December Playtests: Druid, Invoker, AV2, and Mercykillers! (merged)

[doctorhook]

Another adventurer's vault so soon?

September 2009, a year after the first one.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Another adventurer's vault so soon?

I want one, if only for the chance to hopefully see what the official firearms would be like (hoping it will have them).

 

[Rechan]

Man, never before do I want the Table of Contents to be out so soon.

lol "Man do those deleted class features ever tick me off! Why couldn't they have named it something better before they decided to remove it? "

Yeah, folks will still fight about Druids getting chopped into three classes,

Much like the wizard.

Although I do think the wizard is kinda boring, not because he got chopped, but because the spells aren't that intriguing. Minimal damage over an area, or one or two effects.

Not enough battlefield shaping effects (zones) for my taste, nor are they status-inducing masters. The Wizard doesn't appear to be very good at doing something specific.

Hopefully, either the Druid or Invoker are controllers, letting us compare them to the wizard to see what patterns emerge.

 

[doctorhook]

Man, never before do I want the Table of Contents to be out so soon.


Much like the wizard.

Although I do think the wizard is kinda boring, not because he got chopped, but because the spells aren't that intriguing. Minimal damage over an area, or one or two effects.

Not enough battlefield shaping effects (zones) for my taste, nor are they status-inducing masters. The Wizard doesn't appear to be very good at doing anything.

Hopefully, either the Druid or Invoker are controllers, letting us compare them to the wizard to see what patterns emerge.

I think you're right, and personally, I think both Druid and Invoker will be Controllers. (Especially the Invoker.)

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I've always seen a good use for multi-class only classes to represent Planescape factions and Dragonmarked in Eberron. If the Mercykiller is the Mercykiller faction, it'll be a good preview if such thing is a good to use for all such organizations.

In fact it's so ambiguous to what it is, it could merely be a preview of something from DMG2. Since that's months away. It could even be something for PHB3.

didn't someone say when they were working on the gladiator articule they felt that mechanic desirve it's own book...I think it was in the articule about MP...

found it

WotC: With Dragon Magazine’s release of the gladiator, there’s been speculation that Martial Power will continue presenting options through new fighting styles and weapon specializations—is this a fair assessment, and if so how does Martial Power explore these areas?

RH: No, surprisingly enough, that is not the type of stuff that’s in Martial Power. Here’s why not: our plan with D&DI content that supports a specific book is often to provide a type of content that didn’t appear in the original book. So the gladiator material was originally conceived as an approach that was different than the much more straightforward class power approach taken in most of Martial Power.

And then a few funny things happened. Our first attempt at the mechanical approach for the gladiator theme didn’t work out. And we noticed that an approach we had come up while designing a different power book would fit the gladiator theme quite well.

So the gladiator approach is something that shows up in a later power book, but not in Martial Power itself.

interview

 

[RefinedBean]

I think you're right, and personally, I think both Druid and Invoker will be Controllers. (Especially the Invoker.)

I really hope so. It's the most underrepresented "role" in 4E so far, and could really use some love.

Bit off topic, but didn't I see some kind of comment from one of the designers concerning how tough it is to design for the Controller role? Coulda sworn.

At any rate, there's going to be at least ONE more, and it's probably the druid. One melee build based around close burst powers and a high defense, and another with ranged..."primal" control, of some sort. Hrm.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

didn't someone say when they were working on the gladiator articule they felt that mechanic desirve it's own book...I think it was in the articule about MP...

I'm aware of that, but it's possible that whatever the Mercykiller is it's not a class, but a completely different mechanic as well.

And well, Mercykillers in the Planescape sense certainly strike me as more martial characters, even though they can be any class. I guess they could conceivably be in Divine Power certainly don't see them in Arcane Power, with their philosophy of justice, guilt and punishment as a religion.

 

[Sir Brennen]

This means that we're probably going to see the release of either a Druid who casts a lot of nature magic but barely shapeshifts, or, a Druid who shapeshifts all the time but casts barely any nature magic.

The internetters are going to lose their flippin' minds. Heck, even if they released the Druid, the Warden, and the Shaman all at once, they'd STILL lose their minds. Look at how many people absolutely cannot handle that the Fighter isn't an archer anymore, even though they know that the Ranger has all those powers ready and available for use.

I don't think ShapeShifting and Spellcasting need to be mutually exclusive. They might be, but don't have to be. If the druid class has both as class features to choose between, I could see taking Shapeshifting and then still being able to select some Druid spells as powers.

My guess is the opposite won't be true. Without the Shapeshifter class ability, powers based on being in beast form will be completely useless to take if you choose the spellcaster focus.

This is assuming Shapeshifting is like the Beastmaster ability for Rangers - completely useless without the Beastmaster ability (you can't get a Beast companion), but with it, the ranged and melee powers of the rangers can still easily be mixed in.

Here's a thought: assuming there's a Shapeshifter ability for the Druid, what if the abilities all had the "Beast" keyword, which can be used by the character himself when in beast form or by a pet? Would make for some interesting multiclassing options between Beastmaster Ranger and Shapeshifter Druid.

The only thing about having both a Spell focused and Shifter focused ability in the same class is their powers have to support the same role. My guess (about my guesses) is that would be a Striker. So then we'd have our first group of spell-powers supporting that role. Call Lightning, anyone?

Whew! Wild Speculation is fun!

 

[avin]

Mercykillers back...?

Is Wizards revamping the Faction War or just ignoring it for 4E?

DRA: Playtest: Mercykillers

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4dnd/20081201a

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Bedause 4e hasn't ever reused a planescape name for a totally different thing.

Because "Mercykiller" is a phrase that has no resonance outside of planescape.