Juton wrote:Drolyt wrote:I'm not sure it is quite correct to say Conan goes obsolete before level 10. Conan isn't a class, he is a character, and whatever class (or mix of classes) he happens to take should be extensible as far as the system is intended to go, or else they should literally stop at a certain point and tell you to take a prestige class. As for the idea that Conan's (or any mundane hero's) concept just doesn't support that, I don't think that is true. Conan is limited by the fact that the Hyborean age is simply a mythical past, rather than an otherworld, and without magic there are limits to what you can do. If you were to drop Conan into Greyhawk he would notice that the rules of reality have themselves changed, and it is not unreasonable that he would start accumulating some real power, perhaps even spellcasting.
I don't think I'm buying that. For instance you could have Conan pick up a few levels in Warblade. That extends his usefulness but I'm not sure it makes him viable for higher level play unless you use questionable rules calls on things like IHS. That stays fairly close to his character concept.
But to give Conan honest to goodness casting changes his concept enough that he wouldn't be recognizable as the same character. Do you make him studious (Wizard), devout (Cleric), contemplative (Druid) or get him possessed by some demon (Sorcerer)? Each one of those potential avenues overshadows his wandering and slaying. It would be a change of character large enough that it would break your suspension of disbelief if you read it in a book.
I didn't say he'd become a full caster. My issue is that just because he is normal in his own setting, which is a mostly mundane setting where magic is much rarer and less powerful than in D&D, it doesn't make terrible sense for him to remain completely mundane if he were to be dropped into the Forgotten Realms. It would be like dropping him into a modern setting and having him eschew guns, it doesn't make sense.
I think this ties into another rant I've been thinking on for a while, and which I won't give in full here, but the basic idea is that D&D needs to stop treating magic apart from nature. Because it isn't, not in the old legends. Only in the past century have we got this idea that in fantasy things work exactly like the real world, except when a guy in a robe and a pointy hat waves his arms around. Tolkien made a point in
On Fairy Stories that humans are in fact more supernatural than all sorts of magical creatures like dragons and the aos si
because those creatures are completely natural in their own setting. If you really think about it, it isn't at all reasonable that a wizard can cast a spell that gives super strength, but a fighter can't just have super strength, because clearly in this setting the laws of physics preventing super strength don't apply to begin with. I blame the stupid "magic as technology" metaphor.
Lago PARANOIA wrote:Midnight_v wrote:Which is weird, because, if the TOB handed out melee powers equal to magic it seems like some people (and I mean people here who know better not the "I hate this anime shit" crowd) would still be unhappy with it.
Posts like that make me think that the Bo9S has erroneously convinced people that the problem with sword-based characters (not the fighter, sword-based characters in general) is that their narrowly-focused fighting powers don't kick enough ass. Not that the problem isn't that supernatural sword powers becomes an increasingly inappropriate way to advance the plot as the game goes on, but because the numbers weren't configured right and with a little more sneaking of some Sword-based flight here and some sneaking of some Sword-based improved saving throws there everything would be hunky dory.
That mentality is why I think the Bo9S was a net harm to the game. It encourages peoples' uselessness addiction by tempting them to go chaining after rainbows.
To be fair, I think a lot of people are fine with games where the casters do all the out of combat stuff as long as the martials contribute in combat, and ToB totally allows them to do that, at least if the casters aren't too optimized. More generally there are a lot of people who don't want to play a character who magics away all their problems, even at high levels.