I went and looked up the Arcane Archer video. It's an interesting peak at the design process. I'm not sure it's much of an argument for or against anyone's idea of how an arcane gish could exist though. I feel there is a pretty good chance that they would have made it a subclass of the arcane gish, if there was one. They even mentioned that there was no way to make a subclass with a multiclass prerequisite in 5e or they might have used it. Since it was a prestige class previously. So they had to make do. They also wanted to preserve something of the old class, since it was popular. And somehow it playtested well as a Fighter subclass, against their expectations, so they printed it.
A lot of the classes and subclasses we have now are just reworks of things that originally came out during an explosion of new classes. They try to make the most popular ones fit. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a huge demand for dragon blooded wizards that could make their spells go a little further until the Sorcerer was written. Now that it exists, it has inspired a lot of people to try to make it work for their character concept. In fact, as mentioned above, many people are let down by mechanics or flavor. Many people ignore the Warlock's patron altogether. RAW, there is no penalty for telling your patron to go suck eggs. Other people freely reflavor mechanics that suit their ideas better than the ones made for it
I'm one of the few people who actually likes the Arcane Archer. But even I don't really want to use it for the character concepts I have for a spell-bow. The mechanics and the flavor just don't work for what I want. I ended up multiclassing when I tried to make them in the past. I took a wizard and made the bow the arcane focus. I cast cantrips like Firebolt and said I had to draw the spell like an arrow of pure fire. I then had to figure out what martial class to take to get the other half of the equation. Otherwise it was just a wizard with a gimmick. My imagination had a character that could fight and cast spells. I had to just make up all the flavor to get the concept in my head to work using the mechanics available.
So my point was that there is a demand for an Arcane gish. People have character concepts they can't fulfill with the mechanics we have so far. WotC can make the class. If the only concern was a lore justification for their power, that's easy to make up. Some people won't use the flavor anyway.
If the only roadblock to an arcane gish is the fact that Sorcerers, Wizards, and Warlocks have unique power sources and the gish doesn't, that's only because WotC made up some reason their power sounds unique. If they said that there is a new arcane gish class that gets its power from the inner planes, and they act as living avatars of elementals, that would be pretty unique. And it might appeal to a lot of people. Or they could make up something else. That's all they did for Sorcerers, and Warlocks, and Barbarians, and Rangers, etc. These classes all feel like part of the DnD tapestry now because they inspired people. An arcane gish could do the same if given the chance. And I bet there are at least as many examples of warriors with wizard magic in popular fantasy as there are hunters with druid magic, if not more.
Erhm.... The classes have never been balanced. CoDzilla, the name deriving from 'Cleric or Druid' + Godzilla, was a massive balance issue in 3.5e, since Clerics and Druids had the spellcasting power of a Full Caster, including damage spells, (self)buffs and (self)healing, combined with the durability and resource-free damage output of a Martial. To the point that a min-maxed level 10 Cleric could solo some epic-level gods that stats were provided for. D&D has always had the issue of Caster Supremacy (except in 4e, but 4e had its own staggering range of power balance issues) with varying editions only differing in whether Casters were superior to Martials at higher level because Martials didn't stand a chance against high level enemies without the support of Casters or whether Martials could bring down high level enemies alone, but having a Caster present made it trivially easy.
And most classes have rarely been unique. Fighters ('Fighting Men', because it was the '70s and casual sexism was still the norm) used to be unique in that they were 'the class that doesn't use magic'. Then Thieves popped up. Wizards (well... 'Magic Users') used to be unique in their ability to cast Arcane Spells. Then Bards came around and stole that from them. Priests used to be unique in their ability to cast Divine spells. Then Fighters got two sub-class dedicated entirely to combining 'being a dum-dum what fights gud' with some situational divine spell casting (Paladin and Ranger). Etc...
A big part of why the class groups don't really make sense is that the class design in the past never cared about symmetry, took a 'steal it and make it your own' approach to uniqueness and barely cared about balance. Caring about balance is something that's only very recently become relevant to D&D class design.
Among the 12 PHB classes of 3.5e (okay, technically the Warlock isn't a PHB class in 3.5e) and 5e, there are:
A total of 6 classes that function as Martials and a total of 8 classes that function as Casters. "Hey, that's 14, not 12!" you might say, and that's right. Because two of the Martials and two of the Casters are actually the same class (Paladin and Ranger). You might say that, since Paladins and Rangers can cast spells, they're not Martials, but fact of the matter is that in combat you can play a Paladin or Ranger purely on their weapon damage and class abilities without ever casting a spell and not really lose any combat effectiveness (more so in 3.5e than in 5e, but still). And then you have the Cleric, which isn't strictly speaking universally a Martial, but can be built function like one and wade into frontline combat relying mostly on weapon damage and class abilities rather than spell casting, which isn't usually the optimal thing to do, but it does mean that Clerics don't become dead weight to the party when they run out of spell slots the way that most other Full Casters do. (Again, more so in 3.5e where all Clerics had Heavy Armour proficiency and better BAB progression than other Full Casters, compared to 5e, where only half the Domains grant Heavy Armour proficiency). And of course Druids are Full Casters who can be spell slinging death engines, but can also spend most of their time in combat functionally being Martials if they rely heavily on Wildshape.
Speaking of... Among those Casters, 5 are Full Casters, 2 are Half Casters and 1 defies such classification (In 3.5e the Warlock wasn't strictly speaking a Caster at all, they had a limited selection of Spell-like abilities they could use an infinite amount of times, but no spell slots or limited resources involved. In 5e the Warlock can functionally be anywhere from a 'one-eights' caster to an 'infinity' caster depending on the ratios of encounters per short rest, encounters per long rest and/or short rests per long rest).
Notice also how while each class has some unique abilities for that class, there's also massive overlap between general ability of classes. Paladins are essentially Fighters with half a cleric grafted onto them, which makes sense since they started off in AD&D 1st Edition as the Fighter/Priest multi-class progression. Rangers are a cobbled together mish-mash of Fighter, Rogue and Druid/nature cleric features. Which makes sense too, since they started off as the OD&D Fighter/Thief/Priest multi-class progression, which gained the 'Ranger' flavour mainly because someone in one of Gygax's groups used that to roleplay, essentially, Aragorn from LotR and that struck a chord with Gary.
Way back in the day, there were 4 classes. Then someone said, 'hey, I want to play a berserker.' I imagine that if this forum existed then, there would be tons of people telling them to just make a Fighting Man and call it done. But there was enough support for the concept in general that we got Barbarians. The same with every other new class.
The Barbarian did start off as just a 'Fighting Man'. The origin of the Barbarian class is much like that of the Ranger, in the sense that one of Gygax's players played a Fighting Man as, essentially, a Conan clone and Gygax liked it so much he gave that player some special thematic abilities and then turned it into a 'kit' for the Fighting Man in a magazine article, which then later evolved into its own class in a later edition.
Now, WotC could have made any mechanics they wanted for the Barbarian.
I mean, WotC could not have done any of those things, because the original Barbarian class was devised before WotC ever acquired the rights to D&D.
The PHB classes other than the Fighter, Wizard, Thief and Cleric that exist today, all started off as a flavourconcept first, only acquiring mechanics to fit that flavour in later editions, with the Warlock being the only exception.
And the Warlock. as far as I know (which is anecdotal and may be completely wrong, mind), derived from an in-office joke that the only way a Caster was going to be free of the limited spell slots of Vancian magic was if they sold their soul to the devil and so when some of 3.5e's developers started designing an Arcane magic using class that didn't have limited spellslots they made that joke part of the theming. Of course then in 5e, they abandoned the mechanical concept of Warlocks as 'Magic users who don't use spells and spell slots', but not the flavour concept of a class that sells its soul (or at least its services) to a powerful being in exchange for magic powers.
Real talk, for a moment, do you know why there will probably never be an Arcane Gish that is like a Paladin, but for Arcane magic among the PHB classes? Because Caster Supremacy is a thing and will always be a thing so long as D&D doesn't do the whole 'everything is a power and all powers are roughly the same regardless of origin' thing it did in 4e again. With every new edition, the design team has enough trouble making sure pure Martials aren't completely outclassed by combat-capable Divine (or 'Divine/Primal' now, apparently) Casters like Paladins, Clerics, Druids and Rangers, whose spell lists traditionally have fewer (but not zero) massive AoE and high direct damage spells. If they make a class that can fight as well as a Martial at low levels and has the Arcane spell-casting might of a Wizard or Sorcerer at Mid-level, then pure Martials become even more handicapped in comparison.
So even without these Class Groups, you can have an Arcane Gish that you would consider worth playing or you can have balanced classes. You cannot have both.
Okay thanks. My posts were already very long. I didn't want to derail them further with my own history lessons or discussions about martial/caster divides. But let me rephrase those three specific snippets of my posts -
"Mechanics need to be balanced in the sense that anything is balanced in DnD 5e. That's a whole different discussion. But, in general, an idea turns into mechanics. They try to write rules that work within their established framework. Then they justify those rules with flavor text that is at least as unique as what we have now."
"Way back in the day, there were 4 classes. Then someone said, 'hey, I want to play a berserker.' I imagine that if this forum existed then, there would be tons of people telling them to just make a Fighting Man and call it done. That's what the first barbarian did. And Gygax liked it, so we got Barbarians. The same with every other new class."
"Now, WotC could have made any mechanics they wanted for the Barbarian, just like Gygax could have when he first made it."
There, all of them are fixed to be more accurate. It doesn't change the message at all. But I hope that helps.
If they can make Paladins and Rangers balanced (as much as they can be considered balanced currently) then they can make an Arcane gish just as balanced. They can restrict spells schools, and use 1/2 caster progressions. There is no reason the concept can't exist.
Erhm.... The classes have never been balanced. CoDzilla, the name deriving from 'Cleric or Druid' + Godzilla, was a massive balance issue in 3.5e, since Clerics and Druids had the spellcasting power of a Full Caster, including damage spells, (self)buffs and (self)healing, combined with the durability and resource-free damage output of a Martial. To the point that a min-maxed level 10 Cleric could solo some epic-level gods that stats were provided for. D&D has always had the issue of Caster Supremacy (except in 4e, but 4e had its own staggering range of power balance issues) with varying editions only differing in whether Casters were superior to Martials at higher level because Martials didn't stand a chance against high level enemies without the support of Casters or whether Martials could bring down high level enemies alone, but having a Caster present made it trivially easy.
And most classes have rarely been unique. Fighters ('Fighting Men', because it was the '70s and casual sexism was still the norm) used to be unique in that they were 'the class that doesn't use magic'. Then Thieves popped up. Wizards (well... 'Magic Users') used to be unique in their ability to cast Arcane Spells. Then Bards came around and stole that from them. Priests used to be unique in their ability to cast Divine spells. Then Fighters got two sub-class dedicated entirely to combining 'being a dum-dum what fights gud' with some situational divine spell casting (Paladin and Ranger). Etc...
A big part of why the class groups don't really make sense is that the class design in the past never cared about symmetry, took a 'steal it and make it your own' approach to uniqueness and barely cared about balance. Caring about balance is something that's only very recently become relevant to D&D class design.
Among the 12 PHB classes of 3.5e (okay, technically the Warlock isn't a PHB class in 3.5e) and 5e, there are:
A total of 6 classes that function as Martials and a total of 8 classes that function as Casters. "Hey, that's 14, not 12!" you might say, and that's right. Because two of the Martials and two of the Casters are actually the same class (Paladin and Ranger). You might say that, since Paladins and Rangers can cast spells, they're not Martials, but fact of the matter is that in combat you can play a Paladin or Ranger purely on their weapon damage and class abilities without ever casting a spell and not really lose any combat effectiveness (more so in 3.5e than in 5e, but still). And then you have the Cleric, which isn't strictly speaking universally a Martial, but can be built function like one and wade into frontline combat relying mostly on weapon damage and class abilities rather than spell casting, which isn't usually the optimal thing to do, but it does mean that Clerics don't become dead weight to the party when they run out of spell slots the way that most other Full Casters do. (Again, more so in 3.5e where all Clerics had Heavy Armour proficiency and better BAB progression than other Full Casters, compared to 5e, where only half the Domains grant Heavy Armour proficiency). And of course Druids are Full Casters who can be spell slinging death engines, but can also spend most of their time in combat functionally being Martials if they rely heavily on Wildshape.
Speaking of... Among those Casters, 5 are Full Casters, 2 are Half Casters and 1 defies such classification (In 3.5e the Warlock wasn't strictly speaking a Caster at all, they had a limited selection of Spell-like abilities they could use an infinite amount of times, but no spell slots or limited resources involved. In 5e the Warlock can functionally be anywhere from a 'one-eights' caster to an 'infinity' caster depending on the ratios of encounters per short rest, encounters per long rest and/or short rests per long rest).
Notice also how while each class has some unique abilities for that class, there's also massive overlap between general ability of classes. Paladins are essentially Fighters with half a cleric grafted onto them, which makes sense since they started off in AD&D 1st Edition as the Fighter/Priest multi-class progression. Rangers are a cobbled together mish-mash of Fighter, Rogue and Druid/nature cleric features. Which makes sense too, since they started off as the OD&D Fighter/Thief/Priest multi-class progression, which gained the 'Ranger' flavour mainly because someone in one of Gygax's groups used that to roleplay, essentially, Aragorn from LotR and that struck a chord with Gary.
Way back in the day, there were 4 classes. Then someone said, 'hey, I want to play a berserker.' I imagine that if this forum existed then, there would be tons of people telling them to just make a Fighting Man and call it done. But there was enough support for the concept in general that we got Barbarians. The same with every other new class.
The Barbarian did start off as just a 'Fighting Man'. The origin of the Barbarian class is much like that of the Ranger, in the sense that one of Gygax's players played a Fighting Man as, essentially, a Conan clone and Gygax liked it so much he gave that player some special thematic abilities and then turned it into a 'kit' for the Fighting Man in a magazine article, which then later evolved into its own class in a later edition.
Now, WotC could have made any mechanics they wanted for the Barbarian.
I mean, WotC could not have done any of those things, because the original Barbarian class was devised before WotC ever acquired the rights to D&D.
The PHB classes other than the Fighter, Wizard, Thief and Cleric that exist today, all started off as a flavourconcept first, only acquiring mechanics to fit that flavour in later editions, with the Warlock being the only exception.
And the Warlock. as far as I know (which is anecdotal and may be completely wrong, mind), derived from an in-office joke that the only way a Caster was going to be free of the limited spell slots of Vancian magic was if they sold their soul to the devil and so when some of 3.5e's developers started designing an Arcane magic using class that didn't have limited spellslots they made that joke part of the theming. Of course then in 5e, they abandoned the mechanical concept of Warlocks as 'Magic users who don't use spells and spell slots', but not the flavour concept of a class that sells its soul (or at least its services) to a powerful being in exchange for magic powers.
Real talk, for a moment, do you know why there will probably never be an Arcane Gish that is like a Paladin, but for Arcane magic among the PHB classes? Because Caster Supremacy is a thing and will always be a thing so long as D&D doesn't do the whole 'everything is a power and all powers are roughly the same regardless of origin' thing it did in 4e again. With every new edition, the design team has enough trouble making sure pure Martials aren't completely outclassed by combat-capable Divine (or 'Divine/Primal' now, apparently) Casters like Paladins, Clerics, Druids and Rangers, whose spell lists traditionally have fewer (but not zero) massive AoE and high direct damage spells. If they make a class that can fight as well as a Martial at low levels and has the Arcane spell-casting might of a Wizard or Sorcerer at Mid-level, then pure Martials become even more handicapped in comparison.
So even without these Class Groups, you can have an Arcane Gish that you would consider worth playing or you can have balanced classes. You cannot have both.
Having read this whole thing, I would like to announce that I have absolutely zero idea what the point you are trying to make is.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
I mean, the concept does exist. Eldritch Knights and Bladesingers are both attempts at making the concept into a reality. As are the Pact of the Blade and Hexblade Warlocks and the Armorer Artificer.
It's just that people aren't satisfied with all of those because they're not exactly what they want. Because what people want is a full on gish Arcane Paladin. And that's not going to happen in contemporary D&D because too many people would complain, rightly so, that it's ridiculously overpowered. The only reason the Paladin isn't nerfed to the point of essentially being the same as the Eldritch Knight, except Divine, is that it's a legacy class from a time when D&D designers weren't remotely concerned with balance and nerfing it to that point would upset long time Paladin fans (including the ones on the design team).
I mean, the concept does exist. Eldritch Knights and Bladesingers are both attempts at making the concept into a reality. As are the Pact of the Blade and Hexblade Warlocks and the Armorer Artificer.
It's just that people aren't satisfied with all of those because they're not exactly what they want. Because what people want is a full on gish Arcane Paladin. And that's not going to happen in contemporary D&D because too many people would complain, rightly so, that it's ridiculously overpowered. The only reason the Paladin isn't nerfed to the point of essentially being the same as the Eldritch Knight, except Divine, is that it's a legacy class from a time when D&D designers weren't remotely concerned with balance and nerfing it to that point would upset long time Paladin fans (including the ones on the design team).
I meant the concept of an arcane gish Class, not a subclass. If a class existed, most of the subclasses that try to replicate it would fit there better. There is no reason they couldn't make a 'balanced' Arcane gish class.
You're just stating it as fact that it would be overpowered. But there is no reason to think that must be so. The Paladin is pretty strong currently, but mostly when people exploit the smites. An arcane gish does not need to have a similar mechanic. And if it does, it can be fixed the same way I suspect the Paladin is about to be. Every class can be fixed. They're working on it right now. The other gish class we have, the Ranger, has long been considered one of the worst classes. A class having martial skills and spells does not automatically make it OP.
Gish classes are half casters. The highest level spells they get are level 5. An Arcane gish wouldn't even be able to cast fireball until they are 9th level. They will never cast Wish or any other crazy wizard spell. And access to certain schools can also be limited the way they are with Rangers in 1DnD. It just doesn't make sense to say we will never see an arcane gish because it would be too strong. When the power level of a class is whatever the designers make it.
A Warlock is in no way a half caster. A half caster is a class that gets their spell progression at half the rate of a full caster. So I'll grant that an Artificer has that spell progression. But they aren't a martial/half caster the way the Paladin and Ranger are. The closest they get is the Battle Smith. That's one subclass. One that has its own distinct feel. Not one that a player can easily use to fill all of the character concepts that a real arcane gish class could. I want them to complete the trio of gish classes, with something new that can accommodate most of the subclasses that tried to do it, but were restrained by the lack of an obvious class to put them in.
I went and looked up the Arcane Archer video. It's an interesting peak at the design process. I'm not sure it's much of an argument for or against anyone's idea of how an arcane gish could exist though.
Was unrelated to arcane gish existance. I mean, we have artificer, who's an arcane gish. They're not a wizard-fighter gish, but they're a definately a warrior/mage gish type. Was an argument entirely about how the D&D team goes about creating content.
If the only roadblock to an arcane gish is the fact that Sorcerers, Wizards, and Warlocks have unique power sources and the gish doesn't, that's only because WotC made up some reason their power sounds unique.
The real argument against the arcane gish class is, well... Ultimately, its running into the exact same issue that the Mystic class did - according to feedback, the Mystic class stepped on too many of other classes' toes, that it was too complex and allowed for too many overpowered options mixed together. Well, maybe not that last bit, given that it doesn't officially exist, but the former certainly. Artificer, an Arcane Paladin (Ranger too?), various Fighter subclasses, Bladesinger, Hexblade, Valor/Sword Bard. We have a ton of options already.
Any story behind the arcane gish will be just "wizard who also is fighter and some special techniques." That's... just a multiclass with one unique ability that could be just a new subclass or a feat. Spellswords in particular are just fighter-wizards that have arcane smites.
That said... pretty much even new classes will run into that same problem. I will argue that Artificer does as well, with the core 12. So, any future classes will probably have to step on toes. So I fully expect that we'll be seeing more of them in the future, outside the core.
And, as an aside, I still find it annoying that you're reducing the class fantasy behind sorcerers, wizards and warlocks down to "made up reasons." Story is important. Sorcerers are innate magic - they're the ones born (or mutants) who make magic by wishing hard and practicing it. Wizards study arcane formula - the standard. Warlocks have pacts and trade for magic - they're more magical girls and witches, who need their wands and familiars and friends. Each of the three mages are a distinct literary trope.
And I bet there are at least as many examples of warriors with wizard magic in popular fantasy as there are hunters with druid magic, if not more.
On the matter of hunters with druidic magic... Spirit archers are actually fairly common archetype for elves in a lot of contemporary fantasy stories with them in it. Especially in asian influenced media, such as anime/manga, manwa, etc. Animism isn't as popular in western countries where Christian theism has so much influence as it is in other countries, but outside it? Much more common than you're obviously thinking.
And we have a ton of examples of warriors with magic in D&D. I'm not going to say they're "wizards" with swords, because arguing that some random magic user in another story is equivalent to a wizard is a whole different argument. People can't even agree if Harry Potter or Gandalf are a wizard, sorcerer or warlock, or some mix thereof.
I went and looked up the Arcane Archer video. It's an interesting peak at the design process. I'm not sure it's much of an argument for or against anyone's idea of how an arcane gish could exist though.
Was unrelated to arcane gish existance. I mean, we have artificer, who's an arcane gish. They're not a wizard-fighter gish, but they're a definately a warrior/mage gish type. Was an argument entirely about how the D&D team goes about creating content.
If the only roadblock to an arcane gish is the fact that Sorcerers, Wizards, and Warlocks have unique power sources and the gish doesn't, that's only because WotC made up some reason their power sounds unique.
The real argument against the arcane gish class is, well... Ultimately, its running into the exact same issue that the Mystic class did - according to feedback, the Mystic class stepped on too many of other classes' toes, that it was too complex and allowed for too many overpowered options mixed together. Well, maybe not that last bit, given that it doesn't officially exist, but the former certainly. Artificer, an Arcane Paladin (Ranger too?), various Fighter subclasses, Bladesinger, Hexblade, Valor/Sword Bard. We have a ton of options already.
Any story behind the arcane gish will be just "wizard who also is fighter and some special techniques." That's... just a multiclass with one unique ability that could be just a new subclass or a feat. Spellswords in particular are just fighter-wizards that have arcane smites.
That said... pretty much even new classes will run into that same problem. I will argue that Artificer does as well, with the core 12. So, any future classes will probably have to step on toes. So I fully expect that we'll be seeing more of them in the future, outside the core.
And, as an aside, I still find it annoying that you're reducing the class fantasy behind sorcerers, wizards and warlocks down to "made up reasons." Story is important. Sorcerers are innate magic - they're the ones born (or mutants) who make magic by wishing hard and practicing it. Wizards study arcane formula - the standard. Warlocks have pacts and trade for magic - they're more magical girls and witches, who need their wands and familiars and friends. Each of the three mages are a distinct literary trope.
And I bet there are at least as many examples of warriors with wizard magic in popular fantasy as there are hunters with druid magic, if not more.
On the matter of hunters with druidic magic... Spirit archers are actually fairly common archetype for elves in a lot of contemporary fantasy stories with them in it. Especially in asian influenced media, such as anime/manga, manwa, etc. Animism isn't as popular in western countries where Christian theism has so much influence as it is in other countries, but outside it? Much more common than you're obviously thinking.
And we have a ton of examples of warriors with magic in D&D. I'm not going to say they're "wizards" with swords, because arguing that some random magic user in another story is equivalent to a wizard is a whole different argument. People can't even agree if Harry Potter or Gandalf are a wizard, sorcerer or warlock, or some mix thereof.
You've decided that there is nothing that would make an Arcane gish unique. That it could have no story of its own. I'm only saying that it's perfectly capable of having one. You clearly have your own ideas of what a Sorcerer is, and what a Warlock is, and they aren't all in the text itself. You've used the mechanics given to create your own stories. That's great! An arcane gish could do the same.
My point, once again, is that they made up the flavor for Sorcerers and Warlocks to fit the rules. The inspiration was always going to be there for innate spellcasters and faustian bargains. I'm not denying that. These are classic tropes. But after they decided to use that inspiration to make classes, they had to create mechanics that fulfilled the fantasy in some way that worked for DnD. The could have decided anything. For Sorcerers they went with metamagic. The innate magic trope didn't have to be expressed that way. It's just the mechanic they chose. Then they said Sorcerers get that innate magic from a dragon or something else in the bloodline. But they could have explained it any number of ways. They could have said that it was a gift from the fairies. Or being born under the right alignment of stars. Or in a high magic concentration of the Weave. They decided it was hereditary. But it could have been anything. It wouldn't change the popularity of the trope that inspired it. Just the justification in the game.
The inspiration of a warrior mage is at least as popular in fiction. The fact that so many subclasses try to make it work is testament to that. Just because you can't think of an in-game justification for it, doesn't mean one can't exist. And just because you are content with the subclasses filing that role, doesn't mean everyone is.
And please never presume to know what my personal influences are. Don't try to say I must be coming from some Christian Western mindset. I guarantee you are wrong. You do not know me, and you cannot begin to from my posts on this forum. In fact, the biggest reason I want an arcane gish class personally is so I can better make the wuxia and xianxia characters I really want. I also recognize that there are other players out there who aren't me who want one for different reasons. I have no problem with someone disagreeing with me over what classes should be in a game. But kindly take the condescension elsewhere.
Whether it's wotc adding a class or individuals with specific desires homebrew. Class groups really don't force much onto their participants. As far as I can tell, It's 1 mechanism each and feat prerequisites. Feat prerequisites however can be modified internally in the class.
So anyone wanting a homebrew version of such gish buids could make a warrior or a mage group version and it could still work. Depending on the 1 shared mechanism you want.
Spell lists are a little more restricted but wotc already has indicated they want options available to make exceptions. If it gets too complex a new spell list should be possible and allow spells to be automatically integrated.
Having a specific requirement for features gained at certain levels is a little limited but that really isn't part of the "groups design" philosophy.
TLDR: Overall to me it still seems groups are fine for adding classes homebrew or official.
You've decided that there is nothing that would make an Arcane gish unique. That it could have no story of its own.
WE ALREADY HAVE ARCANE GISHES. I listed several. Any future one is just going to be repeating one of those already in existence.
You clearly have your own ideas of what a Sorcerer is, and what a Warlock is, and they aren't all in the text itself.
They are in the text, as well as videos as the devs discussed them. Sure, I oversimplified it quite a bit so you won't see it written out like that verbatim, but it very much is canon, not being made up. So... yeah.
My point, once again, is that they made up the flavor for Sorcerers and Warlocks to fit the rules.
And my point is the opposite. So... yeah. They made rules to fit the story. I'm willing to agree to disagree at this point.
Then they said Sorcerers get that innate magic from a dragon or something else in the bloodline. But they could have explained it any number of ways. They could have said that it was a gift from the fairies. Or being born under the right alignment of stars. Or in a high magic concentration of the Weave. They decided it was hereditary. But it could have been anything. It wouldn't change the popularity of the trope that inspired it. Just the justification in the game.
They did say that it could be a gift from the fairies or born under the right alignment of stars. That's where the -mutant- part I mentioned comes in. Something altered you from so that magic is innate to your being. Could be a blessing, could be a high concentration of the weave. Sorcerers include heredity magic, but not exclusively so.
The inspiration of a warrior mage is at least as popular in fiction. The fact that so many subclasses try to make it work is testament to that. Just because you can't think of an in-game justification for it, doesn't mean one can't exist. And just because you are content with the subclasses filing that role, doesn't mean everyone is.
You're warping what I said. All those warrior-mages do exist in fiction. I have never denied that, and in fact, have pointed to said subclasses as evidence of said trope. Hells, given that half of Fighter subclasses rely on using some form of magic (five of ten subclasses: Arcane Archer, Echo Knight, Eldritch Knight, Psi Warrior, Rune Knight), I will argue that Arcane Gish is half the current Fighter's identity. Plus all those other classes and subclasses I talked about above.
I've stated that any new "Arcane Gish" class is going to overlap with those existing classes and subclasses. A Spellsword PrC conversion is just going to be repeating the same tropes as Eldritch Knight and Paladin. And I've also said that its unlikely we'll see an official version because of that. Just like what happened with the Mystic. Ultimately, Arcane Gishes already exists, and people are just asking for different mechanics for the same archetype.
Its unfortunate, but that is a bridge that will need to be crossed for official content. 70 to 80 percent approval will be an uphill battle, if not impossible, because "arcane-gish" is a very broad category, and any class will face the same scrutiny and issues that Mystic did.
And please never presume to know what my personal influences are. Don't try to say I must be coming from some Christian Western mindset.
I can see how my phrasing was bad there and came off harsher than I intended, so that's on me. Sorry, my bad. Wasn't my intention.
Pretty sure you've said before that you think druid magic using archers aren't common outside of D&D; iirc, this was not the first time you brought up that comparison. So... That's what I was talking about. Wasn't talking about your personal influences. The way you're holding up Ranger, as if its some rare beast
Isn't this debate about whether people are invalid and bad at gaming and D&D for wanting an 'Arcane Gish' that isn't a malfunctional objectively-bad subclass kind of off base for a discussion on whether class groups are or are not a worthwhile design direction?
I mean, the concept does exist. Eldritch Knights and Bladesingers are both attempts at making the concept into a reality. As are the Pact of the Blade and Hexblade Warlocks and the Armorer Artificer.
It's just that people aren't satisfied with all of those because they're not exactly what they want. Because what people want is a full on gish Arcane Paladin. And that's not going to happen in contemporary D&D because too many people would complain, rightly so, that it's ridiculously overpowered. The only reason the Paladin isn't nerfed to the point of essentially being the same as the Eldritch Knight, except Divine, is that it's a legacy class from a time when D&D designers weren't remotely concerned with balance and nerfing it to that point would upset long time Paladin fans (including the ones on the design team).
I find it ironic that you consider paladins or potential arcane gish to be ridiculously overpowered in a game where CoDzilla exists. As well as other casters.
Isn't this debate about whether people are invalid and bad at gaming and D&D for wanting an 'Arcane Gish' that isn't a malfunctional objectively-bad subclass kind of off base for a discussion on whether class groups are or are not a worthwhile design direction?
While more bunt with a flavor of opinion than I would care for yurei is right.
Make a new thread so content can be found by those looking to engage with it.
First of all, I appreciate the apology Mephista, thank you. I'm really not trying to fight with anyone here.
I don't recall bringing up the ranger comparison before, though I might have. But I think there's some misunderstanding. I don't think the concept of a Ranger is rare. Or even that any hunter with magic is rare. Many of the original inspirations for the Ranger class in DnD did not have magic. Some probably did. You can find inspiration for a magical hunter all over the world. And inspiration for perfectly mundane hunters. Whatever the source, the hunter with DnD Druid spells is a part of the uniquely DnD version of the Ranger identity now. I was only saying that there are at least as many places to find inspiration for a warrior mage out there too.
At this point, we just aren't communicating well. If things I've said about class identity have irritated you, I'm sorry. I'm probably not explaining myself well at all. It wouldn't be the first time.
I'll try to summarize one last time. If I can't do it, then I'll attribute the failure to just my way of speaking.
Story absolutely matters
Popular fantasy and myths inspire game mechanics (classes, subclasses, spells, etc)
Game designers write the rules
They try to make sure the flavor and the rules mesh with the fantasy that inspired them.
Both the rules and the flavor could be anything as long as it works enough for the players to see the fantasy.
The rules that exist inspire players to make characters. Either because the rules fit the fantasy they came with in their heads, or because they inspired a new fantasy, or because they can shoehorn their ideas into the rules when they have nothing else
That's all. I'm not trying to say that the story of the inspiration doesn't matter. Or that the way the designers incorporate it into the class doesn't matter. Just that the designers have the freedom to create flavor where needed to fulfill the fantasies that players have. The Sorcerer and Warlock we have are inspired by popular fantasies. But the form they take in DnD is not the only way they could have been written. Other ways could have been perfectly acceptable.
Right now a lot of people have a fantasy of a warrior mage. Inspired from all forms of media and myth. They currently have to shoehorn that fantasy into a scattering of subclasses. It doesn't work well for most character concepts. Part of the reason is that the designers are forced to adapt the ideas to the classes that already exist, but those classes weren't made for those fantasies. So you end up with fighters that don't magic very well, and wizards that can't fight without their magic.
The Paladin studies weapons and some higher power (martial and divine). It was only more recently that they introduced the Oath as the source of that power. Not because there was a massive demand for warriors that got divine magic from making promises real hard. But to try to ease the restrictive nature of the old Paladin class being so bound to one alignment and a religion. It was a good change. It opened up many more options and inspired many people that would have never looked at the class before. And it now let's people create characters inspired by more world sources too.
The Ranger studies weapons and natural magic (martial and primal). That's their identity at its most distilled form.
There is no reason they can't complete the trio and have a class the studies weapons and the weave (martial and arcane).
If the Ranger and Paladin can exist, then an Arcane gish Class can. They gave the Ranger and Paladin their own DnD identity. They can give it to another class too.
I'm not saying it should exist on top of all of the other subclasses. It doesn't have to step on any toes. I think most of those other subclasses should be moved under a new arcane gish class. Make the Eldritch Knight and the Arcane Archer and the Bladesinger, etc. be subclasses for the new class. Get them in a place where they actually work well. Give the new class is own unique DnD identity. And let more people live out the fantasies they have.
Maybe the arcane gish class all use magic runes that tap into the Weave (or setting equivalent) for power. Maybe they all inscribe these runes on their weapons, armor, clothing, or even tattoo them on their skin. They could use 'runes' to make talismans, or inscribe circles in the air itself. The runes could be invisible until activated, or glow all the time. They could be carved in stone, or written with a calligraphy brush on paper Each Subclass could focus on using them in different ways. That's just one way they could have a DnD identity, and fulfill lots of fantasies. It could cover everything from Dwarven runesmiths to Cultivators. Or they could make up something else even more universal probably.
If anyone disagrees, that's totally fine. I just think it would make for better game design. And it would let me play the stories that inspire me personally. If I'm still not making sense, that's on me. But it's probably the best I can do in this format.
Isn't this debate about whether people are invalid and bad at gaming and D&D for wanting an 'Arcane Gish' that isn't a malfunctional objectively-bad subclass kind of off base for a discussion on whether class groups are or are not a worthwhile design direction?
While more bunt with a flavor of opinion than I would care for yurei is right.
Make a new thread so content can be found by those looking to engage with it.
You're all right and I'm sorry. I was in the middle of writing my last post on the topic. I do hate going so far off the rails.
I like the class groups. They haven't hurt anything in what we've seen so far. They just make organization easier. The only class that has seen any change to make it fit in the group structure is the Ranger. It got Expertise. And honestly, no matter what else I think of the way they changed the ranger's features, Expertise is good for the class. At least it can keep up with rogues in stealth and survival now.
I also like being able to give classes access to things like 'all Warrior feats' or spells from one of 3 big lists. It works nicely. And it opens more design opportunities. In fact, it's even good for 3rd party material, since they don't even have to reference precise feats or spells. They can just point to groups.
The thing is, how do you make an arcane spellblade unique? Paladins have their oath to draw power from and rangers draw power from primal hunting tactics, but I can't think of a any new source of power for an arcane martial to tap into without making them Eldritch Knight: the Class. I get the idea of 1 half martial per spell list, but in practice it seems smarter to me to just make subclasses that do a better job of mixing the martial and the arcane.
The Spellsword would be primarily Int based Arcane half caster and could be unique in their ability to Channel spells into their weapons as a bonus action to be released on the next hit. Making Fireball a single target melee attack roll is something no one else can do. It adds flexibility and efficiency. Multiple targets cast fireball as normal. Single target Channel Fireball into your sword and hit with it. They should have things like:
Point blank casting- ranged spells cast in melee range don’t suffer from disadvantage and add your Spellcasting mod to damage roll. Improved Concentration- add Int to concentration checks.
subclasses could be things like:
Swordmage which pays tribute with the aegis abilities from 4e. Making this subclass tanky.
Duskblade which pays tribute to 3.5 class is more melee focused and could let you channel certain types of your spells as part of your attack action freeing your bonus action. But not for a channel spell.
Crusader/Templar could add some divine magic leaning you toward a Paladin feel.
Warden could lean you toward a Ranger feel by giving you some primal magic.
I believe it’s unique enough feel to merit it’s own class, but I’m also sure it will never be. Unless I homebrew it and let my players play one. I still wouldn’t get that opportunity since I’ll never ask someone else to let me play my own homebrew at their table. I hope no one does that.
Bonus action spells that channel magic into weapon attacks? Like smites? Large amounts of single target damage of a unique type? Like Divine Smite? Your idea for "Point Blank Casting" would make a spellsword either a spell or a sword, depending on if their sword does more damage or their spell does more damage; it doesn't promote the cooperation of the magical and martial like a half caster's features should. Besides, my main issue is that there's not really any place for a new caster class to draw power from. How do you make it flavorfully separate from a wizard besides "they have martial weapon proficiency?"
Also, what's wrong with asking if you can use your homebrew at other tables? How else would homebrew ever get used?
You do realize that the ability I described is from 3.5e. It existed before the 5e version of divine smite. It works similar to a smite spell true, but clearly different. Your argument for unique makes wizard, sorcerer and warlock seem pointless. I guess warlock can stay since it cast spells differently and has a patron, but wizard or sorcerer should go. They are aren’t unique enough for both to exist. Your idea that half caster features promote cooperation of magical and martial is just mistaken. Where are the Ranger features that do this? Other than divine smite that is fueled by spell slots what other half caster features do this?
Sorcerers have innate powers that they use to manipulate the world around them. Wizards study their spells heavily despite having no innate powers, instead learning magic through sheer arcane knowledge. Seems like a big enough distinction to me. How would your spellsword get its power?
Half caster features don't promote cooperation of the magical and martial? That is such a weird thing to say. Especially considering...
As far as I can tell, the only meaningful purpose of class groups is to make certain abilities class-group limited -- they suggested that it might help with party building but given what we've seen so far it really won't.
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I went and looked up the Arcane Archer video. It's an interesting peak at the design process. I'm not sure it's much of an argument for or against anyone's idea of how an arcane gish could exist though. I feel there is a pretty good chance that they would have made it a subclass of the arcane gish, if there was one. They even mentioned that there was no way to make a subclass with a multiclass prerequisite in 5e or they might have used it. Since it was a prestige class previously. So they had to make do. They also wanted to preserve something of the old class, since it was popular. And somehow it playtested well as a Fighter subclass, against their expectations, so they printed it.
A lot of the classes and subclasses we have now are just reworks of things that originally came out during an explosion of new classes. They try to make the most popular ones fit. I'm pretty sure there wasn't a huge demand for dragon blooded wizards that could make their spells go a little further until the Sorcerer was written. Now that it exists, it has inspired a lot of people to try to make it work for their character concept. In fact, as mentioned above, many people are let down by mechanics or flavor. Many people ignore the Warlock's patron altogether. RAW, there is no penalty for telling your patron to go suck eggs. Other people freely reflavor mechanics that suit their ideas better than the ones made for it
I'm one of the few people who actually likes the Arcane Archer. But even I don't really want to use it for the character concepts I have for a spell-bow. The mechanics and the flavor just don't work for what I want. I ended up multiclassing when I tried to make them in the past. I took a wizard and made the bow the arcane focus. I cast cantrips like Firebolt and said I had to draw the spell like an arrow of pure fire. I then had to figure out what martial class to take to get the other half of the equation. Otherwise it was just a wizard with a gimmick. My imagination had a character that could fight and cast spells. I had to just make up all the flavor to get the concept in my head to work using the mechanics available.
So my point was that there is a demand for an Arcane gish. People have character concepts they can't fulfill with the mechanics we have so far. WotC can make the class. If the only concern was a lore justification for their power, that's easy to make up. Some people won't use the flavor anyway.
If the only roadblock to an arcane gish is the fact that Sorcerers, Wizards, and Warlocks have unique power sources and the gish doesn't, that's only because WotC made up some reason their power sounds unique. If they said that there is a new arcane gish class that gets its power from the inner planes, and they act as living avatars of elementals, that would be pretty unique. And it might appeal to a lot of people. Or they could make up something else. That's all they did for Sorcerers, and Warlocks, and Barbarians, and Rangers, etc. These classes all feel like part of the DnD tapestry now because they inspired people. An arcane gish could do the same if given the chance. And I bet there are at least as many examples of warriors with wizard magic in popular fantasy as there are hunters with druid magic, if not more.
Erhm.... The classes have never been balanced.
CoDzilla, the name deriving from 'Cleric or Druid' + Godzilla, was a massive balance issue in 3.5e, since Clerics and Druids had the spellcasting power of a Full Caster, including damage spells, (self)buffs and (self)healing, combined with the durability and resource-free damage output of a Martial. To the point that a min-maxed level 10 Cleric could solo some epic-level gods that stats were provided for. D&D has always had the issue of Caster Supremacy (except in 4e, but 4e had its own staggering range of power balance issues) with varying editions only differing in whether Casters were superior to Martials at higher level because Martials didn't stand a chance against high level enemies without the support of Casters or whether Martials could bring down high level enemies alone, but having a Caster present made it trivially easy.
And most classes have rarely been unique.
Fighters ('Fighting Men', because it was the '70s and casual sexism was still the norm) used to be unique in that they were 'the class that doesn't use magic'. Then Thieves popped up.
Wizards (well... 'Magic Users') used to be unique in their ability to cast Arcane Spells. Then Bards came around and stole that from them.
Priests used to be unique in their ability to cast Divine spells. Then Fighters got two sub-class dedicated entirely to combining 'being a dum-dum what fights gud' with some situational divine spell casting (Paladin and Ranger).
Etc...
A big part of why the class groups don't really make sense is that the class design in the past never cared about symmetry, took a 'steal it and make it your own' approach to uniqueness and barely cared about balance. Caring about balance is something that's only very recently become relevant to D&D class design.
Among the 12 PHB classes of 3.5e (okay, technically the Warlock isn't a PHB class in 3.5e) and 5e, there are:
A total of 6 classes that function as Martials and a total of 8 classes that function as Casters. "Hey, that's 14, not 12!" you might say, and that's right. Because two of the Martials and two of the Casters are actually the same class (Paladin and Ranger). You might say that, since Paladins and Rangers can cast spells, they're not Martials, but fact of the matter is that in combat you can play a Paladin or Ranger purely on their weapon damage and class abilities without ever casting a spell and not really lose any combat effectiveness (more so in 3.5e than in 5e, but still).
And then you have the Cleric, which isn't strictly speaking universally a Martial, but can be built function like one and wade into frontline combat relying mostly on weapon damage and class abilities rather than spell casting, which isn't usually the optimal thing to do, but it does mean that Clerics don't become dead weight to the party when they run out of spell slots the way that most other Full Casters do. (Again, more so in 3.5e where all Clerics had Heavy Armour proficiency and better BAB progression than other Full Casters, compared to 5e, where only half the Domains grant Heavy Armour proficiency).
And of course Druids are Full Casters who can be spell slinging death engines, but can also spend most of their time in combat functionally being Martials if they rely heavily on Wildshape.
Speaking of...
Among those Casters, 5 are Full Casters, 2 are Half Casters and 1 defies such classification (In 3.5e the Warlock wasn't strictly speaking a Caster at all, they had a limited selection of Spell-like abilities they could use an infinite amount of times, but no spell slots or limited resources involved. In 5e the Warlock can functionally be anywhere from a 'one-eights' caster to an 'infinity' caster depending on the ratios of encounters per short rest, encounters per long rest and/or short rests per long rest).
Notice also how while each class has some unique abilities for that class, there's also massive overlap between general ability of classes. Paladins are essentially Fighters with half a cleric grafted onto them, which makes sense since they started off in AD&D 1st Edition as the Fighter/Priest multi-class progression. Rangers are a cobbled together mish-mash of Fighter, Rogue and Druid/nature cleric features. Which makes sense too, since they started off as the OD&D Fighter/Thief/Priest multi-class progression, which gained the 'Ranger' flavour mainly because someone in one of Gygax's groups used that to roleplay, essentially, Aragorn from LotR and that struck a chord with Gary.
The Barbarian did start off as just a 'Fighting Man'. The origin of the Barbarian class is much like that of the Ranger, in the sense that one of Gygax's players played a Fighting Man as, essentially, a Conan clone and Gygax liked it so much he gave that player some special thematic abilities and then turned it into a 'kit' for the Fighting Man in a magazine article, which then later evolved into its own class in a later edition.
I mean, WotC could not have done any of those things, because the original Barbarian class was devised before WotC ever acquired the rights to D&D.
The PHB classes other than the Fighter, Wizard, Thief and Cleric that exist today, all started off as a flavour concept first, only acquiring mechanics to fit that flavour in later editions, with the Warlock being the only exception.
And the Warlock. as far as I know (which is anecdotal and may be completely wrong, mind), derived from an in-office joke that the only way a Caster was going to be free of the limited spell slots of Vancian magic was if they sold their soul to the devil and so when some of 3.5e's developers started designing an Arcane magic using class that didn't have limited spell slots they made that joke part of the theming. Of course then in 5e, they abandoned the mechanical concept of Warlocks as 'Magic users who don't use spells and spell slots', but not the flavour concept of a class that sells its soul (or at least its services) to a powerful being in exchange for magic powers.
Real talk, for a moment, do you know why there will probably never be an Arcane Gish that is like a Paladin, but for Arcane magic among the PHB classes? Because Caster Supremacy is a thing and will always be a thing so long as D&D doesn't do the whole 'everything is a power and all powers are roughly the same regardless of origin' thing it did in 4e again.
With every new edition, the design team has enough trouble making sure pure Martials aren't completely outclassed by combat-capable Divine (or 'Divine/Primal' now, apparently) Casters like Paladins, Clerics, Druids and Rangers, whose spell lists traditionally have fewer (but not zero) massive AoE and high direct damage spells. If they make a class that can fight as well as a Martial at low levels and has the Arcane spell-casting might of a Wizard or Sorcerer at Mid-level, then pure Martials become even more handicapped in comparison.
So even without these Class Groups, you can have an Arcane Gish that you would consider worth playing or you can have balanced classes. You cannot have both.
Okay thanks. My posts were already very long. I didn't want to derail them further with my own history lessons or discussions about martial/caster divides. But let me rephrase those three specific snippets of my posts -
"Mechanics need to be balanced in the sense that anything is balanced in DnD 5e. That's a whole different discussion. But, in general, an idea turns into mechanics. They try to write rules that work within their established framework. Then they justify those rules with flavor text that is at least as unique as what we have now."
"Way back in the day, there were 4 classes. Then someone said, 'hey, I want to play a berserker.' I imagine that if this forum existed then, there would be tons of people telling them to just make a Fighting Man and call it done. That's what the first barbarian did. And Gygax liked it, so we got Barbarians. The same with every other new class."
"Now, WotC could have made any mechanics they wanted for the Barbarian, just like Gygax could have when he first made it."
There, all of them are fixed to be more accurate. It doesn't change the message at all. But I hope that helps.
If they can make Paladins and Rangers balanced (as much as they can be considered balanced currently) then they can make an Arcane gish just as balanced. They can restrict spells schools, and use 1/2 caster progressions. There is no reason the concept can't exist.
Having read this whole thing, I would like to announce that I have absolutely zero idea what the point you are trying to make is.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
I mean, the concept does exist. Eldritch Knights and Bladesingers are both attempts at making the concept into a reality. As are the Pact of the Blade and Hexblade Warlocks and the Armorer Artificer.
It's just that people aren't satisfied with all of those because they're not exactly what they want. Because what people want is a full on gish Arcane Paladin.
And that's not going to happen in contemporary D&D because too many people would complain, rightly so, that it's ridiculously overpowered.
The only reason the Paladin isn't nerfed to the point of essentially being the same as the Eldritch Knight, except Divine, is that it's a legacy class from a time when D&D designers weren't remotely concerned with balance and nerfing it to that point would upset long time Paladin fans (including the ones on the design team).
I meant the concept of an arcane gish Class, not a subclass. If a class existed, most of the subclasses that try to replicate it would fit there better. There is no reason they couldn't make a 'balanced' Arcane gish class.
You're just stating it as fact that it would be overpowered. But there is no reason to think that must be so. The Paladin is pretty strong currently, but mostly when people exploit the smites. An arcane gish does not need to have a similar mechanic. And if it does, it can be fixed the same way I suspect the Paladin is about to be. Every class can be fixed. They're working on it right now. The other gish class we have, the Ranger, has long been considered one of the worst classes. A class having martial skills and spells does not automatically make it OP.
Gish classes are half casters. The highest level spells they get are level 5. An Arcane gish wouldn't even be able to cast fireball until they are 9th level. They will never cast Wish or any other crazy wizard spell. And access to certain schools can also be limited the way they are with Rangers in 1DnD. It just doesn't make sense to say we will never see an arcane gish because it would be too strong. When the power level of a class is whatever the designers make it.
So, you want Arcane half-casters?
Warlock and Artificer
A Warlock is in no way a half caster. A half caster is a class that gets their spell progression at half the rate of a full caster. So I'll grant that an Artificer has that spell progression. But they aren't a martial/half caster the way the Paladin and Ranger are. The closest they get is the Battle Smith. That's one subclass. One that has its own distinct feel. Not one that a player can easily use to fill all of the character concepts that a real arcane gish class could. I want them to complete the trio of gish classes, with something new that can accommodate most of the subclasses that tried to do it, but were restrained by the lack of an obvious class to put them in.
To be honest, I like class groups.
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HERE.Was unrelated to arcane gish existance. I mean, we have artificer, who's an arcane gish. They're not a wizard-fighter gish, but they're a definately a warrior/mage gish type. Was an argument entirely about how the D&D team goes about creating content.
The real argument against the arcane gish class is, well... Ultimately, its running into the exact same issue that the Mystic class did - according to feedback, the Mystic class stepped on too many of other classes' toes, that it was too complex and allowed for too many overpowered options mixed together. Well, maybe not that last bit, given that it doesn't officially exist, but the former certainly. Artificer, an Arcane Paladin (Ranger too?), various Fighter subclasses, Bladesinger, Hexblade, Valor/Sword Bard. We have a ton of options already.
Any story behind the arcane gish will be just "wizard who also is fighter and some special techniques." That's... just a multiclass with one unique ability that could be just a new subclass or a feat. Spellswords in particular are just fighter-wizards that have arcane smites.
That said... pretty much even new classes will run into that same problem. I will argue that Artificer does as well, with the core 12. So, any future classes will probably have to step on toes. So I fully expect that we'll be seeing more of them in the future, outside the core.
And, as an aside, I still find it annoying that you're reducing the class fantasy behind sorcerers, wizards and warlocks down to "made up reasons." Story is important. Sorcerers are innate magic - they're the ones born (or mutants) who make magic by wishing hard and practicing it. Wizards study arcane formula - the standard. Warlocks have pacts and trade for magic - they're more magical girls and witches, who need their wands and familiars and friends. Each of the three mages are a distinct literary trope.
On the matter of hunters with druidic magic... Spirit archers are actually fairly common archetype for elves in a lot of contemporary fantasy stories with them in it. Especially in asian influenced media, such as anime/manga, manwa, etc. Animism isn't as popular in western countries where Christian theism has so much influence as it is in other countries, but outside it? Much more common than you're obviously thinking.
And we have a ton of examples of warriors with magic in D&D. I'm not going to say they're "wizards" with swords, because arguing that some random magic user in another story is equivalent to a wizard is a whole different argument. People can't even agree if Harry Potter or Gandalf are a wizard, sorcerer or warlock, or some mix thereof.
You've decided that there is nothing that would make an Arcane gish unique. That it could have no story of its own. I'm only saying that it's perfectly capable of having one. You clearly have your own ideas of what a Sorcerer is, and what a Warlock is, and they aren't all in the text itself. You've used the mechanics given to create your own stories. That's great! An arcane gish could do the same.
My point, once again, is that they made up the flavor for Sorcerers and Warlocks to fit the rules. The inspiration was always going to be there for innate spellcasters and faustian bargains. I'm not denying that. These are classic tropes. But after they decided to use that inspiration to make classes, they had to create mechanics that fulfilled the fantasy in some way that worked for DnD. The could have decided anything. For Sorcerers they went with metamagic. The innate magic trope didn't have to be expressed that way. It's just the mechanic they chose. Then they said Sorcerers get that innate magic from a dragon or something else in the bloodline. But they could have explained it any number of ways. They could have said that it was a gift from the fairies. Or being born under the right alignment of stars. Or in a high magic concentration of the Weave. They decided it was hereditary. But it could have been anything. It wouldn't change the popularity of the trope that inspired it. Just the justification in the game.
The inspiration of a warrior mage is at least as popular in fiction. The fact that so many subclasses try to make it work is testament to that. Just because you can't think of an in-game justification for it, doesn't mean one can't exist. And just because you are content with the subclasses filing that role, doesn't mean everyone is.
And please never presume to know what my personal influences are. Don't try to say I must be coming from some Christian Western mindset. I guarantee you are wrong. You do not know me, and you cannot begin to from my posts on this forum. In fact, the biggest reason I want an arcane gish class personally is so I can better make the wuxia and xianxia characters I really want. I also recognize that there are other players out there who aren't me who want one for different reasons. I have no problem with someone disagreeing with me over what classes should be in a game. But kindly take the condescension elsewhere.
Whether it's wotc adding a class or individuals with specific desires homebrew. Class groups really don't force much onto their participants. As far as I can tell, It's 1 mechanism each and feat prerequisites. Feat prerequisites however can be modified internally in the class.
So anyone wanting a homebrew version of such gish buids could make a warrior or a mage group version and it could still work. Depending on the 1 shared mechanism you want.
Spell lists are a little more restricted but wotc already has indicated they want options available to make exceptions. If it gets too complex a new spell list should be possible and allow spells to be automatically integrated.
Having a specific requirement for features gained at certain levels is a little limited but that really isn't part of the "groups design" philosophy.
TLDR: Overall to me it still seems groups are fine for adding classes homebrew or official.
WE ALREADY HAVE ARCANE GISHES. I listed several. Any future one is just going to be repeating one of those already in existence.
They are in the text, as well as videos as the devs discussed them. Sure, I oversimplified it quite a bit so you won't see it written out like that verbatim, but it very much is canon, not being made up. So... yeah.
And my point is the opposite. So... yeah. They made rules to fit the story. I'm willing to agree to disagree at this point.
You're warping what I said. All those warrior-mages do exist in fiction. I have never denied that, and in fact, have pointed to said subclasses as evidence of said trope. Hells, given that half of Fighter subclasses rely on using some form of magic (five of ten subclasses: Arcane Archer, Echo Knight, Eldritch Knight, Psi Warrior, Rune Knight), I will argue that Arcane Gish is half the current Fighter's identity. Plus all those other classes and subclasses I talked about above.
I've stated that any new "Arcane Gish" class is going to overlap with those existing classes and subclasses. A Spellsword PrC conversion is just going to be repeating the same tropes as Eldritch Knight and Paladin. And I've also said that its unlikely we'll see an official version because of that. Just like what happened with the Mystic. Ultimately, Arcane Gishes already exists, and people are just asking for different mechanics for the same archetype.
Its unfortunate, but that is a bridge that will need to be crossed for official content. 70 to 80 percent approval will be an uphill battle, if not impossible, because "arcane-gish" is a very broad category, and any class will face the same scrutiny and issues that Mystic did.
I can see how my phrasing was bad there and came off harsher than I intended, so that's on me. Sorry, my bad. Wasn't my intention.
Pretty sure you've said before that you think druid magic using archers aren't common outside of D&D; iirc, this was not the first time you brought up that comparison. So... That's what I was talking about. Wasn't talking about your personal influences. The way you're holding up Ranger, as if its some rare beast
Isn't this debate about whether people are invalid and bad at gaming and D&D for wanting an 'Arcane Gish' that isn't a malfunctional objectively-bad subclass kind of off base for a discussion on whether class groups are or are not a worthwhile design direction?
Please do not contact or message me.
I find it ironic that you consider paladins or potential arcane gish to be ridiculously overpowered in a game where CoDzilla exists. As well as other casters.
While more bunt with a flavor of opinion than I would care for yurei is right.
Make a new thread so content can be found by those looking to engage with it.
First of all, I appreciate the apology Mephista, thank you. I'm really not trying to fight with anyone here.
I don't recall bringing up the ranger comparison before, though I might have. But I think there's some misunderstanding. I don't think the concept of a Ranger is rare. Or even that any hunter with magic is rare. Many of the original inspirations for the Ranger class in DnD did not have magic. Some probably did. You can find inspiration for a magical hunter all over the world. And inspiration for perfectly mundane hunters. Whatever the source, the hunter with DnD Druid spells is a part of the uniquely DnD version of the Ranger identity now. I was only saying that there are at least as many places to find inspiration for a warrior mage out there too.
At this point, we just aren't communicating well. If things I've said about class identity have irritated you, I'm sorry. I'm probably not explaining myself well at all. It wouldn't be the first time.
I'll try to summarize one last time. If I can't do it, then I'll attribute the failure to just my way of speaking.
That's all. I'm not trying to say that the story of the inspiration doesn't matter. Or that the way the designers incorporate it into the class doesn't matter. Just that the designers have the freedom to create flavor where needed to fulfill the fantasies that players have. The Sorcerer and Warlock we have are inspired by popular fantasies. But the form they take in DnD is not the only way they could have been written. Other ways could have been perfectly acceptable.
Right now a lot of people have a fantasy of a warrior mage. Inspired from all forms of media and myth. They currently have to shoehorn that fantasy into a scattering of subclasses. It doesn't work well for most character concepts. Part of the reason is that the designers are forced to adapt the ideas to the classes that already exist, but those classes weren't made for those fantasies. So you end up with fighters that don't magic very well, and wizards that can't fight without their magic.
The Paladin studies weapons and some higher power (martial and divine). It was only more recently that they introduced the Oath as the source of that power. Not because there was a massive demand for warriors that got divine magic from making promises real hard. But to try to ease the restrictive nature of the old Paladin class being so bound to one alignment and a religion. It was a good change. It opened up many more options and inspired many people that would have never looked at the class before. And it now let's people create characters inspired by more world sources too.
The Ranger studies weapons and natural magic (martial and primal). That's their identity at its most distilled form.
There is no reason they can't complete the trio and have a class the studies weapons and the weave (martial and arcane).
If the Ranger and Paladin can exist, then an Arcane gish Class can. They gave the Ranger and Paladin their own DnD identity. They can give it to another class too.
I'm not saying it should exist on top of all of the other subclasses. It doesn't have to step on any toes. I think most of those other subclasses should be moved under a new arcane gish class. Make the Eldritch Knight and the Arcane Archer and the Bladesinger, etc. be subclasses for the new class. Get them in a place where they actually work well. Give the new class is own unique DnD identity. And let more people live out the fantasies they have.
Maybe the arcane gish class all use magic runes that tap into the Weave (or setting equivalent) for power. Maybe they all inscribe these runes on their weapons, armor, clothing, or even tattoo them on their skin. They could use 'runes' to make talismans, or inscribe circles in the air itself. The runes could be invisible until activated, or glow all the time. They could be carved in stone, or written with a calligraphy brush on paper Each Subclass could focus on using them in different ways. That's just one way they could have a DnD identity, and fulfill lots of fantasies. It could cover everything from Dwarven runesmiths to Cultivators. Or they could make up something else even more universal probably.
If anyone disagrees, that's totally fine. I just think it would make for better game design. And it would let me play the stories that inspire me personally. If I'm still not making sense, that's on me. But it's probably the best I can do in this format.
You're all right and I'm sorry. I was in the middle of writing my last post on the topic. I do hate going so far off the rails.
I like the class groups. They haven't hurt anything in what we've seen so far. They just make organization easier. The only class that has seen any change to make it fit in the group structure is the Ranger. It got Expertise. And honestly, no matter what else I think of the way they changed the ranger's features, Expertise is good for the class. At least it can keep up with rogues in stealth and survival now.
I also like being able to give classes access to things like 'all Warrior feats' or spells from one of 3 big lists. It works nicely. And it opens more design opportunities. In fact, it's even good for 3rd party material, since they don't even have to reference precise feats or spells. They can just point to groups.
You named spells, not features. These spells are on full caster list. Hahaha
As far as I can tell, the only meaningful purpose of class groups is to make certain abilities class-group limited -- they suggested that it might help with party building but given what we've seen so far it really won't.