Caliber said:
Without taking the time to read the entire thread, it seems no one suspects the PHB II of containing Psionic classes anymore. Any reason why?
I had been pegging T as Telepath, the location for all of the Wizard's "enchanter-y" powers.
Am I too far off base?
I'm actually hoping that it doesn't at this point, honestly. And that's coming from someone whose only major 3/3.5 purchases other than the core rulebooks and MotP was the Psionics books. (Although this time around if I'm able I'll probably be getting more, at least Tome of Treasures and all the power sourcebooks as well as MotP.)
There's limited space. We would get the merest hint of psionics with one or two classes.
We already know Barbarian, Druid, Shaman, and probably Bard and Sorcerer. That leaves room for three classes. But the PHB2 is supposed to round out the Divine power source as well, leaving room at most 2 psionic classes.
Further, one extra divine class doesn't really 'round out' the divine classes all that well. By PHB2, then, we'd have four martial classes and five arcane classes (Bard, Sorcerer, Swordmage, Warlock, Wizard). For the first three power sources, divine is falling behind. So it would be nice to see two divine classes in the PHB2. Theurge and Inquisitor sound good.
Leaving space for one class for a psionics class. Honestly, why bother? I'd rather they be introduced in a place where they can get a more complete treatment, even if that means waiting for the PHB3.
This also gets us 4 martial classes (fighter, ranger, rogue, warlord), five arcane classes (bard, wizard, warlock, sorcerer, and swordmage), four divine classes (paladin, cleric, theurge and inquisitor), and four primal classes (druid, barbarian, shaman, and 'W'.) And whatever the Artificer will be, shortly after that.
Which is a much better rounded lineup than having two or three each of divine and primal, and then two of psionic. It helps people that are creating campaigns with strong primal, divine, or arcane elements. It means not having to look up information for primal, divine and arcane characters between yet another PHB by waiting to 'complete' those power sources in PHB3 (already you're looking at the information being spread out between the PHB1, PHB2, campaign setting sourcebooks, and the power source sourcebook.)
It would just be better overall, I think, for all the different power sources if they held off on psionics, including being better for psionics. I'd rather have to reference just the PHB3 and the psionics sourcebook for psionics characters in the future than have to reference PHB2, PHB3, PHB4 and a psionics sourcebook, which is likely if they do it one or two classes at a time. Because in addition to classes, each one of those that features a class of a given power source is likely to also feature feats and additional rules that also apply to that power source in general. So you'd be looking at carrying a whole library around with you.
Other symmetry issues aside, PHB2 - Arcane, Divine and Primal Heroes and then PHB3 - Elemental, Psionic, Shadow heroes makes a lot more sense to me, for some reason, than PHB2 Arcane, Divine, Primal and Psionic Heroes and PHB3 Elemental, Psionic, Shadow, And Whatever Else We Didn't Get To Complete Yet Heroes. You might as well just drop the PHB subtitles at that point on the latter set.