Hi! I believe first I must give context, so here comes:
I used to play a Hunter, and his backstory was that of an heir to a small noble family from Stormwind. His dad married into the family for money and just left as soon as the gold became scarce. The rest of the family died at the battle of the Wrathgate, leaving a young heir to manage everything. As a wierd coping mechanism, he just left everything and went to live in the woods with a bow.
Then came Classic, and I wanted to play a younger version of the same character, but there were no human hunters before Cata, right?
Then it hit me: even if he was lower nobility, he could afford decent studies. In Stormwind, that translates to the mage quarters. So came the retcon: Rohart was studying magic in the capital when he became an orphan, and left EVERYTHING to isolate himself in the woods. That includes his studies.
The idea sounded really nice, to the point that in Retail I decided to reroll a mage, to make Rohart come full circle, going back to his studies and leaving his bow and isolation behind, returning to society.
Sorry for the wall of text, but here is my question: is this kind of retcon frowned upon? Even if he does not use any skills from other classes, he is technically a character that has life experience both as an archer and as a mage, and Iâm afraid this may sound too OP
To startâas long as youâre not breaking the ToS, you can do pretty much whatever you want with your characterâs story. This includes retconning. Retconning itself isnât bad, and is a useful tool when a character needs a bit of tweaking. Itâs not really bad unless youâre using it as a get-out-of-jail-free card to avoid reasonable consequences for your character, or doing it so often that itâs impossible for others to work with your story.
Multiclassing is also fine, and thereâs many ways the classes in WoW can easily overlap. The classes themselves are more there as a toolkit to help develop a character, given that one OOC class can represent many different IC classes. When multiclassing, I think the two major points to consider are as follows:
The OOC class visuals should fit the dominant IC toolkit.
Opposing magical alignments cannot be multiclassed without a very good reason.
That is, itâs easier to RP the character in-game if their OOC class toolkit provides visuals that match with their IC toolkit, whether that be through transmog and weapons options, or the abilities themselves. Additionally, there are some things that it doesnât make sense to multiclass together, such as demon hunter with priest or paladin(the magics are on polar opposite ends of the spectrum, and will thus be incredibly hard to manage together).
Mage and hunter fit together well, and neither has skillsets that contradict the other. Some hunters actually do use a bit of magic, given the existence of things like Arcane Shot.
((Rare non-IC post from Kyra))
Nope. Thankfully the number of people who believe you must play the character you see on the character select screen have dropped in number. Iâm been toying around with the idea of creating an arcane bowmen myself.
Regardless I would echo Nightwillowâs points. The only rules you ever have to follow are the ToS. Anything else is up to you. A better question to ask than âis it allowed in RP?â would be âIf someone else was playing this character, would I be interested in RPing with them?â As long as its not something conflicting like Shadow Priest and Holy Paladin, you should have a great time, especially if you already have a good idea for a backstory to use for the character.
Yeah, I kinda try to reason that while he was a hunter, he didnât study, so he could not use magic efficiently, and now that heâs back on magic, he left his physical training fall behind in order to finish his studies and is no longer in shape to fight hand to hand or with a bow as he used to. He even has a belly now.
Thatâs my way to ânerfâ Rohart so he canât just pull a bow and fight like a hunter whenever he wants. He can only use magic now
Personally I donât care what classes people want to say their character has dabbled in since my enjoyment is tied with the enjoyment of the person I interact with.
For someone who doesnât really care, Iâm surprised you are complaining. Makes it seem like you care.
The idea is that he/she (havenât made the character yet) was a fledgling mage struggling to cast. Someone made the reference that casting a spell was like shooting a bow and they took it literally⌠and it worked. Ever since they have used a physical bow as a catalyst to âshootâ their spells.
On the plus side, he/she saves a fortune not having to buy arrows.
I donât care in the sense that Iâm not going to publicly castigate someone for doing whatever the hell they feel like as long as it doesnât impinge on my play.
I can however since the idea was offered up for critique, critique it.