Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="WalterKovacs" data-source="post: 4846339" data-attributes="member: 63763">This. The PHB2 classes are interesting in that they do what their roles are required to do, but they do it in different ways. They are interesting, but aren't really more powerful. For the non-controllers, they do seem to understand how the roles work, and have been able to deconstruct/reconstruct what makes a role. Healing doesn't just have to be variations of healing word, and striker damage doesn't just have to be variations of sneak attack damage. The controller is still a bit underdevelopped, if only because there are less controller classes to compare to each other, and outside of ritual casting (that some leaders start with too) there isn't an easy to point too class feature (like the 2/enc healing, the at-will marking, the extra damage for strikers, etc) that 'represents' controlling.  The X Power books are doing a good job of addressing early missteps (like improving the wizards control ability, giving the star pact warlock a con based paragon path, hopefully building up the cleric and paladin power pools so that each 'half-class' is considered a viable option, etc) and giving them access to new toys like summoning. On top of that, it does help to make sure there are some feats for various class/race combinations too. I think that while there are occaisional cases of individual powers or items that seem like a creep, for the most part new races and new classes seem to be balanced against the old ones in terms of power, although the new stuff does seem to be more interesting in their complexity. As the designers get more experience with the system, they'll find more interesting ways to accomplish similar goals, and thus can stray farther from the balance of making everything the same. Also, from my own experience anyway, I've been running a group with a rogue, a tactlord and a fighter in it for a while, and they seem to be quite powerful. Compared to other games I've run/been in, few outside the barbarian can compare to the sheer damage power of a rogue that doesn't have to work that hard to get combat advantage constantly. And the passive bonuses of the warlord alone (at level 12, +5 to initiative, +3 to hit and +5 to damage when an action point is spent).</blockquote>

Verification