wilcoxon wrote:
<snip>But there were no conniptions around male Templars of the Fire Dragon with DSC. Up until Cody's announcement, it was perfectly clear that it was legal. <snip>
Why this sudden massive change to the rules (specifically for male Ss'ressen Templars of the Fire Dragon) when there was no confusion?<snip>
Except there was confusion - it wasn't supposed to be legal. People just didn't discuss it.
It is far more explicitly called out in the 3.5 books. If you look at the class match, the Initiate / Anointed Priest in ARG maps well to either the priest class or cleric. The Templar matches well to Paladin or Cleric - depending on the focus. One of the biggest differences between a Paladin and a Cleric is full spell progression. If you're taking DSC you're getting full spell progression and map to the Cleric spectrum in 3.5. It very explicitly said Male Ss'ressens couldn't be clerics or priests. The concepts were clearly laid out cleanly in the old system. With all of the ways to get full spell casting in the new system, this didn't get mapped correctly.
Paladins in the old system for ss'ressen were all male with standard limited paladin spell casting as it was with the HC order as well.
D&D is heavy magic though with most classes getting at least some limited spell casting. If they needed to scale it back and weren't going to eliminate it entirely, there are limited options - and to be fair, they could have just said "no spell casting for male ss'ressen other than the Shamanic route." The first is the way they chose to do it. Another option would be to not remove the Limited trait unless you gain DSC (or ASC for that matter) through the Archetype. If the goal is alternate paths to the same concept with differences in Foci, that's the easiest way to do it. Moving the Special to the archetype to remove the Limited status would scale back on casters significantly and provide extra incentives to take the respective Archetypes. By and large that would bring a lot more archetypal focus back to the game... and have a TON of people up in arms. For that drastic of a general change, perhaps limit that to a 2nd Edition. It could be an alternative approach that the staff could consider.
I can appreciate how difficult it is when the core concept of your character changes. With my primary I went through something vaguely similar though it was event based and purely voluntary.
With the change impacted characters would get a full rebuild. As I understand the rules, if you have spells within a tradition at a given Tier and are the next Tier up, you can Take Learn Spell to learn one at the next level. So if you've got Tier I Deity spells, you can get Tier II Deity spells once you're Tier II. One question to consider is with a rebuild, could you keep those spells that are most core to your vision of your character or replace some of the capabilities in other ways (Replace Diminish Fatigue with Leadership I as it's a heal)?
Just a thought.
With a sweep of his hat,
Paul