I thought I would post some more thoughts as I was skimming the first chapters. This will be updated as I read along.
Chapter 1, the chapter on classes, opens with an absolutely jaw-dropping portrait of a blonde tiefling
Commander cleric.
The new classes are the
Chaos Mage,
Commander,
Druid,
Monk,
Necromancer and
The Occultist. This last is described as a class designed for just one person! Should be interesting.
The Druid and Necromancer are both summoners, and from the sound of it summons basically work like, "Here is a group of monsters for you to control."
From the write-up for the
Chaos Mage:
Play style: The chaos mage is not for everyone. This is a class for people in what Heinsoo calls the joker demographic, players who enjoy randomness and the bizarre and don’t care much about defined responsibilities and definite plans. There are other players who might be driven crazy just having a chaos mage in the adventuring party.
*raises eyebrows* Well I can already think of at least one player in my group who would go for this.
The entire write-up for this class has tongue firmly planted in cheek. Someone had a lot of fun with this.
The Chaos Mage can cast any spell from their entire spell list... but
can't choose what type of spells they will be casting. The book describes a method of drawing colored stones from a bag to determine what the CM is casting which sounds like a lot of fun.
This is the most colorful write-up of any class I've seen in a long time. It genuinely makes me want to see a CM in action.
If someone crits a CM, they have to roll a d100 on the High Weirdness table, which is full of hilarious and completely random effects (on a 1-2 you summon 1d3 wibbles).
Here's some more from the High Weirdness table:
29–30: (Global effect) Space seriously twists, affecting the spells and ranged attacks of each creature in the battle: creatures that are nearby count as if they were far away, and creatures that are far away count as if they are nearby.
39–40: Roll the escalation die and use the new result.
66–70: Your features shift and settle into a temporary new pattern. You gain a random racial ability until the end of your next turn. Ignore results that duplicate a racial ability you already have.
The spell list is amazingly involved. It's a little bit ironic that the player running the CM will probably have to do more reading than any other player. The book wants the CM to use other players turns to figure out what they are doing on their own turn, and it really isn't kidding, as their is a lot to figure out!
The Commander clearly takes its inspiration from the Fourth Edition Warlord, but there are significant differences between them. The Commander has a stronger focus on making allies do things, and it has a resource that must be tracked in the form of Command Points. The Commander gains Command Points to spend by either attacking in melee or sitting back and 'Weighing the Odds'. WtO can net you more command points but you forgo your melee attack.
For a while the Commander was going to be called the 'Battle Captain' and that name makes a reappearance as a talent. Incidentally, the Chaos Mage was originally a Chaos Shaman, so there's a theme with renaming going on here.
The Commander Talents all sound pretty good and it's too bad you have to pick just three. A Commander could potentially boost his allies initiative rolls or increase the escalation die. The Commander uses Command Points a little bit like Psions in 4e used Power Points: you can spend more to augment many of your commands. Commands allow allies to do things like spend recoveries, get extra saving throws, re-roll attacks and disengage from enemies.
It's worth noting that the Commander isn't an out-and-out healer like the Warlord was. He has options that can allow allies to spend extra recoveries, but they come with a cost.
The Commander has a 3rd level tactic called "You are a precious snowflake!" That made me laugh.
And now we turn to the long-awaited
Druid class.
Icons: We published a game that included an icon named the High Druid. You had to wait until this book to actually play a druid. Huzzah!
Well, at least they're honest about it!
Druidic spells are Divine. So, no primal power source here!
Druids pick talents like other classes but they can 'level up' a talent by investing two talent points in it. A druid with one point in a talent is an Initiate. A druid with two is an Adept. They can pick either DEX or STR for their primary attack ability.
Through the years Druids have meant a lot of different things in different versions of the game. The 13A druid uses talents to support the following builds:
Animal Companion,
Elemental Caster,
Shifter (Wild Shape),
Terrain Caster (terrain-based daily spells),
Warrior Druid and
Wild Healer. Using the adept/initiate talent system a Druid can potentially 'major' in one of these areas and 'minor' in another.
The Animal Companion rules get a big update from the core book, which Rangers are also expected to use. There are now Companion-related spells. Initiate Companion druids can only call their companion every other battle. There is a 9th level companion spell which allows you to pull some body-swapping shenanigans with your companion if you go down.
Elemental Casters are basically the Invokers (remember them?) of 13A. They can pick-up feats to specialize in a certain element. These feats confer an element-specific spell. Casters get a full spell list, similar to a Wizard or Sorcerer. This list is specific to this talent! At 3rd level you can summon elementals.
Shifters can transform into a small animal, called the Scout Form, and a large one, the Beast Form. Using Scout Form as a daily can give you bonuses going into combat, depending on how you roll. Adept Shifters can shift into Beast Form at will, but for Initiates shifting is a daily power. Adepts can also cast while in Beast Form. Beast form has a really nice at-will melee attack associated with it and there are 'aspects' that can beef it up.
Terrain Casters pick up daily spells that are dependent on the type of terrain they are currently in. They can go further with feats and specialize in certain types of terrain. The adventure feat for each confers a specialized spell. Between feats and terrain dailies there is basically an entirely new spell list. Whew, the Druid right-up is long. They have basically packed the entire primal power source into one class. Well, we're not done yet!
Warrior Druid basically turns you into a highly customized nature-based fighter. You get to pick from a list of enhancements to your character and you get access to fighter-style Flexible Attacks (Warrior Druid has his own list). If you are thinking of going melee combat you should definitely take a look at Warrior Druid! It should compare favorably to classes like the Fighter and Ranger.
Wild Healers get a per-battle regeneration spell, a daily regen spell, a daily
greater regen spell, and a wild heal spell. The number of times Wild Healers can cast is dependent on their level and whether they are initiates or adepts. Regen spells basically give the target a free recovery or two which they spend gradually, over a couple of turns. Saves are rolled to see if the effect persists.
OKAY! That's about it for the druid. That is a seriously epic class, though!
Next up is the
Monk, which is also a tad overdue, seeing as there was a monk featured on the cover art of the core book (whoops!).
Something unusual about the monk is that he gets a +2 boost to TWO ability scores. So with your racial ability bonus, that's 3 boosted scores. Presumably this is to address the age old issue where a monk needs to be good at everything.
The monk icon section suggests that in past ages there was actually a monk Icon called The Grandmaster of Flowers. I like the idea of ancient Icons and would like to see more of them.
The Monk’s Story
We see the monk as one of the classes that have been established in the world for ages. You can explain their presence in the world in many ways, but here are our three favorite backstory threads that we draw on for the history and nature of monks and combat monasteries.
There's quite a bit of backstory for the monastic traditions of the Dragon Empire. Apparently the monasteries coalesced to oppose an evil 'Terrible Emperor' who could not be defeated by martial or magical means.
Mechanically the monk doesn't seem to have changed too much from test versions of the class that we saw a while back. A monk does three types of damage: Jab (1d6), Punch (1d8) and Kick (1d10). Whether using weapons or fighting bare-handed doesn't really matter, these are the three types of damage. The forms you are using tell you when you get to use what type.
After initiative is rolled the monk's first attack is the opening of a form. The second attack is the 'flow' attack, unless the monk decides to start over with a new form. The last attack is the 'finish'. Interestingly, you can use the 'flow' and 'finishing' attacks from any form, but you
do have to stick to the open-flow-finish order. While monks are performing forms their AC increases with each step.
Monks have a resource in the form of
ki. You can actually spend ki points to boost an attack by one point, which seems pretty handy to say the least!
There are seven talents called the Seven Deadly Secrets, each of which grants a special monk attack or ability. You can spend ki to enhance these. 'Leaf on Wind' lets monks go all
Crouching Tiger and start flying through the air.
Why am I not playing a monk right now.
The forms are very nice and have cool names. Many of them confer really awesome abilities when taken to their conclusion. Between these, ki, and the 7 Seven Deadly Secrets, the monk should make an awesome melee warrior with some impressive special abilities.
Next: Hold me closer,
Necromancer!
Necromancers are required to have at least a one point relationship with the Lich King. But it's interesting to consider that there's a political element to necromantic power in the Dragon Empire...
The other icons generally understand that entirely ceding death’s powers to the Lich King is a bad idea. The Crusader, Orc Lord, Prince of Shadows, and the Three have no problem treating necromancers the same as they treat any other spellcasters. The Archmage and the Elf Queen usually don’t include necromancers in the first public rank of their servants, but behind the show, necromancers accomplish great things for both these icons.
The Dwarf King and Priestess are less eager to encourage necromancy. The Dwarf King isn’t personally oriented toward necromancy, at least not in public, but there are dwarven secrets lost to all but the dead. When a loyal dwarf chooses necromancy, that’s a blow against the Lich King . . . as long as the necromancer remains loyal.
Like any interesting implementation of a necromancer, the 13A version requires making some tradeoffs in exchange for power over death. Necros have a class feature called 'Wasting Away' which specifies that they must SUBTRACT a positive CON modifier from their attacks! In other words, a necro needs to take 10 or less on his CON score. If he takes less, he can pick up a feat which will give his attacks a +1.
The talent 'Cackling Soliloquy' lets you make a daily spell a recharge 18+ instead, but only if you sacrifice your move and quick action when casting. 'Death Priest' is for necros who really want to speak with the dead. Interestingly, the GM makes a hidden roll to determine if the spirit in question is lying to the necro. 'Deathknell' lets you drop a monster from 5 HP straight to 0 and heal a little bit, although it has limitations with mooks. 'It's Complicated' turns icon rolls of 6 into 5's in exchange for an extra top level spell. The 'Redeemer' talent allows dying summons to cause small amounts of damage to their enemies. 'Skeletal minion' gives you a permanent undead servitor. 'Sorta Dead' gives necros a nice get-out-of-death-free card and it's hard to see why one wouldn't take it.
Then we get to the spell list and the very first spell is... a heal spell? Well, sort-of. Channel Life hurts an enemy and allows an ally to spend a recovery - but also damages that ally for 5 HP. 'Command Undead' allows the necro to dominate an enemy undead once per battle. And yes, you can summon the undead with a first level spell that brings up 1d3 + 1 skeletal mooks. I note that this game is awfully fond of the d3.
It's worth noting that the way summons work in this game that you actually do take control of a small handful of working monsters. I'm less concerned about the effect on the game's 'action economy' than the effect on round turn time. A party with a necro who is calling up a couple of extra monsters with their own turns every single battle would presumably see that slow the game down quite a bit.
The rest of the spell list looks pretty fun. You can turn an ally into a zombie or even a ghoul. There are spells you expect to see, like Ray of Enfeeblement. And there are a lot of high damage dealing spells that also have a chance of hurting the necro. Basically, this looks like an effective and ghoulishly fun class to play.
And finally we have...
The Occultist!
Jonathan Tweet has a long sidebar here, and it begins like so:
The default rule for classes is that your character is just one of many people with similar powers. The occultist breaks this rule. There is only one occultist, and as we mention in the class features, your one unique thing should account for this somehow.
Occultists use Wisdom, to perceive things beyond the veil, and Intelligence to retain their sanity while they do so. They can get a stat bonus to either. The term 'occultist',
in the occultist’s case, ... means hidden or occluded rather than related to cults or cultists. Basically, this is a spell-caster who somehow has traffic with things beyond this world. Imagine a scholar who has glimpsed unmentionable things with tentacles and you get the idea.
Mechanically, an occultist has slightly better defense than a standard spell casting class. This is good because they also have delayed healing - healing effects besides Rally take one round to have an effect on them. This means that you probably want to start healing the Occultist BEFORE she is badly damaged.
The Occultist casts spells, as you might expect, but most of them are interrupts which take effect on somebody else's turn (for example, if a monster makes a natural even roll). The spells require 'focus' to cast, which takes a standard action, similar to the Sorcerer's 'Gather Power'. Sometimes you can 'retain focus' after casting a spell, if the trigger fell within a certain range.
Unlike other casters, the Occultist gains talents as she levels. The talents are diverse and interesting. You can force enemies to avoid you after you attack them, gain a facility with edged weapons, screw with icon rolls, negate attacks and do other crazy stuff. It's quite a grab bag of abilities, actually. I'm guessing the Occultist will be a popular class for multiclassing... too bad there can only be one.
The spells in the Occultist's spell list are very powerful, which makes sense since she can't use them as often as, say, a wizard can. They add extra damage to allies attacks, grants extra attacks, changes the target of attacks and so on. The Occultist has spells that can tweak almost any aspect of combat. A ninth-level spell, Rewind the Skeins, lets you rewind the last two minutes of time! Sadly, you can only do this once per level.
In summary, the Occultist is a brilliant supporting class with awesome backstory built right in. I can't wait to see the squabbles that break out when more than one player wants to play one.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
That wraps up Chapter 1 and we're already halfway through the book! I'm gonna end this post here. I may continue this breakdown of
13 True Ways in another post... or I may not. We'll see how I feel.
Regardless, this is a very cool book so far and if you dig 13th Age you should order it immediately, if not sooner.
