Tony Vargas
Legend
I guess 5e has completely overshadowed this release.
Was it anticipated at all? Anyone interested in a review? Cool.
REVIEW:
I've gotten my copy - one of the perks of gaming at an FLGS that hosts 3 tables of encounters, plus other events, WotC lets them sell books a week or so early.
I haven't gotten to read all of it, but some general observations:
The background (fluff) information is present in modest quantity. Like HoFeywild, it hearkens back to information in Manual of the Planes and The Plane Below without being redundant or contradictory (that I noticed, this isn't an audit). There are sidebars, not as eye-catching as in Feywild, but with some added fluff or advice in them.
We get another perspective on the Dawn War and Primal Ban, and there's a list of primordials, including those still free.
Once again, the crunch sections are plagued by the double-redundant fluff that started with Essentials. In a few cases, the fluff is starkly at odds with the crunch (obviously, crunch wins). For instance, there's a feat that says it lets you take to the air when enemies would force you back, but the actual mechanic is that you can ignore difficult terrain when running or charging. Oops. Edit: I've come across 4 or 5 of such obvious gaffes now, and that's still just on a casual read. Gives the product a 'rushed' feel.
I'm not a good judge of art, so someone else can review that element. All I can say is there's a reasonable amount of it. Enough so it's not just pages of bland text, not so much that I feel like column-inches are being stolen from me.
Those concerned with the Essentials controversies will want to take note of the classes. There are two 'firsts,' in this book. They'll seem meaningless to most of us, but I know someone out there probably cares:
1) The Monk is not presented as a sub-class, it's just a pair of new Monastic Traditions. This is the first time a pre-Essentials class has gotten a straight-up new 'build' without wierd rule modifications or extreme feature swapping or other minor incompatibilities along with a sub-class name (it's been done for E-classes, before - new Domains and Schools).
2) The Elementalist (Sorcerer subclass) is a daily-less wonder, the first Arcane class to be stripped of dailies (and of choice in encounter powers). (Though, yeah, the bladesinger who gets wizard encounters /as/ dailies came close.) It's not quite the basic-attack spammer the Knight/Slayer is, though. It gets an elemental bolt basic attack - d12 vs REF, not shabby - that gets further enhanced to a two-target + d10 + riders power by aplication of the power-strike-like multi-use encounter power. If it stopped there, it'd be a basic-attack spammer like any other. However, the sorcerer also gets a choice of another at-will attack, and the list are /all/ close and area attacks - that also hit an extra target, +1d10 & rider to /all/ targets. That's getting pretty vicious. At higher levels, the sorcerer gets two more of these powers (or possibly existing sorcerer at-wills, the feature is not at all clear). Like the Knight/Slayer, the Elementalist offers few toys for its parent class, it's at-wills are level-less, so can't be swapped for sorcerer at wills, it's encounter power is, likewise, and there are no feat taxes to swap uses of it for sorcerer encouters (or vice versa) - so the Sorcerer reaps only some utilities. Bottom line: in an 'Essentials +' campaign (like the coming season of Encounters), there is now a daily-less spammer arcanist choice available; and still /only/ daily-less spammers for the martial source.
Other Classes:
Druid: The PH2 Druid gets a new Primal Aspect - an always-appreciated attack bonus, this time - basically one long sentence of content. The
Sentinel gets a new Acolyte feature, with attendant powers. The rest of the Druid entry is some interesting background about how primals and primordials aren't /that/ different afterall (which I quite liked), and a few new powers.
Monk: As noted above the Monk gets a new build (Tradition). I'm not into monks so can't really say how it stacks up. But at 14 pages it's beefier than most.
Sorcerer: As noted, an E-style spammer. In addition to the incompatible encounter powers there are 8 new incompatible (level-less) at-wills for it's exclusive use, and 4 or so pages of utilities (the only thing the Elementalist shares with it's parent class).
The Warlock gets a new Elemental Pact, requiring separate write-ups and mechanics for the Warlock(who still doesn't have a subclass name), about half a page, and Warlock(Hexblade), at 4 pages. There are a further 3 pages of warlock powers, mostly utilities and dailies.
The Wizard, of course, gets another subclass (an unbroken streak since Essentials). The Sha'ir is back from Al'Qaudim and can use his gen (free familiar) to retrain one daily or utility after every extend rest. Yeah, that's a bit like the Witch. The Sha'ir brings back some long-absent classic spells, Whispering Wind (encounter cantrip), Flame Arrow (at will), Ice Knife (ok, not classic, but old), Melf's Minute Meteors, Dig, Horrid Wilting, Alter Self, (Summon) Invisible Stalker, Iron Body ('Living Iron'), Reverse Gravity, and even Incendiary Cloud. That's 15 pages of Sha'ir, 10 of them spells, maybe a third of those spells returning for the first time from earlier eds.
Themes: (is it me or are themes starting to look like PrCs?)
(What I mean is, they're very focused concepts, and can be banged out in quantity.)
If you've read Jim Butcher's 'Chronicles of Alera,' 5 of these are going to look familar... PCs who manipulate Air/Earth/Fire/Water/Metal and become elementals, themselves, which is the pre-requisite for a feat letting you create an Elemental Companion, something like a familiar, that you can keep merged with out or cauese to manifest.
There are also themes for demon-blooded PCs, mortals born & raised in the elemental chaos, cultists worshipping primordials and so forth.
The cultist theme is a bit disapointing as it has specific powers based on the primordial being tapped for power, and only has two options. A more general theme would have been nice, given the long list of primordials the book includes.
The 'Moteborn' is pretty cool. You don't have to be an elemental, but get some cute elemental tricks.
Feats:
The central feat seems to be 'Born of the Elements,' which is prerequisite to an expansive tree involving elemental companions (The Jim Butcher-esque thing I mentioned above), among a few other tricks. There are also some odd-ball Expertise feats rounding out the powered-up ones presented in Essentials, including Ki Focus and Totem.
There's a feat that makes you aquatic, BTW.
In summary, there are some editing issues giving the product a slight 'rushed' feel, but some very good material and interesting new information on the Elemental Chaos that builds on MotP and Plane Below.
Was it anticipated at all? Anyone interested in a review? Cool.
REVIEW:
I've gotten my copy - one of the perks of gaming at an FLGS that hosts 3 tables of encounters, plus other events, WotC lets them sell books a week or so early.
I haven't gotten to read all of it, but some general observations:
The background (fluff) information is present in modest quantity. Like HoFeywild, it hearkens back to information in Manual of the Planes and The Plane Below without being redundant or contradictory (that I noticed, this isn't an audit). There are sidebars, not as eye-catching as in Feywild, but with some added fluff or advice in them.
We get another perspective on the Dawn War and Primal Ban, and there's a list of primordials, including those still free.
Once again, the crunch sections are plagued by the double-redundant fluff that started with Essentials. In a few cases, the fluff is starkly at odds with the crunch (obviously, crunch wins). For instance, there's a feat that says it lets you take to the air when enemies would force you back, but the actual mechanic is that you can ignore difficult terrain when running or charging. Oops. Edit: I've come across 4 or 5 of such obvious gaffes now, and that's still just on a casual read. Gives the product a 'rushed' feel.
I'm not a good judge of art, so someone else can review that element. All I can say is there's a reasonable amount of it. Enough so it's not just pages of bland text, not so much that I feel like column-inches are being stolen from me.
Those concerned with the Essentials controversies will want to take note of the classes. There are two 'firsts,' in this book. They'll seem meaningless to most of us, but I know someone out there probably cares:
1) The Monk is not presented as a sub-class, it's just a pair of new Monastic Traditions. This is the first time a pre-Essentials class has gotten a straight-up new 'build' without wierd rule modifications or extreme feature swapping or other minor incompatibilities along with a sub-class name (it's been done for E-classes, before - new Domains and Schools).
2) The Elementalist (Sorcerer subclass) is a daily-less wonder, the first Arcane class to be stripped of dailies (and of choice in encounter powers). (Though, yeah, the bladesinger who gets wizard encounters /as/ dailies came close.) It's not quite the basic-attack spammer the Knight/Slayer is, though. It gets an elemental bolt basic attack - d12 vs REF, not shabby - that gets further enhanced to a two-target + d10 + riders power by aplication of the power-strike-like multi-use encounter power. If it stopped there, it'd be a basic-attack spammer like any other. However, the sorcerer also gets a choice of another at-will attack, and the list are /all/ close and area attacks - that also hit an extra target, +1d10 & rider to /all/ targets. That's getting pretty vicious. At higher levels, the sorcerer gets two more of these powers (or possibly existing sorcerer at-wills, the feature is not at all clear). Like the Knight/Slayer, the Elementalist offers few toys for its parent class, it's at-wills are level-less, so can't be swapped for sorcerer at wills, it's encounter power is, likewise, and there are no feat taxes to swap uses of it for sorcerer encouters (or vice versa) - so the Sorcerer reaps only some utilities. Bottom line: in an 'Essentials +' campaign (like the coming season of Encounters), there is now a daily-less spammer arcanist choice available; and still /only/ daily-less spammers for the martial source.
Other Classes:
Druid: The PH2 Druid gets a new Primal Aspect - an always-appreciated attack bonus, this time - basically one long sentence of content. The
Sentinel gets a new Acolyte feature, with attendant powers. The rest of the Druid entry is some interesting background about how primals and primordials aren't /that/ different afterall (which I quite liked), and a few new powers.
Monk: As noted above the Monk gets a new build (Tradition). I'm not into monks so can't really say how it stacks up. But at 14 pages it's beefier than most.
Sorcerer: As noted, an E-style spammer. In addition to the incompatible encounter powers there are 8 new incompatible (level-less) at-wills for it's exclusive use, and 4 or so pages of utilities (the only thing the Elementalist shares with it's parent class).
The Warlock gets a new Elemental Pact, requiring separate write-ups and mechanics for the Warlock(who still doesn't have a subclass name), about half a page, and Warlock(Hexblade), at 4 pages. There are a further 3 pages of warlock powers, mostly utilities and dailies.
The Wizard, of course, gets another subclass (an unbroken streak since Essentials). The Sha'ir is back from Al'Qaudim and can use his gen (free familiar) to retrain one daily or utility after every extend rest. Yeah, that's a bit like the Witch. The Sha'ir brings back some long-absent classic spells, Whispering Wind (encounter cantrip), Flame Arrow (at will), Ice Knife (ok, not classic, but old), Melf's Minute Meteors, Dig, Horrid Wilting, Alter Self, (Summon) Invisible Stalker, Iron Body ('Living Iron'), Reverse Gravity, and even Incendiary Cloud. That's 15 pages of Sha'ir, 10 of them spells, maybe a third of those spells returning for the first time from earlier eds.
Themes: (is it me or are themes starting to look like PrCs?)
(What I mean is, they're very focused concepts, and can be banged out in quantity.)
If you've read Jim Butcher's 'Chronicles of Alera,' 5 of these are going to look familar... PCs who manipulate Air/Earth/Fire/Water/Metal and become elementals, themselves, which is the pre-requisite for a feat letting you create an Elemental Companion, something like a familiar, that you can keep merged with out or cauese to manifest.
There are also themes for demon-blooded PCs, mortals born & raised in the elemental chaos, cultists worshipping primordials and so forth.
The cultist theme is a bit disapointing as it has specific powers based on the primordial being tapped for power, and only has two options. A more general theme would have been nice, given the long list of primordials the book includes.
The 'Moteborn' is pretty cool. You don't have to be an elemental, but get some cute elemental tricks.
Feats:
The central feat seems to be 'Born of the Elements,' which is prerequisite to an expansive tree involving elemental companions (The Jim Butcher-esque thing I mentioned above), among a few other tricks. There are also some odd-ball Expertise feats rounding out the powered-up ones presented in Essentials, including Ki Focus and Totem.
There's a feat that makes you aquatic, BTW.
In summary, there are some editing issues giving the product a slight 'rushed' feel, but some very good material and interesting new information on the Elemental Chaos that builds on MotP and Plane Below.
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