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…

Page 31 of Heroes of the Fallen Lands lists the classes that will be covered in this book – fighter, cleric, rogue, and wizard – but since we’ll cover these in more detail when we get to those chapters, I won’t linger on them now. Page 32, however, lists the classes and builds that will be available in Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms. This is practically an engraved invitation for us to speculate with insufficient data!

Druid, sentinel (leader): In past editions, druids had healing abilities as well as grabby-vines controller abilities, so I guess it’s nice that druids get a Leader build. I am interested to see how they avoid the CoDzilla problems of 3e, where clerics and druids could fill many party roles.

The Essentials druid is undoubtedly what Mma Ramotswe would call a “traditionally built” class, by which I mean a class with a regular pre-Essentials schedule of encounter and daily powers. Presumably these powers will all be interchangeable with druid powers from the PHB2 controller druid. What’s to stop a druid from cherrypicking both controller powers and leader powers?

Really, that’s the potential problem with any class which can cover different party roles. A good deal of a class’s ability to perform its role comes from class features. Many powers, however, bolster that role. For instance, imagine a defender class that had free access to cleric powers: sure, he wouldn’t have the Healing Word feature, but he’d have access to Recovery Strike, Healing Strike, and Beacon of Hope, and that’s just at level 1. He might be able to do a decent job in two roles.

On the other hand, covering multiple rolls with one class could be a good way to simulate multiclassing, while keeping the flavor of one unified class. So I could be a slayer (striker fighter) who takes some fighter utilities that help me mark an opponent, allowing me shoulder the role of defender from time to time, which is already a secondary role for my build.

More Essentials thoughts…

Do you like fantasy fiction featuring dwarves or elves? Try building a character of one of those races. Do you want your character to be the toughest adventurer at the table? Consider a class like fighter or paladin.

This passage from Player’s Handbook was copied almost without change into Heroes of the Fallen Lands, which is weird because in HotFL, you can’t actually play a paladin.

More Essentials thoughts…

Page 17 of HotFL has an “Example of Play”: pretty much the same one in the 4e PHB, except that there are mysterious differences.

The names have been changed: The DM is now named Chris and not Dave, and the other player and character names have changed as well. There are a few additions, too. I’ll quote it (keeping the old names) and bold the new text.
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Heroes of the Fallen Lands‘s cover illustration, by Ralph Horsley, is of a fairly typical scenario – two adventurers fighting undead while their muttonchopped halfling sidekick freaks out and fails to help. The adventurers are in a dungeon.

Somehow, the image’s irregular border fools my eye into thinking it’s a more interesting setting. My brain reads the dungeon wall as a Great Wall of China-style outside wall, with a white sky above it. The two adventurers are standing before a gate, holding off undead. I imagine the walls continuing for thousands of miles in either direction, protecting – the Fallen Lands? – from a continent’s worth of undead. Now that’s a setting!

Oh, so here’s a difference between the PHB and HotFL. The PHB subtitle is “Arcane, Divine and Martial Heroes”. The HotFL’s is “Create and Play Clerics, Fighters, Rogues, and Wizards!” The HotFL subtitle has a certain something that the PHB subtitle lacks. And that certain something is an exclamation point!

More Essentials thoughts…

It’s surprisingly strange to hold a D&D book as small as Heroes of the Fallen Lands. I’ve been reading multicolumn D&D books – either hardcover or magazine size – for more than 20 years. My brain can barely cope with the lack of an alley between columns. And there seem to be so few words per page! What would fit on one column of the PHB takes up a page of a trade paperback.

I am surprised that this makes such a difference to me. If I like large-format books so much, the logical extension is to print books on the largest possible pieces of paper – perhaps the PHB 1 should have been printed on pages the size of a foldable poster map. It’d take about thirty-five of them.

More Essentials thoughts…

I just planned to buy Heroes of the Fallen Lands this weekend, but so much Essentials stuff was on sale at my FLGS that I suffered a brief bout of Essentials Fever. Do I need the Rules Compendium, or are my existing books and the errata enough? I’ve never used Dungeon Tiles, but maybe they’re cool? …but are they Essentially cool? DO I NEED THE DICE? ARE THE DICE ESSENTIAL?

I walked out of the store with only “Heroes of the Fallen Lands”. And a used copy of a Gary Gygax novel, “The Samarkand Solution”. Unless there is a surprising groundswell of interest in the latter, I will liveblog only “Heroes of the Fallen Lands”.

Regrets? I have a few. Should I go back and get the dice? If I do, how can I liveblog them?

More Essentials thoughts…