Bladesinger Preview!

[Estlor]

I'll reserve judgement on the class until I see it in play at the table (which I will, since I've played an elven fighter/mage in every edition so I see an eldarin bladesinger in my future), but I have some thoughts about this I haven't seen come up yet.

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a... monk?
Honestly, that's what I see here. Non-defender with solid, melee AC? Check. Bonus damage effect that can be spread to different targets at the PC's whim? Check. Special keyword invented to handle a unique aspect of the class? Check. So a monk is a striker with a controller aspect and a bladesinger is a controller with a striker aspect.

Another BECMI class gets created for Essentials.
This is totally the BECMI elf. Decent melee-er that's eventually outclassed by the fighter. Decent spellcaster that's eventually outclassed by the magic-user. Ladies and gentlemen, no reason to keep using the fey hexblade in your deliberately old-school Known World campaign.

Speaking of the Known World, Forester, yo.
There's your human bladesinger. The Known World had a group of humans in Thyatis that lived alongside the elves and often would be adopted into the elven clans. Those humans could be the Forester class, which was kind of an elf-light human.

Which brings up a point - IMHO, humans are the strongest bladesingers out of the box. Trade a point of bladesong damage for a Fort and Ref are 1 higher than eladrins and elves and a Will is 1 higher than elves. On top of that, you've got a wizard at-will too. Beguiling Strands, Winged Horde, Frost Burst... that's a nice bonus.

 

[Kzach]

It just occurred to me that messing with the power structure (intentionally) of the at-will/encounter/daily paradigm is a huge mistake. I think this is one of those areas in 4e where exception based design is a bad idea. The immediate stand-out example is Versatile Master, but I'm sure there will be others.

 

[Terramotus]

Man, I love essentials so much. I am personally SO bored with the same-sameness of AEDU design, and so glad that some people agreed with how I was feeling.

Where some hate where 4e is going, some love it.

Why do you assume 5e will go the way you want?

I'm a gearhead - I like rules, I like playing with the rules, I like building characters. I want a unified, coherent design. I'm going to assume anyone playing 4E wants a good rules-heavy system. If you don't you're doing it wrong - there are many other better systems out there for rules-lite play, such as Castles and Crusades, OSRIC, etc.

Essentials isn't the worst design ever (though I don't think it has anything actually GOING for it either - it's poorly implemented), but it REALLY doesn't go with 4E. 4E is the most schizophrenic edition ever. Even when you "break the rules" and push the design further, you need to keep some elements the same, so it feels familiar. Essentials throws out everything but the basic math on the explicit rules, and ALL of the implied rules. Random-ass game design.

And it doesn't create any new and interesting foundation of its own. Each class uses different ways of doing things. It's just weird, randomly built classes mutated out of 4E like some cancerous growth, where it uses familiar elements but everything is put together all wrong.

At least if Essentials IS 5E they'll have to come up with some sort of consistent design and I can then decide if I want to buy in, instead of it de-facto replacing the existing design without even any admission that it's going to be doing so.

4E was something interesting and its own. Some people want to make it into 1E or 2E or 3E, rather than just playing those games. Whatever. Essentials isn't its own thing - it's just a bizarre mutation. At least if WotC admitted 4E was done and that Essentials was 4.5, they would have had to express a coherent design for it, and I could have bowed out of the new product without watching for each new release, hoping that it was something for the game I actually played rather than this strange new game.

Does that explain it? I don't care how 5E goes, but I suspect, at least, that it'll be coherent.

It just occurred to me that messing with the power structure (intentionally) of the at-will/encounter/daily paradigm is a huge mistake. I think this is one of those areas in 4e where exception based design is a bad idea. The immediate stand-out example is Versatile Master, but I'm sure there will be others.

Yeah, I agree. Without that, WTH is left? If there are no rules, you're not using exception-based design, you're using random design.

 

[BobTheNob]

[MENTION=25807]Terra[/MENTION]mortus

Fair Enough. I was only trying to make clear that not everyone out there agrees with the anti-essentials stance. I do disagree with your interpretation of it as "some cancerous growth" to the degree that I actually find it far cleverer than O4e ever was, but thats my opinion.

Many have said that O4e and essentials walk hand in hand and thats our groups experience as well, so you dont have to be that down-hearted, O4e still works.

But as for the future, I am glad to be on the essentials train and NOT the O4e train, cause really, essentials is where the growth is and its a bright shiny future for us. Whilst I think the Bladesinger will need some refinement, I like where its going as much as I have liked everything essentials class.

(Dislcaimer : Except maybe heroes of shadow...Vampires and Binders, didnt like em one little bit. But again, the great bit is no-one is forcing you to play them)

 

[Neonchameleon]

It just occurred to me that messing with the power structure (intentionally) of the at-will/encounter/daily paradigm is a huge mistake. I think this is one of those areas in 4e where exception based design is a bad idea. The immediate stand-out example is Versatile Master, but I'm sure there will be others.

How? Versatile Master can't take bladesong powers as they are At Will Attacks rather than Level 1 At Will Attacks.

Although it does mean there are a few paragon Half Elf builds that allow you to spread your stats - taking e.g. Eldritch Strike with Versatile Master to allow you your MBA off Charisma.

 

[FireLance]

In my view, the AEDU power structure delivered a very balanced game, and it was good.

Now that we have a balanced game, pushing the boundaries of the game by playing around with the AEDU power structure is also good.

I can only speak from my own parenting experience. When your kids are very young, they need to be protected. However, when they are older, you need to scale back your protection and allow them to take some risks so that they can learn and grow.

Of course, this is not a perfect analogy when applied to a gaming system. Nonetheless, if you favor balance, the balanced game already exists.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, I pretty much agree with FireLance. If you like 4e classic design, why do you want it to keep changing? I mean seriously there is just not a lot it needs. Some little things can be fixed, but whatever, more classes is the last thing needed. Leave the regular classes to what you use to get exactly what you want, and the more niche classes are great for people who want to play them.

 

[ceiling90]

I think the designers realized that somewhere in their quest for balance, in a list based RPG, they hit a wall. There wasn't anything that you build for a new class that didn't already have better analogs, and certainly can't make corner case classes or niche classes, and still follow the same structure.

They also have a policy of fixing by addition (save for the class compendium entries); so this is their solution. I'm okay with it. It makes for easy blueprints, a focused design philosophy, and more importantly expansion to the game.

The Bladesinger is an interesting exercise to bringing back niche classes; where fluff dictates mechanics. The Swordmage is the 4e re-take on the bladesinger and the archetypes behind it, but I'm sure many players didn't quite take to it as the same Bladesinger that was present in the annuls of DnD history (note: I only started in 3.5, and really have no real feeling for the history of the game). This could also be their (the designers) re-imagining of the Swordmage -more hit-y with swords and more spells that go boom.

As for being a Wizard? Maybe a throwback to fluff? or a more reasonable use of an already massive resource of the mage spells in about 6 different books.

I like the new direction, mostly. It certainly makes the classes feel more classy, and reinforces that fact that you're play a class and level based game. Which I think may be the root problem from the design paradigm shift from the earlier paradigm.

(Note: For a while, I didn't like Essentials; but reading through the books and playing a game or two with the new class structures, it struck me as a brilliant solution to analysis paralysis, focused role/character purpose; and ease of play.)

After all, in the early days, it was stated that you could make a classless DnD, with the new edition; some people rejoiced, and I'm sure some people worried.

You know, I think was little more than little tangent. I'll stop here.

 

[Dice4Hire]

In my view, the AEDU power structure delivered a very balanced game, and it was good.

Now that we have a balanced game, pushing the boundaries of the game by playing around with the AEDU power structure is also good.

I would be a lot happier if the new design philosophy were not pushing people into playing a single class with no hybrid or multiclassing going on. Or at least a lot less of it.

About the only multiclassing possible with HoS and the Bladesinger is take a multi feat, and an off-class PP. I see no or little way to switch encounters, dailies or the like.

Of course, maybe they are moving multi-classing, or that basic concept tothe themes and such. That might work, but I do not think it will work well.

Maybe the designers consider multiclassing a failed experiment? I do not think it was ever good, but it was possible, for a great cost. I could live with that.

 

[Ryujin]

I would be a lot happier if the new design philosophy were not pushing people into playing a single class with no hybrid or multiclassing going on. Or at least a lot less of it.

About the only multiclassing possible with HoS and the Bladesinger is take a multi feat, and an off-class PP. I see no or little way to switch encounters, dailies or the like.

Of course, maybe they are moving multi-classing, or that basic concept tothe themes and such. That might work, but I do not think it will work well.

Maybe the designers consider multiclassing a failed experiment? I do not think it was ever good, but it was possible, for a great cost. I could live with that.

Except that some of the new classes are very much like multiclassing, as they stand. I did some multiclassing gymnastics, to create my Feylock with a reasonably good melee strike. The Hexblade does it in one shot. A traditional Fighter/MU, from the old days, could take some real messing around to create. Suddenly, you have the Bladesinger.

They're almost pre-multiclassed. There are still some options available though, that don't involve power swap feats.