There’s some more Essentials support in the form of staff-fighting options and another mage school specialization.
![](https://awfulgoodgames.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/77b3d-391_staff_fighter.jpg?w=300)
The feat groups here are Ordained Weapon, Thief Weapon, and Weapon Training, each with their own pair of feats. Ordained Weapon feats are only useful for divine classes: Staff of Knowledge grants combat advantage for a single divine attack, while Staff of Travel lets you shift when you hit with divine attacks. Thief Weapon feats apply to thieves and/or rogues by virtue of their prereqs, allowing you to daze with a backstab or gaining both proficiency with a staff and being able to use Sneak Attack with it. That’s a bit more up my alley, evoking images of the Robin Hood movie with Kevin Costner. Finally, Stout-Handed Staff basically lets small characters use a quarterstaff, as well as shift if you prone someone when smacking them with one, while War Wizard’s Staff lets you usher an ally out of the way when using close arcane attacks. You know, if you’re the kind of character that gives a shit if you’re going to explode an ally.
![](https://awfulgoodgames.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/54fbd-391_pyromancer.jpg?w=300)
I like all these features, mostly because I like tieflings a lot and it seems specifically geared towards them, which is completely fucking fine by me. At paragon tier, Pyromancy Action lets you pick an enemy when you burn an action point, and for an entire turn anytime you hit them with a fire effect, they take maximum damage. Brutal. Kelwyn’s devouring fire is your level 11 attack, which hits a nice area and deals half damage on a miss (or you can slide them). If you kill anything, survivors take automatic fire damage again. I find it odd that you can opt to deal half damage or slide creatures outside the area of effect. I wonder if spells will be updated to represent missed targets leaping out of the way? The level 12 utility lets you transform into an elemental-type shape, granting fire immunity, a bonus on attacks based on the number of targets you’re gunning for, and automatic damage to creatures stopping next to you. Very cool if cliche. Finally, at level 20 you get a very hefty 10d10 fire damage attack that not only hits an area 2 burst within 20 squares, but chalks off half your hit points (and you cannot reduce it, either). Yeesh. Fuck meteor swarm.
Not a bad haul, though a staff-wielding defender wasn’t really one of my must haves, or even kinda-sorta-wanna haves. At least some of the new feats could be used by other characters, so there’s some nice coverage there. Mostly, I’m stoked over the pyromancer. Josh wanted someone to play a wizard, so this’ll be a good chance to tryout another tiefling that focuses on fire magic.