Remathilis
Legend
While I remain optimisitc, I am starting to get worried about the direction NEXT is taking.
I'm noticing some trends are appearing as the playtests are progressing, and these trends are starting to bother me. In no particular order:
1.) The return of Power Sources
Martial Classes use expertise dice. Magic Users are classes that cast arcane spells (more on that later). It appears martial classes, arcane classes, divine classes, will share the same mechanics, rather than different classes doing things different ways, which further weakens the need for multiple classes and gives more credit to the "make ranger a X and not a class" argument.
2.) Spellcasting: Pick your type
Rather than having three (or more) different casters with unique casting mechanics, the trend is aiming toward three classes with different lists and possible casting tweaks and then choosing your spellcasting resource type (slots, points, ADE) which also further weakens each archetype. This is especially true if your DM limits/chooses one type for his campaign (we all use spellpoints) and then makes wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks all point casters. Rather than making all casters unique, they fall back to "one size fits all, but now you can choose S, M, or L".
3.) Expertise Dice: The Cure All for Martials
In the beginning, fighters got combat superiority to show off maneuvers and increase damage. It was new and innovative. It gave fighters a new toy without getting stuck on the "longsword or die" feat specialization chain. Then rogues got it to fix the "sneak attack/skill mastery' duality issue. Then monks got it to represent chopy-socky. Now rangers, paladins, barbarians, warlords, and anyone else proficient with swords is going to get them. Its overused already. Monks have ki points to show off martial arts. Rangers have favored enemies to increase damage. Paladins have smites, barbarians rage. We don't need to give them all expertise dice. We need unique mechanics to keep the feel of paladins, rangers, barbarians and fighters unique.
4.) Moving toward a unified mechanic(s)
When Essentials came out, I commented on how Martial, Divine, Primal, Arcane, etc power sources should have unique mechanics to tell them apart. Martials lacked dailies but had multiple at-wills. Arcane lacked encounter-powers and were either at-will or Daily. Divine didn't have at wills, but had encounter and daily prayers.
I fear Next is going to take me up on such an idea. Each class will end up with a "power source" that determines its mechanics rather than letting each class have unique mechanics (and hybrids) to make the class stand out. Its going to homogenize the classes again.
Next has a chance to do something unique with its classes, I hope they don't fall into the trap of forcing everyone into the same boxes again.
I'm noticing some trends are appearing as the playtests are progressing, and these trends are starting to bother me. In no particular order:
1.) The return of Power Sources
Martial Classes use expertise dice. Magic Users are classes that cast arcane spells (more on that later). It appears martial classes, arcane classes, divine classes, will share the same mechanics, rather than different classes doing things different ways, which further weakens the need for multiple classes and gives more credit to the "make ranger a X and not a class" argument.
2.) Spellcasting: Pick your type
Rather than having three (or more) different casters with unique casting mechanics, the trend is aiming toward three classes with different lists and possible casting tweaks and then choosing your spellcasting resource type (slots, points, ADE) which also further weakens each archetype. This is especially true if your DM limits/chooses one type for his campaign (we all use spellpoints) and then makes wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks all point casters. Rather than making all casters unique, they fall back to "one size fits all, but now you can choose S, M, or L".
3.) Expertise Dice: The Cure All for Martials
In the beginning, fighters got combat superiority to show off maneuvers and increase damage. It was new and innovative. It gave fighters a new toy without getting stuck on the "longsword or die" feat specialization chain. Then rogues got it to fix the "sneak attack/skill mastery' duality issue. Then monks got it to represent chopy-socky. Now rangers, paladins, barbarians, warlords, and anyone else proficient with swords is going to get them. Its overused already. Monks have ki points to show off martial arts. Rangers have favored enemies to increase damage. Paladins have smites, barbarians rage. We don't need to give them all expertise dice. We need unique mechanics to keep the feel of paladins, rangers, barbarians and fighters unique.
4.) Moving toward a unified mechanic(s)
When Essentials came out, I commented on how Martial, Divine, Primal, Arcane, etc power sources should have unique mechanics to tell them apart. Martials lacked dailies but had multiple at-wills. Arcane lacked encounter-powers and were either at-will or Daily. Divine didn't have at wills, but had encounter and daily prayers.
I fear Next is going to take me up on such an idea. Each class will end up with a "power source" that determines its mechanics rather than letting each class have unique mechanics (and hybrids) to make the class stand out. Its going to homogenize the classes again.
Next has a chance to do something unique with its classes, I hope they don't fall into the trap of forcing everyone into the same boxes again.