Heroes of Shadow Table of Contents

[Neverfate]

This is not correct. Your pre-E Wizard can take any Wizard power (s)he likes, including the ones in HoS with the Nethermancy or Necromancy keywords (which will likely be all of them). At worst, those powers will have a keyword that your Wizard will ignore. They will otherwise be fully compatible with PHB Wizards.

But clearly, since HoS doesn't have a build for the PHB1 fighter, your argument is invalid.

 

[SparqMan]

No mention of Shadar-Kai anywhere.

Good catch. That's a bummer.

 

[mudlock]

The Shade race was previewed last month and are in fact their own race and decidedly underpowered as their racial is a standard and they have a racial penalty to # of surges ( -1 surge). Though it was just preview material.

I did not see that.

That's very disappointing

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I did not see that.

That's very disappointing

Here it is. There was also a huge thread of complaints about in this forum.

 

[mudlock]

Here it is. There was also a huge thread of complaints about in this forum.

Ah, no wonder I missed it: It was buried under a bunch of Gamma World and fortune card crap (no offense meant... to Gamma World.)

As disappointing as the actual race is, I really like the higher-level racial utility powers. I hope we see more of that (and outside of a shadow-specific book.)

 

[DracoSuave]

I think you are partial right, but I think that isn't stuff for the older classes. It is just stuff they too can use.

On the other hand, maybe you are alright and we will see new cleric at-wills and encounter attack powers that are not part of a domain...

And I highly doubt that were will be feats that require 'implement mastery' for example.

Well, going by the table of contents....

The new Cleric Options are seperated from the Warpriest Domains, which indicates that you're getting both new domain stuff AND new base cleric stuff... which is double good because most domain stuff IS base cleric stuff (tho not vice versa.)

Some new Warlock powers, seperate from a new hexblade pact.

Wizard powers, which can obviously be picked up by a mage, but whatever, anything for one that isn't directly related to school specialization or implement mastery are options for both.

Some new feats, perhaps even a new feat type... adventurer feats? I doubt they'll have a section on 'feats adventurers can take'. It might mean something more than that.

 

[Aegeri]

If they don't provide some great necrotic keyword type support in the feats in this book I will face palm so hard.

 

[ferratus]

I don't really care about essentials vs. non-essentials. I have to admit though that I am very sad that we don't get the necromancer written up as a full fledged class. As a subclass of the wizard, it's going to be a controller, and a necromancer would work better as a leader.

A series of ranged attacks to do damage (ie. suck out life energy) and heal allies is pretty much how a leader operates already. So those sorts of powers could cover the healing role adequately enough. For his special flavour, he would have powers that put hit points into slain monsters and enemies rather than into living allies. The necromancer then would start out weak and gain in strength as the monsters started dying, having his moment of cool in the latter half of the battle.

 

[Ryujin]

I don't really care about essentials vs. non-essentials. I have to admit though that I am very sad that we don't get the necromancer written up as a full fledged class. As a subclass of the wizard, it's going to be a controller, and a necromancer would work better as a leader.

A series of ranged attacks to do damage (ie. suck out life energy) and heal allies is pretty much how a leader operates already. So those sorts of powers could cover the healing role adequately enough. For his special flavour, he would have powers that put hit points into slain monsters and enemies rather than into living allies. The necromancer then would start out weak and gain in strength as the monsters started dying, having his moment of cool in the latter half of the battle.

Sounds like every Darklock out there; Build up the ol' necrotic smoke rings, daring anyone to take a shot at him, then bite & grind everything in sight after 3 or 4 rounds.

 

[kaomera]

As others have stated, more than likely, it will contain material for both. Essential format classes (Blackguard, Executioner, Binder, Necromancer) and new powers for PHB1 classes; Wizard, Cleric, Warlock.

I thought Binder was going to be based more on the PHB1 Warlock, or does that just mean that it's not a Hexblade?

Nothing indicates they are just reprinting the standard race entries. Presumably they are just providing shadow-themed options. The Dusk Elves, for example, previously showed up as a bloodline in Dragon magazine (I believe). So some of those options may be racial bloodlines, others could just be backgrounds, etc.

Character Themes, maybe?