Mercurius
Legend
So I caved and bought he book. Well, to be honest, I was going to Amazon to cancel my pre-order and noticed that it was already being prepared to be shipped. I'm actually pleasantly surprised - I won't get a lot of use out of it, but it isn't a bad book, especially not for the $16.42 I spent on it.
Anyhow, there are two things I wanted to talk about. One, in the "About This Book" section it mentions the Essentials books but never the original core rulebooks. In other words, it seems that WotC is now saying that the two Heroes books and Rules Compendium are core. Interesting. This also paves at least the possibility of a new, revised Player's Handbook. But that is pure (wishful) speculation. It may actually be more likely that they just stick with the three Essentials books as the new core.
The other thing I wanted to mention was just a general comment about the book itself. Heroes of Shadow is in some sense Players Handbook IV. It is shorter - 159 pages with larger font size and more space - but it includes similar information to a Players Handbook: new classes, new races, paragon paths, epic destinies (and not much else); I guess you could say that it is a hybrid between a PHB and a Player's Guide.
So I would call it a "lite" version of a PHB, which with the Feywild book coming out seems to be the new approach going forward. One would surmise that we might see others in the Player's Option series. I wouldn't even be surprised if we see them re-do the Martial, Divine, Primal, and Arcane classes and races in this format, but who knows.
Anyhow, a pretty good book. Some bad art (don't look at page 97 - you've been warned!), but some pretty good art too (the cover is nice - great sword, plus a few nice William O'Connor pieces).
Anyhow, there are two things I wanted to talk about. One, in the "About This Book" section it mentions the Essentials books but never the original core rulebooks. In other words, it seems that WotC is now saying that the two Heroes books and Rules Compendium are core. Interesting. This also paves at least the possibility of a new, revised Player's Handbook. But that is pure (wishful) speculation. It may actually be more likely that they just stick with the three Essentials books as the new core.
The other thing I wanted to mention was just a general comment about the book itself. Heroes of Shadow is in some sense Players Handbook IV. It is shorter - 159 pages with larger font size and more space - but it includes similar information to a Players Handbook: new classes, new races, paragon paths, epic destinies (and not much else); I guess you could say that it is a hybrid between a PHB and a Player's Guide.
So I would call it a "lite" version of a PHB, which with the Feywild book coming out seems to be the new approach going forward. One would surmise that we might see others in the Player's Option series. I wouldn't even be surprised if we see them re-do the Martial, Divine, Primal, and Arcane classes and races in this format, but who knows.
Anyhow, a pretty good book. Some bad art (don't look at page 97 - you've been warned!), but some pretty good art too (the cover is nice - great sword, plus a few nice William O'Connor pieces).
