Start your 3-month timer, folks - Divine Power is here!
Only had a few minutes to look this over today. Very happy with what I've seen so far. Tander will definitely be picking up some of the new cleric options if/when approved.
Only had a few minutes to look this over today. Very happy with what I've seen so far. Tander will definitely be picking up some of the new cleric options if/when approved.
Finding some good stuff to save our (oft-punished) bacon, ey?
If our adventure careers in the Closed Eye maintain the an-inch-from-total-eradication trend, we'll need it!
(Some anti-wraith cleric mojo would be particularly useful now...)
One of the cleric options is to trade turn-undead for a heal-bloodied-allies type power, although I'm thinking we're gonna need as much undead-turning as possible in Closed Eye...
I leafed throught this in the store yesterday. I like the concept of the domain feats, although I haven't looked at the specific feats. When I finally get the book I'm looking forward to mapping them to our gods!
On a tangentially related subject... For those of you who pay more attention than I do, is there any sign on the horizon of WotC selling digital versions of this, or any of their other recent products?
On a tangentially related subject... For those of you who pay more attention than I do, is there any sign on the horizon of WotC selling digital versions of this, or any of their other recent products?
Nope! WOTC's current stance is they are out of the PDF business except for dragon/dungeon.
What better way to discourage pirating than by removing all legal PDF's? That way anyone, like me, that wants to have the books on his netbook have only two options. Lug around a huge pile of books or download illegal copies.
Brilliant move WOTC! you might as well drive to the pirate's house and help them with the PDF! Idiots...
Well, there has been some speculation that WotC's move in yanking the PDF's from third party sellers was in anticipation of WotC wanting to take over that business for itself, in some yet to be determined form.
However, that's just speculation. The current situation is PDFs are not for sale by anyone, pretty much with the effect that elec described.
Well, there has been some speculation that WotC's move in yanking the PDF's from third party sellers was in anticipation of WotC wanting to take over that business for itself, in some yet to be determined form.
If this is the case, they are keeping VERY tight lipped about it. Even if this WERE the case, it would be in there best interest to publicize that. If you know that you're going to be able to get a high quality WOTC PDF, it's be worth waiting a bit for instead of trying to finding a crappy photocopied bootleg version. As it is, those that REALLY want or need the PDF will already have them by the time they get off their butts.
Already dropped the MM and DMG from my list of carry around in a heavy bag, now the FRPG and EPG are also dropped, only to be used when I level and I don't know what I'm gonna cut out when AV2 comes out.
Back to the subject at hand, which is Divine Power!
YAY I have feats to take!
Domains at will augmentors were cool till I noticed two trends for clercis. Not a single augment for Sacred Flame and about a third of the augments work with righteous brand. As if Righteous Brand wasn't already ridiculous, now you can hand out a -2 to AC for a round with it as well. An 18 Str Flanking cleric hands out a +8 to one person to hit their target.
I don't really have a problem with any of the at will augment feats, just that sacred flame got shafted while righteous brand got lots of love. It's like they are trying to tell ranged clerics they can't ever do damage (the non damaging wisdom at-will from this book got lots of love as well)
Demonsbane and Devilsbane are much needed feats, but now there's enough feats you don't have room to take them for a while
Paladins, especially STR paladins got lots of love with this book, nothing too overly powerful, although Str AND Cha to Divine Challenge damage might get a little powerful with a 25 point buy build, especially when STR paladins still need CHA for the new Divine Sanction ability. But hey, paladins have suffered long enough it's not that big of a deal I don't think. I can see Divine Challenge hitting 9 - 10 damage for starting balanced paladins.
A couple things should probably be pointed out because they aren't spelled out in the book
Creation Doman Channel Divinity still uses your Daily Item usage, it just doesn't expend the power from the item.
In relation to Holy Speech, Per PHB p25 1st Level characters can't choose Abyssal or Supernal as a 1st level character. So a background with knowing the Supernal language is not a free ticket to 2 successes in social skill challenges with your bard just by taking that feat.
Otherwise, at least for paladins and clerics, as I know little about invokers and avengers, everything looks to be nice and balanced. I think they finally did it right.
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L4W:Shayla
Shayla Brightleaf Group Awareness: Non-elf allies within 5 squares gain a +1 racial bonus to perception checks
I really, really want to get my hands on this ASAP. The fact that I'm playing a paladin and avenger in L4W and a cleric in an upcoming Epic game might give a little hint as to what I like to play
Speaking of which ... are there any good Str cleric paragon paths in there? Angelic Avenger is the only PP with a Str attack in the PHB, and its encounter power is Will based, so there should be some love for Str clerics on that front ... I'd like to know
And what's this about Divine Challenge? Is it now 3+Cha+Str damage to start? That would be awesome, in my opinion Of course, I'm entirely unbiased on that front, haha.
When it comes to PPs, strength clerics got, well, shafted. There are three strength-based PPs for clerics. There's the battle chaplain, who's sort of a warlordy-cleric, which is pretty cool. Then there's the Stone Keeper, which can only be taken by dwarves trained in history, who's a little striker-ish. And finally there's the Hammer of Moradin, must worship Moradin and be proficient in hammers, who does all the classic hammer stuff like throwing them at people to daze or knock them down, and smashing his hammer into the ground. So yeah, there are three strength PPs. For comparison, there are eight wisdom PPs.
I'm also not fond of how of the precious few strength PPs there are, two of them are heavily restricted but will also have a not insignificant overlap in who qualifies for them. Seriously WotC? You restrict one PP to the dwarves, and another to the followers of the dwarves' god. Thanks. Thanks a lot.
On the plus side, the Battle Chaplain is pretty nice. And you can always take Angelic Avenger and the Reserve Maneuver feat to not have to use the level 11 power.
Nope! WOTC's current stance is they are out of the PDF business except for dragon/dungeon. [commentary]
Dang.
I'm not terribly thrilled about this particular decision of WotC's, but could we please avoid discussing the merits of it here? There have been numerous other threads on these boards about it, and I, uh, got the impression the mods were sick of patrolling them for site policy violations. Let's not rock that boat, shall we?
Indeedaly. As for Str-based Paladins and the shaft on PP's, that sucks. Apparently they've determined that Wis is the key requisite ability for that class not STR, screw what the previous editions had.
So, here’s how I would associate the DP domains to the Twelve Gods. When performing this matching, I had three goals in mind, listed in order of importance.
1) Every domain would be associated with at least one god. 2) Every god would get three domains. 3) The domains associated with a god wouldn’t all boost the same powers.
I managed to more-or-less succeed, although I did end up cheating on the first two.
Note: While I’m using the L4W gods, what I really did was match the names to their Greek equivalents, because that’s where the established mythology is. A problem is that, well, the Greek gods just aren’t very nice. Most of them are very strong contenders for Tyranny and Vengeance, and none of the Greek gods are particularly just. Most of them are selfish bullies. As a result, some matches are going to be much stronger than others.
Joven: Justice, Storm, Tyranny Reasoning: So, it’s a little weird having Justice and Tyranny in the same god. The way I see it, Tyranny is sort of like Justice taken too far. And someone had to take Justice, might as well give it to the boss.
Juna: Life, Protection, Vengeance. Reasoning: Hera was the goddess of childbirth, so Life and Protection seem to fit for her. And she was always taking revenge against Zeus for his infidelity, so Vengeance fits nicely here. Well, technically she targeted the women/resulting children, so she should have the Petty Vengeance domain, but that will have to wait for Divine Power 2.
Lauto: Earth, Death, Fate Reasoning: Why Earth? In Greek mythology, Hades was depicted as being beneath the earth. As a result, he had access to gemstones and precious metals, making him very wealthy. Yeah, it’s not a particularly strong match, and I could see it being changed. Death and Fate, however, fit like a glove. A gloomy, fatalistic glove.
Netari: Destruction, Sea, Wilderness Reasoning: Not sold on Wilderness, but it seems to be a decent enough fit.
Apoli: Arcana, Poison, Sun Reasoning: In addition to the arts (Arcana) and the sun, Apollo was also associated with plagues.
Peresefa: Hope, Torment, Winter Reasoning: Hope and Torment to represent her imprisonment, Winter for her ties to the seasons.
Vulkar: Creation, Earth, Skill Reasoning: Creation and Skill for the forge, Earth for volcanoes.
Maros: Strength, Strife, War Reasoning: Pretty straight-forward. This one was easy.
Merkari: Change, Luck, Trickery Reasoning: Again, this is self-explanatory.
Mireva: Civilization, Knowledge, Skill, War Reasoning: Ok, yes, there are four domains, not three. But each one is so very Athena that I can’t bring myself to drop one of them. If one had to go, it would be Skill or War, because nobody else currently holds the other two.
Vena: Freedom, Love, Madness Reasoning: I’m not sold on Freedom, especially since she wouldn’t really be representing a version of Freedom different from Artemis, unlike how Athena and Ares represent different types of war. I was thinking Life, but Life and Love give similar benefits to their associated At-wills. Maybe Arcana? I dunno.
Hekates: Change, Darkness, Undeath Reasoning: Hey! How did she get here? Well, I needed someone to take the Undeath domain, and Lauto seems to be pretty much against that sort of thing. Hekates has enough of a cult following among the L4W players that she can count as a full god. Ditto with Darkness; it fits for her, but not really for others. Change for it’s more disruptive aspects, and because I wanted her to have a domain that wasn’t associated with spooky-badness.
Like the Channel Divinity feats in the wiki, these could be more guidelines then actual rules. Again, many of the gods could take Tyranny and Vengeance, and there are even some who could take additional positive domains.
I'm not terribly thrilled about this particular decision of WotC's, but could we please avoid discussing the merits of it here?
No problem. I wasn't planning on starting up a debate on it here anyway. I just can't help but vent for a post or two whenever someone brings up WOTC pdf's.
As far as Divine Power, I'm liking what I got to see last night. You can make a pacifist cleric now! That pacifist healer feat is sweet!
The Breath of Life feat rocks too. Only target enemies with Dragonborn breath weapon AND give allies temp HP. Yes please!
A couple of ideas:
What about Darkness instead of Earth for Lauto? I don't know what each domain does, but Darkness would seem to fit Lauto thematically. I guess it would give him three doom-and-gloom domains, though.
Also, Arcana or Moon should work for Hekate, as she was a moon goddess before Artemis came along, and was associated with 'dark magic'.
Sad to see that Str clerics didn't get much love in the PP's though I find it odd that they seem to be heavily favoring Str clerics with some things (like the at-will augments), but heavily favoring Wis clerics with others (like PP's), instead of trying to balance the two across the board.
What better way to discourage pirating than by removing all legal PDF's? That way anyone, like me, that wants to have the books on his netbook have only two options. Lug around a huge pile of books or download illegal copies.
It's perfectly fine to buy the books and scan them into PDF for your own personal use, as long as you don't give the PDF's to anyone else. It's just a giant pain in the ass, and unless you're really good with OCR software you don't get nice text you can copy and paste, you just get pictures of the pages.
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