be Catholic (religion).
However, like a lot of Irish, my mother and her family are spiritual people, and I was raised with a lot of spiritual ideas that do not conform to Catholic beliefs. The belief that our ancestors continue to watch over us and can have some influence on the world is not, by default, a Catholic belief. My mother also did Astrology, Palmistry, and Tarot. These are spiritual things without being "religious". It actually wasn't until I was in (Catholic) Middle School that I realized that not everyone subscribes to belief in those things. I actually was raised to believe that Palmistry, Astrology, and Tarot are part of the way the world and the universe worked, and saw no conflict with the Catholic teachings I was indoctrinated into in Church and Catholic School.
But they are separate. "Religous" and "Spiritual" are not necessarily the same thing. Some of you have probably met people who have "spiritual" beliefs, but consider themselves Agnostic or Atheist.

Yet those qualities are what make me wince a little when I hear people trying to pass monks off in strict settings as "just a skilled wrestler" or a "brawler"—there's too much cultural context in both the class descriptions and the actual class abilities to really be made generic in those ways.
THIS I agree with...mostly. It's something I bring up in alignment debates when people complain about the alignment restrictions of a monk, saying "why can't I be chaotic and know how to punch people?". Or the barbarian and saying "If I become lawful, I suddenly can't get angry?".

Those are stupid arguments. Namely because alignment restriction on classes is an indictment of CLASS DESIGN, not alignment. The classes were designed with specific archetypes in mind, and the restrictions are more about making the character adhere to that archetype. A Monk is more than someone who "knows how to punch people". You want that? Take the Improved Unarmed Strike feat. A Monk is meant to fulfill the "wuxia martial artist" archetype, and gets its name from Shaolin Monks. The Monk even has class features that say they come from "hours spent in meditation". Even the Monk's capstone is meant to represent the achievement of Nirvana.
Barbarians, likewise, are meant to fill the "tribal savage warrior" archetype. The same people who complain about not having Lawful Barbarians are silent about Literate ones. The Barbarian's rage class feature is more than just "getting angry". It's a strenuous state of heightened combat ability. Because of the default archetype in the designers' minds, they saw that state as a "surrender" to one's deepest, primal instincts. Something that people who are Lawful by nature (something that has NOTHING to do with civil laws) are loathe to do (as someone who personally identifies as Lawful Neutral, I see the idea here. I, myself, do not like to feel out of control of my emotions and my actions, and even feel ashamed when I speak or act out of emotion, even anger, because I feel like I lost Control). But there could be other possibilities. I mentioned Crab Bushi Berserkers in my earlier post. A Crab Berserker would likely be Literate (as per the Rokugan book, he is). He could also be Lawful, as he is a samurai. His "rage" could be a carefully achieved state heightened "combat awareness" that allows him to strike more effectively, and ignore the effects of some damage (reflected mechanically in the increase to STR and CON). This state of awareness could even be something that he has learned to unlock in himself by means of meditation and discipline, but it's still strenuous on the body, hence fatigue and daily limits on the ability. BINGO, Lawful Barbarian concept. But the default Barbarian class in the PHB is aiming for a different archetype, and therefore has features (non-lawful requirement, illiteracy) that enforce the default archetype.

Bottom line is, the class' name and collection of features are all meant to represent specific archetypes. That doesn't mean every member of the class "must" adhere to said archetype. Sometimes that requires houserules (in the case of the Lawful Barbarian, for example). And sometimes, just requires in-game fluff. I mentioned earlier a Dread Necromancer who sees himself as a priest of Wee Jas. He has ranks in Knowledge (religion), in his homeland he performs religious ceremonies like funerals, and is also a judge (follow the link in post #74 for that). Even though he is an arcane spellcaster and not a "cleric", in game terms, he is a "priest". Much like how many priests in Eberron are either Experts or Adepts.

Vox, to be clear, the reason I only "mostly" agree is that SOME of that cultural context in the descriptions and abilities is mutable. Some is not. Someone who is a "skilled wrestler" type of unarmed fighter may want to take the Monk class to represent this, and a lot of it would work. But that begs the question of where and why they would get features like Still Mind, Purity of Body, Wholeness of Body and so on. Alternate Class Features may best represent that character. I know Dragon Magazine had a "chaotic monk" in one issue, which had some alternate class features.

Cluedrew
2016-10-01, 04:58 PM
I just find it weird and a bit uncomfortable how specifically the monk is based on Shaolin Buddhist practicesWell I can't actually argue with how it makes you feel. I definitely agree it is a weird class, in that it is drawn from a completely different set of archetypes (gene if you will) than the other core classes.


Those are stupid arguments. Namely because alignment restriction on classes is an indictment of CLASS DESIGN, not alignment.Thank-you for putting into words the weird feeling I've had in the back of my head for I don't know how long.

Milo v3
2016-10-01, 08:07 PM
The major differences here are that a) real-world druids weren't exclusively priests, they were a whole social class including judges, scribes, poets, and doctors, and b) the real-world druidic religion doesn't inform that much of the druid class; they pretty much just took "nature reverence" (a common thread in any number of historical cultural faiths) and "magical" (though real-world druidic practices were more Hermetic than D&D's functional magic).
And real world Buddhist's aren't exclusively martial artists and doesn't really inform that much of the monk class; they pretty much took "martial arts" and "magical".


As for the other gods you mentioned from the 3.5 supplements - this is the same edition of the game whose executives famously demanded that the artists include a white male human as an additional iconic fighter when they already had a perfectly serviceable dwarf. TTRPGs can lag behind a bit in terms of cultural sensitivity.
3.0 actually, the edition that didn't have that white male human iconic and instead had the perfectly serviceable dwarf. And you said it was understandable in the 80's but in the modern day "we should be realizing how insensitive and in poor taste it is." 3.0 came out in the modern day.

icefractal
2016-10-02, 04:59 AM
the monkey king I dont know how to build him in d&d or pathfinder actually as long as we use path finder its kind a easy via spheres of power but the problem is his martial skillsIn 3.5, I'd say gestalt with Wu Jen on one side and maybe Monk / Warblade on the other (with Carmendine Monk / Kung-Fu Genius to make it all Int-based). Staff would need to be a custom item, I think.

quinron
2016-10-02, 08:01 AM
*snipped additional good points*

Vox, to be clear, the reason I only "mostly" agree is that SOME of that cultural context in the descriptions and abilities is mutable. Some is not. Someone who is a "skilled wrestler" type of unarmed fighter may want to take the Monk class to represent this, and a lot of it would work. But that begs the question of where and why they would get features like Still Mind, Purity of Body, Wholeness of Body and so on. Alternate Class Features may best represent that character. I know Dragon Magazine had a "chaotic monk" in one issue, which had some alternate class features.

This is why I have a problem with monks. If you want to present a monk as anything other than a Buddhist monk of the Shaolin Monastery, you have to indulge in a significant amount of refluffing. As you say, refluffing and ACFs can accomplish a lot for bad or restrictive class design, but when refluffing is necessary to make your monk anything other than "a fantasy version of a real-world member of a specific branch of a specific religion," you're forced to either a) include a fantastic version of that religion in your game, b) refluff a significant number of the class's abilities, or c) do what D&D does and reduce the religious elements to "mysticism and spirituality," and you did a good job of pointing out how disrespectful that is toward the real-world religion being drawn from.


3.0 actually, the edition that didn't have that white male human iconic and instead had the perfectly serviceable dwarf. And you said it was understandable in the 80's but in the modern day "we should be realizing how insensitive and in poor taste it is." 3.0 came out in the modern day.

You're right, of course; I've gotten so used to folding 3.0 into 3.5 that I forget which sources were updated and which weren't. However, I think my point still stands - the 3.0 Deities and Demigods came out in 2002, which was nearly 15 years ago. Think of how prevalent slurs toward homosexuality and the developmentally disabled were in 2002, and - in the wake of the World Trade Center attacks - how xenophobic the United States had become. The world had improved since the '80s, yes, but we hadn't come nearly as far as we have now in terms of cultural sensitivity.

hamishspence
2016-10-02, 08:19 AM
BoED (2003) at least gets a point for having the Queen of Eladrins (Good-subtype outsiders) have two consorts, one male, one female.

Suggesting that the Cosmic Forces of Good have no problem with bisexual or polyamorous relationships.

SimonMoon6
2016-10-02, 10:39 AM
I just find it weird and a bit uncomfortable how specifically the monk is based on Shaolin Buddhist practices - in the fluff, in the martial arts mechanics, and in the ki mechanics. Clerics, druids, and paladins - the last of whom actually have no historical connection to religion other than that they served a theocratic empire - are generic, indistinct religious characters;

I think this may be an ethnocentric viewpoint. Clerics seem generic because they fit "our" Western culture, but Monks seem weird because they're from a specific Eastern culture.

There are no religious groups who wore plate mail and used maces (because they were forbidden from spilling blood) who were anything other than Western Europeans practicing a very specific religion and it was only a very small group of such Western Europeans practicing that religion who were doing so as well.

Thus it seems very weird to me for a cleric of Isis (or Zeus or whoever) to run around in plate mail with a mace. It simply doesn't fit. And, yes, these days you can use your deity's favored weapon, but often some noncombat god will have a silly useless favored weapon, so the cleric defaults back to mace, which only makes sense in the "spill no blood" context which doesn't apply.

Not to mention that, unlike that particular band of Western Europeans, many historical priests of various deities tended to be nonviolent. So having any weapon skills at all for a priest of Aphrodite, again, seems just plain wrong.

ComradeBear
2016-10-02, 11:28 AM
I think this may be an ethnocentric viewpoint. Clerics seem generic because they fit "our" Western culture, but Monks seem weird because they're from a specific Eastern culture.

There are no religious groups who wore plate mail and used maces (because they were forbidden from spilling blood) who were anything other than Western Europeans practicing a very specific religion and it was only a very small group of such Western Europeans practicing that religion who were doing so as well.

Thus it seems very weird to me for a cleric of Isis (or Zeus or whoever) to run around in plate mail with a mace. It simply doesn't fit. And, yes, these days you can use your deity's favored weapon, but often some noncombat god will have a silly useless favored weapon, so the cleric defaults back to mace, which only makes sense in the "spill no blood" context which doesn't apply.

Not to mention that, unlike that particular band of Western Europeans, many historical priests of various deities tended to be nonviolent. So having any weapon skills at all for a priest of Aphrodite, again, seems just plain wrong.

I think they mean that Monks are weird in comparison to the other classes, which all have strong European ties.

If you see a long list of nouns being associated with European/Western versions of those nouns, ie:
Wizard is a dude with a pointy hat and robes
Rogue is a sneaky guy with daggers in leather armor
Barbarian is a guy in fur with a battleaxe
Druid is a nature-worshipper
Etc

Then you see Monk and the theme thus far has been "European stuff" so naturally when suddenly it's a Shaolin-style kung-fu guy, you have a bizarre schism in aesthetic. Everyone else's default pretty much fits with the psuedo-european medieval style of D&D's standard setting. Oh, and also there's Shaolin monks for some reason.

VoxRationis
2016-10-02, 12:47 PM
I think this may be an ethnocentric viewpoint. Clerics seem generic because they fit "our" Western culture, but Monks seem weird because they're from a specific Eastern culture.

There are no religious groups who wore plate mail and used maces (because they were forbidden from spilling blood) who were anything other than Western Europeans practicing a very specific religion and it was only a very small group of such Western Europeans practicing that religion who were doing so as well.

Thus it seems very weird to me for a cleric of Isis (or Zeus or whoever) to run around in plate mail with a mace. It simply doesn't fit. And, yes, these days you can use your deity's favored weapon, but often some noncombat god will have a silly useless favored weapon, so the cleric defaults back to mace, which only makes sense in the "spill no blood" context which doesn't apply.

Not to mention that, unlike that particular band of Western Europeans, many historical priests of various deities tended to be nonviolent. So having any weapon skills at all for a priest of Aphrodite, again, seems just plain wrong.

Clerics are supposed to be ethnocentric. The AD&D books I have mention that clerics are only supposed to be one type of priest, and druids another, each specific to a particular mythos (read: religion). A DM actually trying to put in the effort to do things is supposed to use them as templates for creating other priest classes more appropriate to the faiths in their campaign setting. It's just that no DM actually does that.
This is, I suspect, why pseudo-Christian faiths and deities (e.g., St. Cuthbert, Helm) are so prolific in D&D settings; people notice the basic flavor of the cleric and they feel the need to make faiths in the setting which reflect that.

Cluedrew
2016-10-02, 01:52 PM
I just had a moment.

To jinjitsu: This just occurred to me, but I don't think it makes any sense to say monks are more closely tied to religion than clerics when the latter are divine casters and the latter are not.

I mean I don't know about the particular traditions, but eastern religions had their own share of miracles and divine powers.

quinron
2016-10-02, 06:01 PM
Clerics are supposed to be ethnocentric. The AD&D books I have mention that clerics are only supposed to be one type of priest, and druids another, each specific to a particular mythos (read: religion). A DM actually trying to put in the effort to do things is supposed to use them as templates for creating other priest classes more appropriate to the faiths in their campaign setting. It's just that no DM actually does that.
This is, I suspect, why pseudo-Christian faiths and deities (e.g., St. Cuthbert, Helm) are so prolific in D&D settings; people notice the basic flavor of the cleric and they feel the need to make faiths in the setting which reflect that.

That's an excellent point; I'm realizing the effort to make more culturally diverse clerics - like the Pathfinder iconic cleric, for example - is more recent than I thought. But I still think it's significant that while clerics are being made more diverse than "Bayeux tapestry holy warrior," there's never been an effort to remove monks from "mystical Eastern kung fu fighter."


I just had a moment.

To jinjitsu: This just occurred to me, but I don't think it makes any sense to say monks are more closely tied to religion than clerics when the latter are divine casters and the latter are not.

I mean I don't know about the particular traditions, but eastern religions had their own share of miracles and divine powers.

That's a big part of my problem. The game ascribes "divinity" and religious connotations to clerics, while largely treating monks - a class that is, like the cleric, based on a real religious order - as just "mystics" and "spiritualists" with no inherent connection to the divine. It seems a bit disrespectful.

Milo v3
2016-10-02, 07:38 PM
That's a big part of my problem. The game ascribes "divinity" and religious connotations to clerics, while largely treating monks - a class that is, like the cleric, based on a real religious order - as just "mystics" and "spiritualists" with no inherent connection to the divine. It seems a bit disrespectful.
I disagree, since cleric is asking a deity to give you power, but it doesn't make sense for monks to do that since that's not how the inspirational religion works. So they don't get "divine" power since no one deity is involved.

Dragonexx
2016-10-02, 08:33 PM
This arguing is weird to me. When designing a character, the important thing when choosing classes is not what the class is called, but what the class does. It's piss easy to refluff things.

Take, for example, a monk, who upon level up takes a level in warlock to gain eldritch blast. There doesn't need to be anything related to demons here, instead, your monk can now throw hadokens.

Also, the various barbarian variants, (lion, snake totems ect.). Your character has no need to be specifically attuned to a spirit totem or tribe. They're just combat techniques, and if your fighter took a level in that, it wouldn't make much of a difference and could just be them learning a new move. (Also, in character, I imagine it would be hard to tell the difference between classes like fighter, ranger, barbarian, knight, samurai, and so forth based on fighting techniques alone).

For that matter, the barbarian class itself doesn't have to represent a character who's from a wilderness tribe. There are plenty of characters in fiction who channel their anger or enter a berserker state to fight. Bruce Banner/Hulk, Saix (Kingdom Hearts), Goku (many other shonen characters for that matter), Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, any given sith, the list goes on. Even further, though the ability says rage, looking at the mechanics, it's easy to refluff into some other form. Rage gives you a buff to your stats, so it could easily be refluffed as entering a special combat trance, letting dark spirits control you, activating the mutation powers you have, whatever. Heck, Monk + Rage equals super saiyan.

Another point, there's no reason that classes have to be called as such in game. Heck, they can even be called by the name of another class. IIRC the Sapphire Guard are referred to as samurai several times, despite the fact that I doubt any of them have levels in the samurai class. Most have levels in paladin. The closest we get is Miko who's a Monk/Paladin raised in a monastery.

Also, as an aside, where does it say you have to cast divine spells to be religious?

Hytheter
2016-10-02, 10:59 PM
IIRC the Sapphire Guard are referred to as samurai several times, despite the fact that I doubt any of them have levels in the samurai class. Most have levels in paladin.

Yeah, there's even a whole page (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0209.html) devoted to samurai not being in the samurai class. :P

VoxRationis
2016-10-02, 11:39 PM
This arguing is weird to me. When designing a character, the important thing when choosing classes is not what the class is called, but what the class does. It's piss easy to refluff things.

Take, for example, a monk, who upon level up takes a level in warlock to gain eldritch blast. There doesn't need to be anything related to demons here, instead, your monk can now throw hadokens.

Also, the various barbarian variants, (lion, snake totems ect.). Your character has no need to be specifically attuned to a spirit totem or tribe. They're just combat techniques, and if your fighter took a level in that, it wouldn't make much of a difference and could just be them learning a new move. (Also, in character, I imagine it would be hard to tell the difference between classes like fighter, ranger, barbarian, knight, samurai, and so forth based on fighting techniques alone).

For that matter, the barbarian class itself doesn't have to represent a character who's from a wilderness tribe. There are plenty of characters in fiction who channel their anger or enter a berserker state to fight. Bruce Banner/Hulk, Saix (Kingdom Hearts), Goku (many other shonen characters for that matter), Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, any given sith, the list goes on. Even further, though the ability says rage, looking at the mechanics, it's easy to refluff into some other form. Rage gives you a buff to your stats, so it could easily be refluffed as entering a special combat trance, letting dark spirits control you, activating the mutation powers you have, whatever. Heck, Monk + Rage equals super saiyan.

Another point, there's no reason that classes have to be called as such in game. Heck, they can even be called by the name of another class. IIRC the Sapphire Guard are referred to as samurai several times, despite the fact that I doubt any of them have levels in the samurai class. Most have levels in paladin. The closest we get is Miko who's a Monk/Paladin raised in a monastery.

Also, as an aside, where does it say you have to cast divine spells to be religious?

Refluffing is rarely as easy (or as intellectually honest) as the advocates of quadruple-classed minmax builds make it sound. Rage (taking 3.5 for the sake of having a concrete example) is not just a +2/+2 combat buff—it has several specific effects besides that. Its drawbacks (both a lowered AC and a post-combat fatigue) reflect the classic berserkergang. The effect intersects with spells like calm emotions in a manner consistent with an angry emotional state.
And beyond rage itself, the barbarian has features inconsistent with numerous backgrounds. Its skill selection is geared towards wilderness survival. Its restricted armor proficiencies reflect a less technologically developed upbringing and origin. Looking at the class, picking out a single class feature, and using rough comparisons to justify applying the class to anything that has a state-based combat technique simply is blinding oneself to everything but what one wants to see. Warlock is one of the worst offenders in that regard—it comes with a metric ton of highly specific class features, but everyone acts like it's just something you casually pick up for a bit of magical ranged firepower (truth be told, I see this advice more in 5e, so there's an edition shift, but the principle is still the same). Certain classes are meant to be generic. Others are not.

Dragonexx
2016-10-03, 01:07 PM
Taking a new class doesn't remove or replace the class skills you already have.

Secondly, the issue with narrow skills sounds more like a problem with the skill system then the classes. I honestly don't believe in cross-class skills.

Wardog
2016-10-03, 02:55 PM
I'm a barbarian, in that I was not born in Rome.

Jokes about old meanings of word aside, I could see someone from the wild holding the title barbarian close to them in pride. Unlike those soft city folk who are too clever for their own good and can't feed themselves without the help of a tavern.

I can easily see "barbarian" being the sort of word that began as an insult, but was adopted with pride by the people it was used against.

digiman619
2016-10-03, 05:56 PM
My only complaint is than some people think that if a class is named <insert character class>, that some people think that said character class is the only way to portray said concept. Maybe my monk has levels of Fighter or Unarmed Swordsage, or perhaps a slightly refluffed Barabarian, that doesn't mean I'm doing it wrong.

Prime32
2016-10-05, 11:31 AM
That's a big part of my problem. The game ascribes "divinity" and religious connotations to clerics, while largely treating monks - a class that is, like the cleric, based on a real religious order - as just "mystics" and "spiritualists" with no inherent connection to the divine. It seems a bit disrespectful.D&D monks are generally about internal power rather than dealing with deities. In 4e they're categorised under the Psionic power source.

IIRC the designers of 4e were originally going to create a new "Ki" power source for Asian-themed classes to use. E.g. the Asian religious class was Ki rather than Divine because the gods bestowed him with "the mysterious power of ki", which allowed him to perform mysterious miracles rather than regular boring miracles. The Asian woodsman was Ki rather than Primal because rather than spirits of nature bestowing him with mystical powers, spirits of nature bestowed him with the mysterious mystical powers of ki. Then at some point they realised that "being Asian" is not a power source.

Wardog
2016-10-06, 02:26 PM
IIRC the designers of 4e were originally going to create a new "Ki" power source for Asian-themed classes to use. E.g. the Asian religious class was Ki rather than Divine because the gods bestowed him with "the mysterious power of ki", which allowed him to perform mysterious miracles rather than regular boring miracles. The Asian woodsman was Ki rather than Primal because rather than spirits of nature bestowing him with mystical powers, spirits of nature bestowed him with the mysterious mystical powers of ki. Then at some point they realised that "being Asian" is not a power source.

I think this is the first time I've literally lol'ed and facepalmed at the same time.

Beleriphon
2016-10-06, 02:51 PM
I think this is the first time I've literally lol'ed and facepalmed at the same time.

Hey, at least they realized what a dumb idea it was.

Kitten Champion
2016-10-06, 03:46 PM
D&D monks are generally about internal power rather than dealing with deities. In 4e they're categorised under the Psionic power source.

I like that, making them psychic. It's more similar to the Assassin from Diablo II which did the whole supernatural martial artist thing while removing the religious elements entirely, and feels rather setting-neutral overall.

While the Diablo III Monk is a different variety of Paladin that happens to punch things, which is cool too.

Knitifine
2016-10-06, 05:32 PM
IIRC the designers of 4e were originally going to create a new "Ki" power source for Asian-themed classes to use. E.g. the Asian religious class was Ki rather than Divine because the gods bestowed him with "the mysterious power of ki", which allowed him to perform mysterious miracles rather than regular boring miracles. The Asian woodsman was Ki rather than Primal because rather than spirits of nature bestowing him with mystical powers, spirits of nature bestowed him with the mysterious mystical powers of ki. Then at some point they realised that "being Asian" is not a power source.
I will chime in with this to say that while Ki was originally going to be a source of power, such digressions as "asian cleric" "asian woodsman" and "asian druid" were not part of the plan. Ki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi) actually is a fantastical concept. Some grognards from 3.5e who were angry at the transition started a thread early on accusing the developers of racism because they made ki a power source (and at the time the only Ki class in development was the Monk)... which really doesn't follow through, because if you're using fantastical concepts, bullying the developers into not using one that has an asian source and instead making the characters inspired by those myths run on western concepts is... actually more problematic. However the thread got enough attention that WotC buckled. Since buckling to grognards is what WotC does best.

2D8HP
2016-10-06, 11:44 PM
Some grognards from 3.5e who were angry....
-
Since buckling to grognards is what WotC does best.While I like 5e and find it plenty fun to play, if WotC "buckled" to this "grognard" then 5e would be much less like 3.5 than it is.
Also I only just barely accept those who started with 2e AD&D as "grognard's", and I certainly do not consider anyone who only started playing Dungeons & Dragons in the 21st Century as a "grognard".
3.5 isn't even old enough to vote, much less drink or serve in congress!
3.5 still falls under the category of "new-fangeled" D&D to me dagnabbit!

:yuk:

Knitifine
2016-10-07, 12:46 AM
While I like 5e and find it plenty fun to play, if WotC "buckled" to this "grognard" then 5e would be much less like 3.5 than it is.
Also I only just barely accept those who started with 2e AD&D as "grognard's", and I certainly do not consider anyone who only started playing Dungeons & Dragons in the 21st Century as a "grognard".
3.5 isn't even old enough to vote, much less drink or serve in congress!
3.5 still falls under the category of "new-fangeled" D&D to me dagnabbit!

:yuk:Sorry friend but 2e is ancient history, and 3.5e has been in old status for a long time. :smallsmile:
But don't worry, it just means your tickets to the edition war threads are at a discount now.

2D8HP
2016-10-07, 01:04 AM
Sorry friend but 2e is ancient history, and 3.5e has been in old status for a long time. :smallsmile:
But don't worry, it just means your tickets to the edition war threads are at a discount now.

:sigh:

You do realize that I started playing DnD in '78 before 2e AD&D?
So if 2e is ancient then.......

Uh oh.

Knitifine
2016-10-07, 01:22 AM
So if 2e is ancient then.......
I suppose that makes you... Primordial.
4e Jokes.

Prime32
2016-10-10, 09:19 AM
Ki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qi) actually is a fantastical concept.
[...]
if you're using fantastical concepts, bullying the developers into not using one that has an asian source and instead making the characters inspired by those myths run on western concepts is... actually more problematic.
Yes I'm aware of what ki is, but the power sources are broad already, and their relation to European myths is loose at best. D&D is very much its own thing.

Arcane: Power derived from the raw energies of the world around you.
Divine: Receiving powers from a deity or deities.
Martial: Being good at fighting.
Primal: Power derived from spirits of nature and your ancestors.
Psionic: Power derived from your internal energies.
Shadow: Power that flows from the Shadowfell (Plane of Shadow + Negative Energy Plane).

A monk is using their internal power, so what's the problem with categorising them as "uses internal power"? Especially when psionics is filled with things like meditation and dorjes (aka "vajra", "kongou") (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajra) already.

Vinyadan
2016-10-10, 10:02 AM
Actually the name comes from the latin word for beard "barba, barbae f." for it was a time before rome adopted the greek "the bigger your beard the bigger your phylosophical knowledge", and the intruders were simply "bearded men"

What, no. We have "barbaros" in Greek hundreds of years earlier than "barbarus" in Latin. It's just a loanword that got into Latin from Greek. If the Latin word had come from Barba it would have been Barbatus, which exists but means something else entirely and also has a different accent. The Greek word was lucky enough to be even taken up by the Goths.



As for the more significant point, it may just be that I've spent too long in classical music and gotten used to the German; I had no idea that people didn't pronounce the fricative S.
Any S sound is fricative. The s in German Gestalt is palatalized, with a full name of "voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant", which I guess no one is ever going to use in random conversation.


I can easily see "barbarian" being the sort of word that began as an insult, but was adopted with pride by the people it was used against.

It happens a lot in art. "Gothic" and "Impressionist" both were born as insults.

Thrudd
2016-10-10, 09:59 PM
What, no. We have "barbaros" in Greek hundreds of years earlier than "barbarus" in Latin. It's just a loanword that got into Latin from Greek. If the Latin word had come from Barba it would have been Barbatus, which exists but means something else entirely and also has a different accent. The Greek word was lucky enough to be even taken up by the Goths.


Yeah. And in Greek, it came from their mockery of what foreign languages sounded like to them: "bar bar bar bar". It's definitely a derogatory that came into use by those being mocked (probably unwittingly) and took on new meaning. It doesn't mean anything good or even neutrally descriptive about the people being referred to, it's a xenophobic/racist term for all people not of your own culture.

Raimun
2016-10-11, 05:10 AM
... I'm a Barbarian!

Dread barbarian, that is. I got a tip from Roberts.

khadgar567
2016-10-11, 09:53 AM
ı think the problem is there is no ki user in hobbit to model it after if tolkien put simple universal monk in frodo's team this monk discussion never gonna happen ( if any actor is good for monk role ı probably go jet li as asian flavor or go out of limb and use someone like dean ambrose). I mean d&d uses tolkien as base to create nearly entire system then splits into crack fic style ideas might be result of some drugs while gaming session we got soul binders, spellcasters with various bargains. he'll probably in this very own forum someone used murloc paladin and asari princess as some setting material and make the damn thing work

digiman619
2016-10-11, 11:20 AM
ı think the problem is there is no ki user in hobbit to model it after if tolkien put simple universal monk in frodo's team this monk discussion never gonna happen ( if any actor is good for monk role ı probably go jet li as asian flavor or go out of limb and use someone like dean ambrose). I mean d&d uses tolkien as base to create nearly entire system then splits into crack fic style ideas might be result of some drugs while gaming session we got soul binders, spellcasters with various bargains. he'll probably in this very own forum someone used murloc paladin and asari princess as some setting material and make the damn thing work

The monk has always been problematic; there are so many ways to play one, but since "Monk" is a class, so many people think said class is the only way to make one. Maybe my monk is a unarmed swordsage, a (PF) Brawler, a slightly refluffed Barbarian (Rather than rage, it's a state of "combat focus" that has you move in rhythm with the battle), or maybe a (PF) Magus who fights unarmed and only uses spells that can be flavored as something a shonen/wuxia hero could do; chill touch and feather fall make sense, but glue seal or negative reaction not so much. My point is, even if my monk can be a monk with any levels of Monk.

tl;dr: class =/= concept.

Also, fun fact: The whole reason we have the monk class in the first place is because of the song "Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting"

Prime32
2016-10-12, 07:46 AM
I mean d&d uses tolkien as base to create nearly entire systemThis was brought up back on page 2. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21243214&postcount=34)

D&D had some Tolkien references (largely because Gygax's players wanted to be hobbits, etc.) but it was never supposed to model Tolkien. Alignments and the paladin class came from Three Hearts and Three Lions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Hearts_and_Three_Lions), for instance. While Lord of the Rings was set on ancient Earth before Man came to power, D&D was set on future Earth after Man's advanced civilisations had collapsed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Earth_(subgenre)). The linked article goes so far as to say that LotR simply doesn't work in D&D, because they're too different.

Vinyadan
2016-10-12, 09:38 AM
So D&D was kinda like Sword of Shannara?

Beleriphon
2016-10-13, 09:41 AM
So D&D was kinda like Sword of Shannara?

Which is a cheap rip-off of Tolkien. I was 12 when I read it and I could see then it was basically a post-apocalyptic Lord of the Rings rip-off. So yeah, D&D is kind of like that in that it "borrows", to be generous, elements from other sources. Sometimes it hides it well, sometimes it really doesn't.

Thrudd
2016-10-13, 10:35 AM
So D&D was kinda like Sword of Shannara?

D&D is kind of a lot of things, and not exactly any single thing. It's its own thing. The magic system is from Dying Earth, so that requires there were ancient and forgotten advanced civilizations. The races and a couple of the monsters were from Tolkien. Other monsters were from various world mythologies. Some were invented for the game based on weird looking toys they were using as miniatures. Rising from wandering vagabond to ruler of a kingdom might be seen as a Conan thing. Different classes were inspired by different works of fiction.
The whole thing was mainly envisioned as a game of problem solving and tactics that incorporated elements of the fantasy fiction the creators enjoyed. Not really so much as a story telling medium with a coherent setting. That came shortly after, of course, as everyone started creating their own worlds based on the rules of the game like Greyhawk and the Known World/Mystara and Forgotten Realms.

2D8HP
2016-10-13, 10:56 AM
Arneson & Gygax cited Howard's Conan, and Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories as their primary inspiration, with Gygax citing Vance's "Dying Earth" stories as what he modelled the Magic system after. Dying Earth was modelled on Clark Ashton Smith's Zothique (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zothique_(collection)) stories.
Clark along with Howard and Lovecraft was one of the "big three" of "Weird Tales" an early to mid 20th century fantasy fiction magazine. Weird Tales also published the Jirel of Joiry (http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/941226.Jirel_of_Joiry) stories by C.L. Moore, a female Swords and Sorcery hero by a female author in the 1930's.

It was Arneson & Gygax's players who wanted the Tolkien elements, at least according to Mike Mornard AKA "Gronan of Simmerya" (http://odd74.proboards.com/thread/6699) who was a player at both Arneson's & Gygax's table

I know that for me I read a Howard Conan book from the school library in '78 or '79 before I ever read Tolkien, but I saw the Hobbit cartoon before reading either

For other inspirations of D&D look at Appendix N in the 1979 DMG (which was my main source for what to read decades ago), which has been incorporated into the 5e PHB as Apendix E (https://ironbombs.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/appendix-e-appendix-n-alive-and-expanded/)

You may read some of what Gygax wrote about Tolkien here. (http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2010/01/gygax-on-tolkien-again.html?m=1)

Xerlith
2016-10-19, 04:27 AM
It's tantamount to including in the core rules the option to play as a cleric of Shiva or Christ - fair for the '80s, maybe, but today we should be realizing how insensitive and in poor taste it is.

It is not, and should not, be poor taste to include in fantasy works the real life elements. I very much enjoy Dresden Files, for instance, and I would be heavily disturbed if someone decided the book should not be, because it may hurt someone's feelings.

That's life. Feelings get hurt. Nothing is (nor should it be) free from scrutiny and the ability to be commented on.

Mitth'raw'nuruo
2016-10-19, 09:03 AM
That's exactly it. But I've never seen a game where some random person isn't referred to by their ridiculous class name at least once.



Never said Ranger wasn't a word. I simply asked how one does "range". That's not an applicable verb. I've seen it used plenty, just for military and police purposes. Never for what RPG's make them out to be.

It is not a verb. It is a NOUN.

You need to go back farther in history.

Start reading about The Queen's York Rangers (1st American Regiment) (Royal Canadian Armoured Reconnaissance). Specifically when they were known as Rogers' Rangers.

See also General Francis Marion.

No. After Wizard/sorcoer & cleric, Ranger is the most spot on.

The idea that druids have any magic at all...without human sacrifice, flies in the face of history.

Mitth'raw'nuruo
2016-10-19, 09:16 AM
Which is a cheap rip-off of Tolkien. I was 12 when I read it and I could see then it was basically a post-apocalyptic Lord of the Rings rip-off. So yeah, D&D is kind of like that in that it "borrows", to be generous, elements from other sources. Sometimes it hides it well, sometimes it really doesn't.

LotR & Chronicles of Narnia literally invented the fantasy genre, just like Frankenstein invented horror. & HP Lovecraft prophesied 4chan.

ComradeBear
2016-10-19, 09:54 AM
It is not a verb. It is a NOUN.

You need to go back farther in history.

Start reading about The Queen's York Rangers (1st American Regiment) (Royal Canadian Armoured Reconnaissance). Specifically when they were known as Rogers' Rangers.

See also General Francis Marion.

No. After Wizard/sorcoer & cleric, Ranger is the most spot on.

The idea that druids have any magic at all...without human sacrifice, flies in the face of history.

To Range is indeed a verb. And it's accurate to what Rangers do.

It means:
To roam at large or freely
To move over an area so as to explore it

Sort of like how a blocker blocks and a locker locks and a runner runs, a Ranger... ranges.

Flickerdart
2016-10-19, 10:09 AM
To Range is indeed a verb. And it's accurate to what Rangers do.

It means:
To roam at large or freely
To move over an area so as to explore it

Sort of like how a blocker blocks and a locker locks and a runner runs, a Ranger... ranges.

Does a sorcerer sorcer? :smalltongue:


LotR & Chronicles of Narnia literally invented the fantasy genre, just like Frankenstein invented horror. & HP Lovecraft prophesied 4chan.
I'm not sure that's fair - Shelley was inspired by reading Fantasmagoriana, an anthology of ghost stories. Sounds like horror to me. Tolkien was influenced by The Princess and the Goblin, and predated by many decades by works like The King of the Golden River. Tolkien exemplified high fantasy and Shelley created Gothic horror, but to give them credit for the entire genres of fantasy and horror respectively is going much too far.

RedWarlock
2016-10-19, 11:03 AM
I always heard that Mary Shelley was cited as creating *science-fiction* as a genre, not horror.

Vinyadan
2016-10-19, 11:48 AM
I always heard that Mary Shelley was cited as creating *science-fiction* as a genre, not horror.

I personally see Frankenstein's Monster as an adaptation of the Golem legend to a time on the verge of scientific positivism. But, in general, it's very hard to say "this genre starts here". Literature is more like a net than a tree, with different themes and inspiration flowing into it, and it can be that a work has a very strong element of a certain kind, but it does not belong to that genre, and yet serves as a basis for future works.

Horror is older than Frankenstein, Gothic literature was already around for Jane Austen to make fun of it, and the Castle of Otranto is from 1764, The Monk is from 1796. If we go further in the past, certain moments from Dante's Inferno are pretty much psychological horror, but much earlier Lucan's Pharsalia had horror themes in it, and a very grim outlook to reality. Yet the Gothic novel inspired itself a lot to the Greek novel, which has very different themes.

About science fiction, there's all the weird stories that surrounded Alexander the Great in the Middle Ages, like his creating a bathyscaphe. But science fiction must respect the concept of science that we have today, so it couldn't be much earlier than Frankenstein, or we would go into the alchemy/magic era, like Faust, homunculi etc. So it may very well be that she was the first to write a story in which the main plot revolved around fantastical effects of the application of science as we understand it today, I remember that she even said something about current (for the story) experiments being carried out by Galvani (which later allowed Volta to invent the electric battery IRL).

So in a way modern science + protagonist's hubris = a Gothic novel with a new scientific outlook (sci-fi). Which is eerily similar in theme to Sophocles's Antigone's first stasimon (V century BC).

digiman619
2016-10-19, 01:24 PM
To Range is indeed a verb. And it's accurate to what Rangers do.

It means:
To roam at large or freely
To move over an area so as to explore it

Sort of like how a blocker blocks and a locker locks and a runner runs, a Ranger... ranges.


Does a sorcerer sorcer? :smalltongue:

Actually, sorcery (what a sorcerer uses) has the same roots are the word source; as opposed to other magics that were part of the natural word, sorcery takes it from an unnatural source, i.e. demons and other supernatural beings rather than his own power.

So by the original definition, the Sorcerer class has nothing to do with sorcery

Vinyadan
2016-10-19, 01:59 PM
Nah, source comes from surgere ("to come up" like water from a spring), sorcery comes from sors (fortune), the sortarius was the fortune teller. They both are French words that got into English, but they have separate meanings and etymologies. Sorcerer was earlier spelt sorcer in English and got an added -er like upholsterer, I guess because the verb and the noun were identical and so he got one more -er by analogy (melt- melter, burn - burner, sorcer -sorcer is just weird, better sorcer - sorcerer).

BTW am I the only one who actually writes sorceror?

TheTeaMustFlow
2016-10-19, 02:04 PM
Actually, sorcery (what a sorcerer uses) has the same roots are the word source; as opposed to other magics that were part of the natural word, sorcery takes it from an unnatural source, i.e. demons and other supernatural beings rather than his own power.

So by the original definition, the Sorcerer class has nothing to do with sorcery

Well, they generally get it via descent from some kind of magical being (e.g. Dragons). So that's kind of Sourcy. Possibly also Saucy.

PersonMan
2016-10-19, 02:40 PM
Its skill selection is geared towards wilderness survival. Its restricted armor proficiencies reflect a less technologically developed upbringing and origin. Looking at the class, picking out a single class feature, and using rough comparisons to justify applying the class to anything that has a state-based combat technique simply is blinding oneself to everything but what one wants to see.

One could argue that looking at someone's possible skills and abilities isn't relevant, though. It's partially relevant for Barbarian, but moreso for Warlock - imagine someone taking purely invocations that offer 24-hour buffs. Theoretically they could pick a bunch of things that have a specific flavor, but in practice the character can shoot bolts of magic, are good at using magic items, and each morning they make a few motions, say a few words and become better at doing things - which is a lot easier to refluff as something different than if one is looking at the class as if a character has every ability.

Zaydos
2016-10-19, 03:01 PM
LotR & Chronicles of Narnia literally invented the fantasy genre, just like Frankenstein invented horror. & HP Lovecraft prophesied 4chan.

I think this might be Poe's Law in effect since I can't tell whether you are mocking the person you quoted or honestly believe this, but just for people who believe it...

Frankenstein and horror have been covered.

George MacDonald's predating Tolkien by more than half a century has been covered.

Tolkien borrowing more heavily from the Volsunga Saga and Otter's Ransom (Narsil, Smaug, Gollum) as well as other Norse myths (Beorn the werebear comes from Beorn the Werebear and his son Bodvar Bjarki the werebear in Hrolf Kraki's saga, Smaug incorporates the Firedrake from Beowulf which was the Danelaw English version of the story of Bodvar Bjarki) does need to be mentioned, along with the fact that Norse myths were a heavy influence on Conan, H. Rider Haggard (who invented the Adventure Genre which in turn inspired 1900-1930s Fantasy and Sword and Sorcery) wrote an artificial Norse saga, and then there's William Morris.

C. S. Lewis plagiarizes William Morris's villainess from The Well at Word's End in his description of the titular Witch of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and Tolkien quotes William Morris's opinion on the Volsunga Saga. William Morris is also arguably* the first writer of High Fantasy in the late 19th century.

Tolkien though didn't even invent High Fantasy, as defined as fantasy taking place purely in a fantasy world, or a 10th of the tropes used in it, or influence it that much. What he did possibly invent was Epic Fantasy such as The Swords of Shannara, The Wheel of Time, The Sword of Truth, and to a lesser extent A Song of Ice and Fire and The Black Company**.

*His stories still start in Europe and therefore don't actually fall into High Fantasy any more than Lewis Caroll's and George MacDonald's from the mid 19th century, Morris's stories could possibly be the first examples of Epic Fantasy though only in a sort of prototypical form.

**ASoIaF is pretty clearly epic fantasy but draws more influence from history and even Conan/Lovecraft than Tolkien, it is unsurprisingly closer to D&D than LotR is, and closer to AD&D/2e than it is to LotR, The Black Company very much ripped off Tolkien for the plot (it was the height of the Tolkien resurgence) but used a lot of Sword and Sorcery elements, and within the first 3 books 1 is not Epic Fantasy, and the others are an interesting mix of Military, Epic, and S&S, I would suggest them, Tolkien for his impact on 80s fantasy, Martin, and Jordan, I have not read Swords of Shannara and would suggest avoiding every other epic fantasy series I've tried.

Bohandas
2016-10-19, 05:42 PM
There are certain class names that when used in game I cannot help but roll my eyes. They're class names that should be adjusted based on what one actually does. Or just completely done away with in game. For instance.

Fighter. Unless you actually are a professional fighter like in a cage, pit, or otherwise you probably would be called something else. If nothing applies, try your name.

Rogue I have never in my life heard the word rogue used to describe a person. Never. It's solely a thing of fiction and nobody would walk around calling them self it. Especially considering the reputation.

Ranger How does one range exactly? No. Try again.

Barbarian Call a man a barbarian and he's probably just going to punch you in the mouth. That's an insult, not what one calls them self.


Now for a few out there ones.

Dread Necromancer Necromancer works perfectly fine. Besides, what's so "dread" about it anyway?

Swiftblade Cast slow on this man and then ask him what he is again. Seriously.

Spellsword As it is, that's fine. But what if he's a SpellGreathornMinotaurHammer as per the variations in name Spellsword mentions? How about a Spellflail? Surely that guy sounds like he's going to burn down the town and chaotic magic display. Like a fireworks display gone wrong.

Anti-Paladin Nobody is going to define them self as nothing more than the antithesis of something else. That doesn't make sense. It's still a paladin, just not a very nice one.

This could be a long list. So I am going to stop. But seriously, I do not like a lot of class names in my games. It's as bad as being an "adventurer"....

The point is IN CHARACTER. Not why they class is called what it was. Or it's mechanics. Or what real world analog almost sort of by not really resembles something that has to do with the game. Please don't miss the point. Or do, I mean, everyone else did. Why not right? Words.

You left out the Monk, which is a misleading name. Even if you specified a Buddhist monk I think most people would think of something closer to the Dalai Lama and his crew.

As for the Dread Necromancer class, I think it's so named to distinguish it from the Necromancer specialist wizard

Vinyadan
2016-10-19, 05:57 PM
Tolkien borrowing more heavily from the Volsunga Saga and Otter's Ransom (Narsil, Smaug, Gollum) as well as other Norse myths (Beorn the werebear comes from Beorn the Werebear and his son Bodvar Bjarki the werebear in Hrolf Kraki's saga, Smaug incorporates the Firedrake from Beowulf which was the Danelaw English version of the story of Bodvar Bjarki) does need to be mentioned, along with the fact that Norse myths were a heavy influence on Conan, H. Rider Haggard (who invented the Adventure Genre which in turn inspired 1900-1930s Fantasy and Sword and Sorcery) wrote an artificial Norse saga, and then there's William Morris.

I think there is a very important prequel to Tolkien you have not named, and it's the Kalevala, for a very important reason: it's "fake", it's not a true medieval or ancient composition. It's something which was made by Elias Lönnrot in the nineteenth century, sure, collecting ancient or simply folk tales, but it isn't like the Norse sagas. The objective of creating a cultural work around which Finland could be united is also rather similar to what Tolkien once wrote had been his first objective for his legendarium, that of giving a mythology to England (iirc). And the story of Turin, one of his oldest, is actually inspired from that of Kullervo in the Kalevala.

So I think the Kalevala sets an important precedent as a mythic epic poem composed outside the time in which these myths were believed but nevertheless meant as a "serious" work. It's not yet fantasy because it's still an epic poem, but it is very close to being a bridge between epic and fantasy.

digiman619
2016-10-19, 06:04 PM
You left out the Monk, which is a misleading name. Even if you specified a Buddhist monk I think most people would think of something closer to the Dalai Lama and his crew. Believe it or not, the reason the Monk class exists is because one of the designers liked the song "Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting"

Vinyadan
2016-10-19, 06:15 PM
if I had had to name the Monk, my first choice would have been Fast Fister.

After some thought, I probably would have changed it to Fast Puncher.

Bohandas
2016-10-19, 08:00 PM
I think there is a very important prequel to Tolkien you have not named, and it's the Kalevala, for a very important reason: it's "fake", it's not a true medieval or ancient composition. It's something which was made by Elias Lönnrot in the nineteenth century, sure, collecting ancient or simply folk tales, but it isn't like the Norse sagas. The objective of creating a cultural work around which Finland could be united is also rather similar to what Tolkien once wrote had been his first objective for his legendarium, that of giving a mythology to England (iirc).

Didn;t Rngland already have King Arthur and Robin Hood

Zaydos
2016-10-19, 08:02 PM
Didn;t Rngland already have King Arthur and Robin Hood

The stories of King Arthur was written in the 11th century about Welsh legends from the 5th century as told by Normans and the French while aping the stories of Charlemagne.

On that note 'collection of legends that no longer are believed in any way, but are written and told as fiction and uses fantasy tropes while being closer to D&D than Tolkien' dates back to at least the 11th century.

Edit: To clarify the King Arthur stories are not English legends they're appropriated Welsh legends as told by the conquering nobility, or if you read the Welsh versions Welsh legends which may be being retold to incorporate elements from the French versions.

Milo v3
2016-10-19, 08:09 PM
if I had had to name the Monk, my first choice would have been Fast Fister.

After some thought, I probably would have changed it to Fast Puncher.

Those are horrible class names.... Why not martial artist?

RedWarlock
2016-10-19, 08:21 PM
Didn;t Rngland already have King Arthur and Robin Hood

It's complicated. Arthurian lore is a mish-mash collision of Welsh stories which were later appropriated and modified by the British, and then later interjected and augmented by the French, AFAIK, along with a lot of other changes. (correct me if I'm wrong here, just summarizing.)

ComradeBear
2016-10-19, 08:45 PM
Those are horrible class names.... Why not martial artist?

Martial Artist is dumb. Just call them Jolly Fisticuffs Practitioners or Punchy Gents.

(The names were a joke, I'm pretty sure.)

Cluedrew
2016-10-19, 08:49 PM
Those are horrible class names.... Why not martial artist?Martial Artist would have been my first choice too, but it may be a reference to Fury of Blows, which as I recall, is the multi-attack feature of the Monk class.

Yuki Akuma
2016-10-19, 09:13 PM
Calling one specific class the Martial Artist sort of implies that no other martial character is a martial artist. :smalltongue:

Which is dumb. What do you think a sword fighting school teaches if not a martial art?

Cluedrew
2016-10-19, 09:22 PM
To Yuki Akuma: I didn't say it was perfect, but I have yet to think of a better one. The reason you gave is not my primary reason against it, all classes fight, but only one is called the fighter.

2D8HP
2016-10-19, 11:21 PM
LotR & Chronicles of Narnia literally invented the fantasy genre, just like Frankenstein invented horror. & HP Lovecraft prophesied 4chan."Literally invented"?
Um.. no they re-popularized fantasy.
They are plenty of earlier examples, but to just cite a few on my bookshelf:
Among short story collections I've read the "Jirel of Joiry" stories by C. L. Moore ), the first story of which was published in 1934.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/2/2b/Jirel1969.jpg/220px-Jirel1969.jpg

I've personally shaken the hand of Fritz Leiber (who came up with the phrase "Sword and Sorcery"), and who was the author of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser novel and stories, the first of which was published in 1939.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/14/Two_sought_adventure.jpg

If we limit ourselves to medievalish otherworld novels in english, a good case could be made for the 1896 William Morris novel, "The Well at Worlds End" (Tolkien was a fan) as being the start of the modern trend.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f7/The_Well_at_the_Worlds_End_1-2.jpg

I once gave Lord Dunsany's 1924 "The King of Elfland's Daughter" as a gift to a boss of mine, who referred to Dunsany as "the father of fantasy" (he actually was a Johnny-come-lately)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d9/King_of_elflands_daughter.jpg/220px-King_of_elflands_daughter.jpg

In 1950 (the same year that "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" was published), posthumously Howard's "Conan the Conqueror (Hour of the Dragon) was printed.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/60/Conan_the_Conqueror.jpg

And in 1954 the same year as LotR, Gnome Press published Poul Anderson's "The Broken Sword", which I think is a better novel,

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9b/Broken_sword.jpg

http://www.dustjackets.com/pictures/5862.jpg?v=1316530241

and yes I do have the original 1954 edition, as well as the 1970's rewrite.

http://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380373703i/727387._SX540_.jpg

Given the 4chan quip, you may have been joking, but if not; what have you been reading?

Vinyadan
2016-10-20, 02:58 AM
How about "Weaponized Body"? ;) It's the only thing that sets the Monk apart from anyone else.

The note about Tolkien's myths for England comes from his letters, which I currently don't have around, so I can't check it. Maybe someone has a copy? He probably meant the time in his writing when Tol Eressea was actually meant to be the same island as Great Britain, it would have been carried towards Europe and I think Osse would have tried to hold on to a piece, detaching it and turning it into Ireland.

Bohandas
2016-10-20, 07:48 AM
D&D monks are generally about internal power rather than dealing with deities. In 4e they're categorised under the Psionic power source.

IIRC the designers of 4e were originally going to create a new "Ki" power source for Asian-themed classes to use. E.g. the Asian religious class was Ki rather than Divine because the gods bestowed him with "the mysterious power of ki", which allowed him to perform mysterious miracles rather than regular boring miracles. The Asian woodsman was Ki rather than Primal because rather than spirits of nature bestowing him with mystical powers, spirits of nature bestowed him with the mysterious mystical powers of ki. Then at some point they realised that "being Asian" is not a power source.
For all my dislike of 4e I'm glad to hear that they didn't repeat 3e's pointless hamfisted insertion of a vague and misspelled concept

Bohandas
2016-10-20, 08:04 AM
Think of how prevalent slurs toward...the developmentally disabled were in 2002

I'm not sure what you're talking about here but I think you may be confused due to some words which were not slurs having since become offensive due to the euphemism treadmill (http://www.odlt.org/ballast/euphemism_treadmill.html). Give it some time and eventually someone is going to look back and misconstrue "developmentally disabled" as a slur.

Flickerdart
2016-10-20, 11:03 AM
it couldn't be much earlier than Frankenstein, or we would go into the alchemy/magic era, like Faust, homunculi etc.

Um, what. Are you saying there was no science before the 1800s? I hope you appreciate not only that such a statement is absurd, but also how absurd it is.

And there was definitely plenty of science fiction (https://boydellandbrewer.com/medieval-science-fiction-hb.html) before Frankenstein.

Vinyadan
2016-10-20, 11:23 AM
Um, what. Are you saying there was no science before the 1800s? I hope you appreciate not only that such a statement is absurd, but also how absurd it is.

And there was definitely plenty of science fiction (https://boydellandbrewer.com/medieval-science-fiction-hb.html) before Frankenstein.

Did you read my post?

Flickerdart
2016-10-20, 11:30 AM
Did you read my post?
I did. Then I pointed out the part of it that I disagreed with - the assertion that past science was somehow different science from the "real" science that our progressive society has.

Yes, there were loons messing about with alchemy, but there was also chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, physics, both in the Christian and Muslim worlds, and beyond in places like China and India.

Vinyadan
2016-10-20, 12:30 PM
I did. Then I pointed out the part of it that I disagreed with - the assertion that past science was somehow different science from the "real" science that our progressive society has.

Yes, there were loons messing about with alchemy, but there was also chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, physics, both in the Christian and Muslim worlds, and beyond in places like China and India.

The problem is that it's different from what we mean as science today. Modern scientific method was formally developed first by Galileo, who assumed that the physics working on earth also had to work elsewhere, and saw reality in mathematical terms of quantity rather than in philosophical terms of quality. He added concepts like "objective, reliable, verifiable, shareable" to scientific knowledge. This was in 1632. And, while it was the middle point in a revolution started by Copernicus in 1543, it set a methodological watershed between modern science and all that came earlier.

So yes, it was different in extremely relevant areas. I know that e.g. Bacon relied on experience rather than on old tales, but it wasn't enough to say that he acted accordingly to modern scientific method.

As for the book you linked, it has a few problems in its description. The largest problem I see is that it proposes fantasy and science fiction as the two most popular genres today, while I am pretty sure that thriller and detective stories are more successful. The second problem is naming the Seven Sleepers, which have nothing whatsoever to do with science fiction, not any more than Faust does.

In the previous post I did recognize that there were some "futuristic" contents in older literature - I named Alexander and his bathyscaphe, but I could also have named Astulf travelling to the Moon, Lucian's True Story, or any tale of mechanical marvels. The thing is that usually these facts don't happen through science (Astulf's voyage is possible thanks to a holy charriot, while the other two are more or less OK). But backtracking a genre name that is strictly bound to the modern conception of science to a time in which this conception did not exist looks like a mistake to me. Call it futuristic elements or "marvellous", which was the sphere to which these medieval stories actually belonged when they were written, but to call them sci-fi is to me like calling the Aeneid high fantasy. There are modern genres, there were past genres, there were revolutions in the way of thinking in between, and, while it is possible to find a number of golden ropes tying the whole thing together, modern genres are modern and past may be revived, but tend to stay past.

Wardog
2016-10-20, 02:34 PM
On the subject of whether classes actually exist within the setting, or are just a meta-game concept:

In the case of D&D, I would think that at least two classes are real things within the setting: Paladin and Monk.

The reason being that they're both classes that you can't advance in if you multi-class.

With all other classes, you can reasonably treat them as a set of skills and abilities that someone is learning and practicing at a particular time, with multiclassing just representing them learning and practicing some rather different skills. But with Monk and Paladin, the fact that you can't learn or advance any more of the original set of abilities once you have diversified must mean that the original skillset is a distinct thing.

To a lesser extent, you could probably apply the same idea to any other classes that have alignment or behaviour restrictions.

malachi
2016-10-20, 02:59 PM
On the subject of whether classes actually exist within the setting, or are just a meta-game concept:

In the case of D&D, I would think that at least two classes are real things within the setting: Paladin and Monk.

The reason being that they're both classes that you can't advance in if you multi-class.


This is no longer true in 5e. Or 4e for that matter, because multiclassing was totally different in that system.

Bohandas
2016-10-20, 05:33 PM
Spellsword As it is, that's fine. But what if he's a SpellGreathornMinotaurHammer as per the variations in name Spellsword mentions? How about a Spellflail? Surely that guy sounds like he's going to burn down the town and chaotic magic display. Like a fireworks display gone wrong.

I think this one is a bad pun on "sellsword", a flowery term for mercenaries

HidesHisEyes
2016-10-29, 07:29 PM
I think classes and their names in D&D date from a time when "gameplay role" and "character concept" were sort of the same thing. It seems that back then the game came with much more definite assumtions - the most important being that the PCs are "adventurers". The best definition of classes in that case would be "types of adventurer". Now that the majority of games allow (for better or worse) for a much wider range of character types (and of stories for those characters to be involved in, and motivations for being involved), it does indeed seem strange to conceptualise them as "rogues" and "fighters".

Other systems acknowledge this. In FATE you have a "high concept" and in Risus your character is composed of "clichés". D&D is a game caught between its own past and the current fashion.

Vrock_Summoner
2016-10-29, 08:56 PM
For all my dislike of 4e I'm glad to hear that they didn't repeat 3e's pointless hamfisted insertion of a vague and misspelled concept
I hope you aren't talking about the word I think you're talking about. Ki is no less valid a spelling that chi or qi.

If you meant to say vague and misapplied, I'd agree.

Fungi
2016-10-29, 09:24 PM
Was going to say the same thing as Vrock_Summoner.

For my 2cp, I don't fully understand why so many people dislike monks in particular. It's such a fun class concept. There are a LOT of things that don't belong in every campaign setting, like any number of sorcerer bloodlines, prestige classes or core monsters. To say that people in high medeival Europe didn't punch each other and therefore monks don't fit into the game is just silly in my opinion.
For two more of my cp, the name "monk" is more elegant than anything else I can think of or that I've seen suggested. Don't really care if it doesn't line up with fantasy Europe, it sounds cool.

oudeis
2016-10-29, 11:41 PM
Believe it or not, the reason the Monk class exists is because one of the designers liked the song "Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting"

A quick look at google/Wikipedia turns up this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monk_(Dungeons_%26_Dragons)#Dungeons_.26_Dragons):


The original monk character class was created by Brian Blume, inspired by the fictional martial arts of the Destroyer series of novels.[2] The monk was introduced in 1975's Blackmoor supplement.

quinron
2016-10-30, 01:33 AM
I hope you aren't talking about the word I think you're talking about. Ki is no less valid a spelling that chi or qi.

If you meant to say vague and misapplied, I'd agree.

"Misspelled" is obviously a tricky notion here, considering it's a transliteration from a language group whose alphabets and phonemes are so different from English that it's considered to contain the most difficult languages for English speakers to learn. It's also tricky because ki, as it would be pronounced in English, is the correct pronunciation for the same concept in both Japanese and Korean. But - and this isn't certain - if it's meant to be an anglicized pronunciation of the Chinese word qì, then yes, it's misspelled; the pronunciation of that word is most accurately represented in English as "ch'i," with the apostrophe indicating the aspirated consonant.

HidesHisEyes
2016-10-30, 05:47 AM
I got into D&D at the tail end of the 3.x era and never played the earlier editions, but the impression I get is that in the early days the class names described both a "gameplay role" and a "character concept" - to the limited extent that anyone gave any thought to "character concept". That was a time when the game had a much narrower focus and a more fixed set of assumptions about who the player characters were in the world of the game. That is, they were "adventurers". The question of whether anyone in the game world would refer to your character as such, or as a "fighter" or a "rogue", was largely irrelevant, since characters didn't go around talking about each other - they were busy killing monsters and stealing their treasure.

It was later that players started to play the game in a way that opened up more possibilities and allowed for more world-building and exploration, seeing the game world as an actual world and not just as a necessary environment in which adventures (i.e. dungeon crawls) could take place. Players started to see character classes less as concepts in their own right than as tools with which to realise concepts of their own.

As I said I wasn't there in the early days so I might be totally off-base, but I definitely think D&D is a game caught between two conceptions of itself, and this is one manifestation of that.

Note that other, more recent, games have the idea of character concepts baked into them. FATE characters have a "high concept" invented by the player; Risus characters are composed of "cliches", again invented by the player. 5E's personality traits are modern D&D's concession to players' appetite for this stuff.

Fungi
2016-10-30, 02:06 PM
"Misspelled" is obviously a tricky notion here, considering it's a transliteration from a language group whose alphabets and phonemes are so different from English that it's considered to contain the most difficult languages for English speakers to learn. It's also tricky because ki, as it would be pronounced in English, is the correct pronunciation for the same concept in both Japanese and Korean. But - and this isn't certain - if it's meant to be an anglicized pronunciation of the Chinese word qì, then yes, it's misspelled; the pronunciation of that word is most accurately represented in English as "ch'i," with the apostrophe indicating the aspirated consonant.

I don't understand why you would assume that they've misspelled qi as opposed to correctly spelling ki. If anything I might roll my eyes a little at some weebs defaulting to the Japanese pronunciation cause they think ninjas are cool or whatever, but it's still accurate standard romanization of a word, and you have to choose something. If you really want to nitpick, how is ch'i4 is any more accurate than qì? It's just a distinction of romanization methods.

Bohandas
2016-10-30, 02:13 PM
1.) Apparently "ch'i" is slightly more accurate
2.) I have never seen "ki" used outside of D&D. It's always either "ch'i" "chi" or occasionally "qi". Using "ki" just makes things needlessly confusing.

Jerrykhor
2016-10-30, 10:22 PM
The only class name I have a problem with is Fighter. I prefer it to be called Warrior. I'd argue that Warrior is more correct.

If you look up the dictionary, here's the definition of the two:

Fighter
noun
1.
a boxer; pugilist.
2.
Military. an aircraft designed to seek out and destroy enemy aircraft in the air and to protect bomber aircraft.
3.
a person who fights, struggles, resists, etc.
4.
a person with the will, courage, determination, ability, or disposition to fight, struggle, resist, etc.
5.
an animal, as a dog, trained to fight or having the disposition to fight.

Warrior
noun
1.
a person engaged or experienced in warfare; soldier.
2.
a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness, as in politics or athletics.

A fighter is a person who fights. It sounds so generic and lame. Every class in D&D does some form of fighting. That makes all of them fighters.

A warrior is a person who is specialized in warfare. Battlefield warfare is generally engaged by large armies, mostly consists of infantry who wields martial weapons such as swords, maces, axes, and they usually wear heavy armour. They don't use daggers (Rogues), use pets (Rangers), use magic (wizard/sorc/warlock/druid), go topless and wear animal skins (barbarian), fight unarmed (monk).

So it is clear that they should be called Warriors.

Esprit15
2016-10-31, 04:58 PM
Add to the confusion that the "Can handle himself in a fight" NPC class is called warrior, implying that they get more training that a fighter, despite being weaker than them.

Dimers
2016-10-31, 05:50 PM
"Misspelled" is obviously a tricky notion here, considering it's a transliteration from a language group whose alphabets and phonemes are so different from English that it's considered to contain the most difficult languages for English speakers to learn. It's also tricky because ki, as it would be pronounced in English, is the correct pronunciation for the same concept in both Japanese and Korean. But - and this isn't certain - if it's meant to be an anglicized pronunciation of the Chinese word qì, then yes, it's misspelled; the pronunciation of that word is most accurately represented in English as "ch'i," with the apostrophe indicating the aspirated consonant.

Hey, cool! Learn something new every day. It never occurred to me that different groups of people would pronounce it differently -- but of course they do, that's the human way.


I have never seen "ki" used outside of D&D.

It appears in the names of martial arts forms like "aikido" and "hap ki do" ... I've also seen it in a couple novels and at least one book about martial arts for exercise/wellness. More often than I've seen "chi" used, in fact.

2D8HP
2016-10-31, 06:38 PM
The only class name I have a problem with is Fighter. I prefer it to be called Warrior. I'd argue that Warrior is more correct.
*ahem*
While the original 1974 Dungeons & Dragons rules did indeed use the term "fighters", (on page 7 at first), more often the term "Fighting-Men" was used (such as on page 6)
There are three (3) main classes of characters:
Fighting-Men
Magic Users
Clerics
http://i2.wp.com/shaneplays.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/original_dungeons_and_dragons_dd_men_and_magic_cov er.jpg?zoom=4&resize=312%2C494
And it was easy to see that source of the term as one that was frequently used in an acknowledged inspiration of D&D:
Burroughs's "Mars" novels,

These rules are strictly fantasy. Those wargamers who lack imagination, those who don't care for Burroughs' Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits, who feel no thrill upon reading Howard's Conan saga, who do not enjoy the de Camp & Pratt fantasies or Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
pitting their swords against evil sorceries will not be likely to find Dungeons & Dragons to their taste. But those whose imaginations know no bounds will find that these rules are the answer to their prayers. With this last
bit of advice we invite you to read on and enjoy a "world" where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!
E. Gary Gygax
Tactical Studies Rules Editor
1 November 1973
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

such as:
A Fighting Man of Mars (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fighting_Man_of_Mars)

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a2/Fighting_Man_of_Mars.jpg

Bohandas
2016-10-31, 08:01 PM
It appears in the names of martial arts forms like "aikido" and "hap ki do" ... I've also seen it in a couple novels and at least one book about martial arts for exercise/wellness. More often than I've seen "chi" used, in fact.

I've heard of Akido so I'll revise it to never seen it used as a word on it's own outside of D&D (and also in lists of alternate spellings of qi/chi)

Hytheter
2016-10-31, 09:15 PM
1.) Apparently "ch'i" is slightly more accurate
2.) I have never seen "ki" used outside of D&D. It's always either "ch'i" "chi" or occasionally "qi". Using "ki" just makes things needlessly confusing.

Never got into anything Dragon Ball related?

quinron
2016-11-01, 05:29 AM
It appears in the names of martial arts forms like "aikido" and "hap ki do" ... I've also seen it in a couple novels and at least one book about martial arts for exercise/wellness. More often than I've seen "chi" used, in fact.


Never got into anything Dragon Ball related?

Aikido and Dragon Ball are both Japanese, and Hap Ki Do is Korean - in both languages, they use the "ki" pronunciation. As for wellness martial arts, the one I'm most familiar with is Tai Chi, which is Chinese. Obviously I can't say this with authority, but Dimers, I'd wager the ones you're familiar with are Japanese or Korean, or possibly another language that uses the same pronunciation for the concept.

Kelb_Panthera
2016-11-01, 06:19 AM
Ki is just the romanization of 気 from japanese. You see it in a lot of texts regarding japanese martial arts.

Bohandas
2016-11-01, 10:15 AM
Why are they using japanese terms for something specific to Henan province in China

Thrudd
2016-11-01, 10:42 AM
Aikido and Dragon Ball are both Japanese, and Hap Ki Do is Korean - in both languages, they use the "ki" pronunciation. As for wellness martial arts, the one I'm most familiar with is Tai Chi, which is Chinese. Obviously I can't say this with authority, but Dimers, I'd wager the ones you're familiar with are Japanese or Korean, or possibly another language that uses the same pronunciation for the concept.

Also, the "chi" in tai chi is a completely different character. That's why the modern pinyin is a bit better than the antiquated wade-giles, where it is romanized tai ji: it means the "supreme ultimate" principle of Daoism. Qi is the romanization for the "energy" word. As in Qi Gong aka Chi Kung, or "energy work".
Ki is how the Qi character is romanized/pronounced in Japanesea and Korean, as you said.

The confusion is from the two different systems for romanizing Chinese words. Wade-Giles is the one invented by the British in the 19th century. In some instances it makes it easier to see how to pronounce words, but in others its very counter intuitive. It was around long enough that it still pervades common usage.

Pinyin is the modern standard, and would be the most "correct" if you want to be clear/precise about things.

Thrudd
2016-11-01, 10:52 AM
Why are they using japanese terms for something specific to Henan province in China
It's not specific to China. It's a concept that pervades many Asian cultures, possibly starting in India.
Also, China's language and culture have large influence on all the surrounding East Asian lands. In Japan, they use versions of Chinese characters for many shared words/concepts. Qi/Ki is one of those. It is commonly used in many martial arts and healing methods.

Which language people use when talking about it just depends on where they're from and what they've studied. Someone who has only practiced Japanese or Korean methods would likely use "ki". Someone who is involved in Chinese methods would say "chi/qi" (both are pronounced "chee"). If they practice yoga, they'd call it prana.

In the USA, Japanese of Korean martial arts and their derivatives are generally much more widespread and familiar to people than Chinese ones in most areas of the country.

Bohandas
2016-11-01, 11:08 AM
It's not specific to China. It's a concept that pervades many Asian cultures, possibly starting in India.
Also, China's language and culture have large influence on all the surrounding East Asian lands. In Japan, they use versions of Chinese characters for many shared words/concepts. Qi/Ki is one of those. It is commonly used in many martial arts and healing methods.

I didn't mean ki/chi/qi is specific to Henan province, I meant Shaolin monks are.

Malimar
2016-11-01, 11:21 AM
I didn't mean ki/chi/qi is specific to Henan province, I meant Shaolin monks are.

Where does D&D say that members of the monk class are Shaolin monks?

VoxRationis
2016-11-01, 11:28 AM
Also, the "chi" in tai chi is a completely different character. That's why the modern pinyin is a bit better than the antiquated wade-giles, where it is romanized tai ji: it means the "supreme ultimate" principle of Daoism. Qi is the romanization for the "energy" word. As in Qi Gong aka Chi Kung, or "energy work".
Ki is how the Qi character is romanized/pronounced in Japanesea and Korean, as you said.

The confusion is from the two different systems for romanizing Chinese words. Wade-Giles is the one invented by the British in the 19th century. In some instances it makes it easier to see how to pronounce words, but in others its very counter intuitive. It was around long enough that it still pervades common usage.

Pinyin is the modern standard, and would be the most "correct" if you want to be clear/precise about things.

Of course, Pinyin is also far from intuitive.

Thrudd
2016-11-01, 11:29 AM
I didn't mean ki/chi/qi is specific to Henan province, I meant Shaolin monks are.

Oh. Well, D&D isn't taking place in our world, it's not trying to depict anything actually historical. And also, the D&D authors might not be aware of the language distinctions. Their idea of "magical martial artist" may come more from manga and anime than it does from kung fu movies or actual history/legend. Or they believe that's what the kids playing the game nowadays want to see, rather than wuxia type characters from movies that they've never seen or heard of. It's not as if the class is a realistic depiction of anything, at this point it's a distinctively D&D creation. What Gygax and Arneson had in their head when they created the monk class isn't really relevant to Wizards of the Coast versions. Few of the classes mirror anything remotely accurate to history or real legends/myths.

Bohandas
2016-11-01, 11:50 AM
Where does D&D say that members of the monk class are Shaolin monks?

They sure aren't Friar Tuck.

EDIT:
Nor are they any non-Shaolin buddhist monk

Zaydos
2016-11-01, 01:29 PM
Ninjutsu is supposedly based upon martial arts brought over to Japan by Buddhist monks, also up through the 16th century there were several monasteries of warrior-monks in Japan, such as the warrior-monks of mount Hiei (literally where the class name Sohei comes from). Now the Souhei tended to be weapon wielders, famed for their use of naginata, so not a 100% fit for D&D monks, however it was a pop culture trope for the wandering, unarmed or staff wielding, (Buddhist) monk warrior in Japanese media.

Vinyadan
2016-11-01, 02:26 PM
They sure aren't Friar Tuck.


Oh come on, everyone knows that King John signed Magna Charta under threat of being beaten with a nunchaku by a Benedictine monk.

Wardog
2016-11-01, 03:38 PM
The only class name I have a problem with is Fighter. I prefer it to be called Warrior. I'd argue that Warrior is more correct.

If you look up the dictionary, here's the definition of the two:

Fighter
noun
1. a boxer; pugilist.
2. Military. an aircraft designed to seek out and destroy enemy aircraft in the air and to protect bomber aircraft.
3. a person who fights, struggles, resists, etc.
4. a person with the will, courage, determination, ability, or disposition to fight, struggle, resist, etc.
5. an animal, as a dog, trained to fight or having the disposition to fight.


On the other hand, that's one of the reasons I quite like the name of the ''fighter'' class - because it implies the fundamental, defining concept behind the class, the thing that defines their identity and sense of worth, is that they fight, struggle, resist, etc.

A ranger is a good fighter, but their fundamental defining concept and reason for being is wilderness dweller / tracker / survivalist.
A paladin is a good fighter, but their fundamental defining concept and reason for being is champion of Law and Good, as well as a healer etc.
A monk is a good fighter, but their fundamental defining concept and reason for being is a monastic life, and persuit of physical and spiritual perfection.

But a fighter exists to kick ass and chew bubble-gum. (And I don't think there is an entry in the DMG for bubblegum).



Why are they using japanese terms for something specific to Henan province in China
:miko: What are these ''Japan'' and ''China'' you speak of?

Dimers
2016-11-01, 03:57 PM
I'd prefer the name "mystic" for a magical-martial-arts class ... but that's because my life revolves around heirarchies of labels. (I'm a cataloger at a library.) "Monk" is too specific. But "monk" is also more evocative. I first encountered it in 3e, and though I'd seen all of one kung fu flick in my life, I understood the concept represented by the class mechanics and why they'd collectively be called "monk". It wasn't a big stretch.

Bohandas
2016-11-02, 12:50 AM
I'd prefer the name "mystic" for a magical-martial-arts class ... but that's because my life revolves around heirarchies of labels. (I'm a cataloger at a library.) "Monk" is too specific. But "monk" is also more evocative. I first encountered it in 3e, and though I'd seen all of one kung fu flick in my life, I understood the concept represented by the class mechanics and why they'd collectively be called "monk". It wasn't a big stretch.

Honestly I'd drop mystical and religious implications from the name entirely and just call it "martial artist". A fantasy martial artist. Like Sun Wukong (who admittedly does eventually gain enlightenment, but only as part of a seperate adventure that didn't start until several centuries after he had already became the cosmos' greatest martial artist)

Vinyadan
2016-11-02, 05:05 AM
Martial arts to not only refer to unarmed or oriental combat systems, though.

Thrudd
2016-11-02, 07:29 AM
Ninjutsu is supposedly based upon martial arts brought over to Japan by Buddhist monks, also up through the 16th century there were several monasteries of warrior-monks in Japan, such as the warrior-monks of mount Hiei (literally where the class name Sohei comes from). Now the Souhei tended to be weapon wielders, famed for their use of naginata, so not a 100% fit for D&D monks, however it was a pop culture trope for the wandering, unarmed or staff wielding, (Buddhist) monk warrior in Japanese media.

In reality, all warrior monks including Shaolin were weapon wielders. Shaolin was famous for its spear and staff skills (closely connected). The unarmed fighting was always an adjunct that only gained prominence in the last couple centuries, after they weren't really fighting in battles any more, and unarmed skills started being connected and integrated more with spiritual and health practices.

It was the civilian boxing (martial arts) schools of the 18th- early 20th centuries that began spreading the legends of Shaolin's mystical fighting skills which eventually got made into movies and now gives us the image of the iron-skinned empty hand fighter who can take on ten armed men using only headbutts.

HidesHisEyes
2016-11-02, 08:07 AM
1.) Apparently "ch'i" is slightly more accurate
2.) I have never seen "ki" used outside of D&D. It's always either "ch'i" "chi" or occasionally "qi". Using "ki" just makes things needlessly confusing.

"Ki" is often used in Japanese martial arts.

Kelb_Panthera
2016-11-02, 06:42 PM
They sure aren't Friar Tuck.

EDIT:
Nor are they any non-Shaolin buddhist monk

The latter doesn't necessarily hold. Zen Bhuddists had a number of retired warriors amongst their number back in the day and do practice martial arts as part of their meditations in some cases, IIRC.


Martial arts to not only refer to unarmed or oriental combat systems, though.

While technically true, "martial artist" almost always refers to a practitioner of one of the disciplines of the far east, in the common vernacular, or, at least, a specialist in unarmed combat with some degree of spiritiualism as an extremely common feature even up to today. Your particular comment is an accurate fact that's usually brought up by a practitioner or student of one of the western or weapon-centric martial arts, at least as far as I've ever seen the term used.

Dimers
2016-11-02, 08:09 PM
"martial artist" almost always refers to a practitioner of one of the disciplines of the far east, in the common vernacular, or, at least, a specialist in unarmed combat with some degree of spiritiualism as an extremely common feature even up to today.

With the exception of capoeira and maybe krav maga. I think they're reasonably well known (because if culturally illiterate little ol' me knows about them, then everybody must, right?). It's interesting that capoeira is clearly classed with 'martial arts' while savate, fencing, boxing and wrestling aren't.

2D8HP
2016-11-02, 10:31 PM
It's interesting that capoeira is clearly classed with 'martial arts' while savate, fencing, boxing and wrestling aren't.Savate isn't? I learned that Savate was a French martial art from the Tin Tin comic books I read as a child growing up in California during the 1970's.

http://img.xooimage.com/files110/9/c/b/tile-noire-52c3-savate-489b1d3.png

quinron
2016-11-03, 02:18 AM
Martial arts to not only refer to unarmed or oriental combat systems, though.

Monk doesn't only refer to Eastern martial artists, either. I'd argue its no more or less inaccurate.

gtwucla
2016-11-03, 07:13 AM
Monk doesn't only refer to Eastern martial artists, either. I'd argue its no more or less inaccurate.

Of course there are monks in the western world, but the flavor (at least in the Players Handbook) is clearly based on eastern martial arts. Benedictine monks weren't ever known for their fists of fury, just their barrels of beer.

Vinyadan
2016-11-03, 07:36 AM
What about "Martial Monk"? With a "Drunken Master" class variant for chaotic alignments?

Jay R
2016-11-03, 07:47 AM
What about "Martial Monk"? With a "Drunken Master" class variant for chaotic alignments?

99 out of 100 roleplayers would completely misunderstand the term "Drunken Master".

Hamste
2016-11-03, 08:59 AM
99 out of 100 roleplayers would completely misunderstand the term "Drunken Master".

I'm sure more than 1 in 100 people know what a drunken master is. I'm totally not saying that just because it is my favourite fighting style. I was so disappointed that the pathfinder drunken master archetype is actually focused on alcohol.

khadgar567
2016-11-03, 08:59 AM
99 out of 100 roleplayers would completely misunderstand the term "Drunken Master".
they mimic drunkenness instead of being drunk whole the time

Mordaedil
2016-11-03, 09:20 AM
With the exception of capoeira and maybe krav maga. I think they're reasonably well known (because if culturally illiterate little ol' me knows about them, then everybody must, right?). It's interesting that capoeira is clearly classed with 'martial arts' while savate, fencing, boxing and wrestling aren't.

Well, the alternative is that we refer to the class as the "Shotokan" or something. I dunno about you, but my 13 year old self wouldn't know what that meant.

Bohandas
2016-11-03, 09:33 AM
I'm sure more than 1 in 100 people know what a drunken master is. I'm totally not saying that just because it is my favourite fighting style. I was so disappointed that the pathfinder drunken master archetype is actually focused on alcohol.

Is that even technically a real yerm though. I know there's a martial art called "Drunken Fist" but I thought "Drunken Master" was a term made up by the film industry

2D8HP
2016-11-03, 09:39 AM
Benedictine monks weren't ever known for their fists of fury, just their barrels of beer.
What about "Martial Monk"? With a "Drunken Master" class variant for chaotic alignments?
99 out of 100 roleplayers would completely misunderstand the term "Drunken Master".I mishunderstand nothing!
Donnie di ale.....Ale! Another pint!

Hamste
2016-11-03, 10:49 AM
Is that even technically a real yerm though. I know there's a martial art called "Drunken Fist" but I thought "Drunken Master" was a term made up by the film industry

Probably not but what would you call someone who mastered drunken style?

Vinyadan
2016-11-03, 11:10 AM
I mishunderstand nothing!
Donnie di ale.....Ale! Another pint!

That sounds more like a Drunken Abbot :D

khadgar567
2016-11-03, 01:07 PM
can you use drunken fist while being drunk on dark side like to now your opinions?

digiman619
2016-11-03, 05:58 PM
Well, the alternative is that we refer to the class as the "Shotokan" or something. I dunno about you, but my 13 year old self wouldn't know what that meant.

For the love of all that is holy, make sure to spell that right; Shotokan is a martial arts style, shotacon is Japanese little boy porn. I'm pretty sure that isn't what you're looking for.

Fungi
2016-11-03, 06:24 PM
1.) Apparently "ch'i" is slightly more accurate

My question was why because I was legitimately interested to learn if there was a reason the distinction between chi and ch'i is more "accurate" than the distinction between chi and qi.


Of course, Pinyin is also far from intuitive.

The notation of tones is FAR more intuitive in pinyin.

The usage of the word monk clearly comes from Asian martial arts, particularly wuxia and Asian fantasy. No reason you can't blend fantasy from different cultures though, especially in settings that are an entire worlds as opposed to a continent, or especially settings like Golarion that obviously have locations equivalent to real ones on earth.

VoxRationis
2016-11-04, 02:04 AM
The notation of tones is FAR more intuitive in pinyin.

Tones, maybe, but not vowels or consonants. "z" is [ts], "j" is voiceless, "x" is a sound closer to English "sh" and "h" is [x]? "E" is a back vowel by default? Nothing sounds like what a native English speaker would expect, and many don't sound right for most other users of the Latin alphabet. They don't even align with the IPA, which predates it and would be a convenient anchor point for someone trying to develop a romanization system de novo. Since the Chinese language already has an ancient and well-developed system of writing, making the romanization system obtuse to foreigners defeats the whole point of the exercise.

Considering the cultural climate when it was developed, I half suspect Pinyin was made by the Communists specifically to spite Americans trying to learn Chinese.

Fiery Diamond
2016-11-04, 02:42 AM
Both of those romanization methods are impenetrable to native English speakers without specifically getting taught the intricacies of them. Do you have any idea how many people actually think the word "Tao" is pronounced like the first syllable of "towel"? A lot. That's actually part of why the whole "ch'i vs chi" thing is incredibly irritating to me. No native English speaker is going to think "chi" has any other consonant sound than what "ch'i" is supposed to represent.

I realize that native English speakers are not the only people that need a romanization of Chinese, but we do make up a large percentage. If you're trying for something truly universal rather than focusing on the English speakers, stick with IPA. The vast majority of westerners aren't going to be able to successfully pick up on the tones anyway, so focusing on the making the consonants and vowels transparent is clearly a good approach.

On a side note (unrelated to Chinese), it's occasionally humorous to see the disconnect between native English speakers and native speakers of other European languages on internet forums when talking about pronunciations of things. "J" and "W" come to mind instantly.

Mordaedil
2016-11-04, 02:58 AM
For the love of all that is holy, make sure to spell that right; Shotokan is a martial arts style, shotacon is Japanese little boy porn. I'm pretty sure that isn't what you're looking for.

Just imagine our fragile little selves trying to Google the class before we thought spelling was important.

Vinyadan
2016-11-04, 03:57 AM
Given how few English speakers care to learn another language, and how bad a writing system that would be good for them would be for everyone else, I think this is one of the situations in which it's best that they learn to adapt instead of expecting others to.

Ashtagon
2016-11-04, 05:42 AM
1.) Apparently "ch'i" is slightly more accurate
2.) I have never seen "ki" used outside of D&D. It's always either "ch'i" "chi" or occasionally "qi". Using "ki" just makes things needlessly confusing.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E6%B0%97

Traditional: 氣
Simplifed: 气 (as used in PRC)
Shinjitai: 気 (as used in Japan)

Yep, three versions of what is essentially the same symbol.

Japanese: ki (often gi mid-word)
Mandarin Chinese (pinyin romanisation): qì (that's a grave accent)
Mandarin Chinese (Wade-Giles romanisation): ch'i
Cantonese: hei3
Hakka: hi
Korean: ki (often gi mid-word)
Vietnamese: khí (that's an acute accent)

It doesn't really make sense to talk about a "correct" spelling unless you can say with confidence which language you are using as a source, and which romanisation scheme. That's why D&D has a wu jen, and not a wu ren, funin, or muin, for example. D&D's Oriental Adventures is basically a complete mishmash of things from India, Tibet, Vietnam, China, Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

For me, the first time I saw the monk class (back in AD&D 1e), I associated it with Japanese yamabushi (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamabushi) tropes.

Mordaedil
2016-11-04, 07:53 AM
Yeah, like Japanese has three alphabeths where the same word can mean several different things depending on context and the way you write it.

It's really not a point worth stressing.

VoxRationis
2016-11-04, 12:47 PM
Given how few English speakers care to learn another language, and how bad a writing system that would be good for them would be for everyone else, I think this is one of the situations in which it's best that they learn to adapt instead of expecting others to.

A) It's not just English speakers. A lot of the values are weird even for speakers of other languages that use the Latin alphabet. The values are weird even from the IPA, a system which predates Pinyin by decades.

B) The Chinese already had a writing system that worked well. This isn't some ancient tradition or facet of Chinese culture that multiculturalism demands we respect. This is an arbitrarily made transcription system devised within living memory. People went to conscious effort to make a system where single letters stand for affricates and digraphs stand for single sounds, and some of the values are completely switched around from their position in other well-established systems using the same alphabet. Obviously, it's easier to just learn Pinyin than get the Chinese government to change it, but what I'm saying is that people screwed up when they drafted it in the first place.

Skorj
2016-11-05, 01:18 AM
Of course there are monks in the western world, but the flavor (at least in the Players Handbook) is clearly based on eastern martial arts. Benedictine monks weren't ever known for their fists of fury, just their barrels of beer.

I've only ever played a monk as a Friar Tuck-alike. Eastern mysticism didn't fit the setting. Quarterstaff is a solid weapon for a high-STR monk (well, as much as any monk is actually any good, but that's another topic), and the fluff is what you make it. OTOH, reaching 11th level is the most disheartening event in the life of a drunken friar. He was never the same.

Bohandas
2016-11-05, 12:18 PM
Both of those romanization methods are impenetrable to native English speakers without specifically getting taught the intricacies of them. Do you have any idea how many people actually think the word "Tao" is pronounced like the first syllable of "towel"? A lot. That's actually part of why the whole "ch'i vs chi" thing is incredibly irritating to me. No native English speaker is going to think "chi" has any other consonant sound than what "ch'i" is supposed to represent.

I realize that native English speakers are not the only people that need a romanization of Chinese, but we do make up a large percentage. If you're trying for something truly universal rather than focusing on the English speakers, stick with IPA. The vast majority of westerners aren't going to be able to successfully pick up on the tones anyway, so focusing on the making the consonants and vowels transparent is clearly a good approach.

Agreed. I find it incredibly irritating that nobody anywhere seems to actually care about transcribing foreign languages into the English alphabet. It's always either into some system the transcriber made up themselves or at best into a different latin-derived alphabet from mainland europe.

The optimal thing would be for someone to create a transcription system that eliminates the huma element entirely from the transcription process. A computer would be programmed with samples of people speaking the words of the language to be transcribed and of people speaking the sounds of the various english letters and would match them up as best as it could. This would eliminate noise and bias resulting from a human transcriber's knowledge of the meaning and original spelling of the words, as well as noise and bias resulting from knowledge of foreign latin-derived alphabets.

EDIT:
I want something that conforms to option 7 below

http://i.imgur.com/geDSVMW.png

because for a native english speaker (or at least one who didn't major in foreign languages or linguistics or something in college) anything else just makes it less readable

Vinyadan
2016-11-05, 01:59 PM
Agreed. I find it incredibly irritating that nobody anywhere seems to actually care about transcribing foreign languages into the English alphabet. It's always either into some system the transcriber made up themselves or at best into a different latin-derived alphabet from mainland europe.

The optimal thing would be for someone to create a transcription system that eliminates the huma element entirely from the transcription process. A computer would be programmed with samples of people speaking the words of the language to be transcribed and of people speaking the sounds of the various english letters and would match them up as best as it could. This would eliminate noise and bias resulting from a human transcriber's knowledge of the meaning and original spelling of the words, as well as noise and bias resulting from knowledge of foreign latin-derived alphabets.

EDIT:
I want something that conforms to option 7 below

http://i.imgur.com/geDSVMW.png

because for a native english speaker (or at least one who didn't major in foreign languages or linguistics or something in college) anything else just makes it less readable

Maybe I'm missing something, but if you don't know or plan to learn foreign languages, why do you need to know how to pronounce foreign languages?

Beside this, one good reason not to make such a transcription effort is that it would hamper your competence into that language. You would effectively be unable to read texts in the original language, and all effort you put into learning the language in this predigested version would be wasted.

Ashtagon
2016-11-05, 03:58 PM
@Bohandas: So, you mean something like the IPA alphabet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet)?

But seriously, anything resembling option 7 will simply fail, because there are sounds that can't be written using the basic Latin alphabet without special rules. For example, English does something very similar to Hungarian to write the sound that appears at the start of words such as sugar and ship.

Stealth Marmot
2016-11-07, 03:05 PM
There are certain class names that when used in game I cannot help but roll my eyes. They're class names that should be adjusted based on what one actually does. Or just completely done away with in game. For instance.

Fighter. Unless you actually are a professional fighter like in a cage, pit, or otherwise you probably would be called something else. If nothing applies, try your name.

Rogue I have never in my life heard the word rogue used to describe a person. Never. It's solely a thing of fiction and nobody would walk around calling them self it. Especially considering the reputation.

Ranger How does one range exactly? No. Try again.

Barbarian Call a man a barbarian and he's probably just going to punch you in the mouth. That's an insult, not what one calls them self.


Now for a few out there ones.

Dread Necromancer Necromancer works perfectly fine. Besides, what's so "dread" about it anyway?

Swiftblade Cast slow on this man and then ask him what he is again. Seriously.

Spellsword As it is, that's fine. But what if he's a SpellGreathornMinotaurHammer as per the variations in name Spellsword mentions? How about a Spellflail? Surely that guy sounds like he's going to burn down the town and chaotic magic display. Like a fireworks display gone wrong.

Anti-Paladin Nobody is going to define them self as nothing more than the antithesis of something else. That doesn't make sense. It's still a paladin, just not a very nice one.

This could be a long list. So I am going to stop. But seriously, I do not like a lot of class names in my games. It's as bad as being an "adventurer"....

The point is IN CHARACTER. Not why they class is called what it was. Or it's mechanics. Or what real world analog almost sort of by not really resembles something that has to do with the game. Please don't miss the point. Or do, I mean, everyone else did. Why not right? Words.


And what is the deal with airplane food?

khadgar567
2016-11-08, 06:32 AM
And what is the deal with airplane food?
nani? cuz i dont underst and what you post

Stealth Marmot
2016-11-08, 04:30 PM
nani? cuz i dont underst and what you post

His entire post sounded like a comedian trying to do observational humor that nitpicks over the ever so slight inanities in our language that crop up due to either adapting linguistic uses, or a mild quirk of language where repeating terms may have different meanings depending on context, while referring to one meaning in the wrong context can be seemingly ironic or humorous.

In other words, his entire post is the D&D equivalent of "Hey, why do we park in driveways and drive on parkways?"

GungHo
2016-11-09, 02:52 PM
His entire post sounded like a comedian trying to do observational humor that nitpicks over the ever so slight inanities in our language that crop up due to either adapting linguistic uses, or a mild quirk of language where repeating terms may have different meanings depending on context, while referring to one meaning in the wrong context can be seemingly ironic or humorous.

In other words, his entire post is the D&D equivalent of "Hey, why do we park in driveways and drive on parkways?"

If it makes you feel better, I totally read it in a Jerry Seinfeld voice.

Stealth Marmot
2016-11-10, 12:23 PM
If it makes you feel better, I totally read it in a Jerry Seinfeld voice.

That was the idea :smallsmile: