Preview: December and Beyond

[Nemesis Destiny]

I wonder if people are going to be disappointed that WotC made necromancy just a wizard school, so it can be integrated into the mage from HotFL. I think it is pretty reasonable myself, but I have never been that interested in playing a necromancer (beyond making them awesome BBEGs).

Put me in the camp that is glad to see it as "just a wizard school." It doesn't warrant its own class, and I think the same could be said for a lot of the previous material.

I also think that Necromancy needs to shed its image as a school of magic dedicated exclusively to raising undead minions and casting fear spells.

 

[shmoo2]

Likewise with the wizardry. They specifically state any wizard can take these spells, but essential mages get to benefit from additional apprentice/novice/master features etc. So its not just for essentials, but essentials probably comes out ahead in benefits. Thats kind of their thing now.

Except that the one spell we're shown in the preview, Summon Shadow Servant, has the Prerequisite: You must have the Expert Mage benefit associated with necromancy or nethermancy.

In other words that spell (and presumably there are others with a similar prereq) is unavailable to pre-essentials Wizards.

 

[Malisteen]

Words cannot express my disappointment at the Heroes of Shadow preview, but I'll try anyway.

I wanted to play a Shadow hero. Not an arcane or divine hero with a hint of shadow flavor. I wanted to play a necromancer, with my character's powers and class features focused on animating and controlling the undead. Not a mage with a sub-par daily summon as an afterthought.

When 4e was first being previewed, I loved the concept of Power Sources, and I loved that the more distinct wizard archetypes were going to be spun out into their own classes rather then the wizard being stretched to cover every magical archetype under the sun, and ever magical archetype being crushed to fit under the wizard's mantle. I hate that I'm seeing a return to those days.

Of all the power sources, I loved Shadow the most. Shadow has the best fluff - an actual source to the power (the Shadowfell), clearly defined portfolios (darkness, illusion, undead), and an awesome, character defining means of accessing that power (replacing part of your soul with a shard of pure darkness through which you draw shadowstuff from the Shadowfell).

I've been waiting for shadow classes since 4e was released, and now the book that should have delivered them instead puts the final nail in their coffin. Thanks to "Heroes of Shadow" there will be no actual Heroes of Shadow in 4th edition, just some lackluster builds of existing classes with purely nominal shadow flavor. If I wanted to re-fluff a summoner wizard I could have done that since Arcane Power. If I wanted to play an evil paladin, I could have just written "E" in my alignment bar since PHBI. I don't need to pay wizards $20 for permission to give existing classes a spooky backstory. I needed actual shadow classes. This book is worse then worthless, because its mere existence means I'll never get any.

Ugh. They took the power source with the best fluff and ruined it by reducing it to a sticker to be applied the classes of other power sources.

I am beyond disappointed.

 

[the Jester]

It looks like Heroes of shadow is just for essentials though, or am I reading it wrong?

Any wizard can choose spells from these schools.

So don't panic.

 

[avin]

It's me or the new DM Screen looks like some Paizo-like art?

I like it.

 

[Malisteen]

Do you mean, "Was it done by Wayne Reynolds, who has done a bunch of art for WotC, Including the covers of more then a fair share of the 4e books, and continues to do a lot of D&D art in addition to doing work for a number of other game publishers, including Paizo"?

If so, than yes.

 

[WalterKovacs]

I'm a little disappointed with the Heroes of Shadow preview. I was hoping for more of the X Power style approach, with a bit more versatility for support among multiple classes and power sources, but this just seems like more Essentials. I think future support looks bleak for pre-essentials classes. If you are looking for support for your tiefling ruthless ruffian rogue, or void genasi dark pact warlock, or gnoll bleak disciple assassin, or duergar devoted cleric of the Raven Queen, or half-orc retribution avenger of Kelemvor, or shadar-kai ensnaring swordmage, or drow chaos sorcerer, this is not the Heroes of Shadow you are looking for.

In the case of X Power books you got:

New builds, some of which were different enough from other builds to be their own thing. A lot of the stuff in the book was focused on these new builds. The stuff for older classes? Encounters, utilities, dailies (maybe an at-will or two) and feats.

Well, guess what these will have at least some of those things. We don't know about the non-Essentialized classes yet and whether they will be represented, but at least some of the powers and feats are still reverse compatible with the older stuff ... the stuff which, compared to some of the Essential builds has a ton of existing supplements already out there.

It makes sense for the new BUILDS to be Essentialized ... they tend to make the individual builds seem more different than each other than the older class builds did (with some exceptions, like the beastmaster ranger ... which created a bunch of non-backward compatible powers). Hopefully, they will still create POWERS for other classes (or at least some spellscar-esque power swappable powers to give people some shadow powers) but I can see why they'd go Essential for the builds.

 

[Malisteen]

Unfortunately the one thing you won't get is actual shadow classes for people who wanted to play actual shadow characters, not just arcane, divine, or martial characters with spooky back stories.

 

[avin]

Do you mean, "Was it done by Wayne Reynolds, who has done a bunch of art for WotC, Including the covers of more then a fair share of the 4e books, and continues to do a lot of D&D art in addition to doing work for a number of other game publishers, including Paizo"?

If so, than yes.

Nope, I meant Paizo-like art.

Don't be silly, I know it's Reynolds, just wanted to point that it looks (to me) closer than what Paizo has been doing than his late former covers for Wotc. I mean, there's more movement.

Early basic 4E covers had less action going on...

 

[The Halfling]

Nope, I meant Paizo-like art.

Don't be silly, I know it's Reynolds, just wanted to point that it looks (to me) closer than what Paizo has been doing than his late former covers for Wotc. I mean, there's more movement.

Early basic 4E covers had less action going on...

True, but then again I think that the Paizo covers could be slapped on any Eberron book and you couldn't tell the diff.

'Course, I love Eberron.