Martial Controller is coming in Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms

[Tony Vargas]

Even better (or worse, depending on your viewpoint):
The Essentials assassin uses a hybrid power source (martial/shadow). So the matrix now also has to contain all possible permutations of two (or maybe even more!) power sources

It's madness!!!

It's 'opening up design space.'

Not just for WotC, either, but for those of us who like homebrew, too.

Hmmm... yeah, it's madness.

 

[mneme]

He totally started off with that at Boromir, but dude started to only have eyes for Frodo.

No way, man. That dude had his eye on the Ring! Don't look at me that way...

 

[nnms]

I'm just glad the 1 class, 1 power source, 1 role sacred cow has been well and truly slaughtered.

EDIT: And in case you were wondering, Power Strike was used on that particular attack.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I'm just glad the 1 class, 1 power source, 1 role sacred cow has been well and truly slaughtered.

EDIT: And in case you were wondering, Power Strike was used on that particular attack.

I think you got a horse by mistake there.

 

[igniz13]

He could end up being similar to a Ranger using the Elf Racial PP. That option gives you controller like powers intermixed with your basic stuff.

In any case, Classes using powers of other sources isn't new. It's been around since Martial Power.

Also, the old method of Ranger has usually mixed weapons and Druid spells, so I imagine that will be a strong part of it. Less likely to have a beast on top but we'll see.

 

[Dedekind]

If the ranger is still martial... the essential assassin shew us the dual power source class. Maybe the controller ranger is martial/primal.

Oh, snap, my matrix just got turned into a neural network!

Yeah, but now that a class can fill more than one role, there's a whole new, more granular, every-class-filling-every-role matrix to fill in.

This sounds an awful like the end of the first Matrix movie. Are you saying, "There is no spoon."?

In all (er mostly) seriousness, I worry that classes with blended roles with be jacks-of-all-trades and masters-of-none. Anybody played a party where every class blended roles? Like a paladin, bard, invoker, and avenger?
(That is assuming I interpret those blends correctly as defender/leader, leader/controller, controller/striker, striker/defender.)

 

[Lord Ernie]

In all (er mostly) seriousness, I worry that classes with blended roles with be jacks-of-all-trades and masters-of-none. Anybody played a party where every class blended roles? Like a paladin, bard, invoker, and avenger?
(That is assuming I interpret those blends correctly as defender/leader, leader/controller, controller/striker, striker/defender.)

You would be interpreting it correctly, but I think Tony mistakenly used the wrong word. The Essentials Assassin just has the striker role, so it's not some kind of hybrid. What it does have, is two power sources: martial and shadow.

Personally, I could see the ranger being a martial/primal hybrid, with the split working much like it does for the Essentials Assassin: the martial part being filling people with arrows, the primal part being any supernatural parts of their attack.

Also, if this is going to be ranged-weapon based controller (as alternatives, I could see a controller-like build with a beast companion), I suspect the Seeker will get horribly outclassed. Which, admittedly, is not hard to do.

EDIT: Actually, I think Tony was talking about a different phenomenon entirely. Notice that Slayers are also Fighters, but they are strikers instead of defenders. ecause they're a different build and get different class features (extra damage instead of marking, mostly), however, that can be pulled off without watering it down to a hybrid incapable of filling his role, as you can't be a regular Fighter or Knight and a Slayer at the same time

 

[Nikosandros]

The post that I had reported has been deleted.