Proposal: controllers from Advanced Player's Guide

[JoeNotCharles]

I've seen a couple of posts lately about the lack of controllers - and, yeah, only having the wizard available makes it a pretty thin field. Since there are 3 months until PH2 can be proposed, as a stopgap I'd like to propose allowing the two controller classes from the 3rd-party Advanced Player's Guide. The classes in question are Nature Priest (ie. Druid) and Spellbinder (ie. Illusionist). I know we have an official Druid coming (does anybody really expect PHB2 to be rejected?) but I think this version can continue to live alongside it. To quote the intro:

Let’s be honest, here. We all know that official versions of the “missing” classes are going to appear in the current edition eventually. In some cases, we even know what our coast-dwelling wizard friends have in mind for those classes: some of the preview materials, for instance, suggest that the official druid is going to focus on shapeshifting primarily, and spellcasting only as a secondary ability. So when I set out to create these classes, I decided that I wanted to do more than simply “fill the gap” until the real versions came out. (Yes, I’m being paid by the quotation mark.) I had, in fact, three separate design goals.
• To create classes that would be balanced and fun to play.
• To create classes that felt, at least as much as reasonably possible, like their older edition counterparts. That doesn’t mean that I tried to make my savage warrior or martial artist look just like the barbarian or monk from First Edition, or Third Edition; it just means that I wanted them to clearly be part of the same bloodline, as it were, for people who want to convert older campaigns to the latest edition.
• To create classes that, as best I could manage, were very different than what little we know about the forthcoming official versions. This was actually very important to me, for a simple reason: I want these classes to continue to appeal even after their official counterparts are released. If the druid is focused on shapeshifting, while the nature priest is focused on spellcasting, they have two very different feels, and they can coexist in the same campaign, or even the same party, yet they both maintain a similar feel.
Fortunately, goals two and three dovetailed nicely enough. And the result, I think, is something that many of you, if not most, will be happy with—and something that you can continue to use alongside future variants on the same themes.

So here are the proposals:

1. Allow the Nature Priest class, along with the associated paragon paths (Hierophant, Stormwalker, Terrain Guardian, and Wildshaper) and feats (Conjured Perseverance, Improved Affinity, and Wilderness Adept).
2. Allow the Spellbinder class, along with the associated paragon paths (Dreamcaster, Eldritch Trickster, and Spymaster) and feats (Phantasmal Bastion and Student of Illusion).
3. Allow the Spellbinder to take the Wizard of the Spiral Tower paragon path and use the already-approved Illusion powers from Dragon 364, but using Charisma in place of Intelligence.

 

[Atanatotatos]

The guy says he believes to have accomplished points two and three. What about number one(balance)?
Also, it turns out the nature spellcasting is also a specialty of the Druid(though presumably less than wild shape for most builds).

 

[CaBaNa]

I'm not a fan, but that's mostly because I don't have the book, don't want to pay for a new book. I would definitely have a hard time checking the characters as well due to that lack of information.

From the other stand point... I like controllers being rare, I play controllers and leaders to the exclusion of any other role, and would love them to stay in high demand.

Besides, three months is relatively a short amount of time in PbP as far as I've seen, though I'm newbie.

I'm down to wait for PHB2 and then Arcane Power.

 

[Atanatotatos]

Cabana makes some excellent points.
Who owns the book? I guess not many of the judges/approvers, though I don't know.
Also, three months is actually not that long in pbp. Even the tavern is empty now, save for two characters. There's no real immediate "need" for more controllers. We'll probably be flooded anyway when PHB2 is approved.

 

[garyh]

I own the book in both hard copy and PDF, and generally like it. Haven't actually used it, alas, nor have I looked at it critically from a balance standpoint.

 

[JoeNotCharles]

I also own the book, and I'm a character reviewer but not a judge.

I'll note:
- Characters from this book should have their powers copied onto their sheet, so once the character reviewer makes sure that's done correctly, the judge and DM don't really need the book
- It's only $12, which is pretty cheap compared to PH2 and other books we've already approved. (I wouldn't want to require all judges to have Martial Power and AV, for instance, but there they are.)

The guy says he believes to have accomplished points two and three. What about number one(balance)?
Also, it turns out the nature spellcasting is also a specialty of the Druid(though presumably less than wild shape for most builds).

There are quite a few reviews out there, and threads on enworld, discussing the balance.

He didn't say the PH2 Druid would have no spellcasting at all, just that it was mainly based on wildshape with spellcasting as a secondary feature - which seems to be the same thing you're saying about "less than wildshape for most builds".

Is it possible to make a PH2 Druid without any wildshape at all? If you do this, do you still have a good selection of powers? I'd like to pay a Druid that rains lightning from the sky on their enemies and heaves huge chunks of rock up from the earth beneath their feet, with a side order of summoning swarms of insects and spirit wolves. I have no interest in turning into a wolf myself. Does the PH2 Druid support that? (I don't have the book yet.) If not, I'd say the two classes still feel different: the one's focused on casting and summoning, and the other's focused on casting and transforming.

 

[Ozymandias79]

You can't do a druid without wildshape but yes, you can do a Primal Guardian that is what they call the non-wildshaping version of the druid as the powers are split up between beast powers and the non-beast powers and frankly by my opinion it is the more powerful one.

 

[JoeNotCharles]

So Primal Guardian is a druid that has the wildshape features, but doesn't bother to use them?

 

[Lord Sessadore]

Basically, yes. Like most classes, there's two 'builds' for the druid. One focuses on wild shape, the other focuses on ranged spellcasting.

The only reason the casting version has to have any wildshape abilities is because druids get 3 at-wills, at least one and no more than two of which have to be beast form powers. So they can still have two non-beast form at-wills; it really doesn't impede them in any way.

Edit: It should also be noted that all of their powers use Wis for attacking, so you could also build a druid that had an even mix of wild shape and casting powers.

Edit 2: I also don't have the APG in any form, but I'm a little interested in what it has to offer.

 

[garyh]

So Primal Guardian is a druid that has the wildshape features, but doesn't bother to use them?

Well, instead of the usual 2 At-Wills, druids get 3, one of which must be useable in beast form, one of which must be usable in humanoid form (powers are only usable in one or the other), and the third which can be either. So if you wanted to never wildshape, you could still have the usual 2 at-wills in humanoid form. The only real wild shape features (since wild shaping doesn't change your stats) are the "beast" keyword powers.

/tangent