• NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.

WoTC March 2009 Editorial Calendar

As a preview it would be hard to know how long until it actually comes out. I mean, we got the Artificer preview before the Forgotten Realms books dropped ... so this could be a ways down the line.

Thinking of 3x, they had both complete arcane and complete mage. Complete divine and complete champion, etc. So rarely is a power sorce only good for one expansion.

There is defintely room for racial feats for any new races (at least the ones from PHBII, possibly more, by the timethe book comes out). Similarly, paragon paths and epic destinies tied to new feats can work. New builds can lend to new multiclass feat options, not to mention feats tied to those new builds. They may also in the "later" Power books actually include new classes, if only to keep the PHB introducing new power source concept. Or if a class they want to bring in is similar enough to one of the existing classes, they can just do it as a new build. Any martial character they want to build as a defender type, they can make it as some flavor of fighter. If they went with a ranged warlord, perhaps using DEX instead of STR, they'd be able to do it, but it would require a lot of powers to make it viable. While they seem to have gone away from that idea, they could introduce new attack stats, or more likely secondary stats as options.

For the rogue, you can have the smart rogue, the tough rogue and the wise rogue (perception and insight seem like useful abilities for a roguish type to have). An urban ranger may be charismatic with streetwise as his main skill [instead of dungeoneering or nature]. There could be an intelligent fighter, or a charismatic and dashing swashbuckler.

They don't necessarily have to cover every permutation, but any one that is considerably different than the existing builds would open up enough room to fill quite a few spots. The beast master ranger was a big one, as it required a lot of beast based powers be introduced.

Also, they can introduce new keywords like rattling, to make skills interact in fights. Perhaps rogues would get deceptive powers keyed off bluff, or rangers could get sneaky powers keyed off stealth, etc.
 

log in or register to remove this ad



Part of what I find frustrating is that there is only one class, and one build, if you want to use ranged weapons: the ranger.

There are a few ranged powers for Rogues. And yes, some of the Artificer powers are with ranged weapons.

But I really would like a second option if you don't want to go "I TWINSTRIKE" route.
 

Part of what I find frustrating is that there is only one class, and one build, if you want to use ranged weapons: the ranger.

There are a few ranged powers for Rogues. And yes, some of the Artificer powers are with ranged weapons.

But I really would like a second option if you don't want to go "I TWINSTRIKE" route.
I would like to see a section of Martial Power (and other books) that are "floating powers". They are open to all classes (or all of a specific Power Source). Perhaps they could have a choice of certain attributes to pick for it or such.
 

I would like to see a section of Martial Power (and other books) that are "floating powers". They are open to all classes (or all of a specific Power Source). Perhaps they could have a choice of certain attributes to pick for it or such.

Agreed - that's one thing I'm kind of a bit puzzled they haven't done more of quite yet.

I think right now before we get into PHB2 and Eberron it's easy to think MP2 and feel frustrated. By the time it comes out, I imagine we'll all be happy with some good options for some old favorites we wish to revisit after we've rolled up a million primal characters... and hopefully to tide us over before Psionics?

As we approach PHB2 and Eberron, I'm super curious about the schedule beyond that! I know they aren't even out yet...
 

I'm actually quite perplexed, to be honest, that there will be a MP2 even before we're done with the current series of splatbook for the remaining power sources. The timing of it just irks me with power creep and milking the cash cows.

But there are 2 reasons why I shouldn't act as though Wizards is all out to get our cash. One, they've done this before in 3.x. While I think that 3.x presents a very different model of the need to produce additional splat books than 4E (i.e, less frequent), I would probably let it slide if Wizards only decides to produce 2 splatbooks for each power source. Though I have my doubts that 2 isn't going to be enough with the way 4E works.

Two, it says it's a playtest. For all we know, MP2 probably won't be out for at least a year. I don't think it's even in their release schedule yet. Hopefully by then, Wizards would have already release the first line of splatbooks for all the other power sources and conveniently release the second line with MP2 renewing the cycle. Again, I would still prefer it if they stick with only 2 books per power source.

4E D&D is starting to look a lot similar to Magic in terms of exploiting the customers' desire for more player options or enticing them with the latest and coolest rules on a regular basis (this sentence is probably going to start a fire).
 

But there are 2 reasons why I shouldn't act as though Wizards is all out to get our cash.

As long as they're producing quality books that are useful and interesting to me, I don't care how many they make or what the topic is. (If I stop caring what the topic is, that probably means they stopped being useful or interesting to me.)

~
 

I'm actually quite perplexed, to be honest, that there will be a MP2 even before we're done with the current series of splatbook for the remaining power sources. The timing of it just irks me with power creep and milking the cash cows.

Are you including the unreleased power sources? Because WotC will have released power source focused splats for Martial, Arcane, Divine, and Primal characters by November of 2009.
 


Into the Woods

Remove ads

Top