Tony Vargas
Legend
I've been on the fence about 13A. It did look like a game I could have some fun running, but none of the classes appealed to me as far actually playing - I've tried Cleric, Fighter and Paladin (I don't even like pallys, but it was just less objectionable than the others I looked through), all were disappointing, the fighter just brutally so.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.
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.
And now we turn to the long-awaited Druid class.
Well, at least they're honest about it!
Druidic spells are Divine. So, no primal power source here!
...
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.
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!).
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...
The three new ones above, though, all sound like they have potential. I'm glad they changed Battle Captain to Commander (which seems to fit the emphasis better, but still isn't as strong as Warlord), and it sounds like it could be good. I've always liked Druids, and this one sounds like it has potential for several good character concepts. Conversely, I've never cared for Monks (and people who did the play test kept telling me I'd like the Monk mechanics), but if the backstory holds up and gets away from the 'orientalism' the Monk usually gets saddled with, I'll give it a chance.
Very encouraging stuff, thanks for the review!