Heroes of Shadow Table of Contents

[Walking Dad]

... the material in question clearly supports a lot more than Essentials.
...

Posting once more to bring peace

I agree on the above with you.
The funny thing is that I never said something else. It isn't like that most of the game has suddenly become incompatible with the older stuff.
But I see an adjustment of the focus and can always understand people who still like 'older' stuff. I simply like them all

Good gaming to you as well.

Thanks
(only the 'dumb' hurt a bit)

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

You mean options that ONLY PH1-3 characters can take that are somehow forbidden to Essentials characters?

Why would they want to present options like that?

Generally speaking, the more characters that can gain an option, the more broadly useful (and thus valuable, in terms of page count, design decisions, and book sales) it is.

If I'm WotC, I'm not going to want to provide a book with options ONLY for beastmaster rangers and wand wizards.

I'm going to want to provide a book that potentially has options for ANY character. ALL characters, even. That way, the dude playing the Ardent and the lady playing the Barbarian all get something that provokes them to buy the book.

I think that's part of why we're not seeing the Power Splats at this point. Martial Power 3 is a non-starter for anyone not playing a martial character. Its options are too exclusive.

Instead, we're getting Heroes of Shadow, which is hitting a broader base. Perhaps not as broad as it might be (Shamans? Runepriests? Beastmaster rangers!?!?!), but pretty broad nonetheless.

That is a good thing.

A book whose rules I can use (whatever game or character I happen to be playing) is a very good thing.

Edit: The place for the narrower, more limited options, are the magazines. If you really want more cleric at-wills or implement masteries, I'm sure they'd print a good article with that stuff in it. Personally, there seem to be plenty to me, but everyone plays this game differently.

I'd have XP'd you for this, but I already got you today.

It does not present exclusive options for PH1-3 as far as we know. Can we agree on this.

It seems like this discussion is at a loggerhead. Why does this matter? Why should they print exclusive material for the older classes? There are already eight books and several magazine articles full of stuff exclusive to PH1-3 classes. Why do we need more? Why not books full of things everyone can use? And why not a few things that only the Essentials classes can use? Fair is fair.

Ok, I give up...

You are right

- a PH wizard and an Essential Mage will be able use the same amount of material in the book.

Wizard powers typically do not make much use of build-specific riders. Yes there are a few from Arcane Power, but they are by far in the minority.

Aside from a small benefit that triggers off a keyword in the top part of the power, which itself refers back to a paragraph or three of text (both these options take 1 page), there is no evidence that there is anything exclusive to the mage in any of the new wizard powers.

Example. Beguiling Strands. It's a great at-will. Arguably better than Thunderwave. It has the Enchantment keyword, yet, it remains a strong option, even for an implement Wizard, even though they get nothing from the Enchantment keyword.

There looks to be very little in this book that a mage can make use of that an implement wizard will not also be able to make effective use of. Sure, we don't know until we crack it open, or get more preview material.

- It has nothing to do with essentials, despite the title and the presented classes.

Clearly, this book has to do with Essentials, but it is not an Essentials book. That line is a series, 10 products. No more, no less. This is not one of them.

This book contains options for Essentials characters, but also options for non-Essentials characters. This book contains new classes. Classes we know very little about. It might be that some of them are Essentials-style with streamlined options, but it may also be that some of them have more in common with, and similar power structure to older classes.

Someone who saw the Binder, was presumably at DDXP, told you the Binder is not an Essentials class, but rather more similar to the Curse Warlock, but you didn't believe them. That's your hangup, I guess, but why not take another poster at their word when they have seen it and you have not?

You know, it might not even resemble either Essentials or Curselock. What is it then?

- I hate essentials despite playing mostly essential classes.

This is probably a false assumption, but you sure are fighting pretty hard against them presenting anything exclusive to an Essentials class. It does lend the impression that you don't like Essentials.

I guess it would be fairer to say that you want them to print a pile of things that the Essentials classes can't use. You want Shadowshard implements, Shadowcurse Pact Warlocks (with a full suite of 1-30 powers with exclusive riders), a slew of Shadow-themed Cleric powers that Warpriests can't take (to add to the two books full of powers they already can't take, while the reverse is not true). Do I read you right?

I suppose that opinion is no more or less valid than anyone else's. It just won't sell books, so they're not going to do it. Like another poster pointed out, this is the kind of thing that we're likely to see in a Dragon article.

- I stovepipe options because I use existing material as examples.

I'm not even sure what stovepipe means in this case, but I will say that your examples only served to point out that you want things exclusive to pre-Essentials classes, which, for my part, hardly seems fair considering the vast amount of it that is already out there.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Primal magic doesn't grant power over other planes, it's strictly the magic inherent to the world itself (read: prime material plane). Divine and Arcane explicitly do.

In regards to my Shaman example, I know there's no new Essentials Ranger or Druids options in that book or martial (beyond the Executioner) options, but the intro chapter speaks of primal magic with corrupted spirits. Already presenting a plausible way that Primal magic could interact with Shadow Magic.

Now the idea of a Shaman with a Shadowy Spirit Companion, is one that should have been covered in this book as an example, that they still should support non-essentials classes where appropriate, having nothing to do with the fact that Primal Magic can or can't interact with Shadow Magic. It represents the fact that they're not trying hard enough to include non-essentials material, even if they could easily put it in a book that has essentials classes.

It would be as disappointing as having Heroes of Feywild, not having anything for Bards or Wardens who can be easily thematically linked to Fey, or Battleminds which were described by the devs as thematically being some sort of Fey warrior during one point of it's design.

 

[Walking Dad]

Nemesis Destiny, hy did you post this after I offered peace and wanted to leave the thread?

I will not argue any further.

I will just see if the binder and all other builds use the essential presentation.
And saying that the 'old' material got enough support doesn't disprove the notion that people, who liked them, want more material.

I guess it would be fairer to say that you want them to print a pile of things that the Essentials classes can't use. You want Shadowshard implements, Shadowcurse Pact Warlocks (with a full suite of 1-30 powers with exclusive riders), a slew of Shadow-themed Cleric powers that Warpriests can't take (to add to the two books full of powers they already can't take, while the reverse is not true). Do I read you right?

No. I just pointed out that this isn't going to happen. I'm fine with this, but I don't understand the hate for people who want it.

 

[MrMyth]

I will just see if the binder and all other builds use the essential presentation.

This is one element I find strange. Does it really matter if the Binder uses the Essentials presentation (of giving the class a 1-30 write-up, rather than seperating features from powers) if the overall class structure is more akin to the PHB1 classes?

And saying that the 'old' material got enough support doesn't disprove the notion that people, who liked them, want more material.

That's fair enough. What I think most people objected to was the idea that this book wouldn't have that sort of support, despite a Table of Contents that largely suggested otherwise.

I mean, they might not provide the support in the amount that is desired, but it certainly seems likely that it will be there. If the cleric powers include new non-domain At-Wills and Encounter Attack Powers, will that be the sort of thing you are looking for? If the wizard is offered their own versions of the Schools of Necromancy and Nethermancy as alternate options to Implement Mastery, and given a full selection of powers that work without them having to be a mage - would that be acceptable?

I don't expect stuff to come out that ignores Essentials entirely, at least not for a while. But this book looks like to support both Essentials and earlier builds, and the assumption that it won't - or that new options are useless unless specifically exclusionary of Essentials content - isn't something I can really wrap my head around.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

And saying that the 'old' material got enough support doesn't disprove the notion that people, who liked them, want more material.

That's fine and dandy, I want to see more support for the older material as well. Eventually.

I don't begrudge folks that want this. I'm one of them. That said, I'd prefer the new options have some time to "catch up" before we see Martial Power 3.

 

[renau1g]

I'd like support for older material that haven't been properly supported first myself (say like Changelings, Artificiers, Bladelings, gnolls, swordmages, Seekers, Runepriests, etc..) Heck even humans are going to need some love after this weeks racial bumps article comes out. There's not a lot of human-exclusive options out there to make someone want to give up a +2 stat bump in one of their classes key modifiers. Outside of Action Surge, but even that one is only useful once every other fight (until higher levels) and it's easily exploited by Revenants & half-elves

 

[Ekio]

Looks like they already released Heroes of Shadow for classic 4th edition classes, am I right?

I'm not dropping $30 for this, Wootsie darling. I'll wait till you get back to 4th edition stuff.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, all of this certainly puts the downside of the whole Essentials experiment out there to see. Not that I think it is a big tragedy or anything, but any time you make significant reworkings of core elements of how the game works you're going to fracture it into pieces that aren't going to mesh 100%. Sure, that was true with pre-Essentials builds to SOME extent (the beastmaster powers are useless to everyone else), but it is a good bit more true now. In a way it is a shame that for instance we now have Wizard and Mage, which are effectively covering the same conceptual space but depending on which of these I happened to use when I created my character I may or may not be able to use or combine certain things later on. That's rather too bad. It isn't really a matter of what gets support or doesn't get support going forward, but more a matter of your average player coming along and making a PC and then saying "Oh, I want THIS neato option" and the rules saying "Eh, sorry, you should have made a Slayer and not a FWT2H Fighter." In any GAME-WORLD narrative sense the distinction between the two is trivial to non-existent, yet mechanically thematic options that would fit either one are now incompatible with one or the other.

 

[Klaus]

In a way it is a shame that for instance we now have Wizard and Mage, which are effectively covering the same conceptual space but depending on which of these I happened to use when I created my character I may or may not be able to use or combine certain things later on.

Wizard and Mage are the least different of 4e/Essentials pairings. You could easily put everything under the same heading:

WIZARD

When creating a wizard, choose one of the following:
- Implement Mastery: you are focused in an implement type: orb, wand or staff.
- School Specialization: you are focused in a school of magic: enchantment, evocation, illusion, pyromancy, necromancy or nethermancy.

Even clerics and warpriests could be listed this way, with a notation of "if you want a streamnlined creation, you can choose to be a warpriest focused in a single divine domain"