Advanced Player's Guide questions

davethegame · Oct 3, 2008

catsclaw227 said:
Here's another one that I'd love to get some feedback about. How do the new classes play along with the core classes and are there any interesting combinations of race and class?

Just finished posting my review:
Review: “Advanced Player’s Guide” | Critical Hits

But actual play is probably going to have to wait a bit. Maybe I can talk some people into a one-shot for the specific purpose of using them.

GMforPowergamers · Oct 3, 2008

How did they mail them out. Mail..ups..???I didn't get it in US mail today...does that mean I wont have it this weekend

Sitara · Oct 3, 2008

Well theofficialBarbarian class is coming out in 3 days on Dragon. It will be interesting tosee how Ari Marmells version compares tothat one.

thundershot · Oct 3, 2008

I got mine today! I only had a chance to flip through it a bit. I discovered one bad thing about a B&W 4E book... I kinda like the green/red/gray color coding of the powers. Makes them stand out more. It won't matter after I make power cards for them, but still...

Chris

Spatula · Oct 3, 2008

One design that I admit to not fond of is the barbarian as a defender. It's been assumed that the WotC version will also go this route (I guess we'll find out for sure on Monday), so I think that choosing a different direction would have made a 3rd party "savage warrior" stand out more.

(personally I think the barbarian concept would work best as a 2H weapon striker that is adept at surviving attacks rather than avoiding them, as the ranger and the rogue are)

As it is, the savage warrior is an unusual defender. Its AC is very poor (light armor, no real reason for Dex or Int other than AC, and the class build advice assigns a low priority to Dex), but to an extent the class wants to get hit to activate the Fury ability. And the Fury ability feels strange - better crits (good), bonus to hit (good), higher AC (...?). I'm guessing the rationale is that the class isn't supposed to be harder to hit (with weapons only) but rather harder to hurt; it works out in a way but looks odd at first sight vs some kind of "resist all" mechanic.

DonAdam · Oct 3, 2008

I got my copy yesterday. I haven't had a chance to look through it more that cursorily, but I am pleased with the scope of the material.

I also wondered about the monk's enhancement bonuses.

One question I haven't seen asked: what happened to the Spellbinder's level 1 daily's?

garyh · Oct 3, 2008

TerraDave said:
Just downloaded this and Plague. Best $19 I ever spent.

But, is Orc-Blooded now the best (melee) cleric, (melee) ranger, and fighter?

Longtooth shifters have +2 to Str and Wis, and I imagine it would be a rare DM that would allow the APG but for some reason not allow material from the Monster Manual. So my answer would be "Orc-Blooded is no more dominant in those areas than a core MM race, so I don't see a problem." It's also no more dominant than dragonborns are at paladins and inspiring warlords or halfings at artful rogues, elves at ranged rangers, and so forth.

Mouseferatu · Oct 3, 2008

Spatula said:
One design that I admit to not fond of is the barbarian as a defender.

I'm actually not sure if the WotC barbarian is going to be a defender or a striker, honestly.

In either case, yeah, I went back and forth on that a lot, myself. Ultimately, I decided that the barbarian's ability to take all sorts of punishment and keep on going, at least as I envisioned it, was just more appropriate for a defender. And yeah, unlike other defenders, his shtick is less about not being hit and more about not caring that you hit him.

He does have a marking ability, though I admit it's not nearly as prevalent of the paladin's or fighter's. (Part of Savage Charge.) I wanted to see if I could design a solid defender that didn't rely on marks as much. Time will tell if I've succeeded, I guess.

DonAdam said:
One question I haven't seen asked: what happened to the Spellbinder's level 1 daily's?

*blink*

Oh, son of a bitch...

Okay, I have no idea if that was my mistake or a printing error. I'll check my files when I get back home on Saturday and find out. (I have a horrible suspicion it was mine. Let me tell you, there's a reason WotC doesn't assign people to design five classes in rapid succession; your eyes start to bleed...) In either case, I'll have errata on that sent to Joe before the end of the weekend.