In the Works: February and Beyond

[BobTheNob]

Personally, I don't care if we only get 3 choices per class in the book, as long as they are good choices, and that the undersupported classes get more powers added through DDI within a year.

Im not very big on there being zoinks of powers to choose from. I was going through a massive list of powers for a fighter with a player the other day and it took forever, and we only actually ended up taking the one that "kinda worked" for him.

I actually prefer less choices but that the choices are simply better (qualify, better = better design, not just "more powerful")

For instance, the Mage in HOTFL has only 3 powers per teir, but each of them were really good choices. Yes, min/maxers out there could find better Im sure, but really, if you restricted your choices to HOTFL only, you wouldnt end up dissapointed.

I think, based on the powers we have seen in essentials so far, which I would simply describe as "quality", we can give credit that WOTC has really learned about power design since 4e came out and that the "three options" (potentially) you will be getting for your classes from Shadow Power will continue this trend.

I have faith in this.

 

[Klaus]

Here's how I see it: a "class" is what a character focuses on to grow in power. A fighter trains with his weapons to become the king of the battlefield. A wizard practices his magic to bend reality to his whim. A vampire decides to focus on honing his vampiric abilities to get the most out of them.

 

[Solvarn]

Theme

I think that the themes introduced in the Dark Sun book would have been really good for this.

I can see Essentially why it's a class though. Essentially it was a decision to make things Essentially simpler to integrate.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I'm a little surprised at the issues with the vampire.

We already know monsters and characters aren't build the same way. We already know that player characters and NPCs aren't built the same way.

This will probably represent one specific type of vampire for use in games by players. No more, no less.

Like others, I'll reserve judgement until it hits ye old shelves. I'm a fan of dhampires like Vampire Hunter D and vampires like Guinevere from the Black Library series of books.

To claim that we've seen all vampire types or that they must all follow one standard seems pretty silly to me in 4e where we have monsters broken specifically down by type regardless of what it actually is. Why aren't all kobolds minions? Why are there giant minions? etc...

 

[Dice4Hire]

Here's how I see it: a "class" is what a character focuses on to grow in power. A fighter trains with his weapons to become the king of the battlefield. A wizard practices his magic to bend reality to his whim. A vampire decides to focus on honing his vampiric abilities to get the most out of them.

Then why cannot races do the same thing?

 

[Barastrondo]

Then why cannot races do the same thing?

Probably because (a) nobody has written up an example of what sort of elf-powers would be used in lieu of things like archery, acrobatics, glamour-casting and the like, or (b) choices like the ranger class seem to emulate what people have in mind when they think of "elf-powers," or (c) both, really. If you had the presence of an elf class, they could: the only obstacle is that vampires are getting a class-style writeup before elves are.

What we're seeing here is an extrapolation of the idea that "class" is a rules mechanic, but not at all necessarily an in-character perception for any given fantasy world. There's nothing that says that any given character within a world would assume that a vampire must by necessity "have a class," or even that they would know what a mechanical "class" is. A class isn't a law of reality akin to the law of gravity -- it's a mechanical way of apportioning out powers as a character advances in level. And when you look at it under that skin, it's pretty evident that this purpose can be used to create things other than professions.

 

[Zaukrie]

Five page arguing about a class we haven't seen, does that say more about us, or about the lack of products in this preview?

 

[Jools]

The Vampire class is the class that all DM's are going to hate, and at least one person at your table is always going to want to play.

Why are DMs going to hate vampires? Don't people like vampires?

 

[kaomera]

Why are DMs going to hate vampires? Don't people like vampires?

I dunno about DMs in general, but while the vampire class intrigues me and is the one reason I've seen so far for me to even glance at this book, I don't want to have to deal with the type of player who is going to become absolutely welded to this character. Specifically, there is a type of player who will only ever want to play a vampire once they become available and who will try and force the character on any game no matter how inappropriate it is. IME this player will likely also be annoying (as will the character as they play it) even before you have to deal with it in multiple campaigns in a row, and this is going to lead to the player not being able to get into / stay in games, which means he's always there when you want to start a new game.

My own fault for not learning to be more forceful (or: impolite) about turning people away from my games. But yeah - there's at least two players I know who, once this book is out, if they hear I'm going to be starting a game (and regardless of if I'm looking for players or not) I'm going to end up having to have a long, boring conversation about why they can't join.

 

[Incenjucar]

Personally, I absolutely love the idea of monsters as a class. I would love to see more like this, if the rules are done well. When I sent in my setting to WotC during the big search, one of the core ideas was a class where a PC basically built themselves into their own unique monster, mutating themselves into whatever they wanted to be, and this is one step closer to that. I'd love to see a yuani-ti or medusa version of this kind of class, an illithid, and maybe a golem-izing class (we already have a PrC along these lines). Throw in a werecreature class and you've got an awesome Halloween monster book.

Honestly I'm a little surprised at the degree of WoD/Twilight paranoia. Yes some people like vampires way too much, but that issue exists for everything.