D&D RPG player's look at the Miniatures Handbook

[S'mon]

Real world medieval battles weren't so impressive. Thousands of people involved were a rare thing, kept for international sportive events like a crusade or a soccer championship.

Agincourt and many other occasions in the Hundred Years War when thousands of French knights met an ignominious end...

 

[Endur]

I'm not sure of what I think about Favored Soul. I think a spontaneous casting divine caster is absolutely necessary; pre-memorization of spells makes no sense whatsoever. Only a couple of authors out of the thousand or so fantasy authors have pre-memorization of spells on a daily basis.

I'm not sure why every favored soul is going to have weapon focus and weapons specialization with their deity's favored weapon. What about Gods of peace?

Likewise, why should every favored soul have wings and DR and energy resistances and three good saves?

This class looks like a combination of cleric and monk and a celestial creature.

My preference would be to drop a bunch of these abilities and add the domains back in. Let the domain spells count against the spells per day limit.

Having the spells depend on both charisma and wisdom weakens the class, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

oh, yes, I thought the healer's restriction on having an oath against wearing armor heavier than light was just plain silly.

I also thought Favored Soul was overpowered, until it was pointed out to me that they don't get domain powers and spells. They also don't get the undead turning.

Warmages have a much slower spell progression. Have to check the book on that one a bit more.

All in all, the core classes seem much more balanced than most others I've seen.

 

[Tarril Wolfeye]

Unlike a normal sorceror, a warmage won't be able to rely on mage armor and shield to protect him, won't be able to cast invisibility to run away, and can't cast any buff spells. Since those spells aren't on his spell list, he can't even use them off wands or scrolls, so I think he's probably balanced.

But he can add some spells to his list in certain levels.

I think he just shows how weak the Sorcerer is. With the Warmage to choose as a class, there are not many players left who would play a Sorcerer. Most Sorcerers use almost the same spells as the Warmage, and they don't get his other goodies. The Warmage makes the Sorcerer obsolete.
If I want versality I use the Wizard, if I want firepower I use the Warmage; no place left for the Sorcerer.

 

[Warbringer]

Quick question on "swift" spells.

Are swift actions officially part of the d20 ruleset?

Also... I noticed something rather annoying about the d+d minis...they are not 28mm

 

[Psiblade]

I am not as worried about the fate of sorcerers. The warmage can only add spells to his list that are evoc spells. That means no dispel magic, no ray of enfeeblement, no teleport, no invis, no see invis, and no fly just to start! The Warmage has no way to get out of trouble if cornered, grappled, or held etc. That is a huge limitation in my book. I run sorcerers about 40 % offense spells, 40 % defense spells, and about 20% utility spells. For a primary arcane, I would still play a sorcerer over a warmage.


-Psiblade

 

[shady]

I haven't them listed anywhere else (maybe they are, and I'm wasting my time here) but the minis handbook contains a number of shots of minis we haven't seen yet. There are also a bunch of interesting new monsters (very interesting to me in fact, since they are mainly extraplanar) which I guess will be turned into minis in one of the future expansions.

Going through the book, the following are the minis I can see which aren't in harbinger. Mainly the actual minis are shown, alongside concept art. Sometimes it's just the concept art. The paint jobs look a lot better than the real thing (on the harbinger examples) so difficult to guess the quality on the future stuff:

- copper samurai (female samurai with bow and sword, running)
- halfling outrider (female, mounted on dog, with lance)
- purple dragon knight (male, greatsword)
- lion falcon monk (male)
- elf bladesinger (female, concept art only)
- cleric of nerull (male, large scythe)
- cleric of moradin (male dwarf, warhammer + shield)
- orc druid (male, giant club)
- drow wizard (male, staff)
- half elf sorceror (male, bladestaff)
- druid of obad-hai (male)
- bright naga (new monster - see below)
- black dragon
- stonechild (new monster - see below)
- eye of gruumsh (concept art only)
- large red dragon
- baaz draconian
- gold champion
- ogre ravager
- brass dragon
- large monstrous spider
- dire ape
- dire lion
- thayan knight (concept art only, female)
- red samurai (male, flaming katana)
- dwarven defender (concept art only, male, battleaxe + shield)
- carrion crawler

Which by my count is 27 or about half of the dragoneye expansion.

the new monsters are:
- abyssal eviscerator
- aspects - asmodeus, bahamut, demogorgon, hextor, kord, lolth, mephistopheles, nerull, orcus, tiamat, vecna - basically avatars; I'm guessing this is what the archfiends expansion is about
- bright naga
- catfolk
- cave dinosaurs - ankylosaurus, triceratops, tyrannosaurus - "smaller versions of their terrible cousins"
- crucian
- cursed spirit
- displacer serpent
- equiceph
- gravehound
- kruthik
- mad slasher
- magma hurler
- nothic
- phargion
- protectar
- ramadeen
- scaled stalker
- shadow beast - ghirrash, khumat, thaskor
- spark lasher
- stonechild
- walking wall

 

[Gez]

Azincourt and many other occasions in the Hundred Years War when thousands of French knights met an ignominious end...

A good thing too. They were stupid, and they graciously removed themselves from the gene pool.

And this war, we won it!

 

[S'mon]

A good thing too. They were stupid, and they graciously removed themselves from the gene pool.

And this war, we won it!

LOL Yup!

 

[Phaoz]

Going through the book, the following are the minis I can see which aren't in harbinger. Mainly the actual minis are shown, alongside concept art. Sometimes it's just the concept art. The paint jobs look a lot better than the real thing (on the harbinger examples) so difficult to guess the quality on the future stuff:

- copper samurai (female samurai with bow and sword, running)
- halfling outrider (female, mounted on dog, with lance)
- purple dragon knight (male, greatsword)
- lion falcon monk (male)
- elf bladesinger (female, concept art only)
- cleric of nerull (male, large scythe)
- cleric of moradin (male dwarf, warhammer + shield)
- orc druid (male, giant club)
- drow wizard (male, staff)
- half elf sorceror (male, bladestaff)
- druid of obad-hai (male)
- bright naga (new monster - see below)
- black dragon
- stonechild (new monster - see below)
- eye of gruumsh (concept art only)
- large red dragon
- baaz draconian
- gold champion
- ogre ravager
- brass dragon
- large monstrous spider
- dire ape
- dire lion
- thayan knight (concept art only, female)
- red samurai (male, flaming katana)
- dwarven defender (concept art only, male, battleaxe + shield)
- carrion crawler

Which by my count is 27 or about half of the dragoneye expansion.

see the sidebar on page 4

 

[Olive]

see the sidebar on page 4

Which says?