Class Compendium Feats and Weaponmaster is out!

[Mengu]

Ok, so Arcanists have to take 3 feats to get the same benefits that a Mage gets for free AND they have to give up their Implement Mastery?

Yeah, sorry...doesn't seem like a fair trade to me.

I agree. 3 feats plus giving up your implement mastery is an extremely steep cost, especially considering 2 of your heroic feats are probably taken up with expertise and either unarmored Agility or Leather Armor as it is. Why not just be a Mage...

 

[Zaran]

I am really not happy with the feature feats for the Wizard. I knew they would do this. If you wanted to have those school features you might as well just redo your wizard to be a Mage and buy the Ritual Caster feat. Sure you won't have an Implement Mastery nor be able to use Tomes (I guess Mages can't read spell books) but it's a fair trade for a Free Magic Missile, the ability to memorize different Encounter spells and access to 2 schools.

 

[Herschel]

Come and Get It is now more defender/controller than striker/controller. The extra marking potential is a nice feature. I'm okay with it.

 

[Primal]

The old cleric is called a templar. Heh. So the templar class isn't available in Dark Sun, but the templar theme is.

I like the new Come and Get It. IMO it's better than the old version, though you'll need a cloak of resistance more than ever.

Oh look, they ask you to consider the war pick as a weapon. Does that mean... ?
And of course there's no pick expertise. Why am I not surprised?

Wait, you could create a templar templar in Darksun? I wonder how you keep up with which power comes from the template and which from the class. Plus all that "you have to be a templar to pick this feat" mess and whatnot. Or are these two an illegal combination?

 

[twilsemail]

Wait, you could create a templar templar in Darksun? I wonder how you keep up with which power comes from the template and which from the class. Plus all that "you have to be a templar to pick this feat" mess and whatnot. Or are these two an illegal combination?

Outside of houseruling, there are no divine characters in Dark Sun. The gods are dead and have been for an age. (Actually dead, not Krynn-dead)

 

[TwoSix]

Wait, you could create a templar templar in Darksun? I wonder how you keep up with which power comes from the template and which from the class. Plus all that "you have to be a templar to pick this feat" mess and whatnot. Or are these two an illegal combination?

YO DAWG I HEARD YOU LIKE TEMPLARS...

In base Dark Sun, it wouldn't work, because you can't be a divine class in Dark Sun. You can still do it easily by enabling Dark Sun themes in any other campaign setting. I'm going to try that now when I get home.

 

[WalterKovacs]

Thanks! Would XP you for the info but I need to spread the love first. I agree that is an amazing benefit. I still think the Holy Symbol one is amazing too (consider you can't even be flanked for instance), but I agree staff is too. Doesn't necessarily mean holy symbol isn't over powered too though, but I'd be interested in other people's thoughts on this as well.

It does make you wonder how they come up with some off this stuff when you consider the benefit for things like "Bludgeon Expertise" is so much more mild in comparison. I realize that the issue is probably that you have different people designing the different feats but you'd still think that somebody would take a look at all of them and say "Uh guys, is there a particular reason we're shafting some weapons/implements over others?"

Consider though, which characters would use exclusively holy symbols for attacks.

Clerics and Vampires.

Paladin's would also need to use a weapon for most of their attacks. Avengers as well. Anything else needs to be hybrid or multiclassed into one of those classes to get access to implements. So, outside of two classes, you aren't really using the weapon repeatedly, and the vampire is one of the few that would actually get involved in melee. Giving enemies a situational -2 to their attacks against you (and denying them access to some of their striker damage) is good, but increasing forced movement is nothing to sneeze at either.

Heavy blade expertise ... yeah, that one kind of sucks. But then again heavy blades are pretty much the easiest weapon to pick up because of their +3 prof and other feat support. The Axe one is also pretty lame, especially with three axes being brutal anyway. The bonus to damage ones are pretty good, and they do fit the people most likely to use them (rogues like light blades and c/a, spears tend to be part of charge builds, and at least assassin's and vampires thematically target bloodied enemies, if not as good a fit for monk's).

Part of the equation is that weapon choice for most classes isn't decided for you, but implements are less so. So the benefit for the weapons are probably not as strong as the implement ones in general.

 

[WalterKovacs]

I am really not happy with the feature feats for the Wizard. I knew they would do this. If you wanted to have those school features you might as well just redo your wizard to be a Mage and buy the Ritual Caster feat. Sure you won't have an Implement Mastery nor be able to use Tomes (I guess Mages can't read spell books) but it's a fair trade for a Free Magic Missile, the ability to memorize different Encounter spells and access to 2 schools.

If you are a ritual caster, the ability to get some rituals mastered for free, including some you pick up at higher levels, could be useful. And you don't necessarily need to pick up all three feats. Grabbing the level 1 pyromancy feature is good enough, as it gets you the ignore all fire resist. For 2 feats you are able to pick up the level 5 summoning power from HoS and get a 'permanent' summoned buddy.

 

[Jhaelen]

Just be a mage

Yup, that's the not-so-secret fiendish plan behind all this:

"Resistance is futile. You will be Essentialized!"

 

[The Little Raven]

I wonder how you keep up with which power comes from the template and which from the class.

One says "Templar Feature/Attack/Utility X" and the other says "Cleric Feature/Attack/Utility X." I'm sure you can figure out which is which.