HotFL offers more advice than the 4e PHB on race/class combinations, descending (gasp) into CHARACTER OPTIMIZATION ADVICE!

Here’s what the PHB has to say about cleric player races:

Humans and dwarves make ideal clerics. Elves, half-elves, and dragonborn are good clerics too, but they rarely have the same values of piety and reverence found in many human and dwarven cultures. […] The race you play and the deity your character worships have little effect on your cleric’s ability to utilize divine powers.

HotFL, on the other hand, has a full page about dwarf, elf, and human clerics, with comments like “Dwarves are a natural fit as warpriests, since they can gain a bonus to both Wisdom and Constitution.” The book also claims that there’s a long tradition of elf clerics, and “elf warpriests are instrumental in defending their people and the allied races of the mortal world.” If that’s the case, why don’t I see more elves in church?

Because elf warpriests are too busy adventuring and bathing the lands in the blood of undead, goblins, and undead goblins to ever step foot in a church, save perhaps to beg some fellow holy man (or woman!) to resurrect a buddy before hitting level 8 and being able to do it themselves.

Really? Too busy adventuring? Because I notice they find plenty of time to dance about trees.

More Essentials thoughts…

Essentials classes don’t get the Ritual Caster feat, and there are no rituals in Heroes of the Fallen Lands. Arguably the most important rituals, Raise Dead and Enchant Magic Item, are dealt with in other ways.

Enchant Magic Item is dealt with by not letting PCs enchant magic items. Most magic items are now “uncommon” or “rare”, which means they “are not usually created in the current age of the world”, and the book assumes that “common” magic items are created by NPCs.

Raise Dead is replaced with the 8th level Warpriest class feature, Resurrection, which is pretty much identical, except that

• it can only be cast on someone who died in the past 24 hours (as opposed to a month for Raise Dead).

• the death penalty (-1 to all rolls) can be eliminated by 3 milestones or 3 extended rests, which means you can sleep it off; you don’t have to adventure it off.
• Instead of costing thousands of GP, it’s FREEEEEEE!
  

  That definitely takes the sting off of dying, especially in the early levels of a tier. 500 gold isn’t much to a level 10 character, but to a level 1 character it’s a small fortune! Similarly, 5,000 gold is a big hit to a level 11 party. One thing I do like about this is that there’s less incentive for people to make new characters when they die, something that I’ve had some trouble with in my campaign.

  Create Water might not have been a ritual, but it should have been. This is now an encounter power available to the storm domain! Crazy and actually pretty powerful. Imagine if you could walk into any desert and start pumping out a gallon of water every five minutes. You and your party would certainly never go without! Unfortunately, Dark Sun is the only campaign world in which this would be super useful, and there are no clerics in Dark Sun.

More Essentials thoughts…

HotFL presents the class chapters first, followed by race. This is a reversal for D&D: since First Edition, race has been chosen first.

In 1e, race followed by class made sense. Races imposed attribute bonuses, penalties, minimums, and maximums. Classes, on the other hand, had strict entry requirements: for instance, you needed a 17 CHA to be a paladin, and with a 5 or lower CON you could only be an illusionist. Until you applied the racial modifiers, you didn’t know what classes you qualified for. (It was, of course, perfectly possible to roll up a character who didn’t qualify for any classes.)

This order lasted long after the 1e restrictions were gone. As late as the 4e PHB, players have been asked to choose race first:

from the 4e PHB:
Follow these steps to create your D&D character. You can take these out of order; for example, some people prefer to pick their powers last.
1. Choose Race. Decide the race of your character. Your choice of race offers several racial advantages to your character. Chapter 3.
2. Choose Class. Your class represents your training or profession, and it is the most important part of your character’s capabilities. Chapter 4.

It’s a little bit insane that this was still the order in 4e. I think most people choose a class first, and then pick a race that complements it. I’m sure there are some people out there who are happy to play any class, as long as it’s an elf, but I haven’t met them.

2nd edition had a similar format, though some of the classes had laughable requirements like 9 strength (to be fighter). But with 3E on it really didn’t make any sense. In fact, even in 1st and 2nd edition, I almost never picked my race first. I would usually look at the classes and then pick a race that allowed me to qualify for the class that I wanted based on the stats that I rolled.

More Essentials thoughts…

The first thing I notice about the Warpriest is that it’s not really one build; it’s a bunch of builds, one for each divine domain. The domain makes a huge difference to a warpriest: about 13 powers, including the cleric’s at-will powers, and several class features are determined by the domain.

Only two domains, Storm and Sun, are listed in Heroes of the Fallen Lands. This marks out plenty of room for further expansion, which is a good sign for 4e.

As a player, I want access to all the domains now. I want the complete warpriest! In the economic model of D&D, though, “complete” means “dead”. 4e relies on the developers continuing to dole out new material. When they can’t think of any more stuff to dole out, there’s nothing left to do but make a new edition!

For reference, here are the domains listed in 4e’s “Divine Power”:

arcana, change, civilization, creation, darkness, death, destruction, earth, fate, freedom, hope, justice, knowledge, life, love, luck, madness, moon, poison, protection, sea, skill, storm, strength, strife, sun, torment, tyranny, trickery, undeath, vengeance, war, wilderness, winter

It will take a while to flesh out each of these with class features and powers. And even when the Warpriest build has been completed: WOTC can introduce a new build and start again! May I humbly suggest PEACE PRIEST

More Essentials thoughts…

Listen, guys, I’m bumping my Monday Mazes and Monsters article again for Essentials liveblogging. I promise I’ll get back to Mazes and Monsters soon. To make up for it, I will illustrate this post with inappropriate Mazes and Monsters screencaps.

I was excited when the Red Box made me roll a d6 for my bonus language. In Heroes of the Fallen Lands that roll is now optional, and it’s a d20 roll:

1-2 Deep Speech
3-5 Draconic
6-9 Dwarven
10-13 Elven
14-16 Giant
17-19 Goblin
20 Primordial

Fun! The different weights assigned to different languages is like an adventurer census. There are 4 times as many adventurers who speak Elven as Primordial. Giant is slightly less popular than Elven but still popular: after all, it’s SO frustrating when you can’t decipher what the orc is saying*. 10% of adventurers are weirdos who took “Mind Flayer as a Second Language”.

If I were making the chart, I’d probably have 1 be “Sheltered! no bonus language” and 20 be “Polyglot! Roll twice more”, but maybe that’s just the 1e in me!

*Don’t worry, I will translate. The orc is saying, “Attack them, you fools!”

More Essentials thoughts…

The ability score guidance in HotFL is greatly improved from the Player’s Handbook.

The PHB method

The Player’s Handbook non-advice is like some cruel test designed to cull the weak from the herd. Method 1 of PHB ability score generation is to take the “standard array”, 16, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, which is just an awful arrangement of abilities. Method 2 is a point buy. Along with the point buy rules is a chart of no less than FIFTEEN sample point-buys, arranged approximately in order from worst to best. For example, the first point buy array is 14, 13, 13, 13, 13, 13, which is an array that should come with a cyanide pill.
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Further scrutinizing the upcoming classes/builds in Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms:

Warlock, hexblade (striker): Another return to the 3e well. Hexblade was a 3e basic class class that channeled eeevil magic through its sword. If the 4e hexblade is a close-combat sword-using warlock, that will finally fulfill a promise made in the 4e player’s handbook 1: “You’ve got powers to help you attack and defend in melee, as well as excellent ranged attacks.” We have a guy in our group who was VERY EXCITED about being a sword-using warlock, but the mechanics never really backed it up. Until now?

Finally, D&D Insider will make available an assassin, executioner (striker). I assume that this will be a new assassin build, not the current one.

One thing I’ve noticed is that so far, HotFL has studiously avoided any mention of non-Essentials D&D products. I assume that that is to avoid confusion, but when the Essentials kids get online, will they be confused by the fact that there are two Assassin builds, as well as dozens of other builds in the Character Builder?

I guess I should trust the kids. Back in the day, they made some sense of the 1e Dungeon Master’s Guide. They are frikkin’ BABY GENIUSES.

They do make passing references to “other source books” when talking about paragon paths and some other things, I believe. So it’s like a hint of the wider world of D&D!

More Essentials thoughts…

Examining the upcoming classes/builds in Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms:

Ranger, hunter (controller): As recently as Gencon 2010, Wizards deflected questions about a martial controller, saying that they felt no pressing need to fill empty spots in the power source/role grid. And all the time, they knew that they had a controller ranger coming out! They must have been smirking up their sleeves, the sly little pixies.

What exactly will a hunter do? Well, that’s difficult for me to predict because I have never fully understand the controller role. It seems to be a combination of limiting opponents’ movement and shooting area-effect fireballs at people. Maybe the hunter will use traps? EXPLOSIVE traps? Maybe it will cut out the heart of Snow White? Loathe in Las Vegas?

I hope its area effects don’t all consist of an improbable buckshot-like spray of arrows.

Ranger, scout (striker): My question about the scout ranger is this: will it be similar to the 4e twin-strike ranger? or will it be another Essentials basic-attack-heavy class, like the other martial classes we’ve seen so far? The build is named after a fun 3rd edition basic class, whose deal was that it did extra damage when it moved. I wouldn’t mind if the ranger scout’s schtick was that it got its extra striker damage from movement. Or from dressing like a ham.

A martial controller! What can we expect next from Wizards, an Int/Con race that’s not the githyanki? Have you no SHAME?

More Essentials thoughts…

Covering the upcoming classes and builds in Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms:

Paladin, cavalier (defender): The cavalier, first introduced in 1e Unearthed Arcana, makes a return. In 1e, I think paladin was retconned as a subclass of cavalier; in 4e, the cavalier is now a subclass of paladin.

The Cavalier build, like the PHB paladin, is a defender, so it’s probably a familiar-looking paladin with slightly tweaked abiities. Based on the etymology of the name “cavalier”, I’m guessing we’ll see a return of the paladin’s magical horse. Will we see the lance re-introduced to D&D as well? Please?

Do you hear that? The spirit of Gygax is trying to communicate with us! I think he’s saying “More polearms!”

More Essentials thoughts…