On Classes - Discussion and Development Thread

[menegil]

This is the thread for comments, suggestions for improvement and feedback on my current work-in-progress, a detailed guide for all classes and their place in Faerûnian society. Entries shall obey the alphabetical order they are usually introduced in, first entry was the Barbarian, next shall be the bard, then cleric, and so on and so forth.

Discuss away.

[menegil]

An added note; I will try to add an entry a day. I finished Barbarians today, will try to put up the Bard entry tomorrow. So stay tuned!

[Micteu]

I give you an A+.

I would like to discuss a concept to fit it into a class, however, rather than a class itself.

Scholar. How do you play someone in NWN who is supposedly very knowledgable in all sorts of scholarly fields, without people shifting their ideas about what your character is? On FRC I had a monk who was first and foremost a scholar, but everyone kept referring to him as a martial artist because of the occasional smackdown he'd give in combat. I'd assume if I played a bard instead, people would associate him with being a music lover rather than a scholar.

So how do you be a librarian into later levels and still have people think of your character as being a librarian?

[menegil]

Anyone with extended ranks in Lore can be considered a learned person, or even a scholar. The situation you describe stems much from what I speak in my introductory paragraphs - players have objectified class, alignment and so on during the years, to the point when even experienced roleplayers do so without even knowing, choosing to make certain combat-related facts much more relevant than off-combat ones. For instance, wizards are generally seen as mobile artillery, rather than people capable of many wondrous things whose purpose go above and beyond battle, in truth a significantly small part of a wizard's repertoire of skills.

That said, the typical character associated to scholarly pursuit is the wizard. The whole imagery and theme of them as bookworms whose spells are based on storing magical energy in their very minds immediately refers to scholarly pursuit, and even the lousiest roleplayer will aknowledge that a wizard is supposed to know a lot about stuff. Academic pursuit is a very exclusive deal in Faerûn, though, only accessible to the masses in places of rich magical tradition like Halruaa or Mulhorand or to very small castes in Faerûnian society, more commonly the low and high nobility, and the clergy of faiths like Mystra and Azuth, who hold as much power and wealth as a small country themselves. These facts make it entirely feasible for folk outside the stereotypical range of academic pursuit to become scholars in their own right - this, however, would be a surprise to people, who would normally expect aristocracy or clergy to maintain. Imagine the shock in people's faces when the pirate lout suddenly reveals himself to be a remarkably knowledgeable and well-read person! It happens, it is simply not at all common. Hence why people usually refer to other pursuits first before noting the scholarly trait, unless people simply stop being all else in order to focus on scholarly pursuit entirely.

While bards can achieve remarkably high Lore scores and be very knowledgeable about many fields, they do not hold the librarian profile - bards are self-taught and often self-serving in their search for knowledge, seeking to enrich their worldly experience with it rather than preserving it for all time. This is a more Lawful attitude, thus much more present in wizards and monks.

A good tip towards making your characters look very well learned is to spout facts at continuous intervals. Do not stick yourself to identifying items - quote imaginary books, go all "did you know ...", ponder on the historical, philosophical or political impacts of actions, even. In short, show that you are intelligent and well learned, and people will bite into the fact that you are intelligent and well learned. I accomplish this with Khevas, my wizard, by spouting random fact and analyzing his surroundings at all times, often going into digressing monologues that range from turnips to spellfire. It is the individual quirks that make the scholar, and this remains true for all classes, even if wizards will get the immediate fame for being such.

[menegil]

Bards entry has been placed! Enjoy.

[Micteu]

Thanks! Speaking of bards, I have another character concept in mind.

I was imagining a serious, no-nonsense commander type character who gives inspirational speeches before battle and rallies the troops throughout battle. I was looking at making a Neutral Good or True Neutral fighter/bard. Would this make sense?

[menegil]

No. As is described in the Bards entry, it takes a special kind of individual to undergo bardic training, and although speech-making does employ Perform, it simply cannot be invested in by anyone else beyond bards, in NWN. For speeches, your best option is simple writing quality, I am sure you can pull it off

On a class perspective, you are looking for the wonderful Purple Dragon Knight prestige class, which fits perfectly into what you are trying to do. According to guidelines, the PRC can be treated as a simple officer/commander prestige class, if the campaign is not taking place in Cormyr. That said, given the server policies, you need enrollment into a guild which supports it - I am sure your character would wish to command actual folk, rather than living the solitary adventurer life forever, so guild life would be perfect for the character, I believe.

A word of caution, however; a commander is, typically, a person dependant on regimented chains of command. You might wish to choose the Lawful alignment, unless you wish to make a "I'll follow the rules, so long as they don't clash with my work/get my men killed" type of character.

[Micteu]

Ew.

I suppose... I just always kinda viewed the PDK as being terribly useless. Maybe on a server with a max of 20 levels or if PDK was extended like CoT, it would be more useful. Everything (except Heroic Shield) being limited to a small number of times per day kinda seemed to make this class bad.

However, the more I look at it, the more it seems like it could make an interesting (although still pretty pointless) addition to a character's classes.

[menegil]

Well, I've done some digging, and the class is pretty durn useless in PnP as well. It fits the concept you described best, but taking bard levels would give him arcane magic and a slew of other things that, apparently, he isn't quite supposed to have. Maybe you could talk to a DM about it, but from a class standpoint, unless you wish to embrace at least a semi-bardic persona for your commander, the combination is unfeasible with the typical field commander.

[DM Arsescratcher]

Jun 17, 2010 17:58:33 GMT -5 Micteu said:

I was imagining a serious, no-nonsense commander type character who gives inspirational speeches before battle and rallies the troops throughout battle. I was looking at making a Neutral Good or True Neutral fighter/bard. Would this make sense?

This makes me think of the dwarven skald. Skalds nearly always multiclass as fighters and can be found raising the battlelust of a clan before a battle, singing of glory or tales of woe afterwards.

Skalds of dwarven society (dwarven war poets) sing songs which are always highly emotional, portraying anger, sadness, battle lust and other powerful emotions. Many dwarven songs bring many dwarves into the performance, adding character and involvement in a good sung tale. Few who experience the depths of dwarven song find themselves emotionally placid.

[menegil]

That is definitely a good option.

[Micteu]

Jun 18, 2010 10:30:38 GMT -5 DM Arsescratcher said:

Jun 17, 2010 17:58:33 GMT -5 Micteu said:

I was imagining a serious, no-nonsense commander type character who gives inspirational speeches before battle and rallies the troops throughout battle. I was looking at making a Neutral Good or True Neutral fighter/bard. Would this make sense?

This makes me think of the dwarven skald. Skalds nearly always multiclass as fighters and can be found raising the battlelust of a clan before a battle, singing of glory or tales of woe afterwards.

Skalds of dwarven society (dwarven war poets) sing songs which are always highly emotional, portraying anger, sadness, battle lust and other powerful emotions. Many dwarven songs bring many dwarves into the performance, adding character and involvement in a good sung tale. Few who experience the depths of dwarven song find themselves emotionally placid.

Could something on skalds maybe be added to the dwarf lore page, please?

[menegil]

And, added the Clerics section, a much needed addition. If you have specific questions about specific clergies, please do ask them here - to work them into the guide would mean basically posting the entire Faiths and Pantheons book there.

[Micteu]

Jun 20, 2010 17:37:41 GMT -5 @menegil said:

It is simply impossible for a person to gain divine powers (such as divine spells) without one.

A note on this, Kal mentioned that the character doesn't have to know who the deity is in some situations, but he or she still must have one.

[menegil]

Quite right. That is the case with clerics of Ulutiu, who, in truth, receive their spells from Auril, since Ulutiu is in a hybernating state in the Astral Plane. Nonetheless, these are very punctual and exceptional cases, which is why I left this matter out of the general guide.