Class Acts: Hierophant Druids and a surprise

[I'm A Banana]

Yeah, right now it's just a keyword for powers with four different variations on how you can use them.

Personally, I'm a fan of "the powers with variant effects" thing. It really helps to add a decision point within power use, rather than just a decision between powers. It cuts down a bit on the problem of needing to know 6 or 7 different sub-rules all at once. Here's one power that you can use, but you can use it in slightly different ways.

And the article is a little meh, overall, so if you're waiting for an awesome new power source before you re-up...keep waitin'.

Though I am excited to see the return of summoning actual elementals, and the organization bit about heirophants was interesting. Still, it's a bit anemic. Articles still need moar word count, IMO.

 

[Incenjucar]

It wouldn't be terrible if, say, the runepriest mechanics were expanded on and made it into elemental classes.

 

[Psikus]

It wouldn't be terrible if, say, the runepriest mechanics were expanded on and made it into elemental classes.

I was thinking about possible elemental classes today, and came to the same conclusion: the whole mechanic of having multiple (elemental) options per power fits very well in the runepriest class. And I don't think it would be such a stretch to think of a runepriest that uses elemental runes instead of divine ones - after all, the class' connection with the divine power source was rather tenuous, to begin with.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I am imagining an atwill controler power that looks like this:

Elemental shot
Target 1 enemy
range:10
Attack: Cha Vs Ref
Hit: 1d6+cha mod damage and rider
Air: push target wis mod
Earth:Knock target prone
Fire: +1d6 fire damage
Water: slide target 1 sq
at level 21 increase to 2d6+cha damage


or imagin what there leader would look like:

Elemental word
(as per warlord inspireing word)
Air: slide target x
Earth:target gains resit all x
Fire: targets next hit before the end of his next turn does+x fire damage
Water: all creatures adjacent to the target are pushed 1

 

[Incenjucar]

Because "elemental" has so many associations, especially with D&D's addition of elements of creation, destruction, chaos, and the abyss, the elemental power source has an incredible number of possible directions to go, with fewer restrictions than most other power sources which existed before this addition. I expect elemental classes to be heavy on control using "physical" means, such as walls, zones, and summons, with a leader class that is heavy on ally modification and lots of temp HP (stone armor, etc). Strikers might favor ongoing damage and doing extra bonus when ongoing damage would layer itself, or perhaps we'll see strikers built around conjurations of crushing stone.

 

[tuxgeo]

They are Paragon level summons and polymorphs and dual primal, so eh.

Epic, not Paragon: the Utility power is Level 22, the Daily Attack power is Level 25, and the "Master Hierophant" section includes "Prerequisite: 21st level, druid" and gives features at 21st, at 24th, at 26th, and at 30th level.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The article seemed rather circumspect to me about the Elemental power source being something PCs are likely to mess with much. The whole tone seemed to me to be "this is some bad mojo these guys are messing with". The final destiny of your character being to be basically consumed by the energy of the Elemental Chaos and becoming a mini-Primordial. Probably not something very likely to be much approved of in the default cosmology of 4e. Maybe not as dire as say being transformed into a demon, but getting close.

It kind of looks to me like they're spinning it as a mix-in that a few rare, probably unwise, and generally disapproved of characters can muck with at epic level, if they're willing to pay the price.

I'm not real sure a whole class list full of '4-in-1' effect powers would be that great either. At a certain point it seems like too many options. Inevitably the individual options are going to be weaker, and higher level PCs already have a LOT of options. I guess you could play up the more powerful but with lots of random unwanted dangerous possible effects aspect, but Cosmic Sorcerer already has that shtick, and TBH my experience with the 2e Wild Mage kind of tells me that while this sort of thing is fun it gets to be a liability after a while. Having a handful of epic level powers that do random stuff or have several options seems like enough to me.

Plus I really still fall into the "what really makes Elemental truly different from Arcane?" camp. Different mechanics is all well and good, but I like to have some basis for explaining those differences in game world logic. I find it rather hard to explain why 2 PCs could toss out fire, lightning, ice, etc and yet one of them rather arbitrarily has a different power source and his effects are random or he gets more choices. They're both using magic to evoke the elements.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The whole tone seemed to me to be "this is some bad mojo these guys are messing with".

That's part of why I would've liked some Heirophant villains -- elite and solo elemental badasses that the primordials might have as agents, or at least allies.

Which is part of why I want more page count for these articles.

 

[The Little Raven]

That's part of why I would've liked some Heirophant villains -- elite and solo elemental badasses that the primordials might have as agents, or at least allies.

Not unless they had made a separate article in Dungeon for it. I don't like DM content in a Player article, and vice versa. No point in having the Dungeon/Dragon division if it isn't going mean anything.

 

[the Jester]

I'm not real sure a whole class list full of '4-in-1' effect powers would be that great either. At a certain point it seems like too many options.

I agree with this. Option overload is a huge factor in 4e, especially if you don't use the Character Builder. Making the runepriest a 2-in-1 is bad enough; making a 4-in-1 elementalist would be horrendous.

The way I have considered designing an elementalist class (which has a long tradition in my campaign) would be to have each build focus on one element, have two 'secondary' and one 'opposed'. Each element would have an associated at will and you could choose the other from the rest of the list of elementalist at wills; however, you couldn't choose a power of the opposed element.

Then, for encounter, daily and utilities, each power would have an associated element. Each level would have at least one power associated with each element. Again, you could take one from any non-opposed element, but you would have to have at least as many powers of a given type from your element as from any other given element (so a fire elementalist would have to have 2 fire encounter attack powers before getting a second air or earth one, and wouldn't be able to take water at all).

Of course, that's for one overall elementalist class in the model of the one I've used for years in 2e and later; it would probably be either a defender or a striker, and there is certainly room to fill out the roles with this power source.