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Primal Power: How to hit enemies with a natural one, etc.
I haven't read the whole book yet, but two things caught my eye:
- p.44: Animal Clan: a utility power that allows you to expend a minor action to have your summoned creatures do what they'd do anyway if you didn't spend any action. Yay, definitely a must-have power!
- p.53: Constricting Coils: a paragon path attack power that let's you grab a foe and any attack targeting you that misses (you also get a +5 bonus to all defenses) will hit the foe.
If only there were more powers like this! (well, maybe there are?) Now, if there's a foe that's difficult to hit, everyone can just gang up on the druid and hope they'll miss. To improve their chances, they could close their eyes and only use improvised weapons, I guess.
My overall impressions so far:
- Barbarians who were already one of the coolest classes just got better: More healing, more condition removal, more damage (Whirlwind ftw!). The new builds are definitely inspired by the Diablo2 video game (note: I consider that a good thing - Diablo2 is fun!).
- Druids who were already one of the lamest classes just got worse: Now you can summon sucky critters and turn into icky vermin. At least it's now also officially the favorite choice for all hippie players: turn yourself into a swarm of butterflies or flower petals! And as the fluff reminds us: Even the most evil druid is just a treehugger at his heart: Ask him about his magical garden and he will forget about all of his wicked intentions.
- Shamans who were one of the most challenging classes finally make sense (to me): Is it just the two new builds or have they always been able to (de)buff that effectively? The new fluff also gave me some nice (and nasty!) ideas for npc shamans.
Huh. I think Druids' summoned creatures are better than Wizards' or Invokers', honestly. Instinctive Action is pure win for a druid - they can spend their actions elsewhere!
It's true; while some critters do have a drawback on Instinctive Action, it's almost all upside (with, while they're at it, plenty of ways to get more control of your critters without spending more actions). The druid is the only summoner class that can get good use out of multiple summoned creatures in the same combat. (Interestingly, the different summoner types have different approaches to summoning; this isn't new with the Druid. Wizard summons are fake defenders, with area control abilities and stickyness. Druid summons are strikers -- pure extra damage, plus usually some kind of pull or push to mess up their target. Artificers summons have some stickiness, plus usually a death ability, and maybe a leader-ish "help the people adjacent to me" trick. Invoker summons are controller/striker fun, with minor action attacks and usually a stronger standard action attack as well (and controlly abilities) but no stickiness; they mostly replace your actions in fights where you summmon them.
As for Animal Clan... dude, they'd only do that anyway if you didn't give them any other commands. Whereas with Animal Clan, you can command them to move, attack, and then as a minor do the instinctive thing that you'd have lost out on because you were using them to do something else.
Put it another way - if you set it up right, this is an ongoing minor-action attack like Wizard's Fury or Crown of Stars. Both of which are pure win. This one even has the advantage that you can skip the minor action for a turn and it doesn't stop working.
I think the jury is still out on the Whirling Barbarian. Given that Whirling Frenzy and co. are impossible to decipher by RAW (what a mess) its not quite possible at this point to say if these powers are hot or not. The class feature looks pretty good but it is situational. We'll have to see how this build works out in practice. Like with any of the other classes there is bound to be a bit more optimization room now for barbs in general. Again only time is going to tell exactly how this plays out.
I fail to even comprehend how you can say druids got weaker... Fine, you don't like druids, that's OK. The swarm druid looks like a quite interesting feature. It has cool fluff, a really handy mechanical effect, and what look to be some nice synergistic powers. Definitely would like to see this guy in action. Druid summons look pretty good. At first glance I'd say overall they're probably more useful in general than wizard summons but I haven't had a chance to look at all the stat allocation ramifications of making a good summoner build yet. Looks interesting anyway.
The new shaman features look interesting. Nothing earth shaking but they have pretty obvious applications.
The new warden features, eh, they look decent but they're not a big deal. Lifespirit could come in real handy at higher levels though there are a good number of other ways to do similar things its always handy to have a nice feature built right in from the start.
- Barbarians who were already one of the coolest classes just got better: More healing, more condition removal, more damage (Whirlwind ftw!). The new builds are definitely inspired by the Diablo2 video game (note: I consider that a good thing - Diablo2 is fun!).
And I thought Barbarians in general were inspired by ancient Celtic warriors like Cuchulain and others who were trained by War Witches to channel the might of the earth goddess (and her spirit allies) so that it Warped their bodies in horrific ways at times and performed astounding feats. Like spouting boiling blood attacks from their heads or running on the tips of their enemies spears or the great salmon leap and tornado strike attacks .... course it could be diablo.
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
I
- Druids who were already one of the lamest classes just got worse: Now you can summon sucky critters and turn into icky vermin. At least it's now also officially the favorite choice for all hippie players: turn yourself into a swarm of butterflies or flower petals! And as the fluff reminds us: Even the most evil druid is just a treehugger at his heart: Ask him about his magical garden and he will forget about all of his wicked intentions.
Why the druid hate? Druids were quite good in PHBII, I got complained at for doing too much damage while still doing my controlling things. That aside, a lot of the new options for druids are really quite good and I'm loving the new ED for them (well specifically the wildshape one).
On a side note: Imagine this party Beastmaster ranger, Shaman, Summoner druid, Summoner invoker, Summoner wizard. 10 party counters, that's a lot of targets.
__________________ DM: You see a small blue blink dog approach you.
Player 1: Oh ... my .. god, a pokemon! Quick, catch it!
So with swarm druid.. could that be a swarm of bats... very cool for Dracula to be a hybrid Druid Blood Mage Wizard or some such.
I used a swarm druid NPC in a recent game. Aside from turning into a swarm of bats with Black Harbinger (not 100% per the rules, but cool). He was an elite that easily lasted as long in combat as his same-level solo buddy; resist 5 is really good against PCs ganging up on you.
__________________ "I took a risk... and I ended up in the bag of holding" -the player of Ian Whitefire (deceased)
I've not played a druid, but a player in my game currently does and I find the class to be quite boring. Personally the Primal Power options have made the class worth looking into in my eyes.
Druid's are really a jack of all trades class in my opinion. Able to deal with all circumstances but excelling at none of them (except for probably summoning now but that's debatable)
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