The Ease of Essentials

Designing a class or sub-class with pre-specified class features and/or powers, aka “Essentials-style”, is easier than one without because there are often fewer choices to make throughout your career.

For example a fighter gets to pick at least four exploits at 1st-level, one at 2nd, and so on and so forth all the way to 30th-level. The only point where new class features are gained is at levels 11, 16, 21, 24, and 30, which depends on the paragon path and epic destiny you choose. Conversely a class like the slayer chooses two at-will stances…and that is it. Your features are preset for you; +1 to attack with weapons, power strike as an encounter exploit, and you add your Dex mod to damage rolls. At levels where a fighter gets to choose utility exploits you get to as well, but a good chunk of level up will have you picking from a handful of class features or just taking what you get, like another usage of power strike.

This difference in complexity has lead some to believe that the designers at Wizards of the Coast are lazy, incompetent, pressed for time, lack the staff to properly design/playtest material, or a combination of all of the above. I think a major thing that the Essential-haters fail to realize is that there are plenty of gamers out there actually prefer these classes, or at least enjoy both, perhaps even at different times or for different game types. They seem to think that despite “everyone hating Essentials” or Essentials being a “failed product”, WotC is simply trying to shovel out subpar content (that anyone could do) because they either have no other option, or just do not give a fuck.

Thankfully Trevor piped in to clear things up by page three, stating that no Essentials was not the result of lazy design or trying to get product out the door, but to provide an alternate entry point (as they have said), and because, yeah, there are gamers that want them, even if they are veterans. He even provides clarification on the vampire; it was designed to evoke the idea of a vampire in the D&D world, something that it does very well despite the limited options and thirty levels. Does a member of the WotC staff coming forward to clarify stuff and address concerns actually help? Eh…not really, which makes it no surprise that they so rarely do so in the first place.

One poster claimed that knights or slayers could have just been fighters, but with most of the choices made for them already. In other words, a pre-generated character that you could choose stuff for if you really wanted to. I…cannot see how this would make anyone happier, as you literally would be buying shit you already paid for. I look at it that the subclasses fill a desired niche. If you want to play a slayer–which plays somewhat differently from a knight or fighter mind you–then you can. If you want more complexity, then play a fighter. Different classes for different needs.

Another poster mentioned that the mage and warpriest are very close to the class design of the original classes, which demonstrates that if the designers think that a class needs to use the original progression to evoke a concept they will, as opposed to needlessly limiting themselves. 

Meet the Templar

I really can not remember the last time I saw the vocal minority so united, this time against the Essentialized writeup of the cleric. To put it mildly, you got people wondering what is wrong with R&D and/or if anyone at Wizards of the Coast has ever played a cleric before. Some claim that the warlord was already a superior leader and that it “escaped” the writeup unscathed. I think the funniest complaints are a tie between Mearl’s hatred of clerics, and variations of “my character(s) are forever ruined”. Again, this is the cliffnotes of forum-rage.

So, what has actually changed?

Well, when you take cleric powers from Heroes of the Fallen Lands out of the equation, basically 30ish of around 250 features (or less than 20%) and prayers got nerfed. I can see where people are coming from: they had a character that could do something, and that something no longer operates as well as it did before, whether having the ranged reduced by a square or two, or having the damage scaled back a die. Fortunately (perhaps unfortunately for some), I do not think that the designers decided to purposely set out to fuck you over, or just fuck over clerics through some bizarre personal vendetta.

Is it possible that they did it because some cleric prayers were just too damned good? I have seen turn undead single-handedly destroy an encounter with a good number of undead (and/or elementals and demons, if you’ve got the feat for it), which make for pretty iconic encounters. Worse, the damage and range scale faster than normal (ie, not just at each tier or once per tier), making it an extremely potent ability that you didn’t even lose anything to pick up. Not to mention that some of those nerfs simply switch off the friendly-fire mode of some prayers, making you only just as good at area-effect attacks as wizards.

Some people complain that they should have just ramped up everything else in order to compensate, which tells me that yeah, they did have it too good. Frankly it makes a lot more sense to pare one class down instead of giving everyone else a booster shot: less errata and less cries of power creep all-around, and I don’t foresee any shortage of clerics in the future. Clerics have had tons of support since 4th Edition was released, and if their errata amounts to a small chunk of their powers–again, before we count the Essentials stuff that they can also use–then I’m alright with that.

Heroes of Shadow Reactions

Due to a combination of some Heroes of Shadow reviews providing misinformation on just how much–if not all–material was Essentials only, and people who believe that stuff in an Essentials book is somehow incompatible (or even more laughably, a separate edition by any degree), I am not surprised to find 20-30 page forum threads of people bitching back and forth. Is it odd that I find it refreshing that at least some are complaining about how crappy the shade is/isn’t?

First things first (again); Essentials isn’t a new edition (or even a half edition, errata, or what the fuck ever). It’s a limited book line that just so happens to have some classes that follow a different starting and advancement structure. That’s not a bad thing, “allowing” designers to think more than a step outside the box. Yeah, past classes did minor changes, like giving you flexibility on making at-wills into encounters (most psionic classes), or giving you up to three at-wills (in the case of the druid). Using an entirely different class structure doesn’t mean that we’ve somehow stepped into a new edition.

Were things really this bad when WotC released Magic of Incarnum, Tome of Magic, or Book of Nine Swords? Do people even remember how much shit changed between 3rd Edition and Revised? To make things as clear as I possibly can about the content in Heroes of Shadow, virtually all of it can be used by clerics, paladins, warlocks, and wizards of any structure. There are some powers that are tied to class features, but they are way in the minority (unless your DM is sane and doesn’t mind your warlock grabbing a “binder-only” summoning power).

Second, some people are upset that the shade and vryloka have racial penalties, and/or some are also pissed at Mearls for his justifications on why shades lose all of one healing surge. I really see no problem with a small penalty here or there, especially when it’s nowhere severe enough to render the race unplayable as a specific class. I remember back in the day when a real racial penalty was having a net -2 to your stats, and no racial features of merit, or being Small with a Strength penalty and trying to play an inherently dead-end class like the fighter. One less healing surge? One? Wizards get six, though I’ve never encountered–nor heard of–an instance where one healing surge spelled the difference between life and death.

Again, this mentality just serves to irrationally straight-jacket designers. If they make a race that gets a penalty only when using spells or using melee attacks, then we’ll talk.

Others are pissed off that the shade racial is a standard action, and that it allegedly does for the most part that “anyone can do in the right situation”. I’d like to point that using Stealth requires total concealment, superior cover, or the DM’s mercy/leniency/rules ignorance. I know that at night, these requirements might not be as steep, but the fact that they can hide behind allies and create areas of dim light as a minor action at will by 6th level should not be discounted so readily (that, and all those dim-light feats). Others complain that some of the classes that the shade is good at (ie, rogues and assassins) will now have a wasted skill. While I can understand the sentiment behind this, the same thing could also be said for races with weapon proficiencies, racial features whose usefulness depends on the class you play (like goring charge), or skill bonuses for skills that you need a feat to take, or won’t ever use.

In short, I think a the vocal minority needs to take a step back and look at the larger picture. Just because WotC put some sub-classes and races with (minor) penalties in a book does not mean that other classes won’t get laundry-list power articles, or that 5th Edition is coming out, or that Mearls doesn’t listen to you (because he hates you).

Assassin: Executioner

The finalized, non-accidental executioner class is available for download. Having read over the class for like the third time I think, my original opinion still stands: I like it a lot more than the shadow-only assassin. This is based on the fact that when I compare them side by side, the executioner just feels like more of an assassin. This is partially due to the fact that the assassin has plenty of specialized attacks that let them roll out an assload of damage–assassin’s strike and attack finesse for starters–but also because the executioner regularly utilizes poisons, something I have yet to see any of my players do in any edition of D&D.

Having seen the assassin in play up to 6th-level in a Scales of War campaign, I can say that it’s mechanically sound, but conceptually I have a hard time working something together in a satisfactory manner. Shrouds aren’t well explained, and the class seems to focus on utilizing shadows to tear, stab, and poison your opponents. Also, the idea of trading part of your soul for “shadow-power” seems better suited for something like a necromancer or warlock, while the assassin as written makes me think more of Pride.

Really, I don’t want to reiterate most of what I’d said in the past (which is what I’d be doing if I tried to go into detail again). Most of the class features and powers were very similar to the playtest versions, with some formatting and balance tweaks here and there. I found the accompanying Design & Development article to be an interesting read, as you get to see why R&D did what they did with the dual-power sources, assassin’s strike, poisons, situational at-will attacks, etc. Whether you’re pleased or pissed at the direction they went, it might inform you about their reasons for doing so.

It just sucks that they didn’t update Character Builder with the executioner, yet. >_>

Heroes of Shadow Essentials

Heroes of Shadow is going to be written Essentials-style, which means that instead of giving you the basic foundation of the class and a plethora of options to choose from in order to build upon that class in a way that pleases you, Wizards will instead give you limited control over the class’s abilities and provide fixed abilities that will deliver on a concept that they envision. Hopefully, its a concept that you like.

Think of it like this: a fighter has six fighter talents to choose from. Each one gives you some benefit that helps build upon a concept, such as a gladiatorial fighter, a semi-pugilist type, a sword-and-board knight in shining armor, a guy with a big fucking weapon, and more. From there, you still get to pick numerous exploits that let you do things that you envision your character doing, on top of the simple “swing your weapon” maneuver. While a few people can’t wrap their heads around daily exploits, the point is that you get a lot of flexibility.

With Essentials you don’t get the fighter, you get the knight and slayer, which are basically inflexible fighter subtypes that either use a one-handed weapon and shield, or use a two-handed weapon. Sure, you get to pick a pair of stances at level one, but no matter what your encounter special lets you lump on another damage die. Want to be able to hit them in the legs and trip them? Too bad. Want to be able to smash an enemy in the face and daze them? Nuh uh. It’s unfortunate that I could build the exact same concepts just using Player’s Handbook. The difference is that I have more control over how the character grows.

Not all the classes function like this, however. Mages get to pick a magic school, but aren’t restricted on their spells. If I pick Pyromancy, nothing says I have to pick any spells with the Fire keyword at all. This is really strange because you’d think that if they were going to pigeonhole you by school that there’d be at least some restrictions. I don’t subscribe to the belief that only spellcasters need to be complicated (a level 1 mage has to pick nine spells, by the by), and I think it’s great that 4th Edition allowed non-magical characters to have interesting actions and powers that they could use on a round-by-round basis.

Some people like this new direction. I’m more in the middle ground. I like a few of the classes out of the Essentials books, but namely the hexblade. Partially because it delivers at least two solid concepts, but partially because you get more say on what you can do. In other words, encounter and daily powers. Lack of daily powers, a preset encounter power that isn’t even an attack, and the fact that I’m doing the same basic melee attack virtually the entire time are the reasons why I’d be bored to tears playing a knight or slayer. I like variety, and the Essentials spin on martial classes seems like more than a few steps back.

Fortunately, the necromancer and nethermancer seem to be mage schools, or at least based on the mage. This means that they’ll actually get to pick stuff. The blackguard seems to be based on a paladin, like the cavalier, so she’ll also get to choose more powers, as well. Would I have preferred Heroes of Shadow to be presented in the Player’s Handbook format? You bet. Give me more options any day. Thankfully, when it comes to spellcasters, the Essentials format hasn’t really done anything to change how they work.

Class Acts: The Lady’s Gift

If there’s one thing Dungeons & Dragons was missing, it would be a system of magic based around strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ magic swords. Thankfully, that’s been addressed. Like the star pact hexblade article, the new crunch is restricted to levels where you don’t normally get to choose. There’s also a page of flavor to dish up with it, which could provide a solid foundation for a character to go a-questin’.

At 1st-level, you get a renamed blade of annihilation and a pair of spells that let you deal radiant damage or a lot of radiant damage (and making nearby enemies vulnerable to it). Many of the attacks revolve around dealing radiant damage, but as you ascend levels you can also summon undead handmaidens, blind enemies, and transform into a radiant champion that gains a considerable speed boost and can deal automatic damage once per round.

It’s a good variation of the fey pact theme that delivers its own, solid concept of a questing knight, and will be something I’ll use when I revisit my failed primal adventure path.

Class Acts: Cavalier

Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms gets more momentum this month with Class Acts: Cavaliers, which provides an alternate level 4 class feature for the cavalier, a bunch of new feats that are more general use, and a magic item to top it off.

Now, I don’t like paladins. Not because of years of ingrained stigma from players that didn’t know how to play a Lawful Good character and not be an ass, or DMs who didn’t know what Lawful Good meant and tried to simultaneously fuck over the paladin by threatening to strip away her class features unless she did something to irritate the party (like loudly proclaim to a warband of monsters that we were going to attack them while overwhelmingly outnumbered). No, it’s just that the concept never got any traction with me, and I didn’t like the idea of needing a high Strength, Constitution, Wisdom, and Charisma to get the most out of my class features.

That, and I don’t get to actually play a lot, instead spending the lion’s share of my game time “playing” characters vicariously through the rest of the group.

The alternate class feature–Summoned Steed–lets you use summon celestial steed to conjure up an angelic warhorse twice per day that anyone can ride. Its got half your hit points, uses your Defenses, a Speed of 8, grants riders a damage bonus when charging, uses your level to determine attack bonus and Charisma modifier for damage, can kick as a melee basic, and trample as an encounter. If it dies you lose a healing surge (or take damage), and you can’t summon it again until you take a nap. Basically, its a throwback to what paladins did in earlier editions, except you don’t need to invest a lot of skill points into Ride and constantly make checks.

Feats are divvied into two categories; Mounted Combat and Improved Mount, with four for each.

Mounted Combat feats are more general use, granting you the usage of encounter powers when you are riding a mount (and in some cases has the requisite attack power). In otherwords, its multiclassing for mounts. For example, battle trample requires trample, and grants it a one-turn aura effect that automatically deals damage and pushes enemies that end their turn adjacent to it. Riding attack is for you, allowing you to attack something that your mount doesn’t, though its keyed to either Strength or Dexterity and only deals 1[W] damage.

The Improved Mount feats are straightforward and limited to the cavalier, allowing you to summon something besides (and superior to) a horse with summon celestial steed. These ones are restricted by tier, with battle tiger being Heroic, behemoth and pegasi Paragon, and silver dragon Epic. The dragon is fucking hardcore, being all but immune to cold, having a flight of 10, can heal itself and recharge its breath weapon with the same minor action, and granting you a constant power bonus to attack rolls. Which is only for starters.

(This is where I wanted to put a badass image that Wayne Reynolds drew of a character on an armored lion, but I couldn’t find it. If you own Defenders of the Faith, check it out and pretend it’s here.)

Finally, we wrap things up with the jade horse, a level 8 uncommon wondrous item with a daily power that lets you summon your very own horse (of course). It has half your hit points, your Defenses, resist all, doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks when charging, and can kick and trample to boot. Nothing too fancy.

While the cavalier doesn’t hold much interest for me, I think the next character I make will have a warhorse. Ultimately, I’d like to get a skeletal horse or nightmare. A man can dream…

Monster Vault Review

The highlight of this month’s releases, Monster Vault is a $30 box set that contains an adventure module for 4th-level characters titled Cairn of the Winter King (with adventure maps), ten sheets of monster tokens, and of course the titular book.

The Tokens
Nothing too fancy, here, especially if you’ve purchased Starter Set and/or Dungeon Master’s Kit. They’re great if you’re just getting into the game or don’t want (or can’t afford to) buy lots of minis. Almost everything in Monster Vault has it’s token (except for stuff like legion devils and rat swarms). They also have rings that you can slot Large tokens in to represent Huge monsters, so you don’t need to have everything at Huge. As with all tokens, they work great for the gamer on a budget or if you’re missing something specific (they have the exact same art as in the book), but don’t deliver the sense of awe that minis do.

The Book
The real treasure, Monster Vault is digest-sized, runs at 319 pages, and purportedly contains “a horde of iconic creatures for any campaign”. Most of the monsters seem to be culled from Monster Manual, though I found plenty featured in Monster Manual 2, such as the rust monster and duergar. It’s got a nice spread of monsters that I’m used to seeing in a “starting” monster book; dragon’s up to Huge, giants, titans, demons, devils, angels, archons, generic minions, the works. The glaring flaw, to me, is the lack of aboleths. They beholders and mind flayers, but no aboleths?

Point deducted.

They’ve all been updated to the new stat block format, have several paragraphs of flavor text, and most greatly benefit from improved design; for example skirmishers have plenty of mobility options, either part of attack effects or by using other actions, while soldiers mark as part of traits or attack effects instead of sometimes on a hit. To make matters worse, enemy marks also allow them to hit you instead of just imposing an attack penalty.

The Adventure
Joe Half-elf was wandering through the Frostjaw Peaks (Nentir Vale), taking refuge in a cave filled with skulls when a storm picked up. As if this wasn’t enough of a red flag to get the fuck out of there, he ventures further inside and eventually discovers a throne with a dead guy stuck to it, holding a magical scepter. Having long-abandoned reason since the entrance of the cave, he takes the scepter, waits for things to calm down, and heads back to Fallcrest, head full of gilt dreams and blissful naivety.

I don’t blame the guy so much since most of the time when the player characters rob an ancient tomb there typically aren’t any repercussions (beyond having to kill the occasionally undead rightful owner), so I guess no one saw it coming when the ramifications weren’t upsetting the local economy so much as devastating the local ecology with endless winter.

There are a few minor errors, such as an ettin speaking in Common when it’s only spoken language is Giant or it mentions three dogs instead of two, but ultimately I found this to be a very interesting adventure with some good pacing. There’s some hefty dialogue between the townsfolk of Fallcrest, talking air-boat, and a dungeon filled with sociable sociopaths vying for the Winter King’s favor. Coupled with the other adventures from Starter Set and Dungeon Master’s Kit, this could be the start of a beautiful adventure path.

Conclusion
A definite buy whether or not you’re into the Essentials stuff. All the monsters (and tokens) look a lot more functional and attractive, and the adventure looks like a fun romp. $30 is also a cheap buy for the product.

Star Pact Hexblades

I’d almost completely overlooked this addition to the hexblade pact choices, available before Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdom was supposed to be in stores. I’m not complaining, as the star pact has always been my favorite anyway. The article provides some interesting flavor as to the nature(s) of stars and a hexblade’s relationship to them, if any. One thing of particular note is that under the races section, shades get quite a bit of mention, including confirmation that they will be in Heroes of Shadow. A nifty not-quite-easter egg.

The rest of the article has a sidebar on the Revelations of Melech, a list of known stars and qualities, in addition to new class features. Unfortunately there are no extra powers (or feats) for levels where you would get to pick something, so hopefully your DM will let you peruse Player’s Handbook and/or Arcane Power for thematic options. Most of the class features allow you to deal radiant and/or psychic damage with some blind kickers here and there, and the summons let you conjure up an invisible entity that eats thoughts or an emotion sapping void. I like the neither are really described (thought the way walker is mentioned as being vaguely humanoid), as it better invokes a Lovecraftian flavor.

Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms Review

I hit up my not-so local store and picked up Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms, Monster Vault, and a couple Gamma World booster packs since Famine at Far-go wasn’t out despite ads being plastered all over the D&D sit. Since I want to do a video review of Monster Vault I’m going to tackle Forgotten Kingdoms first.

The second (and final) player book from the Essentials line, Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms is, like Player’s Handbook and Heroes of the Fallen Lands, a stand-alone deal. It’s virtually a direct copy of Fallen Lands, as information is written in the same friendly style and even dispensed in the same order page-by-page for the first three chapters, which explain the rules to you and informs you about the significance of your decisions, culminating in an analysis of power structure. Additionally, the chapters on skills and equipment are likewise almost the same, though feats has a few new entries to account for new classes and races.

Really, the main difference is in the non-standard classes and races. Instead of fighters you get cavaliers, sentinels instead of clerics, drow instead of elves, tieflings instead of eladrin, etc. If you want a more detailed review on other chapters, check out my review of Heroes of the Fallen Lands. Actually, you might want to read it if you haven’t and then come back.

Chapter 4 features five classes based on previous classes with a twist: sentinel (druid), cavalier (paladin), hunter (ranger), scout (again, ranger), and hexblade (warlock). As before there’s plenty of paragraphs explaining the concept behind the class, key ability scores, ideal races (with information as why that race might choose that class), skill selection, and more. As per Essential’s standard they all follow a fairly linear path of class feature accrual, and unfortunately when you get the chance to pick something your options are severely limited (especially if you are trying to do an Essentials-only campaign). This isn’t something that will bother new players a lot, but when I’m used to getting upwards of 10 choices, seeing two or three is disappointing to say the least.

To be clear, I don’t think that the classes are bad, just restrictive. I understand that having fewer meaningful choices is better than a dearth of shitty ones, but when trying to maintain a theme it helps to have two or more to differentiate. Despite this I’m definitely going to give the hexblade a shot, which is a melee-oriented warlock that gets a slightly modified eldritch blast, and can conjure up different arcane weaponry depending on their pact (fey or infernal, though star is coming this month). A good chunk of your class features hinge on your pact, and though utilities and dailies are somewhat more flexible there’s only like, one thematic choice on the list. It still looks like the most appealing class to me, since you can summon minions, and I like conjuring up devils to boss around.

Chapter 5 has six races; dragonborn, drow, half-elf, half-orc, human, and tiefling. Again, as in Fallen Lands each race gets several pages of exposition on origins, personalities, physical qualities, role-playing tips, etc. Mechanically they, for the most part, remain the same as their original incarnations with the exception that instead of getting two set ability score bonuses, they can pick a secondary one from two others (a trend started in Player’s Handbook 3). A few races get some additional modification: half-elves can opt for knack for success if they don’t like their dilettante options, and drow now have to pick between cloud of darkness or darkfire. Sucks for them.

As with Heroes of the Fallen Lands, this book is not a substitute for 4th Edition, and probably not a good enough substitute for Player’s Handbook since most people are used to seeing human, elves, dwarves, fighters, wizards, etc in their rulebooks. That doesn’t mean that it’s a bad book. On the contrary, it’s an excellent supplement for those that prefer how Essentials is doing things. If you like 4th Edition, I’d get it if you really want to see what they did with the hexblade and hunter (4E’s first ever official martial controller), and/or want to check out the new feats (some of them are really badass).

Now to break open Monster Vault.