Changes Coming in Essentials, Part 2

[The Little Raven]

Try: Utility powers are now worthwhile for druids.

Forget Skill powers; Druid Utility powers are now kosher.

And attack powers with sustainable elements can be sustained in beast form.

 

[jbear]

And the classic evil Drow Priestess just became more optimal with a +2 in Wisdom becoming available and hence opening up Cleric. Why was it deemed necessary to take away the flexibility of the Drow's racial power selection? And yet the half-Elf gets a 4 in 1 racial power that kicks the heck out of most other races racial powers, definitely rivalling Dilettante.

I don't see why Amulet of Health was nerfed ... anyone?

Nice to see the slight un-nerfing of the Hybrid Paladin's challenge.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That book is not even on the scope yet.

It is scheduled for release in Feb 2011, you can preorder a copy right now. There is a preview of the 'weaponmaster' fighter (PHB1 FWT fighter) up. This book is definitely 'on the scope'. Not all that far out either.

I think the idea with Enchant Magic Item is that you CAN enchant uncommon and rare items. It is just that the DM is in control of the circumstances. Essentials basically says they require lost knowledge, rare or impossible to get components, etc. to make. If the DM creates a situation where these requirements can be met then they CAN be crafted, it just isn't going to happen all the time.

I agree with TD et. al. Upgrading of uncommon/rare items isn't that much of an issue. The increased return from disenchanting them means that PCs will often cannibalize marginally useful ones anyway. The result should be fewer items with more utility per item on the whole.

As for potions the problem there was that the resistance potions and such were just too easy to stack up piles of and they could have a pretty major effect. Increased monster damage output somewhat mitigated that but making them DM-only items means the DM is now free to give them out or allow the PCs to find/buy them now and then but not just churn them out themselves.

 

[BobTheNob]

Sneak Attack change was the updated in the first "Chages Coming in Essentials" article. Thus a little bit off-topic but...

Anyway, It may annoy a little. But in my experience, Ranger's main damage source is not Hunter's Quarry but their powers. At-Will Twin Strike and other 2 or more attacks powers and minor action attack powers. Non-Essential Ranger is still the King of DPR. Hunter's Quarry update maybe made, or not. But will not affect much on the DPR of Rangers.

I agree with the analysis, but the result dis-heartens me. The rangers "striker" output should been hunters quarry...then they went an put in multi attack powers and all of a sudden they had "doubled up" on his "strikerism", giving him both a striker feature AND high output powers. Ooops.

Hence why he is, as you have correctly surmised, the king of DPR. Our rogue only keeps up by virtue of dagger master crits (otherwise wouldnt even be close) and even then, the rogue has to be in the thick of it, where the ranger gets to stand back.

Im interested to see what they do with the PHB Ranger come the "book thingy integration whatever" for bringing E & PHB classes in line (whats it called again).

Overall, I so prefer what they have done with the eRanger.

 

[BobTheNob]

And the classic evil Drow Priestess just became more optimal with a +2 in Wisdom becoming available and hence opening up Cleric. Why was it deemed necessary to take away the flexibility of the Drow's racial power selection? And yet the half-Elf gets a 4 in 1 racial power that kicks the heck out of most other races racial powers, definitely rivalling Dilettante.

Ya know, I was wondering the same thing. I dont have aproblem with the new Helf power...but why Nerf the Drow? Its not like they were op. Hell, apart from Statistical variance, about the only thing they had going for them was this inherent magic, which was spectacular in the first place.

Then they reduced it. Took me a little by surprise that. Doesnt put me off drow (they are just too damn cool) but still, odd...very odd.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree with the analysis, but the result dis-heartens me. The rangers "striker" output should been hunters quarry...then they went an put in multi attack powers and all of a sudden they had "doubled up" on his "strikerism", giving him both a striker feature AND high output powers. Ooops.

Hence why he is, as you have correctly surmised, the king of DPR. Our rogue only keeps up by virtue of dagger master crits (otherwise wouldnt even be close) and even then, the rogue has to be in the thick of it, where the ranger gets to stand back.

Im interested to see what they do with the PHB Ranger come the "book thingy integration whatever" for bringing E & PHB classes in line (whats it called again).

Overall, I so prefer what they have done with the eRanger.

If the 'weaponmaster' is any indication the reprints of PHB1 classes will be exactly identical to the originals plus or minus any errata style fixes.

The eRanger is not bad at all, but there's still a nice niche for the classic version as a less wilderness centered martial striker. The newer version is nice enough if you want to hail from the back woods somewhere, but no good for say a swashbuckler etc. with the build in woodsy mechanics.

The one thing about the Drow that was a bit crazy was darkvision frankly. With the way lighting works in 4e having darkvision is huge. It is as valuable as any of the best racial powers in the game, and THEN they got 2 others on top of that. It is a bit situational though so it isn't bad that they have something more, they just didn't need 3 really excellent features. The +2 WIS is kind of nice though.

 

[Walking Dad]

...

I'm more surprised they decided Tieflings were Cha + Con/Int and Half-Orcs were Dex + Con/Str as oppossed to the widely believed Int + CHa/Con and Str + Dex/Con respectively.

Yes, Tieflings have now perfect stats for Hellblades, but not Hellocks. Eladrin have perfect Feylock and Starblade stats, but Drow are better Feyblades. But Eladrin have better stats for Darklocks

Assassin (Bleak Disciple build). Half-orcs were good (or even iconic) assassins in AD&D 1e.

There is also the Iron Soul Monk. Isn't there a Battlemind variant, too?

 

[Zaran]

It is scheduled for release in Feb 2011, you can preorder a copy right now. There is a preview of the 'weaponmaster' fighter (PHB1 FWT fighter) up. This book is definitely 'on the scope'. Not all that far out either.

No, it isn't. The Class Compendium has five classes. The big 4 and the Warlord. The ranger will not be in that book.

 

[drothgery]

No, it isn't. The Class Compendium has five classes. The big 4 and the Warlord. The ranger will not be in that book.

FWIW, the title strongly implies that Class Compendium will be a series if the first one sells. My guess is that if it is, the second one is the PH1/PH2 versions of the HotFK classes (druid, paladin, ranger, warlock) + Bard. Though if they want to cover all the PH1, PH2, PH3, EPG, and FRPG classes in the series, then they'll need to up it to six per book for three, or cut one of them down to four to balance things out.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

FWIW, the title strongly implies that Class Compendium will be a series if the first one sells. My guess is that if it is, the second one is the PH1/PH2 versions of the HotFK classes (druid, paladin, ranger, warlock) + Bard. Though if they want to cover all the PH1, PH2, PH3, EPG, and FRPG classes in the series, then they'll need to up it to six per book for three, or cut one of them down to four to balance things out.

Ah, yes, ranger won't be in the first one, duh me.

I'd expect ANY book that sells well will see follow-ups. So yeah, you're probably right. Of course there are probably a few classes they might give low priority to. The PHB1 warlock for instance really never got a lot of respect, so I could see that class simply being mothballed. It is a fun class but hard for a most people to build effectively and really needed some surgery. It would probably be just as well for them to build on the e-lock to do that. The PHB3 classes in general I could see just being left to PHB3. It is a relatively new book and frankly the classes it presents are a pretty mixed bag. The Monk is great, the Seeker's lunch was stolen by the e-Ranger, psionics are really a niche and anyone THAT interested can get the existing books on them (plus there are some real mechanical issues there as well that need fixing). The Runepriest is decent class but somewhat redundant at this point and while it works well it is VERY complicated to run, too complicated really for what you get from it.

Of course other people will feel differently, so who knows. I could definitely see a three book series though. That would cover the classes from the 2 Essentials books and a third one could cover Avenger, Barbarian, Shaman, and Invoker. That would pretty well do the trick.