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SamTheCleric
2008-03-24, 07:50 AM
The Forgotten Realms Player's Guide presents this changed world from the point of view of the adventurers exploring it. This product includes everything a player needs to create his character for a D&D campaign in the Forgotten Realms setting, including new feats, new character powers, new paragon paths and epic destinies, and even a brand-new character class never before seen in D&D: the swordmage!

So... a "never before seen" swordmage... is it just going to be a rehashed duskblade? I realize no one knows as of yet, but it's fun to talk about.

KillianHawkeye
2008-03-24, 08:06 AM
The Swordmage was mentioned in Races & Classes, but all it really said was that it filled the Defender role for the Arcane power source, and that it mixed swordfighting with spellcasting and used its magic as armor.

Clearly meant to be a gish class, but I'd guess that neither the fluff nor the feel of the mechanics will be similar to any 3.X gish classes, thus warranting the new class name?

SamTheCleric
2008-03-24, 08:08 AM
Arcane Defender... Interesting. This intrigues me. :smallbiggrin:

Tengu
2008-03-24, 08:14 AM
I'm sure that this class will either rock, or have a lot of wasted potential. Seeing that fourth edition is generally awesome, probably the first option.

Roderick_BR
2008-03-24, 09:04 AM
At first I thought it would be something like the spellsword PrC, but now I wonder if it won't be like the "elf" class from ther older editions (uses both martial prowess and magical spells).

RTGoodman
2008-03-24, 09:22 AM
There's been some talk about it before. Rich Baker talks about it here (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=217789) and here (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=13779533&postcount=11), and the ENWorld 4E info thread has a little bit more (just scroll down or Ctrl+F until you find it on this page (http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=4e)).

I don't particularly like gishes (Baker says they aren't gishes, but time will tell), but I guess it'll be cool for people looking for an Arcane Defender. Of course, I most likely won't buy the FR stuff, so I won't know much about it unless it's republished in one of the yearly PHBs or something.

SamTheCleric
2008-03-24, 09:26 AM
Sadly, enworld is behind the Dreaded Firewall of Anti-Slacking +4. :/

Thanks for the links though, I'll check it out when I go home.

playswithfire
2008-03-24, 09:42 AM
This is the long awaited fleshing out of the Arcane Swordsage variant!

Well, you did want rampant speculation, right? And, come on, swordsage + magic = swordmage. :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: more detailed crazy guesses.

Spontaneous Caster
CHA to AC in light armor constant mage armor-like thing, having read the links
something like the wu jen's spell secrets, but they'll apply to a whole school rather than specific spells and you'll only get two of them.

SamTheCleric
2008-03-24, 09:47 AM
Hmm, CHA to AC in light constant mage armor is an interesting idea. And yes, I think it will be an "Arcane Swordsage" ... which is ok by me! :smallcool:

I'm not familiar with the spell secrets of the Wu Jen. Are they interesting/useful?

Indon
2008-03-24, 10:00 AM
So... a "never before seen" swordmage... is it just going to be a rehashed duskblade? I realize no one knows as of yet, but it's fun to talk about.

My bet:

Mechanics=Swordsage+Hexblade+Duskblade+otherblades .
Flavor=Bladedancer. Or whatever that AD&D elf-associated gish was called. Sworddancer? Bladecheeser? Fopdancery? I don't recall properly anymore.

playswithfire
2008-03-24, 10:10 AM
I'm not familiar with the spell secrets of the Wu Jen. Are they interesting/useful?

Spell Secrets: At 3rd, 9th, 12th, 15th, and 18th levels, a wu jen can select one spell she knows and alter it so that it always works as though modified with a metamagic feat taken from a short list given in the wu jen class description*. The altered spell does not use up a higher-level spell slot, and the wu jen does not need to know the selected metamagic feat.

*It's like Still, Silent, one or two others. Mainly useful if you're specializing in a few things and a bit flavorful. The Jean Grey Master of the Unseen Hand build applies them to telekinesis, for example

ColdBrew
2008-03-24, 11:55 AM
Fopdancery?
It wasn't, but it should have been.

Trog
2008-03-24, 01:30 PM
If it's filling the Arcane Power source and Defender role, as someone mentioned, likely if will have powers similar to the Fighter in that they will be difficult to maneuver away from and will have powers that can effect more than one adjacent opponent. Except with magic and/or weapon instead of just weapon. But since it isn't a martial character I'd imagine it would channel the magical effects through the sword attacks. Otherwise you'd have martial attacks and magic attacks. Which seems to be falling into two power sources. So that seems unlikely if they want to keep game balance. WotC will probably mine all the previous fighter/magic user combos for powers and keep what works. Probably adding a lot of new powers.