Why is the Gish so popular with players?

[UngainlyTitan]

This deserves its' own thread. Are they sword-wielding space wizards or psychic warrior monks (PF1 Kineticist/Monk with the Kinetic Blade Infusion)?

Both depending on who is asking and what is being discussed.

 

[Minigiant]

I think Gishes have been in TTRPGs at least since the introduction of “toolkit” RPGs, if not sooner.

Gishes has been in TTRPGs for decades.

They are not part of most TTRPGs as designers are so weird about seriously supporting any version of them.

 

[Shades of Eternity]

looks at 4e swordmage, smiles and drops the gauntlet of what they should be.

 

[Corinnguard]

Has anyone converted the 4e Swordmage to 5e?

 

[Minigiant]

Both depending on who is asking and what is being discussed.

I First thought they were two axis for Gishes.

Now I might think that Gish need a Z axis: Combat vs Utility

 

[Staffan]

This deserves its' own thread. Are they sword-wielding space wizards or psychic warrior monks (PF1 Kineticist/Monk with the Kinetic Blade Infusion)?

Yes.

 

[Shardstone]

I don't get why Gish can't be the class name still.

 

[Undrave]

As for the Arcane Trickster and the Bard, well, I got nothing.

The base Rogue is a very solid class on its own. Their subclasses only have 4 levels one of them is usually a type of ribbon or non-combat effect.

I keep meaning to try a pure Warlock Gish. Again, I am sure there are more powerful options but as long as the character doesn’t suck I don’t feel the need to min-max. Our group all tend to feel similarly on this so it all works out across the PCs; I can see there could be problems if some characters are markedly underperforming compared to the majority.

I did do a one-shot as Fey Bladelock once! I was Gnome and put all I could into DEX and almost nothing in CHA Used Mage Armor and picked up spells with little to no need for CHA. I went Fey patron to pick up Sleep, among others. I styled him as a former pirate in the fey wild who had fallen overboard and was saved by SOMETHING in the water.

I ended an encounter with a use of Sleep, helped investigate with my free Detect Magic invocations. Later, we got challenged to a 1-on-1 by a four armed Suaghin and our Paladin got hit by a crib and a 19 right in the first turn, our Monk had to leave earlier and the friggin' Barbarian got too chicken to engage so my little Gnome casually approached the guy and cast Mirror Image. I lasted quite a while against him while the party decided to mope up his pals. So it didn't turn out too badly in the end.

You also have people like me, who want to fight with sword and bow, and then finish the adventure contributing vital spells like Knock, Spider Climb, See Invisibility, and Dimension Door. And those utility-type spells, barring a few like Silence, Stone Shape, and Air Walk, have been off the divine list from the beginning*. There are simply a large slice to things-you-might-want-to-do that are arcane, and divine is only very slowly picking up a few per edition.

A lot of those utility type spells were rituals in 4e. Your concept would have been pretty easy to pull by grabbing Ritual Caster as your level 1 feat and getting Arcana training via backgrounds.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I First thought they were two axis for Gishes.

Now I might think that Gish need a Z axis: Combat vs Utility

I think that the current system handles utility well enough it is dedicated martial magic that is lacking.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Given that the average Jedi only knows a handful of powers, and that you (maybe, canon is weird these days) have to be born with a high degree of force sensitivity (midi-chlorians) to be considered a Jedi, it's obvious that most Jedi are actually Sorcerers who get Extra Attack from their subclass (why is that not a thing, I wonder?).

All the deflection and parrying is just Shield or Silvery Barbs. ^-^

Given that they have person blades they bonded with and most of their abilities are at will I'm going with Bladelocks.