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Mr. Rich Baker, Sir:

For starters, please allow me to say that I am a big fan of yours and I really appreciate your contributions to the game. I appreciate that you update your staff blog more than pretty much any other developer. The Last Mythal trilogy is one of my favorites ever. I have been enjoying the Swordmage Trilogy and the Swordmage class is one of my favorites ever.

Since the Races and Classes preview book came out I have been excited about how 4e would do the bladesinger (my all time favorite character since 2e introduced it). Seeing in the description of how the swordmage could be a bladesinger excited me. I know I'm not alone here, but when the FRPG came out, I was excited to see the Swordmage, and more than a little disappointed when there was no Bladesinger Paragon Path. Similarly, when Arcane Power came out, I had the same feeling. Seeing it in MM2 felt like a tease and fills me with hope for how awesome such a thing could be.

I have read your post that we should be seeing the Bladesinger soon and that around the office, you cannot agree on how best to do this class justice. I know that you are a man of your word and I look forward to seeing it soon in a Dragon article. I feel that this project is probably close to your heart as well (maybe not quite as close as your War at Sea work, but I understand).

I have created a paragon path based mostly on the original 2e flavor of the Kit. It can be found here:
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.ph … st18774443

I tried to make the paragon path interesting, balanced, and effective while staying true to the original ideas and updating them to 4e. I have enjoyed this effort and it has caused me to envy your job (or at least that part of your job).

So here is the challenge: I challenge you to do a better job. I challenge you to make a better bladesinger, make it legit, and have it posted in one of the online mags before the end of the summer. I know that you can ensure this iconic class gets done right.

I mean this as a friendly challenge. I have total respect for you as a writer, a developer, and certainly as a veteran (thank you so much for your service). I know that tone is not always easily conveyed in posts, but I want to be absolutely clear: I have total respect for you and this challenge is not meant to be disrespectful.

But you have been called out. . .

I look forward to hearing your response at your earliest convenience.

............................So remind me, why doesn't the Swordmage work for everything described, just with the flavor "I do this stuff in a Bladesong style," or do you just want the Bladesinger name in print?

dedonas wrote:

So here is the challenge: I challenge you to do a better job. I challenge you to make a better bladesinger, make it legit, and have it posted in one of the online mags before the end of the summer. I know that you can ensure this iconic class gets done right.

Two things here.

1. Rich doesn't check this forum regularly(to the best of my knowledge)

2. Even if he were to write up a better bladesinger tomorrow there is no guarantee it would be in Dragon even before the end of the year as I don't believe he has any control over what articles are published and the wait period can be long(I know there is at least one already finished article that won't be published until October)

While it might be a nice idea, I doubt this friendly challenge will get you any results.

you should post that in the FR General section in his thread

Hey Community Leads! This is like the one time ever that someone has written a polite, respectful post asking for a feature; I think somewhere in the internet a troll cried out in pain and was forever silenced.

I don't care a bit whether I ever see a bladesinger class, but I think it would be pretty awesome if someone could make sure Mr Baker sees this. Can the appropriate copy/paste/forward be done by someone with the relevant address book?